Elizabeth Warren: Eisenhower Republican, a potential fighter with financial oligarchy, better economic nationalist then Trump
As taming financial oligarchy is No.1 task to the nation Warren has chances for 2020. People are tired to be treated like
cattle, without jobs and without hopes. The resent of neoliberal corruption and "revolving door" politics.
She can be alternative to both "all hat, no cattle" Trump, who proved to be in the pocket of Goldman Sachs with his tax cuts, and
betrayed his votes on key issues of jobs, decent medical insurance and ending of outsourcing/offshoring, as well as Kamala
Harris (aka Hillary light)
We need to repeal the Bush and Trump tax cuts; bring back the inheritance tax on large estates! Reinstate in some form Glass Steagall
and reign on the power of financial oligarchy. Restore key restriction on financial oligarchy that existed under New Deal Capitalism
which was dismantled since late 1970th.
If there were ever a politician for our time, the second and more egregious gilded age, it should be Elizabeth Warren. She
INVENTED the Consumer Financial Protection Burueau! She has studied the big banks and Wall Street for decades! She knows how they
operate better than anyone on the planet. She is the Teddy Roosevelt of our time, but are we smart enough to elect her?
Win or lose, Elizabeth Warren will bring the lion's share of ideas to this presidential season. It's one to say that you
support a trendy concept, but it's quite another to have thought through the implications of your proposals - and be prepared
to first defend, and then implement them. Warren is, and will be - from Day 1. We shouldn't settle for "hope and change" this
time; we need a President in 2021 capable of thinking her way through a maze of societal problems, and unafraid to passionately,
untiringly champion her preferred option.
NYT comment from Matthew Carnicelli Brooklyn, NY on
Jan. 28, 2019
I lost A LOT of respect for her when she pulled back her comment about the primary being rigged, her constant lying campaign
for decades about being a native (she contributed to a recipe book called pow wow chow, where she claimed to be Cherokee), and
her approval of Trump's military budget with more money than trump even asked for.
"The consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators
cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property... Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to
exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they
rise."
- Thomas Jefferson, October 28, 1785
As you probably know, since December 1, 2018, the left-leaning politician was elected in Mexico in the person of López Obrador. Hi
movement Morena has the majority in the Congress. He won by a landslide on an anti-corruption platform. I do not see the reasons why
Warren can't repeat this success. If you think about alternative, you need to think twice: Sanders proved to be a
fraud in 2016 elections -- he folded way too easily (and the impression was that he is not fighing Hillary as much as simply
promoting his platform and waiting where to fold). Kamala Harris is ruthless (she really looks like a prosecutor who can indict a
ham sandwich); she is clearly corrupt establishment candidate, yet another neocon warmoger that is essentially "Hillary light".
She bought Russiagate hook, line and sinker. Civility actually is a really important element of politics, and Kamala definitely lacks civility.
Tulsi Gabbard probably will be eliminated by MIC on early stages.
Actually "anti-corruption" platform is well researched by the US intelligence agencies election platform and it is often used for organizing
color revolution in other countries. As we know intelligence agencies represent an influential political player in the USA presidential
elections now. If not the kingmakers (like Praetorian Guard in Roman empire), they are definitely something like the third ( "inner"
in terms of Orwell 1994) political party and their support of Warren can be decisive.
As Clinton wing launched a color revolution against Trump, the USA now is not a newcomer to using color revolutions mechanisms as
a political tool. I do not see why this some Gene Sharp recommendation can't be implemented by Warren in her 2020 race against Trump
-- who is a perfect opponent for any anti-corruption crusader. He can be buried with Trump University scam alone, if the cards
are played right.
A fear that the anti-corruption candidate against will lead to defeat of Trump in 2020 is visible in Trump recent speeches too. In a way Trump is an ideal political sparring
partner for any anti-corruption candidate. Again, just the story of Trump university
( a classic "bait and switch" scheme) if properly revived can so a real damage (hint -- he settled the NY lawsuit for 25 million).
Just the story of Trump university
( a classic "bait and switch" scheme) if properly revived can so a real damage (hint -- he settled the NY lawsuit for 25
million) can sink Trump
While Trump get some boost due to Mueller report, the effect of this might not last until November 2020 and may be overshadows by
trade war with China or invasion of Iran or Venezuela that neocon advisors like Bolton and Pompeo pushing the county into. As if
costs of Iraq and Afghan wars are not enough. Some estimates are between 1.6 trillion and 5 trillion dollars
Time
A truer measure of the wars’ total costs pegs them at between $4 trillion and $6 trillion. This fuller accounting includes
“long-term medical care and disability compensation for service members, veterans and families, military replenishment and social
and economic costs,” Harvard economist Linda Bilmes calculated in 2013.
The Pentagon and its civilian overseers don’t like to talk about war costs, either before or after the shooting. That’s
because a high price tag beforehand acts as an economic brake, making war—assuming that’s the goal—less likely. The nation may no
longer draft soldiers, but when it wages war it has to draft dollars (borrowed or otherwise). Far better to try to sell a war
with a low-cost estimate to mute possible public opposition.
And Warren is a more formidable opponent for Trump in this area that those two weaklings of 2016 Presidential race: Marco Rubio and
Ted Cruz (The Sad Story of Trump 'University'
):
I don't know anything about starting a university, and that was a fake university," Rubio said as Trump repeatedly tried to interrupt
him. "There are people who borrowed $36,000 to go to Trump University, and they're suing now. $36,000 to go to a university that's
a fake school. And you know what they got? They got to take a picture with a cardboard cutout of Donald Trump."
"I've won most of the lawsuits," Trump protested.
Cruz also got in on the act. "You know, Marco made reference earlier to the litigation against Trump University. It's a fraud
case. His lawyers have scheduled the trial for July," he said. "I want you to think about, if this man is the nominee, having the
Republican nominee on the stand in court, being cross-examined about whether he committed fraud. You don't think the mainstream media
will go crazy on that?"
Friday morning on NBC's Today, Rubio kept the heat on Trump for his "fake school." "You have a guy who is being sued right now
for fraud for Trump University," said Rubio. "I've had stories written about my driving record."
Warren really has teeth in this area and Trump will feel very uncomfortable in any debate that raises this topic.
Republican field right now is empty and contains only weakened and vulnerable Trump compromised by his neocon cabinet members such
as Bolton and Pompeo and who managed to betrayed all his major elections promises and like another king of "bait and switch" maneuver
-- Obama can count only of pure lack for his reelection. So the situation of Trumps vs. universally hated neocon warmonger
Hillary Clinton can be repeated on new level with Warren vs. Trump. And Warren is more compatible with the Democratic Party
then Trump was with the Republican party at the time of his election campaign. She can inherit large part of Bernie bros and part of
blue collar voters that previously voted for Trump (I think entering the race by Sanders this time was a huge mistake). As Trump
can't to rely on attracting anti-war voters he will be further weakened. In a way he might represent "Hillary" in the upcoming elections,
an easy target. The only scenario that can help Trump is the repetition of Romney vs. Obama scenario, when the other candidate
would represent financial oligarchy (universally hated private equity sharks in case of Romney).
Right now Elizabeth Warren is a clear leader among candidates that can offer to the US people some meaningful improvement of the
standard of living and at least a little bit suppress the current pace of enrichment of the financial oligarchy. In financial
area she has more concrete proposal then Sanders. She might be a meaningful improvement over Trump, who completely discredited himself
both in domestic and foreign policies, effectively betraying his electorate in both. Such a Republican Obama.
Her message about predation of financial oligarchy is well received by most US citizens and is to the point. Her ideas about tax
reform are also a welcome change from Trump machinations. As the leading consumer advocate in the Senate and Wells Fargo's
toughest critic, Warren is well positioned here to take on potential Democratic rivals, especially on two new establishment candidates
Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey.
She can use Teddy Roosevelt's anti-corruption and environmental speeches in he campaign. I think he is one Republican completely
disowned by the current Republican Party. As such Warren has strong appeal toward moderate republicans, who resent the power of
Wall Street.
And while each of Warren's Democratic rivals has a unique set of policy issues, none of them is as well versed in how the economy.
for example Tulsi Gabbard anti-war stance is weakened by her clear lack of any meaningful experience with the domestic economy and it
problems. In US Presidential election are mostly about the domestic issues. At least they matter most and that gives Warren tremendous
advantage over rivals. None of them are even close to her level of understanding of the US economy and problem with
financial oligarchy.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren already owns two key issues that might shape the 2020 presidential race:
Corruption in the financial sector including revolving door corruption (Goldman Sachs, Citi, etc)
Lack of transparency and misbehavior of the official within the Trump administration, including first of all Trump himself.
Trump's breaking of all his major election promises have left Trump voters disillusioned, and Warren might be able to attack
part of the voters which voted for Trump in 2016.
But on foreign policy, Warren's vision was called "Trumpism with a human face," by Daniel Drezner of Tufts University. He says
Warren's "simplistic take on globalization contrasts sharply with her more sophisticated take on markets."
Elizabeth Warren owns two policy issues in the 2020 presidential race
Corruption within Trump administration, including Trump himself
"The consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent
too many devices for subdividing property... Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from
taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise." - Thomas
Jefferson, October 28, 1785.
"An enormous proportion of property vested in a few individuals is dangerous to the rights, and destructive of the common
happiness, of mankind; and therefore every free state hath a right by its laws to discourage the possession of such property."
- Benjamin Franklin, July 29, 1776.
"All property ... seems to me to be the creature of public convention. Hence the public has the right of regulating descents
and all other conveyances of property, and even of limiting the quantity and the uses of it." - Benjamin Franklin, December 25,
1783.
Two years into Trump's first term, the promise he made at nearly every campaign rally to "drain the swamp" in Washington and restore
accountability has quietly disappeared from the president's speeches.
But
more than a dozen of Trump's Cabinet
appointees and top aides have left their jobs under due to investigations and scandals. Warren is uniquely deft at explaining the Trump
administration's conflicts of interest and ethics problems in a way that's clear and easy for voters to understand and really hurt Trump.
Trump is "someone whose Cabinet appointees don't know about whatever the subject area they're supposed to be in charge of;"
Warren said on MSNBC's "Rachel Maddow Show". She went on to decry "Cabinet officials who get caught for trading in stocks in the
areas that they are supposed to oversee," and "Cabinet officials who don't even pay their taxes."
During a speech
in August, Warren described one such official, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, as a "cartoon version of a Wall Street fat cat, awash
in financial conflicts, intertwined with Russian financial interests, suspected of swindling millions from his business partners and
using his official position to pump up his fortune through shady stock trading." Ross has
denied what
he calls "unfounded allegations" against him.
Warren has also backed up her words with action. This fall, she introduced sweeping new ethics legislation, no doubt with an eye
toward her 2020 campaign platform. The Anti-Corruption and Public Integrity Act would place a lifetime lobbying ban on former presidents
and vice presidents, Cabinet secretaries, members of Congress and federal judges.
It would also require presidential candidates to release at least eight years of tax returns — Trump has refused to release any
of his tax returns.
Another measure inspired by problem experienced with Trump business empire during his administration would require presidents and
vice presidents to place some assets, including their real estate holdings, into blind trusts they have no control over them. Trump
has refused to divest his interest in his family real estate business, and instead left his sons to run it while he is president.
Hammering Trump over his corruption and ethical issues might hurt Trump chances to attract the same percentage of independent
voters. He already lost all anti-war right.
In December, Quinnipiac's large monthly tracking poll found that more than 60 percent said he does not share their values.
Few Democrats are better equipped than Warren is to turn this avalanche of scandals connected with Trump into election victory
Reining in corporate power
When Warren arrived on the national scene, America was still in the throes of the 2008 financial crisis and eager for someone who could
punish the banks, insurance giants and Wall Street firms that had made billions of dollars on risky loans, then demanded taxpayer-funded
bailouts when those loans went bust.
Warren fit the bill, and the instrumental role she played in creating the Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau helped make her into a sort of anti-Wall Street folk hero.
Ten years later, however, the economy has recovered, and the days of occupying Wall Street seem long gone. In this new political
environment, Warren now seeks to occupy an economic middle ground, albeit one that's left of center, by emphasizing that it's the rules
of the capitalist game that need to be changed, not the whole game (a la Bernie Sanders).
"I am a capitalist," Warren told CNBC's John Harwood
during an interview
last summer. "I believe in markets. What I don't believe in is theft, what I don't believe in is cheating. That's where the difference
is. I love what markets can do, I love what functioning economies can do. They are what make us rich, they are what create opportunity.
But only fair markets, markets with rules. Markets without rules is about the rich take it all, it's about the powerful get all of it.
And that's what's gone wrong in America."
Warren's argument that markets are good, but that markets need rules, also plays to her experience --- after all, she helped
to craft many of the post-2008 era's banking and financial regulations.
A decade later, a new set of alleged corporate abuses tops the headlines, including Facebook's myriad data breaches, Wells Fargo's
fake account scandal.
Warren is also a powerful voice for the rights of workers, another issue that's been amplified in recent years by wage stagnation,
campaigns like the push for paid parental leave, and a renewed focus on work-life balance.
This fall, Warren introduced the Accountable Capitalism Act, which would require, among other provisions, that
employees be given seats on the board of directors at some of the nation's biggest companies.
Foreign policy
Despite Warren's strength and depth of experience on the two key issues above, in foreign policy her credentials are less impressive.
This night well be her Ahelle spot and Tulsi can derail her if she play her cards right and get far enough in the
race (which is not very probable as she is really hated by military-industrial complex, which rules the country). Support of Hillary
in 2016 -- this abhorrent neocon warmonger is a large dark stop on her reputation.
As a candidate, Trump promised to end America's participation in big multinational trade deals and expensive foreign wars.
He betrayed his promises and that is the line of attack on Trump that will well resonate with the majority of voters. American
people are tired of unending stream of the wars for preservation and expansion of the global neoliberal empire rules by the USA. The
USA simply do not have enough resources to serve as a global policemen.
Still it looks like Warren shares Trump election time skepticism of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and supports the return of U.S.
troops from both theaters.
In November, Warren wrote a major
essay in Foreign Affairs magazine, where she described the Middle East as a "tangled mess," and concluded that "neither military
nor civilian policymakers seem capable of defining success, but surely this is not it."
Warren, like "election time" Trump, seemed to favor withdrawal without an emphasis on longer-term strategic objectives.
Warren also shares Trump's belief that globalization, and especially the last few decades of U.S. trade policy, have failed the American
middle class. In a way she is kind of "Hillary light" in foreign policy, a neoliberal candidates who tried limited reform of bank sector
without understanding its connection to a larger problem of neoliberalism in this country.
But she breaks with Trump over who globalization's
real winners are: For Warren, it's massive corporations and a tiny global elite. Trump, however, claims the real beneficiaries are America's
adversaries (and occasionally its allies).
Warrens still has time and space to refine and amplify her policy platforms.
In Iowa last weekend, Warren essentially had the crowded Democratic primary stage to herself. But rather than drill down on policy,
she made a sweeping pitch for change. "We can talk about a lot of these pieces, but I want to put an idea on the table," Warren said in Des Moines on Saturday. "And that
is we need change, and not just one statute here or one law there. ... We need big structural change."
Potential weaknesses
Elizabeth Warren has three major problems from my point of view
She supported Hillary Clinton in 2016 election.
She is "republican-light" reputation in foreign policy. Although that may be the result of "survival instinct":
touching the US neocon foreign policy issues can unleash a color revolution by intelligence agencies against you.
It is clear that she deftly abused the claim that she has Indian ancestry to advance her career
The main concern about her is that in case of winning she might turn out to be "Hillary light" in disguise of tax for the rich.
Biography notes (adapted from Wikipedia)
Warren was born Elizabeth Ann Herring in Oklahoma City on June 22, 1949, the fourth child of middle-class parents Pauline (née
Reed, 1912–1995) and Donald Jones Herring (1911–1997). Warren has described her family as teetering "on the ragged edge of the middle
class" and "kind of hanging on at the edges by our fingernails". She had three older brothers and was raised as a Methodist.
Warren lived in Norman until she was 11 years old, when the family moved to Oklahoma City. When she was 12, her father, a salesman
at Montgomery Ward, had a heart attack, which led to many medical bills as well as a pay cut because he could not do his previous work.
Eventually, their car was repossessed because they failed to make loan payments. To help the family finances, her mother found work
in the catalog order department at Sears. When she was 13, Warren started waiting tables at her aunt's restaurant.
Warren became a star member of the debate team at Northwest Classen High School and won the state high school debating championship.
She also won a debate scholarship to George Washington University (GWU) at the age of 16. She initially aspired to be a teacher,
but left GWU after two years in 1968 to marry Jim Warren, whom she met in high school.
Elizabeth Warren and her husband moved to Houston, where he was employed by IBM. She enrolled in the University of Houston and graduated
in 1970 with a Bachelor of Science degree in speech pathology and audiology. For a year, she taught children with disabilities who were
enrolled in a public school. Her qualifications were based on an "emergency certificate", because she had not taken the education courses
that were required for a regular teaching certificate.
The Warrens moved to New Jersey when Jim received a job transfer. She soon became pregnant and decided to remain at home to care
for their child. After their daughter turned two, Warren enrolled in Rutgers Law School at Rutgers University–Newark. She worked as
a summer associate at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft. Shortly before graduating in 1976, Warren became pregnant with their second child.
After she received her J.D. and passed the bar examination, she decided to perform legal services from home; she wrote wills and did
real estate closings.
The couple had two children, Amelia and Alexander, before they divorced in 1978. Two years later, Warren married Bruce
H. Mann, a law professor, but she decided to retain the surname of her first husband. She also has grandchildren.
Warren has said that as a child she was told by older family members that she had Native American ancestry, and that "being Native American
has been part of my story, I guess, since the day I was born". Warren was criticized in 2012 for having listed herself as a minority
in a directory for Harvard Law School. Opponents said Warren falsified her heritage to advance her career through minority quotas. Warren
denied these allegations, and several colleagues and employers (including Harvard) have said her reported ethnic status played no role
in her hiring. An investigation by The Boston Globe in 2018 found "clear evidence, in documents and interviews, that her
claim to Native American ethnicity was never considered by the Harvard Law faculty, which voted resoundingly to hire her, or by those
who hired her to four prior positions at other law schools."
Following a challenge by President Donald Trump to pay $1 million to her favorite charity if she could prove her Native American ancestry
via a DNA test, Warren released results of a DNA test in 2018. It concluded that "while the vast majority of [Warren's] ancestry
is European, the results strongly support the existence of an unadmixed Native American ancestor in [her] pedigree, likely in the range
of 6–10 generations ago." The use of DNA to determine Native American heritage has been criticized by the Cherokee Nation as "inappropriate
and wrong". During a 2019 public appearance in Sioux City, Iowa, Warren was asked by an attendee, "Why did you undergo the
DNA testing and give Donald more fodder to be a bully?" Warren responded:
I am not a person of color; I am not a citizen of a tribe. Tribal citizenship is very different from ancestry. Tribes, and only
tribes, determine tribal citizenship, and I respect that difference. I grew up in Oklahoma, and like a lot of folks in Oklahoma,
we heard stories about our ancestry. When I first ran for public office, Republicans homed in on this part of my history, and thought
they could make a lot of hay out of it. A lot of racial slurs, and a lot of ugly stuff. And so my decision was: I’m just gonna put
it all out there. Took a while, but just put it all out there.
Career
Warren discussing the work of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau at the ICBA conference in 2011. During the late 1970s, 1980s,
and 1990s, Warren taught law at several universities throughout the country while researching issues related to bankruptcy and middle-class
personal finance. She became involved with public work in bankruptcy regulation and consumer protection in the mid-1990s.
Academic Career
Warren started her academic career as a lecturer at Rutgers University, Newark School of Law (1977–78). She moved to the University
of Houston Law Center (1978–83), where she became Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in 1980, and obtained tenure in 1981. She taught
at the University of Texas School of Law as visiting associate professor in 1981, and returned as a full professor two years later (staying
1983–87). In addition, she was a visiting professor at the University of Michigan (1985) and research associate at the Population Research
Center of the University of Texas at Austin (1983–87). During this period, Warren taught Sunday school. Early in her
career, Warren became a proponent of on-the-ground research based on studying how people actually respond to laws in the real world.
Her work analyzing court records, and interviewing judges, lawyers, and debtors, established her as a rising star in the field of bankruptcy
law. One of her key insights, according to Warren and economists who follow her work, was that rising bankruptcy rates weren't
caused by prolifigate consumer spending, but by the attempts of middle-class families to buy homes in good school districts.
Warren joined the University of Pennsylvania Law School as a full professor in 1987 and obtained an endowed chair in 1990 (becoming
William A Schnader Professor of Commercial Law). She taught for a year at Harvard Law School in 1992 as Robert Braucher Visiting Professor
of Commercial Law. In 1995, Warren left Penn to become Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. As of 2011, she was
the only tenured law professor at Harvard who had attended law school at an American public university. Warren was a highly influential
law professor. Although she published in many fields, her expertise was in bankruptcy and commercial law. In that field, only Bob Scott
of Columbia and Alan Schwartz of Yale were cited more often than Warren.
Advisory roles
In 1995, Warren was asked to advise the National Bankruptcy Review Commission. She helped to draft the commission's report
and worked for several years to oppose legislation intended to severely restrict the right of consumers to file for bankruptcy. Warren
and others opposing the legislation were not successful; in 2005 Congress passed the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection
Act of 2005, which curtailed the ptcy.
From November 2006 to November 2010, Warren was a member of the FDIC Advisory Committee on Economic Inclusion. She is a member
of the National Bankruptcy Conference, an independent organization that advises the U.S. Congress on bankruptcy law. She is a
former vice president of the American Law Institute and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Warren's scholarship
and public advocacy combined to act as the impetus for the establishment of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2011.
TARP oversight
Warren stands next to President Barack Obama as he announces the nomination of Richard Cordray as the first director of the CFPB,
July 2011.
On November 14, 2008, Warren was appointed by U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to chair the five-member Congressional Oversight
Panel created to oversee the implementation of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act. The Panel released monthly oversight
reports evaluating the government bailout and related programs. During Warren's tenure, these reports covered foreclosure mitigation;
consumer and small business lending; commercial real estate; AIG; bank stress tests; the impact of the Troubled Asset Relief Program
(TARP) on the financial markets; government guarantees; the automotive industry; and other topics.
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Warren was an early advocate for the creation of a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The bureau was established by
the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act signed into law by President Obama in July 2010. In September 2010, President
Obama named Warren Assistant to the President and Special Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury on the Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau to set up the new agency. While liberal groups and consumer advocacy groups pushed for Obama to formally nominate Warren
as the agency's director, Warren was strongly opposed by financial institutions and by Republican members of Congress who believed Warren
would be an overly zealous regulator. Reportedly convinced that Warren could not win Senate confirmation as the bureau's
first director, Obama turned to former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray and in January 2012, over the objections of Republican
senators, appointed Cordray to the post in a recess appointment.
Political affiliation
Warren was registered as a Republican from 1991 to 1996. Warren voted as a Republican for many years, saying, "I was a Republican
because I thought that those were the people who best supported markets". According to Warren, she began to vote Democratic in
1995 because she no longer believed that to be true, but she states that she has voted for both parties because she believed that neither
party should dominate. According to her, the Republican Party was no longer "principled in its conservative approach to economics
and to markets" and was instead tilting the playing in favor of big financial institutions and against "middle class American families."
US Senate
On September 14, 2011, Warren declared her intention to run for the Democratic nomination for the 2012 election in Massachusetts
for the U.S. Senate. The seat had been won by Republican Scott Brown in a 2010 special election after the death of Ted Kennedy.
A week later, a video of Warren speaking in Andover became a viral video on the Internet. In it, Warren replies to the charge
that asking the rich to pay more taxes is "class warfare", pointing out that no one grew rich in the U.S. without depending on infrastructure
paid for by the rest of society, stating:
There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. ... You moved your goods to market on the 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. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and
hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something
terrific, or a great idea. God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that
and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.
President Barack Obama later echoed her sentiments in a 2012 election campaign speech. Warren ran unopposed for the Democratic nomination
and won it on June 2, 2012, at the state Democratic convention with a record 95.77% of the votes of delegates. She
encountered significant opposition from business interests. In August the political director for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce claimed
that "no other candidate in 2012 represents a greater threat to free enterprise than Professor Warren". She nonetheless raised
$39 million for her campaign, the most of any Senate candidate in 2012, and showed, according to The New York Times, "that it was possible
to run against the big banks without Wall Street money and still win".
Warren received a prime-time speaking slot at the 2012 Democratic National Convention on September 5, 2012. She positioned herself
as a champion of a beleaguered middle class that "has been chipped, squeezed, and hammered". According to Warren, "People feel like
the system is rigged against them. And here's the painful part: They're right. The system is rigged." Warren said Wall Street CEOs
"wrecked our economy and destroyed millions of jobs" and that they "still strut around congress, no shame, demanding favors, and acting
like we should thank them".
Tenure
On November 6, 2012, Warren defeated incumbent Scott Brown with a total of 53.7% of the votes. She is the first woman ever elected
to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts, as part of a sitting U.S. Senate that had 20 female senators in office, the largest female
U.S. Senate delegation in history, following the November 2012 elections. In December 2012, Warren was assigned a seat on the Senate
Banking Committee, the committee that oversees the implementation of Dodd–Frank and other regulation of the banking industry.
Warren was sworn in by Vice President Joe Biden on January 3, 2013.
At Warren's first Banking Committee hearing in February 2013, she pressed several banking regulators to answer when they had last taken
a Wall Street bank to trial and stated, "I'm really concerned that 'too big to fail' has become 'too big for trial'." Videos of Warren's
questioning became popular on the Internet, amassing more than one million views in a matter of days. At a Banking Committee hearing
in March, Warren asked Treasury Department officials why criminal charges were not brought against HSBC for its money laundering practices.
With her questions being continually dodged, Warren compared money laundering to drug possession, saying: "If you're caught with an
ounce of cocaine, the chances are good you're going to go to jail ... But evidently, if you launder nearly a billion dollars for drug
cartels and violate our international sanctions, your company pays a fine and you go home and sleep in your own bed at night."
In May 2013, Warren sent letters to the Justice Department, Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Federal Reserve, questioning
their decisions that settling rather than going to court would be more fruitful. Also in May, suggesting that students should
get "the same great deal that banks get", Warren introduced the Bank on Student Loans Fairness Act, which would allow students to take
out government education loans at the same rate that banks pay to borrow from the federal government, 0.75%., Independent Senator
Bernie Sanders endorsed her bill saying: "The only thing wrong with this bill is that [she] thought of it and I didn't".
During the 2014 election cycle, Warren was a top Democratic fundraiser. Following the election, Warren was appointed to become the first-ever
Strategic Adviser of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, a position that was created just for her. The appointment further
added to speculation about a possible presidential run by Warren in 2016.
Saying "despite the progress we've made since 2008, the biggest banks continue to threaten our economy", in July 2015 Senator Warren,
along with John McCain (R-AZ), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), and Angus King (I-ME) re-introduced the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act, a modern
version of the Banking Act of 1933. The legislation is intended to reduce the risk for the American taxpayer in the financial system
and decrease the likelihood of future financial crises.
In a September 20, 2016, hearing, Warren called for the CEO of Wells Fargo, John Stumpf, to resign, adding that he should be "criminally
investigated" over Wells Fargo's opening of two million checking and credit-card accounts without the consent of their customers under
his tenure.
In December 2016, Warren gained a seat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, termed by The Boston Globe to be "a high-profile perch
on one of the chamber's most powerful committees", which the Globe said would "fuel speculation about a possible 2020 bid for president".
On February 7, 2017, Republicans in the Senate voted that Sen. Warren had violated Senate rule 19 during the debate on attorney general
nominee Sen. Jeff Sessions, claiming that she impugned his character when she quoted statements made about Sessions by Coretta Scott
King and Sen. Ted Kennedy. "Mr. Sessions has used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens
in the district he now seeks to serve as a federal judge. This simply cannot be allowed to happen", King wrote in a 1986 letter to Sen.
Strom Thurmond, which Warren attempted to read on the Senate floor. This action prohibited Warren from further participating in
the debate on Sessions' nomination for United States Attorney General. Instead, she stepped into a nearby room and continued reading
King's letter while streaming live on the Internet.
On October 3, 2017, Warren called for Wells Fargo's chief executive, Tim Sloan, to resign during his appearance before the Senate Banking
Committee, saying, "At best you were incompetent, at worst you were complicit".
Political positions
Warren is known for her progressive politics and her populist views on the economy. According to the UK magazine New Statesman,
she is among the "top 20 US progressives".
In December 2016, Warren announced plans to introduce a bill to address President-elect Donald Trump's perceived conflicts of
interest related to his business empire. Under her proposed bill, Donald Trump could face impeachment if he fails to declare conflicts
of interest between his presidential role and his business interests. Warren states, "The only way for President-elect Trump to truly
eliminate conflicts-of-interest is to divest his financial interests and place them in a blind trust. This has been the standard
for previous presidents, and our bill makes clear the continuing expectation that President-elect Trump do the same." On January
9, 2017, the Presidential Conflicts of Interest Act, was first read in the Senate.
In November 2018, Warren said she will not vote for Trump's United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) saying, "It won't stop
outsourcing, it won't raise wages, and it won't create jobs. It's NAFTA 2.0." She also believes that it will make it harder to reduce
drug prices because it will allow drug companies to lock in the prices they are currently charging for many drugs.
In January 2019, Warren criticized President Donald Trump's announcement of his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria and
Afghanistan. Although she agreed that US troops should be withdrawn from Syria and Afghanistan, she said such withdrawals should
be part of a "coordinated" plan formed with US allies.
2018 election
On January 6, 2017, in an e-mail to supporters, Warren announced that she would be running for a second term as a U.S. Senator from
Massachusetts. She wrote in the e-mail, "The people of Massachusetts didn't send me to Washington to roll over and play dead while Donald
Trump and his team of billionaires, bigots, and Wall Street bankers crush the working people of our Commonwealth and this country,"
and "This is no time to quit."
The Senate election in Massachusetts took place on November 6, 2018. Warren defeated her Republican opponent, Geoff Diehl by a 60% to
36% margin.
2016 presidential campaign
Warren stumps for Hillary Clinton in Manchester, New Hampshire, October 2016
In the runup to the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Warren was put forward by supporters as a possible presidential candidate. However,
Warren repeatedly stated that she was not running for president in 2016. In October 2013, she joined the other fifteen Senate
Democratic women in signing a letter that encouraged Hillary Clinton to run. There was much speculation about Warren being added
to the Democratic ticket as a vice-presidential candidate. On June 9, 2016, after the California Democratic primary, Warren
formally endorsed Hillary Clinton for president.
In response to questions when she endorsed Clinton, Warren said that she believed herself to be ready to be vice president, but she
was not being vetted. On July 7, CNN reported that Warren was on a five-person short list to be Clinton's vice-presidential running
mate. However, Clinton eventually chose Tim Kaine.
Warren vigorously campaigned for Hillary Clinton and took an active role in the 2016 presidential election.
She remarked that Donald Trump, the Republican presumptive nominee, was dishonest, uncaring, and "a loser". Which in retrospect was
all true.
She made several serious mistakes in her campaign which limited her chances by limited voter groups that can support
her and her platform. We can mention the following
Subjecting herself to the generic test to reveal the level of her Indian ancestry.
Supporting reparations bill.
Supporting Russiagate.
If looks like she does not want to understand that the reason for criminal behaviour of financial sector is systemic:
under neoliberalism financial oligarchs are above the law and deregulation, especially financial deregulation, is a sacred cow.
Because the goal of neoliberal is the redistribution of wealth up. As Bush Senior quipped (quoted from memory) "Neoliberalism
is the concentration of wealth in the higher, stronger and tighter hands"
It’s fairly easy to criticize neoliberalism from the inside, just based on its incoherence and its failure to deliver good outcomes
to most of the population. The Barkai Paper discussed in part 3 and 3A, and the Paradise Papers and the Panama Papers make it obvious
that the benefits of neoliberalism flow to the wealthy at the expense of the rest of us, whose wages are largely stagnant and have been
for decades, and whose share of overall wealth has fallen.
Friedrich Pollock, a member of the Frankfurt School, said that the profit motive has always been a form of the power motive. We can
see the truth of this statement in Trump actions, and that’s how members of his cabinet act. If senators are openly stating that Wall
Street banks “own” Congress, if we have over 30,000 lobbyists legally spreading bribe money throughout the Beltway, if we have the Mercers,
Waltons, Kochs and Adelsons (the latter with his man in the White House), and if we have congresscritters afraid of losing their jobs
as public employees unless they can immunize their patrons from estate tax and the AMT, I’d say we’ve returned to government by the
rich
Neoliberalism’s decline has been much too slow considering the among of definite harm to human beings and societies have been done
in its name in the past 50 years.
hough it was quickly overshadowed by the big-ticket appearances of Barack Obama and Kamala
Harris, Elizabeth Warren's Tuesday address to the Democratic National Convention deserves some
consideration.
A probable VP nominee before the events of the summer made race the deciding factor, Warren
is an able representative of what might be called the "non-socialist populist" branch of the
Democratic Party. Her economic populism -- though it does have an unmistakably left-wing flavor
-- has caught the eye of Tucker Carlson, who offered glowing praise of her 2003 book The
Two-Income Trap ; her call for "economic nationalism" during the primary campaign earned
mockery from some corners of the Left and a bit of hesitant sympathy from the Right. A few days
ago in Crisis , Michael Warren Davis referred to her (tongue at least somewhat in cheek)
as " reactionary senator Elizabeth
Warren ."
There is some good reason for all of this.
As I watched the first half of Warren's speech (before she descended into the week's
secondary theme of blaming the virus on Donald Trump) I couldn't help but think that it
belonged at the Republican National Convention. Or, rather, that a GOP convention that
drove home the themes addressed by Senator Warren on Tuesday would be immensely more effective
than the
circus I'm expecting to see next week.
Amid a weeklong hurricane of identity politics sure to drive off a good number of moderates
and independents, Warren offered her party an electoral lifeline: a policy-heavy pitch
gift-wrapped as the solution to a multitude of troubles facing average Americans, especially
families.
It was rhetorically effective in a way that few other moments in the convention have been.
Part of this is due to the format: a teleconferenced convention left most speakers looking
either like bargain-bin
Orwell bogeymen or like
Pat Sajak presenting a tropical vacation as a prize on Wheel of Fortune. But Warren, for
one reason or another, looks entirely at home in a pre-school classroom.
The content, however, is crucial too. Warren grounded her comments in experiences that have
been widely shared by millions of Americans these last few months: the loss of work, the loss
of vital services like childcare, the stress and anxiety that dominate pandemic-era life. She
makes a straightforward case for Biden: his policies will make everyday life better for the
vast majority of American families. She focuses on the example of childcare, which Biden
promises to make freely available to Americans who need it. This, she claims, will give
families a better go of things and make struggling parents' lives a whole lot easier.
It's hard not to be taken in. It's certainly a more compelling sales pitch than, "You're all
racist. Make up for it by voting for this old white guy." It's the kind of thing that a smart
campaign would spend the next three months broadcasting and repeating every chance they get.
(The jury is still out as to whether Biden's campaign is a smart one.) This -- convincing
common people that you're going to do right by them -- is the kind of thing that wins
elections.
But there's more than a little mistruth in the pitch. Warren shares a touching story from
her own experience as a young parent, half a century ago:
When I had babies and was juggling my first big teaching job down in Texas, it was hard.
But I could do hard. The thing that almost sank me? Child care.
One night my Aunt Bee called to check in. I thought I was fine, but then I just broke down
and started to cry. I had tried holding it all together, but without reliable childcare,
working was nearly impossible. And when I told Aunt Bee I was going to quit my job, I thought
my heart would break.
Then she said the words that changed my life: "I can't get there tomorrow, but I'll come
on Thursday." She arrived with seven suitcases and a Pekingese named Buddy and stayed for 16
years. I get to be here tonight because of my Aunt Bee.
I learned a fundamental truth: nobody makes it on their own. And yet, two generations of
working parents later, if you have a baby and don't have an Aunt Bee, you're on your own.
Are we not supposed to ask about the fundamental difference between Elizabeth Warren's
experience decades ago and the experience of struggling parents now? Hint: she had a strong
extended family to support her, and her kids had a broad family network to help raise them. Not
too long ago, any number of people would have been involved in the raising of a single child.
("It takes a village," but not in the looney Clinton way.) Now, an American kid is lucky to
have just two people helping him along the way. As we've all been reminded a hundred
times, the chances that he'll be raised by only one increase astronomically in poor or black
communities.
Shouldn't we be talking about that? Shouldn't we be talking about the policies that
contributed to the shift? It's a complex crisis, and we can't pin it down to any one cause. But
a slew of left-wing programs are certainly caught up in it. An enormous and fairly lax welfare
state has reduced the necessity of family ties in day-to-day life to almost nil. Diverse
economic pressures have made stay-at-home parents a near-extinct breed, and left even
two-income households struggling to make ends meet. (Warren literally wrote the book on
it.) Not to mention that the Democrats remain the party more forcefully supportive of abortion
and more ferociously opposed to the institution of marriage (though more than a few Republicans
are trying real hard to catch up).
Progressive social engineering has ravaged the American family for decades, and this
proposal only offers more of the same. It's trying to outsource childcare to
government-bankrolled professionals without asking the important question: Whatever happened to
Aunt Bee?
Republicans need an answer. We need to be carefully considering what government has done to
accelerate the decline of the family -- and what it can do to reverse it. Some of the reformers
and realigners in the party have already begun this project in earnest. But it needs to be
taken more seriously. It needs to be a central effort of the party's mainstream, and a constant
element of the party's message. Grand, nationalistic narratives about Making America Great
Again mean nothing if that revival isn't actually felt by people in their lives and in their
homes.
If we're confident in our family policy -- and while it needs a good deal of work, it's
certainly better than the Democrats' -- we shouldn't be afraid to take the fight to them. We
should be pointing out, for instance, that Warren's claim that Biden will afford greater
bankruptcy protections to common people is hardly borne out by the facts: Biden spent a great
deal of time and effort in his legislative career doing exactly the opposite. We should be
pointing out that dozens of Democratic policies have been hurting American families for
decades, and will continue to do so if we let them. We should sell ourselves as the better
choice for American families -- and be able to mean it when we say it.
If we let the Democrats keep branding themselves as the pro-family party -- a marketing ploy
that has virtually no grounding in reality -- we're going to lose in November. And we're going
to keep losing for a long, long time.
divideand conquer 1. To gain or maintain power by generating tension among others, especially those less powerful,
so that they cannot unite in opposition.
Notable quotes:
"... In its most general form, identity politics involves (i) a claim that a particular group is not being treated fairly and (ii) a claim that members of that group should place political priority on the demand for fairer treatment. But "fairer" can mean lots of different things. I'm trying to think about this using contrasts between the set of terms in the post title. A lot of this is unoriginal, but I'm hoping I can say something new. ..."
"... The second problem is that neoliberals on right and left sometimes use identity as a shield to protect neoliberal policies. As one commentator has argued, "Without the bedrock of class politics, identity politics has become an agenda of inclusionary neoliberalism in which individuals can be accommodated but addressing structural inequalities cannot." What this means is that some neoliberals hold high the banner of inclusiveness on gender and race and thus claim to be progressive reformers, but they then turn a blind eye to systemic changes in politics and the economy. ..."
"... Critics argue that this is "neoliberal identity politics," and it gives its proponents the space to perpetuate the policies of deregulation, privatization, liberalization, and austerity. ..."
"... If we assume that identity politics is, first and foremost, a dirty and shrewd political strategy developed by the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party ("soft neoliberals") many things became much more clear. Along with Neo-McCarthyism it represents a mechanism to compensate for the loss of their primary voting block: trade union members, who in 2016 "en mass" defected to Trump. ..."
I've been thinking about the various versions of and critiques of identity politics that are around at the moment.
In its most
general form, identity politics involves (i) a claim that a particular group is not being treated fairly and (ii) a claim that
members of that group should place political priority on the demand for fairer treatment. But "fairer" can mean lots of different
things. I'm trying to think about this using contrasts between the set of terms in the post title. A lot of this is unoriginal,
but I'm hoping I can say something new.
You missed one important line of critique -- identity politics as a dirty political strategy of soft neoliberals.
To be sure, race, gender, culture, and other aspects of social life have always been important to politics. But neoliberalism's
radical individualism has increasingly raised two interlocking problems. First, when taken to an extreme, social fracturing into
identity groups can be used to divide people and prevent the creation of a shared civic identity. Self-government requires uniting
through our commonalities and aspiring to achieve a shared future.
When individuals fall back onto clans, tribes, and us-versus-them identities, the political community gets fragmented. It becomes
harder for people to see each other as part of that same shared future.
Demagogues [more correctly neoliberals -- likbez] rely on this fracturing to inflame racial, nationalist, and religious antagonism,
which only further fuels the divisions within society. Neoliberalism's war on "society," by pushing toward the privatization and
marketization of everything, thus indirectly facilitates a retreat into tribalism that further undermines the preconditions for
a free and democratic society.
The second problem is that neoliberals on right and left sometimes use identity as a shield to protect neoliberal policies.
As one commentator has argued, "Without the bedrock of class politics, identity politics has become an agenda of inclusionary
neoliberalism in which individuals can be accommodated but addressing structural inequalities cannot." What this means is that
some neoliberals hold high the banner of inclusiveness on gender and race and thus claim to be progressive reformers, but they
then turn a blind eye to systemic changes in politics and the economy.
Critics argue that this is "neoliberal identity politics," and it gives its proponents the space to perpetuate the policies
of deregulation, privatization, liberalization, and austerity.
Of course, the result is to leave in place political and economic structures that harm the very groups that inclusionary neoliberals
claim to support. The foreign policy adventures of the neoconservatives and liberal internationalists haven't fared much better
than economic policy or cultural politics. The U.S. and its coalition partners have been bogged down in the war in Afghanistan
for 18 years and counting. Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq is a liberal democracy, nor did the attempt to establish democracy in
Iraq lead to a domino effect that swept the Middle East and reformed its governments for the better. Instead, power in Iraq has
shifted from American occupiers to sectarian militias, to the Iraqi government, to Islamic State terrorists, and back to the Iraqi
government -- and more than 100,000 Iraqis are dead.
Or take the liberal internationalist 2011 intervention in Libya. The result was not a peaceful transition to stable democracy
but instead civil war and instability, with thousands dead as the country splintered and portions were overrun by terrorist groups.
On the grounds of democracy promotion, it is hard to say these interventions were a success. And for those motivated to expand
human rights around the world, it is hard to justify these wars as humanitarian victories -- on the civilian death count alone.
Indeed, the central anchoring assumptions of the American foreign policy establishment have been proven wrong. Foreign policymakers
largely assumed that all good things would go together -- democracy, markets, and human rights -- and so they thought opening
China to trade would inexorably lead to it becoming a liberal democracy. They were wrong. They thought Russia would become liberal
through swift democratization and privatization. They were wrong.
They thought globalization was inevitable and that ever-expanding trade liberalization was desirable even if the political
system never corrected for trade's winners and losers. They were wrong. These aren't minor mistakes. And to be clear, Donald Trump
had nothing to do with them. All of these failures were evident prior to the 2016 election.
If we assume that identity politics is, first and foremost, a dirty and shrewd political strategy developed by the Clinton wing
of the Democratic Party ("soft neoliberals") many things became much more clear. Along with Neo-McCarthyism it represents a mechanism to compensate for the loss of their primary voting block: trade union members,
who in 2016 "en mass" defected to Trump.
Initially Clinton calculation was that trade union voters has nowhere to go anyways, and it was correct for first decade or so
of his betrayal. But gradually trade union members and lower middle class started to leave Dems in droves (Demexit, compare with
Brexit) and that where identity politics was invented to compensate for this loss.
So in addition to issues that you mention we also need to view the role of identity politics as the political strategy of the
"soft neoliberals " directed at discrediting and the suppression of nationalism.
The resurgence of nationalism is the inevitable byproduct of the dominance of neoliberalism, resurgence which I think is capable
to bury neoliberalism as it lost popular support (which now is limited to financial oligarchy and high income professional groups,
such as we can find in corporate and military brass, (shrinking) IT sector, upper strata of academy, upper strata of medical professionals,
etc)
That means that the structure of the current system isn't just flawed which imply that most problems are relatively minor and
can be fixed by making some tweaks. It is unfixable, because the "Identity wars" reflect a deep moral contradictions within neoliberal
ideology. And they can't be solved within this framework.
"... How is it that Warren pulling out of the race is a victory for patriarchy and sexism, but Amy Klobuchar pulling out of the race is not causing grief and angst? We Midwesterners just don't get enough respect–and melodrama. ..."
"... She and her dead-end supporters are giving a good run at being the most pathetic story in a primary that includes Zombie Joe Biden ..."
"Why Elizabeth Warren lost" [Ryan Cooper, The Week].
In a press conference discussing her campaign's end, Warren said that she had not
decided yet whether to endorse anyone. "I need some space around this," she said.
Astonishing and amazing that Warren, claiming to be a "progressive", did not immediately
endorse Sanders, especially when the alternative is the hapless "Senator from MBNA", Joe
Biden. Warren also repeatedly refused to endorse Bernie in 2016, a time when the early and
enthusiastic support of a prominent woman with progressive credentials would have really
helped and perhaps been decisive in the race against Hillary Clinton.
Sanders is the best shot at a progressive US president we have seen in a century, yet
Warren apparently needs time to cogitate on the matter for some reason. I hope whatever she
ultimately gets for herself is worth it.
Bernie held out on endorsing Hillary until she signed on to his free college plan. What
concession will Warren demand? Something for the people or something for herself? Force
Bernie to make his taxes more regressive? She's a joke.
Let's suppose that the one unchangeable goal of the Democratic Party establishment is that
Bernie Sanders must not be the party's 2020 nominee. Any other realistic candidate will do,
but it must not be Bernie. Let's also suppose that by the time of the party's convention Vice
President Bden's weaknesses and unfitness have become so evident that the party simply can't
put him forward as its nominee.
Suppose that Senator Warren sees that and thinks of herself as a realistic choice for the
party to replace Biden. A veneer of leftishness, but no real threat to Wall Street. I suspect
that her entertaining that hope may explain why since suspending her campaign Senator Warren
has criticized the idea of Vice President Biden being the party's nominee, but has had
nothing favorable to say about Senator Sanders.
"You cried yesterday because you can't be POTUS then went on CNN and trashed Bernie AGAIN
(when has he ever trashed you?) by way of his supporters. BOO-HOO. You should have focused
your attention on the factory floor (working women) not the glass ceiling.
Politics is a nasty game which you have proven to be expert at. You have earned every
criticism in whatever form it comes, frankly. But because you can't be POTUS this time, you
will take your ball and go home, so there! with the emotional maturity of a 5 year old.
How is it that Warren pulling out of the race is a victory for patriarchy and sexism,
but Amy Klobuchar pulling out of the race is not causing grief and angst? We Midwesterners
just don't get enough respect–and melodrama.
Do we truly have to hear that Warren scared people because she is too competent?
(Shades of Most Qualified Hillary.) Lying about being a Native American has a whiff of
incompetence, but I'm just persnickety.
And should we collectively be pointing out that Political Sainthood, once reserved for
John McCain, now has been bestowed on Elizabeth Warren, who is starting to be inebriated with
her own scent of sanctity? In short: McCain, Warren, all maverick-y all the time.
On a positive note, is it possible that focusing on what white upper-middle-class
people want, which is the status quo, kale salads, and more brunches, is somehow not a viable
path to the presidency? As mentioned above, Warren started to slide when she announced Plans
that involved means-testing health care and means-testing day care. At least she refrained
from issuing leaf-blowers to all of us.
She and her dead-end supporters are giving a good run at being the most pathetic story in
a primary that includes Zombie Joe Biden.
Just mind-bogglingly entitled upper and upper
middle class trash. I regret ever thinking of voting for her, I regret ever hearing her name,
and I look forward to the day she endorses someone so I never have to think about her
again.
The person who read her Twitter mentions for her was on Twitter begging for Venmo
donations for, I guess, her emotional trauma. Christ I hate these people.
In 1995, Gloria Steinem, spoke of making @BernieSanders an "honorary woman" because his
advocacy for women was so strong then, and has continued strong over the decades.
exactly. Look at the prime examples of how Biden treats women in the public sphere:
treating Anita Hill like crap and nuzzling random women. And N.O.W. wants Warren to endorse
Biden? Sheesh.
And Warren wonders why she didn't get the votes. Does Warren think being a women per se
means only she is capable of going something for women. How childish.
Because when Sanders jawboned Amazon into raising wages, none of the workers who got the
raised were women.
That's because to the PMC feminists of NOW -- another NGO to euthanize given how poorly
they have performed as measured by their stated goals -- only PMC women are truly
women. The working class is an undifferentiated mass without individual identities. That is,
in fact, what the Bernie Bro " meme conveys. No female supporter of Sanders can
possibly be a real woman, and even more revealing, Sanders supporters are coded male by
default, a patriarchal semiotic that would drive NOW and its ilk, er, bananas in any other
context.
So sellout by Clinton of the Democratic Party to Wall Street proved to be durable and
sustainable...
Bernie again behaves like a sheep dog with no intention to win... "Let's be friends" is not a
viable strategy...
Notable quotes:
"... the same character traits that make him an honorable politician also make him fundamentally unsuited for the difficult task of waging a successful outsider campaign for the nomination of a major political party. ..."
"... Why hasn't Sara Nelson, head of the Flight Attendants' Union, endorsed Bernie? (Personally I have always thought she'd be a good VP.) ..."
"... Robinson is dreaming if he thinks Non-Profit Industrial Complex entities like EMILY's List and Planned Parenthood will lift a finger to help Sanders, or busines unionists like Randi Weingarten. To his credit, though, Ady Barkan switched immediately. External support, though is correct: IIRC, there are plenty of union locals to be had; the Culinary Workers should be only the first. ..."
"... "Corporate Lobbyists Control the Rules at the DNC" [ ReadSludge ]. "Among the 447 total voting DNC members, who make up the majority of 771 superdelegates, there are scores of corporate lobbyists and consultants -- including many of the 75 at-large DNC members, who were not individually elected . ..."
"... The 32-member DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee contains the following 20 individuals: a health insurance board member co-chair, three surrogates for presidential campaigns (two for Bloomberg, one for Biden), four current corporate lobbyists, two former corporate lobbyists, six corporate consultants, and four corporate lawyers." ..."
"... "Joe Biden is a friend of mine" is the 2020-updated version of "enough about the damn e-mails, already". No amount of ground-level organizing can make up for a candidate willing to publicly overlook what should be high-office-disqualifying fundamental character traits in his opponents out of "niceness". ..."
"... It's easy to do a post Super Tuesday defeat analysis of Sanders but remember, everything seems to work before SC where I think the Democrats fixed the election and the same holds for Super Tuesday. ..."
Sanders (D)(1): "Bernie Sanders needs to find the killer instinct" [Matthew Walther,
The Week ].
I've heard Useful Idiots, Dead Pundits, and the inimitable Jimmy Dore all make the same point,
but Walther's prose makes the point most forcefully (as prose often does). The situation:
There is no greater contrast imaginable than the one between the popular (and frequently
exaggerated) image of so-called "Bernie bros" and the almost painfully conciliatory instincts
of the man they support.
This was fully in evidence on Wednesday afternoon when Sanders responded to arguably the
worst defeat of his political career by chatting with journalists about how " disgusted "
he is at unspecified online comments directed at Elizabeth Warren and her supporters and what
a " decent
guy " Joe Biden is.
He did this despite the fact that Warren, with the connivance of debate moderators,
recently called him a sexist in front of an audience of millions, effectively announcing that
she had no interest in making even a tacit alliance with the only other progressive candidate
in the race and, one imagines, despite thinking that the former vice president's record on
virtually everything -- finance, health care, race relations, the environment, foreign policy
-- should render him ineligible for office.
It should go without saying that offering these pleasantries will do Sanders few if any
favors.
Lambert here: This is a Presidential primary, not the Senate floor. There is no comity.
Walther then gives a list of possible scorched earth tactics to use against Biden; we could all
make such a list. But then:
Sanders's benevolent disposition does him credit. But the same character traits that
make him an honorable politician also make him fundamentally unsuited for the difficult task
of waging a successful outsider campaign for the nomination of a major political
party.
Corbyn had the same problem...
Sanders really must not let Biden and the Democrat Establishment off the hook. He seems to
have poor judgment about his friends. Warren was no "friend." And neither is Joe Biden.
He should forget those false friends, go into the next debate, and slice Joe Biden off at
the knees. Trump would. And will, if Sander loses.
His canvassers and more importantly his millions of small donors deserve no less. The race
and the debate is now between two people, and only one can emerge the winner. Sanders needs to
decide if he wants to be that person, and then do
what it takes . (If the outcome of the Sanders campaign is a left that is a permanently
institutionalized force, distinct from liberal Democrats, I would regard that as a net
positive. If that is Sanders' ultimate goal, then fine. He's not going to achieve that goal by
being nice to Joe Biden. Quite the reverse.)
UPDATE Sanders (D)(2): "Time To Fight Harder Than We've Ever Fought Before" [Nathan J.
Robinson, Current
Affairs ].
"Biden now has some formidable advantages going forward: Democrats who no longer see him as
a failed or risky bet will finally endorse and campaign for him. He will find it easier to
raise money. He will have "momentum." Bloomberg's exit will bring him new voters.
Sanders may find upcoming states even harder to win than the Super Tuesday contests. But the
one thing that would guarantee a Sanders loss is giving up and going home, which is exactly
what Joe Biden hopes we will now do."
Here follows a laundry list of tactics. Then: "The real thing Bernie needs in order to win,
though, is external support. Labor unions, activists, lawmakers, anyone with a public platform:
We need to be pressuring them to endorse Bernie.
Why hasn't Sara Nelson, head of the Flight Attendants' Union, endorsed Bernie?
(Personally I have always thought she'd be a good VP.)
Now that Elizabeth Warren is clearly not going to win, will organizations like the Working
Families Party and EMILY's List and people like AFT president Randi Weingarten and Medicare For
All advocate Ady Barkan switch and endorse Sanders?
Where is the Sierra Club, SEIU (Bernie, after all, was one of the first national figures to
push Fight for $15), the UAW, Planned Parenthood? Many progressive organizations have been
sitting out the race because Warren was in it."
Good ideas in general, but Robinson is dreaming if he thinks Non-Profit Industrial
Complex entities like EMILY's List and Planned Parenthood will lift a finger to help Sanders,
or busines unionists like Randi Weingarten. To his credit, though, Ady Barkan switched
immediately. External support, though is correct: IIRC, there are plenty of union locals to be
had; the Culinary Workers should be only the first.
Warren (D)(1): "Why Elizabeth Warren lost" [Ryan Cooper, The Week ]. "Starting in
November, however, she started a long decline that continued through January, when she started
losing primaries . So what happened in November?
It is hard to pin down exactly what is happening in such a chaotic race, but Warren's
campaign certainly made a number of strategic errors. One important factor was surely that
Warren started backing away from Medicare-for-all, selling instead a bizarre two-step plan.
The idea supposedly was to pass universal Medicare with two different bills, one in her
first year as president and one in the third year. Given how difficult it is to pass anything
through Congress, and that there could easily be fewer Democrats in 2023 than in 2021, it was a
baffling decision. Worse, Warren then released a plan for financing Medicare-for-all that was
simply terrible.
Rather than levying a new progressive tax, she would turn existing employer contributions to
private health insurance plans into a tax on employers, which would gradually converge to an
average for all businesses but the smallest. The clear objective here was to claim that she
would pay for it without levying any new taxes on the middle or working classes. But because
those employer payments are still part of labor compensation, it is ultimately workers who pay
them -- making Warren's plan a horribly regressive head tax (that is, an equal dollar tax on
almost all workers regardless of income).
All that infuriated the left, and struck directly at Warren's branding as the candidate of
technical competence. It suggested her commitment to universal Medicare was not as strong as
she claimed, and that she would push classic centrist-style Rube Goldberg policies rather than
clean, fair ones. (Her child care plan, with its complicated means-testing system, had a
similar defect).
Claiming her plan was the only one not to raise taxes on the middle class was simply
dishonest. In sum, this was a classic failed straddle that alienated the left but gained no
support among anti-universal health care voters. More speculatively, this kind of hesitation
and backtracking may have turned off many voters." • On #MedicareForAll, called it here on
"pay for" ; and here on "transition." Warren's plans should not have been well-received,
and they were not. I'm only amazed that these really technical arguments penetrated the media
(let along the voters).
Warren (D)(2): "Warren Urged by National Organization for Women Not to Endorse Sanders: He
Has 'Done Next to Nothing for Women'" [
Newsweek ]. • Establishment really pulling out all the stops.
* * *
"Why Southern Democrats Saved Biden" [Mara Gay, New York
Times ]. (Gay was the lone member of the Times Editorial Board to endorse Sanders
.) "Through Southern eyes, this election is not about policy or personality. It's about
something much darker. Not long ago, these Americans lived under violent, anti-democratic
governments. Now, many there say they see in President Trump and his supporters the same
hostility and zeal for authoritarianism that marked life under Jim Crow .
They were deeply skeptical that a democratic socialist like Mr. Sanders could unseat Mr.
Trump. They liked Ms. Warren, but, burned by Hillary Clinton's loss, were worried that too many
of their fellow Americans wouldn't vote for a woman."
Well worth a read. At the same time, it's not clear why the Democrat Establishment hands
control over the nomination to the political establishment in states they will never win in the
general; the "firewall" in 2016 didn't work out all that well, after all. As for Jim Crow, we
might do well to remember that Obama destroyed a generation of Black wealth his miserably
inadequate response to the foreclosure crisis, and his pathetic stimulus package kept Black
unemployment high for years longer than it should have been. And sowed the dragon's teeth of
authoritarian reaction as well.
"Corporate Lobbyists Control the Rules at the DNC" [ ReadSludge
]. "Among the 447 total voting DNC members, who make up the majority of 771 superdelegates,
there are scores of corporate lobbyists and consultants -- including many of the 75 at-large
DNC members, who were not individually elected .
The 32-member DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee contains the following 20 individuals: a
health insurance board member co-chair, three surrogates for presidential campaigns (two for
Bloomberg, one for Biden), four current corporate lobbyists, two former corporate lobbyists,
six corporate consultants, and four corporate lawyers."
"Joe Biden is a friend of mine" is the 2020-updated version of "enough about the damn
e-mails, already". No amount of ground-level organizing can make up for a candidate willing to
publicly overlook what should be high-office-disqualifying fundamental character traits in his
opponents out of "niceness".
That's fine, but if his organization is then put at the disposal of Joe Biden, I don't see
how the organization survives. (That's why the DNC cheating meme* is important; it provides the
moral cover to get out of that loyalty oath (which the Sanders campaign certainly should have
had its lawyers take a look at)).
NOTE * Iowa, Texas, and California have all had major voting screw-ups, all of which
impacted Sanders voters disproportionately. The campaign should sue. They have the money.)
I once met an union organizer and he said he could go back to any site he had worked and be
on friendly terms with everyone. Bernie is thinking like an organizer. I think that making this
about Social Security is his best bet. It demolishes Biden in a way that makes the election
about the American people.
he needs to go after biden on the issues in a much more forceful manner than he typically
does, with lots and lots of specifics. did i mention lots of specifics? and lots of pointed
references to biden's past positions, and a focus on pinning him down on his position now. he
needs to ask questions biden will not be prepared for with easy scripted responses.
Perhaps if Sanders can keep successfully baiting Biden with hooks baited with Biden's own
past statements over and over and over again, that Sanders can then go on to practice some very
well disguised passive-aggressive pointing/not-pointing to Biden's mental condition by asking
Biden at every opportunity: " don't you remember that, Joe? You remember saying that, don't you
Joe? Don't you remember when you said that, Joe?"
Except 70% of Women according to Stanford finding these kind of confrontations distressing
to very distressing. Tricky. One changes emotions by using emotions so the trick here is
"allowing" Biden to act deranged and expressing sorrow over it. For 70% of guys they won't get
the emotional content, but will understand the logic of the questions and lack of answers. It
can be done, Bill Clinton and Obama were very good at this. Look you want to be president you
got to play the game at the highest level. Good practice for dealing with trump.
Timing was right for both Obama and Clinton. After the GFC voters would have gone for any
Democrat because Republicans were toxic. Similarly, it was fortuitous for Clinton because Perot
was running and he quit the race a couple of months before the election.
Obama got loads and loads of money from Wall Street. Neither of these guys would stand a
chance in an election year when the economy was doing well.
It's easy to do a post Super Tuesday defeat analysis of Sanders but remember, everything
seems to work before SC where I think the Democrats fixed the election and the same holds for
Super Tuesday.
I didn't see anyone pointing out that Bernie had to be confrontational when he seems to be
winning.
Wait. How many days ago was the field of candidates wide open?
If Bernard does not roast Biden on Social Security I will be disappointed. If Smokin' Joe
doesn't lash out with his typical aplomb, I'll be disappointed. I'm saving myself up
for bigger disappointments.
I'll be happy with the Vermont interpretation of Huey Long. I'm glad that people are finally
noticing we have one Socialist Senator.
Idea for an 'own the slur' bumper sticker: "I'm tickled pink by Bernie" -- Although I don't
know how the post-dial-up-modem crowd might misinterpret that?
I support Bernie because Bernie supports the polices I think we need to save the country:
M4A, GND,$15/hr min, free college, etc. To me, being an FDR Dem like Bernie is the moderate
position, we've done it before, we know it works. Biden's support of neoliberal polices that
have wrecked America is the extreme position.
But the DNC does not support FDR's Democracy. They have ended up to the right of Ronald
Reagan. Pelosi could have pushed a M4A bill but did not. Pelosi could have pushed any number of
polices to show how Trump is failing the working and middle class, but she did not.
So if Bernie is not picked for the general, I no longer have a reason to support the Dems,
and will stay home. Actually, I will probably not stay home, I will work to get Dems out of
office, and in general, work to burn the party to the ground. Why? Because it is in the way,
and does not support the working class or the middle class.
The Dem party has to decide – do they really support the working and middle class or
not. Because only Bernie supports those polices, and the rest of the Dems running for President
do not.
. In the spirit of charity, we should give credit where it's due: Warren really did become
the "
unity candidate " that she always proclaimed herself to be. She displayed an astounding
capacity to bring together a polarized country around their shared distaste for her
candidacy.
Compiling a complete discography of Warren's detractors would be an impossible feat, but for
the sake of partisan schadenfreude, we should briefly revisit the greatest hits. These include
the Native American tribal leaders who weren't particularly fond of a wealthy white Harvard
professor claiming their ethnicity for personal gain (even co-authoring a cooking guide titled
The Pow Wow Chow Native American Cookbook ), the Bernie Sanders supporters infuriated
by Warren's cynical attempts to paint their candidate as a woman-hating misogynist,
police unions offended by Warren's
open dishonesty about violence in law enforcement, religious conservatives who found her
contemptuous dismissal of anyone with traditionalist views of sexual morality to be in
profoundly bad taste, and pro-lifers (who still comprise
34 percent of the Democratic electorate ) for whom Warren's
radically pro-abortion policy objectives were unconscionable.
It's worth noting, of course, that this is just a small slice of the groups that found
Warren enormously unlikeable. The senator's casual-at-best relationship with the truth (
listing herself as as "woman of color" in Harvard's faculty listing,
claiming that she was fired from a teaching position for being pregnant,
refusing to admit that her various spending plans would require raising taxes on the middle
class, and so on) probably didn't help. And shockingly, her painfully contrived attempts at
catering to the woke activist base (vocal
support for reparations,
pledging to let a transgender child pick her secretary of education,
endorsing affirmative action for non-binary people) paired with her technocratically
manicured professorial wonkiness -- she's got a plan for that! -- never caught fire in the
blue-collar neighborhoods in the Midwest and South.
... ... ...
Senator Warren, we hardly knew ye.
Nate Hochman is an undergraduate student at Colorado College and a Young Voices
contributor. You can follow him at Twitter
@njhochman .
@Wally by not
dropping out and endorsing him b/f ST, after poor showing in the first 3 contests made it
clear she had no substantial and broad enough base.
My sense this morning is that Bernie might need her to get the nomination, and Biden might
need her as VP to win the election.
"... If you are holding out hope that Bernie can slay the dragon of the existing system at its belladonna roots, then be my guest. I see too many people spending their hope on Elizabeth Warren, which will only serve to suck power away from Bernie, who is the ONLY Democratic candidate movie that has the potential to actually INSPIRE voters, just as Trump does. Bernie deserves credit too for actually CHANGING the nature of the campaign conversation and who just MIGHT even begin to change it at the national level, assuming that time, tide and tyranny allow him four years safe passage to reach his pending retirement. ..."
"... In any case, after a year of endless media barrage, it is rather late now for the gods to intervene. All I would hope is that a few more of us can open our eyes to see past the silly "lesser of two evils" and "#votebluenomatterwho" memes, to the reality of how every one of these candidates serve as puppets to SOME specific mix of master control forces and thus make our choice in THAT more realistic light, rather than thinking that any of them offer "real" independent solutions or that any of their "heroic" feet are NOT already embedded knee, waist or neck-deep in the Big Muddy river of our dissolute illusions of Democracy. ..."
As people march off to the polls today to pick their
favorite political actor of the year, I hear precious few voices openly asking what seem to me
to be obvious questions, like WHO produced the movie that is their candidacy? Who directed it?
Who wrote the script? Who are the investors that will be expecting to see returns on their
investment, if their movie and their best actor should somehow win? And how far do the networks
of wealth, influence and control extend beyond those public faces inside the campaign? None of
these questions strike me as tangential; rather they are all essential.
Let's imagine for a moment that one of these actors can somehow out-thespian Trump once on
stage which is HIGHLY unlikely – even for folksy Bernie – UNLESS he can somehow win
himself 100% DNC buy-in and 24/7 mainstream "BLUE" media support. But assuming that he (or some
"brokered" candidate) wins, it will still be their production teams (along with their extended
networks) who will be making their presence felt on Day One of any new presidency. These are
the people who will be calling in the favors and calling the shots.
I recall how moved I was by Obama's 2008 election. I was buoyed with hope, because I did not
understand then what I understand now – that NO candidate can exist as an independent
entity, disconnected from the apparatus and networks that support and produce the narratives
that advance them and their agendas. I also recall the day that Obama entered the White House
and instantly handed the keys to the economy (and the recovery) back to Geithner, Summers and
Rubin – the same trio that had helped destroy it just a year earlier. And he did this at
the same moment he was filling his cabinet with the very people "suggested" in that famous
leaked letter from the CEO of Citibank. My hope departed in genie smoke at that moment, to be
followed by eight years of spineless smooth talk and wobbly action, except where the agendas of
Wall Street and pompous Empire were concerned.
Do you see how this works? The game is essentially rigged from the start by virtue of who is
allowed to enter the race, what can and what can't be said by them and by who the media is told
to shine their light on, and who to avoid. Candidates can, of course, say pretty much anything
they want (short of "Building 7, WTF!!" of course) in hopes it will spark a reaction that the
media can seize upon.
But just based on words, we know that NONE of these happy belief clowns will forcefully
oppose existing "Regime Change" plans for Venezuela, Bolivia and Syria. We know that NONE of
them will stand up to Israel – or to a Congress that is, almost to a person, in the
pocket of Israel. We know too that NONE of them will bring more than an angry flyswatter to the
battle with Wall Street or the corporations. We further know that NONE of them will do more
than make modest cuts to military spending or god forbid, call out the secret state's fiscally
unaccountable black budget operations, which by now reach into at least the 30 trillions.
Personally, I'm not FOR any candidate simply because I cannot UNSEE what it has taken me 12
years to get into focus; namely, how everyone of them are compromised by a SYSTEM that talks a
lot about FIXING what's broken, but which is simply INCAPABLE of delivering anything other than
what has been pre-ordained and decreed by the global order of oligarchs, which exists as the
"ghost in the machine" that ultimately controls every part of the political "STATE" – at
high, middle, low and especially at DEEP levels.
I will say in defense of Bernie that his production team early-on made the very unique
decision to crowd-source the campaign's costs. That was a PROFOUND decision, which has paid off
for him and which may well buy him a certain level of lubricated control over what is to come,
even though the significance of that decision is not well appreciated because the DNC and the
MSM simply refuse to discuss it in any depth.
Warren was TRYING to play the populist "people's campaign" game too, until last week when
she must have been startled awake by the "Ghost of Reagan's Past" and decided to take the money
and run as a Hillary proxy which (big surprise) was what she was all along anyway.
Let me just say this about Joe Biden. From his initial announcement, I never felt he was in
his right mind. He seems rather to be teetering on the edge of senility and fast on his way
into dementia. Also, the man has openly sold his soul so many times in his career that we
shouldn't at this point expect any unbought (or even lucid) thought to ever again escape his
remarkably loose lips. Joe might have run with the old skool Dems when he was a big deal on the
Delaware streets, but now, like Bloomberg and Romney, he's just another Republican in a pricey
blue suit.
I understand how people are feeling stressed, obsessed and desperate to get rid of Donald
Trump. It's just that until we take a collective step back and see things at the level from
which they actually operate and NOT at the level from which we are TOLD they operate, then we
will never be successful in turning our public discourse around or in beginning to identify and
eliminate the fascist and anti-human agendas that we associate with Trump, but which actually
lie behind the subservient to power policies and preferences of BOTH parties.
If you are holding out hope that Bernie can slay the dragon of the existing system at
its belladonna roots, then be my guest. I see too many people spending their hope on Elizabeth
Warren, which will only serve to suck power away from Bernie, who is the ONLY Democratic
candidate movie that has the potential to actually INSPIRE voters, just as Trump does. Bernie
deserves credit too for actually CHANGING the nature of the campaign conversation and who just
MIGHT even begin to change it at the national level, assuming that time, tide and tyranny allow
him four years safe passage to reach his pending retirement.
In any case, after a year of endless media barrage, it is rather late now for the gods
to intervene. All I would hope is that a few more of us can open our eyes to see past the silly
"lesser of two evils" and "#votebluenomatterwho" memes, to the reality of how every one of
these candidates serve as puppets to SOME specific mix of master control forces and thus make
our choice in THAT more realistic light, rather than thinking that any of them offer "real"
independent solutions or that any of their "heroic" feet are NOT already embedded knee, waist
or neck-deep in the Big Muddy river of our dissolute illusions of Democracy.
– Yet Another Useful Idiot.
Mark Petrakis is a long-time theater, event and media producer based in San Francisco. He first
broke molds with his Cobra Lounge vaudeville shows of the 90's, hosted by his alter-ego,
Spoonman. Concurrently, he took to tech when the scent was still utopian, building the first
official websites for Burning Man, the Residents and multiple other local arts groups of the
era. He worked as a consultant to a variety of corps and orgs, including 10 years with the
Institute for the Future. He is co-founder of both long-running Anon Salon monthly gatherings
and Sea of Dream NYE spectacles. Read other articles by Mark .
Former DNC chairman who gave Hillary Clinton debate questions in advance during the 2016
election, exclaimed on Fox News that Biden's victory was "the most impressive 72 hours
I've ever seen in U.S. politics," and told another analyst to "
go to hell " for suggesting that the Democratic establishment was once again working to
manipulate a nominee into frontrunner status.
The Democrats are in chaos and melting down on live TV.
Donna Brazile just told the @GOPChairwoman to "go to hell"
when asked about the chaos.
... Although it cannot be assumed that all her voters would have gravitated to Sanders,
certainly some would have, and with an extra ten points Bernie would have won some states he
lost. If she departs after coming in third in her home state, that will help Sanders going
forward.
Sanders performed well below the polling. Polls had him competitive in Virginia, where he
was crushed by Biden. Polls showed him winning Texas, whereas that turned into a close
race.
Cant Stop the M... on Wed,
03/04/2020 - 8:28am We base our entire politics on the idea that we're living in a
meritocracy. In other words, like the knights of old at a joust, we find out who is best
through competition, a competition assumed to be both fair and honest. In the old days, the
joust was assumed to be fair and honest because God was both omnipotent and just and therefore,
obviously, would not allow a bad man to win. Nowadays, even most of us who believe in God don't
believe that God controls the outcome of competitions in that way. Yet the assumption of a fair
and honest competition persists, despite blatant evidence to the contrary.
In the case of U.S. elections, it is assumed, not that the will of God controls the outcome
of competitions, but that the will of the people does. Voter suppression and election fraud are
hand-waved away on the dubious grounds that any candidate strong enough could overcome such
things. Or maybe the people are to blame. The supporters of the defeated candidate must not
have worked hard enough, or maybe the people generally are to blame for not voting in large
enough numbers. Those who challenge any of these assumptions are defeated, either by
institutional inertia or by gaslighting.
Nothing happens, so nothing happened
Here's what I mean by institutional inertia.
In 2000, there was ample evidence that George W. Bush had committed fraud in the
presidential election, with the help of his brother, the governor of Florida. In 2004, there
was ample evidence that George W. Bush had committed fraud once again, famously in Ohio, and
less famously in Florida for a second time. However, in the first case, Gore stopped fighting
after an obviously partisan and corrupt Supreme Court decision, and not a single member of the
U.S. Senate was willing to help the Congressional Black Caucus challenge the election. In the
second case, Kerry refused to challenge the election in Congress, and the legal case he brought
about election fraud, after the fact, did not even make it to the Supreme Court.
In 2016, when New Yorkers brought a case that there had been election fraud and voter
suppression in the Democratic primaries, the case was thrown out on the grounds that each
county in New York had to file such cases separately, and, by then, the election would be over.
Pleas to delay the vote count, or to delay declaring a winner, until the voting rights of the
people could be secured, were brushed aside. Much later, when a civil lawsuit was brought
against the DNC, the case was once again thrown out for lack of standing, but not before the
DNC lawyers had defended their client on the grounds that the DNC didn't have to provide a fair
competition, or any competition at all, really, and certainly didn't have to care what the
people thought.
The effect of this institutional inertia is not simply that cheaters win the day, or that
the people, whose will is being suppressed, lose morale and give up. The complaint itself
begins to fade from people's minds. People begin to make excuses for what happened, to justify
it, to act as if there never were cheating to begin with. Even many of those who dissent find
that, over time, the injustice they remember mellows: no less a person than Jimmy Dore, hardly
a weak-minded hack for the establishment, talks now about Gore's "loss" in 2000 as an evil
caused by the electoral college. While the electoral college is obviously a tool for elites to
control American politics (and never has that been so obvious as over the past two election
cycles), such a narrative ignores and erases the police checkpoints that were set up in 2000
near predominantly African American polling places in Leon county, Florida. It ignores the
Republican Speaker of the House, Tom DeLay, sending Republican staffers to Dade County to break
up Miami's vote count by marching into the Supervisor of Elections office and screaming at the
top of their lungs so that no accurate count could take place. It ignores and erases the
digital Jim Crow that purged the voter lists of African American Democrats by claiming,
falsely, that they were felons. It ignores the fact that emails between the State of Florida
and the company that created the Jim Crow software revealed that the company had warned that
their software would draw too many false positives, and that the State of Florida had replied
"That's just what we want."
Similarly, the DNC's perfidy in 2016 has been reduced to the following: 1) that they had
pre-selected their candidate, and didn't provide a real or fair competition, 2) that they gave
debate questions ahead of time to Hillary Clinton, 3)that they used the electoral college, most
particularly superdelegates, to overwhelm the Sanders movement, and that 4) the party primaries
were often closed, not allowing independents the right to vote. Left out, or forgotten, are the
multiple polling places closed in states from Arizona to New York (in New York, sometimes even
the open polling places had no staff or broken machines), the media calling California for
Clinton before the votes were counted, the 136,000 voters purged off Brooklyn's voter rolls (no
doubt because Bernie Sanders was born and grew up in Brooklyn and that might have given him an
advantage there), and the much larger multi-state purge of the Democratic party through
changing people's voter registration without their knowledge and consent.
I'm not bringing this up to attack Jimmy Dore, who is one of the most reliable truth-tellers
in the media today, but rather to point out what people's minds do under the stress of watching
the establishment normalize corruption again and again. If there is no power to challenge
institutional corruption, most people, over time, make of the corruption something less unjust
and outrageous. Simply smothering objections to injustice with institutional inertia, will,
over time, allow the victors to erase the evidence of their crime.
Sore Loserman
Since we believe, with the faith of fanatics, that competition must be honest and fair, it's
easy to gaslight the losers (or the apparent losers). The Republicans in 2000 did not need to
disprove the fact that George W. Bush had committed fraud and contravened the will of the
people when he climbed up a staircase of disenfranchised Black faces to become President. All
the Republicans needed to do was issue tens of thousands of bumper stickers that replaced the
words "Gore/Lieberman" with "Sore Loserman." The RNC was using the same argument that was
bruited about in the 1980s about poverty and employment. Unemployed poor people had lost the
economic competition. Therefore, there must be something wrong with them. Maybe they weren't
educated enough, smart enough, clean enough, hard-working enough; maybe they were people of bad
character. Bloomberg's racial profiling worked much the same way. Black people are losers in
the judicial game because they commit more crimes. That's why we put more police in their
neighborhoods, because there are more criminals among young Black men than anywhere else.
Corruption can't bring down a meritorious man. If you're good, you'll win. If you complain
about cheating or any other form of injustice, you must be a Sore Loserman, attempting to cover
up your own inadequacies by whining.
It's pretty obvious that this way of thinking makes it literally impossible to stop even the
most outrageous injustice, as long as the perpetrators of that injustice have enough power to
spread their "Sore Loser" messaging far and wide. So if I commit identity theft today and
access one of your bank accounts, I can be brought to account. But if Wall St cheats
homeowners, there was probably something wrong with the homeowners, or with the government for
suggesting that those homeowners should get loans. If George W. Bush cheats in an election,
there was probably something wrong with the other candidate, or with the voters.
People tend to get upset when I bring this up, because they think that talking about the
corruption of the system will demoralize voters, making such discussions their own form of
voter suppression. But I bring this up because the worst damage that can come out of Bernie
Sanders losing contests in a highly compromised electoral process is that the idea of
meritocracy be preserved. There are valid reasons for voting even in a corrupted system (of the
"make 'em sweat" variety). There are valid reasons for not voting in a corrupted system. But
whatever a citizen chooses to do on Election Day, the idea of meritocracy must die.
Despite all the truly horrendous policies, from both the Democrats and the Republicans, that
have laid our society, our people, and the world to waste, the most poisonous effect of the
tyranny we live under is its fraudulence: its pretense of being a fair, accurate, and
reasonable expression of the will of the people. Even the Democrats' attacks on Trump, who is
supposed to be a Manchurian candidate placed in office by Russian intelligence operatives and
an existential threat to our democracy, have, in the past two years, increasingly focused on
the people who support Trump. It's the voters fault for supporting the bad man. So even when we
are supposedly in a situation of foreign powers changing the outcome of a presidential
election, it's still the people's fault. Why? Well, there was a competition, and somebody won,
so the person who won must be there by the will of the people. It has to be the
people's fault.
Corruption among the powerful isn't a thing.
System-wide corruption in all the various infrastructures of our country, especially the
political ones, isn't a thing.
Or, if it is, you just didn't do enough lifting at the political gym to be able to fend it
off.
I knew Elizabeth Warren when I was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. She was a
right-wing Reaganite. And the University of Pennsylvania had the most progressive law
school curriculum in the country. And this is Elizabeth Warren.
And I taught a first year class called income security. Elizabeth Warren said "there is
no more ridiculous idea than national healthcare". That's the Elizabeth Warren I knew. She
was in her 30s at this time.
She was the henchwoman of the right-wing takeover to destroy the left-wing curriculum. I
taught Worker's Rights, I taught the National Labor Rights Act, which doesn't exist
anymore, for the most part, it's not taught in any law school in the United States, I
taught Income Security, and I taught Jurisprudence. Elizabeth was against all those things.
I don't really know Elizabeth Warren personally, I just know her as a right-wing
Republican. And somehow or another, God came out of the heavens and turned her into a
Democrat, probably at the very moment that Derrick Bell stepped down from Harvard because
he would not work anymore until they hired an African-American woman.
Now she couldn't pretend she was Black, so she pretended she was African. She was Native
American. That's not what we call people who are Native Americans, because they're First
Nations people. Apaches and Cherokees were nations. There's no such thing as a Native
American. Elizabeth checked that box just as Derrick Bell was stepping down. She goes to
Massachusetts and she becomes a Democrat.
There is no more [of a] relentless, ruthless, nihilist that I have ever met in my entire
life. Not Elizabeth Warren. She's right up there with Donald Trump. So I can't really
support her. She did succeed in destroying that progressive curriculum. And that
progressive curriculum is, you know, it's one of those life things that you hold onto,
right? So I don't trust Elizabeth Warren as far as I can throw her.
She has no policy, she doesn't understand imperialism, and she has said she's a
capitalist. What she really is is a technocrat who clawed her way to Harvard. I mean,
that's where you want to end up, right? If you're a law professor, you want to be at
Harvard. Ok, she did that. She succeeded.
But as President of the United States I wouldn't even dream of supporting her. Because
Bernie Sanders, whatever you think of him, like me, was chaining himself to schools to
[de]segregate them. Was protesting against the Vietnam war. There are people who have held
onto values for a lifetime, and those, Slavoj, are the people I trust.
Presumably Sanders always has known about Warren's record (it's never been obscure for
anyone who took a few minutes to look; years ago when I focused on Wall Street and
participated at the econoblogs I always knew she was a fraud), yet he's always helped
propagate the fraud that she's some kind of "progressive". Same as he's always lied about
Russiagate (he certainly knows it's a lie).
So according to the party line, Sanders wanted Warren to run in 2016 and only ran himself
after she demurred. This can only mean he preferred for her to act as the sheepdog for
Hillary, since he certainly knew she was no "progressive".
The Democrat establishment came together and crushed Bernie Sanders, AGAIN! Even the fact
that Elizabeth Warren stayed in the race was devastating to Bernie and allowed Sleepy Joe to
unthinkably win Massachusetts. It was a perfect storm, with many good states remaining for
Joe!
20 minutes later, Trump tweeted that it was " So selfish for Elizabeth Warren to stay in the
race ," as she has "Zero chance of even coming close to winning, but hurts Bernie badly."
"So much for their wonderful liberal friendship. Will he ever speak to her again? She cost him
Massachusetts (and came in third), he shouldn't!"
So selfish for Elizabeth Warren to stay in the race. She has Zero chance of even coming
close to winning, but hurts Bernie badly. So much for their wonderful liberal friendship. Will
he ever speak to her again? She cost him Massachusetts (and came in third), he shouldn't!
Three hours later, Trump tweeted: " Wow! If Elizabeth Warren wasn't in the race, Bernie
Sanders would have EASILY won Massachusetts, Minnesota and Texas , not to mention various other
states. Our modern day Pocahontas won't go down in history as a winner, but she may very well go
down as the all time great SPOILER! "
Wow! If Elizabeth Warren wasn't in the race, Bernie Sanders would have EASILY won
Massachusetts, Minnesota and Texas, not to mention various other states. Our modern day
Pocahontas won't go down in history as a winner, but she may very well go down as the all time
great SPOILER!
Warren is a Reagan Republican. She was a Republican until she was 47 years old, which
means she lived through the Reagan years thinking 'this is fine'. She only switched in the
middle of the 1990s when the GOP had gone so far off the deep end that Clinton's center-right
New Democrats better represented her Reaganite views. She claims it was because of abuse by
banks, which doesn't make sense, since by that point it was the Democrats leading the charge
on bank deregulation.
She isn't a leftist, by any definition.
She built a reputation because of the very narrow range of finance issues she's
actually good on (the CFPB is the cornerstone of her entire progressive reputation). And in
this election she hasn't been a candidate of the left. She's run on the veneer that she is,
but like a snake she's been shedding that pretense over time, backing away from any and every
progressive policy position. Her base is white suburbanite professionals, especially women
who want to see one of their own be president.
The Warren-Sanders divide perfectly illustrates everything Marx ever wrote about the
dangers of Liberals. They aren't the Left's friend. When the revolution comes, they'll be the
first to be shot.
Benjamin: Ronald Reagan famously used to be a Democrat, lots of people forget that. He went
Republican in 1962.
Lots of people also don't know or realize how extremely likeable Reagan was as a person
when he was young, much more so for most people than Kennedy ever was or could ever be (the
Kennedy family was/is as nasty as any).
I got this link a few US election ago, Reagan was still a Democrat at this point in time:
"What's My Line -
Ronald Reagan (1953)" , it's only three and a half minutes long.
Elizabeth Warren really hurt Sanders tonight and she's getting no delegates cause her
percentages are under 15% (except in her own state that she's losing IN 3RD PLACE)! If she
had gotten out of the race Bernie would be sweeping everything for Progressives!
It's like Warren took a sledgehammer to the Progressive Movement and said: If I can't lead
it to the White House, then neither will YOU Bernie Sanders!
That's how selfish she was this week.
Thank goodness Sanders might still be able to get a majority, because BIDEN IS THE
TITANIC. Biden cannot be the Nominee, he's a walking disaster and Trump will crush him!
Thats a good one. The anunaki wouldn't even shit on Warren. The ancient south American
Indians would have found a fitting sacrifice for her type of lying, sleaze.
I have seen that
video and watch most of his posts as he has a sharp enquiring mind. Most importantly he is
comfortable to be challenged.
I discovered Robert Temple and the science of geopolymers
through one of his references.
I just can't be sympathetic with Bernie and his voters tonight. Remember how Bernie came out
to support Tulsi Gabbard when she was having such a hard time with the establishment? Neither
do I. Remember how Bernie's supporters made sure Bernie would speak the truth about
russiagate, or they weren't going to support him? Neither do I. Remember how Bernie made it
clear in every debate and every interview that the choice is endless war or medicare for all?
He didn't. Watching someone with a few leftist atoms in him being defeated in State after
State by a warmongering sociopath who belongs in a hospice with bars on the windows, is like
watching what he deserves.
People who casually tell you that Bernie is for the Empire--and not for the repair of
society-- are people trafficking in lies.
I encourage everyone to look at Bernie with a critical eye and decide for yourself.
Bernie has a history of deference to the Democratic Party and Democratic Party leaders.
All of whom are 100% pro-Empire.
'Nice guy' Bernie doesn't do anything that threatens the establishment. HE promises
revolutionary change - but that has NEVER come just from establishment Parties via the
ballot box. It has come from independent Movements.
When Bernie talks about Empire matters, he generally obfuscates or reinforces
pro-Empire narratives (like Russiagate's McCarthyism).
Anyone in political life for any length of time (like Bernie) must know that USA
is EMPIRE-FIRST. Empire priorities (military and intelligence focus; 'weaponized' liberalism;
neoliberal graft; dollar hegemony; Jihadis as a proxy army; etc.) dictate the limits of
domestic politics.
Bernie's quixotic insurgency was doomed to fail unless Bernie attacked the Democratic
Party's connection to Empire and use of identity politics to divide and conquer. Oh, and
Bernie would have to threaten to leave the Democratic Party -- but then would become the
independent Movement that Bernie and the Democratic Party have tried so hard to prevent!
For everyone puzzling over Warren's actions and intentions, this should help -- a lot.
Woke Wonk Elizabeth Warren's Foreign Policy Team is Stacked With Pro-War Swamp
Creatures
Alexander Rubinstein and Max Blumenthal – 2-26-20
"With her new list of foreign policy advisors, Warren unveiled a cast of pro-war think
tankers, Cold Warriors and corporate careerists united in support of the Beltway consensus.
So much for 'big, structural change'."
"... Biden and Warren are both enthusiastic supporters of neocon foreign policy which is in line with their phony support for the working class. What happened to Warren's glittering M4A plan? It turned back into a pumpkin didn't it? It was all smoke and mirrors. No surprise if you know her history. ..."
"... Imperial Borg Assimilation ..."
"... The Foreign Policy Establishment ..."
"... Warren is an establishment social climber. She took off the mask and her true colors shone through when she viciously attacked Bernie Sanders as a misogynist. Yet still many people surrounding the Sander's campaign support Warren. Why is that? Big money on the left supports her, that's why. That big money also pays a lot of salaries in the liberal political job market. Have you heard of the The Democracy Alliance ? ..."
"... Why do so many liberals or even progressives dislike Tulsi and are so eager to see her gone? Propaganda from the media. The media for a year has relentlessly promoted Red Baiting towards Tulsi because Tulsi challenges the "Washington Consensus" (unfettered elite rule over America and the world with an iron fist). ..."
"... Everyone in the pro-Israel lobby (myself included) is already talking about how to make sure that Tulsi Gabbard's campaign is over before it even gets off the ground -- If you're going to bet on a Dem candidate, look elsewhere. ..."
"... There are many reasons behind that. The main reason though is Tulsi trying to stop war. The Neocons and Saudis have been pushing American politicians, celebrities, media owners, think tanks, foundations and so on for years -- to destroy Syria. Supposedly because Syria is close allies with Iran. ..."
As I was checking the news earlier today
I noticed that the coronavirus had killed another top government official in Iran, bringing the total to 3. Or at
least the 3 they have released info on. There's a chance it's worse among the Iranian leadership but they don't
want to cause a panic. I checked the Twitterverse after that for my daily dose of madness and surprisingly kept
seeing people ask rhetorically:
Why is Tulsi Gabbard still in the
primary race?
Turns out that Amy "She Hulk" Klobuchar
had dropped out of the primary race apparently to suck up to Joe Biden for a VP slot. And so had Pete "Honestly
I'm Not Annoying" Buttigigieididisjjd. This of course should surprise no one since the threat of Bernie Sanders to
the financial criminal syndicates greasing the palms of practically all politicians and media to do their bidding
have seen the writing on the wall. They realize they need candidates to drop out in order to coalesce centrist
votes around one or two to stop what they perceive to be a huge problem for them in Bernie Sanders.
... ... ...
Biden and Warren are both enthusiastic
supporters of neocon foreign policy which is in line with their phony support for the working class. What happened
to Warren's glittering M4A plan? It turned back into a pumpkin didn't it? It was all smoke and mirrors. No
surprise if you know her history.
Did you see her on Pod Save America regaling us with how much she believes in
crippling countries by sanctions if they dare to resist the racist
Imperial Borg Assimilation
Machine
aka
The Foreign Policy Establishment
?
That doesn't sound woke to me Miss Thang
.
Warren is an establishment social
climber. She took off the mask and her true colors shone through when she viciously attacked Bernie Sanders as a
misogynist. Yet still many people surrounding the Sander's campaign support Warren. Why is that? Big money on the
left supports her, that's why. That big money also pays a lot of salaries in the liberal political job market.
Have you heard of the
The Democracy Alliance
?
The Democracy Alliance is a
semi-anonymous donor network funded primarily by none other than Democratic mega-donor George Soros. Since its
inception in 2005, it is estimated the Alliance has injected over $500 million to Democratic causes. While it
isn't typical that they would endorse a candidate outright, they focus more on formulating a catalog of
organizations and PACs that they recommend the network of about 100 or so millionaires and billionaires invest
in. Democracy Alliance almost literally have their hands in every major left-leaning institution you have (and
haven't) heard of -- John Podesta and Neera Tanden's Center for American Progress, David Brock's Media Matters,
Center for Popular Democracy, Demos (we'll come back to this one), and the Working Families Party. All of these
organizations are listed on the Alliance's website as recommended investments for it's members; and invest they
do. Here's the rub: Democracy Alliance's membership isn't made entirely public -- but we know enough that alot
of the people that have sat in the highest levels of that organization have an affinity for Elizabeth Warren.
... ... ...
Why do so many liberals or even
progressives dislike Tulsi and are so eager to see her gone? Propaganda from the media. The media for a year has
relentlessly promoted Red Baiting towards Tulsi because Tulsi challenges the "Washington Consensus" (unfettered
elite rule over America and the world with an iron fist).
That is why we got this from Jacob Wohl
after Tulsi declared her candidacy last year:
Everyone in the pro-Israel lobby
(myself included) is already talking about how to make sure that Tulsi Gabbard's campaign is over before it
even gets off the ground -- If you're going to bet on a Dem candidate, look elsewhere.
There are many reasons behind that. The
main reason though is Tulsi trying to stop war. The Neocons and Saudis have been pushing American politicians,
celebrities, media owners, think tanks, foundations and so on for years -- to destroy Syria. Supposedly because
Syria is close allies with Iran.
But they are not the only ones who want
Syria destroyed. Other reasons may have to do with massive profits at stake. A natural gas survey team from Norway
some years ago discovered that Syria has the largest
untapped deposits of natural gas in the world
. After that secret discovery became known by various powerful
people
plans were drawn up to split
up the profits after the destruction of the Syrian government. But after Syria
asked Russia for help that changed their plans.
She is not having our country
become a plaything for rich a-holes who use the lives and limbs of service members for their greedy
scams. Because of that the idle rich sociopaths ruling America with their political and media henchmen
went after Tulsi with a full barrage of lies
, media blackouts, and massive amounts of propaganda --
all to stop her message from getting out so they can create a false image of her in people's minds.
Everything and anything they can throw at her, they do.
There are two politicians whom
they fear. Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard. Which is why Bernie Sanders has unsurprisingly been trying
to stay out of the foreign policy debate, or he even goes along with the establishment for the most part.
He saw what they unleashed against Tulsi. He knows from long experience that propaganda works on a lot of
people. The financial elites are not naive though, they probably believe he is going along with their
ridiculous foreign policy as a political strategy -- until he gains more power. They fear that if he gains
that power he will, like Tulsi, not go along with their imperial stormtrooper agenda.
No matter who comes away with the nomination, it has to be asked "was any of this process
legitimate?". We know from a plethora of examples that US elections are not fair. They border
on meaningless most of the time. The DNC's doubly so, having argued in court they have no duty
to be fair.
Any result, then, you could safely assume was contrived, for one reason or another.
If the Buttigieg-Klobuchar-Biden gambit works, we end up with Trump vs. Biden. And,
realistically, that means a second Trump term.
Biden is possibly senile and definitely creepy . Watching him shuffle and stutter
through a Presidential campaign would be almost cruel.
Politically, he has all of Hillary's weaknesses, being a big-time establishment type with a
pro-war record, without even the "I have a vagina" card to play.
He'll get massacred.
Is that the plan?
There's more than enough signs that Trump has abandoned all the policies that made him any
kind of threat to the political establishment. Four years on: no wars ended, no walls built, no
swamp drained. Just more of the same. He's an idiot who talked big and got co-opted. It
happens.
The Senate and other institutions might talk about Trump being a criminal or an idiot or a
"Nazi", but the reality is he's barely perceptibly different from any other POTUS this side of
JFK.
#TheResistance was a puppet show. A weak game played for toy money. When it really counts,
they're all in it together. Biden getting on the ticket would be a public admittance of that.
It would mean the DNC is effectively throwing the fight. Trump is a son of a bitch, but he's
their son of a bitch. And that's much better than even the idea of President
Bernie.
Does it really matter?
Empire of kaos will never move one inch to change the status quo.
The quaisi fascist state that most western /antlantacist nations have become it will make no
difference
Gianbattista Vico"Their will always be an elite class" Punto e basta.
Name me one politico that made any difference to we the sheeple in the modern era.
If someone were to mention FDR I will scream.
Aldo Moro got murdered by the deep state for only suggesting to make a pact with Berlinguer
the head of Il Partito Communista Italiano.
"... not only did Warren botch the rollout, her plans were bad, and were seen as bad. ..."
"... "Elizabeth Warren cries and tries to regain ground with voters" [Joan Vennochi, Boston Globe ]. The deck: "Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders, her ideological soulmate, rolls along, tears-free." Ouch. ..."
"... IMO it was her later waffling, insincerity, and backtracking on M4A that caused progressives to realize not only that she was not committed to solving the most important issue identified by Dem voters, but that she may not have a fire in her belly to address the nation's other urgent crises and would likely accommodate to powerful interests in Obama-esque fashion. ..."
"... Trump as the not-Democrat has such an edge among the disaffected who are still angry enough to vote ..."
"... I think that I can answer that. Jimmy Dore put out a 5-minute video showing her in action. A protestor heckled her in front of a meeting and she went into deer-in-spotlight mode and shut down. In the end she had to be rescued by Ayanna Pressley and I was thinking – "She really wants to debate Trump? Will she shut down then too?". (Some language) ..."
Warren (D)(1): "What is happening with Elizabeth Warren?" [Chris Cilizza,
CNN ].
"Less than two months ago, it looked as though Elizabeth Warren might just run away with the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination
. Then that Warren wave hit a wall. Starting right around mid-October, Warren's numbers not only stopped moving upward but also
began trending down
Add it all up and there's plenty of reason to believe that Warren's full-fledged support for Medicare for All -- coupled with
her less-than-successful attempts to defend that position in the last two debates -- led to her current reduced status in the
race."
If this were true, Sanders should drop as well. I think Cilizza should give consideration to the idea that not only did Warren
botch the rollout, her plans were bad, and were seen as bad.
"Elizabeth Warren cries and tries to regain ground with voters" [Joan Vennochi,
Boston Globe ]. The deck: "Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders, her ideological soulmate, rolls along, tears-free." Ouch.
More: "According to the Des Moines Register, "after a long pause and with tears in her eyes, the senator from Massachusetts said
'yeah,' before telling the story of the divorce from her first husband," and how painful it was to tell her mother that her marriage
was over.
To showcase the significance of the encounter, Warren tweeted out a clip."
Dead Lord. You don't tweet out your own tears to show sincerity. Have somebody else do it! Isn't anybody on her staff protecting
her?
I think Cilizza should give consideration to the idea that not only did Warren botch the rollout, her plans were bad,
and were seen as bad.
The establishment is trying mightily to salvage something useful from Warren's surprisingly rapid decline in the polls, constantly
pushing the refrain that M4A was somehow the kiss of death for her.
In fact, she rose to prominence by riding on Sanders policies like Medicare for All, canceling student debt, and free
college. "I'm with Bernie" was her frequent reply on several policy issues, and she co-sponsored Sanders' Medicare for All Senate
bill to great effect on her own "progressive" cred.
IMO it was her later waffling, insincerity, and backtracking on M4A that caused progressives to realize not only that she
was not committed to solving the most important issue identified by Dem voters, but that she may not have a fire in her belly
to address the nation's other urgent crises and would likely accommodate to powerful interests in Obama-esque fashion.
Six years wait for the ACA to piss almost everyone off.
Trump as the not-Democrat has such an edge among the disaffected who are still angry enough to vote. Especially since
the whole and only DNC message will be 'you can't possibly vote for Trump!!!'
I think that I can answer that. Jimmy Dore put out a 5-minute video showing her in action. A protestor heckled her in front
of a meeting and she went into deer-in-spotlight mode and shut down. In the end she had to be rescued by Ayanna Pressley and I
was thinking – "She really wants to debate Trump? Will she shut down then too?". (Some language)
So the person who saves Syria from occupation by IGIL is a terrorist ? Just a few years ago, CNN praised #Iran 's Qassem #Soleimani for defeating
ISIS.
Just a few years ago, CNN was praising Qassem
#Soleimani for being
the driving force behind the defeat of ISIS. Today they call him a "terrorist" and expect
you to believe them.
Don't think America is going to Vote in Someone who Defrauded Others with Claims of being
Part Native American.
Maybe Bloomberg may have been Out of Line a few times. A "Horse Faced Lesbian" - what if
it were an accurate description? A "Fat Drunkard" - to someone who is correctly described -
is it really that offensive?
If it were said in an inappropriate context - say for job interviews - we can see the
error; but reading about Warren calling an Male Actor as "Eye Candy" puts her brand of Sexist
Comments in the same Boat.
What was Fauxahontas' Native American Name, anyway?
"Doesn't like Horses"?
Bloomberg is revealed as having said in public that all the disposable income of the poor
should be taxed away so that they will not have funds with which to do mischief like buying
fast food or sugary drinks.
Bloomberg described Sanders as a Communist who cannot be elected. In this he was
correct.
Bloomberg was described by Warren as a cold-hearted and insulting man who openly scorns
women, gays and minorities.
Mayor Pete mocked Klobuchar for her inability to remember the name of the president of
Mexico. She asked if he was calling her "stupid."
These six dwarves will probably persist in their quest for the brass ring all the way to the
convention. In the mayhem there, the "winner" will probably have to choose one of the "losers"
to be his VP running mate.
The media is cheering wildly for Warren and saying that she won the debate, but I found her
to be utterly repugnant. She comes across, to me, as even more shrill, harsh, angry and
unlikeable than Clinton did at her worst.
Hill.TV host Krystal
Ball said Sen. Elizabeth Warren 's (D-Mass.) "campaign was
lost long before this election cycle."
Ball pointed to Warren's "decision not to run in 2016 - she sat out the most critical
election of our lifetime even though she knew better than I did the flaws of Hillary Clinton " Ball then slammed
Warren's decision to not endorse Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in 2016 noting "when her
supposed friend and ally Bernie Sanders, who allegedly shares her politics and was fighting for
the same values she had staked her career on got into the race and started sky-rocketing in the
polls challenging Hillary for the lead, rather than making the movement choice and backing the
progressive, she sat it out."
Ball claims Warren's "attempts to co-opt revolutionary rhetoric in service of an
establishment campaign, like Disney doing socialism, satisfied no one and left her unable to
win more than 1 county and Iowa and an embarrassing distant fourth behind Klobuchar in New
Hampshire."
Click on the video above to catch Ball's full remarks.
The 2020 presidential race was always going to be an uphill battle for Elizabeth
Warren.
Almost from the get-go, political pundits fretted about Warren's electability, setting in
motion a self-fulfilling prophecy now reflected in the
New Hampshire primary results . Warren's disappointing showing on Tuesday comes on the
heels of a stirring debate performance and a strong third place finish in the Iowa caucuses
-- two wins largely ignored by mainstream media commentators, who focused almost entirely on
Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg, with a spare thought for Amy Klobuchar's rise and Joe
Biden's descent.
Defeating Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election is priority number one for the
Democratic establishment, and a moderate candidate with the potential to sway swing voters
and Republican defectors has long been billed as the wisest course. But by constructing a
dichotomy between the self-described revolutionary leader Sanders and the aggressively
non-threatening trifecta of moderate candidates (not to mention Bloomberg, who is suddenly
the darling of cable news), the networks and pundits with the greatest persuasive power have
ignored and undercut Warren's unique potential to unite the progressive left and hesitant
center.
Warren seems to have unfairly inherited some of the hallmarks of Hillary Clinton's
reputation. Clinton's devastating 2016 upset sparked practical questions as to whether a
woman could win the presidency at all. And Warren's false claim to Native American heritage
sealed a reputation for untrustworthiness that has stuck long after that conversation faded
away. If Clinton, with all of her name recognition and experience, couldn't win against
Trump, what hope could there be for the woman widely considered her successor?
Warren's progressive policies and folksy demeanor also framed her for many as a sort of
second-tier Sanders, not far enough left for the progressives and too far left for gun-shy
moderates. But it is precisely this position that makes her the most electable
candidate.
Warren and Sanders are mostly aligned on their signature issues, but how they present
these issues is entirely different, as are their proposed paths to achieve them. Sanders does
not shy away from the word "socialist." He declares outright that his Medicare-for-All plan
will raise taxes. He says billionaires should not exist. These declarations and convictions
are brave and they are admirable. But they also inspire commentators like
Chris Matthews to worry on-air that a Sanders administration will begin executing the
wealthy in Central Park, French revolution style.
Warren takes a more measured approach in selling her policies, focusing on how she'll
achieve them rather than the eventual outcome. She doesn't say billionaires should not exist,
she proposes a wealth tax. Warren doesn't say "socialist," choosing instead to present the
economic and social advantages to her plans without the label. The other key difference
between Sanders and Warren is that, while Sanders has identified as far left for his entire
political career,
Warren was a committed Republican long before she became a progressive Democrat. As other
commentators have noted , this
history might not earn her many points with committed leftists, but it does put her in a
unique position to appeal to the moderates and Republicans that candidates like Buttigieg and
Klobuchar are trying to court. After all, she used to be one of them. And perhaps most
importantly,
polls continue to show Warren performing just as well as those candidates, if not better,
in hypothetical general election matchups against Trump.
Yet the mainstream media seems determined to undermine her viability.
Sanders and Buttigieg finished neck and neck in the Iowa Caucuses (whose dubious import is
a conversation for another day), with Warren close behind in third. As the dust around the
disastrous vote-counting began to settle, the media centered the conversation on Sanders,
Buttigieg, and Biden. For example, this headline from The Washington Post reads: "Buttigieg and Sanders take lead, Biden fades in
partial results from marred Iowa caucuses," ignoring Warren's close third place finish
entirely in favor of Biden's fourth.
During Friday's Democratic debate, many critics noted the
relatively short speaking time given to Warren in comparison with her white male
competitors. Afterwards, coverage again focused on Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Biden, and Sanders,
despite Warren having the highlight of the night, when she responded to
Buttigieg's embarrassing stumble on a question about race.
Former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg seemed perfect, a man who defended the
principle of wine-based fundraisers with military effrontery. New York magazine made his case
in a cover story the magazine's Twitter account summarized as:
"Perhaps all the Democrats need to win the presidency is a Rust Belt millennial who's gay
and speaks Norwegian."
(The "Here's something random the Democrats need to beat Trump" story became an important
literary genre in 2019-2020, the high point being Politico's "Can the "F-bomb save Beto?").
Buttigieg had momentum. The flameout of Biden was expected to help the ex-McKinsey
consultant with "moderates." Reporters dug Pete; he's been willing to be photographed holding a
beer and wearing a bomber jacket, and in Iowa demonstrated what pundits call a "killer
instinct," i.e. a willingness to do anything to win.
Days before the caucus, a Buttigieg supporter claimed Pete's name had not been read out in a
Des Moines Register poll, leading to the pulling of what NBC called the "gold standard" survey.
The irony of such a relatively minor potential error holding up a headline would soon be laid
bare.
However, Pete's numbers with black voters (he polls at zero in many states) led to multiple
news stories in the last weekend before the caucus about "concern" that Buttigieg would not be
able to win.
Who, then? Elizabeth Warren was cratering in polls and seemed to be shifting strategy on a
daily basis. In Iowa, she attacked "billionaires" in one stop, emphasized "unity" in the next,
and stressed identity at other times (she came onstage variously that weekend to Dolly Parton's
"9 to 5" or to chants of "It's time for a woman in the White House"). Was she an outsider or an
insider? A screwer, or a screwee? Whose side was she on?
A late controversy involving a story that Sanders had told Warren a woman couldn't win
didn't help. Jaimee Warbasse planned to caucus with Warren, but the Warren/Sanders "hot mic"
story of the two candidates arguing after a January debate was a bridge too far. She spoke of
being frustrated, along with friends, at the inability to find anyone she could to trust to
take on Trump.
"It's like we all have PTSD from 2016," she said. "There has to be somebody."
... ... ...
What happened over the five days after the caucus was a mind-boggling display of
fecklessness and ineptitude. Delay after inexplicable delay halted the process, to the point
where it began to feel like the caucus had not really taken place. Results were released in
chunks, turning what should have been a single news story into many, often with Buttigieg "in
the lead."
The delays and errors cut in many directions, not just against Sanders. Buttigieg,
objectively, performed above poll expectations, and might have gotten more momentum even with a
close, clear loss, but because of the fiasco he ended up hashtagged as #MayorCheat and lumped
in headlines tied to what the Daily Beast called a "Clusterfuck."
Though Sanders won the popular vote by a fair margin, both in terms of initial preference
(6,000 votes) and final preference (2,000), Mayor Pete's lead for most of the week with "state
delegate equivalents" -- the number used to calculate how many national delegates are sent to
the Democratic convention -- made him the technical winner in the eyes of most. By the end of
the week, however, Sanders had regained so much ground, to within 1.5 state delegate
equivalents, that news organizations like the AP were despairing at calling a winner.
This wasn't necessarily incorrect. The awarding of delegates in a state like Iowa is
inherently somewhat random. If there's a tie in votes in a district awarding five delegates, a
preposterous system of coin flips is used to break the odd number. The geographical calculation
for state delegate equivalents is also uneven, weighted toward the rural. A wide popular-vote
winner can surely lose.
But the storylines of caucus week sure looked terrible for the people who ran the vote. The
results released early favored Buttigieg, while Sanders-heavy districts came out later. There
were massive, obvious errors. Over 2,000 votes that should have gone to Sanders and Warren went
to Deval Patrick and Tom Steyer in one case the Iowa Democrats termed a "minor error." In
multiple other districts (Des Moines 14 for example), the "delegate equivalents" appeared to be
calculated incorrectly, in ways that punished all the candidates, not just Sanders. By the end
of the week, even the New York Times was saying the caucus was plagued with "inconsistencies
and errors."
Emily Connor, a Sanders precinct captain in Boone County, spent much of the week checking
results, waiting for her Bernie-heavy district to be recorded. It took a while. By the end of
the week, she was fatalistic.
"If you're a millennial, you basically grew up in an era where popular votes are stolen,"
she said.
"The system is riddled with loopholes."
Others felt the party was in denial about how bad the caucus night looked.
"They're kind of brainwashed," said Joe Grabinski, who caucused in West Des Moines.
"They think they're on the side of the right they'll do anything to save their
careers.
An example of how screwed up the process was from the start involved a new twist on the
process, the so-called "Presidential Preference Cards."
In 2020, caucus-goers were handed index cards that seemed simple enough. On side one, marked
with a big "1," caucus-goers were asked to write in their initial preference. Side 2, with a
"2," was meant to be where you wrote in who you ended up supporting, if your first choice was
not viable.
The "PPCs" were supposedly there to "ensure a recount is possible," as the Polk County
Democrats put it. But caucus-goers didn't understand the cards.
Morgan Baethke, who volunteered at Indianola 4, watched as older caucus-goers struggled.
Some began filling out both sides as soon as they were given them.
Therefore, Baethke says, if they do a recount, "the first preference should be accurate."
However, "the second preference will be impossible to recreate with any certainty."
This is a problem, because by the end of the week, DNC chair Tom Perez -- a triple-talking
neurotic who is fast becoming the poster child for everything progressives hate about modern
Dems -- called for an "immediate recanvass." He changed his mind after ten hours and said he
only wanted "surgical" reanalysis of problematic districts.
No matter what result emerges, it's likely many individual voters will not trust it. Between
comical videos of apparently gamed coin-flips and the pooh-poohing reaction of party officials
and pundits (a common theme was that "toxic conspiracy theories" about Iowa were the work of
the Trumpian right and/or Russian bots), the overall impression was a clown show performance by
a political establishment too bored to worry about the appearance of impartiality.
"Is it incompetence or corruption? That's the big question," asked Storey.
The very same night Elizabeth Warren's big message is "I don't take billionaires' money!"
Liz has the political instincts of Hilary Clinton. Trump will crush her. pic.twitter.com/cM85kcPYUn
The very same night Elizabeth Warren's big message is "I don't take billionaires'
money!" Liz has the political instincts of Hilary Clinton. Trump will crush her. pic.twitter.com/cM85kcPYUn
"... Sanders and Warren have set themselves apart from the field in having the most credible foreign policy visions and the strongest commitments to bringing our many unnecessary wars to an end. Biden remains wedded to too many outdated and unworkable policies, and just on foreign policy alone Bloomberg is running in the wrong party's primary. Buttigieg is the least formally qualified top presidential candidate on the Democratic side, and his inability or unwillingness to answer most of these questions shows that. If the moderators bother to ask them about foreign policy, the candidates will have another opportunity to address these issues in the debate tonight, and Buttigieg won't be able to get away with saying nothing. ..."
Most of the candidates' responses were predictable. Biden's North Korea policy would be
every bit as unrealistic as Trump's, but he shows even less willingness to negotiate.
Bloomberg's positions were unsurprisingly the most hawkish of the bunch. If there was an option
for using force, he was for it. All of the candidates were unfortunately in agreement with
defining Russia as an enemy.
One of the weirder questions asked the candidates whether they would consider using force to
"preempt" a nuclear or missile test by either Iran or North Korea. Only Yang and Warren said
no. It isn't clear how many of them were serious and how many were just making fun of the
absurdity of the question, but it is disturbing that most of the candidates asked about this
would entertain taking military action against another country because of a test. Maybe it
doesn't need to be said because it is so obvious, but using force to stop a nuclear or missile
test is not "preemption" in any sense of the term. A test is not an attack to be preempted, and
taking military action to prevent a test would be nothing less than an unprovoked, illegal act
of aggression. To her credit, Warren recognizes
how dangerous such an attack would be:
No. Using force against a nuclear power or high-risk adversary carries immense risk for
broader conflict. Using force when not necessary can be dangerously counterproductive. Again,
I will only use force if there is a vital national security interest at risk, a strategy with
clear and achievable objectives, and an understanding and acceptance of the long-term
costs.
In general, Warren's answers were the most substantive and careful. She not only answered
the questions that were put to her, but she gave some explanation of why she took that position
and why it was the appropriate thing to do. She correctly rejected Trump's regime change policy
in Venezuela, and acknowledged that "Trump's reckless actions have only further worsened the
suffering of the Venezuelan people." On North Korea, she remained open to continuing direct
talks with Kim Jong-un, but qualified that by saying, "I would be willing to meet with Kim if
it advances substantive negotiations, but not as a vanity project." Her negotiating position
was similarly reasonable: "A pragmatic approach to diplomacy requires give and take on both
sides, not demands that one side unilaterally disarm first." Both Warren and Sanders correctly
criticized Trump for the illegal assassination of Soleimani, and they recognized that the
president's escalation had put Americans at greater risk. When asked about taking military
action against Iran, Warren rejected the idea of a war with Iran and said the following:
I want to end America's wars in the Middle East, not start a new one with Iran. The litmus
test I will use for any military action against Iran is the same that I will use as I
consider any military action anywhere in the world. I will not send our troops into harm's
way unless there is a vital national security interest at risk, a strategy with clear and
achievable objectives, and an understanding and acceptance of the long-term costs. We will
hold ourselves to this by recommitting to a simple idea: the constitutional requirement that
Congress play a primary role in deciding to engage militarily.
The most revealing set of responses came from Pete Buttigieg in that he gave very few
responses and had remarkably little to say about his plans. He failed
to answer most of the questions he was asked. Of the 36 individual questions included in
the 11 sections, he answered only 17 by my count, and many of those were recycled clips from
previous speeches, interviews, and debate statements. Despite leaning heavily on his military
service in Afghanistan in his campaigning, he failed to answer all of the questions asked about
Afghanistan and the U.S. war there. Buttigieg's failure to respond to most of these questions
underscores the former mayor's lack of foreign policy experience and knowledge, and it shows
that after almost a year his campaign still doesn't have their foreign policy worked out.
Sanders and Warren have set themselves apart from the field in having the most credible
foreign policy visions and the strongest commitments to bringing our many unnecessary wars to
an end. Biden remains wedded to too many outdated and unworkable policies, and just on foreign
policy alone Bloomberg is running in the wrong party's primary. Buttigieg is the least formally
qualified top presidential candidate on the Democratic side, and his inability or unwillingness
to answer most of these questions shows that. If the moderators bother to ask them about
foreign policy, the candidates will have another opportunity to address these issues in the
debate tonight, and Buttigieg won't be able to get away with saying nothing.
I don't trust Warren on this, her flimsiness and pandering and propensity to outright lie
remind me too much of Romney (who speak of the devil got a backbone for once this week!).
Bernie is definitely the best bet for a softer foreign policy.
Warren is one of the most honest politicians. Check her Politifact file, she does far
better than even Bernie. Of course neither compares to Trump, his Politifact file is a
Pants on Fire dumpster fire.
The one thing, and it's only one thing, that causes you to say this is the controversy
over her ancestry. But I don't believe she lied, she was raised with the family lore that
she had native ancestry and she believed that family lore.
If I had a dollar for every white midwesterner who told me that they had Native ancenstry,
I wouldn't be typing comments on disqus, that's for sure. My personal internet comment
typer would be doing the typing for me as I dictated from my throne of mammon.
Im not even really disagreeing. Even if she was wrong, I find it wild that these attacks on
her are playing well in Trumpville, since white midwesterners (my people) falsely claiming
Native heritage is a most common genre.
My guess is that after South Carolina it will be Sanders vs. Bloomberg vs. one of the other
more mainstream Dems, either Mayor Pete, Warren (she's been tacking to the mainstream,
right on economics and "left" on wokeness) or Biden, in that order. A fall-off in funding
will knock everyone else out of the race (or a failure to move the voting needle if Steyer
is self-funding).
... Biden's fundraising has fallen off, and it is unlikely major donors are going to send
cash to a candidate who just ran fourth in Iowa and could run fourth or fifth in New
Hampshire.
...Klobuchar is now in the second tier in New Hampshire, behind Sanders and Buttigieg, but
right alongside Biden and Warren. A third-, fourth- or fifth-place finish would be near-fatal
for them all.
...As for Warren, in her battle with Sanders to emerge as the champion of the progressive
wing of the party, her third-place finish in Iowa, and her expected third-place finish in New
Hampshire, at best, would seem to settle that issue for this election.
Uncle Joe's presidential road show may be a bore and a bust, but the upcoming expose of Biden
& Son International, Inc. should provide a dumpster-load of drama and comedy all summer
long. I wonder how many special guest appearances there will be by the Kerrys, the Clintons,
the Obamas and other nice folks Joe knows from DC.
@anon
IMHO, Bloomberg is ... just one year younger than Bernie, so this is his final rodeo too.
...After the Iowa deep state operation, (it was NOT incompetence), it is clear that the
PTB will do anything, and I mean ANYTHING, to ensure that Socialist Sanders is not the
nominee. Remember, he already has a heart condition. Just sayin'.
The very part-time mayor of South Bend will soon be yesterday's news after South Carolina.
Unlike suburban whites, blacks have too much common sense to vote for a homosexual.
@follyofwar
If it ends up Bloomberg vs Trump what we've got in this country will have transmogrified
further from an oligarchy to a full blown aristocracy–certainly a
plutocracy–where only billionaires can afford to play king. That race won't be Dems vs
GOPers, as both gentlemen have posed as one before switching to the other for simple
expedience. Who will be the veep candidates? A Rockefeller and a Rothschild?
Bootyjudge is just a short, gay and white version of Obama. But he typifies a government
bureaucrat in that he's politically left wing, sexually deviant and hates normal, everyday
Americans especially if their skin is white.
The DNC knows that if Biden were to win the nomination he'll commit so many gaffes, like
burbling about corn pop, his hairy legs and enjoying kids sitting on his lap, among other
things, that Trump would have a field day on Twitter and easily win a second term.
So it's shaping up to be a contest between orange Jebulus vs. anal Pete. By the time the
presidential debates arrive both candidates will be vowing to crush white nationalism and
improve the lives of black and brown people. White people need not apply.
Nevertheless, Trump's cult like almost all white base will cheer madly for a man who
claims to represent them in words only, but almost never in deeds.
It should be clear on what the fight is really about in the US. It's about stopping the rise
of socialism. Regardless of party affiliation, the elites know what the populace wants and
are desperately trying to stop it. I refuse to accept that the Democrats have no idea what
they're doing.
I honestly can't see Sanders getting the nomination with all the corruption openly being
displayed. I would be pleasantly surprised if Sanders did manage to get it, but he still have
to deal with the ELECTORAL COLLEGE (EC). The Electors have the final say. Yes, one can point
out that some States have laws forcing Electors to vote what the populace wants, but that is
being challenged in court. The debate on whether such laws are unconstitutional or not,
remains to be seen. It's too late now to deal with the EC for this election, but people need
to be more active in politics at the State level as that's where Electors are (s)elected.
IF Sanders is genuine then he should prepare to run as an independent just to get the EC
attention.
RR @ 14;
Everything in the U$A today, is driven by the unofficial Party of $, and it's reach
transcends both Dems & repubs. It's cadre is the majority of the D.C. "rule makers", so
we get what they want, not what "we the people" want or need.
They own the banks, MSM media, and even our voting systems.
IMO, to assume one party is to blame for conditions in the U$A is a bit naive.
Question is, can anything the masses do, change the system? Or is rank and file America
just along for the ride?
I'm assuming us peons will get what the party of $ wants this November also.
P.S. If any blame is given, it needs to go to the American public, because " you get the
kind of Gov. you deserve" through your inactions...
It's a lot like living, death is certain, but until that occurs, I'll move forward trying
to mitigate current paradigms.
Furthermore, first generation immigrants don't want to replicate their culture, they want
the American dream. Their grandchildren might want to "identify" as hispanic, etc., but not
their parents or grandparents. Identity politics only plays in the white middle classes.
lizabeth Warren wrote an
article
outlining in general terms how she would bring America's current foreign wars to an end. Perhaps the most significant part of the
article is her commitment to respect Congress' constitutional role in matters of war:
We will hold ourselves to this by recommitting to a simple idea: the constitutional requirement that Congress play a primary
role in deciding to engage militarily. The United States should not fight and cannot win wars without deep public support.
Successive administrations and Congresses have taken the easy way out by choosing military action without proper authorizations
or transparency with the American people. The failure to debate these military missions in public is one of the reasons
they have been allowed to continue without real prospect of success [bold mine-DL].
On my watch, that will end. I am committed to seeking congressional authorization if the use of force is required. Seeking
constrained authorizations with limited time frames will force the executive branch to be open with the American people and
Congress about our objectives, how the operation is progressing, how much it is costing, and whether it should continue.
Warren's commitment on this point is welcome, and it is what Americans should expect and demand from their presidential
candidates. It should be the bare minimum requirement for anyone seeking to be president, and any candidate who won't commit to
respecting the Constitution should never be allowed to have the powers of that office. The president is not permitted to launch
attacks and start wars alone, but Congress and the public have allowed several presidents to do just that without any consequences.
It is time to put a stop to illegal presidential wars, and it is also time to put a stop to open-ended authorizations of military
force. Warren's point about asking for "constrained authorizations with limited time frames" is important, and it is something that
we should insist on in any future debate over the use of force. The 2001 and 2002 AUMFs are still on the books and have been abused
and stretched beyond recognition to apply to groups that didn't exist when they were passed so that the U.S. can fight wars in
countries that don't threaten our security. Those need to be repealed as soon as possible to eliminate the opening that they have
provided the executive to make war at will.
Michael Brendan Dougherty is
unimpressed with Warren's rhetoric:
But what has Warren offered to do differently, or better? She's made no notable break with the class of experts who run our
failing foreign policy. Unlike Bernie Sanders, and like Trump or Obama, she hasn't hired a foreign-policy staff committed to a
different vision. And so her promise to turn war powers back to Congress should be considered as empty as Obama's promise to do
the same. Her promise to bring troops home would turn out to be as meaningless as a Trump tweet saying the same.
We shouldn't discount Warren's statements so easily. When a candidate makes specific commitments about ending U.S. wars during a
campaign, that is different from making vague statements about having a "humble" foreign policy. Bush ran on a conventional hawkish
foreign policy platform, and there were also no ongoing wars for him to campaign against, so we can't say that he ever ran as a
"dove." Obama campaigned against the Iraq war and ran on ending the U.S. military presence there, and before his first term was
finished almost all U.S. troops were out of Iraq. It is important to remember that he did not campaign against the war in
Afghanistan, and instead argued in support of it. His subsequent decision to commit many more troops there was a mistake, but it was
entirely consistent with what he campaigned on. In other words, he withdrew from the country he promised to withdraw from, and
escalated in the country where he said the U.S. should be fighting. Trump didn't actually campaign on ending any wars, but he did
talk about "bombing the hell" out of ISIS, and after he was elected he escalated the war on ISIS. His anti-Iranian obsession was out
in the open from the start if anyone cared to pay attention to it. In short, what candidates commit to doing during a campaign does
matter and it usually gives you a good idea of what a candidate will do once elected.
If Warren and some of the other Democratic candidates are committing to ending U.S. wars, we shouldn't assume that they won't
follow through on those commitments because previous presidents proved to be the hawks that they admitted to being all along.
Presidential candidates often tell us exactly what they mean to do, but we have to be paying attention to everything they say and
not just one catchphrase that they said a few times. If voters want a more peaceful foreign policy, they should vote for candidates
that actually campaign against ongoing wars instead of rewarding the ones that promise and then deliver escalation. But just voting
for the candidates that promise an end to wars is not enough if Americans want Congress to start doing its job by reining in the
executive. If we don't want presidents to run amok on war powers, there have to be political consequences for the ones that have
done that and there needs to be steady pressure on Congress to take back their role in matters of war. Voters should select
genuinely antiwar candidates, but then they also have to hold those candidates accountable once they're in office.
There is a huge difference between extremely bright students and medicate ones. Bright students are the future of the society and
need to be nurtures and helped in any way possible for the range of specialties that are important (STEM is one example)
There is difference between the degree in computer science and the degree in some obscure nationality studies (let's say Eastern
European studies; few people that are needed can be paid by intelligence agencies ;-) Obscure areas should be generally available only
to well to do students, who can pay for their education.
Like is the case with alcoholism, some student debt is the result of bad personal choices.
Notable quotes:
"... Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times, ..."
"... "My daughter's getting out of school, I saved all my money, so she doesn't have any student debt. Am I going to get my money back?" ..."
"... So, we end up paying for people who didn't save any money, then those who did the right thing get screwed, ..."
"... "We did the right thing and we get screwed," ..."
"... "Look, we build a future going forward by making it better. By that same logic what would we have done? Not started Social Security because we didn't start it last week for you or last month for you," ..."
"... "We don't build an America by saddling our kids with debt. We build an America by saying we're going to open up those opportunities for kids to be able to get an education without getting crushed by student loan debt." ..."
"... Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) campaigns in Des Moines, Iowa on Jan. 19, 2020. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images) ..."
"... "I'll direct the Secretary of Education to use their authority to begin to compromise and modify federal student loans consistent with my plan to cancel up to $50,000 in debt for 95% of student loan borrowers (about 42 million people)," ..."
"... A scholarship system awarding free tuition to the top 5% of college applicants (NOT biased by race, gender, etc) who apply to the U.S.'s best STEM programs, hell yes! Free tuition for future Democrat voters, f^%k that! ..."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) defended her plan to pay off college loans after being confronted by a father in Iowa in an exchange
that went viral.
Senator Elizabeth Warren is confronted by a father who worked double shifts to pay for his daughters education and wants to
know if he will get his money back. pic.twitter.com/t2GGbAnG08
The father approached Warren, a leading Democratic presidential contender, after a campaign event in Grimes.
"My daughter's getting out of school, I saved all my money, so she doesn't have any student debt. Am I going to get my
money back?" the man asked Warren.
"Of course not," Warren replied.
" So, we end up paying for people who didn't save any money, then those who did the right thing get screwed, " the
father told her.
He then described a friend who makes more money but didn't save up while he worked double shifts to save up to pay for his daughter's
college.
The father became upset, accusing Warren of laughing.
"We did the right thing and we get screwed," he added before walking off.
In an appearance on "CBS This Morning" on Friday, Warren was asked about the exchange.
Last night, a father who saved for his daughter's college education approached
@SenWarren and challenged her proposed student
loan forgiveness plan. @TonyDokoupil asks the
senator for her response: pic.twitter.com/jLUXPqChC6
"Look, we build a future going forward by making it better. By that same logic what would we have done? Not started Social
Security because we didn't start it last week for you or last month for you," Warren said.
Pressed on whether she was saying "tough luck" to people like the father, she said "No." She then recounted how she got to go
to college despite coming from a poor family.
"There was a $50 a semester option for me. I was able to go to college and become a public school teacher because America had
invested in a $50 a semester option for me. Today that's not available," she said.
"We don't build an America by saddling our kids with debt. We build an America by saying we're going to open up those opportunities
for kids to be able to get an education without getting crushed by student loan debt."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) campaigns in Des Moines, Iowa on Jan. 19, 2020. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
One of Warren's plans is to cancel student loans. According to
her website , on her first day as president
she would cancel student loan debt as well as give free tuition to public colleges and technical schools and ban for-profit colleges
from getting aid from the federal government.
"I'll direct the Secretary of Education to use their authority to begin to compromise and modify federal student loans
consistent with my plan to cancel up to $50,000 in debt for 95% of student loan borrowers (about 42 million people)," Warren
wrote.
"I'll also direct the Secretary of Education to use every existing authority available to rein in the for-profit college industry,
crack down on predatory student lending, and combat the racial disparities in our higher education system."
Sounds an awful lot like the dad above is right those that did the "right thing" are gonna get "screwed."
Warren you bitch, I paid back my student loans responsibly by working my *** off (140k) and now you want to give others a free
ride? I sure hope that I get a refund for all that money I paid back.
Obama did this kinds thing with housing. I got outbid by 100k on a house. The other bidder who got it didn't make his house
payments so Obama restructured his loan knocking off 100k from his loan and giving him a 1% interest rate on it. He again didn't
make his payments and got it restructured again but I didn't hear the terms of that one.
If student loan debt is such a crisis, force every university to use their precious endowment funds to underwrite those loans
AND let those loans get discharged in bankruptcy. Maybe then those schools would start to question whether having a dozen
"Diversity Deans" each being paid $100k+ salaries is really worth the expense (among other things).
A scholarship system awarding free tuition to the top 5% of college applicants (NOT biased by race, gender, etc) who apply
to the U.S.'s best STEM programs, hell yes! Free tuition for future Democrat voters, f^%k that!
The pissed off dad in this story has only one person to be pissed off at: himself, for being stupid. Understand something about
college degrees: 90% of them, including majors like accounting, are not worth the paper they are printed on. Anyone who works
double shifts to pay for anyone's college degree, even their own, is stupid. Look at why college costs so much: go to any state,
and you'll see that 70% or more of the highest paid state employees are employed by public colleges and universities. You need
to play these sons of bitches at their game, use their funny money to pay for the degree, and walk away. If you play the way these
sons of bitches tell you to play, you get what you deserve.
I used their funny money to get a degree that wasn't worth the paper it was printed on and walked away. I don't give a ****
if the sons of bitches grab my tax refund. Why? Because I have my withholdings set up so they get next to nothing in April. It
costs the sons of bitches more to print up the garnishment letter and send it to me than what they're stealing from me. Guess
what I use for an address? P.O. Box (can't serve a summons to a ghost).
If you're going to do what stupid, pissed off dad did, and work double shifts, you need to be trading out of all that funny
money you're being paid for those double shifts, and trading into personal economic leverage (gold first, then silver). Instead
of having bedrock to build multi-generational wealth, he has a daughter with a degree in pouring coffee, and nothing else to show
for it. He only has himself to blame for drinking the Kool Aid. I can grab overtime every Saturday at my job if I want it, and
every last penny of that OT is traded out of funny money and into gold ASAP.
Understand the US real estate market: the only reason it did not die five years ago was because we welcomed rich foreigners
to come in and buy real estate to protect their wealth. We've stopped doing that, we have an over-abundance of domestic sellers
and a severe shortage of domestic buyers. It's also where history says you need to be if you want to build multi-generational
wealth. Warren actually needs to go further than what she's proposing. Not only does she need to discharge 100% of those balances
by EO, she also needs to refund all those tax refunds stolen under false pretenses. Anything less, and we are guaranteed, for
the next 40 years, to have a real estate market and economy which resembles Japan since 1989.
Why do I buy gold? So I can play people like Warren at their game. I'll take whatever loan discharge she gives me, and have
lots of leverage in reserve to take advantage of what will be a once in a lifetime real estate fire sale.
Make those who want to be bailed out have to pay the bailout back by working every non-holiday Saturday (at the minimum wage
rate) for the government and citizens (e.g who need work done around the house, take care of the elderly - in the bathroom) until
the debt is paid back. AND let those who have not taken the debt relief supervise them - getting paid by the government at the
same rate, minimum wage. 🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞
For a decent college it's between 35-70k a year.... Why? 300k a year library professors, if it weren't for tenure the problem
would largely he self correcting as rntrillments drop...
My how times have changed. My son was a college grad circa 1996. He did the JUCO thing for 1 1/2 years , worked a part time
job for the duration, and picked up an A S while making the President's list. I aid, out of pocket all educational expenses while
he lived at home and provided for a nice lifestyle while he was in school. As promised, he finished his education, out of state,
which I paid for all along the way. 2 more years, he graduated, on the Pres list, and picked up his B S. No student debt, in his
words, was one of the the greatest gifts. Today he is debt free, (so am I ), and he is a very happy , financially secure ( until
the world goes upside down) mature adult. Hey Lizzie, send me a check.
They are all ignoring the real problem...the Federal mandated system of the guaranteed student loan program. Anyone with a
pulse can get a guaranteed student loan, thus creating a massive rise in college admissions. The colleges are guaranteed the money
for these loans, while the lender (the US gov't) is not guaranteed to be paid back by the students receiving these loans,. this
created a fool proof, risk free ability for colleges and universities across the country to jack up their tuition costs at over
a 5:1 ratio of income growth over the last 25 years. The problem is the program itself, students need to earn their ability to
enroll in college through hard work and good grades. Currently, any moron with a high school diploma can go to college on a guaranteed
student loan program and the colleges are more than willing to take on any idiot that wants to go to school despite their aspirations,
work ethics, intelligence, achievements, etc. The universities have been given a blank check to expand their campuses, drastically
inflate the salaries and pensions of professors and administrators of these schools all at the expense of this guaranteed "free"
money from the government that only achieved an immense amount of the population going to overpriced schools in order to get a
diploma in useless pursuits like african american studies, philosophy, creative writing, music, criminal justice, arts, basket
weaving, etc.. The skyrocketing costs of colleges and student debt is the direct result of this miserably failed system of the
guaranteed student loan. The majority of which have no business going to higher education because they don't have the aptitude,
work ethic and intelligence necessary to actually receive a degree in anything that benefits the economy and themselves going
forward. 30 years ago the average state college admission was roughly $4k a year for a good state school, today it is roughly
$20k or far more. Meanwhile, the average income has gone up a meaningless amount. Get rid of the guaranteed student loan program
and make the colleges responsible for accepting the responsibility of the loans for their students. I guarantee enrollment will
decrease and costs will decline making it much more affordable for the truly responsible and aspiring student to achieve their
dreams of a degree without a $250k loan needed for completion nor the lifelong strain of debt on their future incomes. The colleges
are raping the system the same as all these shoestring companies take advantage of the medicaid system and give hovarounds and
walking canes, and hearing aids for free because the gov't reimburses them at wildly inflated prices under some federally passed
mandate. The system is the problem, eliminating the debt will only exacerbate it and cost taxpayers trillions more each and every
year as "free" college will now entice every moron with a heartbeat the ability to go to outrageously priced schools with no skin
in the game on the taxpayer's dime. Elizabeth Warren is an idiot....someone needs to have a sit down with her and discuss this
rationale in her luxurious, state of the art TeePee.
While you are correct corrupting academics with huge payoffs is how you secure their votes and the votes of most of the 'students'
for decades to come.
Any group or industry can be paid off and you might think of the system as a set of interlocking payoffs until you get out
to the margins and the fringes where the cash and benefits are a lot thinner.
Everyone who continues to pay taxes to these neo-Bolsheviks is going to get screwed. The only alternative is to stop funding
these criminals completely.
What a sorry presidential canditate! She flat out LIED about being native american to get FREE college. And now this. Where
has America gone????????? Socialism sems to be what most want nowadays. It has NEVER EVER worked anywhere in the world at any
time! If yoou think therwise, just name ONE countryn it has worked in ! What a lying bunch the democrats are..........................
So all if us have to pay for it. Why did I have to pay for University and College in the 1970's if I wanted to further my education
and now that I am older I have to foot the bill for the young people of today? Pay DOUBLE? (just to buy votes for traitors?)
I think NOT! Take your theft from the people, to buy votes of everyone from young people to illegal criminals to outright criminals
in prison to dead people and resign before we decide to arrest you.
Democrats, HANG IT UP! We are NOT paying for YOUR illegitimate votes.
Notice too how all their "we're going to wipe out your debt!" promises never seem to include the big "endowments" of these
fascist colleges that jacked up tuition 1000% over what it used to cost.
No, those creepy commie profs and their freaky administrators get to keep their big TAX FREE endowments AND their big salaries.
Big Gov by Sanders/Warren don't seem to think that's obscene.
You are absolutely correct. 45 years ago you could almost work part time and actually PAY your way through college. Today you
almost need a physicians salary to pay for these OVERPRICED sewers filled with leftist propaganda.
It's obvious that Warren doesn't teach economics or even math. They weren't smart enough when they took out the loans and they
are not good with paying their bills so move the goal posts to bail them out. Has anyone given the thought that maybe they shouldn't
have gone to college at all. Sounds like they will all work for the government anyways.
This blabbing about authoritarian Russia and China greatly diminishes the value of this
article. The author is Warren foreign policy advisor. Probably she should find a better
advisor.
Compare this blabbing with Putin stance about strengthening of the role of the UN.
Notable quotes:
"... Fourth, the new progressive foreign policy is highly skeptical of military interventions, and opposed to democracy promotion by force. This does not mean that progressives are unwilling or would be unable to use force when it is necessary. But after 17 years of war in the Middle East, they do not share the aggressive posture that has characterized the post-Cold War era. Some are skeptical because they think interventions cannot succeed. Others emphasize the potential for backlash and making the situation worse. Still others hold that stable, sustainable democracy cannot be imposed from abroad but must emerge organically. ..."
"... Fifth, the new progressive foreign policy seeks to reshape the military budget by both cutting the budget overall and reallocating military spending. This should not be surprising. The skepticism of intervention suggests military budgets do not need to be as big as they have been in an era when the goal was to be able to fight two regional wars simultaneously. The centrality of economics to a progressive foreign policy further explains this position; military spending should partly be reallocated to cyber and other technologies that are deeply integrated with the economy and likely to be crucial in future conflicts. ..."
end of history " and
America's " unipolar moment ." And
both camps have undergone a serious reckoning after the Afghanistan, Iraq, and forever wars, as
well as the global financial crisis calling into question neoliberal
economic policies -- namely, deregulation, liberalization, privatization, and austerity.
Prominent foreign policy advocates have quite publicly engaged in
soul-searching as they confronted these changes, and debates about the future of foreign
policy abound.
The emergence of a distinctively progressive approach to foreign policy is perhaps the most
interesting -- and most misunderstood -- development in these debates. In speeches and
articles, politicians like Sen.
Elizabeth Warren and Sen.
Bernie Sanders have outlined an approach to foreign policy that does not fall along the
traditional fault-lines of realist versus idealist or neoconservative versus liberal
internationalist (disclosure: I have been a longtime advisor to Sen. Warren). Their speeches
come alongside an
increasing number of
articles exploring the
contours of a
progressive foreign policy. Even those who might not consider themselves
progressive are
sounding similar themes .
From this body of work, it is now possible to sketch out the framework of a distinctively
progressive approach to foreign policy. While its advocates, like those in other foreign policy
camps, discuss a wide range of issues -- from climate change to reforming international
institutions -- at the moment, five themes mark this emerging approach as a specific framework
for foreign policy.
First, progressive foreign policy breaks the
silos between domestic and foreign policy and between international economic policy and
foreign policy. It places far greater emphasis on how foreign policy impacts the United States
at home -- and particularly on how foreign policy (including international economic policy) has
impacted the domestic economy. To be sure, there have always been analysts and commentators who
recognized these interrelationships. But progressive foreign policy places this at the center
of its analysis rather than seeing it as peripheral. The new progressive foreign policy takes
the substance of both domestic and international economic policies seriously, and its adherents
will not support economic policies on foreign policy grounds if they exacerbate economic
inequality at home. For example, the argument that trade deals must be ratified on national
security grounds even though they have problematic distributional consequences does not carry
much weight for progressives who believe that an equitable domestic economy is the foundation
of national power.
Second, progressive foreign policy holds that one of the important threats to American
democracy at home is nationalist
oligarchy (or, alternatively, authoritarian
capitalism ) abroad. Countries like Russia and China are not simply authoritarian
governments, and neither can their resurgence and assertion of power be interpreted as merely
great power competition. The reason is that their economic systems integrate economic and
political power. Crony/state capitalism is not a bug, it is the central feature. In a global
society, economic interrelationships
weaponize economic power into political power .
China, for example, already uses its economic power as leverage in political disputes with
other Asian countries. Its growing share of global GDP is one of the most consequential facts
of the 21st century. As a result of these dynamics, progressives are also highly skeptical of a
foreign policy based on the premise that the countries of the world will all become neoliberal
democracies. Instead, they take seriously the risks that come from economic integration with
nationalist oligarchies.
Third, the new progressive foreign policy values America's alliances and international
agreements, but not because it thinks that such alliances and rules can convert nationalist
oligarchies into liberal democracies. Rather, alliances should be based on
common values or common goals, and, going forward, they will be critical to balancing and
countering the challenges from nationalist oligarchies. Progressives are thus far more
skeptical of alliances with countries like Saudi Arabia and far more interested in reinforcing
and deepening ties with allies like Japan -- and are concerned about the erosion of alliances
like NATO from within.
While I agree that the removal of Trump might be slightly beneficial (Pence-Pompeo duo initially will run scared), this Kabuki
theater with Schiff in a major role is outright silly.
Adam Schiff physically resembles a typical prosperity theology preacher -- a classic modern American snake oil salesman. And
with his baseless accusations and the fear to touch real issues , he is even worse than that -- he looks outright silly even for
the most brainwashed part of the USA electorate ;-)
As he supported the Iraq war, he has no right to occupy any elected office. He probably should be prosecuted as a war criminal.
Realistically Schiff should be viewed as yet another intelligence agency stooge, a neocon who is funded by military contractors
such as Northrop Grumman, which sells missiles to Ukraine.
The claim that Trump is influenced by Russia is a lie. His actions indicate that he is an agent of influence for Israel, not
so much for Russia. Several of his actions were more reckless and more hostile to Russia than the actions of the Obama administration.
Anyway, his policies toward Russia are not that different from Hillary's policies. Actually, Pompeo, in many ways, continues Hillary's
policies.
The claim that the withdrawal of military aid from Ukraine somehow influences the balance of power in the region was a State
department concocted scam from the very beginning. How sniper rifles and anti-tank missiles change the balance of power on the
border with the major nuclear power, who has probably second or third military in the world.? They do not.
They (especially sniper rifles) will definitely increase casualties of Ukrainian separatists (and will provoke Russian reaction
to compensate for this change of balance and thus increase casualties of the Ukrainian army provoking the escalation spiral ),
but that's about it. So more people will die in the conflict while Northrop Grumman rakes the profits.
They also increase the danger of the larger-scale conflict in the region, which is what the USA neocons badly wants to impose
really crushing sanctions on Russia. The danger of WWIII and the cost of support of the crumbling neoliberal empire with its outsize
military expenditures (which now is more difficult to compensate with loot) somehow escapes the US neocon calculations. But they
are completely detached from reality in any case.
I think Russia can cut Ukraine into Western and Eastern parts anytime with relative ease and not much resistance. Putin has
an opportunity to do this in 2014 (risking larger sanctions) as he could establish government in exile out of Yanukovich officials
and based on this restore the legitimate government in Eastern and southern region with the capital in Kharkiv, leaving Ukrainian
Taliban to rot in their own brand of far-right nationalism where the Ukraine identity is defined negatively via rabid Russophobia.
His calculation probably was that sanctions would slow down the Russia recovery from Western plunder during Yeltsin years and,
as such, it is not worth showing Western Ukrainian nationalists what level of support in Southern and Eastern regions that they
actually enjoy.
My impression is that they are passionately hated by over 50% of the population of this region. And viewed as an occupying
force, which is trying to colonize the space (which is a completely true assessment). They are viewed as American stooges, who
they are (the country is controlled from the USA embassy in any case).
And Putin's assessment might be wrong, as sanctions were imposed anyways, and now Ukraine does represent a threat to Russia
and, as such, is a huge source of instability in the region, which was the key idea of "Nulandgate" as the main task was weakening
Russia. In this sense, Euromaidan coup d'état was the major success of the Obama administration, which was a neocon controlled
administration from top to bottom.
Also unclear what Dems are trying to achieve. If Pelosi gambit, cynically speaking, was about repeating Mueller witch hunt
success in the 2018 election, that is typical wishful thinking. Mobilization of the base works both ways.
So what is the game plan for DemoRats (aka "neoliberal democrats" or "corporate democrats" -- the dominant Clinton faction
of the Democratic Party) is completely unclear.
I doubt that they will gain anything from impeachment Kabuki theater, where both sides are afraid to discuss real issues like
Douma false flag and other real Trump crimes.
Most Democratic candidates such as Warren, Biden, and Klobuchar will lose from this impeachment theater. Candidates who can
gain, such as Major Pete and Bloomberg does not matter that much.
The deep state clearly is running the show (with some people unexpected imput -- see Trump
;-)
Elections now serve mainly for the legitimizing of the deep state rule; election of a
particular individual can change little, although there is some space of change due to the power
of executive branch. If the individual stray too much form the elite "forign policy consensus" he
ether will be JFKed or Russiagated (with the Special Prosecutor as the fist act and impeachment
as the second act of the same Russiagate drama)
But a talented (or reckless) individual can speed up some process that are already under way.
For example, Trump managed to speed up the process of destruction of the USA-centered neoliberal
empire considerably. Especially by launching the trade war with China. He also managed to
discredit the USA foreign policy as no other president before him. Even Bush II.
>This is the most critical U.S. election in our lifetime
> Posted by: Circe | Jan 23 2020 17:46 utc | 36
Hmmm, I've been hearing the same siren song every four years for the past fifty. How is it
that people still think that a single individual, or even two, can change the direction of
murderous US policies that are widely supported throughout the bureaucracy?
Bureaucracies are reactionary and conservative by nature, so any new and more repressive
policy Trumpy wants is readily adapted, as shown by the continuing barbarity of ICE and the
growth of prisons and refugee concentration camps. Policies that go against the grain are
easily shrugged off and ignored using time-tested passive-aggressive tactics.
One of Trump's insurmountable problems is that he has no loyal organization behind him
whose members he can appoint throughout the massive Federal bureaucracy. Any Dummycrat whose
name is not "Biden" has the same problem. Without a real mass-movement political party to
pressure reluctant bureaucrats, no politician of any name or stripe will ever substantially
change the direction of US policy.
But the last thing Dummycrats want is a real mass movement, because they might not be able
to control it. Instead Uncle Sam will keep heading towards the cliff, which may be coming
into view...
The amount of TINA worshipers and status quo guerillas is starting to depress me.
HOW IS IT POSSIBLE to believe A politician will/can change anything and give your consent to
war criminals and traitors?
NO person(s) WILL EVER get to the top in imperial/vassal state politics without being on the
rentier class side, the cognitive dissonans in voting for known liars, war criminals and
traitors would kill me or fry my brain. TINA is a lie and "she" is a real bitch that deserves
to be thrown on the dump off history, YOUR vote is YOUR consent to murder, theft and
treason.
DONT be a rentier class enabler STOP voting and start making your local communities better
and independent instead.
The amount of TINA worshipers and status quo guerillas is starting to depress me. <-
Norway
Of course, There Is Another Way, for example, kvetching. We can boldly show that we are
upset, and pessimistic. One upset pessimists reach critical mass we will think about some
actions.
But being upset and pessimistic does fully justify inactivity. In particular, given the
nature of social interaction networks, with spokes and hubs, dominating the network requires
the control of relatively few nodes. The nature of democracy always allows for leverage
takeover, starting from dominating within small to the entire nation in few steps. As it was
nicely explained by Prof. Overton, there is a window of positions that the vast majority
regards as reasonable, non-radical etc. One reason that powers to be invest so much energy
vilifying dissenters, Russian assets of late, is to keep them outside the Overton window.
Having a candidate elected that the curators of Overton window hate definitely shakes the
situation with the potential of shifting the window. There were some positive symptoms after
Trump was elected, but negatives prevail. "Why not we just kill him" idea entered the window,
together with "we took their oil because we have guts and common sense".
From that point of view, visibility of Tulsi and election of Sanders will solve some
problems but most of all, it will make big changes in Overton window.
Elections now serve mainly the legitimizing of the deep state rule function; election of a
partuclar induvudual can change little, althouth there is some space of change due to the power
of executive branch.
For example, Trump managed to speed up the process od destruction of the USA-centered
neoliberal empire considerably. Especially by lauching the trade war with China. He also
managed to discredit the USA foreign policy as no other president before him. Even Bush
II.
>This is the most critical U.S. election in our lifetime
> Posted by: Circe | Jan 23 2020 17:46 utc | 36
Hmmm, I've been hearing the same siren song every four years for the past fifty. How is it
that people still think that a single individual, or even two, can change the direction of
murderous US policies that are widely supported throughout the bureaucracy?
Bureaucracies are reactionary and conservative by nature, so any new and more repressive
policy Trumpy wants is readily adapted, as shown by the continuing barbarity of ICE and the
growth of prisons and refugee concentration camps. Policies that go against the grain are
easily shrugged off and ignored using time-tested passive-aggressive tactics.
One of Trump's insurmountable problems is that he has no loyal organization behind him
whose members he can appoint throughout the massive Federal bureaucracy. Any Dummycrat whose
name is not "Biden" has the same problem. Without a real mass-movement political party to
pressure reluctant bureaucrats, no politician of any name or stripe will ever substantially
change the direction of US policy.
But the last thing Dummycrats want is a real mass movement, because they might not be able
to control it. Instead Uncle Sam will keep heading towards the cliff, which may be coming
into view...
Another unforced error. What a politically naive (or evil) twat, this Elithabeth Warren
is
"I can't think of more devastating news if you're running one of these campaigns for
president than the news that your candidate is going to be bound to a desk in Washington, day
after day, in the run-up to the Iowa caucuses." ~Obama's former campaign manager David
Axelrod
Sanders and Warren have the most to lose from a Senate impeachment trial. Iowa is Feb 3 and
New Hampshire is Feb 11. As McConnell told reporters "A number of Democratic senators are running
for president. I'm sure they're gonna be excited to be here in their chairs not being able to say
anything during the pndency of this trial. So hopefully we'll work our way through it and finish
it in not too lengthy a process,"
Clinton trial ran from Jan. 7 until Feb. 12, approximately five weeks. So if McConnell is
shrewd, he will ensure that Sanders and Warren were absent from both Iowa is Feb 3 and Feb
11.
This, however, is an outright lie. If Democrats truly valued America over their own partisan
interests, they wouldn't have forced a hoax impeachment through government, despite the
overwhelming opposition against it. Moreover, if "country over party" mattered to Democrats,
then they wouldn't have commenced talks about impeachment since before the inception of Trump's
presidency.
A new year and new decade may be upon us, but this doesn't mean that Democrats are any less
terrified of seeing their impeachment sham die in the Senate.
As a matter of fact, 2020 Democrat and Sen. Elizabeth Warren spent New Year's Eve raging
against her Republican colleagues and making baseless accusations against Trump, per reports
from Washington Examiner.
Reviewing Warren's Tirade Against Senate Republicans The 2020 socialist's remarks about
Republican members of the Senate came during her New Year's Eve address in Boston,
Massachusetts. Warren lamented over the reality that Democrats will not be able to bully or
intimidate Republicans into voting for a partisan-driven, unfounded sham. This blows Warren's
far-left, unwell mind, so she opted to blast GOP senators as " fawning, spineless defenders" of
President Trump's supposed "crimes."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren speaks in Boston: "[President Trump] has tried to squeeze foreign
governments to advance his own political fortunes. Meanwhile, the Republicans in Congress
have turned into fawning spineless defenders of his crimes." pic.twitter.com/sGyLqsA8C7
Shortly thereafter, Warren followed up with the lie that ramming the weakest and thinnest
impeachment through government "brought no joy" to House Democrats. This, of course, just isn't
accurate; House Rep. Rashida Tlaib posted a gleeful livestream prior to the "impeachment" where
she bragged about being "on [her] way to the United States House floor" in order to "impeach
President Trump."
Finally, Warren declared that conservative senators need to "choose truth over politics" or
else President Trump will attempt to "cheat his way" via the 2020 election.
Misplaced Outrage As per usual with Democrats, the outrage is misplaced and misguided. If
Warren is so eager for a trial, then she should be directed this animosity towards House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi who continues to hoard the impeachment articles.
f left-wing Congress members truly believed they had a solid case against the president,
they'd be more than eager for the Senate to receive the articles and begin conducting a trial;
instead, however, raging at President Trump and Senate Republicans is easier than acknowledge
the true reality here.
Democrats forced the weakest, thinnest, and fastest impeachment through the House. The
president did absolutely nothing wrong and will be acquitted either when the Senate holds a
trial or by default if Pelosi keeps hoarding the articles.
She is now trapped and has no space for maneuvering. She now needs to share the path to the
cliff with Pelosi gang to the very end. Not a good position to be in.
Analysis: The Massachusetts senator's forceful call to begin the process of removing Trump
set her apart from the crowded primary field.
While most fellow 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls ducked and dived to find safe ground
-- and party elders solemnly warned against over-reach -- Sen. Elizabeth Warren stepped boldly
out into the open late Friday and called on the House to begin an impeachment process against
President Donald Trump based on special counsel Robert Mueller's report.
The Massachusetts senator and 2020 Democratic presidential contender slammed Trump for
having "welcomed" the help of a "hostile" foreign government and having obstructed the probe
into an attack on an American election.
"To ignore a President's repeated efforts to obstruct an investigation into his own disloyal
behavior would inflict great and lasting damage on this country," Warren tweeted. "The severity
of this misconduct demands that elected officials in both parties set aside political
considerations and do their constitutional duty. That means the House should initiate
impeachment proceedings against the President of the United States."
It was a rare moment in a crowded and unsettled primary: A seized opportunity for a
candidate to cut through the campaign trail cacophony and define the terms of a debate that
will rage throughout the contest.
CNN and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Democrat from Massachusetts, with powerful establishment
support, combined to stage a provocation this week aimed at slowing down or derailing the
campaign of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders for the Democratic Party presidential
nomination.
Through CNN, the Massachusetts senator's camp first alleged that Sanders told her in
December 2018 a woman could not win a presidential election, an allegation Sanders strenuously
refuted. At the Democratic debate on Tuesday night, CNN's moderator acted as though the claim
was an indisputable reality, leading to a post-debate encounter between Warren and Sanders,
which the network just happened to record and circulate widely.
This is a political stink bomb, borrowed from the #MeToo playbook, typical of American
politics in its putrefaction. Unsubstantiated allegations are turned into "facts," these
"facts" become the basis for blackening reputations and damaging careers and shifting politics
continuously to the right. Anyone who denies the allegations is a "sexist" who refuses "to
believe women."
The Democratic establishment is fearful of Sanders, not so much for his
nationalist-reformist program and populist demagogy, but for what his confused but growing
support portends: the movement to the left by wide layers of the American population. The US
ruling elite seems convinced, like some wretched, self-deluded potentate of old, that if it can
simply stamp out the unpleasant "noise," the rising tide of disaffection will dissipate.
CNN's operation began Monday when it posted a "bombshell" article by M.J. Lee with the
headline, "Bernie Sanders told Elizabeth Warren in private 2018 meeting that a woman can't win,
sources say."
The article animatedly begins, "The stakes were high when Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth
Warren met at Warren's apartment in Washington, DC, one evening in December 2018." Among other
things, the CNN piece reported, the pair "discussed how to best take on President Donald Trump,
and Warren laid out two main reasons she believed she would be a strong candidate: She could
make a robust argument about the economy and earn broad support from female voters. Sanders
responded that he did not believe a woman could win."
Lee continues, "The description of that meeting is based on the accounts of four people: two
people Warren spoke with directly soon after the encounter, and two people familiar with the
meeting." In reality, the story is based on the account of one individual with a
considerable interest in cutting into Sanders' support, i.e., Elizabeth Warren. As the New
York Times primly noted, "Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders were the only people in the
room."
The absurd CNN article goes on, "After publication of this story, Warren herself backed up
this account of the meeting, saying in part in a statement Monday, 'I thought a woman could
win; he disagreed.'" In other words, Warren "backed up" what could only have been her own
account insofar as she was the only person there besides Sanders!
After a pro forma insertion of Sanders' categorical denial that he ever made such a
statement, in which he reasonably observed, "Do I believe a woman can win in 2020? Of course!
After all, Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump by 3 million votes in 2016," Lee plowed right
ahead as though his comments were not worth responding to. She carries on, "The conversation
also illustrates the skepticism among not only American voters but also senior Democratic
officials that the country is ready to elect a woman as president" and, further, "The
revelation that Sanders expressed skepticism that Warren could win the presidency because she
is a woman is particularly noteworthy now, given that Warren is the lone female candidate at
the top of the Democratic field."
This is one of the ways in which the sexual misconduct witch-hunt has poisoned American
politics, although by no means the only one. Warren's claims about a private encounter simply
"must be believed."
During the Democratic candidates' debate itself Tuesday night, moderator Abby Phillips
addressed Sanders in the following manner: "Let's now turn to an issue that's come up in the
last 48 hours [because Warren and CNN generated it]. Sen. Sanders, CNN reported yesterday that
-- and Sen. Sanders, Sen. Warren confirmed in a statement, that in 2018 you told her that you
did not believe that a woman could win the election. Why did you say that? " (emphasis
added). Sanders denied once again that he had said any such thing. Phillips persisted, "Sen.
Sanders, I do want to be clear here, you're saying that you never told Sen. Warren that a woman
could not win the election?" Sanders confirmed that. Insultingly, Phillips immediately turned
to Warren and continued, "Sen. Warren, what did you think when Sen. Sanders told you a woman
could not win the election?" This was all clearly prepared ahead of time, a deliberate effort
to embarrass Sanders and portray him as a liar and a male chauvinist.
Following the debate, Warren had the audacity to confront the Vermont senator, refuse to
shake his hand and assert, "I think you called me a liar on national TV." When Sanders seemed
startled by her remark, she repeated it. CNN managed to capture the sound and preserve it for
widespread distribution.
The WSWS gives no support to Sanders, a phony "socialist" whose efforts are aimed at
channeling working-class anger at social inequality, poverty and war back into the big business
Democratic Party. He is only the latest in a long line of figures in American political history
devoted to maintaining the Democrats' stranglehold over popular opposition and blocking the
development of a broad-based socialist movement.
Nonetheless, the CNN-Warren "dirty tricks" operation is an obvious hatchet job and an attack
from the right. Accordingly, the New York Times and other major outlets have been
gloating and attempting to make something out of it since Tuesday night. The obvious purpose is
to "raise serious questions" about Sanders and dampen support for him, among women especially.
It should be recalled that in 2016 Sanders led Hillary Clinton among young women by 30
percentage points.
Michelle Cottle, a member of the Times editorial board (in "Why Questions on Women
Candidates Strike a Nerve," January 15), asserted that the issue raised by the Warren-Sanders
clash was "not about Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren. Not really. And Ms. Warren was right to try to
shift the focus to the bigger picture -- even if some critics will sneer that she's playing
'the gender card.'"
Cottle's "bigger picture," it turned out, primarily involved smearing Sanders. The present
controversy, she went on, "has resurfaced some of Mr. Sanders's past women troubles. His 2016
campaign faced multiple accusations of sexual harassment, pay inequities and other gender-based
mistreatment. Asked early last year if he knew about the complaints, Mr. Sanders's reaction was
both defensive and dismissive: 'I was a little bit busy running around the country'."
After Cottle attempted to convince her readers, on the basis of dubious numbers, that
Americans were perhaps too backward to elect a female president, she continued, again, taking
as good coin Warren's allegations, "This less-than-inspiring data -- along with from-the-trail
anecdotes about the gender-based voter anxiety that Ms. Warren and Ms. [Amy] Klobuchar have
been facing -- help explain why Mr. Sanders's alleged remarks struck such a nerve. Women
candidates and their supporters aren't simply outraged that he could be so wrong. They're
worried that he might be right." The remarks he denies making have nonetheless "outraged"
Cottle and others.
The Times more and more openly expresses fears about a possible Sanders'
nomination. Op-ed columnist David Leonhardt headlined his January 14 piece, "President Bernie
Sanders," and commented, "Sanders has a real shot of winning the Democratic nomination. Only a
couple of months after he suffered a mild heart attack, that counts as a surprise." Leonhardt
downplays Sanders' socialist credentials, observing that "while he [Sanders] would probably
fail to accomplish his grandest goals (again, like Medicare for all), he would also move the
country in a positive direction. He might even move it to closer to a center-left ideal than a
more moderate candidate like Biden would."
On Thursday, right-wing Times columnist David Brooks argued pathetically against
the existence of "class war" in "The Bernie Sanders Fallacy." He ridiculed what he described as
"Bernie Sanders's class-war Theyism: The billionaires have rigged the economy to benefit
themselves and impoverish everyone else." According to Brooks, Sanders is a Bolshevik who
believes that "Capitalism is a system of exploitation in which capitalist power completely
dominates worker power." Accusing Sanders of embracing such an ABC socialist proposition is all
nonsense, but it reveals something about what keeps pundits like Brooks up at night.
The Times is determined, as the WSWS has noted more than once, to exclude anything
from the 2020 election campaign that might arouse or encourage the outrage of workers and young
people. The past year of global mass protest has only deepened and strengthened that
determination.
The Times , CNN and other elements of the media and political establishment, and
behind them powerful financial-corporate interests, don't want Sanders and they don't
necessarily want Warren either, who engaged in certain loose talk about taxing the
billionaires, before retreating in fright. They want a campaign dominated by race, gender and
sexual orientation -- not class and not social inequality. The #MeToo-style attack on Sanders
reflects both the "style" and the right-wing concerns of these social layers.
One of two things is wrong with America: Either the entire system is broken or is on the
verge of breaking, and we need someone to bring about radical, structural change, or -- we
don't need that at all! Which is it? Who can say? Certainly not me, and that is why I am
telling you now which candidate to vote for.
"... I have no confidence in Elizabeth Warren "doing the right thing"; she might be susceptible to the pressure and to the ignominy attached to doing the disastrously wrong thing. ..."
"... *Donald Trump, for his part, is reportedly " privately obsessed " with Sanders, not, it seems, with Biden. ..."
"... From a recent episode of the Jimmy Dore Show, it's the cringe-worthy Warren "Selfie" Gimmick: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5JWIiVMj6g If this doesn't scream "political novice," I don't know what will. ..."
" if she does anything less than help elect the last and only progressive with a chance,
she damages them both to Biden's benefit "
If Elizabeth Warren's candidacy becomes unviable, the pressure on her to combine her
delegates with those of Sanders -- from those supporting Bernie Sanders and those
legitimately concerned with Joe Biden's chances against Trump* -- will be enormous .
And, if , instead, Warren helps nominate Biden and Biden then goes on to lose to
Donald Trump -- as I'm all but certain he will -- it will be all too clear just who
played a pivotal role in helping to make that match-up even possible.
I have no confidence in Elizabeth Warren "doing the right thing"; she might be
susceptible to the pressure and to the ignominy attached to doing the disastrously wrong
thing.
*Donald Trump, for his part, is reportedly "
privately obsessed " with Sanders, not, it seems, with Biden.
In Sanders' case, his surge in the polls coincided with his emergence as the chief
apologist for the Iranian regime. We needed to point out that he would be dangerous as
president since he made clear he would appease terrorists and terror-sponsoring
nations.
If this is really representative of a line of attack that the Trump campaign plans to use
on him, that would be great. I can't imagine anything that would resonate less with voters.
But I was a bit surprised to see this in a Bernie fundraising mail:
The wise course would have been to stick with that nuclear agreement, enforce its
provisions, and use that diplomatic channel with Iran to address our other concerns with
Iran, including their support of terrorism.
What groups are they referring to when they say this? Hezbollah, which is part of
Parliament in Lebanon? Iraqi PMF that are loosely integrated with the Iraqi army?
Yep, Warren is a political novice, and she's extremely naive. That Massachusetts senate
seat was practically handed to her on a silver platter. She has no idea that she was played
in '16 and she's being played now.
From a recent episode of the Jimmy Dore Show, it's the cringe-worthy Warren "Selfie"
Gimmick: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5JWIiVMj6g
If this doesn't scream "political novice," I don't know what will.
She endorced Hillary in 2016. That tells a lot about her... Now she backstabbed Bernie. What's next?
Notable quotes:
"... Warren has a track record of lying: lied about her dad being a janitor, hers kids going to public school, getting fired for being pregnant, and obviously the Native American heritage. ..."
"... My gut is she is going to endorse Joe Biden and prob got a tease of VP or some other role and all she had to do was kamikaze into Bernie with this. It's backfiring but at this rate and given she's too deep into it now when she drops out she'll prob back Biden as she hasn't shown the integrity to back a guy like Berni. ..."
"... She's toxic now. No one will want her has VP. Sanders supporters despise her, she comes from a small, Democratic state and she's loaded with baggage. She brings nothing to a ticket. She torpedoed any hopes or plans she might have had in that regard. ..."
"... Bernie is labeled as a socialist. Actually he is a real Roosevelt democrat. ..."
"... The most impressive thing I have witnessed about Bernie is that he can extemporaneously recall and explain exactly why he voted as he did on every piece of legislation that he has cast a vote on. in. his. life. It is a remarkable talent. ..."
"... The outcome of the upcoming Iowa Caucus is too hard to predict. All the candidates are very close. Sanders needs to turnout young and working class voters to win. ..."
"... My impression is her supporters are mostly older, mostly female, and mostly centrist. Many want to elect a female pres before they die. Prior to the she said event her supporters second choice were split fairly evenly between Bernie and Biden but the latest fracas is driving her most progressive supporters to Bernie. ..."
Warren has a track record of lying: lied about her dad being a janitor, hers kids going to
public school, getting fired for being pregnant, and obviously the Native American
heritage.
As pointed here on NC she's great at grandstanding when bank CEOs are in front of her and
doing nothing following that.
My gut is she is going to endorse Joe Biden and prob got a tease of VP or some other role
and all she had to do was kamikaze into Bernie with this. It's backfiring but at this rate
and given she's too deep into it now when she drops out she'll prob back Biden as she hasn't
shown the integrity to back a guy like Berni.
I don't see how she is anyone's VP. She is too old. You want someone under 60, better 50,
particularly for an old presidential candidate. Treasury Secretary is a more powerful
position. The big appeal of being VP is maybe it positions you later to be President but that
last worked out for Bush the Senior.
She's toxic now. No one will want her has VP. Sanders supporters despise her, she comes
from a small, Democratic state and she's loaded with baggage. She brings nothing to a ticket.
She torpedoed any hopes or plans she might have had in that regard.
I've watched Bernie for years. Even long before he decided to run for president. He is the
same today as he was then. Bernie isn't afraid to advocate for something , even though he
will get a lot of backlash. I also believe he is sincere in his convictions. If he says
something he believes in it.Something you can't say for the other candidates. Bernie is by
far my first choice.
After that it would be Warren. Bernie is labeled as a socialist.
Actually he is a real Roosevelt democrat. As a life long democrat, I can't support or vote
for a Wall Street candidate. Unlike one of the other commenters, I will never vote for Trump
but instead wold vote for a third party candidate. Unfortunate the DNC will do anything to
prevent Bernie from being candidate. Progressive democrats need to get out and support a
progressive or the nomination will again be stolen by a what I call a light republican.
What is great about Bernie is that he is so sure-footed. It was visible in the hot-mic
trap Warren set for him where she got nothing, it actually hurt her.
The most impressive thing I have witnessed about Bernie is that he can extemporaneously
recall and explain exactly why he voted as he did on every piece of legislation that he has
cast a vote on. in. his. life. It is a remarkable talent.
The outcome of the upcoming Iowa Caucus is too hard to predict. All the candidates are
very close. Sanders needs to turnout young and working class voters to win. By many reports,
Warren has an excellent ground game in IA and The NY Times endorsement has given a path for
her to pick up Klobuchar voters after round one of the caucus.
Biden is a mystery to me. How
the heck is he even running. Obama pleaded with him not to. That being said, it wouldn't
surprise me if he finishes in the top two. Buttigieg is the wild card. I think the
"electability" argument will hurt him as he can't win after NH.
According to a recent poll, Elizabeth Warren is one of the most unpopular senators with
voters in her own state as measured against approval rates of all other senators in their
states. I find this very surprising for someone with a national profile. What do voters in
Massachusetts not like about her?
As for me, I find it more and more difficult to trust Warren because she takes the bait
and yields to pressure during a primary when the pressure to back down, moderate, and abandon
once championed policy positions and principles is a great deal less than it is during the
general election. Warren has gone from Medicare4All to a public option to, in the recent
debate, tweaks to the ACA. Despite her roll-out of an ambitious $10 trillion Green New Deal
plan, Warren is now to the right of Chuck "Wall Street" Schumer as evidenced by her support
of NAFTA 2.0 which utterly fails to address climate change. WTF! Where will she be during a
general election?
And her political instincts are awful as recently demonstrated by her woke, badly executed
girl power attack against a candidate who has been a committed feminist for his entire
political career.
She also has horrible constituent service. I had an issue with a federal student loan a
few years ago (I believe it was the servicer depositing money but not crediting my account
and charging me interest and late fees). After getting nowhere with the company, I tried
calling her office, figuring that as this was one of her core issues, I would get some
response, either help or at least someone who would want to record what happened to her
actual constituent. I didn't hear back for about a month, by which time I had resolved the
issue – no fees or additional interest through multiple phone calls and emails.
In other words, Elizabeth Warren's constituent service is worse than Sallie Mae's.
The stupid Ponds cold cream lie is the worst. Unless she teed up the "how do you look so
young!" question , the corrected answer is to point out the nonsense of talking about a
candidates looks and addressing actual sexism.
Instead she has a goofball answer about only using Ponds cold cream which lead to Derm
pointing out her alleged method was not good advice and also pointing out that she appears to
have used botex and fillers, which I don't think people were talking about before then, in
public.
The most generous explanation is she was caught flat-footed and, once again, showed she
has terrible instincts.
If Bernie Sanders can get it through the thick noggin of the nation that he stands for and
will implement the principles, policies, and values of the New Deal–the attitude that
got us through the Great Depression and Wotld War II–he has every chance of being
elected the next President of the United States.
Trust me. By the time it comes around you won't care who gets sworn in as you will just be
glad that all the vicious, wretched skullduggery of this year's elections will finally be
over.
And hoping you get one day of rest before the vicious, wretched skullduggery of
undermining the desires of the American people gets started. Obviously Sanders will make the
Trump years look a cake walk. Anyone else (Democrat or Trump) we will see lots of 'working
for' and 'resistance' type memes while largely doing nothing of the sort, but a whole lot of
'bipartisan' passage of terrible things.
It sounds like Sanders, in the famous 2018 conversation, may have been trying to politely
encourage EW to not run in 2020. Her moment was 2016 and she declined to run then when a
Progressive candidate was needed. Her run in 2020 to some extent divides the Progressive
vote. EW interpreted, perhaps intentionally, Sanders' words to imply that he thinks "no woman
can win in 2020", and then weaponized them against him.
The very fact that she is running at all suggests to me that she is not at heart a
Progressive and in fact does not want a Progressive candidate to win. If she had run in 2016,
Sanders would not have run in order to not divide the Progressive vote. EW knew that Sanders
would run in 2020 and planned to run anyway. It is hard for me to not interpret this to be an
intentional bid for some of the Progressive vote, in order to hold Sanders down.
I agree. She decides to do things based on her own self-interest, and uses progressives as
pawns to work her way up in DC. My guess is that Warren chickened out in 2016 and didn't run
because maybe she didn't think she had a chance against the Clintons. When Warren saw how
well Sanders did against Clinton, how close he was at winning, I think only then she decided
that 2020 was a good chance for a progressive, or someone running as a progressive candidate,
to win the nomination.
She saw how Sanders had fired up loyal progressive support in the Democratic Party. She
chickened out back then when she could have endorsed Bernie in '16, but chose not to,
probably hoping not to burn bridges with Clinton in order to get a plum role in her
administration. Her non-endorsement in '16 worries me because it shows once again that Warren
makes decisions largely based on what is good for her career, not what she thinks is better
for the country (if she really is the progressive she claims to be).
Knowing that there was now a strong progressive base ready to vote for a candidate left of
Democratic candidates like Biden and Clinton, Warren saw her entry into having a good chance
at winning the presidency. Rather than thinking about the implications for Bernie and the
possibility of dividing left-wing voters, her desire to become president was more important.
Remember, this is exactly what Bernie did not do in 2016 when he urged Warren to run, and was
willing to step aside, if she had agreed to do so.
If I had been in Sanders position, I probably would have sat down and talked to Warren
about the serious implications of the both of them running in 2020. How he had hoped to build
on the momentum from his last campaign and the sexism that was used against Clinton in 2016.
Hey, if I had been Sanders, I probably would have told Warren not to run. Not because she's a
woman, but because it would have been obvious to Bernie that with Warren running alongside
him, they would both end up splitting the progressive vote.
What is happening now between the two of them should have been no surprise to either
Bernie or Warren. They are both popular among Democrats who identify as progressive or
left-of-center. Democrats will always find a way to shoot themselves in the foot. And I agree
that when it becomes evident that one of them cannot win, either Bernie or Warren must step
aside for the good of the country and fully back the other. There is no other option if
either of them truly wants the other to win the nomination rather than Biden. I'm hoping that
Warren will do so since it is becoming more clear that Sanders is the stronger progressive
and the stronger candidate who has a better chance at beating both Biden and Trump.
If sheepdog St. Bernard Sanders begins to look like the presumptive nominee, look for a
new candidate to throw her hat into the ring. Her name: Michelle Obama.
I'm so sick of that sheepdog meme (originated by, much as a respect BAR, by a GP activist
bitter, I would say, over many years of GP ineffectuality). The elites seem to be pretty
nervous about a sheepdog.
And now we have Sanders apologizing for an op-ed in the Guardian by Zephyr Teachout
accusing Biden of corruption.
The op-ed simply says what Sanders has said all along, the system is corrupted by big
donors. Then she explicitly states the obvious, which Sanders won't at this point say but
that Trump certainly will: Biden is a prime example of serving his donors' interests to the
detriment of most of the rest of us. Sanders subsequently apologizes for Teachout's baldly
true assertion, stating that he doesn't believe that Biden is corrupt.
I guess we're meant to draw a clear distinction between legalized and illegal corruption.
I don't know. They both look like ducks to me.
I have read that Sanders is the #2 choice of many Iowans who favor JB; it makes a lot of
sense for him to not "go negative" on JB in the run-up to the caucuses.
There will be time for plainer speaking. Sanders has been clear about his views on the
corrupting influence of corporate money in politics. JB is exhibit #1 within the D primary
field and there will be plenty of opportunity to note that.
I suspect that there is a great deal of "method" in what may look to us like "madness" in
the Senator's civility.
To put it another way, I doubt very much that Sanders believes that JB's legislative
agendas were not significantly influenced by the sources of his campaign funds. And I'm sure
that attention will be drawn to this at the right time.
One can charitably affirm that one believes that JB is not a consciously corrupt ,
pay-for-play, kind of person, while also affirming that of course he has been
influenced by the powerful interests that have funded his career, and that this has not
served the interests of the American people. All in due course.
The thing is Warren would make the right argument here: that it's the system that is
corrupted, and make it well. Too bad she has shown so completely that can't be trusted as a
person, because she often looks good on paper
I think Warren misses the key point that the reason why the system is corrupted is because
the players in it are corrupted. They can be bought and sold. That is why they have no
shame.
> The thing is Warren would make the right argument here: that it's the system that is
corrupted
That's not the right answer at all. The climate crisis, for example, is not caused by a
lack of transparency in the oil industry. It is caused by capital allocation decisions by the
billionaire class and their servicers in subaltern classes.
"The real game changer around here, though, might be Iowa State University's decision,
after years of pressure, to issue new student IDs, enabling 35,000 students to vote, even
under Iowa's restrictive new voter-ID law. That's a progressive victory, and in a different
media universe, it would be a story even juicier than a handshake." Iowa is not the
Twittersphere – Laura Flanders
Thanks for giving this the attention it needs, analysis of the primary has been too light
on estimation of delegate numbers and strategy.
Prior to Warren's apparent turn to some new direction, the setup for a 3way DNC with a
progressive "coalition" was not only conceivable, but actually expected from the polls.
We are on pace for Sanders+Warren's combined delegate total to exceed Biden by a healthy
amount (say 4:3) with all others falling below 15% state by state and getting few or no
delegates. Obviously subject to snowballing in either direction, but that's the polls now and
for most of the past year.
Warren's attack on Sanders, and NYT endorsement, say the national party doesn't expect any
such coalition. Therefore Warren has made her choice. That's that.
The path to winning the Dem primary is a little narrower for Sanders, and also for Biden,
since he seems to lack the confidence of his the top strata. The DNC screws a lot up but they
know how to read polls. I'm pretty sure that running Warren in the General is not their plan
A.
Voters in Iowa and the early states (incl. TX and CA) look like they will be deciding it
all this year. The tremendous enthusiasm of Sanders followers gives him, IMO, the best ground
game of the three. Will be an interesting 6 weeks.
I do not even trust Warren to hand any delegates she gets to Sanders at this point.
Because her campaign staff is so full of Clintonites and neoliberals, she might give them to
Biden instead.
She seems to have gone full establishment at this point.
> I do not even trust Warren to hand any delegates she gets to Sanders at this point.
Because her campaign staff is so full of Clintonites and neoliberals, she might give them to
Biden instead.
The youngish rehab therapist, a woman, said this morning that of the women running, she
likes Klobuchar. "If only her voice wasn't so screechy. And I'm saying this as a woman." She
was seriously disturbed by Clinton's attack on Sanders.
Several neighbors are leaning towards Yang.
My impression is her supporters are mostly older, mostly female, and mostly centrist. Many
want to elect a female pres before they die. Prior to the she said event her supporters
second choice were split fairly evenly between Bernie and Biden but the latest fracas is
driving her most progressive supporters to Bernie.
This means most of those remaining will probably migrate to Biden if when she drops out
even if she recommends Bernie. (If 1/3 of her supporters that had Bernie as their second
choice switch to Bernie, then 60% of her remaining supporters have Biden as their second
choice.)
2016 was different, Clinton already had the older females. But there was a period where
just a little support might have tipped the scale in what was a very tight race.
Anyway, I see going forward she will be mostly holding supporters whose second choice is
Biden even as she maybe doesn't reach the 15% barrier
and same with Amy. So I hope they both stay in at least until super tue.
And While I previously thought she was a reasonable choice for veep, I now realize she'd
be an awful choice. Maybe treasury if she does endorse which she will do if Bernie looks a
winner.
How can anyone be surprised at the lack of trustworthiness from a politician who chose to
endorse Clinton in 2016 rather than Bernie? Warren has been playing the DNC game for a long
time now, which ideologically is in line with her lifelong Republican stance before changing
to the more demographically favorable party when she was 47. She's not progressive now, and
never has been or will be.
Both campaigns are backing away from greater public conflict. Whether that holds true in the
long run is anyone's guess, but my guess is that it will. Still, the following is clear:
Warren has been damaged, perhaps permanently, in the eyes of many Sanders supporters who have
considered her a good, and perhaps equivalent, second choice. Her favorability has gone way
down in their eyes and may never recover.
Warren's charge of sexism has inflamed the existing anger of many Democratic and
liberal-leaning women and relit the fire that coursed through the Sanders-Clinton primary and
beyond.
>
Rightly or wrongly, Warren's polling numbers among voters have fallen, while Sanders' polling
has held steady or improved. It's yet to be seen if the incident alters long-term
fund-raising for either candidate, but it might. For his part, Sanders has seen a post-debate
surge in funding .
So far, in other words, most of the damage has been borne by Warren as a result of the
incident. She may recover, but this could also end her candidacy by accelerating a decline
that started with public reaction to her recent stand on Medicare For All. None of this is
certain to continue, but these are the trends.
... ... ...
But if Warren's candidacy becomes unviable, as it seems it might -- and if the goal of
both camps is truly to defeat Joe Biden -- it's incumbent on Warren to drop out and
endorse her "friend and ally" Bernie Sanders as soon as it's clear she can no longer win .
(The same is true if Sanders becomes unviable, though that seems much less likely.)
Ms. Warren can do whatever she wants, certainly. But if she does anything less than help
elect the last and only progressive with a chance, she damages them both to Biden's benefit,
and frankly, helps nominate Biden. She has the right to do that, but not to claim at the same
time that she's working to further the progressive movement.
Bottom line: the corporate press has gone all-in on Warren. She simply MUST be a whore, like Obama, or Hilary/Bill
Clinton. If Warren were a real progressive, the big money would never go for her like this.
I will vote for Bernie Sanders. But I will vote for Trump over Warren. Better the moron
and agent of chaos that you know, than the calculating vicious backstabber that you
don't.
She's got the Clinton's and now Obama folks behind her.
I doubt they are thrilled with her, but probably view as someone they can work with and
the other options are worse or too low in the poll numbers. I assume Buttigieg is fine with
them, but his numbers are stuck.
Personally I cannot consider voting for a drone murderer like Trump, who cozies up to the
Saudis and has tried to cut SS and Medicare. He's shown what he is, just as Warren has. We'll
never get M4A from either one of them.
If it's not Bernie I'm voting Green. I live in a blue state that almost went for Trump
last time – my vote potentially matters and will serve as a signal. Voting for the
lesser murderous corporatist scum is what got us into this mess. I'm over it. I will not vote
for evil.
In 2016 I might just have voted for Trump, as a middle finger to the Dem establishment
that crowned HRH HRC, since at that time he had not committed any war crimes. But now, no
way. One of my unshakeable principles is that I will not vote for a war criminal. Green ,
write-in, or leave the Pres slot blank. But I hope and pray (and I'm an atheist!) that it
doesn't come to this. We really don't have another 4 years to waste on this, the earth can't
wait.
It's very unfortunate that it has come to this, but I've always been uneasy about Warren.
This incident and her accusations against Bernie solidified my suspicions about her. Her
being a Republican until her late 40s, her lies about sending her child to public school, her
lies about her father being a janitor, her plagiarized cookbook recipes, and claiming to be
Native American. It's all so bizarre to me and for a while I had believed her to have a
personality disorder that caused compulsive lying. I wanted to feel good about my vote for
Warren, but now? If she wins the nomination I'll hold my nose and vote for her, but I don't
trust her to not sell out to the neoliberal wing of the Democratic Party. I also don't trust
her to endorse Bernie if she drops out before the convention. She didn't endorse him in '16,
so what makes progressives think she'll do so this time. It would not surprise me in the
least if she endorsed Biden or agrees to be his running mate.
Warren is not agreement-capable. Much as it pains me to say this, the Obama administration
was correct to hold her at arm's length.
Adding, that doesn't mean that Sanders can't negotiate with her, if that must be done (to
defeat Trump). But any such negotiations cannot proceed on a basis of trust.
The most generous interpretation i can come up with is that i's possible she told the
story to several of her clintonite staffers in confidence. Those staffers went to CNN and
forced her to stand by her story, even if she didn't want to go public, because she was
threatened with staffers calling her a liar.
She might have been mad at Bernie for not bailing her out.
This version, which i don't believe, but consider it possible (not plausible) would be
arguably as bad because her staffers got the upper hand and pushed her around.
The problem is the country has become so irrational and susceptible to soundbites and
twitter shame and etc. that you can't even say "electing a women president would be
difficult" which might be true, or it becomes like Hillary's deplorable remark, we all know
it's true some Trump supporters fit the description, but it gets taken way out of context and
exaggerated beyond all recognition.
She didn't even have to deny it. Should could have just been "That was a private
conversation, I will not go into what was said in private. Bernie is a good friend of mine,
who has supported women candidates on many occasions".
She made a blunder. That's for sure. but still Warren is a better candidate then Trump.
The shell game between Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders has transmogrified. The brutal,
post-debate exchange between the duo has the progressive left fearing repeat business from '04:
it happened at just the wrong time, only weeks ahead of the first primaries.
sounds very much like it, in a kind of
ham-fisted, virtue-signaling way -- "Sometimes I fear the American people are still too bigoted
to vote for a woman," or something like that. Yet every Clinton staffer was muttering the same
thing under her breath at 3 a.m. on November 9, 2016.
What's more, Mrs. Warren never denied that Mr. Sanders only ran in the last election cycle
because she declined to do so. Nor can anyone forget how vigorously he campaigned for Mrs.
Clinton, even after she and the DNC rigged the primary against him. If Mrs. Warren and her
surrogates at CNN are claiming that Bernie meant that a person with two X chromosomes is
biologically incapable of serving as president, they're lying through their teeth.
This is how Liz treats her "friend" Bernie -- and when he denies that absurd smear, she
refuses to shake his hand and accuses him of calling her a liar on national television. Then,
of course, the #MeToo brigades line up to castigate him for having the temerity to defend
himself -- further evidence, of course, of his sexism. I mean, like, Bernie is, like,
literally Weinstein.
Then there's the "Latinx" thing, which is the absolute summit of progressive elites'
disconnect with ordinary Americans. In case you didn't know, Mrs. Warren has been roundly
panned for referring to Hispanics by this weird neologism, which was invented by her comrades
in the ivory tower as a gender-neutral alternative to Latino or Latina . The
thing is, Spanish is a gendered language. What's more, a poll by the left-wing market research
group Think Now found that just 2 percent of Hispanics call themselves "Latinx." (In fact, most
prefer the conventional "Hispanic," which is now verboten on the Left because it hearkens back
to Christopher Columbus's discovery of La Española .)
So here comes Professor Warren -- white as Wonder Bread, the mattress in her Cambridge
townhouse stuffed with 12 million big ones -- trying to rewrite the Spanish language because
she thinks it's sexist. How she's made it this far in the primary is absolutely mind-boggling.
She doesn't care about Hispanics, much less their culture. Like every employee of the modern
education system, she's only interested in processing American citizens into gluten-free offal
tubes of political correctness.
Of course, if one of her primary opponents or a cable news "Democratic strategist" (whatever
that is) dared to say as much, they'd be hung, drawn, and quartered. Partisan Democrats have
trained themselves not to think in such terms. That might not matter much if Mrs. Warren was
facing Mitt Romney or John McCain in the general. But she's not. If she wins the primary,
she'll be up against Donald Trump. And if you don't think he'll say all of this -- and a
whole lot more -- you should apply for a job at CNN.
... running against Mrs. Warren would be a walk in the park
Your imaginary Trump anti-Warren schtick might have worked in 2016, but boy does it come
off as unfunny and stale in 2020. He's done too much damage. Not funny anymore. I voted for
Trump. After all his betrayals, Warren could rip him to pieces just by standing next to him
without saying a word. Her WASP reserve and Okie roots might even seem refreshing after our
four-year long cesspool shower with this New York City creep.
Didn't vote for Trump, or Clinton for that matter, cast a protest Libertarian vote. In my
red state it hardly matters, but the electoral college is another story. But observed long
ago that indeed Warren is just what the author says, a too politically correct north east
liberal who would be demolished in the presidential election against Trump. Only Biden or
Klobuchar has a chance to unseat the orange man, or maybe better yet a Biden - Klobuchar
ticket.
I've sometimes voted red and sometimes blue, but a Trump Vs Biden contest might well make
me bored and disappointed enough to join you going libertarian.
If the Dems want to lose, Biden and Klobuchar would be a quick ticket to doing so. Warren
would get the job done not much slower, unless she pivoted away from social issues.
To quote Phyllis Schlafly's advice to conservatives and the GOP, what the Dems need is
"A choice, not an echo." Sanders is the closest the Dems have of offering the voters a real
choice, and is the best option to defeat Trump. The D establishment will still pull out all
the stops to try to block him, of course, because even they and their big donors would
prefer a second Trump term over a New Deal liberal with a socialist gloss, but they may not
succeed this time.
Bernie and Tulsi are the most honest and interesting of the Democratic field, even though
their politics generally aren't mine. Nonetheless, I wish them well, because they appear to
say what they actually think, as opposed to whatever their operatives have focus-group
tested.
Biden's corruption will come out in the general. We could write up articles of impeachment
now. After all, Biden, did actually bribe the Ukraine. He said so himself. On video.
I think Trump's unfortunately stronger now than he was in 2016. Clinton's attacks on him
were painting him as an apocalyptic candidate who would bring America crashing down. By
serving as president for 4 years with a mostly booming economy, Trump's proven them wrong.
The corporate media will continue their hysterical attacks on him though, and that will
boost his support. I think Hillary Clinton was more dislikeable back then than Warren is
now, but Warren is probably even more out of touch. The others might also lose, but she
really as a terrible candidate.
What damage has Trump done, as opposed to the damage the media/Dems/deepstate's RESPONSE to
Trump has done?
Trump has reduced illegal immigration with the expected subsequent increases in employment
and wages, saved taxpayer 1 TRILLION dollars by withdrawing from the Paris accord, killed 2
leading terrorists (finally showing Iran that we aren't their bakshi boys), cut taxes,
stood up for gun rights, reduced harmful governmental regulation, and appointed judges that
will follow the law instead of feelings and popular culture.
He is also exposing the deep underbelly of the corrupt government in Washington, especially
the coup organized between Obama, Hillary, the DNC, Brennan, Comey, Clapper and the
hyperpartisan acts of the FBI, CIA, DOJ, IRS and now the GAO (unless you believe that the
"non-partisan" GAO released their report which claimed Trump violated the law by holding up
Ukranian funds for a few months within the same fiscal year on the same day Nancy
forwarded the articles of impeachment by some amazing coincidence).
The problem isn't Trump. The problem is the liars opposing the existential threat Trump
poses to the elitists who despise America.
"For all my reservations about Mr. Trump -- his lagging commitment to
protectionism, his shafting of Amy Coney Barrett, his deportation of
Iraqi Christians, his burgeoning hawkishness, his total lack of
decorum -- he's infinitely preferable to anyone the Democrats could
nominate."
You gloss over a few dozen other failures, most of them bigger than anything you mention
here (immigration, infrastructure, more mass surveillance and privacy violations by govt
and corporations than even Obama).
You realize that the progress Trump has made on immigration is why unemployment is down and
wages are up, right?
Most Americans think that's a good thing.
Democrats, not so much.
I think I disliked the last thing I saw by Davis. Whatever. This one is better. Not perfect
-- some of it is out of touch -- but he makes a case. And, sad to say,
I concur with his prediction for the election, with or without Warren.
I'm starting to like her. I thought she handled herself well at the last debate.
"Presidential". It's been quite a while since we had a real president. Too long.
Forgive me, but Democratic voters put way too much store in presidents being Presidential.
And they spent way too much time talking about Bush's verbal gaffes and Trump's disgusting
personality to get Gore, Kerry or H. Clinton elected.
As the author wrote, it was invented by academics. One problem with the Democrat Party is
that it is teeming with Professor Kingsfield types who are as much connected with the rest
of the population as I am with aborigines.
Finally someone said what most people think. Love the imagined Trump comments to
Warren..."Relax. Put on a nice sweater, have a cup of tea, grade some papers." As i read
those I heard Trump's unique way of speech and was laughing out loud. BTW...Tulsi Gabbard
is such an attractive candidate...heard her interviewed on Tucker Carlson and I think could
present a real challenge to Trump if she ever rose up to face him in a debate. It's curious
someone like Warren shoots to the top, while she remains in the back of the line.
The media deliberately shut her down, just like they are shutting down Bernie. The DNC also
doesn't like her (possibly because she resigned as cochair and is critical of Hillary) and
seems to have chosen their debate criteria -which surveys they accept-in order to shut her
out. I liked her up until she objected to taking out Soleimani-a known terrorist in the
middle of a war zone planning attacks on US assets.
Sorry, Trump was spot on in this attack. Tulsi was completely wrong. However, she is
honest, experienced, knowledgeable and not psychotic, a refreshing change from the other
Dem Presidential candidates. If you haven't figured out yet that CNN is basically the media
arm of Warren's campaign, you haven't been paying attention. That is how Warren continues
to poll reasonably well.
These arguments amaze me. "Since your candidate is too school marmy, or elitist, or (insert
usual democrat insult here), you're giving the electorate no choice but to vote for the
most corrupt, openly racist, sexist, psychologically lying, dangerously mentally deranged
imbecile in the country".
Because rather than an educated person who maybe comes off as an elitist, we'd rather
have a disgusting deplorable who no sane parent would allow in the same room with their
daughter.
Lol, and yet writers like this don't even realize the insanity of what they're saying,
which is basically "that bagel is 2 days old, so I have choice but to eat this steaming
pile of dog crap instead".
"Because rather than an educated person who maybe comes off as an elitist, we'd rather have
a disgusting deplorable who no sane parent would allow in the same room with their
daughter."
No need for the ad hominem, you are overstating your case. Remember, Trump is "educated"
too. And a card-carrying member of the elite. Leave us not kid ourselves, they're all
"elites" of one stripe or another. It only matters which stripe we prefer, meaning of
course whether they are saying what we want to hear. Of all of the candidates, the only one
who does not come off as an "elite" is Tulsi Gabbard, an intelligent woman who is arguably
the most interesting of all the candidates--in part because of her active military service.
I'd even throw in Andrew Yang, a friendly, engaging person who didn't seem to have an ax to
grind. It matters not. Yang is out of the picture and Gabbard has as much of a crack at the
Democratic nomination in 2020 as Rand Paul had at the Republican nomination in
2016--essentially zero.
Lol trump is educated too? You've lose all credibility with such comical false
equivalencies.
Trump is an absolute imbecile who has failed up his entire life thanks to daddy's
endless fortune. If he we born Donald Smith he'd be pumping gas in Jersey, or in jail as a
low life con man.
While I find myself shocked to be found defending anything Trumpean, in all fairness, he is
a college grad-u-ate (shades of Lily Tomlin). The value, depth, or scope of his degree may
be in question, but he does possess a sheep-skin, and hence must be considered "educated".
If one wants to demean his "education" because of his personality, one must also demean a
rather broad segment of college grad-u-ates as well.
He graduated from Penn's Wharton School of Business, ergo he is educated. Because a person
doesn't hold the same political beliefs as another doesn't mean they can't be "educated."
Liz Warren may not hold the same political beliefs as I, but I cannot argue that she isn't
educated.
Lol wow, well I'd say it's hilarious that anyone can be so naive to actually think a
compete imbecile like trump, who so clearly has never read a book in his life, actually
earned his way into college; let alone actually studied and earned a degree.....but then I
remember this country is obviously filled with people this remarkable gullible and stupid,
as this walking SNL sketch is actually President.
I actually think you are spot on in your assessment of what Trump would have become if he
wasn't born to money, but you really are behaving like exactly that kind of Democratic
voter who gets more exorcised by Trump's personal faults than by his policy ones, the kind
of Democrats who couldn't get Al Gore, John Kerry and Hilary Clinton elected.
Really. You think someone that managed to become President of the United States with no
political or military experience would have failed at life if he hadn't had a wealthy
father. You really believe that. You don't think any of Trump's success and accomplishments
are due to his ambition, drive, energy, determination, executive skills, ruthlessness or
media savvy. It was all due to his having a rich father.
Fascinating.
Trump has had no success. He's failed at everything he's ever done. You obviously just know
nothing about his actual life, and believe the made up reality TV bullshit.
The only thing he's good at is playing a rich successful man on TV to really, really,
stupid, unread, unworldly, naive people....well that and giving racists white nationalists,
the billionaire owner class, sexists, bigots, and deplorables, a political home.
I think Trump is and would have been, sans his father's wealth, one hell of a con man. And
I hope to God that he would have ended up in jail for it rather than running a private
equity fund, but the latter would have been just as likely.
However, I should have made that distinction in my original comment. No, I do not think
that Trump would have ended up a gas station attendant.
It's very hard for me to understand how anyone could be so, shall we say sheltered, that
they couldn't see him coming a mile away and laugh their ass off.
He's so bad, so transparent with his obvious lies and self aggrandizing, so clearly
ignorant and unread and trying to fake it, he's literally like a cartoon's funny over the
top version of an idiot con man. I'll never understand how anyone could ever be fooled by
it.
In fact sometimes I think 90% of his base isn't fooled, they know he's a joke, but they
just don't care. He gives them the white nationalist hate and rhetoric they want, makes
"liberals cry", and that all they care about.
It's a lot easier for me to believe THAT then so many people can actually be so stupid
and gullible.
Say what? What policies? The trillion dollar hand out to the richest corporations in the
world, double the deficit? His mind blowing disastrous foreign policy decisions that have
done nothing but empowered Russia, Iran and North Korea while destabilizing western
alliances? The trade wars that have cost fairness and others billions (forcing taxpayers to
bail them out with tens of millions of dollars)? The xenophobia, separating and caging
children? Stoking violence and hate and anger among his white nationalist base? His attacks
on women reproductive rights? His attacks on all of our democratic institutions, from our
free press to our intelligence agencies and congressional oversights?
A pathologically lying racist sexist self serving criminal is enough to disqualify this
miscreant from being dog catcher, let alone president. But his policies are even worse.
You don't seem to know that the University of Pennsylvania is an Ivy League school, or what
the Wharton School of Business actually is. Imbeciles do not graduate from the Wharton
School.
Lol, trump is an imbecile, that's not even debatable. What amazes the rest of the entire
civilized world outside of the batshit fringe 20% of Americans who make up the Republican
voting base is how anyone could possible be conned by such a cartoonish idiot wanna be con
man.
It's truly something sane people can't even begin to wrap their heads around.
The Dowager Countess (Downton Abbey, for the un-initiated) nailed her type. In referring to
her do-gooder cousin Mrs. Isobel Crawley, she said: "Some people run on greed, lust, even
love. She runs on indignation." That sums up Warren perfectly.
I'll take it one step further. I bought one of her books, on the 'two-income trap' and how
middle-class families go to the wall to get into good school districts for their children.
She and her co-author make some valid points, but the book is replete with cliches about
men abandoning their families and similar leftist tropes. If that's the best Harvard Law
Warren has to offer, she's not as sharp as she thinks she is, and a bully like Trump will
school her fast.
Evidently Mr Davis dislikes Warren because of her personal style - but all of Trump's
substantive (or even, substance...) issues are acceptable. How shallow of him.
I can't say the two of us exactly line up on everything. But, like Wow: "gluten-free offal
tubes of political correctness." Now that's funny! Wish I'd thought of it.
I liked Warren until this attempt to stab Bernie in the back plus that childish refusal to
shake his hand on national TV. I still don't dislike her, but that was embarrassing. She
definitely has character flaws.
But this piece goes over the top. It's Trumpian. Warren certainly has flaws but if you
are going to judge a politician by their character, in what universe would Trump come out
on top?
Better than Warren.
The problem with affirmative action is when you abuse it, as Warren did, you actually rob a
genuine minority from a genuine disadvantaged background of their chance.
Warren deliberately misrepresented herself as a Native American, solely for career
advancement, and then abandoned her fake identity once she got tenure at Harvard. There was
another woman who was an actual minority that had a teaching appointment at Harvard, but
Warren beat her out, using her false claims of minority heritage to overcome her
competition's actual minority status.
Trump competes on his own.
There what's funny about these arguments. They're basically saying, "your candidate has
some flaws, she's very school marmy, and thinks she knows everything."
"Therefore, OBVIOUSLY people have no choice but to instead vote for the raging imbecile,
the pathologically lying, corrupt to his core, racist, morally bankrupt, sexist imbecile
with the literal temperament of of an emotionally troubled 10 year old."
What unpleasant memories Mister Davis has elicited - - - i once had a schoolmarm like that.
(Shudder)
It is, however, disturbing that Davis has almost captured the style of Trumptweets. The
give-away is a shade more literacy and better grammar in Davis' offerings.
But what of the possibility, as suggested above, that Trump loses to Biden or (Generic
Democratic candidate)?
As I tell my liberal friends, the country survived eight years of Priapic Bill, eight
years of Dubya and Dubyaer, eight years of BHO, and after four years of Trump is yet
standing, however drunkenly.
I think, contra many alarmists, the Republic is much stronger than the average pundit or
combox warrior gives it credit.
And, who knows? Maybe the outrage pornography we get from Tweeting birdies will grow
stale and passe, and people will yearn for more civil discourse? (Not likely, but one never
knows.)
I refuse to use "Bay Stater" for the same reason I dislike being called "Mike": nicknames
are irritating, unless they're outlandish, like "Beanie" or "Boko" or "Buttigieg."
Massachusetts is a beautiful name -- slow and smooth, like the Merrimack.
"Massachusettsian" adds a little skip at the end, as the river crashes into the Atlantic at
Newburyport. It's the perfect demonym.
Speaking of, I was born and spent the first 18 years of my life in Massachusetts --
about 10 minutes outside Newburyport, where my great-great-something grandparents lived
when the Revolution broke out. I don't know how much further back the family tree goes in
Mass., but probably further than yours.
Good luck with that utter nonsense word, then. Bay Stater is not a nickname - it's the
longstanding term (and, for some reason, the Massachusetts General Court also blessed it
legislatively), from long before my folk lived in New England since the mid-19th century
(Connecticut and Massachusetts - hence my reference to Nutmeggers, as my parents made quite
clear to us that there were no such things as Connecticutters or Massachusetters or the
like and not to go around sounding like fools using the like.)
Of course, I'd like to recover the old usage of the Eastern States to refer to New
England. Right now, its sole prominent residue is the Big E in Springfield....
Its chosen candidates are: Elizabeth Warren, the Republican-turned-progressive who for years posed as a Native American to game
America's system of affirmative action - and Amy Klobuchar, the midwestern senator from the great state of Minneapolis with a reputation
for being an unhinged dragon-lady boss.
That the NYT selected the two remaining women among the top tier of contenders is hardly a surprise: This is, after all, the same
newspaper that kicked off #MeToo by dropping the first expose about Harvey Weinstein's history of abusing, harassing and assaulting
women just days before the New Yorker followed up with the first piece from Ronan Farrow.
...After all, if the editors went ahead with their true No. 1 choice, Klobuchar, a candidate who has very little chance of actually
capturing the nomination, they would look foolish.
Warren is a much better candidate than Biden is in my view.
Warren seems to get into trouble sometimes for all kinds of reasons like most people do, but the problems are usually trivial,
more silly than dangerous. There is tendency in her to stick to her guns even when she does not know what she is doing.
When i run into something unexpected or something that seems to be something i don't understand, i usually backtrack and look
at the problem from some distance to see what happened and why before trying to correct or fix the problem, rather than just doing
something.
Its not a perfect plan, but it seems to work most of the time.
NYT remains a joke. Their endorsement is straight up virtue-signalling.
Here's some reality: Warren's latest antics have cemented her image as dishonest and high-strung. Knoblocker has no charisma
and remains practically unknown.
I've personally sat down and talked with Klobuchar. Not a lot of depth of intelligence in her, that's for sure, easily manipulated
by lobbyists. Warren, at least, knows what the problem is, although she might have swallowed the proverbial Democratic party "kool
aid".
Warren is the deep state establishment pick. If you must vote Dem, pick someone that isn't, or one the establishment seems
to work against. Better yet, vote Trump, safe bet on gun rights, freedoms.
Is Warren Warren the Jussie Smollet of politics. I wonder if she claims Bernie attacked her
while wearing a red hat and screaming, "A woman can't win! This is MAGA country!"
Being one of Liz' constituents and familiar with her career and her base (consisting of
people like me,) I think she faces so little consequence for her "embellishments" at least in
part because "we" (her base) inhabit an environment in which, with ease, we adjust facts and
perceptions to conform to whatever our self-serving narrative of the moment may be.
We know that Liz will say anything she imagines will be to her advantage and it's okay
with "us" that she does. In a way, she's our ideal candidate and media darling because she
reflects and affirms our plastic values.
"... Furthermore, if you don't agree with Sen. Warren's version of events, or if you mention her history of "embellishing," you are a sexist and a misogynist just like Sanders. So fall in line with the establishment narrative, quick. ..."
"... In a statement to CNN, Sanders said before the debate that's not what happened at all. ..."
"... "It is ludicrous to believe that at the same meeting where Elizabeth Warren told me she was going to run for president, I would tell her that a woman couldn't win," said Sanders, chalking up the story to "staff who weren't in the room lying about what happened." ..."
"... Warren's staff knows she is prone to "embellish" things ..."
"... No wonder Sanders was complaining about liberals' obsession with identity politics . As an elderly, Jewish socialist, he might be an endangered species, but he's one minority group that intersectional politics has no use for. ..."
The media cannot forgive Bernie Sanders for refusing to "bend the knee" to Elizabeth Warren
regarding her recounting of a now infamous December 2018 meeting between the two, in which the
Vermont senator allegedly said a woman could not be elected president.
Furthermore, if you don't agree with Sen. Warren's version of events, or if you
mention her history of "embellishing," you are a sexist and a misogynist just like Sanders. So
fall in line with the establishment narrative, quick.
That is the clear takeaway after the media took off its fig leaf of journalistic
impartiality at the seventh Democrat presidential debate in Iowa Tuesday.
During the debate, CNN moderator Abby Phillips had this exchange:
Phillips: You're saying that you never told Senator Warren that a woman couldn't win
the election?
Bernie: Correct.
Phillips: Senator Warren, what did you think when Sanders said a woman couldn't win the
election?
Warren: I disagreed. Bernie is my friend, and I am not here to try to fight with
Bernie.
This is "when did you stop beating your wife" level debate questioning from CNN. The
question is premised around an
anonymously-sourced story CNN reported Monday describing a meeting between Sanders and
Warren in December 2018, where the two agreed to a non-aggression pact of sorts. For the sake
of the progressive movement, they reportedly agreed they would not attack each other during the
campaign:
They also discussed how to best take on President Donald Trump, and Warren laid out two
main reasons she believed she would be a strong candidate: She could make a robust argument
about the economy and earn broad support from female voters. Sanders responded that he did
not believe a woman could win.
In a statement to CNN, Sanders said before the debate that's not what happened at
all.
"It is ludicrous to believe that at the same meeting where Elizabeth Warren told me she
was going to run for president, I would tell her that a woman couldn't win," said Sanders,
chalking up the story to "staff who weren't in the room lying about what happened."
"I thought a woman could win; he disagreed," said Warren in a statement.
Cue CNN's gladiatorial presidential debates.
Eager to strike all the right girl-power notes for the night, Phillips followed up by asking
Sen. Amy Klobuchar the substantive policy question, "what do you say to people who say that a
woman can't win this election?" and Warren earned cheers for a line about women successfully
winning elections.
"Look at the men on this stage," Warren said. "Collectively, they have lost 10 elections.
The only people on this stage who have won every single election that they've been in are the
women: Amy (Klobuchar) and me."
After the debate, media commentators roundly declared Warren the winner, and pundits
attacked the very idea of questioning the veracity of Warren's account.
Here's CNN, just after the debate:
Chris Cillizza, CNN politics reporter: Sanders, look, a lot of it is personal
preference. I didn't think his answer vis-a-vis Elizabeth Warren and what was said in that
conversation was particularly good. He was largely dismissive. "Well, I didn't say it.
Everyone knows I didn't say it, we don't need to talk about it."
Jess McIntosh, CNN political commentator: And I think what Bernie forgot was that this
isn't a he-said-she-said story. This is a reported-out story that CNN was part of breaking.
So to have him just flat out say "no," I think, wasn't nearly enough to address that for the
women watching.
Joe Lockhart, CNN political commentator: And I can't imagine any woman watching last
night and saying, I believe Bernie. I think people believe Elizabeth.
Van Jones, CNN political commentator: This was Elizabeth Warren's night. She needed to
do something and there was a banana peel sitting out there for Bernie to step on when it came
to his comments about women. I think Bernie stepped on it and slid around. She knocked that
moment out of the park.
But isn't this story the literal definition of a he-said, she-said story?
The accusation may have appeared in a "reported-out story," but these are its sources:
"The description of that meeting [between Sanders and Warren in December 2018] is based
on the accounts of four people: two people Warren spoke with directly soon after the
encounter, and two people familiar with the meeting."
Is it sexist to question why this story would come out on the eve of the debate -- after
months of the two candidates getting along as they had promised to do, when
Sanders pulls ahead of Warren in polling ?
In addition to Warren's tenuous relationship with the truth, there also happens to be video
from the 1980s where Sanders says a woman could be president:
1988, @BernieSanders , backing
Jackson:"The real issue is not whether you're black or white, whether you're a woman or a man
*in my view, a woman could be elected POTUS* The real issue is are you on the side of workers
& poor ppl, or are you on the side of big money &corporations?" pic.twitter.com/VHmfzvyJdy
-- Every nimble plane is a policy failure. (@KindAndUnblind) January
13, 2020
Yet, you wouldn't know any of that, listening to the coverage of the debate, where
commentators waxed poetic about Warren's "win" and how any attacks on her predilection for
lying were misogyny itself.
Over on Sirius XM POTUS channel Tuesday, an executive producer on Chris Cuomo's show (Chris
Cillizza filling in) said that the suggestion from Sanders surrogates that Warren's staff
knows she is prone to "embellish" things
is "a misogynistic thing to put out there like, 'oh well, look at the quaint housewife, she is
prone to embellishment.'"
The New York Times also embraced the questionable sexism premise, writing that in"a
conflict heavily focused on which candidate is telling the truth, Ms. Warren faces a real risk:
Several studies have
shown that voters punish women more harshly than men for real or perceived dishonesty If
voters conclude that Ms. Warren is lying, it is most likely to hurt her more than it will hurt
Mr. Sanders if voters conclude that he is lying."
Over at Vox:
The over-the-top language -- likening criticism of an opponent to aknife in the back-- was familiar. When powerful men have been accused of
sexual misconduct in recent years, they and othershave
often complainedthat they've been "killed" or that their "lives are over" The
situation between Warren and Sanders is very different from those that have arisen as part of
the Me Too movement. But the exaggerated language around a woman's decision to speak out is
strikingly similar.
This sort of language is an insult to all women who have had to deal with sexism and
misogyny, both in the workplace and in society, and this need to glom on to any aggrieved
group, no matter how ill-fitting, is getting really stale.
Meanwhile, former Hillary Clinton and Obama Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri
tweeted, "I just rewatched the footage from last night and found it odd that Sanders never says
'a woman could beat Trump.' His formulation is he believes a 'woman could be president.' It's
only when he speaks about his own abilities that he talks about what it takes to 'beat
Trump.'"
This is the old sexist standby: "I'd vote for a woman, just not that woman."
What is it that these people want, for Sanders to endorse his opponent, simply because she
is female? Isn't that the very definition of sexism? By virtue of the fact that Sanders is
still in this race, he obviously thinks he can do a better job as president than Warren. There
isn't going to be another presidential race against Trump, but Palmieri still essentially wants
Sanders to say, in a five-way race three weeks before the Iowa caucus, "Warren can beat Trump
in November."
The question here should be whether this is a person that we can trust, not whether the
candidate is male or female. Does this person have a history of being honest, or do they have a
history of lying?
No wonder Sanders was complaining about
liberals' obsession with identity politics . As an elderly, Jewish socialist, he might be
an endangered species, but he's one minority group that intersectional politics has no use
for.
What are you talking about? If you want to know what Sanders says on this issue, rad his
interview with the NYT which was conducted before this cynical hit job occurred. He says
many voters are misogynistic, but not that a woman can't win.
I think both were telling the truth in that Warren probably took it to mean a woman
can't win, but her campaign cynically released thi story over a year later because she was
slipping in tge pollls behind Bernie.
That's ridiculously generous of you, at least towards Warren. She knows perfectly well his
position on the possibility of a woman president, and women running for office generally.
she knows he campaigned vigorously for HRC after the nomination, and she knows that Sanders
knows that HRC took the popular vote by over 3 million votes, so he obviously knows that it
is highly possible for a woman to win the presidency. This is simply a bald-faced lie on
Warren's part, but she has gained nothing electorally for this desperate smear. Sanders not
only had a record fundraising day after this surfaced, but at least one poll has him up 2
points in Iowa, where he was already in the lead, with Warren stuck at 12%.
Six corporations own something like 90% of the media now.
And CNN is part of the corporate-media-complex.
So not too much of a surprise that they are going after Sanders.
The billionaires are worried he might win, so in a way, this is a good
sign.
The 24 hour news channels depend on Trump to bring in the outrage required to keep up their
viewing figures. So it makes sense that they should help give him a democrat opponent he
can't lose against, like Elizabeth Warren.
While it should be fairly obvious to most that Bernie Sanders political rivals are trying
everything they can to get ahead of him, it's also true that the DNC and the Main Stream
Media, are also trying to trash Bernie in an attempt to take him out as a candidate. The
DNC and the MSM did the same thing the last time he attempted to win the nomination, and it
appears they are doing so now.
The corporate MSM machine should be careful. Another candidate they trashed during the
last election cycle, and ever since, became the President. It seems some voters have tied
the corporate MSM together with the D.C. establishment, and voters that want an outsider to
lead them may just see the MSM's attempts to denigrate a candidate as a ringing endorsement
for the outsider.
As a side note, I find it humorous that the MSM attempts to diminish Bernie's supporters
as zealots and too extreme to be taken seriously... I thought that political candidates
actually worked to gain the support of enthusiastic and motivated supporters? Or, is that
just for the candidates that are acceptable to the Main Stream Media and the political
Parties?
Voted for Trump in great part because Hillary Clinton was such a liar. Now he turned out to
be an even bigger liar than she was. It sure would be nice to have a candidate who didn't
lie so much, but now I don't know whether that would be Sanders or Warren.
Strictly speaking, socialism was an abject failure which ended with the fall of the Iron
Curtain, There is an unfortunate tendency to conflate "socialism" with what is called the
"welfare state." The United States is a welfare state but can hardly be mistaken for a
socialist state.
I think I see it mostly the same way you do, but with semantic differences. I would argue
that communism - the totalitarian version of socialism - was the abject failure. Any first
world modern state is a blend of market-based economies and socialism. The question is
always which exchanges are best left to market forces and which are best managed from
above. And then, how much management to provide. I caution against seeing socialism vs
capitalism as some binary switch to flip.
And the fact is that many of these welfare states were implemented by self-declared
socialists, including many parties that were members of the Socialist, or Second,
International.
Unfortunately, many of these socialist and labor parties hopped on the neo-liberal train
in the 1980's, and are today deathly afraid of their own Bernie Sanders (see Corbyn,
Jeremy), and even more afraid of scaring off international finance and the German Central
Bank.
Point taken. Perhaps "radical socialism" would have been more accurate. Your description of
the modern state as a "blend" is spot-on. An economics professor I once had called ours a
"mixed economy", which was a phrase that has always stuck in my mind.
Social democratic and labor parties around the world turned neo-liberal in the 1980's,
including the Scandinavian ones. They've been helping to rip up the "social contract"
between Capital and Labor, and the social welfare state, ever since, as well as reversing
previous nationalizations and launching privatization. This phenomenon has included
Scandinavia, which is why the parties there are so sensitive to all this talk in the U.S.
about them being models of "socialism."
Fact is, all non-Marxist "socialist" countries are market based, and are in fact capitalist
at the economic base. When did any Scandinavian "socialist" country ever expropriate any
major corporations?
You might actually want to do a bit of research on that point. Going back 60, 70 or 80
years, there might be some nationalizations of railroads, utilities, energy companies and
other major industries not involved in the actual manufacturing of goods in Scandinavia.
Great Britain certainly saw such nationalizations, although revolutionary leftists
sometimes dismissed them as "lemon socialism" because the capitalist class was fobbing off
money-losing or capital-intensive sectors of the economy on the government, in order to
concentrate on more profitable enterprises.
She may, especially if Bernie Sanders falters, win the nomination in Milwaukee next
July.
But here's something you might consider:
Once upon a time, there was a liberal Democratic Senator from Massachusetts who won the Iowa
caucuses and New Hampshire primary easily, and then swept to the nomination.
His opponent was a largely unpopular Republican president who had deeply divided the
country. Democrats thought they could smell victory. On Election Day, their candidate did sweep
the northeast and the Pacific west. But except for a few states around Chicago, he lost
everything else -- and the presidential election.
His name was John Kerry, and that was 2004.
Once upon another time, there was a Democratic candidate from Massachusetts who made a
better-than-expected showing in Iowa, swept New Hampshire, and breezed to the nomination.
By summer, he was 17 points ahead in the polls, and the race looked about over. But then the
Republican spin doctors went to work on his record, and his campaign went into a tailspin. In
the end, he lost 40 states. His name was Michael Dukakis, and that was 1988.
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Now, it is a new century, and one of the front-running candidates for the Democratic
nomination is Ms. Warren, another liberal senator from, yes, Massachusetts who is leading in
some polls in early key states. Every election is different, of course.
The political landscape isn't the same as it was in 1988 or even 2004. But it would be hard
to blame any Democrat who looks at this and asks themselves – haven't we seen this show
before?
Doesn't it have an unhappy ending?
This analysis could be faulty. No two campaigns are the same, and most people are still not
paying a lot of attention.
To be sure, nobody like Donald Trump has ever been in the White House, and given his
negative approval ratings and other obvious weaknesses, an economic downturn could possibly
doom his reelection no matter who the Democrats run.
David Brooks, the conservative New York Times columnist, is no fan of Warren's
– but thinks she may win because by that time, the nation will realize they have to get
rid of Trump, no matter what.
Incidentally, he also thinks it would be the duty of any thinking American to support her if
she and Trump are the nominees.
But a New York Times /Siena College poll released Nov. 5 indicates that nominating
Elizabeth Warren could be the biggest gift the Democrats could give President Trump. Their
survey showed former Vice President Joe Biden beating Trump in virtually every swing state,
except for North Carolina.
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont led the President narrowly in the three states that
decided the last election, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. But Warren trailed in every
swing state except Arizona.
Polls are notoriously unreliable, especially this early in any election cycle, and a
Washington Post-ABC News poll the same day showed Warren with a 55 to 40 percent lead over
Trump.
But even that poll showed the more moderate Biden doing better. The New York Times survey
found that many voters just plain did not like Warren, some because they did not like her
"Medicare for all," health insurance plan; others because they disliked her personality or
speaking style.
Some said they felt like she was lecturing them; others, like Elysha Savarese, a 26-year-old
Floridian, said "I just don't feel like she's a genuine candidate. I find her body language to
be very off-putting. She's very cold basically a Hillary Clinton clone."
That may be unfair, and it is clear from Warren rallies that many women and men adore
her.
There are also a few older Democrats who note that John F. Kennedy was a Democratic senator
from Massachusetts, and he was elected. That is true – but it was also six decades
ago.
Kennedy, who was perceived as a middle-of-the-road moderate, could count on states like
Louisiana and Arkansas and Georgia that no Democrat – certainly not one on the left
– has much if any hope of winning today. Additionally, the playing field is
different.
Voting strength and electoral votes have shifted dramatically from the Northeast, which was
and is JFK and Warren's base, to the South and West. New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts
had a combined 93 electoral votes in 1960. They have a mere 60 today.
Florida, which President Kennedy, (like Hillary Clinton) narrowly lost, had 10 electoral
votes in 1960; it has 29 today. Geography has become less favorable to a Massachusetts
Democrat. The day after Paul Tsongas won the 1992 Democratic primary, the legendary Texas Gov.
Ann Richards, a often irreverent Democrat, dryly told a friend of mine, "So they want to give
us another liberal from Massachusetts, and this one has a lisp."
Democrats did not, however, nominate Tsongas, but instead chose Bill Clinton, the governor
of Arkansas who was perceived as a moderate. That fall, he won.
History does not always repeat itself. But it does, sometimes, provide signposts for the
future.
(Editor's Note: A version of this column also appeared in the Toledo Blade.)
@psychedelicatessen #117
You are making a number of assumptions which I don't necessarily agree with.
1) That Sanders and Warren are on the same "side" and are viewed the same by the
"establishment". They clearly are not. Warren is the fallback should Sanders not be beaten by
Biden. Warren is not a real progressive.
2) Trump vs. Sanders - again, depends on which part of the deep state. It is an error to
assume the deep state is any more monolithic than anything else. The most credible breakdown
I've seen is that the "deep state" is really 3 parts: the corporates who are happy with
Trump, the intel agencies who are not, and the military which was unhappy originally but is
now ok since they've come out ahead of the intel agencies and still have representation at
the highest levels.
Looking at these same 3 with Sanders: the corporates would/are not happy. The intel agencies
are fine with Sanders and so is the military (F35, baby!). So it isn't clear at all the "deep
state" overall cares about/hates one more than the other - the constituent groups simply have
different goals.
3) Control over petro-dollar dominance. Frankly, I don't see how Trump or Sanders matters
there. The tactical plays are very clear: keep the Saudis happy so they won't accede to China
wanting to buy Saudi oil in RMB, because the Saudis don't have any other reason to stipulate
dollar payments any more.
4) Economic collapse: I am curious as to how you think this will happen. Specifically what is
the driver?
If it is de-dollarization - that is going to take decades, unless the US has a debt crisis
before then. And frankly, I don't see it coming soon because there is simply too much
international trade dollar cushion for the US debt accumulation to be a visible problem for
quite some time.
If it is domestic collapse not due to de-dollarization - what is the driver? The economy is
already no longer a major manufacturing, etc - with helicopter money going to the 1%. As much
as the neoliberals hate it, the reality is that the pain Trump inflicts via the trade war
ultimately is net positive for domestic production. It takes a while to make an impact, but
the trade war and the anti-China machinations have already caused Chinese manufacturers to
move production abroad - and to increase in-US production.
Plus there are ways to extend the runway: health care in particular. That's a big, deep and
very popular pot of gold which could be attacked, should Trump desire to do so. As far as I
can see, he doesn't have any particular fondness or historical partnerships with the health
care/pharma industry.
In 2016, HRC received $32.6M from health care (#1 overall) vs. Trump's $4.9M (#5
overall). source
Compare with defense: Trump and Clinton were about equal (tied for #1 but only $1M or
so).
Trump has also pushed through some laws which definitely aren't liked by the health care
folks, like the hospital bill transparency law.
"... Warren is that person you can never rely on–the one that has no defining characteristic other than self-elevation. Over the years, if it benefited her, she backed a few seemingly decent causes, but it was never about doing the right thing. It was all political expediency and shape shifting. She was a Republican during so many tumultuous years -- even during the Reagan era that propelled us towards what we are going through now hell, she was a Republican until her late 40s. But now she has reinvented herself as a populist, but won't even talk out against Biden, the man from Creditcardlandia. She's a promiscuous virgin, a carnivorous vegan. ..."
"... The treachery of Warren towards Sanders is most likely from some back room deal with Biden. ..."
To say Elizabeth Warren is a political opportunist is not giving
her enough credit. She has taken the struggles, as well as the identities of others (women,
school teachers, Native Americans, public school supporters, people who are able to tweet with
humor, actual humans) and has weaponized these categories until the meaning of it all is lost.
Her tweet about leaving your ghosting boyfriend and getting a dog despite your roommate's
objections should have placed her in the pandering hall of fame, and with that should have
included a one way trip to some kind of holding cell for the criminally trite.
Her obvious lies (she's not even good at them, shaking and being sketchy with a
tweaker-looking-body-vibe-thing when she tries to pull them off) -- well that bit regarding
Bernie Sanders has electrified her twitter feed with images of snakes and has even managed to
get #RefundWarren trending. At this rate, maybe she can pull in a negative donation for this
quarter. What an achievement. The first female candidate to pull that off! Grrrrl Power! Her
political instincts are as feeble as her lies -- to have her tell it, she was a selfless public
servant most of her career (more like a teacher long enough to mention it, and a corporate
lawyer as the subsequent defining profession). Her kids only went to public schools (umm no),
she is of native heritage (shouldn't she have helped a bit at Standing Rock with that
1/16600600606006 ancestry that she is so proud of?) . Oh yes, her father was a janitor (again,
what? No). She is but a champion for the veracity challenged. That's true at least.
Warren is that person you can never rely on–the one that has no defining
characteristic other than self-elevation. Over the years, if it benefited her, she backed a few
seemingly decent causes, but it was never about doing the right thing. It was all political
expediency and shape shifting. She was a Republican during so many tumultuous years -- even
during the Reagan era that propelled us towards what we are going through now hell, she was a
Republican until her late 40s. But now she has reinvented herself as a populist, but won't even
talk out against Biden, the man from Creditcardlandia. She's a promiscuous virgin, a
carnivorous vegan.
This current trend to take on the struggles of others as your own has been powerful of late.
Cops pretend to have coffee cups served to them with pig slurs and Warren puts forth that the
very individual who actually urged her to run for president in 2016, changed course and told
her women can't win (despite ample evidence that Sanders has a track record that is decidedly
feminist). I think she said Bernie offered her a cup of coffee in their meeting that had
written on it something like "Women can't win, you're a bitch, how's menopause treating you,
and also your hair is dry and brittle." (It was a Starbucks Trenta cup so he could go full on
misogynist because there was a lotta space to write on–thanks Starbucks, first a war on
Christmas, now a war on Women).
So I'd say this is weaponizing a status and taking the struggles of others to pretend they
are your own. Stolen valor, really.
For many of us Sanders is a compromise. The changes needed are massive, but he's the closest
thing we've got at this point. The hulking size of our nation and the lack of immediacy to
those in power over us lends a situation of creating an infantalized population. This is where
we are at now. There should be direct accountability and of course we have nothing of the sort.
I suspect far in the future, if humans are to survive in any manner, it will go back to some
sort of mutual aid, and direct accountability from those making life and death decisions over
others, in short, more of a tribal situation. But right now, in our lifetimes, we are tasked
with attempting to keep the planet below 150 degrees, to not bake our children before next
week.
We have utter nonsense pouring in from the Warren corporate shills and it is wasting our
precious time. The recent CNN debate should render that channel irrelevant at best, a direct
threat at the worst. Fox comes in with obvious bias, but the CNNs and MSNBCs slip in behaving
as if they are reasonable and neutral, assaulting those of us unlucky enough to have to watch
them as captives at dental offices. They most certainly help the Warrens and other corporate
shills by providing red herring distractions and pleas for incrementalism. This is akin to only
turning up your boiling water that you bath in a degree or two every 5 minutes rather than
trying to stop the boil. They care about immediate profits and in truth are terribly stupid.
Many of us have been raised to be polite and not utter this about others, especially those in
power. We look for reasons and conditions for their behavior and choices, but the stark fact is
that a lot of these people are ignorant as fuck and want to remain that way -- little or no
intellectual curiosity and full of base greed. And this will kill us all.
The treachery of Warren towards Sanders is most likely from some back room deal with Biden.
He probably told her that he needs help against Corn Pop and while sniffing her hair and
unwashed face, (I'm not being snarky without reason, she shared her beauty routine with the
media since that's so pressing in these days of turmoil) well Biden decided that she would be
the one to stroke his leg hairs in the oval office as VP.
They are the golden hairs of a golden
white man, he says. This is the way of Washington–lots of white men thinking their leg
hair is the best, but her instincts were shit to have taken a deal like this. No way in hell is
Biden going to win, even if the DNC does manage to prop him up as their candidate.
Trump will
have a field day with him (Biden of the reasonable Republican fable) and if they do debate, the
entire country might have a collective intracranial bleed from the batshittery that will be
spoken.
Trump will be there, all eyes dilated, snorting and speaking gibberish; Biden will be
there, all blood eyed and smarmy, talking about how poor kids can be smart too (the more you
know). I cry in a corner even considering such a spectacle. I'd rather see Topsy electrocuted
than watch that.
Anyway, it's not unlikely that Warren will get a challenger for her senate seat due to this
Judas move. The Bernie supporters will be generous with political donations if that individual
materializes, I'm sure. But I'm guessing she will try something again in terms of reinvention
and she will refer to herself as the politician formally known as Elizabeth Warren and try to
get a judge show on antennae tv. I won't watch it even if she hits the gavel and says to leave
the ghosting boyfriend and get a dog in the event of a sassy landlord tenant dispute brought
before her court.
I plan on ghosting Elizabeth Warren and her lying ass.
Warren is no "progressive," as her beating a retreat from Medicare for All demonstrates. She
now has shown herself to be a bald-faced liar as well as a political phony.
Warren is the Jussie Smollet of politics. I wonder if she claims Bernie attacked her while
wearing a red hat and screaming, "A woman can't win! This is MAGA country!"
It's hillarious that even after the shafting they got in 2016 by CNN there are still some
Bernie supporters who are finally catching on to what Trump supporters have been saying the
whole time, the MSM are a bunch of lying propagandists. I wonder who these people are who
think Bernie is going to fight against the Establishment when he can't even stand up for
himself against CNN, Warren, Hillary, the DNC,.... or anyone.
I'm with you, Me. I expected to see Bernie come out swinging after that exchange with Senator
Warren if he was to have any chance against Trump. Sucking it up for "the team" is loser
talk. Warren accused him of blatantly lying on national TV, and he's okay with that?
This manufactured 'controversy' has absolutely no relevance to electoral chances of
either, outside of the campus/media bubble - whose battle lines are already entrenched.
Then CNN turned to a story that it had reported on just prior to the debate, alleging that
Sanders had told Senator Elizabeth Warren that he did not believe a woman could be elected U.S.
president. The CNN moderator ignored Sanders' assertions that he had a public record going back
decades of stating that a woman could be elected president, that he had stayed out of the race
in 2015 until Warren decided not to run, and that in fact he had told Warren no such thing.
Then came this exchange: CNN: So Senator Sanders -- Senator Sanders, I do want to be clear here, you're saying that
you never told Senator Warren that a woman could not win the election?
SANDERS: That is correct.
CNN: Senator Warren, what did you think when Senator Sanders told you a woman could not
win the election? You don't have to know that you'd be better off with free
college and Medicare for All than with yet another war to recognize the bias here.
Many viewers recognized the slant. Many even began to notice the strange double standard in
never mentioning the cost of any of the wars, but pounding away on the misleading assertions
that healthcare and other human needs cost too much. Here's a question asked by CNN on
Tuesday:
" Vice President Biden, does Senator Sanders owe voters a price tag on his health care
plan? "
There was even time for this old stand-by bit of name-calling: " Senator Sanders, you
call yourself a Democratic Socialist. But more than two-thirds of voters say they are not
enthusiastic about voting for a socialist. Doesn't that put your chances of beating Donald
Trump at risk? "
The audio from the moment where Elizabeth Warren refused to shake Bernie Sanders' hand has
been released.
The #DemDebate
scuffle came after Warren accused Bernie Sanders of saying, a woman can't win, a claim that
contradicts his public comments over decades and one he denies. pic.twitter.com/yVTRkyCb2d
-- BERNforBernie2020RegisterToVote(@BernForBernie20) January
16, 2020
Yep that woman is full of it. You can decide what 'it' is.
Aaron Mate:
Joy Reid should invite this body language expert back, tell the story about the time when
a computer hacker inserted homophobic statements into her old blog posts, and ask the expert to
analyze whether she's lying.
More from Aaron.
Did this Orwell quote inspire you in the present to make the false claim that a computer
hacker wrote your homophobic posts in the past? https://t.co/HsMUGrJj9S
This campaign is owed an apology.
What are they going to do next, phrenology?
This is why no one trusts the media. These people are digging their own professional
graves.
People aren't buying what Joy is selling.
joy reid brings on a phrenologist to prove that liz warren's cheekbones make her native
and dna test was wrong
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) once told a fellow left-wing activist that the Democratic
Party was too "intellectually bankrupt" to allow the progressive movement to flourish within
it.
In a 1985 letter newly obtained by HuffPost in which Sanders debated running for governor,
he wrote: "Whether I run for governor or not is really not important. What would be a
tragedy, however, is for people with a radical vision to fall into the pathetic camp of the
intellectually bankrupt Democratic Party."
----
Sanders' three-paragraph missive was addressed to Marty Jezer, an author and progressive
activist in the state. Then-Mayor Sanders was writing in response to an August letter from
Jezer in which he apologized that a memo he wrote to Sanders had leaked to the press. While
the exact contents of the memo are unclear, Jezer's letter indicates that it encouraged
Sanders to run for Congress instead of challenging Kunin.
"1986 is the wrong time for such a race," Jezer, who died in 2005, wrote. "I hope you will
listen to the voices of the committed activists around the state. We sink or swim with this
together."
Sanders ultimately reached a different conclusion: He ran against Kunin as an independent.
But the decision was not without dissent. An editorial from the socialist magazine In These
Times criticized Sanders for dividing the left.
"In choosing to create a three-way race, Sanders is dividing the left and making more
likely the defeat of an incumbent liberal woman governor by a more conservative Republican,"
In These Times wrote. (At the time, Kunin was one of only two female governors in the
country.)
The editorial prompted Sanders to reply: "I believe that the real changes that are needed
in this country are not going to be brought about by working within the Democratic Party or
the Republican Party."
----
The Vermont senator's critiques of the Democratic Party are well documented, as CNN reported
last July. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, he was adamant that a progressive movement could
not be built within the party and was highly critical of the moderate "New Democrats" who
argued that the party's progressivism in the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s had alienated
voters.
"I think that nationally, the party has on issue after issue sold out so many times that
if you go before the people and say, 'Hey, I'm a Democrat,' you don't usually generate a lot
of enthusiasm," Sanders said in 1991 about the idea of a progressive trying to work within
the party.
Commenting on civil rights activist Jesse Jackson's Democratic presidential runs in the
1980s, Sanders said he did not agree with Jackson's decision to work "within the Democratic
Party." (Sanders endorsed Jackson's candidacy.) His skepticism of the party continued in
subsequent decades. In 2011, he said Democrats could be called "Republican-lite" for
considering cuts to Social Security and Medicare in order to lessen the deficit. And his
first presidential campaign in 2016 didn't shy away from blasting the party apparatus.
Sanders' willingness to criticize the Democratic Party speaks to the progressive bona
fides highlighted by his supporters. His campaign often relies on decades-old videos of
Sanders warning against the Iraq war, multinational trade deals and the climate crisis using
the same rhetoric he still uses today.
But the senator's view of the party -- and the role of progressive politics within it --
has evolved. He's since refined his critiques to focus on the "corporate wing of the
Democratic Party," which is composed of the same centrists, including organizations like
Third Way, that pushed the party to the right during the 1980s and '90s.
----
That hasn't been enough for many of his critics, who accuse him of only half-heartedly
campaigning for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016 after dragging out the
primary, and question whether he would be willing to support down-ballot Democratic
candidates who don't share his progressive ideology.
I recently watched Jimmy's show where he played a clip of Rachel praising Bernie for
campaigning so hard for Her. Her wrote him a letter telling him thanks for working so hard to
get her elected.
Bernie did 37 rallies for her in 14 days. Hillary only did 8 for Obama. Let's talk about
this, Hillary! You worthless ^*#%^! - strife delivery
It turns out media sources might have leaked to one another about Warren-Sanders dispute
& that didn't come from @ewarren campaign. Anyone still
denying national media has hostility toward @BernieSanders campaign is
being purposely obtuse. No one hates progressives more than MSM.
Anyone who thinks impeachment will succeed needs to exit the Russiagate/DNC/CNN black
hole.
And while I do believe Sanders could beat Trump, I have little faith the Clinton controlled
DNC will allow that to happen.
Warren has showed her true colors
Biden is a less competent male HRC and the rest of the field ranges from billionaires to
Intel agency drones.
Sure, Trump could lose "if". What matters is the candidate, though and none of the
candidates besides Sanders can energize enough people to beat Trump.
@Daniel (13). You hit the nail on the head, brother. Trump bears responsibility for all of
the shit he has pulled, which includes hiring the worst possible people to advise him and run
his administration. Throwing blame on the jackasses around him only proves that he is the
biggest jackass of all.
And for the record, U.S. elections rarely turn on foreign policy issues. As Bill Clinton
(another jackass, though much smarter) famously said: "It's the economy, stupid."
"... "They are bringing him out of so important Iowa in order that, as a Senator, he sit through the Impeachment Hoax Trial," ..."
"... "Crazy Nancy thereby gives the strong edge to Sleepy Joe Biden, and Bernie is shut out again. Very unfair, but that's the way the Democrats play the game. Anyway, it's a lot of fun to watch." ..."
"... Trump's theory isn't plucked entirely out of thin air. With the impeachment trial set to begin on Tuesday, Sanders will have to disrupt his campaign activity in Iowa and return to Washington DC to sit in the Senate, two weeks ahead of the Iowa caucuses. Crucially for Sanders, the trial begins as he edges Biden out of the lead in the polls. ..."
"... Friday's tweet isn't the first time Trump has accused the Democrats of stacking the cards against Sanders. Last April, he suggested that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) was "again working its magic in its quest to destroy Crazy Bernie Sanders for the more traditional, but not very bright, Sleepy Joe Biden." ..."
"... whether the impeachment trial is an intentional move to muscle Sanders out of contention or not, The Democratic Party looks in danger of repeating the mistakes that cost it the White House in 2016. ..."
The
impeachment trial against Donald Trump is not just a "witch hunt," but a ploy to "rig" the
Democratic nomination against Bernie Sanders and in favor of Joe Biden, the US president has
claimed. "They are rigging the election again against Bernie Sanders, just like last time,
only even more obviously," Trump tweeted on Friday.
They are rigging the election again against Bernie Sanders, just like last time, only even
more obviously. They are bringing him out of so important Iowa in order that, as a Senator,
he sit through the Impeachment Hoax Trial. Crazy Nancy thereby gives the strong edge to
Sleepy...
"They are bringing him out of so important Iowa in order that, as a Senator, he sit
through the Impeachment Hoax Trial," he continued. "Crazy Nancy thereby gives the strong
edge to Sleepy Joe Biden, and Bernie is shut out again. Very unfair, but that's the way the
Democrats play the game. Anyway, it's a lot of fun to watch."
Trump's theory isn't plucked entirely out of thin air. With the impeachment trial set to
begin on Tuesday, Sanders will have to disrupt his campaign activity in Iowa and return to
Washington DC to sit in the Senate, two weeks ahead of the Iowa caucuses. Crucially for
Sanders, the trial begins as he edges Biden out of the lead in the polls.
The caucuses are the first major contest in the presidential primary season, and eight out
of the last 12 caucus winners went on to win the Democratic party's nomination.
Sanders' fellow 2020 frontrunner Elizabeth Warren will also return to DC to hear the case
against Trump, while Biden, the former Vice President, will be free to stump for support with
impunity.
Trump has savaged the case against him from multiple angles, alternately calling it
"presidential harassment," a "partisan hoax," and a "witch hunt" led by
the "Do Nothing Democrats." Lately, however, the president has taken to stoking division
among his opponents, talking up "Crazy Bernie Sanders" surge in the polls and amplifying
a brewing feud between Sanders and Warren – two candidates representing the leftist,
progressive wing of the Democratic party.
Bernie Sander's volunteers are trashing Elizabeth "Pocahontus" Warren. Everybody knows her
campaign is dead and want her potential voters. Mini Mike B is also trying, but getting tiny
crowds which are all leaving fast. Elizabeth is very angry at Bernie. Do I see a feud
brewing?
Friday's tweet isn't the first time Trump has accused the Democrats of stacking the cards
against Sanders. Last April, he suggested that the
Democratic National Committee (DNC) was "again working its magic in its quest to destroy
Crazy Bernie Sanders for the more traditional, but not very bright, Sleepy Joe Biden."
The Democratic establishment is widely believed to have "rigged" the 2016 primaries
in favor of Hillary Clinton, with an email leak from within the DNC revealing the extent of the
bias
. Clinton was notified of debate questions in advance, her foundation was allowed to staff and
fund the DNC, and Sanders' campaign strategy was secretly passed to the Clinton camp.
The rest is history, and whether the impeachment trial is an intentional move to muscle
Sanders out of contention or not, The Democratic Party looks in danger of repeating the
mistakes that cost it the White House in 2016.
In this sense only Sanders, Warren and Tulsi are authentic democrats... Major Pete is
definitely a wolf in sheep clothing.
Notable quotes:
"... Today's Democrats want to destroy those social programs you cite. They have wanted to destroy those social programs ever since President Clinton wanted to conspire with "Prime Minister" Gingrich to privatize Social Security. Luckily Monica Lewinsky saved us from that fate. ..."
"... A nominee Sanders would run on keeping Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid in existence. And he would mean it. A nominee Biden might pretend to say it. But he would conspire with the Republicans to destroy them all. ..."
Today's Democrats want to destroy those social programs you cite. They have wanted to
destroy those social programs ever since President Clinton wanted to conspire with "Prime
Minister" Gingrich to privatize Social Security. Luckily Monica Lewinsky saved us from that
fate.
A nominee Sanders would run on keeping Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid in
existence. And he would mean it. A nominee Biden might pretend to say it. But he would
conspire with the Republicans to destroy them all.
The ClintoBama Pelosicrats have no standing on which to pretend to support some very
popular social programs and hope to be believed any longer. Maybe that is why they feel there
is no point in even pretending any more.
Bearing in mind the fact that the DemParty would prefer a Trump re-election over a Sanders
election, I don't think anyone will be giving Trump any heave ho. The only potential nominee to
even have a chance to defeat Trump would be Sanders. And if Sanders doesn't win on ballot
number one, Sanders will not be permitted the nomination by an evil Trumpogenic DemParty
elite.
Even if Sanders wins the nomination, the evil Trumpogenic Demparty leadership and the
millions of Jonestown Clintobamas in the field will conspire against Sanders every way they
feel they can get away with. The Clintobamas would prefer Trump Term Two over Sanders Term One.
They know it, and the rest of us need to admit it.
If Sanders is nominated, he will begin the election campaign with a permanent deficit of
10-30 million Clintobama voters who will Never! Ever! vote for Sanders. Sanders will have to
attract enough New Voters to drown out and wash away the 10-30 million Never Bernie
clintobamas.
Now that Warren has been exposed as the charlatan ( The Damned Debates ) many of
us knew she was all along, the media is all freaked out that her plan to attack Bernie
Sanders is backfiring and that she is losing support rather than gaining it.
It looks to many like she made a deal with the Wall St. crowd funding the DNC who support
Biden to attack Bernie for them in exchange for a VP spot.
They are obviously very worried about Biden though because the Trump-GOP attack on Biden
over Burisma is coming, and they know they have nothing to stop it. That is what the
impeachment is all about (
Impeachment For Dummies: or How progressives were conned into supporting Joe Biden for
President ), and what the recent claim of Russia hacking to harm Biden is all about. It
is all about trying to protect Biden from the upcoming Trump-GOP Burisma related attack on
Biden. So with Biden in trouble and Warren stumbling, expect Hillary to save the day?
LOL.
They are worried, but unless Bernie is far ahead when it matters then the superdelegates
will save them. But if they do that then they fear many people will go 3rd party next
election cycle, meaning the DNC has no chance to beat the GOP in the future if that
happens.
What will they do? Right now they are full on trying to threaten their way to keep their
new world order as it crumbles around them ( Pax
Americana: Between Iraq and A Hard Place ). Times they are a changin.
But what was actually good in Soleimani killing? He was an Iranian official and only the fact
that the USA is 300 pound gorilla save us from the war for this extra-judicial killing. Because
it was essentially a declaration of the war.
Is some weaker state tried the same the result would be complete devastation of both this
state and Iran in a protracted war. Israel hides in such cases over Uncle Sam (in other version
uncle Schmuel ;-) back so it essentially is allowed the same privileges in extrajudicial killings
as the USA, but that will last only as long as the USA dominance in world affairs. After that
bill with came due for Isreal and it will not be pretty.
Talking about centrists following strictly Trump's playbook, another good example is
Warren's take on Soleimani's killing.
If she believes that she has any chance of defeating Trump as a strong defender of the US
against terrorism, she must be drinking some new kind of kool-aid.
Fortunately, in this sense, Sanders is being much more clever than Warren. I see Sanders
as the only and last opportunity to avoid the worst.
Just a few years ago, CNN was praising Qassem #Soleimani for being
the driving force behind the defeat of ISIS. Today they call him a "terrorist" and expect
you to believe them.
On Sunday's broadcast of CNN's "State of the Union," 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) questioned
if President Donald Trump's reasons for the Qasem Soleimani assassination was to distract from impeachment.
Warren said, "I think that the question that we ought to focus on is why now? Why not a month ago, and why not a month from now?
And the answer from the administration seems to be that they can't keep their story straight on this. They pointed in all different
directions. And you know, the last time that we watched them do this was the summer over Ukraine. As soon as people started asking
about the conversations between Donald Trump and the president of Ukraine and why aid had been held up to Ukraine, the administration
did the same thing. They pointed in all directions of what was going on. And of course, what emerged then is that this is Donald
Trump just trying to advance Donald Trump's own political agenda. Not the agenda of the United States of America. So what happens
right now? Next week, the president of the United States could be facing an impeachment trial in the Senate. We know that he is deeply
upset about that. I think that people are reasonably asking why this moment? Why does he pick now to take this highly inflammatory,
highly dangerous action that moves us closer to war? We have been at war for 20 years in the Middle East, and we need to stop the
war this the Middle East and not expand it."
Tapper asked, "Are you suggesting that President Trump pulled the trigger and had Qasem Soleimani killed as a distraction from
impeachment?"
Warren said, "Look, I think that people are reasonably asking about the timing and why it is that the administration seems to
have all kinds of different answers. In the first 48 hours after this attack, what did we hear? Well, we heard it was for an imminent
attack, and then we heard, no, no, it is to prevent any future attack, and then we heard that it is from the vice president himself
and no, it is related to 9/11, and then we heard from president reports of people in the intelligence community saying that the whole,
that the threat was overblown. You know, when the administration doesn't seem to have a coherent answer for taking a step like this.
They have taken a step that moves us closer to war, a step that puts everyone at risk, and step that puts the military at risk and
puts the diplomats in the region at risk. And we have already paid a huge price for this war. Thousands of American lives lost, and
a cost that we have paid domestically and around the world. At the same time, look at what it has done in the Middle East, millions
of people who have been killed, who have been injured, who have been displaced. So this is not a moment when the president should
be escalating tensions and moving us to war. The job of the president is to keep us safe, and that means move back from the edge."
Tapper pressed, "Do you believe that President Trump pulled the trigger on this operation as a way to distract from impeachment?
Is that what you think?"
Warren said, "I think it is a reasonable question to ask, particularly when the administration immediately after having taken
this decision offers a bunch of contradictory explanations for what is going on."
She continued, "I think it is the right question to ask. We will get more information as we go forward but look at the timing
on this. Look at what Donald Trump has said afterward and his administration. They have pointed in multiple directions. There is
a reason that he chose this moment, not a month ago and not a month from now, not a less aggressive and less dangerous response.
He had a whole range of responses that were presented to him. He didn't pick one of the other ones. He picked the most aggressive
and the one that moves us closer to war. So what does everybody talk about today? Are we going to war? Are we going to have another
five years, tens, ten years of war in the Middle East, and dragged in once again. Are we bringing another generation of young people
into war? That is every bit of the conversation right now. Donald Trump has taken an extraordinarily reckless step, and we have seen
it before, he is using foreign policy and uses whatever he can to advance the interests of Donald Trump."
"... "Today I say to Mr. Putin: We will not allow you to undermine American democracy or democracies around the world," Sanders said. "In fact, our goal is to not only strengthen American democracy, but to work in solidarity with supporters of democracy around the globe, including in Russia. In the struggle of democracy versus authoritarianism, we intend to win." ..."
"... And yet, Warren too seems in thrall to the idea that the world order is shaping up to be one in which the white hats (Western democracies) must face off against the black hats (Eurasian authoritarians). Warren says that the "combination of authoritarianism and corrupt capitalism" of Putin's Russia and Xi's China "is a fundamental threat to democracy, both here in the United States and around the world." ..."
"... The Cold War echoes here are as unmistakable as they are worrying. As Princeton and NYU professor emeritus Stephen F. Cohen has written, during the first Cold War, a "totalitarian school" of Soviet studies grew up around the idea "that a totalitarian 'quest for absolute power' at home always led to the 'dynamism' in Soviet behavior abroad was a fundamental axiom of cold-war Soviet studies and of American foreign policy." ..."
"... Cold warriors in both parties frequently mistook communism as a monolithic global movement. Neoprogressives are making this mistake today when they gloss over national context, history, and culture in favor of an all-encompassing theory that puts the "authoritarian" nature of the governments they are criticizing at the center of their diagnosis. ..."
"... By citing the threat to Western democracies posed by a global authoritarian axis, the neoprogressives are repeating the same mistake made by liberal interventionists and neoconservatives. They buy into the democratic peace theory, which holds without much evidence that a world order populated by democracies is likely to be a peaceful one because democracies allegedly don't fight wars against one another. ..."
"... George McGovern once observed that U.S. foreign policy "has been based on an obsession with an international Communist conspiracy that existed more in our minds than in reality." So too the current obsession with the global authoritarians. Communism wasn't a global monolith and neither is this. By portraying it as such, neoprogressives are midwifing bad policy. ..."
"... Some of these elected figures, like Trump and Farage, are symptoms of the failure of the neoliberal economic order. Others, like Orban and Kaczyński, are responses to anti-European Union sentiment and the migrant crises that resulted from the Western interventions in Libya and Syria. Many have more to do with conditions and histories specific to their own countries. Targeting them by painting them with the same broad brush is a mistake. ..."
"... "Of all the geopolitical transformations confronting the liberal democratic world these days," writes neoconservative-turned-Hillary Clinton surrogate Robert Kagan, "the one for which we are least prepared is the ideological and strategic resurgence of authoritarianism." Max Boot also finds cause for concern. Boot, a modern-day reincarnation (minus the pedigree and war record) of the hawkish Cold War-era columnist Joe Alsop, believes that "the rise of populist authoritarianism is perhaps the greatest threat we face as a world right now." ..."
You can hear echoes of progressive realism in the statements of leading progressive
lawmakers such as Senator Bernie Sanders and Congressman Ro Khanna. They have put ending
America's support for the Saudi war on Yemen near the top of the progressive foreign policy
agenda. On the stump, Sanders now singles out the military-industrial complex and the runaway
defense budget for criticism. He promises, among other things, that "we will not continue to
spend $700 billion a year on the military." These are welcome developments. Yet since November
of 2016, something else has emerged alongside the antiwar component of progressive foreign
policy that is not so welcome. Let's call it neoprogressive internationalism, or
neoprogressivism for short.
Trump's administration brought with it the Russia scandal. To attack the president and his
administration, critics revived Cold War attitudes. This is now part of the neoprogressive
foreign policy critique. It places an "authoritarian axis" at its center. Now countries ruled
by authoritarians, nationalists, and kleptocrats can and must be checked by an American-led
crusade to make the world safe for progressive values. The problem with this neoprogressive
narrative of a world divided between an authoritarian axis and the liberal West is what it will
lead to: ever spiraling defense budgets, more foreign adventures, more Cold Wars -- and hot
ones too.
Unfortunately, Senators Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have adopted elements of the
neoprogressive program. At a much remarked upon address at Westminster College in Fulton,
Missouri, the site of Churchill's 1946 address, Sanders put forth a vision of a Manichean
world. Instead of a world divided by the "Iron Curtain" of Soviet Communism, Sanders sees a
world divided between right-wing authoritarians and the forces of progress embodied by American
and Western European progressive values.
"Today I say to Mr. Putin: We will not allow you to undermine American democracy or
democracies around the world," Sanders said. "In fact, our goal is to not only strengthen
American democracy, but to work in solidarity with supporters of democracy around the globe,
including in Russia. In the struggle of democracy versus authoritarianism, we intend to
win."
A year later, Sanders warned that the battle between the West and an "authoritarian axis"
which is "committed to tearing down a post-Second World War global order that they see as
limiting their access to power and wealth." Sanders calls this "a global struggle of enormous
consequence. Nothing less than the future of the -- economically, socially and environmentally
-- is at stake."
Sanders's focus on this authoritarian axis is one that is shared with his intraparty rivals
at the Center for American Progress (a think-tank long funded by some of the least progressive
regimes on the planet), which he has pointedly criticized for smearing progressive Democrats
like himself. CAP issued a report last September about "the threat presented by opportunist
authoritarian regimes" which "urgently requires a rapid response."
The preoccupation with the authoritarian menace is one Sanders and CAP share with prominent
progressive activists who warn about the creeping influence of what some have cynically hyped
as an "authoritarian Internationale."
Cold War Calling
Senator Warren spelled out her foreign policy vision in a speech at American University in
November 2018. Admirably, she criticized Saudi Arabia's savage war on Yemen, the defense
industry, and neoliberal free trade agreements that have beggared the American working and
middle classes.
"Foreign policy," Warren has said, "should not be run exclusively by the Pentagon." In the
second round of the Democratic primary debates, Warren also called for a nuclear "no first use"
policy.
And yet, Warren too seems in thrall to the idea that the world order is shaping up to be
one in which the white hats (Western democracies) must face off against the black hats
(Eurasian authoritarians). Warren says that the "combination of authoritarianism and corrupt
capitalism" of Putin's Russia and Xi's China "is a fundamental threat to democracy, both here
in the United States and around the world."
Warren also sees a rising tide of corrupt authoritarians "from Hungary to Turkey, from the
Philippines to Brazil," where "wealthy elites work together to grow the state's power while the
state works to grow the wealth of those who remain loyal to the leader."
The concern with the emerging authoritarian tide has become a central concern of progressive
writers and thinkers. "Today, around the world," write progressive foreign policy activists
Kate Kinzer and Stephen Miles, "growing authoritarianism and hate are fueled by oligarchies
preying on economic, gender, and racial inequality."
Daniel Nexon, a progressive scholar of international relations, believes that "progressives
must recognize that we are in a moment of fundamental crisis, featuring coordination among
right-wing movements throughout the West and with the Russian government as a sponsor and
supporter."
Likewise, The Nation 's Jeet Heer lays the blame for the rise of global
authoritarianism at the feet of Vladimir Putin, who "seems to be pushing for an international
alt-right, an informal alliance of right-wing parties held together by a shared
xenophobia."
Blithely waving away concerns over sparking a new and more dangerous Cold War between the
world's two nuclear superpowers, Heer advises that "the dovish left shouldn't let Cold War
nightmares prevent them [from] speaking out about it." He concludes: "Leftists have to be ready
to battle [Putinism] in all its forms, at home and abroad."
The Cold War echoes here are as unmistakable as they are worrying. As Princeton and NYU
professor emeritus Stephen F. Cohen has written, during the first Cold War, a "totalitarian
school" of Soviet studies grew up around the idea "that a totalitarian 'quest for absolute
power' at home always led to the 'dynamism' in Soviet behavior abroad was a fundamental axiom
of cold-war Soviet studies and of American foreign policy."
Likewise, we are seeing the emergence of an "authoritarian school" which posits that the
internal political dynamics of regimes such as Putin's cause them, ineffably, to follow
revanchist, expansionist foreign policies.
Cold warriors in both parties frequently mistook communism as a monolithic global
movement. Neoprogressives are making this mistake today when they gloss over national context,
history, and culture in favor of an all-encompassing theory that puts the "authoritarian"
nature of the governments they are criticizing at the center of their diagnosis.
By citing the threat to Western democracies posed by a global authoritarian axis, the
neoprogressives are repeating the same mistake made by liberal interventionists and
neoconservatives. They buy into the democratic peace theory, which holds without much evidence
that a world order populated by democracies is likely to be a peaceful one because democracies
allegedly don't fight wars against one another.
Yet as Richard Sakwa, a British scholar of Russia and Eastern Europe, writes, "it is often
assumed that Russia is critical of the West because of its authoritarian character, but it
cannot be taken for granted that a change of regime would automatically make the country align
with the West."
George McGovern once observed that U.S. foreign policy "has been based on an obsession
with an international Communist conspiracy that existed more in our minds than in reality." So
too the current obsession with the global authoritarians. Communism wasn't a global monolith
and neither is this. By portraying it as such, neoprogressives are midwifing bad
policy.
True, some of the economic trends voters in Europe and South America are reacting to are
global, but a diagnosis that links together the rise of Putin and Xi, the elections of Trump in
the U.S., Bolsonaro in Brazil, Orban in Hungary, and Kaczyński in Poland with the
right-wing insurgency movements of the Le Pens in France and Farage in the UK makes little
sense.
Some of these elected figures, like Trump and Farage, are symptoms of the failure of the
neoliberal economic order. Others, like Orban and Kaczyński, are responses to
anti-European Union sentiment and the migrant crises that resulted from the Western
interventions in Libya and Syria. Many have more to do with conditions and histories specific
to their own countries. Targeting them by painting them with the same broad brush is a
mistake.
Echoes of Neoconservatism
The progressive foreign policy organization Win Without War includes among its 10 foreign
policy goals "ending economic, racial and gender inequality around the world." The U.S.,
according to WWW, "must safeguard universal human rights to dignity, equality, migration and
refuge."
Is it a noble sentiment? Sure. But it's every bit as unrealistic as the crusade envisioned
by George W. Bush in his second inaugural address, in which he declared, "The survival of
liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best
hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world."
We know full well where appeals to "universal values" have taken us in the past. Such
appeals are not reliable guides for progressives if they seek to reverse the tide of unchecked
American intervention abroad. But maybe we should consider whether it's a policy of realism and
restraint that they actually seek. Some progressive thinkers are at least honest enough
to admit as much that it is not. Nexon admits that "abandoning the infrastructure of American
international influence because of its many minuses and abuses will hamstring progressives for
decades to come." In other words, America's hegemonic ambitions aren't in and of themselves
objectionable or self-defeating, as long as we achieve our kind of hegemony. Progressive
values crusades bear more than a passing resemblance to the neoconservative crusades to remake
the world in the American self-image.
"Of all the geopolitical transformations confronting the liberal democratic world these
days," writes neoconservative-turned-Hillary Clinton surrogate Robert Kagan, "the one for which
we are least prepared is the ideological and strategic resurgence of authoritarianism." Max
Boot also finds cause for concern. Boot, a modern-day reincarnation (minus the pedigree and war
record) of the hawkish Cold War-era columnist Joe Alsop, believes that "the rise of populist
authoritarianism is perhaps the greatest threat we face as a world right now."
Neoprogressivism, like neoconservatism, risks catering to the U.S. establishment's worst
impulses by playing on a belief in American exceptionalism to embark upon yet another global
crusade. This raises some questions, including whether a neoprogressive approach to the crises
in Ukraine, Syria, or Libya would be substantively different from the liberal interventionist
approach of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton. Does a neoprogressive foreign policy
organized around the concept of an "authoritarian axis" adequately address the concerns of
voters in the American heartland who disproportionately suffer from the consequences of our
wars and neoliberal economic policies? It was these voters, after all, who won the election for
Trump.
Donald Trump's failure to keep his campaign promise to bring the forever wars to a close
while fashioning a new foreign policy oriented around core U.S. national security interests
provides Democrats with an opportunity. By repeatedly intervening in Syria, keeping troops in
Afghanistan, kowtowing to the Israelis and Saudis, ratcheting up tensions with Venezuela, Iran,
Russia, and China, Trump has ceded the anti-interventionist ground he occupied when he ran for
office. He can no longer claim the mantle of restraint, a position that found support among
six-in-ten Americans in 2016.
Yet with the exception of Tulsi Gabbard, for the most part the Democratic field is offering
voters a foreign policy that amounts to "Trump minus belligerence." A truly progressive foreign
policy must put questions of war and peace front and center. Addressing America's post 9/11
failures, military overextension, grotesquely bloated defense budget, and the ingrained
militarism of our political-media establishment are the proper concerns of a progressive U.S.
foreign policy.
But it is one that would place the welfare of our own citizens above all. As such, what is
urgently required is the long-delayed realization of a peace dividend. The post-Cold War peace
dividend that was envisioned in the early 1990s never materialized. Clinton's secretary of
defense Les Aspin strangled the peace dividend in its crib by keeping the U.S. military on a
footing that would allow it to fight and win two regional wars simultaneously. Unipolar
fantasies of "full spectrum dominance" would come later in the decade.
One might have reasonably expected an effort by the Obama administration to realize a
post-bin Laden peace dividend, but the forever wars dragged on and on. In a New Yorker profile
from earlier this year, Sanders asked the right question: "Do we really need to spend more than
the next ten nations combined on the military, when our infrastructure is collapsing and kids
can't afford to go to college?"
The answer is obvious. And yet, how likely is it that progressives will be able realize
their vision of a more just, more equal American society if we have to mobilize to face a
global authoritarian axis led by Russia and China?
FDR's Good Neighbor Policy
The unipolar world of the first post-Cold War decade is well behind us now. As the world
becomes more and more multipolar, powers like China, Russia, Iran, India, and the U.S. will
find increasing occasion to clash. A peaceful multipolar world requires stability. And
stability requires balance.
In the absence of stability, none of the goods progressives see as desirable can take root.
This world order would put a premium on stability and security rather than any specific set of
values. An ethical, progressive foreign policy is one which understands that great powers have
security interests of their own. "Spheres of influence" are not 19th century anachronisms, but
essential to regional security: in Europe, the Western Hemisphere and elsewhere.
It is a policy that would reject crusades to spread American values the world over. "The
greatest thing America can do for the rest of the world," George Kennan once observed, "is to
make a success of what it is doing here on this continent and to bring itself to a point where
its own internal life is one of harmony, stability and self-assurance."
Progressive realism doesn't call for global crusades that seek to conquer the hearts and
minds of others. It is not bound up in the hoary self-mythology of American Exceptionalism. It
is boring. It puts a premium on the value of human life. It foreswears doing harm so that good
may come. It is not a clarion call in the manner of John F. Kennedy who pledged to "to pay any
price, bear any burden." It does not lend itself to the cheap moralizing of celebrity
presidential speechwriters. In ordinary language, a summation of such a policy would go
something like: "we will bear a reasonable price as long as identifiable U.S. security
interests are at stake."
A policy that seeks to wind down the global war on terror, slash the defense budget, and
shrink our global footprint won't inspire. It will, however, save lives. Such a policy has its
roots in Franklin Delano Roosevelt's first inaugural address. "In the field of World policy,"
said Roosevelt, "I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor, the neighbor
who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others, the
neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a
World of neighbors."
What came to be known as the "Good Neighbor" policy was further explicated by FDR's
Secretary of State Cordell Hull at the Montevideo Conference in 1933, when he stated that "No
country has the right to intervene in the internal or external affairs of another." Historian
David C. Hendrickson sees this as an example of FDR's principles of "liberal pluralism," which
included "respect for the integrity and importance of other states" and "non-intervention in
the domestic affairs of neighboring states."
These ought to serve as the foundations on which to build a truly progressive foreign
policy. They represent a return to the best traditions of the Democratic Party and would likely
resonate with those very same blocs of voters that made up the New Deal coalition that the
neoliberal iteration of the Democratic Party has largely shunned but will sorely need in order
to unseat Trump. And yet, proponents of a neoprogressive foreign policy seem intent on running
away from a popular policy of realism and restraint on which Trump has failed to deliver.
James W. Carden is contributing writer for foreign affairs at The Nation and a
member of the Board of the Simone Weil Center for Political Philosophy.
Alligator Ed
on Wed, 12/25/2019 - 11:02pm After bravely contesting a nomination she knows she cannot
win, Tulsi Gabbard has and continues to exhibit a tenacious adherence to achievement of
purpose. What is that purpose? I believe it is evident if you only let your eyes see and your
ears hear. Listen to what she says. Looks at what she does.
What this does is obvious. However, please forgive me if I proceed to explain the meaning.
People see what apparently is her home milieu. I've been to Filipino homes for dinner as many
of my nurse friends were Filipino. Tulsi is so human. Despite Hindu belief, she is respectful
to the presence and perhaps the essence of Jesus, and does not sound pandering or
hypocritical.
Getting to know Tulsi at the beginning of her hoped-for (by me) political ascendancy. Get in
on almost the ground floor of what will become an extremely powerful force in future American
life.
Why? What's the hurry?
The more support and the earlier Tulsi receives it propel the campaign. That's what momentum
means: a self-generating growing strength.
One doesn't have to be a Tulsi supporter to hopefully receive some ideas which may not have
occurred to you. This essay does not concern any specific Gabbard policy. What I write here is
what I perceive of her character and thus her selected path. Mind-reading, perhaps. Arm-chair
speculation, possibly.
Tulsi has completed phase 2A in her career. The little that I know of her early life,
especially politically (such as how she voted in HI state legislature) limits a deep
understanding which such knowledge would provide. As the tree is bent, etc.
Phase 1A: youth, formative years, military
Phase 1B: state legislature
Phase 1C: Congress
Phase 2B and possibly subsequent: interim between Congress and Presidential campaigning with
realistic chance of victory.
We are in Phase 2B. Tulsi, as I wrote in another essay, is letting the tainted shroud of
Democrat corruption fall off her shoulders without any effort of her own. The Democrat party is
eating itself alive. It is all things to all people at once. That is a philosophy incapable of
satisfaction.
Omni Democraticorundum in tres partes est (pardon the reference to the opening of Caesar's
Gallic Wars, with liberal substitution by me).
The Dems trifurcate and the division will be neither pleasant nor reconcilable. Tribalism
will be reborn after Trump crushes whomever in 2020.
Tribe one: urban/techno/überkinden.
Tribe two: leftward bound to a place where no politician has ever ventured. Not socialism.
Not Communism. We could call it Fantasy Land, although I fear Disney owns that name.
Tribe three: progressive realists. By using such positive wording, you will correctly
suspect my bias as to which Tribe I belong to.
Once again, policy will not be discussed. Only strategy and reality. Can't have good
strategy without a good grasp of reality. This is why Establidems are bereft of thematic
variability. For the past 3.3 years, they have been singing from a hymn book containing but one
song. You know the title. Orange Man Bad. Yeah, that's it. If they don't like that
title, we establidems have another song for ya. It's called Orange Man Bad. Like that
one, huh? Wazzat, ya didn't like the song the first time. Hey, we thought the song would grown
on you.
Them Dems, noses up, can't see the sidewalk. Oops. Stepped in something there, huh? Oh, yeah
like the Impeachment.
But I digress: The latter part of Phase 2B is not clear. Tulsi will continue to accept small
donor contributions, even after not obtaining the nomination next year. Public appearances will
be important but should be low key with little press attention. Press attention is something
however that won't be available when most desirable. What else Tulsi will do may be to form a
nucleus of like-minded activists, thinkers, and other supporters to promote an agenda for a
more liberal, tolerant society.
If Sanders' candidacy continues to be taken seriously, he will eventually be subjected to
the scrutiny that Warren and Biden have faced for prolonged stretches. That includes an
examination of his electability. "That conversation has never worked well for anyone,"
Pfeiffer said.
What a bunch of hypocritical horseshit. Bernie not getting scrutiny? In 2016, when not
being derided for this, that or the other, Bernie was always scrutinized. There are only two
things voters have learned since the DNC 2016 convention:
1. Bernie had a heart attack
2. Bernie supported H. Rodent Clinton in the general election.
. . . and to the much noted "Bernie blackout" up until now this time around.
It's gotten to the point given the polls and the first primary in being held in about a
month where TPTB in conjunction with the MSM can no longer afford to turn a blind eye towards
Bernie. It's gonna get really nasty.
The most recent tropes on the twitters, probably in response to Brock talking point memos,
have been pushing Bernie as an anti-Semite and him purportedly triggering rape survivors. Of
course it's horsehit but it's the propagandistic method of the Big Lie.
I'm genuinely curious. How will you react if Tulsi endorses the Dem nominee and it ain't
Bernie? Bernie's endorsement of she-who-shall-not-be-named in 2016 seems to have pretty much
completely soured him to you. Endorsing Biden better? Or at least acceptable? Not for me.
Bernie doing so in 2016 I could understand and forgive. But this is my last go round absent a
Bernie miracle.
If Sanders' candidacy continues to be taken seriously, he will eventually be
subjected to the scrutiny that Warren and Biden have faced for prolonged stretches.
That includes an examination of his electability. "That conversation has never worked
well for anyone," Pfeiffer said.
What a bunch of hypocritical horseshit. Bernie not getting scrutiny? In 2016, when not
being derided for this, that or the other, Bernie was always scrutinized. There are only
two things voters have learned since the DNC 2016 convention:
1. Bernie had a heart attack
2. Bernie supported H. Rodent Clinton in the general election.
@Wally
She might back Yang--who won't get nominated. But I hope she doesn't do anything more than a
neutral statement, somewhat to the effect that "We must defeat Donald Trump", then not
campaign otherwise.
. . . and to the much noted "Bernie blackout" up until now this time around.
It's gotten to the point given the polls and the first primary in being held in about
a month where TPTB in conjunction with the MSM can no longer afford to turn a blind eye
towards Bernie. It's gonna get really nasty.
The most recent tropes on the twitters, probably in response to Brock talking point
memos, have been pushing Bernie as an anti-Semite and him purportedly triggering rape
survivors. Of course it's horsehit but it's the propagandistic method of the Big Lie.
I'm genuinely curious. How will you react if Tulsi endorses the Dem nominee and it
ain't Bernie? Bernie's endorsement of she-who-shall-not-be-named in 2016 seems to have
pretty much completely soured him to you. Endorsing Biden better? Or at least acceptable?
Not for me. Bernie doing so in 2016 I could understand and forgive. But this is my last
go round absent a Bernie miracle.
. . . to campaign in support of their candidacies.
Maybe Biden will accept her support. I've still never been able to figure why she never
and probably still won't take any shots at his warmongering and otherwise cruddy record
regarding domestic affairs.
#2.1.1.1.1 She might
back Yang--who won't get nominated. But I hope she doesn't do anything more than a
neutral statement, somewhat to the effect that "We must defeat Donald Trump", then not
campaign otherwise.
. . . to campaign in support of their candidacies.
Maybe Biden will accept her support. I've still never been able to figure why she
never and probably still won't take any shots at his warmongering and otherwise cruddy
record regarding domestic affairs.
@Alligator
Ed@Alligator
Ed be unfamiliar with the neutral position. Though I wonder if she would feel
comfortable dipping into that well again given how much grief she got the last time.
Of course, if she again puts it in Neutral, and doesn't support the D nominee (anyone but
Bloomberg), she will be finished as a Dem pol. She might as well go off and start a Neutral
Party.
#2.1.1.1.1 She might
back Yang--who won't get nominated. But I hope she doesn't do anything more than a
neutral statement, somewhat to the effect that "We must defeat Donald Trump", then not
campaign otherwise.
@wokkamile
Her dismissal papers will be submitted to her after she is barred entry into the DNC
convention, regardless of how many delegates she may have won.
#2.1.1.1.1.1
#2.1.1.1.1.1 be unfamiliar with the neutral position. Though I wonder if she would
feel comfortable dipping into that well again given how much grief she got the last
time.
Of course, if she again puts it in Neutral, and doesn't support the D nominee (anyone
but Bloomberg), she will be finished as a Dem pol. She might as well go off and start a
Neutral Party.
Don't forget that 15% state threshold for eligibility to be awarded delegates.
#2.1.1.1.1.1.2 Her
dismissal papers will be submitted to her after she is barred entry into the DNC
convention, regardless of how many delegates she may have won.
I will be surprised if Tulsi gets so much as one delegate.
More than a few knowledgeable people think he has a very good shot of winning California.
I am less optimistic about NYS but I think he will do well enough to get a good number of
delegates especially if he does well in the earlier primaries (NYS comes April 28).
I don't feel solidly about making any kind of predictions at this point but given the
nature of the Democratic Party, I don't see it as falling into oblivion anytime soon or in
our lifetimes.
As far as Bernie goes, I am not optimistic but I still have some hope. I still fervantly
believe that his candidacy is the best chance we will have in our lifetimes of bringing about
any substantial change -- and if he and his critical mass of supporters can't pull it off
this time around, we're all phluckled big time, even alligators, in terms of combating
climate change and putting a kabosh on endless wars. I wish you good future luck with Tulsi
though. I just don't see it. But I've been wrong on more than one occasion in my life.
I don't think Warren is a stalking horse for neoliberalism or whatever, but her inability
to fight back against bad press (combined with her occasional baffling decisions to give
herself bad press) is a big mark against her candidacy. There will be bad press for either of
them.
Trump can be impeached as a war criminal just for his false flag Douma attack (along with
members of his administration). But Neoliberal Dems and frst of all Pelosi are war criminals too,
with Pelosi aiding and abetting war criminal Bush.
So this is a variation of the theme of Lavrentiy Beria most famous quote: "Show me a
man and I will find you a crime"
I think tose neolib Dems who supported impeachment disqualified themselves from the running.
That includes Warren, who proved to be a very weak, easily swayed politician. It is quote
probably that they increased (may be considerably) chances of Trump reelection, but pushing
independents who were ready to abandon him, back into Trump camp. Now Trump is able to present
himself as a victim of neoliberal Dems/neocons witch hunt.
The only real check left is impeachment. It is rarely invoked and (until very recently) has
atrophied as a credible threat. But that doesn't make it any less
indispensable.
The problem was exacerbated by the Clinton impeachment fiasco, which history has proved
foolhardy. (I supported it at the time, but I was a government lawyer then, not a public
commentator.) Republicans were sufficiently spooked by the experience that they seemed to
regard impeachment as obsolete. Faithless Execution countered that this was the wrong
lesson to take from the affair. Clinton's impeachment was a mistake because (a) his conduct,
though disgraceful and indicative of unfitness, did not implicate the core responsibilities of
the presidency; and more significantly, (b) the public, though appalled by the behavior,
strongly opposed Clinton's removal. The right lesson was that impeachment must be reserved for
grave misconduct that involves the president's essential Article II duties; and that because
impeachment is so deeply divisive, it should never be launched in the absence of a public
consensus that transcends partisan lines.
This is why, unlike many opponents of President Trump's impeachment, I have never questioned
the legitimacy of the Democratic-controlled House's investigations of misconduct allegations
against the president. I believe the House must act as a body (investigations should not be
partisan attacks under the guise of House inquiries), and it must respect the lawful and
essential privileges of the executive branch; but within those parameters, Congress has the
authority and responsibility to expose executive misconduct.
Moreover, while egregious misconduct will usually be easy to spot and grasp, that will not
always be the case. When members of Congress claim to see it, they should have a fair
opportunity to expose and explain it. To my mind, President Obama was the kind of chief
executive that the Framers feared, but this was not obvious because he was not committing
felonies. Instead, he was consciously undermining our constitutional order. He usurped the
right to dictate law rather than execute it. His extravagant theory of executive discretion to
"waive" the enforcement of laws he opposed flouted his basic constitutional duty to execute the
laws faithfully. He and his underlings willfully and serially deceived Congress and the public
on such major matters as Obamacare and the Benghazi massacre. They misled Congress on, and
obstructed its investigation of, the outrageous Fast and Furious "gun-walking" operation, in
connection with which a border patrol agent was murdered. With his Iran deal, the president
flouted the Constitution's treaty process and colluded with a hostile foreign power to withhold
information from Congress, in an arrangement that empowered (and paid cash ransom to) the
world's leading sponsor of anti-American terrorism.
My critics fairly noted that I opposed Obama politically, and therefore contended that I was
masquerading as a constitutional objection what was really a series of policy disputes. I don't
think that is right, though, for two reasons.
First, my impeachment argument was not that Obama was pursuing policies I deeply opposed. I
was very clear that elections have consequences, and the president had every right to press his
agenda. My objection was that he was imposing his agenda lawlessly, breaking the limitations
within which the Framers cabined executive power, precisely to prevent presidents from becoming
tyrants. If allowed to stand, Obama precedents would permanently alter our governing framework.
Impeachment is there to protect our governing framework.
Second, I argued that, my objections notwithstanding, Obama should not be impeached in the
absence of a public consensus for his removal. Yes, Republicans should try to build that case,
try to edify the public about why the president's actions threatened the Constitution and its
separation of powers. But they should not seek to file articles of impeachment simply because
they could -- i.e., because control of the House theoretically gave them the numbers to do it.
The House is not obliged to file impeachment articles just because there may be impeachable
conduct. Because impeachment is so divisive, the Framers feared that it could be triggered on
partisan rather than serious grounds. The two-thirds supermajority requirement for Senate
conviction guards against that: The House should not impeach unless there is a reasonable
possibility that the Senate would remove -- which, in Obama's case, there was not.
I also tried to focus on incentives. If impeachment were a credible threat, and Congress
began investigating and publicly exposing abuses, a sensible president would desist in the
misconduct, making it unnecessary to proceed with impeachment. On the other hand, a failed
impeachment effort would likely embolden a rogue president to continue abusing power. If your
real concern is executive lawlessness, then impeaching heedlessly and against public opinion
would be counterproductive.
I've taken the same tack with President Trump.
The objections to Trump are very different from those to Obama. He is breaking not laws but
norms of presidential behavior and decorum. For the most part, I object to this. There are lots
of things about our government that need disruption, but even disruptive presidents should be
mindful that they hold the office of Washington and Lincoln and aspire to their dignity, even
if their greatness is out of reach.
That said, impeachment is about serious abuse of the presidency's core powers, not behavior
that is intemperate or gauche. Critics must be mindful that the People, not the pundits, are
sovereign, and they elected Donald Trump well aware of his flaws. That he turns out to be as
president exactly what he appeared to be as a candidate is not a rationale for impeaching
him.
The president's misconduct on Ukraine is small potatoes. Democrats were right to expose it,
and we would be dealing with a more serious situation if the defense aid appropriated by
Congress had actually been denied, rather than inconsequentially delayed. If Democrats had
wanted to make a point about discouraging foreign interference in American politics
(notwithstanding their long record of encouraging it), that would have been fine. They could
have called for the president's censure, which would have put Republicans on the defensive.
Ukraine could have been incorporated as part of their 2020 campaign that Trump should be
defeated, despite a surging economy and relative peace.
Conducting an impeachment inquiry is one thing, but for the House to take the drastic step
of impeaching the president is abusive on this record. Yes, it was foolish of Trump to mention
the Bidens to President Zelensky and to seek Ukraine's help in investigating the Bidens. There
may well be corruption worth probing, but the president ought to leave that to researchers in
his campaign. If there is something that a government should be looking into, leave that to the
Justice Department, which can (and routinely does) seek foreign assistance when necessary. The
president, however, should have stayed out of it. Still, it is absurd to posit, as Democrats
do, that, by not staying out of it, the president threatened election integrity and U.S.
national security. Such outlandish arguments may make Ukraine more of a black eye for Democrats
than for the president.
But whoever ultimately bears the brunt of the impeachment push, I have to ask myself a hard
question: Is this the world I was asking for when I wrote a book contending that, for our
system to work as designed, impeachment has to be a credible threat? I don't think so . . . but
I do worry about it.
Back to the Clinton impeachment. I tried to make the point that that impeachment effort --
against public opinion, and based on misconduct that, while dreadful, was not central to the
presidency -- has contributed significantly to the poisonous politics we have today. Democrats
have been looking for payback ever since, and now they have it -- in a way that is very likely
to make impeachment more routine in the future.
I don't see how our constitutional system can work without a viable impeachment remedy. But
I may have been wrong to believe that we could be trusted to invoke the remedy responsibly. I
used to poke fun at pols who would rather hide under their desks than utter the dreaded I-word.
Turns out they knew something I didn't.
"Change we can believe in" the second series ? That's a real warning sign ;-)
Notable quotes:
"... A few weeks ago I read in this spot that while Clinton people hate Sanders and like Warren, Obama was pushing Buttigieg because Warren was such a pain in his ass. Seems he's finally given his signal. Hopefully it's the kiss of death for both Warren and Buttigieg. ..."
"... as the neoliberal corporate Democrats which she is aligning herself with are a sinking ship .. ..."
So, the fact that Obama is willing to put in a good word for Warren on behalf of the
wealthy elite should give you a clue as to which side Warren is really on. While many
non-political "normies" look upon the Obama years with rose-tinted glasses, I wonder if the
disillusionment that many people had in retrospect with Obama has sunk in to mainstream
political consciousness yet. If that is the case, an Obama endorsement might actually
backfire among progressives, seeing as how it has become evident that Obama was basically a
silver-tongued neoliberal in the same mold as Clinton and Pelosi.
I know that Warren is a political careerist at heart, but I was willing to give her the
benefit of the doubt when she first launched her 2020 presidential campaign. However, it has
become increasingly clear that she has hitched her wagon to the wrong horse as the neoliberal
corporate Democrats which she is aligning herself with are a sinking ship. I honestly do not
think that she would even be fit to be Sander's vice presidential pick at this point
considering how wide the political gulf between Warren and Sanders actually is. A better
choice would be Nina Turner as Sander's running mate, with Tulsi Gabbard as his Secretary of
State if he gets that far.
My guess is that this is why he's working behind the scenes, minimizing the chances of a
backfire on the left. Of course, how behind-the-scenes is it if it's reported by Politico?
Still.
I'm actually undecided on Warren. There was that story last week about her supposedly
pushing Hillary in 2016 to name decent people to her cabinet if elected. But then you have to
ask why that particular story surfaced at the particular time when Warren was sinking in the
polls.
If true, though, and if what the new Politico story says about her clashes with Obama are
true, maybe Warren isn't quite as objectionable as we tend to think. Then again, she came
right out last week (I believe) and said Medicare for All would be a matter of choice under
her plan, emphasizing that "choice" factor.
So I'm confused. But maybe that's what she, her campaign and various surrogates want at
this stage.
It starts with an ambitious goal: consistent with the objectives of the Green New Deal,
the Pentagon should achieve net zero carbon emissions for all its non-combat bases and
infrastructure by 2030.
having the pentagon 'lead the fight' against climate change is akin to appointing prince
andrew as head of the global task force against pedophilia and child trafficking.
A few weeks ago I read in this spot that while Clinton people hate Sanders and like
Warren, Obama was pushing Buttigieg because Warren was such a pain in his ass. Seems he's
finally given his signal. Hopefully it's the kiss of death for both Warren and
Buttigieg.
A few weeks ago I read in this spot that while Clinton people hate Sanders and like
Warren, Obama was pushing Buttigieg because Warren was such a pain in his ass. Seems he's
finally given his signal. Hopefully it's the kiss of death for both Warren and
Buttigieg.
Buttigieg takes no votes from Sanders. While Warren does on the margins. I think Obama's
calculation is simple as that. She also has special appeal to the virtue signaling liberals
that are Obama's base.
as the neoliberal corporate Democrats which she is aligning herself with are a sinking
ship ..
Bingo. Trump's letter goes right to the heart of it. These clowns are completely exposed
and Obama hawking Warren to donors while the blob talks up a gay McKinsey/CIA Indiana Mayor
shows just how far they have fallen.
It would be impossible for Trump to re-energize his base in any other way. Pelosi acts as
covert agent for Trump re-election? Peloci calculation that she can repar "Mueller effect" of
2018 with this impeachment proved to be gross miscalculation.
Warren who stupidly and enthusiastically jumped into this bandwagon will be hurt. She is such
a weak politician that now it looks like she does not belong to the club. Still in comparison
with Trump she might well be an improvement as she has Trump-like economic program, which Trump
betrayed and neutered. And her foreign policy can't be worse then Trump foreign policy. It is
just impossible.
I am convinced that the Dems are not actually interested or focused on defeating Trump, or
they would adopt an effective strategy. The question I keep wrestling with is, what is the point
to the strategy that is so ineffective?
Notable quotes:
"... The fact that the impeachment is dead in the water, by Pelosi's own admission , is evident in Trump's being adamant that indeed it must be sent to the Senate – where he knows he'll be exonerated. But even if it doesn't go to the Senate, what we're left with still appears as a loss for Democrats. Both places are his briar patch. This makes all of this a win-win for team Trump. ..."
"... fake impeachment procedure ..."
"... For in a constitutional republic like the United States, what makes an impeachment possible is when the representatives and the voters are in communion over the matter. This would normally be reflected in a mid-term election, like say for example the mid-term Senatorial race in 2018 where Democrats failed to take control. Control of the Senate would reflect a change of sentiment in the republic, which in turn and not coincidentally, would be what makes for a successful impeachment. ..."
"... Nancy Pelosi is evidently extraordinarily cynical. Her politics appears to be 'they deserve whatever they believe'. ..."
"... little else can explain the reasoning behind her claim that she will 'send the impeachment to the Senate' as soon as she 'has assurances and knows how the Senate will conduct the impeachment', except that it came from the same person who told the public regarding Obamacare that we have to 'We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.". ..."
"... "We have been attacked. We are at war. Imagine this movie script: A former KGB spy, angry at the collapse of his motherland, plots a course for revenge – taking advantage of the chaos, he works his way up through the ranks of a post-soviet Russia and becomes president. ..."
"... He establishes an authoritarian regime, then he sets his sights on his sworn enemy – the United States. And like the KGB spy that he is, he secretly uses cyber warfare to attack democracies around the world. Using social media to spread propaganda and false information, he convinces people in democratic societies to distrust their media, their political processes, even their neighbors. And he wins." ..."
"... We'll say we impeached him, because we did, and we'll say he was impeached. We'll declare victory, and go home. This will make him unelectable because of the stigma of impeachment. ..."
And so it came to pass, that in the deep state's frenzy of
electoral desperation, the 'impeachment' card was played. The hammer has fallen. Nearly the
entirety of the legacy media news cycle has been dedicated to the details, and not really
pertinent details, but the sorts of details which presume the validity of the charges against
Trump in the first place. Yes, they all beg the question. What's forgotten here is that the use
of this process along clearly partisan lines, and more – towards clearly partisan aims
– is a very serious symptom of the larger undoing of any semblance of stability in the US
government.
The fact that the impeachment is dead in the water,
by Pelosi's own admission , is evident in Trump's being adamant that indeed it must be sent
to the Senate – where he knows he'll be exonerated. But even if it doesn't go to the
Senate, what we're left with still appears as a loss for Democrats. Both places are his briar
patch. This makes all of this a win-win for team Trump.
Only in a country that produces so much fake news at the official level, could there be a
fake impeachment procedure made purely for media consumption, with no real or tangible
possible victory in sight.
For in a constitutional republic like the United States, what makes an impeachment
possible is when the representatives and the voters are in communion over the matter. This
would normally be reflected in a mid-term election, like say for example the mid-term
Senatorial race in 2018 where Democrats failed to take control. Control of the Senate would
reflect a change of sentiment in the republic, which in turn and not coincidentally, would be
what makes for a successful impeachment.
Don't forget, this impeachment is fake
Nancy Pelosi is evidently extraordinarily cynical. Her politics appears to be 'they
deserve whatever they believe'. And her aim appears to be the one who makes them believe
things so that they deserve what she gives them. For little else can explain the reasoning
behind her claim that she will 'send the impeachment to the Senate' as soon as she 'has
assurances and knows how the Senate will conduct the impeachment', except that it came from the
same person who told the public regarding Obamacare that we have to 'We have to pass the bill
so that you can find out what is in it.".
In both cases, reality is turned on its head – for rather we will know how the Senate
intends to conduct its procedure as soon as it has the details, which substantively includes
the impeachment documents themselves, in front of them, and likewise, legislators ought to know
what's in a major piece of legislation before they vote either way on it. Pelosi's assault on
reason, however, isn't without an ever growing tide of resentment from within the progressive
base of the party itself.
We have quickly entered into a new era which increasingly resembles the broken political
processes which have struck many a country, but none in living memory a country like the US.
Now elected officials push judges to prosecute their political opponents, constitutional crises
are manufactured to pursue personal or political vendettas, death threats and rumors of coups
coming from media and celebrities being fed talking points by big and important players from
powerful institutions.
This 'impeachment' show really takes the cake, does it not? We will recall shortly after
Trump was elected, narrator for hire Morgan Freeman made a shocking public service
announcement. It was for all intents and purposes, a PSA notifying the public that a military
coup to remove Trump would be legitimate and in order. Speaking about this PSA, and recounting
what was said, would in any event read as an exaggeration, or some allegorical paraphrasing
made to prove a point. Jogging our memories then, Freeman spoke to tens of millions of viewers
on television and YouTube
saying :
"We have been attacked. We are at war. Imagine this movie script: A former KGB spy,
angry at the collapse of his motherland, plots a course for revenge – taking advantage of
the chaos, he works his way up through the ranks of a post-soviet Russia and becomes
president.
He establishes an authoritarian regime, then he sets his sights on his sworn enemy
– the United States. And like the KGB spy that he is, he secretly uses cyber warfare to
attack democracies around the world. Using social media to spread propaganda and false
information, he convinces people in democratic societies to distrust their media, their
political processes, even their neighbors. And he wins."
This really set the tone for the coming years, which have culminated in this manufactured
'impeachment' crisis, really befitting a banana republic.
It would be the height of dishonesty to approach this abuse of the impeachment procedure as
if until this moment, the US's own political culture and processes were in good shape. Now
isn't the time for the laundry list of eroded constitutional provisions, which go in a thousand
and one unique directions. The US political system is surely broken, but as is the case with
such large institutions several hundreds of years old, its meltdown appears to happen in slow
motion to us mere mortals. And so what we are seeing today is the next phase of this
break-down, and really ought to be understood as monumental in this sense. Once again revealed
is the poor judgment of the Democratic Party and their agents, tools, warlords, and
strategists, the same gang who sunk Hillary Clinton's campaign on the rocks of hubris.
Nancy Pelosi also has poor judgment, and these short-sighted and self-interested moves on
her part stand a strong chance of backfiring. Her role in this charade is duly noted. This
isn't said because of any disagreement over her aims, but rather that in purely objective terms
it just so happens that her aims and her actions are out of synch – that is unless she
wants to see Trump re-elected. Her aims are her aims, our intention is to connect these to
their probable results, without moral judgments.
The real problem for the Democrats, the DNC, and any hopes for the White House in 2020, is
that this all has the odor of a massive backfire, and something that Trump has been counting on
happening. When one's opponent knows what is probable, and when they have a track record for
preparing very well for such, it is only a question of what Trump's strategy is and
how this falls into it, not whether there is one.
Imagine being a fly on the wall of the meeting with Pelosi where it was decided to go
forward with impeachment in the House of Representatives, despite not having either sufficient
traction in the Senate or any way to control the process that the Senate uses.
It probably went like this: ' We'll say we impeached him, because we did, and we'll say
he was impeached. We'll declare victory, and go home. This will make him unelectable because of
the stigma of impeachment. '
Informed citizens are aware that whatever their views towards Trump, nothing he has done
reaches beyond the established precedent set by past presidents. Confused citizens on the other
hand, are believing the manufactured talking points thrown their way, and the idea that a US
president loosely reference a quid pro quo in trying to sort a corruption scandal in dealings
with the president of a foreign country, is some crazy, new, never-before-done and
highly-illegal thing. It is none of those things though.
Unfortunately, not needless to say, the entirety of the direct, physical evidence against
Trump solely consists of the now infamous transcript of the phone call which he had with
Ukrainian president Zelensky. The rest is hearsay, a conspiracy narrative, and entirely
circumstantial. As this author has noted in numerous pieces, Biden's entire candidacy rests
precisely upon his need to be a candidate so that any normal investigation into the wrongdoings
of himself or his son in Ukraine, suddenly become the targeted persecution of a political
opponent of Trump.
Other than this, it is evident that Biden stands little chance – the same polling
institutions which give him a double-digit lead were those which foretold a Clinton electoral
victory. Neither their methods nor those paying and publishing them, have substantively
changed. Biden's candidacy, like the impeachment, is essentially fake. The real contenders for
the party's base are Sanders and Gabbard.
The Democratic Party Activist Base Despises Pelosi as much as Clinton
The Democratic Party has two bases, one controlled by the DNC and the Clintons, and one
which consists of its energized rank-and-file activists who are clearer in their populism,
anti-establishment and ant-corporate agenda. Candidates like Gabbard and Sanders are closest to
them politically, though far from perfect fits. Their renegade status is confirmed by the
difficulties they have with visibility – they are the new silent majority of the party.
The DNC base, on the other hand, relies on Rachel Maddow, Wolf Blitzer, and the likes for their
default talking points, where they have free and pervasive access to legacy media. In the
context of increased censorship online, this is not insignificant.
Among the important reasons this 'impeachment' strategy will lose is that it will not
energize the second and larger base. Even though this more progressive and populist base is
also more motivated, they have faced – as has the so-called alt-light – an
extraordinarily high degree of censorship on social media. Despite all the censorship, the
Democrats' silent majority are rather well-informed people, highly motivated, and tend to be
vocal in their communities and places of work. Their ideas move organically and virally among
the populace.
This silent majority has a very good memory, and they know very well who Nancy Pelosi is,
and who she isn't.
The silent majority remembers that after years of the public backlash against Bush's war
crimes, crimes against humanity, destruction of remaining civil liberties with the Patriot Act,
torture, warrantless search – and the list goes on and on – Democrats managed to
retake the lower house in 2006. If there was a legitimate reason for an impeachment, it would
have been championed by Pelosi against Bush for going to war using false, falsified,
manufactured evidence about WMD in Iraq. At the time, Pelosi squashed the hopes of her own
electorate, reasoning that such moves would be divisive, that they would distract from the
Democrats' momentum to take the White House in '08, that Bush had recently (?) won his last
election, and so on. Of course these were real crimes, and the reasons not to prosecute may
have as much to do with Pelosi's own role in the war industry. Pelosi couldn't really push
against Bush over torture, etc. because she had been on an elite congressional committee
– the House Intelligence Committee – during the Bush years in office which starting in
2003 was dedicated to making sure that torture could and would become normalized and
entirely legal.
It seems Pelosi can't even go anywhere with this impeachment on Trump today, and therefore
doesn't even really plan to submit it to the Senate for the next stage .
The political stunt was pulled, a fireworks show consisting of one lonely rocket that sort of
fizzled off out of sight.
Trump emerges unscathed, and more to the point, we are closer to the election and his base
is even more energized. Pelosi spent the better part of three years inoculating the public
against any significance being attached to any impeachment procedure. Pelosi cried wolf so many
times, and Trump has made good on the opportunities handed to him to get his talking points in
order and to condition his base to receive and process the scandals in such and such way. This
wouldn't have been possible without Pelosi's help. Thanks in part to Pelosi and the DNC, Trump
appears primed for re-election.
Trump energizes his base, and the DNC suppresses and disappoints theirs. That's where the
election will be won or lost.
Where is AOC in all this? She was the prime mover on impeachment, specifically impeachment
over a phone call rather than concentration camps and genocide.
And now with impeachment she gave Pelosi cover to sell the country out again.
I was wondering why many libreral centrists were expreasing admiration for her, a
socialist. Maybe they recognized something?
"Prime mover"? What planet are you from? They were Schiff, Nadler, and Pelosi. Did you
miss that Russiagate was in motion while AOC was still tending bar? AOC isn't even on any of
the key committees (Judiciary and Intel).
I shouldn't have said THE prime mover, but ONE OF the prime movers in the House in
actually pushing it over the line against Pelosi's opposition. It seems like the House Dem
consensus ever since Russiagate was just to tease their base with it and milk the suspense
for all it was worth, until AOC, among others, rallied the base.
There were other reps who pushed for impeachment, but AOC has one of the biggest platforms
and crucially, expanded popular support for impeachment outside the MSNBC crowd. So yes, a
key figure in the political/PR effort to move from conspiracy theories to actual
impeachment.
"AOC is one of the highest-profile members of Congress and she blasted Pelosi for
resisting impeachment since May."
Liz Warren is the one who made it a part of her campaign before anyone else. Rashida
Tlaib was the one who made t-shirt with her "impeach the mf'er" quote on it. A lot of them
were "blasting" Pelosi for dithering. AOC also "blasted" her for giving ICE more money and a
lot of their things .
Your central focus on AOC for the impeachment fiasco while ignoring her active role in
spotlighting so many other issues of importance which no one else speaks about is
interesting. Did you catch any of her speaking at the Sanders rally in LA today? Any other
"high profile" Dems pushing such important issues and campaigns?
Thanks for this comment. I don't trust *any of them* except Sanders, but AOC has been
making more good noises than bad, and to claim that it was she who's been driving Pelosi to
impeachment is quite a stretch. Poor, helpless/hapless Rep. Pelosi sure.
Pelosi has repeatedly stared down the progressives in the House. The overwhelming majority
of the freshmen reps are what used to be called Blue Dogs, as in corporate Dems. AOC making
noise on this issue would not move Pelosi any more than it has on other issues.
IMHO Pelosi didn't try to tamp down Russiagate, and that created expectations that
Something Big would happen. Plus she lives in the California/blue cities bubble.
What Dem donors think matters to her way more than what AOC tweets about. If anything,
Pelosi (secondarily, I sincerely doubt this would be a big issue in her calculus) would view
impeachment as a way to reduce the attention recently given to progressive issues like single
payer and student debt forgiveness.
"... My paranoid fear is that Pelosi or McConnell might try to time the proceedings so as to take Bernie and Warren off the campaign trail at a crucial moment, helping Biden. ..."
"... Amfortas the hippie , December 21, 2019 at 5:40 pm ..."
"... that, and sucking the air out of the room for the primaries. When's super tuesday, again? surely they can engineer it so that their "high drama" coincides. ..."
"... "let's talk about universal material benefits" " ok, Vlad trying to distract us from whats really important " ..."
"... Hepativore , December 21, 2019 at 6:49 pm ..."
"... Happy winter Solstice, everyone! ..."
"... Anyway, the funny thing is, that Biden himself has said that he only wants to be a one-term president. It makes me wonder if he knows that he has neither the energy or presence of mind to hold the office, and that he is merely doing so because of establishment pressure to stop Sanders at all costs. ..."
Please bone up on US procedure. It's not good to have you confuse readers.
The Senate can't do anything until the House passes a motion referring the impeachment to
the Senate. The House ALSO needs to designate managers as part of that process.
Michael
Tracey argued that it's only Senate rules that require that the House formally transmit
the impeachment verdict. The Constitution says that the Senate has to try an impeached
president, and the Constitution trumps the Senate's rules. Logically, then, the Senate could
just modify its rules to try the president.
But the whole delay is weird and impeachment has only been done twice before, so not a lot
of precedent.
My paranoid fear is that Pelosi or McConnell might try to time the proceedings so as
to take Bernie and Warren off the campaign trail at a crucial moment, helping Biden.
that, and sucking the air out of the room for the primaries. When's super tuesday,
again? surely they can engineer it so that their "high drama" coincides.
"let's talk about universal material benefits" " ok, Vlad trying to distract us from
whats really important "
Anyway, the funny thing is, that Biden himself has said that he only wants to be a
one-term president. It makes me wonder if he knows that he has neither the energy or presence
of mind to hold the office, and that he is merely doing so because of establishment pressure
to stop Sanders at all costs. Plus, if the Democrats get the brokered convention they
are after, he can bow out, satisfied that he helped the DNC protect the donor class from the
Sanders threat.
Mark Galli, its current editor (who is leaving the publication in two weeks)
takes on Trump directly -- a courageous move on his part, as his magazine has largely been
apolitical. "The facts in this instance are unambiguous: the president of the United States
attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of
the president's political opponents," Galli writes. He draws the obvious conclusion for
Christians: "That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is
profoundly immoral." Galli goes further, digging into the behavior of the man in the Oval
Office, noting that Trump "has dumbed down the idea of morality in his administration." He gets
specific: "He has hired and fired a number of people who are now convicted criminals." As if
that wasn't enough, Galli adds, "He himself has admitted to immoral actions in business and his
relationship with women, about which he remains proud. His Twitter feed alone -- with its
habitual string of mischaracterizations, lies, and slanders -- is a near perfect example of a
human being who is morally lost and confused." Galli's warning to Christians is clear. "To the
many evangelicals who continue to support Mr. Trump in spite of his blackened moral record, we
might say this: remember who you are and whom you serve," Galli writes. "Consider how your
justification of Mr. Trump influences your witness to your Lord and Savior. Consider what an
unbelieving world will say if you continue to brush off Mr. Trump's immoral words and behavior
in the cause of political expediency. If we don't reverse course now, will anyone take anything
we say about justice and righteousness with any seriousness for decades to come?" Galli also
acknowledged Friday in an interview on CNN's "New Day" that his stand is unlikely to shake
loose Trump's strong hold on this voter segment, a crucial portion of his political base.
Galli's move is even more admirable when you consider that he published his editorial even
knowing that, as he said in his interview, he's not optimistic that his editorial will alter
Trump's support among white evangelicals. It's not a stretch to say that white evangelicals put
Trump into office in 2016. About
80% of them voted for him. They did so because of the abortion issue, mostly. They wanted
pro-life judges throughout the justice system. But this was a devil's bargain, at best.
<img alt="Faith could bring us together. But too often it divides us"
src="//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/191121180252-20191121-fractured-states-religious-leaders-large-169.jpg">Faith
could bring us together. But too often it divides us Younger evangelicals, those under 45,
have been slowly but steadily
moving away from Trump during the past two years or so, unhappy about his example. A key
topic that has driven them away is immigration. Loving your neighbor as yourself has always
been a bedrock Christian value. And Trump's stance on immigrants (especially those of color)
has upset the younger generation of evangelicals, with two-thirds of them saying in surveys
that immigrants strengthen our country, bringing their work ethic and talents with them from
Mexico or Central America or Syria. Climate change is another issue that has caught the
imagination of younger evangelicals. "I can't love my neighbor if I'm not protecting the earth
that sustains them and defending their rights to clean water, clean air, and a stable climate,"
Kyle Meyaard-Schaap, a national organizer for Young Evangelicals for Climate Action, told
Grist . Needless to say, Trump's contempt on this subject grates badly on these young
Christians. Perhaps naively, Americans have always looked to the presidency for exemplary moral
behavior, and when there are obvious personal or moral failures, as with Nixon and Clinton,
there is disappointment, even anger. But if you're a Christian -- and I lay claim to this for
myself -- you understand that it's human to fail at perfect behavior. There is always
forgiveness. And, as T.S. Eliot wrote, "Humility is endless."
Humility lies at the heart of
Christian behavior. As does honesty. In these, Trump has set a terrible example, and he's now
been taken down for this by an important Christian voice. If only another 10 percent of
evangelicals take this seriously, and I suspect they will, Donald J. Trump's presidency is
destined for the ash heap of history.
Delaying the Senate trial erodes the Democrats' argument that impeachment was so urgent that
they could not wait for the courts to act on Trump's aggressive claims of privilege.
Seven Democratic presidential candidates who gathered on a debate stage in Los Angeles on
Thursday represent another argument for moving beyond impeachment.
... ... ...
Washington is fixated on the daily turns of the impeachment saga, but polls indicate that
most Americans are not. Business executive Andrew Yang pointed out that, even when the current
president is gone, the struggles of many people will remain, particularly in parts of the
country that helped elect Trump in 2016.
"We blasted away 4 million manufacturing jobs that were primarily based in Ohio, Michigan,
Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Missouri. I just left Iowa -- we blasted 40,000 manufacturing jobs
there," Yang said. "The more we act like Donald Trump is the cause of all our problems, the
more Americans lose trust that we can actually see what's going on in our communities and solve
those problems."
That is what voters are waiting to hear, and the sooner the better for Democrats.
Warren's awkward attempts to portray herself as a woman of color, even if a etsy weeny
tiny bit, always seemed strange to me, ignoring the resume nonsense. It makes sense with the
realization that Women of Color, have become a new politically privileged class, in spite of
some of them being not very oppressed.
Indian (subcontinent) women come from a tradition of a caste based society of wealth and
privilege. The most succesful ones intuitively home in on and game American race-based
identity politics in spite of their advantages, such as being one of the wealthiest religious
groups in the nation,
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/10/11/how-income-varies-among-u-s-religious-groups/
No Bernie style economic class based socialism for them, no way. It's maintain privilege,
Silicon Valley corporate caste based salaries, Republican reductionism, Hillary hopium and
yet, they proudly proclaim their affiliation with real women of color, on whose backs they
surf, like last generation's black cleaning women, the grandparents of which might have
actually been slaves.
3 examples: Nimrata Nikki Randhawa, Neera Tanden and Kamala Harris.
Women-of-color in general are not a privileged class. The not-very-poor women of color are
perhaps a newly privileged class.
The Goldman Sachs women-of-color have become a new privileged class, in line with the
tenets of Goldman Sachs Feminism. " The arc of history is long, and it bends towards rainbow
gender-fluid oligarchy."
As Dean Baker pointed out in his book Rigged, the neoliberal capitalism of America is
rigged to benefit the top 1%. After all, they were the architects. Most Americans appreciate
that. Nevertheless, the vast majority willingly wade into its rigged quicksand. All economies
are rigged in the sense that there is a structure to it all. Moreover, the architects of that
system will ensure there is something in it for themselves – rigged. Our school system
does not instruct Americans on how their own economic system works (is rigged), so most of us
become its victims rather than its beneficiaries.
Books by Liz Warren and her daughter offer remedial guidance on how to make the current US
economic system work for the average household. So, in a sense, Liz comes across as an
adherent to the system she is trying to help others master .
This seems to be a losing proposition for candidate Warren because most Americans want a
new system with new rigging; not a repaired system that has been screwing them for
generations.
A few days ago, veterans' group VoteVets endorsed Pete Buttigieg. It has previously supported
Tulsi Gabbard. Details:
New York Times, "Liberal Veterans' Group Endorses Pete Buttigieg in 2020 Race":
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/04/us/politics/pete-buttigieg-votevets-endorsement.html
"... Public choice economics has big influence and a bad name. It is a school of economic thought that has at different times been associated with scholars at the University of Rochester, Virginia Tech, and George Mason University. ..."
"... Samuelson, in his famous and influential textbooks, saw a clear role for government in regulating markets. Public choice scholars vehemently disagreed . For political and theoretical reasons, they instead saw government as a fountain of corruption. Public choice economists argued that government regulations were the product of special interest groups that had "captured" the power of the state, to cripple rivals and squeeze money from citizens and consumers. Regulations were not made in the public interest, but instead were designed to bilk ordinary citizens. ..."
"... The conventional story is that as Warren moved from the right to the left, she abandoned the public choice way of thinking about the world, in favor of a more traditional left-wing radicalism. A more accurate take might be that she didn't abandon public choice, but instead remained committed to its free-market ideals, while reversing some of its valences. ..."
"... A recent popular history book, which qualified as a finalist for the National Book Award, depicts public choice as a kind of stealth intellectual weapons program , developed by economist James Buchanan to provide Chilean President Augusto Pinochet with the justification for his dictatorial constitution, and the Koch brothers with the tools to dismantle American democracy. ..."
"... Warren's ideas have a close family resemblance to those of Olson, a celebrated public choice theorist. (Perhaps she has read him; perhaps she has just reached similar conclusions from similar starting points.) Olson, like other public choice scholars, worried about the power of interest groups. He famously developed a theory of collective action that shows how narrowly focused interest groups can dominate politics, because they can organize more cheaply and reap great benefits by setting rules and creating monopolies at the expense of the ordinary public. This means that government programs often actively harm the poor rather than helping them. ..."
"... Olson also castigated libertarian economists for their "monodiabolism" and "almost utopian lack of concern about other problems" so long as the government was chained down. He argued that the government was not the only source of economic power: Business special interests would corrupt markets even if the government did not help them. ..."
"... Warren shares far more intellectual DNA with Mancur Olson and his colleagues than with traditional socialism. However, there are important differences. Olson wrote his key work in the 1980s, before the globalization boom. His arguments for free trade depend on the assumption that open borders will disempower special interests. ..."
Elizabeth Warren's politics seem like a tangle of contradictions. She wants free markets,
but also wants to tax billionaires' capital. Her enemies on the right claim that
she is a socialist , but Warren
describes herself as "capitalist to my bones."
Warren's politics are so confusing because we have forgotten that a pro-capitalist left is
even possible. For a long time, political debate in the United States has been a fight between
conservatives and libertarians on the right, who favored the market, and socialists and
liberals on the left, who favored the government.
It has been clear since 2016 that the traditional coalition of the right was breaking up.
Conservatives such as U.S. President Donald Trump are no fans of open trade and free markets,
and even favor social protections so long as they benefit their white supporters. Now, the left
is changing too.
Warren is reviving a pro-market left that has been neglected for decades, by drawing on a
surprising resource: public choice economics. This economic theory is reviled by many on the
left, who have claimed that it is a Koch-funded intellectual conspiracy designed to destroy
democracy. Yet there is a left version of public choice economics too, associated with thinkers
such as the late Mancur Olson. Like Olson, Warren is not a socialist but a left-wing
capitalist, who wants to use public choice ideas to cleanse both markets and the state of their
corruption.
Public choice economics has big influence and a bad name. It is a school of
economic thought that has at different times been associated with scholars at the University of
Rochester, Virginia Tech, and George Mason University. Public choice came into being in fervent
opposition to the mainstream of economics, which was dominated by scholars such as Paul
Samuelson.
Samuelson, in his famous and influential textbooks, saw a clear role for government in
regulating markets. Public choice scholars vehemently disagreed . For
political and theoretical reasons, they instead saw government as a fountain of corruption.
Public choice economists argued that government regulations were the product of special
interest groups that had "captured" the power of the state, to cripple rivals and squeeze money
from citizens and consumers. Regulations were not made in the public interest, but instead were
designed to bilk ordinary citizens.
Perhaps the most influential version of public choice was known as law and economics. For
decades, conservative foundations supported seminars that taught judges and legal academics the
principles of public choice economics. Attendees were taught that harsh sentences would deter
future crime, that government regulation should be treated with profound skepticism, and that
antitrust enforcement had worse consequences than the monopolies it was supposed to correct. As
statistical research by Elliott Ash, Daniel L. Chen, and Suresh Naidu has shown
, these seminars played a crucial role in shifting American courts to the right.
Warren was one of the young legal academics who attended
these seminars , and was largely convinced by the arguments. Her early work on bankruptcy
law started from public choice principles, and displayed a deep skepticism of intervention.
The conventional story is that as Warren moved from the right to the left, she abandoned the
public choice way of thinking about the world, in favor of a more traditional left-wing
radicalism. A more accurate take might be that she didn't abandon public choice, but instead
remained committed to its free-market ideals, while reversing some of its valences. Her work as
an academic was aimed at combating special interests, showing how the financial industry had
shaped bankruptcy reforms so that they boosted lenders' profits at borrowers' expense.
Notably, she applied public choice theory to explain some aspects of public choice, showing how
financial interests had funded scholarly centers which
provided a patina of genteel respectability to industry's preferred positions.
Now, Warren wants to to wash away the filth that has built up over decades to clog the
workings of American capitalism. Financial rules that have been designed by lobbyists need to
be torn up. Vast inequalities of wealth, which provide the rich with disproportionate political
and economic power, need to be reversed. Intellectual property rules, which make it so that
farmers no longer really own the seeds
they sow or the machinery they use to plant them, need to be abolished. For Warren, the problem
with modern American capitalism is that it is not nearly capitalist enough. It has been
captured by special interests, which are strangling competition.
It is hard to see how deeply Warren's program is rooted in
public choice ideas, because public choice has come to be the target of left-wing conspiracy theories. A recent popular
history book, which qualified as a finalist for the National Book Award, depicts public choice as a kind of
stealth intellectual weapons program , developed by economist James Buchanan to provide
Chilean President Augusto Pinochet with the justification for his dictatorial constitution, and
the Koch brothers with the tools to dismantle American democracy.
For sure, the mainstream of public choice is strongly libertarian, and the development of
the approach was funded by conservative individuals and foundations. What left-wing paranoia
overlooks is that there has always been a significant left-wing current of public choice, and
even a potent left-wing radicalism buried deep within public choice waiting to be uncovered.
The free-market ideal is a situation in which no actor has economic power over any other. As
many of Warren's proposals demonstrate, trying to achieve this ideal can animate a radical
program for reform.
Warren's ideas have a close family resemblance to those of Olson, a celebrated public choice
theorist. (Perhaps she has read him; perhaps she has just reached similar conclusions from
similar starting points.) Olson, like other public choice scholars, worried about the power of
interest groups. He famously developed a theory of collective action that shows how narrowly
focused interest groups can dominate politics, because they can organize more cheaply and reap
great benefits by setting rules and creating monopolies at the expense of the ordinary public.
This means that government programs often actively harm the poor rather than helping them.
However, Olson also castigated libertarian economists for their "monodiabolism" and "almost
utopian lack of concern about other problems" so long as the government was chained down. He
argued that the government was not the only source of economic power: Business special
interests would corrupt markets even if the government did not help them.
The result, according to Olson, was that societies, economies, and political systems became
increasingly encrusted with special-interest politics as the decades passed. Countries
benefited economically from great upheavals such as wars and social revolutions, which tore
interest groups from their privileged perches and sent them tumbling into the abyss.
Olson wanted to open up both politics and the economy to greater competition, equalizing
power relations as much as possible between the many and the few. He argued that under some
circumstances, powerful trade unions could benefit the economy. When unions and business groups
were sufficiently big that they represented a substantial percentage of workers or business as
a whole, they would be less likely to seek special benefits at the expense of the many, and
more likely to prioritize the good of the whole. Olson also believed strongly in the benefits
of open trade, not just because it led to standard economic efficiencies, but because it made
it harder for interest groups to capture government and markets. Northern European economies
such as Denmark, which combine powerful trade unions with a strong commitment to free markets,
represent Olsonian politics in action.
Warren shares far more intellectual DNA with Mancur Olson and his colleagues than with
traditional socialism. However, there are important differences. Olson wrote his key work in
the 1980s, before the globalization boom. His arguments for free trade depend on the assumption
that open borders will disempower special interests.
As economists such as Dani Rodrik and political scientists such as Susan Sell have shown,
this hasn't quite worked out as Olson expected. Free trade agreements have become a magnet for
special interest groups, who want to cement their preferences in international agreements that
are incredibly hard to reverse. The U.S. "fast track" approach to trade negotiations makes it
harder for Congress to demand change, but allows industry lobbyists to shape the
administration's negotiating stance. Investor-state dispute resolution mechanisms provide
business with a friendly forum where they can target government rules that hurt their economic
interests. All of this helps explain why Warren is skeptical of arguments for the general
benefits of free-trade agreements: they aren't nearly so general as economists claim.
Close attention to Warren's public choice influences reveals both her radicalism and its
limits. Like Olson, she is committed to the notion that making capitalism work for citizens
will require changes that border on the revolutionary. The sweeping proposals she makes for
changes to America's gross economic inequality, its economic relations with the rest of the
world, its approach to antitrust legislation, and its tolerance of sleazy relationships among
politicians, regulators, and industry are all aimed at creating a major upheaval. Where she
proposes major state action, as in her "Medicare for All" plans, it is to supplant market
institutions that aren't working, and are so embedded in interest group power dynamics that
they are incapable of reform.
Yet this is a distinctly capitalist variety of radicalism. Socialists will inevitably be
disappointed in the limits to her arguments. Warren's ideal is markets that work as they
should, in contrast to the socialist belief that some forms of power are inherent within
markets themselves. Not only Marxists, but economists such as Thomas Piketty, have suggested
that the market system is rigged in ways that will inevitably favor capital over the long run.
The fixes that Warren proposes will at most dampen down these tendencies rather than remove
them.
If Warren wins, she will not only disappoint socialists. Her proposals may end up being too
radical for Congress, but not nearly radical enough to tackle challenges such as climate
change, which will require a rapid and dramatic transformation of the global economy if
catastrophe is to be averted. Libertarians and mainstream public choice scholars will attack
her from a different vantage point, arguing that she is both too skeptical about existing
market structures and too trusting of the machineries of the state that she hopes to use to
remedy them. State efforts to reform markets can easily turn into protectionism.
What Warren offers, then, is neither a socialist or deep green alternative to capitalism,
nor a public choice justification for why regulators ought to leave it alone. The bet she is
making is that capitalism can solve the major problems that the United States faces, so long as
the government tackles inequality and defangs the special interests that have parasitized the
political and economic systems. Like all such bets, it is a risky one, but one that might
transform the U.S. model of capitalism if it succeeds.
Henry Farrell is a professor of
political science and international affairs at George Washington University.
"... "I'm opposed to conditioning the aid, and I would fight it no matter what," Engel told Al-Monitor. "The Democratic Party has traditionally been a pro-Israel party, and I see no reason for that to change now. If there are people who are Democrats who don't feel that way, then I don't think they should be elected president of the United States." ..."
"... Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is the most vocal proponent of conditioning Israeli military aid in the presidential race -- going even further left than J Street and all his primary opponents. At J Street's conference in October he said that some of the $3.8 billion in annual assistance "should go right now to humanitarian aid in Gaza." ..."
"... J Street has set any formal Israeli annexation of the West Bank as its red line for placing conditions on Israeli military aid. But it also supports the $38 billion memorandum of understanding. ..."
"... Shortly after the vote, Sanders campaign co-chair Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., as well as Reps. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., asked colleagues to sign a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asking him to clarify whether Israel has used US military equipment while demolishing Palestinian homes in the West Bank. ..."
"... The letter, seen by Al-Monitor, notes that the Arms Export Control Act "narrowly conditions the use of transferred US-origin defense articles" and requires the president to inform Congress if the equipment is used for unauthorized purposes ..."
The Jews try to run US policy ..but lately the Dem base (and part of the party) has become
more pro Palestine.
Democratic (Jewish) lawmakers reckon with 2020 rhetoric on Israel aid
December 6, 2019
Presidential candidates who want to place conditions on Israeli military aid have prompted
pro-Israel House Democrats to go on the offensive.
REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
It's becoming harder and harder for pro-Israel Democrats on
Capitol Hill to ignore the increasingly critical voices of the US ally within their party and
the presidential race.
House Democratic leaders -- who happen to be some of the staunchest Israel supporters on
Capitol Hill -- this week added language supportive of the annual $3.8 billion military aid
package to Israel to a symbolic resolution that endorses a two-state solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The stalled resolution passed 226-188, largely along party lines, today. But pro-Israel
Democrats only came on board after House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel,
D-N.Y., added their new language to the bill. The new provision is a response to the fact
that several presidential candidates have come out of the woodwork in recent months with
calls to place conditions on the largest recipient of US military aid.
"I'm opposed to conditioning the aid, and I would fight it no matter what," Engel
told Al-Monitor. "The Democratic Party has traditionally been a pro-Israel party, and I see
no reason for that to change now. If there are people who are Democrats who don't feel that
way, then I don't think they should be elected president of the United
States."
When Engel's committee first advanced the resolution in July, Democratic leaders opted not
to put it on the floor, even as they passed another nonbinding resolution condemning the
pro-Palestinian boycott, divestment and sanctions movement 398-17, which was backed by the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
That changed last month after the Trump administration repealed a decades-old legal
opinion maintaining that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international
law.
"There are those on the far-left side of the Democratic Party -- and some of the
presidential candidates -- who are pushing for new conditions on aid, especially in their
interactions with Gaza, which is run by Hamas -- a terrorist organization," Gottheimer told
Al-Monitor.
An October poll from the liberal Center for American Progress found that 56% of
American voters, including 71% of Democrats, oppose "unconditional financial and military
assistance to Israel if the Israeli government continues to violate American policy on
settlement expansion or West Bank annexation."
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is the most vocal proponent of conditioning Israeli
military aid in the presidential race -- going even further left than J Street and
all his primary opponents. At J Street's conference in October he said that some of the $3.8
billion in annual assistance "should go right now to humanitarian aid in Gaza."
J Street has set any formal Israeli annexation of the West Bank as its red line for
placing conditions on Israeli military aid. But it also supports the $38 billion memorandum
of understanding.
Presidential hopefuls Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South
Bend, Indiana, have jumped on board with J Street's position. However, the current
front-runner, former Vice President Joe Biden, has flatly ruled out conditioning the aid.
Notably, J Street did not oppose the effort to amend the Lowenthal resolution with the
military aid language. That said, progressive Democrats do not necessarily view that
provision as incompatible with calls to attach strings to that assistance. Congressional
Progressive Caucus co-chair Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., called the Engel language
"meaningless."
"It's just restating what current practice or current law is," Pocan told Al-Monitor. "We
don't really see it as affecting the bill one way or the other. At any time if we feel like
we're better off putting conditions on money and holding back money, Congress could always do
that with any country through the normal process."
Shortly after the vote, Sanders campaign co-chair Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., as well as
Reps. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., asked colleagues to sign a letter to
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asking him to clarify whether Israel has used US military
equipment while demolishing Palestinian homes in the West Bank.
The letter, seen by Al-Monitor, notes that the Arms Export Control Act "narrowly
conditions the use of transferred US-origin defense articles" and requires the president to
inform Congress if the equipment is used for unauthorized purposes
Could Tax Increases Speed Up the Economy?
Democrats Say Yes https://nyti.ms/2RlDbJx
NYT - Jim Tankersley - December 5
WASHINGTON -- Elizabeth Warren is leading a liberal rebellion against a long-held economic
view that large tax increases slow economic growth, trying to upend Democratic policymaking
in the way supply-side conservatives changed Republican orthodoxy four decades ago.
(Warren Would Take Billionaires Down
a Few Billion Pegs https://nyti.ms/2CtMPRN
NYT - November 10)
Generations of economists, across much of the ideological spectrum, have long held that
higher taxes reduce investment, slowing economic growth. That drag, the consensus held, would
offset the benefits to growth from increased government spending in areas like education.
Ms. Warren and other leading Democrats say the opposite. The senator from Massachusetts,
who is a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, contends that her
plans to tax the rich and spend the revenue to lift the poor and the middle class would
accelerate economic growth, not impede it. Other Democratic candidates are making similar
claims about their tax-and-spend proposals. Some liberal economists go further and say that
simply taxing the rich would help growth no matter what the government did with the
money.
Democrats in the past, including the party's 2016 nominee, Hillary Clinton, have argued
that a more modest combination of tax increases and spending programs would expand the
economy. But no Democratic nominee before Ms. Warren had ever proposed so many new taxes and
spending programs, and leaned so heavily into the argument that they would be, in economist
parlance, pro-growth.
That argument tries to reframe a classic debate about the economic "pie" in the United
States by suggesting there is no trade-off between increasing the size of the pie and
dividing the slices more equitably among all Americans.
Ms. Warren has proposed nearly $3 trillion a year in new taxes on businesses and
high-earners, largely focused on billionaires but sometimes hitting Americans who earn
$250,000 and above per year. The taxes would fund wide-reaching new government spending on
health care, education, and family benefits like universal child care and paid parental
leave.
Last month, Ms. Warren wrote on Twitter that education, child care and student loan relief
programs funded by her tax on wealthy Americans would "grow the economy." In a separate post,
she said student debt relief would "supercharge" growth.
The last batch of economists to disrupt a political party's consensus position were
conservative -- the so-called supply-siders who built influence in the late 1970s and gained
power in the Reagan administration. Previous Republican presidents had focused on keeping the
budget deficit low, which constrained their ability to cut taxes if they did not also cut
government spending. Supply-siders contended that well-targeted tax cuts could generate big
economic growth even without spending cuts. ...
Ms. Warren is making the case that the economy could benefit if money is redistributed from
the rich and corporations to uses that she and other liberals say would be more productive.
Their argument combines hard data showing that high levels of inequality and wealth
concentration weigh down economic growth with a belief that well-targeted government spending
can encourage more Americans to work, invest and build skills that would make them more
productive.
They also cite evidence that transferring money to poor and middle-class individuals would
increase consumer spending because they spend a larger share of their incomes than wealthy
Americans, who tend to save and invest.
"The economy has changed, our understanding of it has changed, and we understand the
constricting effects of inequality" on growth, said Heather Boushey, the president of the
Washington Center for Equitable Growth, a think tank focused on inequality.
Inequality has widened significantly in America over the last several decades. The
Congressional Budget Office estimates that the incomes of the top 1 percent of Americans more
than tripled from 1979 to 2016, before taxes and government transfer payments are taken into
account. For the middle class, incomes grew 33 percent. More than a decade after the
recession, wage growth for the middle class continues to run well behind previous times of
economic expansion, like the late 1990s.
Research by the economist Emmanuel Saez and colleagues shows that the last time such a
small sliver of Americans controlled such a large share of the nation's income and wealth was
in the late 1920s, just before a stock market crash set off the Great Depression. World Bank
researchers have warned that high levels of inequality are stifling growth in South Africa,
which has the globe's worst measured inequality.
"We have an economy that isn't delivering like it used to," said Ms. Boushey, who advised
Hillary Clinton's 2016 Democratic presidential campaign. "That's leading people to say let's
re-examine the evidence."
The contention that tax and spending increases can lift economic growth is not the only
challenge to traditional orthodoxy brewing in liberal economic circles. Some Democrats have
also embraced modern monetary theory, which reframes classic thinking that discourages large
budget deficits as a drag on growth. Its supporters, including Representative Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez of New York and the economist Stephanie Kelton, an adviser to Senator Bernie
Sanders of Vermont, argue that the United States government should be spending much more on
programs to fight inequality, like a federal job guarantee, without imposing new taxes.
Some of the inequality-focused economists say they are hoping to build new economic models
to predict the effects of their policies, though they acknowledge few of those models exist
yet. Instead, they rely on evidence about the likely effects of individual programs, added
together.
Many economists who study tax policy contend that Ms. Warren's plans -- and other large
tax-and-spend proposals from Democratic candidates this year -- would hurt the economy, just
as classic economic models suggest.
"Some elements of the large increase in government spending on health and education
proposed by Senator Warren would promote economic growth" through channels like improved
education, said Alan Auerbach, an economics professor at the University of California,
Berkeley, who has written some of the most influential research in the profession on the
relationship between tax rates and growth.
But, he said, "I am very skeptical that these growth effects would offset the negative
effects on growth of the higher taxes, particularly given that the spending increases are not
specifically targeted toward enhancing growth."
Ms. Warren disagrees. In the latest Democratic debate, she said the spending programs
funded by her wealth tax would be "transformative" for workers. Those plans would raise
wages, make college tuition-free and relieve graduates of student debt, she said, adding, "We
can invest in an entire generation's future."
An emerging group of liberal economists say taxes on high-earners could spur growth even
if the government did nothing with the revenue because the concentration of income and wealth
is dampening consumer spending.
"We are experiencing a revolution right now in macroeconomics, particularly in the policy
space," said Mark Paul, an economist who is a fellow at the liberal Roosevelt Institute in
Washington. "We can think of a wealth tax as welfare-enhancing, in and of itself, simply by
constraining the power of the very wealthy" to influence public policy and distort markets to
their advantage.
Taken together, Ms. Warren's proposals would transform the role of federal taxation. If
every tax increase she has proposed in the campaign passed and raised as much revenue as her
advisers predict -- a contingency hotly debated among even liberal economists -- total
federal tax revenue would grow more than 50 percent.
The United States would leap from one of the lowest-taxed rich nations to one of the
highest. It would collect more taxes as a share of the economy than Norway, and only slightly
less than Italy.
Mr. Sanders's plan envisions a similarly large increase in tax levels. Former Vice
President Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s proposals are much smaller in scale: He would raise taxes on
the wealthy and corporations by $3.4 trillion over a decade, in order to fund increased
spending on health care, higher education, infrastructure and carbon emissions reduction.
If Ms. Warren's tax program is enacted, said Gabriel Zucman, an economist at Berkeley who
is an architect of her wealth tax proposal, "in my view, the most likely effect is a small
positive effect on growth, depending on how the revenues are used."
Another economist who has worked with the Warren campaign to analyze its proposals, Mark
Zandi of Moody's, said he would expect her plans to be "largely a wash on long-term economic
growth."
Researchers at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College projected this summer that Ms.
Warren's wealth tax and spending policies would generate a 1.7 percent increase in the size
of the economy. A preliminary study of a wealth tax like Ms. Warren's proposal, by the Penn
Wharton Budget Model, found that it would reduce the size of the economy by a similar 1.7
percent. The model uses the sort of classic methodology that liberals are now rebelling
against and did not evaluate Ms. Warren's spending proposals.
Historical experience offers few parallels for assessing the economic effects of a
taxation-and-spending program on the scale of Ms. Warren's ambitions. A 2002 study of wealth
taxes in rich countries found that those taxes, most of which have since been abandoned,
reduced economic growth slightly on an annual basis.
Conservative economists roundly disagree that large tax increases can spur faster growth,
even those who say government spending on paid leave and child care may get more Americans
into the labor force. They say a wealth tax on the scale of Ms. Warren's proposal would
greatly reduce savings and investment by the rich.
"What a wealth tax does is, it directly taxes savings," said Aparna Mathur, an economist
at the conservative American Enterprise Institute who favors a narrow paid leave program and
whose research finds benefits from reducing tax rates on business and investment. "If you're
taxing savings, you're implicitly taxing investment. So how can that possibly be
pro-growth?"
The supply-side economists' plans were similarly denounced -- George Bush called them
"voodoo economic policies" while running for president in 1980 -- but in time dominated
Republican proposals.
Some members of the new liberal revolt against tax orthodoxy welcome the comparison to the
supply-side uprising.
"While I think that the supply-siders were wrong, and were always wrong, they were
reacting to very real economic problems in the 1970s," said Michael Linden, the executive
director of the Groundwork Collaborative, a liberal policy and advocacy group. "There was
something really wrong with the economy at the time. I think there is now."
Said it before and I'll say it again, Warren's personal ambition is often what
manifests her poor political instincts. Why did she claim Native American Heritage? Why did
she endorse HRC in 2016? Why did she ambiguously support, then unambiguously back away from,
M4A?
This trend leads me to suspect that she will not easily back out of the race, and
cannot be trusted finally to endorse Sanders in 2020 any more than she could be in 2016. I
suspect, in any case, that many of her voters would not default to Sanders but to Buttigieg
in any case. They seem to be mostly white professionals between 30-60yrs old who make
$120,000/year.
Wow, Sanders has really been pulling ahead of Warren if the polls over the past few days
are to be believed. I am hoping that this trend continues. Warren's overly-complicated
healthcare proposal which she decided to backpedal on at the last moment seems like it has
really cost her.
I kind of wonder at this point why Warren decided to run for president in the first place.
She seems like the type of person who would rather follow than lead, and would be ill-suited
to be president as she would be forced to take a position on something. Warren would have
been better served to be clear about what her actual positions are instead of trying to have
it both ways. Her constant mind-changing and backpedaling in response to whomever has the
political upper-hand at the moment has angered both the DNC establishment as well as the
progressive left.
Or, as Abraham Lincoln put it in a letter to "Mr FJ Hooker" as he was contemplating a push
across the Rappahannock in the wake of Lee's move westward in June 1863,
"like a bull stuck across a fence that cannot gore to the front or kick to the rear"
I think it was you, Lambert, who drew my attention to "Rich and Tracey's Civil War
podcast", and I am grateful.
I think Warren is running for treasury secretary in a Biden administration. The theory
being that that will be her reward for stopping Sanders. Everybody has an angle. Except
Bernie. Can someone show me his angle?
Clinton curse sill is hanging over Democratic Party candidates like Damocles sword. 25 year
of betrayal of their core constituency and their alliance with Wall Street has consequences,
which they now feel. Obama now is openly despised by Democratic voters as the person who betrayed
his electorate and then enriched himself in classing "revolving door" corruption scheme. The
phrase "change is can believe in" became a curse. Bill Clinton is mired in Epstein scandal. You
can't get worse cheerleaders for the party and it does not have anybody else.
Notable quotes:
"... Obama was directly addressing Silicon Valley's wealthiest Democratic donors, telling them to "chill" in their debate over the party's candidates, and seeking to ease the tensions among tech billionaires who have broken into separate camps backing Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden, and -- most surprisingly -- Elizabeth Warren ..."
"... Gallup released a poll last week that had some troubling news for Democrats, as only 66% of the party faithful said they're enthusiastic about the upcoming election. ..."
While there are still 15 candidates running for the Democratic nomination (after the
withdrawal of Kamala Harris earlier today), only four are polling in double digits, with most
either at 1% or 0%. But Obama said whoever gets the nod should get the vote.
"There will be differences" between the candidates, Obama said, "but I want us to make sure
that we keep in mind that, relative to the ultimate goal, which is to defeat a president and a
party that has taken a sharp turn away from a lot of the core traditions and values and
institutional commitments that built this country," those differences are "relatively
minor."
"The field will narrow and there's going to be one person, and if that is not your perfect
candidate and there are certain aspects of what they say that you don't agree with and you
don't find them completely inspiring the way you'd like, I don't care," he said. "Because the
choice is so stark and the stakes are so high that you cannot afford to be ambivalent in this
race."
Obama was directly addressing Silicon Valley's wealthiest Democratic donors, telling
them to "chill" in their debate over the party's candidates, and seeking to ease the tensions
among tech billionaires who have broken into separate camps backing Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden,
and -- most surprisingly -- Elizabeth Warren , according to recode.
Obama may have his job cut out for him: with many Democratic voters confused or merely bored
silly by the current roster of candidates, two newcomers, Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval
Patrick and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, entered the race adding further to
the confusion. Last month, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, for instance, drew fewer than
100 people to a South Carolina "Environmental Justice" forum. And she's a frontrunner!
Meanwhile, Gallup released a poll last week that had some troubling news for Democrats,
as only 66% of the party faithful said they're enthusiastic about the upcoming election.
And while for Republicans the number is 65%, "this differed from the typical pattern Gallup has
seen over the years, whereby those who identify with the political party of the incumbent
president have been less enthusiastic about voting than members of the opposing party," Gallup
wrote.
Ironically, Obama isn't alone in saying Democrats need to hold their nose when they vote for
the eventual nominee. Joe Biden's wife, Jill, said in August that her husband might not be the
best candidate, but told voters "maybe you have to swallow a little bit" and vote for him
anyway.
"Your candidate might be better on, I don't know, health care, than Joe is," Jill Biden said
on MSNBC, "but you've got to look at who's going to win this election, and maybe you have to
swallow a little bit and say, 'OK, I personally like so-and-so better,' but your bottom line
has to be that we have to beat Trump."
During a campaign stop in New Hampshire, she repeated the point. "I know that not all of you
are committed to my husband, and I respect that. But I want you to think about your candidate,
his or her electability, and who's going to win this race. So I think if your goal -- I know my
goal -- is to beat Donald Trump, we have to have someone who can beat him," she said.
"... "The next president will, for example, have to deal with the enormous loss of U.S. credibility during the past three years, which has stemmedin large part from Trump's reneging on or withdrawing from agreements such as the Paris accord on climate change, arms control accords withRussia, and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which restricted Iran's nuclear program." ..."
"... What is the PURPOSE of US Foreign Policy? To protect the US homeland and US interests abroad (freedom of navigation, freedom of commerce and trade, and the protection of US citizens travelling abroad to name a few). ..."
"... Unfortunately, US Policy really refers to US interventionism across the globe. Covert activities are presumably necessary to protect US interests so as to thwart the covert activities of our enemies. In practice, what the US really does is protect the interests of friendly countries and US-based multi-national corporations...and the whole thing is smoke and mirrors (hidden from the American people). Thus, we really have NO IDEA what US Foreign Policy is, or what we are doing behind the scenes. That's on both Democrats and Republicans. ..."
This is still a race for a party nomination, and it is well known how political battles at this stage typically focus narrowly
on what are perceived to be the parochial concerns of the party's base and take on a different character in the general election.
But positions taken now can impose constraints later on. Moreover, Democratic primary voters ought to be learning about what difference
the various contenders would make in executing the powers of the presidency, not just in who has the most attractive ideas about
policies that cannot be imposed by fiat.
Foreign policy is where more attention and debate are most required, and not just because foreign policy nearly always gets inadequate
attention in political campaigns. It also is where a president has the most power to make a difference even without getting Congress
to go along with the president's program. This fact is reflected in how many presidents late in their presidencies, especially in
second terms, have turned more of their attention to foreign relations as an area where they can make a difference after experiencing
frustration in trying to get their domestic programs through Congress.
Many issues in foreign policy could profitably be discussed more than they are now, but priority should be given to those subjects
on which Trump has caused the most damage. Candidates should explain how they intend to repair that damage, not just what their policies
would be if they somehow could be written on a clean slate. The slate on which the next administration's foreign policy will be written
starts out very dirty. Coming after Trump will be a major, task-defining fact about the next administration's foreign policy challenges.
The heavy damage to U.S. relations with the European allies represents another especially dirty part of the slate that the next
administration will have to tend to. Brexit will be an added complication in addressing this problem and in a sense is another part
of Trump's legacy given the way he has cheered on the Brexiteers,
contrary to U.S. interests.
Issues examined by the current impeachment proceeding represent more damage-repair needs. Ukraine is a large and important country
and constructing a U.S. policy that adequately reflects Ukraine's delicate situation between East and West would be a challenge in
any event. Now it has been made more difficult by Trump and Rudy Giuliani's
setting back of Ukraine's efforts to stamp out corruption and subordinating an aid relationship to dirt-digging for domestic
political reasons. What are the Democratic candidates' specific ideas for repairing this damage, and for fitting the repairs into
a sensible policy toward not just Ukraine but also Russia?
To emphasize these foreign policy challenges is not to diminish the amount of Trump-inflicted damage that extends to domestic
matters as well, and the need for the next administration to repair that damage as well. Perhaps the greatest over-arching damage,
spanning both the domestic and foreign sides, is that the nation seems to have become inured to wrongdoing because of the sheer volume
of it, with attention to each offense quickly fading as it is succeeded by a new offense or attention-hogging presidential outburst.
What will the next president do to restore a sense of national outrage over wrongdoing whenever it occurs, be it blatant self-dealing,
corruption of U.S. foreign relations, or something else?
Such problems may not have as much resonance in Iowa caucuses as the cost of health care, but they have a lot more to do with
who will make the best president.
Paul R. Pillar is Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University and Nonresident
Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution. He is a contributing editor to The National Interest, where he writes
a blog.
"The next president will, for example, have to deal with the enormous loss of U.S. credibility during the past three years,
which has stemmedin large part from Trump's reneging on or withdrawing from agreements such as the Paris accord on climate change,
arms control accords withRussia, and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which restricted Iran's nuclear program."
What a load of hooey this article is. U.S. credibility with whom? Failed Merkel? Failed Macron?...
Failure of the past three years but no mention of the failures of Obama? Sending an aging hippie James Taylor to console islamic terrorist victims in Paris apparently counts as a major foreign policy
success and that mean Trump refuses to perpetuate. And then there's the cross the red line in Syria and we'll do nothing.
Or maybe ship weapons secretly to Islamic terrorists calling them freedom fighters and surprise surprise, the weapons from
Obama are used to murder American diplomats in Benghazi. Then cover that up by blaming it on a video from a guy in Los Angeles
and sending out a team to blatantly lie about the event.
Now there's real foreign policy you can depend on - from the Democrats.
What is the PURPOSE of US Foreign Policy? To protect the US homeland and US interests abroad (freedom of navigation, freedom
of commerce and trade, and the protection of US citizens travelling abroad to name a few).
Unfortunately, US Policy really refers
to US interventionism across the globe. Covert activities are presumably necessary to protect US interests so as to thwart the
covert activities of our enemies. In practice, what the US really does is protect the interests of friendly countries and US-based
multi-national corporations...and the whole thing is smoke and mirrors (hidden from the American people). Thus, we really have
NO IDEA what US Foreign Policy is, or what we are doing behind the scenes. That's on both Democrats and Republicans.
Warren's New Proposal for Prescription Drugs Is Flying Under the Radar
By Dean Baker
Earlier this month, Sen. Elizabeth Warren put out a set of steps that she would put
forward as president as part of a transition to Medicare for All. The items that got the most
attention were including everyone over age 50 and under age 18 in Medicare, and providing
people of all ages with the option to buy into the program. This buy-in would include large
subsidies, and people with incomes of less than 200 percent of the poverty level would be
able to enter the Medicare program at no cost.
These measures would be enormous steps toward Medicare for All, bringing tens of millions
of people into the program, including most of those (people over age 50) with serious medical
issues. It would certainly be more than halfway to a universal Medicare program.
While these measures captured most of the attention given to Warren's transition plan,
another part of the plan is probably at least as important. Warren proposed to use the
government's authority to compel the licensing of drug patents so that multiple companies can
produce a patented drug.
The government can do this both because it has general authority to compel licensing of
patents (with reasonable compensation) and because it has explicit authority under the 1980
Bayh-Dole Act to require licensing of any drug developed in part with government-funded
research. The overwhelming majority of drugs required some amount of government-supported
research in their development.
These measures are noteworthy because they can be done on the president's own authority.
While the pharmaceutical industry will surely contest a president's use of the government's
authority to weaken their patent rights, those actions would not require congressional
approval.
The other reason that these steps would be so important is that there is a huge amount of
money involved. The United States is projected to spend over $6.6 trillion on prescription
drugs over the next decade, more than 2.5 percent of GDP.
The government has explicit authority under the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act to require licensing of
any drug developed in part with government-funded research.
This is an enormous amount of money. We spend more than twice as much per person on drugs
as people in other wealthy countries.
This is not an accident. The grant of a patent monopoly allows drug companies to charge as
much as they want for drugs that are necessary for people's health or even their life.
While other countries also grant patent monopolies, they limit the ability of drug
companies to exploit these monopolies with negotiations or price controls. This is why prices
in these countries are so much lower than in the United States.
But even these negotiated prices are far above what drug prices would be in a free market.
The price of drugs in a free market, without patent monopolies or related protections, will
typically be less than 10 percent of the U.S. price and in some cases, less than 1
percent.
This is because drugs are almost invariably cheap to manufacture and distribute. They are
expensive because government-granted patent monopolies make them expensive.
The rationale for patent monopolies is to give companies an incentive to research and
develop drugs. This process is expensive, and if newly developed drugs were sold in a free
market, companies would not be able to recover these expenses.
To make up for the loss of research funding supported by patent monopolies, Warren
proposes an increase in public funding for research.
To make up for the loss of research funding supported by patent monopolies, Warren
proposes an increase in public funding for research. This would be an important move toward
an increased reliance on publicly funded biomedical research.
There are enormous advantages to publicly funded research over patent monopoly-supported
research. First, the government is funding the research. It can require that all results be
fully public as soon as possible so that all researchers can quickly benefit from them.
By contrast, under the patent system, drug companies have an incentive to keep results
secret. They have no desire to share results that could benefit competitors.
Public funding would also radically reduce the incentive to develop copycat drugs. Under
the current system, drug companies will often devote substantial sums to developing drugs
that are intended to duplicate the function of drugs already on the market. While there is
generally an advantage to having more options to treat a specific condition, most often,
research dollars would be better spent trying to develop drugs for conditions where no
effective treatment currently exists.
Ending patent monopoly pricing would also take away the incentive for drug companies to
conceal evidence that their drugs may not be as safe or effective as claimed. Patent
monopolies give drug companies an incentive to push their drugs as widely as possible.
The opioid crisis provides a dramatic example of the dangers of this system. Opioid
manufacturers would not have had the same incentive to push their drugs, concealing evidence
of their addictive properties, if they were not making huge profits on them.
In short, Senator Warren's plans on drugs are a really huge deal. How far and how quickly
she will be able to get to Medicare for All will depend on what she can get through Congress.
But her proposal for prescription drugs is something she would be able to do if elected
president, and it would make an enormous difference in both the cost and the quality of our
health care.
"... However, Morris contends that Clinton believes that she has to "wait until Biden drops out because he's obviously next in line for it, and if he goes away, there's an opening for her." According to Morris' scenario, Clinton would become the moderate candidate opposed to the leading progressive, Elizabeth Warren. ..."
In November, Barack Obama, who had avoided commenting on the Democratic presidential
primary, came out forcefully in opposition to the extreme positions taken by some leading
progressive contenders, positions that could cause the Democrats to be beaten by Trump in the
2020 election. Obama was a very popular president among Democrats, and what he has to say
carries considerable weight with them. While this may not be his intent, Obama's position could
open the field for Hillary Clinton to enter the fray and quite possibly become the Democrats'
nominee, given the lackluster performance of leading "moderate" Joe Biden, whose weaknesses
have been brought out by the mainstream media, despite their animosity toward Trump.
Now many in the Democratic Party leadership, as well as wealthy Democratic donors, have been
concerned for some time about the radical nature of some of the economic policies advocated by
the leading progressive Democratic contenders. They fear that instead of the 2020 election
revolving around Trump with his low approval ratings, and very likely his impeachment, which
would seem to be a slam-dunk victory for Democrats, it would focus on those radical economic
proposals. Many voters are skeptical about how free college for all, free health care for all,
high-paying jobs in "green energy" -- after greatly reducing the use of fossil fuels, free
childcare for all, just to name some of the "free" things that have been promised, would really
work. Instead of raising taxes on the middle class, most of these free things would purportedly
be paid for by the super-wealthy, which would exclude mere millionaires such as Bernie Sanders
(estimated wealth $2 million) and Elizabeth Warren (estimated wealth $12 million) who are the
leading progressive contenders.
Obama began stressing his concern about the danger of radicalism in an October speech at the
Obama Foundation Summit in Chicago. And he did this not by dealing with presidential candidates
but with youth who think they can immediately change society. "This
idea of purity and you're never compromised, and you're always politically woke and all
that stuff, you should get over that quickly," Obama lectured. "The world is messy. There are
ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws."
It was at a gathering of Democratic donors in Washington, D.C., in November that Obama
cautioned Democratic candidates not to go too far to the left since that would antagonize many
voters who would otherwise support the Democratic candidate. "Even as we push the envelope and
we are bold in our vision we also have to be rooted in
reality ," Obama asserted. "The average American doesn't think we have to completely tear
down the system and remake it." Although Obama did not specify particular Democratic
candidates, his warning was widely interpreted as being directed at Elizabeth Warren and Bernie
Sanders.
Currently, the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination, according to national polls,
is Joe Biden, who is considered a moderate. But Biden has a number of problems. He continues to
make gaffes while speaking, and during his long career in the Senate took positions that are
antithetical to the Democratic Party of today. Moreover, he lacks the charisma to attract large
crowds to his events. Thus, it is questionable that he has the capability to attract large
numbers of Democratic voters to the polls in November 2020.
According to Politico Magazine , Obama was recently discussing election tactics with
an unnamed current candidate and "pointed out that during his own 2008 campaign, he had an
intimate bond with the electorate" and he is quoted as adding, "And you know who really
doesn't have it ? Joe Biden."
Biden's appeal already seems to be waning. For example, in November, a Marquette Law School
poll, which is considered the gold-standard survey in swing state Wisconsin, which the
Democrats need to win the 2020 election, shows
Trump leading Biden 47 percent to 44 percent. In October, Trump had trailed Biden by 6
points (44 percent to 50 percent), and in August, Trump trailed Biden by 9 points (42 percent
to 51 percent). In short, Biden is losing support. Trump won Wisconsin in 2016 by a slender
margin of 0.77 percent, with 47.22 percent of the total votes over the 46.45 percent for
Hillary Clinton.
Another problem Biden faces is the corrupt activities of his son Hunter and brother James,
who have taken advantage of their connection with him. The mainstream media has so far largely
kept this mostly under wraps, but this tactic won't be successful as the election approaches.
In fact, the progressive Democrats such as Bernie Sanders are likely to bring this up in a
desperate effort to be nominated. And already these issues are being mentioned by the
alternative media. For instance, there is an article in the non-partisan, anti-government
Intercept
titled, "Joe Biden's Family Has Been Cashing in on His Career for Decades. Democrats Need to
Acknowledge That," and comparable articles in the conservative Washington Examiner such
as, "Hunter Biden-linked company r
eceived $130M in special federal loans while Joe Biden was vice president," and "Hunter
Biden has
99 problems , and Burisma is only one."
David Axelrod, Democratic strategist and longtime aide to Barack Obama, said concerns about
Biden's electability clearly influenced multi-billionaire (estimated $53 billion) and
former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg's entrance into the contest for the Democratic
nominee for president. "There's no question that Bloomberg's calculus was that Biden was
occupying a space, and the fact that he's getting in is a clear indication that he's not
convinced Biden has the wherewithal to carry that torch," Axelrod said. "So yeah, I don't think
this is a positive development for Joe Biden."
Similarly, Democratic strategist Brad Bannon contended that "centrist Democrats and wealthy
donors have
lost confidence in Biden's ability to stop Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders from winning
the nomination." Bannon added that with Bloomberg entering the Democratic presidential race,
"Biden's fundraising will get even shakier than it already is. There's only room for one
moderate in this race and Bloomberg threatens Biden's status as the centrist
standard-bearer."
Bloomberg's "stop and frisk"
policy as mayor , which largely targeted blacks and Hispanics, should make it virtually
impossible that he could be the Democratic nominee, despite his recent apology. Unless he has
become senile in his late 70s, Bloomberg should well understand this since he did not make his
billions by being stupid. It could be that he intends to serve as a stalking horse to draw
Hillary Clinton into the contest by showing the weakness of Biden. Then like Superwoman,
Hillary can enter the fray, appearing not to act for her own sake but to save the country from
a likely second term for President Trump.
Similarly, Mark Penn, who was chief strategist for Clinton's unsuccessful 2008 presidential
campaign, said Bloomberg's entrance
could cause Clinton to consider to run and decide there's "still a political logic there for
her."
As Biden's support slips away, Clinton's should rise. Clinton has been recently promoting a
book she co-wrote with her daughter, Chelsea, in Britain. In an interview with BBC Radio 5
Live , Clinton said "many, many, many people" are
pressuring her to jump into the 2020 presidential race and that she thinks about this "all
the time." Clinton told the host that she is under "enormous pressure" but said it is not in
her plans, though she cryptically added that she would "never say never."
Dick Morris, who was once a close confidant of the Clintons during Bill Clinton's time as
Arkansas governor and U.S. president recently said in a radio interview that Hillary Clinton
likely wants to run for the presidency in 2020. "My feeling is that
she wants to ," Morris said. "She feels entitled to do it. She feels compelled to do it.
She feels that God put her on the Earth to do it. But she's hesitant because she realizes the
timing is bad."
However, Morris contends that Clinton believes that she has to "wait until Biden drops out
because he's obviously next in line for it, and if he goes away, there's an opening for her."
According to Morris' scenario, Clinton would become the moderate candidate opposed to the
leading progressive, Elizabeth Warren.
Morris has not been in touch with the Clintons for many years, and has become strongly
critical of them, so his claim might be questionable. Nonetheless, his portrayal of Hillary's
current thinking seems quite reasonable.
A Fox News poll included Clinton along with the active Democratic candidates in a
hypothetical election with Trump, and Hillary came out ahead of him by two percentage
points. While some actual candidates did somewhat better than Hillary, she did quite well for
someone who is not currently running for office.
Furthermore, a Harris Harvard poll in late October asked the question, "Suppose Hillary
Clinton, Michael Bloomberg, and John Kerry decides [sic] to enter the race, who would you
support as a candidate for President?" Joe Biden received the support of 19 percent of Democrat
respondents while Clinton was a
close second with 18 percent. Elizabeth Warren came in third at 13 percent, John Kerry was
at 8 percent, and Bloomberg was at 6. Again, Clinton does quite well for someone who is not
actually running for president.
One might think that if references to family members' corruption damaged Biden, then Clinton
would be subject to worse damage in that area, since she and her husband Bill were connected
with far more corrupt activities -- Whitewater, Travelgate, the Lewinsky affair, the Paula
Jones affair, t the death of Vince Foster, the Clinton Foundation, her private server, and so
on. But these issues are already known and are presumably already taken into account by the
voters, whereas the Biden family's corrupt activities are so far largely unknown.
It should be pointed out that Clinton has a number of positives as a presidential candidate.
Although losing in the Electoral College in 2016, Clinton had garnered 3 million more votes
more than Trump. The election was decided by a total of 80,000 votes in three states. It is
highly unlikely that such a fluke could be duplicated.
Clinton's staff had been overconfident assuming victory, which was based on their polling of
various states, and as a result began to focus on competing in states well beyond those Clinton
needed for victory.
Moreover, one key event outside the control of Clinton's staff was FBI Director James
Comey's investigation of Clinton's use of a personal email server during her tenure as
secretary of state. Most crucial were his July 2016 public statement terminating the
investigation, with a lengthy comment about what Clinton did wrong, and his October 28
reopening the inquiry into newly discovered emails and then closing it two days before the
election, stating that the emails had not provided any new information. The October 28 letter,
however, probably played a key role in the outcome of the election. As statistician Nate Silver
maintains: "Hillary Clinton would probably be president
if FBI Director James Comey had not sent a letter to Congress on Oct. 28. The letter, which
said the FBI had 'learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the
investigation into the private email server that Clinton used as secretary of state, upended
the news cycle and soon halved Clinton's lead in the polls, imperiling her position in the
Electoral College.'"
[Silver's organization FiveThirtyEight had projected a much higher chance (29
percent) of Donald Trump winning the presidency than most other pollsters]
Clinton has also helped to convince many Democrats and members of the mainstream media that
the 2016 election was stolen from her by Russian agents If this were really true – which
is very doubtful – then Hillary should be the Democrats' candidate for 2020 since Russian
intervention should not be as successful as it allegedly was in 2016.
In endorsing Hillary Clinton for president in 2016, Obama stated. "I don't think that
there's ever been someone
so qualified to hold this office." He has yet to make such an endorsement for Biden and
privately, as mentioned earlier, said he is a poor choice for a nominee. He might ultimately
endorse Biden, but he certainly would not renege on what he said four years ago about Clinton
if she became the Democrats' standard-bearer.
Should Clinton opt to run, she would have no trouble raising money since she set a record in
2016 of $1.4 billion
and wealthy donors want a moderate to be the Democratic nominee. It would seem likely that she
would enter the contest if Biden has serious trouble. She would miss some state primaries since
it would be too late to register in them but given the crowded field of candidates, there is a
likelihood that there will be a brokered convention, that is, the convention will go past the
first ballot. Since the superdelegates would be allowed to vote in all rounds after the first,
they could determine the winner, which would probably mean the selection of a candidate who
would be seen to have the greatest chance of winning, and that would likely be Hillary Clinton,
if she has entered the fray.
I discussed the merits of Pete Buttigieg in a previous article in
Unz Review, and what I write here might seem to conflict with that. However, while Buttigieg is
doing quite well
in the polls, he still does not get much support
from blacks and Latinos, which is essential to become the Democrats nominee for president.
Buttigieg could, however, be nominated for vice president or, more likely, given an important
cabinet position since the vice-presidential slot would probably be reserved for a black or
Latino if a white person were picked as the presidential nominee, which currently seems
likely.
But because of Buttigieg's relatively hardline foreign policy
, which largely meshes with that of Clinton's, and his wide knowledge and language ability,
Buttigieg would fit well in the all-important position of secretary of state in a Clinton
administration. Moreover, Buttigieg, whose tenure as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, will end in
January 2020, would almost certainly be willing to take such a position, which could serve as a
jumping-off point for the presidency in the future.
"... Doesn't Warren claim to have indigenous ancestors herself and was proud of it? She caused Trump to call her "Pocahontas"? She agrees to support the unelected interim president Jeannine Añez, who refers to indigenous inhabitants as satanic? Warren is a very horrible person, inhumane, amoral, and rather stupid overall, who wants to get rich. ..."
"... I personally think that capitalism with "human face" and robust public sector is the way to go. But imperialist imposition and aggression is not the part of "human face" that I imagine. ..."
"... I'm sorry but you all need to come to terms with the farce that is the American political system. Anyone who was supporting Warren or even considering voting for her for ANY reason is apparently either in denial or is being duped. Warren is a Madison Avenue creation packaged for US liberal consumption. ..."
"... She hangs out with Hillary Clinton and Madeline Albright, two evil women if ever there were. Now they make the three witches brewing one coup/regime change after another. She's not smart enough to see that HRC and MA are leading her around by her nose. People should call out this phoney everywhere she goes. BTW, Rachel Maddow completes an odious clique. ..."
"... This is a bit of exaggeration. The three ladies are more like good students, they did not write the textbook but they good grades for answering as written, or like cheerleaders, they jump and shout but they do not play in the field. Mind you, "interagency consensus" was formed without them. ..."
"... The DNC's strategy for this election is to ensure that Bernie doesn't go into the Convention with enough delegates to win the first ballot. (Once voting goes past the first ballot, super-delegates get to weigh in and help anoint a candidate who's friendly to the Party's plutocratic-oligarch principals.) ..."
"... That's the reason the DNC is allowing and encouraging so many candidates to run. Warren's specific assignment is to cannibalize Bernie's base and steal delegates that would otherwise be his, by pretending to espouse most of his platform with only minor tweaks. She's been successful with "better educated," higher-income liberal Democrats who consider themselves well informed because they get their news from "respectable" sources -- sources that, unbeknownst to their target audiences, invariably represent the viewpoint of the aforementioned plutocratic oligarchs. ..."
"... if Warren becomes the nominee, I will support her over Trump. It's a lesser of two evils choice, but we must recognize that no candidate will be perfect–ever. ..."
"... Zionism is typically the gateway drug for Democratic would-be reformers. Once they've swallowed that fundamental poison, the DNC feels secure it's just a matter of time before they Get With the Program 100%. Given that "Harvard" and "phony" are largely synonymous, what else could've been expected? ..."
Reiterates Her Neoconservative Policies Against Venezuela
Elizabeth Warren repeated her support for regime change in Venezuela in an interview in September with the
Council on Foreign Relations , a central gear in the machinery
of the military-industrial complex. "Maduro is a dictator and a crook who has wrecked his country's economy, dismantled its democratic
institutions, and profited while his people suffer," Warren declared. She referred to Maduro's elected government as a "regime" and
called for "supporting regional efforts to negotiate a political transition." Echoing the rhetoric of neoconservatives in Washington,
Warren called for "contain[ing]" the supposedly "damaging and destabilizing actions" of China, Russia, and Cuba. The only point where
Warren diverged with Trump was on her insistence that "there is no U.S. military option in Venezuela."
Soft-Pedals Far-Right Coup in Bolivia
While Warren endorsed Trump's hybrid war on Venezuela, she more recently whitewashed the U.S.-backed coup in Bolivia.
Warren refused to comment on the putsch for more than a week, even as the far-right military junta massacred dozens of protesters
and systematically purged and detained elected left-wing politicians from MAS.
Finally, eight days after the coup, Warren broke her silence. In a short tweet, the putative progressive presidential candidate
tepidly requested "free and fair elections" and calling on the "interim leadership" to prepare an "early, legitimate election."
What Warren did not mention is that this "interim leadership" she helped legitimize is headed by an extreme right-wing Christian
fundamentalist, the unelected "interim president"
Jeanine Añez. Añez has referred
to Bolivia's majority-Indigenous population as "satanic" and immediately moved to try to overturn the country's progressive constitution,
which had established an inclusive, secular, plurinational state after receiving an overwhelming democratic mandate in a 2009 referendum.
Añez's ally in this coup regime's interim leadership is
Luis Fernando
Camacho , a multi-millionaire who emerged out of neo-fascist groups and courted support from the United States and the far-right
governments of Brazil and Colombia. By granting legitimacy to Bolilvia's ultra-conservative, unelected leadership, Warren rubber-stamped
the far-right coup and the military junta's attempt to stamp out Bolivia's progressive democracy. In other words, as The Grayzone
editor Max Blumenthal put it, Liz's
Big Structural Bailey compliantly rolled over for
Big IMF Structural Adjustment Program
.
Ben Norton is a journalist and writer. He is a reporter for The Grayzone , and the producer of the "
Moderate Rebels " podcast, which he co-hosts with Max Blumenthal. His
website is BenNorton.com , and he tweets at @
BenjaminNorton .
A vote for evil is never a good choice, and choosing a candidate you perceive as a lesser evil still condones evil. Allowing
the Oligarchy to limit your choice gives them the power to continue advancing evil policies. They control both major parties.
You may succeed in getting non-gender specific restrooms in your Starbucks, but the murdering war machine will continue unabated.
Now, we are seeing the true colors of candidates, who have professed to be progressive. Sanders went on a "tirade" against
Maduro during the last "debate" I saw. Tulsi Gabbard has stayed against US Imperialism, but, I'm sure the Democratic policy controllers
will never nominate her. I foresee I'll be voting for the Socialist next year.
Raymond M. , November 22, 2019 at 18:09
""""On Nov. 10, the U.S. government backed a far-right military coup against Bolivia's democratically elected President Evo
Morales bla blla bla".
And the 3 right wing candidates spent more time slinging mud at at each other than at Morales. Had the CIAs top front man Ortez stepped aside, the vote would not have split and allowed Morales to claim a first round victory and avoid
a run-off that he would have lost. And the right wing Christian fundamentalist for sure was a CIA plant who manged to split the
vote further.
Under the Trump administration, the CIA can even run a coup right.
If only those anti-Western rulers seen the light and joined RBWO (rule* based world order, * rules decided in DC, preferably
by bipartisan consensus), then the economy would run smoothly and the population would be happy. Every week gives another example:
By The Associated Press, Nov. 21, 2019, BOGOTA, Colombia
Colombians angry with President Iván Duque and hoping to channel Latin America's wave of discontent took the streets by the tens
of thousands on Thursday in one of the biggest protests in the nation's recent history. [ ] Police estimated 207,000 people took
part. [ ] government deployed 170,000 officers, closed border crossings and deported 24 Venezuelans accused of entering the country
to instigate unrest.
So if only Iván did not start unnecessary conflict with Maduro, these 24 scoundrels would stay home and the trouble would be
avoided. Oh wait, I got confused
CitizenOne , November 21, 2019 at 22:10
You must imagine that when candidtes suddenly become mind control puppets what is going on. The scariest thing in American
Politics is how supposedly independent and liberal progressives somehow swallow the red pill and are transported into the world
of make believe. Once inside the bubble of fiction far removed from human suffering which is after all what politicians are supposed
to be about fixing they can say crazy things. Jimmy Carter and Donald Trump are the only souls to retain their independent (yet
opposite) minds and both of them got the boot for being different.
Hide Behind , November 21, 2019 at 20:44
The puppet masters are experts, on the one hand there is A Republican, and on the other is a Democrat, but even they mess up
now and then get the different strings tangled.
Some come back on stage on the different hand so to save time they give a puppet two faces.
Watching same puppets gets old so every so often 2-4-6 they restring an old one that was used as props in past, change their makeup
a bit to give them new faces.
We do not actually elect the puppet, we instead legitimize the Puppeteers who own' s the only stage in town.
Those who choreograph the movements and change the backgrouds, media outlets and permanent bureaucrats know the plays before they
are introduced, and they know best how to get adults to leave reality behind and bring back their childhood fantacies.
Days of sugar plums, candy canes, socks filled with goodies and not coal, tooth fairys, and kind generous Fairy God Mothers.
Toy Nutcracker soldiers that turn into Angelic heros, Yellow brick roads, Bunnies with pocket watches, and and magic shoes of
red, or of glass in hand of handsome Princes and beautiful Princesses, all available if we vote.
So who votes, only those who control the voting puppets know that reality does not exist, they twitch we react, and at end of
voting counts one of hand's puppets will slump and cry, while others will leap and dance in joy, only for all to end up in one
pile until the puppeteers need them for next act.
Frederike , November 21, 2019 at 17:30
"What Warren did not mention is that this "interim leadership" she helped legitimize is headed by an extreme right-wing Christian
fundamentalist, the unelected "interim president" Jeanine Añez.
Añez has referred to Bolivia's majority-Indigenous population as "satanic" and immediately moved to try to overturn the country's
progressive constitution, which had established an inclusive, secular, plurinational state after receiving an overwhelming democratic
mandate in a 2009 referendum."
Doesn't Warren claim to have indigenous ancestors herself and was proud of it? She caused Trump to call her "Pocahontas"?
She agrees to support the unelected interim president Jeannine Añez, who refers to indigenous inhabitants as satanic?
Warren is a very horrible person, inhumane, amoral, and rather stupid overall, who wants to get rich.
Everything she agreed to in the interview listed above is pathetic. I had no idea that she is such a worthless individual.
arggo , November 22, 2019 at 19:57
"neocon" explains this. She seems to have the support of very foundational structures that enabled Hillary Clinton Democrats to attack
and destroy Bernie Sanders in 2016.
Warren has not lost my vote for the simple reason she never had it in the first place. None of this, sickening as it is, comes
as any surprise. Warren is an unapologetic capitalist. She's like Robert Reich in that regard. They both believe capitalism–if
reformed, tweaked a bit here and there–can work. To give her credit, she's always been very honest about that. And of course our
doctrine of regime change is all in the service of capitalism. Unless I'm simply confused and mistaken.
Sherwood Forrest , November 22, 2019 at 09:38
Yes, Capitalist First! That makes it so difficult for any aware person to believe she sincerely supports a wealth tax, Universal
Healthcare, Green New Deal, College loan forgiveness, family leave or anything else the 1% oppose. Because promising like Santa
is part of Capitalist politics, and then saying," Nah, we can't afford it."
I personally think that capitalism with "human face" and robust public sector is the way to go. But imperialist imposition
and aggression is not the part of "human face" that I imagine.
So Warren's imperialist positions are evil and unnecessary to preserve capitalism, how that projects at her as a person it
is hard to tell. A Polish poet has those words spoken by a character in his drama "On that, I know only what I heard, but I am
afraid to investigate because it poisons my mind about " (Znam to tylko z opowiada?, ale strzeg? si? tych bada?, bo mi truj? my?l
o ) As typical of hearsay, her concept of events in Venezuela, Bolivia etc. is quite garbled, she has no time (but perhaps some
fear) to investigate herself (easy in the era of internet). A serious politician has to think a lot about electability (and less
about the folks under the steam roller of the Empire), so she has to "pick her fights".
It is rather clear that American do not care if people south of the border are governed democratically or competently, which
led Hillary Clinton to make this emphatic statement in a debate with Trump "You will not see me singing praises of dictators or
strongmen who do not love America". One can deconstruct it "if you do not love America you are a strongman or worse, but if you
love America, we will be nice to you". I would love to have the original and deconstructed statement polled, but Warren is not
the only one afraid of such investigations. So "electability" connection to green light to Bolivian fascist and red light to Bolivarians
of Venezuela is a bit indirect. Part of it is funding, part, bad press.
brett , November 21, 2019 at 15:15
I'm sorry but you all need to come to terms with the farce that is the American political system. Anyone who was supporting
Warren or even considering voting for her for ANY reason is apparently either in denial or is being duped. Warren is a Madison
Avenue creation packaged for US liberal consumption.
She is a fraud and a liar. One trained in psychology can see, in her every
movement and utterance, the operation that is going on behind the facade. Everything Warren says is a lie to someone. She only
states truth in order to later dis-inform. Classic deception. She (her billionaires) has latched on to the populism of the DSA
etc. in order to sabotage any progressive momentum and drive a stake in it.
Rob Roy , November 22, 2019 at 00:40
She hangs out with Hillary Clinton and Madeline Albright, two evil women if ever there were. Now they make the three witches
brewing one coup/regime change after another. She's not smart enough to see that HRC and MA are leading her around by her nose.
People should call out this phoney everywhere she goes. BTW, Rachel Maddow completes an odious clique.
This is a bit of exaggeration. The three ladies are more like good students, they did not write the textbook but they good
grades for answering as written, or like cheerleaders, they jump and shout but they do not play in the field. Mind you, "interagency
consensus" was formed without them.
Peter in Seattle , November 21, 2019 at 14:53
The DNC's strategy for this election is to ensure that Bernie doesn't go into the Convention with enough delegates to win the
first ballot. (Once voting goes past the first ballot, super-delegates get to weigh in and help anoint a candidate who's friendly
to the Party's plutocratic-oligarch principals.)
That's the reason the DNC is allowing and encouraging so many candidates to run.
Warren's specific assignment is to cannibalize Bernie's base and steal delegates that would otherwise be his, by pretending to
espouse most of his platform with only minor tweaks. She's been successful with "better educated," higher-income liberal Democrats
who consider themselves well informed because they get their news from "respectable" sources -- sources that, unbeknownst to their
target audiences, invariably represent the viewpoint of the aforementioned plutocratic oligarchs.
Absolutely nothing in Warren's background supports her new calculatedly progressive primary persona. She was a Reagan
Republican. When the Republican Party moved right to become the party of batshit crazy and the Democratic Party shifted right
to become the party of Reagan Republicans, she became a Democrat. She's not a good actress, and it takes willing suspension of
disbelief to buy into her performance as a savvier, wonkier alternative to Bernie. And when she's pressed for details (Medicare
for All) and responses to crises (Venezuela and Bolivia), the cracks in her progressive façade become patently obvious. She's
a sleeper agent for Democratic-leaning plutocrats, like Obama was in 2008, and she would never get my vote.
PS: Impressed by Warren's progressive wealth-tax plan? Don't be. Our country's billionaires know she won't fight for it, and
that if she did, Congress would never pass it. (They know who owns Congress.) Besides, do you really think Pocahontas would
beat Trump? Do you think Sleepy Joe would? The billionaires wouldn't bet on it. And they're fine with that. Sure, they'd like
someone who's more thoroughly corporatist on trade and more committed to hot régime-change wars than Trump is, but they can live
just fine with low-tax, low-regulation Trump. It's the prospect of a Bernie presidency that keeps them up at night
and their proxies in the Democratic Party and allied media are doing everything they can to neutralize that threat.
mbob , November 21, 2019 at 18:13
@Peter
Thanks for this beautiful post. I agree with it 100%. I've been trying to figure out why Democrats are so consistently unable
to see through rhetoric and fall for what candidates pretend to be. Part of it is wishful thinking. A lot of it is, as you wrote,
misplaced trust in "respectable" sources. I have no idea how to fix that: how does one engender the proper skepticism of the MSM?
I haven't been able to open the eyes of any of my friends. (Fortunately my wife and daughter opened their own eyes.)
Warren is, if you look clearly, driven by her enormous ambition. She's the same as every other candidate in that regard, save
Bernie.
Bernie is driven by the same outrage that we feel. We need him.
In the last Israeli massacre on Gaza she was all for the IDF killing Palistinians. Americans like to look at the CCP and cry
about China being a one party state. Well is the US not a one party state?= Are the views of the Democrats and Republicans not
the same when it comes to slaughtering people in the third world? There is not a razor`s edge between them. Biden, Warren, Sanders,
Trump, Cruz and Pense they are all war criminals, or if elected will soon become war criminals.
From someone who at the beginning showed promise and humanity, she has turned into Albright and Clinton. How f**king sad is
that?
Dan Kuhn , November 21, 2019 at 14:33
Better to see her for what she really is now then after the election if she were to win. She is disgusting in her inhumanity.
Rob , November 21, 2019 at 13:43
This Is, indeed, disturbing and disappointing. Warren seems so genuinely right on domestic economic and social issues, so how
could she be so wrong on foreign policy issues? The same principles apply in both–justice, fairness, equity, etc. That said, she
is no worse than any of the other Democratic candidates in that regard, with the exceptions of Sanders and Gabbard, so if Warren
becomes the nominee, I will support her over Trump. It's a lesser of two evils choice, but we must recognize that no candidate
will be perfect–ever.
Far better to stick to your principles and write in " None of the above." believe me with this article we can easily see that
Trump is no worse nor better than Warren is. They are both pretty poor excuses as human beings.
Peter in Seattle , November 21, 2019 at 16:04
@Rob:
If you'll allow me to fix that for you, "What Warren tactically claims to support, in the primaries, seems so genuinely
right on domestic economic and social issues ." I'm convinced Warren is an Obama 2.0 in the making. I don't think anyone
can match Obama's near-180° turnabout from his 2008 primary platform and that if Warren is elected, she will try to make Wall
Street a little more honest and stable, maybe advocate for a $12 minimum wage, and maybe try to shave a few thousand dollars off
student-loan debts. I suppose that technically qualifies as less evil than Trump. But I fully expect her to jettison 90% of her
primary platform, including a progressive tax on wealth and Medicare for All. And when you factor in her recently confirmed approval
of US military and financial imperialism -- economic subversion and régime-change operations that cost tens of thousands of innocent
foreign lives, and other peoples their sovereignty -- at what point does "less evil" become too evil to vote for?
John Drake , November 21, 2019 at 13:13
" presidential candidate tepidly requested "free and fair elections". Such a statement ignores the fact that Evo Morales term
was not up; therefore elections are not called for. This means she supports the coup. Restoration of his position which was illegally
and violently stolen from him are in order not elections until his term is up.
Her position on Venezuela is nauseating; as the article states classic neo-conservative. Maybe Robert Kagan will welcome her into
their club as he did with Hillary.
Warren used to be a Republican, she has not been cured of that disease; and is showing her true colors. Maybe it's best as she
is differentiating herself from Bernie. I was concerned before she started down this latest path that she would do an Obama; progressive
rhetoric followed by neo-liberal-or worse- behavior once in office. Maybe she is more honest than Obama.
Guy , November 21, 2019 at 12:40
Warren can't be very informed about what democracy actually means .Democracy is not the same as capitalism .
Not a US citizen but am very disappointed with her stated platform .
Short of divine intervention Tulsi will never make it but Sanders for president and Tulsi as VP would do just fine to re-direct
the US foreign policy and maybe ,just maybe make the US more respectable among the rest of the nations of the world.
It would make a lot of sense from actuarial point of view. The chances that at least one person on the ticket would live healthily
for 8 years would be very good, without Tulsi
Punkyboy , November 21, 2019 at 12:02
I was pretty sure Warren was a Hillary clone; now I'm absolutely sure of it. Another election between worse and worser. I may
just stay home this time, if the world holds together that long.
Socratic Truth , November 21, 2019 at 11:42
Warren is just another puppet of the NWO.
Ma Laoshi , November 21, 2019 at 11:12
I remember years and years ago, I guess about when Lizzie first entered Congress, that she went on the standard pandering tour
to the Motherland and an astute mind commented: Zionism is typically the gateway drug for Democratic would-be reformers. Once
they've swallowed that fundamental poison, the DNC feels secure it's just a matter of time before they Get With the Program 100%.
Given that "Harvard" and "phony" are largely synonymous, what else could've been expected?
Peter in Seattle , November 21, 2019 at 15:32
@Ma Laoshi:
Speaking of Harvard, having contemplated the abysmal track record compiled by our "best and brightest" -- in Congress,
in the White House, and on the federal bench -- I am now almost as suspicious of the Ivy League as I am of the Western
Hemisphere Institute for Security (WHINSEC, formerly known as the School of the Americas). The mission of both is to train capable,
reliable, well-compensated servants to the US plutocracy. (And the only reason I say "almost" is because a non-negligible number
of black sheep have come out of the Ivy League and I'm not aware of any that have come out of WHINSEC.)
Sam F , November 23, 2019 at 18:59
Harvard admissions are apparently largely bought, and doubtless those of Yale and others.
MIT was strictly militarist warmongers in the 1970s, and one compete with 80% cheaters.
Dfnslblty , November 21, 2019 at 11:12
" The only point where Warren diverged with Trump was on her insistence that "there is no U.S. military option in Venezuela."
"
Hell, one doesn't need a military option after immoral, illegal and crippling sanctions.
This essay is the most disturbing piece all year-2019.
Vote anti-military – vote nonviolence.
Don't give these murderers anything but exposure to humane sensibilities.
I didn't think Trump supported a military solution in Venezuela. That was John Bolton's baby and Trump fired him as one would
hope he would soon fire Pompeo as has been hinted at. Trump campaigned on ending wars of choice but has given in to the MIC at
almost every turn. Maybe he will resign in leiu of being impeached. We might then see a Rand Paul vs. Bernie Sanders. I could
live with either one
Skip Scott , November 21, 2019 at 09:12
Once again the Democratic Party is pushing to have our choice for 2020 be between corporate sponsored war monger from column
A or B.
I wish Tulsi would "see the light" and run as an Independent in 2020. There is absolutely no way that she gets the nod from
the utterly corrupt DNC. She is abandoning her largest base (Independents) by sticking with the Democratic Party. Considering
the number of disgruntled non-voters, she could easily win the general election; but she will never win the Democratic primary.
The field is purposely flooded to ensure the "superdelegates" get the final say on a second ballot.
AnneR , November 21, 2019 at 08:50
Warren is as inhumane, amoral and imperialist as anyone in the WH and the US Congress, and she is certainly kindred in spirit,
thought and would be in deed, as Madeline Albright, the cheerful slaughterer of some 500,000 Iraqi children because the "price
was worth it." Of course, these utterly racist, amoral people do not have to pay "that price" nor do any of their families. (And
let us not forget that Albright and Killary are good friends – Warren is totally kindred with the pair, totally.)
And clearly Warren – like all of the Demrat contenders – is full on for any kind of warfare that will bring a "recalcitrant"
country into line with US demands (on its resources, lands etc.). She is grotesque.
She and those of her ilk – all in Congress, pretty much, and their financial backers – refuse to accept that Maduro and Morales
*both* were legally, legitimately and cleanly re-elected to their positions as presidents of their respective countries. But to
do that would be to go against her (commonly held) fundamental belief that the US has the right to decide who is and is not the
legitimate national leader of any given country. And what policies they institute.
Anyone who supports economic sanctions is supporting siege warfare, is happily supporting the starvation and deprivation of
potentially millions of people. And shrugging off the blame for the effects of the sanctions onto the government of the sanctioned
country is heinous, is immoral and unethical. WE are the ones who are killing, not the government under extreme pressure. If you
can't, won't accept the responsibility – as Warren and the rest of the US government clearly will not – for those deaths you are
causing, then stay out of the bloody kitchen: stop committing these crimes against humanity.
Cara , November 21, 2019 at 15:25
Please provide documentation that Sanders is, as you claim, a "full-on zionist supporter of "Israel" and clearly anti-Palestinian."
Sanders has been quite consistent in his criticism of Israel and the treatment of Palestinians: timesofisrael.com/bernie-sanders-posts-video-citing-apartheid-like-conditions-for-palestinians;
and; jacobinmag.com/2019/07/bernie-sanders-israel-palestine-bds
"Sanders is less so, but not wholly because he is a full-on zionist supporter of "Israel" and clearly anti-Palestinian"
Sanders is definitely not "full-on zionist supporter", not only he does not deny that "Palestinians exist" (to died-in-the-wool
Zionists, Palestinians are a malicious fiction created to smear Israel etc., google "Fakestinians"), but he claims that they have
rights, and using Hamas as a pretext for Gaza blockade is inhumane (a recent headline). One can pull his other positions and statements
to argue in the other direction, but in my opinion, he is at the extreme humane end of "zionist spectrum" (I mean, so humane that
almost not a Zionist).
And again, if we do win despite all the structural injustices in the system the Rs inherited and seek to expand, well, those
injustices don't really absolutely need to be corrected, because we will still have gotten the right result from the system
as is.
This is a pretty apt description of the mindset of Corporate Democrats. Thank you !
May I recommend you to listen to Chris Hedge 2011 talk
On Death of the Liberal Class At least to the first
part of it.
Corporate Dems definitely lack courage, and as such are probably doomed in 2020.
Of course, the impeachment process will weight on Trump, but the Senate hold all trump cards, and might reverse those effects
very quickly and destroy, or at lease greatly diminish, any chances for Corporate Demorats even complete on equal footing in 2020
elections. IMHO Pelosi gambit is a really dangerous gambit, a desperate move, a kind of "Heil Mary" pass.
Despair is a very powerful factor in the resurgence of far right forces. And that's what happening right now and that's why
I suspect that far right populism probably will be the decisive factor in 2020 elections.
IMHO Chris explains what the most probable result on 2020 elections with be with amazing clarity.
The opposing positions of Warren and her primary opponent Bernie Sanders on Bolivia
highlight an increasingly clear policy gap between the two Democratic frontrunners.
11-20-19
Massachusetts Senator and Democratic Presidential nomination frontrunner Elizabeth Warren
endorsed the recent U.S. backed military coup d'état in Bolivia Monday. Warren's
statement carefully avoided using the word "coup," and instead referred to the new government
of Jeanine Añez as an "interim leadership," effectively validating the new
administration.
She stated that the Bolivian people "deserve free and fair elections, as soon as
possible," implying that the October 20 vote, won convincingly by President Evo Morales, was
not clean, thus taking essentially the same position as the Trump administration, who made no
secret of their relief that Morales was ousted.
The opposing positions of Warren and her primary opponent Bernie Sanders on Bolivia
highlight an increasingly clear policy gap between the two Democratic frontrunners.
11-20-19
Massachusetts Senator and Democratic Presidential nomination frontrunner Elizabeth Warren
endorsed the recent U.S. backed military coup d'état in Bolivia Monday. Warren's
statement carefully avoided using the word "coup," and instead referred to the new government
of Jeanine Añez as an "interim leadership," effectively validating the new
administration.
She stated that the Bolivian people "deserve free and fair elections, as soon as
possible," implying that the October 20 vote, won convincingly by President Evo Morales, was
not clean, thus taking essentially the same position as the Trump administration, who made no
secret of their relief that Morales was ousted.
"In 2019, the bottom 99% of families will pay 7.2% of their wealth in taxes, while the top
0.1% of households will pay just 3.2%."
~~Elizabeth Warren~
do you see how EW has finally opened our eyes?
sure! poor people think about wealth as being income. they think about Wealth as being
their salary. from the perspective of a wealthy senator wealth is a function of assets. EW
had the guts to share this perspective with us, to open our eyes to reality.
we should not be taxing the payroll we should not be taxing the capital gains and other
income. we should be taxing non productive assets, assets which cannot be hidden which cannot
be taken off shore.
the Swiss have such a tax. all of their real estate is taxed at a rate of 0.3% per annum.
it would be easy for us to stop all local taxes All County taxes all state taxes and all
federal tax then initiate a 1% tax on all real property unimproved and on all improved real
property. we should continue this tax until our federal debt is completely discharged. such a
taxation shift would revv up our productive activity and increase our per capita GDP. as
usual there would be winners and there would be losers. the losers would be those who want
more inequality and the winners would be
"... Cliff Asness, another money manager, would fly into a rage at Warren adviser Gabriel Zucman for using the term "revenue maximizing" -- a standard piece of economic jargon -- describing it as "disgustingly immoral." ..."
"... Objectively, Obama treated Wall Street with kid gloves. In the aftermath of a devastating financial crisis, his administration bailed out collapsing institutions on favorable terms. He and Democrats in Congress did impose some new regulations, but they were very mild compared with the regulations put in place after the banking crisis of the 1930s. He did, however, refer on a few occasions to "fat cat" bankers and suggested that financial-industry excesses were responsible for the 2008 crisis because, well, they were. And the result, quite early in his administration, was that Wall Street became consumed with " Obama rage ," and the financial industry went all in for Mitt Romney in 2012. ..."
No, the really intense backlash against Warren and progressive Democrats in general is
coming from
Wall Street . And while that opposition partly reflects self-interest, Wall Street's Warren
hatred has a level of virulence, sometimes crossing into hysteria, that goes beyond normal
political calculation.
What's behind that virulence?
First, let's talk about the rational reasons Wall Street is worried about Warren. She is, of
course, calling for major tax increases on the very wealthy, those with wealth exceeding $50
million, and the financial industry is strongly represented in that elite club. And since
raising taxes on the wealthy is highly popular , it's an
idea a progressive president might actually be able to turn into real policy.
Warren is also a big believer in stricter financial regulation; the Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau, which was highly effective until the Trump administration set about gutting
it, was her brainchild.
So if you are a Wall Street billionaire, rational self-interest might well induce you to
oppose Warren. Neoliberal_rationality/ does not, however, explain why a money manager like Leon Cooperman
-- who just two years ago
settled a suit over insider trading for $5 million, although without admitting wrongdoing
-- would circulate an embarrassing, self-pitying open letter
denouncing Warren for her failure to appreciate all the wonderful things billionaires like
him do for society.
Nor does it explain why Cliff Asness, another money manager, would fly into a rage at Warren
adviser Gabriel Zucman for using the term "revenue maximizing" -- a standard piece of
economic jargon -- describing it as "disgustingly immoral."
The real tell here, I think, is that much of the Wall Street vitriol now being directed at
Warren was previously directed at, of all people, President Barack Obama.
Objectively, Obama treated Wall Street with kid gloves. In the aftermath of a devastating
financial crisis, his administration bailed out collapsing institutions on favorable terms. He
and Democrats in Congress did impose some new regulations, but they were very mild compared
with the regulations put in place after the banking crisis of the 1930s. He did, however, refer on a few occasions to "fat cat" bankers and suggested that
financial-industry excesses were responsible for the 2008 crisis because, well, they were. And
the result, quite early in his administration, was that Wall Street became consumed with "
Obama
rage ," and the financial industry went all in for Mitt Romney in 2012.
I wonder, by the way, if this history helps explain an odd aspect of fund-raising in the
current primary campaign. It's not surprising that Warren is getting very little money from the
financial sector. It is, however, surprising that the top recipient isn't Joe Biden but
Pete
Buttigieg , who's running a fairly distant
fourth in the polls. Is Biden suffering from the lingering effects of that old-time Obama
rage?
In any case, the point is that Wall Street billionaires, even more than billionaires in
general, seem to be snowflakes, emotionally unable to handle criticism.
I'm not sure why that should be the case, but it may be that in their hearts they suspect
that the critics have a point.
What, after all, does modern finance actually do for the economy? Unlike the robber barons
of yore, today's Wall Street tycoons don't build anything tangible. They don't even direct
money to the people who actually are building the industries of the future. The vast expansion
of credit in America after around 1980 basically involved a surge in
consumer debt rather than new money for business investment.
Moreover, there is growing evidence that when the financial sector gets too big it actually
acts as a drag on the economy -- and America is well past that point .
Now, human nature being what it is, people who secretly wonder whether they really deserve
their wealth get especially angry when others express these doubts publicly. So it's not
surprising that people who couldn't handle Obama's mild, polite criticism are completely losing
it over Warren.
What this means is that you should beware of Wall Street claims that progressive policies
would have dire effects. Such claims don't reflect deep economic wisdom; to a large extent
they're coming from people with vast wealth but fragile egos, whose rants should be discounted
appropriately. The Times is committed to publishing
a diversity of letters to the editor. We'd like to hear what you think about this or any of
our articles. Here are some tips
. And here's our email: [email protected]
.
"... The truth is that for the Clintonite-Bushite elite almost all Americans are 'deplorable'. What is fun for them is to play geopolitics – the elite version of corporate travel perks – just look at how shocked they are that Trump is not playing along. ..."
Recent class history of US is quite simple: the elite class first tried to shift the burden
of supporting the lower classes on the middle class with taxation. But as the lower class
became demographically distinct, partially via mass immigration, the elites decided to ally
with the ' underpriviledged ' via identity posturing and squeeze no longer needed
middle class out of existence.
What's left are government employees, a few corporate sinecures, NGO parasitic sector, and
old people. The rest will be melded into a few mutually antagonistic tribal groups providing
ever cheaper service labor. With an occasional lottery winner to showcase mobility. Actually
very similar to what happened in Latin America in the past few centuries.
The truth is that for the Clintonite-Bushite elite almost all Americans are
'deplorable'. What is fun for them is to play geopolitics – the elite version of
corporate travel perks – just look at how shocked they are that Trump is not playing
along.
Unlike the USA (under Neocon stewardship) China has not squandered twenty trillion dollars
of its national solvency bombing countries which never attacked it post 9-11.
China's leaders (unlike our own) never LIED its people into launching obscenely expensive,
illegal wars of aggression across the middle east. (WMD's, Mushroom clouds, Yellow Cake,
etc.)
China has used its wealth and resources to build up its infrastructure, build out its
capital markets, and turbo charge its high tech sectors. As a consequence, it has lifted
nearly half a billion people out of poverty. There has been an explosion in the growth of the
"middle class" in China. Hundreds of millions of Chinese are now living comfortable "upwardly
mobile" lives.
The USA, on the other hand, having been defrauded by its "ruling elites" into launching
and fighting endless illegal wars, is now 23 trillion dollars in catastrophic debt.
NOT ONE PENNY of this heinous "overspending" has been dedicated to building up OUR
infrastructure, or BUILDING OUT our middle class.
It has all gone into BLOWING UP countries which never (even) attacked us on 9-11.
As a consequence , the USA is fast becoming a failed nation, a nation where all its wealth
is being siphoned into the hands of its one percent "war pilfer-teers".
It is so sad to have grown up in such an amazing country , with such immense resources and
possibilities, and having to bear witness to it going down the tubes.
To watch all our sovereign wealth being vaporized by our "lie us into endless illegal war"
ruling elites is truly heartbreaking.
The white middle class is the only group that might effectively resist Globohomo's designs on
total power.
Blacks? Too dumb. Will be disposed of once Globohomo is finished the job.
Hispanics? Used to corrupt one party systems. Give them cerveza and Netflix and they're
good.
East Asians? Perfectly fine with living like bug people.
South Asians? Cowardly; will go with the flow.
The middle class is almost completely unique to white people.
Racial aliens cannot wrap their minds around being middle class. They think I'm crazy for
appreciating my 2009 Honda Accord. They literally cannot understand why somebody would want
to live a frugal and mundane life. They are desperate to be like Drake but most end up broke.
It will be very easy for GloboHomo to control a bucket of poor brown slop.
There IS a black middle class, but a big chunk of that works for governments of all
shapes and sizes.
Strictly speaking, there is no more "middle class" in the sense of the classical
economists: a person with just enough capital to live off the income if he works the capital
himself or herself. By this definition professionals (lawyers, dentists, physicians, small
store owners, even spinsters [1] and hand loom operators in a sense) were middle class. Upper
class had enough property to turn it over to managers, lower class had little or no property
and worked for others (servants and farm workers, for example). Paupers didn't earn enough
income per year to feed themselves and didn't live all that long, usually.
What we have is "middle income" people, almost all of whom work as an employee of some
organization -- people who would be considered "lower class" by the classical economists
because they don't have freedom of action and make no independent decisions about how the
capital of their organizations is spent. Today they are considered "intelligentsia", educated
government workers, or, by analogy, educated corporate workers. IMHO, intelligentsia is a
suicide job, and is responsible for the depressed fertility rate, but that's just me.
Back in the AD 1800s and pre-AD 1930 there were many black middle class people. usually
concentrating on selling to black clientele. Now there are effectively none outside of
criminal activities, usually petty criminal. And so it goes.
Of course, back then there were many white middle class people also, usually concentrating
on selling to white clientele. Now there are effectively none, except in some rural areas.
And so it goes.
Counterinsurgency
1] Cottagers who made their living spinning wool skeins into wool threads.
@unit472 A
lot of the middle class are Democrats but not particularly liberal. Many of them vote
Democrat only when they personally benefit. For example, my parents were suburban public
school teachers. They voted for Democrats at the state level because the Democrats supported
better pay and benefits for teachers but voted for Republicans like Goldwater and Reagan at
the national level because Republicans would keep their federal taxes lower. They had no
political philosophy. It was all about what left them financially better off. My parents also
got on well with their suburban neighbors. Suburbanites generally like their local school
system and its teachers and the suburban school systems are usually careful not to engage in
teaching anything controversial. A lot of the government employed white middle class would be
like my parents. Except in situations where specific Republicans talk about major cuts to
their pay and pensions they are perfectly willing to consider voting Republican. They are
generally social moderates, like the status quo, are fairly traditionalist and don't want any
radical changes. Since the Democrats seem be trending in a radical direction, this would put
off a lot of them. Trump would be more appealing as the status quo candidate. When running
the last time, he carefully avoided talking about any major cuts in government spending and
he's governed that way too. At the same time, his talk of cutting immigration, his lack of
enthusiasm for nonwhite affirmative action, and his more traditional views on social issues
is appealing to the white middle class.
The term middle class is used in the U.S. to mean middle income. It has nothing to do with
class. Why not just say what you mean? Most of the middle class that we say is disappearing
is really that rarest of phenomenons. A prosperous working class. The prosperous American
working class is no longer prosperous due to the Neoliberal agenda. Free trade, open borders
and the financialization of everything.
Americans know nothing of class dynamics. Not even the so called socialists. They don't
even see the economy. All they see is people with infinite need and government with infinite
wealth. In their world all of Central America can come to the U.S. and the government (if it
only wants to) can give them all homes, health care and education.
Lets stop saying class when we mean income. Not using the word class would be better than
abusing it.
Anyway. Yes. Middle Class denotes white people. The coalition of the fringes is neither
working, middle nor ruling class. They are black or brown. They are perverts or feminists. If
the workers among them identified as working class they would find common ground with the
Deplorables. We can't have that now can we.
Are we to the point where we've collectively resigned ourselves to the death of the
middle class?
In the neoliberal worldview, the middle class is illegitimate, existing only as a
consequence of artificial trade and immigration barriers. Anytime Americans are spied out
making a good living, there is a "shortage" that must be addressed with more visas. Or else
there is an "inefficiency" where other countries could provide said service or produce said
product for less because they have a "comparative advantage."
Anyway. Yes. Middle Class denotes white people. The coalition of the fringes is neither
working, middle nor ruling class. They are black or brown. They are perverts or feminists.
If the workers among them identified as working class they would find common ground with
the Deplorables. We can't have that now can we.
I don't know about that anymore. Increasingly, "middle class" means Asian, with Whiteness
being associated with the lower middle class (or perhaps "working class"). Sometimes the
media uses the term " noncollege Whites," which I think is actually very apt. They are the
ones who identify with Whiteness the most.
Thank you, @BlackWomxnFor ! Black trans and
cis women, gender-nonconforming, and nonbinary people are the backbone of our democracy and I
don't take this endorsement lightly. I'm committed to fighting alongside you for the big,
structural change our country needs. https://t.co/KqWsVoRYMb
People need to remember that we literally didn't even have democracy until the trans
movement started and finally brought us to The Right Side of History.
Deval Patrick served on the board at subprime mortgage giant Ameriquest. Melody Barnes
is on the board at bigwig defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Textbook cases of the
revolving door corruption Warren frequently attacks. https://t.co/KU3Ct3j9eC
If she really cared about the policies she is running on she would have endorsed Bernie.
Period. It was during the primary that Hillary said, "single payer will never ever happen
here."
Bernie was running on it and yet Warren did not endorse him for it. If she actually wants to
help us she would drop out and tell people to vote for Bernie. Sure everyone has the right to
run for president, but we know or believe that she is only running to keep Bernie from becoming
president.
She is lying to us about not taking money from rich people and corporations because she
took their money for her senate campaign and transferred it to her presidential campaign. If
she isn't up front about this then how can we trust her on anything else?
Elites eliting about elites while elitseplaining to working Americans about how they are
going to vote for some elites and beat the Republicans elite. https://t.co/l0W8QPUT0E
"Who is to the left of Bloomberg on guns and climate change?" Hmm let me think...of course
it's not Biden. Nor Harris...Kilobits.... Buttigieg or even Warren. Doh!
Warren did that(what Alex Thompson tweeted about) at her town hall here. Called herself a
teacher, really pushed her teacher history, and asked "Are there any teachers in the crowd",
etc etc. It was so fake and pandering. I wanted to barf. Do people really fall for this
stuff? The folksy garbage was poured on mighty thick. I was sitting there thinking "Come on,
lady-you've been a professor at the highest profile law school in the country for how long
now?"
Yep.
It's funny-I spent 10 years at Harvard, and I lived near The Yard and the law school. I knew
a lot of faculty at H, and was privy to a lot of the politics that went on. My bs detector
was honed there. At the town hall, I could see right through her. It was all so familiar.
Don't underestimate the cunning and doublespeak. What is that quote-"When someone shows you
who they are, believe them"?
Why didn't she proclaim her great groundbreaking achievement of being Harvard's "first
woman of color" professorial appointment? Isn't she proud of that any more?
Dog, that woman seems to be in a race to seem the least authentic. Can't her staff tell
her to act natural?
After I post this comment, I'm gonna get me a beer.
Why assume that what we see isn't her natural self, such as it is? Or, rather, that
there's anything more genuinely human underneath the pandering, opportunistic surface? As
Petal cited above, "When someone shows you who they are, believe them."
"... There is a collection of Democratic and Republican politicians and think tanks funded by various corporations and governments and bureaucrats in the government agencies mostly all devoted to the Empire, but also willing to stab each other in the back to obtain power. They don't necessarily agree on policy details. ..."
"... They don't oppose Trump because Trump is antiwar. Trump isn't antiwar. Or rather, he is antiwar for three minutes here and there and then he advocates for war crimes. ..."
"... He is a fairly major war criminal based on his policies in Yemen. But they don't oppose him for that either or they would have been upset by Obama. They oppose Trump because he is incompetent, unpredictable and easily manipulated. And worst of all, he doesn't play the game right, where we pretend we intervene out of noble humanitarian motives. This idiot actually say he wants to keep Syrian oil fields and Syria's oil fields aren't significant to anyone outside Syria. ..."
"... Our policies are influenced in rather negative ways by various foreign countries, but would be embarrassed to go to the extremes one regularly sees from liberals talking about Russian influence ..."
" In a sense, the current NeoMcCartyism (Russophobia, Sinophobia) epidemic in the USA can
partially be viewed as a yet another sign of the crisis of neoliberalism: a desperate attempt
to patch the cracks in the neoliberal façade using scapegoating -- creation of an
external enemy to project the problems of the neoliberal society.
I would add another, pretty subjective measure of failure: the degradation of the elite.
When you look at Hillary, Trump, Biden, Warren, Harris, etc, you instantly understand what I
am talking about. They all look like the second-rate, if not the third rate politicians.
Also, the Epstein case was pretty symbolic."
I had decided to stay on the sidelines for the most part after making a few earlier
comments, but I liked this summary, except I would give Warren more credit. She is flawed like
most politicians, but she has made some of the right enemies within the Democratic Party.
On Trump and " the Deep State", there is no unified Deep State. There is a collection of
Democratic and Republican politicians and think tanks funded by various corporations and
governments and bureaucrats in the government agencies mostly all devoted to the Empire, but
also willing to stab each other in the back to obtain power. They don't necessarily agree on
policy details.
They don't oppose Trump because Trump is antiwar. Trump isn't antiwar. Or rather, he is
antiwar for three minutes here and there and then he advocates for war crimes.
He is a fairly major war criminal based on his policies in Yemen. But they don't oppose
him for that either or they would have been upset by Obama. They oppose Trump because he is
incompetent, unpredictable and easily manipulated. And worst of all, he doesn't play the game
right, where we pretend we intervene out of noble humanitarian motives. This idiot actually say
he wants to keep Syrian oil fields and Syria's oil fields aren't significant to anyone outside
Syria.
But yes, scapegoating is a big thing with liberals now. It's pathetic. Our policies are
influenced in rather negative ways by various foreign countries, but would be embarrassed to go
to the extremes one regularly sees from liberals talking about Russian influence .
For the most part, if we have a horrible political culture nearly all the blame for that is
homegrown.
Donald 11.07.19 at 4:40 am (no link)
Sigh. Various typos above. Here is one --
Our policies are influenced in rather negative ways by various foreign countries, but
would be embarrassed to go to the extremes one regularly sees from liberals talking about
Russian influence.
--
I meant to say I would be embarrassed to go to the extremes one regularly sees from
liberals talking about Russian influence.
Steven Rattner's Rant Against Warren
By Dean Baker
The New York Times gives Steven Rattner * the opportunity to push stale economic bromides in
columns on a regular basis. His column ** today goes after Senator Elizabeth Warren.
He begins by telling us that Warren's plan for financing a Medicare for All program is "yet
more evidence that a Warren presidency a terrifying prospect." He goes on to warn us:
"She would turn America's uniquely successful public-private relationship into a dirigiste,
*** European-style system. If you want to live in France (economically), Elizabeth Warren
should be your candidate."
It's not worth going into every complaint in Rattner's piece, and to be clear, there are
very reasonable grounds for questioning many of Warren's proposals. However, he deserves some
serious ridicule for raising the bogeyman of France and later Germany.
In spite of its "dirigiste" system France actually has a higher employment rate for prime
age workers (ages 25 to 54) than the United States. (Germany has a much higher employment
rate.) France has a lower overall employment rate because young people generally don't work and
people in their sixties are less likely to work.
In both cases, this is the result of deliberate policy choices. In the case of young people,
the French are less likely to work because college is free and students get small living
stipends. For older workers, France has a system that is more generous to early retirees. One
can disagree with both of these policies, but they are not obvious failures. Large segments of
the French population benefit from them.
France and Germany both have lower per capita GDP than the United States, but the biggest
reason for the gap is that workers in both countries put in many fewer hours annually than in
the United States. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, an
average worker in France puts in 1520 hours a year, in Germany just 1360. That compares to 1780
hours a year in the United States. In both countries five or six weeks a year of vacation are
standard, as are paid family leave and paid sick days. Again, one can argue that it is better
to have more money, but it is not obviously a bad choice to have more leisure time as do
workers in these countries.
Anyhow, the point is that Rattner's bogeymen here are not the horror stories that he wants
us to imagine for ordinary workers, even if they may not be as appealing to rich people like
himself. Perhaps the biggest tell in this piece is when Rattner warns us that under Warren's
proposals "private equity, which plays a useful role in driving business efficiency, would be
effectively eliminated."
Okay, the prospect of eliminating private equity, now we're all really scared!
Dirigisme is an economic doctrine in which the state plays a strong directive role, as
opposed to a merely regulatory role, over a capitalist market economy.
Maybe this is the wake-up call that Democrats need.
My old colleagues at The Upshot published a poll yesterday (*) that rightly terrified a
lot of Democrats (as well as Republicans and independents who believe President Trump is
damaging the country). The poll showed Trump with a good chance to win re-election, given his
standing in swing states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Florida.
This was the sentence, by Nate Cohn, that stood out to me: "Nearly two-thirds of the Trump
voters who said they voted for Democratic congressional candidates in 2018 say that they'll
back the president" in hypothetical match-ups against Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth
Warren.
Democrats won in 2018 by running a smartly populist campaign, focused on reducing health
care costs and helping ordinary families. The candidates avoided supporting progressive
policy dreams that are obviously unpopular, like mandatory Medicare and border
decriminalization.
The 2020 presidential candidates are making a grave mistake by ignoring the lessons of
2018. I'm not saying they should run to the mythical center and support widespread
deregulation or corporate tax cuts (which are also unpopular). They can still support all
kinds of ambitious progressive ideas -- a wealth tax, universal Medicare buy-in and more --
without running afoul of popular opinion. They can even decide that there are a couple of
issues on which they are going to fly in the face of public opinion.
But if they're going to do that, they also need to signal in other ways that they care
about winning the votes of people who don't consider themselves very liberal. Democrats, in
short, need to start treating the 2020 campaign with the urgency it deserves, because a
second Trump term would be terrible for the country.
What would more urgency look like? Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders would find some way
to acknowledge and appeal to swing voters. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris would offer more of a
vision than either has to date. Pete Buttigieg, arguably the best positioned to take
advantage of this moment, would reassure Democrats who are understandably nervous about his
lack of experience. And perhaps Cory Booker or Amy Klobuchar can finally appeal to more of
Biden's uninspired supporters. ...
* One Year From Election, Trump Trails Biden but
Leads Warren in Battlegrounds https://nyti.ms/2NDDeNb
NYT - Nate Cohn - November 4 - Updated
Elizabeth Warren Releases $20.5 Trillion Plan to Pay
for 'Medicare for All' https://nyti.ms/2N9lI4F
NYT - Thomas Kaplan, Abby Goodnough
and Margot Sanger-Katz - November 1
WASHINGTON -- Senator Elizabeth Warren on Friday proposed $20.5 trillion in new spending
through huge tax increases on businesses and wealthy Americans to pay for "Medicare for all,"
laying out details for a landmark government expansion that will pose political risks for her
presidential candidacy while also allowing her to say she is not raising taxes on the middle
class to pay for her health care plan.
Ms. Warren, who has risen steadily in the polls with strong support from liberals excited
about her ambitious policy plans, has been under pressure from top rivals like former Vice
President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to release details about paying for her biggest plan, "Medicare
for all." Her new proposal marks a turning point for her campaign, in which she will have to
sell voters on a tax-and-spending plan that rivals the ambitions of the New Deal and the
Great Society while also defending it against both Democratic and Republican criticism.
Under Ms. Warren's plan, employer-sponsored health insurance -- which more than half of
Americans now receive -- would be eliminated and replaced by free government health coverage
for all Americans, a fundamental shift from a market-driven system that has defined health
care in the United States for decades but produced vast inequities in quality, service and
cost.
Ms. Warren would use a mix of sources to pay for the $20.5 trillion in new spending over a
decade, including by requiring employers to pay trillions of dollars to the government,
replacing much of what they currently spend to provide health coverage to workers. She would
create a tax on financial transactions like stock trades, change how investment gains are
taxed for the top 1 percent of households and ramp up her signature wealth tax proposal to be
steeper on billionaires. She also wants to cut $800 billion in military spending.
Ms. Warren's estimate for the cost of Medicare for all relies on an aggressive set of
assumptions about how to lower national health care costs while providing comprehensive
coverage to all Americans. Like Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, she would essentially
eliminate medical costs for individuals, including premiums, deductibles and other
out-of-pocket expenses.
Critically, her new plan would not raise taxes on middle-class Americans, a question she
has been asked over and over but has not answered directly until now. When confronted on the
campaign trail and debate stage, she emphasized instead that her plan would result in higher
overall costs for wealthy people and big corporations but lower costs for middle-class
families. ...
"A key step in winning the public debate over Medicare for all will be explaining what
this plan costs -- and how to pay for it," Ms. Warren wrote in her plan. To do that, she
added, "We don't need to raise taxes on the middle class by one penny."
The issue of health care helped Democrats win control of the House in last year's midterm
elections, after unsuccessful attempts by President Trump and Republicans in Congress to
repeal the Affordable Care Act. It has been a central issue again this year as Ms. Warren and
other Democrats have competed for their party's presidential nomination, highlighting a
divide on policy between the party's moderates and its liberal wing that favors
transformative change. ...
Ms. Warren's proposal shows just how large a reorganization of spending Medicare for all
represents. By eliminating private health insurance and bringing every American into a
federal system, trillions of dollars of spending by households, employers and state
governments would be transferred into the federal budget over the course of a decade.
Her financing plan is based on cost estimates that are on the low side, relative to those
from other serious economists who have assessed the program. Her estimate of $20.5 trillion
over 10 years is based on a recent cost model by the Urban Institute, but with several
different assumptions that lower the cost from Urban's estimate of $34 trillion over the same
period.
Ms. Warren attempts to minimize fiscal disruption by asking the big payers in the current
system to keep paying for health care through new taxes. She would create a new "employer
Medicare contribution" that would effectively redirect what employers are already paying to
health insurers, totaling $8.8 trillion over a decade. Small businesses would be exempt if
they are not currently paying for their employees' health care.
Ms. Warren has also proposed that states pay the federal government much of what they
currently spend to cover state workers and low-income residents under the Medicaid
program.
But she also describes new revenue streams to replace the other big chunk of health
spending: the money spent by households on premiums, deductibles and direct payments for
services like dental care that are not always covered by insurance.
Ms. Warren would raise $3 trillion in total from two proposals to tax the richest
Americans. She has previously said that her wealth tax proposal, another signature of her
campaign, would impose a 3 percent annual tax on net worth over $1 billion; she would now
raise that to 6 percent. She would also change how investment gains are taxed for the top 1
percent of households.
In addition to imposing a tax on financial transactions, she would also make changes to
corporate taxation. She is counting on stronger tax enforcement to bring in $2.3 trillion in
taxes that would otherwise go uncollected. And she is banking on passing an overhaul of
immigration laws -- which itself would be a huge political feat -- and gaining revenue from
taxes paid by newly legal residents.
Ms. Warren's plan would put substantial downward pressure on payments to hospitals,
doctors and pharmaceutical companies. She expects that an aggressive negotiation system could
lower spending on generic medications by 30 percent compared with what Medicare pays now, for
example, and spending on prescription drugs could fall by 70 percent. Payments to hospitals
would be 10 percent higher on average than what Medicare pays now, a rate that would make
some hospitals whole but would lead to big reductions for others. She would reduce doctors'
pay to the prices Medicare pays now, with additional reductions for specialists, and small
increases to doctors who provide primary care. ...
This seems almost uniformly great. I only have two quibbles.
One is that a 6% wealth tax is actually too high, confiscatory even. The reason is that if
expected ROI is about 6%, the tax takes all the expected return. In perpetuity that is
equivalent to taking the entire net worth. Property tax is a pretty good guide here, 1-1.5%
works, perhaps a bit more.
Two is that the slant shows up immediately with this reporter. One example: "Ms. Warren
would use a mix of sources to pay for the $20.5 trillion in new spending over a decade..."
Note the use of "new spending". This may make sense if the subject is limited to government
spending, but we all know the game is to distract from the good lowered-aggregate spending
and emphasize the component spent by the evil government. We may see much more of this
misdirection including by primary opponents.
She is basically proposing to municipalize the entire payment flows for healthcare, much
as proposals now exist for California to municipalize PG&E, both excellent ideas.
Senator Elizabeth Warren on Friday released her proposal to pay for Medicare for All, a
plan to move every American to government-run health insurance that would reshape the US
health care system.
Warren's plan, outlined in a 9,275-word Medium post, included complex ideas for paying for
health care costs after private insurance is ended . It's a lot to digest, so here are five
takeaways.
Much of it is based on the Medicare for All Act
The plan released by Warren on Friday is primarily aimed at answering the question of how to
pay for single-payer health care. When it comes to the nuts and bolts of how her health care
plan would work, Warren points to the existing Medicare for All Act, that "damn bill" Senator
Bernie Sanders colorfully reminded debate viewers that he wrote.
Under the Medicare for All Act, introduced by Sanders in April and cosponsored by Warren,
all US residents would be automatically enrolled in a national health care plan administered
by the federal government. In addition to traditional medical coverage, the Medicare for All
Act includes vision and dental, plus long-term care services.
It relies on a lot of assumptions
At the outset, Warren acknowledges that it's difficult to predict what health care costs
will be in the future, and she notes that current projections about how much Medicare for All
would cost vary widely. Because the Medicare for All Act leaves open questions about how the
single-payer system would work, including major ones like the amount that health care
providers would be compensated, Warren fills in the gaps to arrive at a total cost estimate.
Outside analysts, including two local experts, cited by Warren estimate her plan would result
in overall US health care costs that are slightly lower than what the nation currently
spends.
Arriving at a specific cost allows Warren to figure out how she will pay for it, and there
are some assumptions here, too.
To fund the plan without increasing taxes on the middle class, Warren relies on enacting
seemingly unrelated legislation, including immigration reform. The pathway to citizenship for
millions of people in her immigration proposal would add to the tax base. Warren also wants
to cut defense spending.
There aren't new middle class taxes, but there are hikes for businesses and the
wealthy
Warren announced her Medicare for All plan with a major promise not to increase taxes on
the middle class, but that doesn't mean some taxes won't go up. After accounting for existing
federal spending and health care spending by employers that would be redirected to the
government, there's still a big hole. Warren fills it by levying new taxes and closing
loopholes in ways that target financial firms and large corporations. She also increases her
previously proposed wealth tax.
Some businesses would be hit harder than others. As Vox points out, if Warren asks
businesses to send their existing employee health insurance payments to the government,
businesses that currently provide inadequate insurance, or no insurance at all, fare much
better than those that provide good insurance coverage. That sets up a kind of penalty for
businesses that offer health coverage: They're helping pick up the tab for Medicare for All,
but they no longer have an advantage in attracting top talent with generous benefits.
Under Warren's plan, that situation is temporary as businesses would eventually pay into
the system at the same rate. And Warren says employers ultimately will be better off because
they won't get hit with unpredictable changes in health care costs.
It would be difficult to implement
Moving every single American to a new health care plan is a massive endeavor, so much so
that Warren says she'll release an entirely separate plan that deals with how to handle the
transition.
The transition has become a sticking point in the Democratic primary, with moderates like
former vice president Joe Biden using the lengthy time period (Sanders' plan says it would
take four years) as a reason to oppose it altogether.
And then there's the problem of passing such legislation: During the debate around the
Affordable Care Act in 2010, a proposed public option to allow people to buy into a
government-run health care plan nearly sunk the entire bill, and was stripped out of the
landmark legislation. The episode underscored the difficulty of implementing a government-run
health care program, even one popular with voters.
Warren has a plan for that, though. She wants to get rid of the filibuster, meaning the
Senate would need a simple majority to pass legislation, rather than the 60 votes currently
required to stop debate.
Warren has been reluctant to go on the offensive, but that may be changing
As she rose in the polls, Warren resisted leveling direct attacks against her primary
opponents. Warren's style has been to rail against the concept of big money fueling a
campaign, rather than directly criticizing individual candidates who have taken cash from
high-dollar fund-raisers.
But there are hints that this could be changing. Warren's lengthy Medicare for All plan
includes rebuttals to the criticism she's gotten from the moderate wing of the primary field,
calling on candidates who oppose her plan to explain how they would cover everyone.
"Make no mistake -- any candidate who opposes my long-term goal of Medicare for All and
refuses to answer these questions directly should concede that they have no real strategy for
helping the American people address the crushing costs of health care in this country. We
need plans, not slogans," she wrote.
The corporate health sub system
Intimately involves
the entire corporate system
We are on course toward
20 % of our economic output
Flowing thru our domestic
health services and products sectors
Where is the cost control mechanism
Simply in part
Progressively resourcing
And rechanneling the inflow of funds
Addresses a result not a cause
We have to address costs
We need a cap and trade market system
With a cap sector to GDP ratio that
Slowly squeezes down
the relative costs of the health sector
Public option is the transition
That empowers
people themselves
To spontaneous determine
the timing and pattern of
Their own transitioning
Anything else is political folly
Liz has set a bold end state vision
Bravely out laying where we must go eventually
And drawing in
the major shift in the share of
The total social cost burden
to the wealthy classes
But that's an end a destination
not a path
Urge choice not mandates
as the better path
The present corporate cost
burden share
is a mess
That should self dissolve over time
Now we need an optional public system
And
A means to capture the
Present corporate pay ins
Piecemeal over time as employees opt out of corporate plans into publicnplans one by one
Liz Warren would double her proposed billionaire
wealth tax to help fund 'Medicare for All' https://cnb.cx/332evbX
... Warren's wealth tax proposal would also impose a 2% tax on net worth between $50
million and $1 billion. She has previously said that it would be used to fund her ambitious
climate agenda, a slate of investments in child care and reductions in student loan debt.
But Warren is refusing to tax the middle class. She released an analysis produced by
several respected economists on Friday that suggests she will not have to.
Former IMF Chief Economist Simon Johnson, former Labor Department Chief Economist Betsey
Stevenson, and Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, wrote that Warren could pay
for her program "without imposing any new taxes on middle-class families."
The economists cite a number of possible revenue and spending options that they found
could generate $20.5 trillion in additional funding. Much of that funding is expected to come
from reallocating employer spending on health care and taxing the increased take-home pay
that employees are expected to receive under her system.
But taxes on the wealthy form a substantial portion. Doubling the billionaire wealth tax
will raise $1 trillion over 10 years, the economists found. They note in their analysis that
the calculation assumes a 15% rate of tax avoidance. ...
Despite
scant polling evidence, Joe Biden's continued
lead , and serious
concerns over her viability with the broader electorate, Elizabeth Warren's Democratic
presidential campaign has taken on an air of inevitability.
Just this fall, the emcee of the financial television circuit, Mad Money 's Jim
Cramer, has gone from wailing "She's got to be stopped" to insisting, "I don't think she's
nearly as anti-business" as commonly portrayed. Either way, Cramer continues, "I think there is
such a thing called Congress." The implication is even if the prairie populist by way of
Massachusetts goes the distance, Wall Street's network on Capitol Hill would make mincemeat of
her agenda.
In my interviews with members of Congress, especially Republicans, Warren's nomination is
generally treated as a fait accompli. Perhaps it's projection, Warren is who many partisan
Republicans think the Democrats are: female, lawyerly and anti-capitalist. The contest of
Warren vs. Donald Trump would provide, if nothing else, clarity.
The dynamic extends past Northeast Washington. Where people put their money where their
mouth is -- political gambling sites -- Warren's chances of winning the Democratic nomination
are assessed at nearing 40 percent. On PredicitIt.com, one can buy a Warren share an absurd
thirty-eight cents on the dollar.
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The idea of Democrats nominating an aged, gaffe-prone white male popular with industry and
in the Rust Belt seems absurd on the face: "That's our nominee, right?" David Axelrod,
mastermind of Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, earlier this month crowned Warren the
"front-runner."
There's just one problem with this line of thinking: it's not at all clear Warren is going
to be the Democratic nominee for president. Her principal rival, Biden, the former vice
president, still leads in some national polls. Biden is frequently compared to Jeb Bush, the
establishment favorite, paper tiger on the Republican side in the last round.
There are two problems with this analogy. Biden isn't nearly as "establishment" as the
former Florida governor. Bush was the cash-flush son and brother of two presidents, while Biden
is bleeding
dough and has failed to procure the endorsement of the president he served. Conversely,
unlike Bush, whose lead nationally evaporated by Labor Day, Biden has stubbornly stayed more or
less at the top of the heap through all of 2019.
It's Halloween and Democratic voters haven't been spooked enough by the former vice
president's at-times catastrophic performance to dump him. Unlike Bush, Biden has an ace in the
hole: the anchoring constituency of his party, African-American voters. If Bush had commanded
the acclaim of evangelical Christians he might have held on despite his other weaknesses as a
candidate. Biden is also relatively
popular , while the Bush clan is rightly still blamed for the destruction of American
prestige at home and abroad.
Biden frequently, even pathetically presents himself as an "Obama-Biden Democrat."
ButBiden's candidacy remains most similar to a non-Bush 2016 candidate: Donald Trump, the
front-runner the "smart set" claimed was doomed from the start. Like Trump, Biden is
famous . And as Biden has hit campaign troubles, the former veep's raison d'etre can
take on an air of the self-evident: I'm leading the race because I'm leading the race.
Like Trump, who would proudly spend literally hours of his campaign rallies reading off
primary poll results, Biden also seems content to run a campaign based on his own lead. After
weeks of purported political battering, Biden told 60 Minutes Sunday: "I know I'm the
frontrunner."
With almost Trump-like flare, Biden noted: "Find me a national poll with a notable a couple
exceptions." What was true of the last Democratic debate, earlier this month in Ohio, may be
true of the 2020 election as a whole. As Jacob Heilbrunn, editor of The National
Interest , said
: "It was a good night for the old codgers on stage."
Indeed, insistences from career progressives and conservatives that Warren is the true
Democratic standard-bearer can take on a mawkish tone. Surely, in a time of ubiquitous
partisanship, the victors will be most ideological. The Democrats are moving ever left, the
Republicans, ever right. Surely, it is time for a true believer.
But the logic is too clever by half. Templates are incomplete assessments of the world, but
play along: if Trump is Biden's proper analogue, then Warren's candidacy is perhaps most akin
to Ted Cruz's in 2016. Like Cruz, Warren is somewhat
unpopular with her colleagues, which doubles as a badge of honor with many, more
ideological activists.
But party activists perhaps understand the organization they serve less than they think they
do. Isn't it just as possible, indeed maybe even likely, that Warren, like Cruz, is waiting for
a day that will never come? Trump's "implosions" were never reflected at the ballot box. Maybe
so, it will also be with Biden.
Templates aren't perfect, however. While Cruz did well with evangelicals, Warren has failed
to make inroads among African Americans. And unlike Cruz, the establishment has warmed to
Warren's rise -- her campaign doubles as a Harvard satellite campus.
But perhaps Warren's greatest weakness as a candidate, as it was for Cruz, is that she is
not the real voice of her party's discontented. A well placed source told me that in 2012 he
advised Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee, that the person who wins America's big elections
today is the most pessimistic of the two messengers.
Of the 2016 conservatives, Cruz was perhaps most polite to Trump, but in failing to ape the
future president's program, he never emerged as anything more than a poor imitation of the real
estate mogul. Immigration and ennui over America's international role were the orders of the
day, and for a core contingent, no substitutes for Trumpian nationalism would do.
Warren experiences this vulnerability, an intensity gap, not with Biden, but with Bernie
Sanders. Warren, perhaps sensing the establishment's warmth to her, takes pains to emphasize
that she is still a capitalist. Perhaps accordingly, socialist Alexandria Ocascio-Cortez, the
most powerful millennial politician, has thrown in with Sanders, the candidate she volunteered
for four years ago. For the under-forty set, which has been mired in a now-decade of low growth
and the vise-grip of rising housing, education and healthcare costs, Warrenism, like Cruzism,
may come too little, too late.
A well placed source told me that in 2012 he advised Mitt Romney, the Republican
nominee, that the person who wins America's big elections today is the most pessimistic of
the two messengers.
Ummmm... Romney LOST.
For the under-forty set, which has been mired in a now-decade of low growth and the
vice grip of rising housing, education and healthcare costs, Warrenism, like Cruzism, may
come too little, too late.
The article was nearly completely about Biden vs Warren then changed course near the end
by bring Sanders into it. So Warrenism may be "too little, too late" so Dems will go for
less with Biden? Sorry, it really seems incoherent to me.
Yeah, the analogy that makes more sense is Trump:Cruz as Bernie:Warren, except instead of
being a total fraud with no political experience, Bernie has 40 years of experience, with
lots of accomplishments, and is seen as far-and-away the most trustworthy and with the
highest favorability.
As competing right-wing and left-wing versions of the "cool nerd"? I guess so, though the
essence of the "cool nerd" is that most people don't think the "cool nerds" are cool.
Is Biden really less "Establishment" than Jeb Bush?. A lot depends on how you define
Establishment -- and the word is very slippery and hard to define. I'd say they were both
Establishment to something like the same degree. Bush has a waspy pedigree and two
presidents in his family, but 38 years in the Senate made Biden part of the Washington
Establishment to a high degree. Neither of them had much substance. Biden was sort of like
the ottoman in a Washington salon - something you might not notice until you tripped over
it - but still he was a Washington fixture. Jeb Bush had the connections, but so far as
Washington was concerned there was something provincial about him.
It doesn't really matter who wins the Democrat's party nomination or who wins the
Presidential election. The 'Deep State' runs the government and will continue to run the
government no matter which pony is the face on stage. Pick your puppet at the polls. That
is if you want to waste your time voting at all.
True of any candidate except Trump who is the only one not controlled by the Deep State.
Not that he hasn't had limited success so far in going up against them, given their control
of the FBI and CIA and ability to manufacture scandals at will such as the "Russia
Collusion" hoax.
I'll agree that Trump is somewhat outside the 'Deep State's' control. I'll state that I am
not a fan of most of his policies or the man himself and it is my firm opinion that even
though he is not an 'offspring' of the Deep State, his actions and interests are
self-focused just like those that are bred from within. None of them give a rat's behind
about Joe Public; it's the super-elites serving the interests of the super-elites.
The socalled Deep State swore an oath to uphold the Constitution. That oath comes before
their loyalty to Trump.
Trump is president, not dictator. He doesn't just get to do whatever he wants despite
the fact he thinks he can, he thinks he is above the Constitution.
"I have to the right to do whatever I want as president." - Trump
You no doubt nodded in agreement when he said that, but if a Democratic president ever
said that, you'd erupt in outrage completely forgetting how you felt when Trump said
it.
The previous Democratic president ruled largely through executive orders, if you haven't
noticed. Not a dictator, right. While those upholders of the Constitution which are so dear
to you, violated it left and right in everything foreign policy. Try better.
Actually, as Alex stated, rule by Executive Order has become more prevalent with each
successive President regardless of political party. Without going into a long explanation,
I'll just say that the Constitution has been eroded by all Branches of the government -
unfortunately, it's getting to the point where it will be completely ineffectual soon.
Warren (as well as Bernie Sanders) would have been a great candidate for the Democratic
Party to try to win back working-class whites in 2016, but nowadays it seems they are the
Republican base and big Trump supporters and aren't returning back to the fold.
Democrats would do better to find a more center-right figure to win over
neoconservatives, liberatarians, and suburban America, all alienated by Donald Trump and by
what the Republican Party has become, which could potentially get them states like Arizona,
Texas, North Carolina, and the like.
That describes most of the Democratic also-rans, and pretty much Biden, too. And Hilary
Clinton, of course, and look how inspiring she was to the Democratic electorate.
You're pretty much describing Andrew Yang. His base is currently small, but very
passionate, consisting of progressives, disaffected Trump voters, working class whites,
libertarians, etc., basically anyone on the political spectrum.
Warren is who many partisan Republicans think the Democrats are: female, lawyerly and
anti-capitalist.
A few paragraphs down, you said "Warren, perhaps sensing the establishment's warmth to
her, takes pains to emphasize that she is still a capitalist." Did you just assume your
readers would prefer the smear up front and the facts buried near the bottom?
" Franklin Foer : All the investment bankers who have voodoo dolls of you
might be a bit surprised that you recently described yourself as "capitalist to the bone."
What did you mean?
Elizabeth Warren : I believe in markets and the benefits they can produce when
they work. Markets with rules can produce enormous value. So much of the work I have done
-- the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, my hearing-aid bill -- are about making
markets work for people, not making markets work for a handful of companies that scrape all
the value off to themselves. I believe in competition."
Like Cruz, Warren is somewhat unpopular with her colleagues
Wake me up when something actually analogous to Ted Cruz happens, like if Warren calls
the eventual nominee a "narcissist" and "serial liar" for whom "morality doesn't exist" and
then goes on to phone bank for him in the general.
Well, looks like I already have to wake you up. Remember that story with her saying that it
ain't right when a veep's son serves on the board of a foreign company and then immediately
backtracking after having understood what she just said?
Sounds like Warren is thinking of "Capitalism, with fixes from outside capitalism"
I'll admit, even the criticisms make me more interested in her. Though I fear that it's
more of a 'too good to be true' concept. My time in customer service helped me to
understand that sometimes you have to give Hard Messages to people as you really can't have
Everything You Want. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing Warren as "OMG this is everything I
wanted." Which is one of the red flags I had over Trump.
It's hard though. I know that giving hard messages is basically a death sentence in
campaigns so people don't do that. But Bernie did and he's not dying. BLAH.
In any case, don't go too hard on TAC articles about democratic candidates. It's sort of
like when a US new organization puts an editorial on a foreign culture. It's not a bad
viewpoint to have, but it IS going ot be..well.. different.
It becomes more and more obvious with each day that nominating Biden is incomparably
greater priority to the Democratic Party as an institution than winning the election. Yes,
Warren is no orator (which is an extremely ill omen for a candidate when running against
someone like Trump), but neither Biden is. Warren, with all her faults, at least speaks
like a non-orator with both hemispheres functional. While Biden is simply babbling.
And that's not to mention the fact that Democrats (yet) have a candidate who would
reliably beat any opponent aside from Rand Paul - Tulsi Gabbard. But these... epitomes of
alternative genius keep on trying to drive her away from their party at all costs instead
of holding on to her for dear life.
Trump won because of the number of other Republican candidates who wanted to fight it out
to the bitter end, rather than throw in their lot with a better candidate like Cruz or even
Jeb! Had it come down to two Republican candidates, Trump and one holding more traditional
views, it is likely Trump would have lost the Republican nomination.
The Democrats look the same for 2020. Biden represents the Clinton, Republican-lite wing
of the party. He has the name recognition and the big money backing. Sanders is a true
leftist. And Warren is somewhere in-between. The question is whether or not Sanders and
Warren will fight it out to the bitter end, leaving Biden with just enough of a plurality
to win the nomination. I don't give any of the rest a chance.
I tend to think that Trump would beat Biden. For the same reasons he beat Clinton: he's
a neo-liberal, neo-conservative who could give a rat's a$$ about the pain of the working
and middle-classes. I think Warren could beat Trump. She's really not a leftist
economically, and a lot of independents would see her as a rational, thoughtful person, as
opposed to Trump's Trumpism.
My lawn chair and popcorn favorite would be a Trump/Sanders title fight. Maybe terrible
for the country, but definitely fun to watch.
I think she is probably to the right of either Nixon or Eisenhower. She's certainly not
proposing a 91% marginal income tax rate (Eisenhower) or a fully socialized health care
system (Nixon). The world has shifted so far to the right in modern times that I can
understand that some see her as far left.
The reason that Nominee Warren is unlikely to get black support is that she played a card
that was not hers to [play and doubled down on the matter and continues to play that card
inspite of the cold hard light of day that she wasn't, and is not native american.
There is a huge wave of under current simmering anger because I don't cleave to notions
of some incorrectly underpinnings of "conservatism", that are sacrosanct. I don't put much
stock in identity political machinations online. It is simply a nonfactor or less of a
factor than what is on the page as to some's ideas.
But the hijacking of someone's history that is not your own in any fashion and profiting
from the same -- for people whose history are hog to negative narratives, this simply will
not sit well.
----------------
Senator Cruz's attempts to rig the Colorado primaries violates the principles of fair
play. Making arguments about being pro-country and at the same time manipulating the
immigration arguments to favor undermining US citizens -- don't invite much enthusiasm for
his leadership.
"The reason that Nominee Warren is unlikely to get black support is that she played a card
that was not hers to [play and doubled down on the matter and continues to play that card
inspite of the cold hard light of day that she wasn't, and is not native american."
Why in the world would African Americans care one wilt about Warren claiming she was
Native American?
Af-Ams are big on identity..but the only time I've seen it brought as an issue is when
someone who's not Af-Am claims they are Af-Am.
Republicans have a big issue with her using the term. But it's similar to Democrats
hating Trump's attacks on Latinos: the ones that rage weren't considering her in the first
place.
Warren will win or lose the Black vote by whether she notes their issues and offers
options that will change their current situation, something Hillary failed to do in those
key states. Though first she'll need them win them over from Biden. Possible, though not
easily.
Not really sure why the author thinks warren is somehow outside the democratic norms, she
has worked consistently for the working voters that make up her district by trying to bring
some balance against the large corporations that pretty much control the economy. Even
conservatives, the champions of big business and the haters of unions and all social
programs seem to actually have second thoughts about crushing the life out of the common
man, or at least they write occasional comments that make nice to them while giving the
corporations massive tax cuts and cutting the social programs.
If I was a bit more cynical I would think that they are pretty nervous about an
articulate candidate with a solid slate of actual policy papers and positions that try to
lay out a way to make the economy work for the regular folks. Why they might actually be
trying to claim that she will take the side of the corporations that run conservative
politics..
I think Warren's big problem is how she talks and how she looks.
Ever since TV came into the political process, image has become incredibly important.
Look at Ted Cruz. He just looked...weird.
Warren is frenetic when she talks on the debate stage. Mute your TV during the next
debate and watch. She also talks like a school marm.
Lasty, history does not smile on wonks. People want easy-to-understand programs and
straight talk. Warren constantly dodges how she will pay for her programs. This will not
play well in 2020.
I still think it will be Sanders, with the 1980 and 2016 GOP primaries as the templates,
and the crisis in the Reagan/Thatcher/neo-liberal consensus being the bedrock of his, and
Trump's, appeal.
Trump was such a wild card in 2016 that it's hard to make connections or analogies to any
other presidential election. You don't have to see Joe Biden as some clone of Jeb Bush to
see that they both have real deficiencies as candidates. Cruz also was a lousy candidate
who wouldn't have won the nomination or the general election, but he was blindsided by
Trump, someone new from outside politics.
There's nobody in sight who could blindside Warren like that, and I get the feeling that
the Democratic Party base (the White half of it anyway) is more comfortable with Warren
than the Republican Party base was with Cruz. Even Evangelicals couldn't quite bring
themselves to love Ted. However unpopular Warren is with the electorate as a whole, party
loyalists and activists have no problem with her.
I don't see Buttigieg winning the nomination. Alice Roosevelt Longworth once said that
Tom Dewey looked like the little plastic man at the top of the wedding cake. Now that we
have gay marriage, voters are offered the a candidate who looks like the little plastic man
on top of a gay wedding cake. I suspect they won't go for him.
Had Cruz been the nominee he would have had the same advantage that Trump did: Hillary
Clinton herself. She was a deeply unlikable candidate and 2016 is best described as
"Hillary lost" as opposed to "Trump won." Pretty much any Republican, excepting maybe Bush
with his family baggage, would have bear Hillary, and with a more respectable showing.
Letting their foreign policy being hijacked (or, rather, joyridden) by neolib lunatics, the
twins of neocon wackos. That can hardly be called "competence" and "prudence".
The winners write history. Surviving losers also rewrite history ('Gone with the Wind").
Or, past lives are never written about at all. The problem is that western government has
swirled down the drain into incompetent delusion. Corporations rule. Plutocrats are in combat
over the spoils. Protests won't work until police and mercenaries realized that they aren't
being paid enough to die or to subjugate their own families.
Right now, the problem is two million Californians forced out of their homes or waiting
with no electricity for evacuation orders. The American government is simply incapable
rebuilding Puerto Rico or Northern California . Or handling global plagues such as
African Swine Fever that has already killed a quarter of the global pig population. Simply
put, climate change, overpopulation, and rising inequality assure that revolutions cannot be
orderly.
The 10% Technocrats like Elizabeth Warren will try to keep things running until they can't
anymore.
If Democrats nominate Elizabeth Warren, there will a chorus of well-funded voices
declaring that her progressivism would destroy the economy. So it's not irrelevant to look at
how that sort of thinking is holding up abroad 1/
Pocketbook Woes Drive an Unlikely Comeback in Argentine Presidential Race
President Mauricio Macri rose to office with a promise that free markets would wrest
Argentina from its boom-and-bust cycle. But with the country in recession, voters may now
turn to an archrival.
5:55 AM - 27 Oct 2019
Macri was the business community's candidate; he was going to bring sound management in
after years of populism, and things were going to be great. But he screwed up the
macroeconomics, borrowing heavily in dollars (!), and presided over recession 2/
Chile has long, as Branko Milanovic says here, been the poster child for neoliberalism. I
remember very well when Bush & co tried to sell Chile's privatized pensions as a
replacement for Social Security. But rampant inequality is now causing mass unrest 3/
Obviously governments of both left and right can mess up. But the persistent belief that
big business and the wealthy know How Things Work and can run the economy best is completely
at odds with experience 4/
RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to Fred C. Dobbs... ,
a
Without the necessary due diligence in planning both the transition and the aftermath going
into the meme, then Medicare for All is a promise for some, a threat to many more, and a boat
anchor for the Democratic Party. It could be a great plan if adequately executed, but given
the haphazard approach to leaning on buzz words and memes instead of a explanatory framework,
then this plan will be an executioner's block next November, if not just Tuesday week. The
Democratic Party has screwed itself again unless just pure outrage and at Trump and
Republican politicians can rescue the Dembots from their own idiot angels.
In her heart, Warren is more of Eisenhower (or Nixon, if you wish ) republican type then a
real fight against excesses of neoliberalism. that actually makes her chances to win 2020
elections much stronger and changes that she will bring radical chances much weaker.
First, as a general rule, politicians who propose meaningful change should get specific
enough about their idea so that voters can have a good look before they go to the polls. So
Warren is setting a good example on this front and likely raising the bar for other Democratic
party aspirants.
Second, I want to make sure I'm not falling prey to the cognitive bias called the halo
effect, which is a tendency to see people as all good or all bad. So I want to make sure my
reaction to the neoliberal frogs that sometimes hop out of Warren's mouth doesn't taint my
reading of her generally. For instance, her private equity plan is very strong, particularly
her sweeping ideas about how to make private equity firm principals liable when they bankrupt
companies. But as America's top bankruptcy scholar, the core of that plan falls in an area
where she has unparalleled expertise.
But generally, Warren's change programs have a frequent shortcoming: they do a great job of
assessing the challenge but then propose remedies that fall well short of remedying them.
As Matt Yglesias pointed out in January :
If Two-Income Trap were released today, I'd say it suffers from a striking mismatch
between the scale of the problem it identifies and the relatively modest solutions it
proposes. Tougher regulation of consumer lending would be welcome but obviously would not
fundamentally address the underlying stagnation of income.
On top of that, Warren's "I have a plan" mantra sounds an awful lot like a dog whistle to
Clinton voters. And even though I've only given a good look at two of her plans so far ex her
private equity plan, there's a lot not to like in both of them. We
covered her wealth plan earlier, and didn't treat Sanders' at the same time because hers
was sucking up all the media attention even though Sanders had proposed a wealth tax years
before she did. That was a mistake. Sanders' wealth tax plan is better than Warren's.
Even though Sanders plan has the same fundamental problem, that of not recognizing how the
IRS in recent decades has never won a large estate tax case where you have the same valuation
issues with a wealth tax, Sanders proposes a more aggressive beef up of the IRS than Warren
does, so he may have a sense of the severity of the enforcement problem and also provides for
some legal fallbacks regarding valuation. He also realistically does not depict his tax as a
global wealth tax, since there's no way to get the needed information or cooperation on foreign
holdings that aren't in bank or brokerage firms.
But even more important, both Warren and Sanders wealth tax schemes rely on the work of
economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman in devising their taxes and estimating how much
they'd yield. The structure of Sanders' tax hews to their recommendations as to how to maximize
revenues and cut into inequality. Warren's does not. So contrary to popular perceptions,
Sanders' wealth tax plan
should get higher wonk points than Warren's .
So on to the next Warren plan.
Warren's Excess Lobbying Tax
Warren presented her Excessive Lobbying Tax
. The problem it is meant to solve is not just lobbying as currently defined, which is the
petitioning of member of Congress to influence legislation. Warren is out to tackle not just
that but also what she depicts as undue corporate influence in the regulatory process:
But corporate lobbyists don't just swarm Congress. They also target our federal
departments like the Environmental Protection Agency and the Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau .
Regulatory agencies are only empowered to implement public interest rules under authority
granted by legislation already passed by Congress. So how is it that lobbyists are able to
kill, weaken, or delay so many important efforts to implement the law?
Often they accomplish this goal by launching an all out assault on the process of writing
new rules -- informally meeting with federal agencies to push for favorable treatment,
burying those agencies in detailed industry comments during the notice-and-comment rulemaking
process, and pressuring members of Congress to join their efforts to lobby against the
rule.
If the rule moves forward anyway, they'll argue to an obscure federal agency tasked with
weighing the costs and benefits of agency rules that the rules are too costly, and if the
regulation somehow survives this onslaught, they'll hire fancy lawyers to challenge it in
court.
Before we get to Warren's remedies, there are some odd things about the problem statement.
One is that she fails to acknowledge that regulatory rulemaking devises more specific policies
in order to implement legislation. That reflects the fact that legislation often isn't detailed
enough to provide a definitive guide to agencies. And the public is entitled to weigh in on
rulemaking. So what she is objecting to is that corporate interests are able to overwhelm the
comment process. Second is that there is a significant abuse that she fails to mention, that
some proposed rule changes, such as regarding net neutrality, where ordinary citizens weighed
in heavily, saw comments on the other side that were submitted by bots, overwhelming the
agency. The bot abuse is specific and important, and it's odd to see Warren leave it by the
wayside.
Warren's plan has three main prongs. First, she would make pretty much anyone who as part of
their employment seeks to influence Federal legislation or regulation register as a lobbyist.
They would be require to make public who they'd been lobbying and what information they
provided (an interesting question here as to what gets reported from in person
discussions).
Second, she would require that "every corporation and trade organization" with over $500,000
per year in lobbying expenditures is subject to an "excess lobbying tax". Spending of $500,000
to $1 million would be taxed at a 35% rate, over $1 million, at a 60% rate, and over $5
million, 75%.
Warren states that her tax would have raised $10 billion in the last ten years and she
intends to use that for the third major leg of her programs, which is various anti-lobbyist
initiatives. She plans to spend the revenues on
A "Lobbying Defense Trust Fund" to bolster "Congressional independence from lobbyists" by
providing more money to Congressional support bodies like the CBO
Extra funding to agencies that are on the receiving of lobbying. When an entity in the
$500,000 or higher lobbying spending bracket, the agency gets a special allocation "to help
it fight back".
An Office of the Public Advocate to help ordinary citizens get better representation in
the lobbying process
She also asserts that her plan will also "shut the revolving door between government and K
Street" but she offers no mechanism to provide for that. So that is a handwave.
The Conceptual Flaws in Warren's Approach
It's hard to know how much of this Warren believes and how much of this was dreamed up by
her staffers (the document is signed "Team Warren).
Taxation is the wrong approach . Even though Warren discusses how much money her tax would
raise, her strident disapproval of lobbying and the punitive tax levels make clear that the
purpose of the tax is to discourage lobbying. But if lobbying is as bad as Warren believes it
is, she should instead be prohibiting abuses, like comments by bots. In the 1970s, economist
Martin Weitzman came up with an approach to determine when taxation was the right way to
discourage problematic behavior, as opposed to barring it.
A summary from the Bank of England's celebrated economist Andrew Haldane :
In making these choices, economists have often drawn on Martin Weitzman's classic public
goods framework from the early 1970s. Under this framework, the optimal amount of pollution
control is found by equating the marginal social benefits of pollution-control and the
marginal private costs of this control. With no uncertainty about either costs or benefits, a
policymaker would be indifferent between taxation and restrictions when striking this
cost/benefit balance.
In the real world, there is considerable uncertainty about both costs and benefits.
Weitzman's framework tells us how to choose between pollution-control instruments in this
setting. If the marginal social benefits foregone of the wrong choice are large, relative to
the private costs incurred, then quantitative restrictions are optimal. Why? Because fixing
quantities to achieve pollution control, while letting prices vary, does not have large
private costs. When the marginal social benefit curve is steeper than the marginal private
cost curve, restrictions dominate.
The results flip when the marginal cost/benefit trade-offs are reversed. If the private
costs of the wrong choice are high, relative to the social benefits foregone, fixing these
costs through taxation is likely to deliver the better welfare outcome. When the marginal
social benefit curve is flatter than the marginal private cost curve, taxation dominates. So
the choice of taxation versus prohibition in controlling pollution is ultimately an empirical
issue.
Moreover, the tax would hit all lobbyists. Who do you think has the better odds of raising
more money to offset the tax and carrying on as before: Public Citizen or the Chamber of
Commerce?
By contrast, one idea of ours that could have helpful chilling effects would be to go much
much further than merely requiring all lobbyists, broadly defined, to register and also require
them to provide reports on what government officials they contacted/met with and what
information they provided them.
We'd also make these lobbyists subject to FOIA and provide stringent standards that apply
only to lobbyists, such as:
Set strict and tight time limits for responses (California requires that an initial
determination be made in 10 days, for instance)
Require judges to award legal fees and costs to parties who successfully sue over FOIAs
where the records were withheld. Provide for awards in cases where the defendant coughs up
records as the result of a suit being filed. Set punitive damages for abuses (such as
excessive delay, bad faith responses). Strictly limit invocation of attorney/client privilege
to demonstrable litigation risks
Letting journalists and members of the public root around in the discussion between various
think tanks and their business allies would regularly unearth material that would be
embarrassing to the parties involved. It would go a long way toward denting the perceived
legitimacy of lobbying, which over time would strengthen the immune systems of the
recipients.
Warren assumes that most people in Congress and at regulators are anti-corporate but are
overwhelmed by lobbyists. First, the piece presents a Manichean world view of evil greedy
corporate interests versus noble underrepresented little people. And while this is very often
true, it's not as absolute as Warren suggests. The companies are often have conflicting
interests, which can allow for public-minded groups to ally with the corporate types who are on
their side on particular matters.
A second part of the Manichean take is the notion that the agencies aren't on board with the
corporate perspective. Unfortunately, reality is vastly more complicated. For instance, banking
regulators are concerned overall with the safety and soundness of the institutions they
oversee. They aren't in the business of consumer advocacy or consumer protection save as
required by legislation. The concern with safety and soundness perversely means that they want
the institutions they oversee to be profitable so as to help assure capital adequacy and to
attract "talent" to make sure the place is run adequately. (We've stated repeatedly we disagree
with this notion; banks are so heavily subsidized that they should not be seen as private
businesses and should be regulated as utilities). For instance, in the late 1980s, McKinsey was
heavily touting the idea of a coming bank profit squeeze. McKinsey partner Lowell Bryan in his
1992 book Bankrupt spoke with pride at how his message was being received, and in particular,
that regulators were embracing deregulation as a way to bolster bank incomes.
Another complicating factor is that in certain key posts, industry expertise and therefore
an insider status is seen as key to performing the job. For instance, it's accepted that the
Treasury Secretary should come from Wall Street so he can talk to Mr. Market. Of all people, GW
Bush defied that practice, appointing corporate CEOs as Treasury Secretary. The position wound
up being a revolving door in his Administration as his appointees flamed out. Finding a modern
Joe Kennedy, someone who knows sharp industry practices and decides to go against incumbents,
is a tall order.
Similarly, agencies have career staffers and political appointees at a senior level. That
included critical roles like the head of enforcement at the SEC. If Republicans or
pro-corporate Democrats control the Administration and the Senate, business-friendly appointees
will go into these critical posts. The optics may be better with the Democrats, but the outcome
isn't that much different. As Lambert likes to say, "Republicans tell you they will knife you
in the face. Democrats tell you they are so much nicer, they only want one kidney. What they
don't tell you is next year they are coming for your other kidney."
So Warren is also implicitly selling the idea of Team Dem as anti-corporate vigilantes, a
fact not in evidence.
And speaking of kidneys a letter from a departing SEC career employee and Goldman
whistleblower, James Kidney, shows how even staffers who want to do the right thing have their
perspective warped over time.
As we said about his missive, which you can read in full :
Two things struck me about Jim Kidney's article below. One is that he still wants to think
well of his former SEC colleagues
Number two, and related, are the class assumptions at work. The SEC does not want to see
securities professionals at anything other than bucket shops as bad people. At SEC
conferences, agency officials are virtually apologetic and regularly say, "We know you are
honest people who want to do the right thing." Please tell me where else in law enforcement
is that the underlying belief.
So it also seems unlikely that there is a cadre of vigorous regulators just waiting to be
unshackled by the likes of Warren and her anti-lobbyist funding. The way institutions change is
by changing the leadership and enough of the worker bees to send the message that the old way
of doing things isn't on any more. That does not happen quickly. And absent a system breakdown
like the Great Depression, staff incumbents know that talks of new sheriffs in town may not
last beyond the next election cycle.
And the experience of Warren's hand picks at her own pet agency shows that they were all too
willing to let corporations set the agenda. Recall that Warren recommended that Richard
Cordray, head of the CFPB when it became clear she would not get the job, and Raj Date, the
first deputy director of the CFPB, was also an ally of hers. From our 2012 post,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Launches "Make Life Easier for Lobbyists" Tool :
There is more than a little bit of NewSpeak in this idea. "Streamlining regulations" is
generally right wing code for "eliminating/relaxing regulations." Admittedly, Elizabeth
Warren during her brief time as de facto head of the nascent CFPB, proposed and launched a
project to simplify mortgage disclosure forms to combine
two required forms into one and make them easier to understand .
However, this opening of the door by Cordray does not look as likely to produce such happy
outcomes. Maybe this is a means for the CFPB to force lobbyists to provide their input in a
format that makes it easier for CFPB to process. But I can't imagine that Cordray or Raj Date
would say to the American Bankers Association: "We are trying to create a level playing
field, so we won't meet with you. Put it in writing and we'll give it due consideration."
So if this portal is a supplemental channel, who exactly is it intended to serve? The
dropdown menu on the "Tell Us About Yourself" page tells us who it expects to comment: people
from organizations, specifically:
Financial services provider
Trade association
Government agency
Community organization
Other
In other words, it does not contemplate that consumers have the expertise or motivation to
provide input. Citizens are probably assumed to be represented via the CFPB itself or perhaps
also by consumer groups, but even then, they may have specific axes to grind (think the
AARP).
More generally, this is another example of attacking the problem at the wrong level. The
reason there is so much corruption in Washington is that the pay gap between what people can
make at senior levels at regulators versus what they can make in the private sector is so
enormous. And pay matters more than ever given the cost of housing, private schools, and
college. Singapore's approach was designed explicitly to prevent corruption in government: pay
top-level bureaucrats at the same level as top private sector professional (think law firm
partners) and have tough and independent internal audit. We are a long long way from embracing
any system like that, but it's important to recognize what the real issues are.
Lobbyist "tax" walks and quacks like an attack on free speech and the right to petition the
government . Even worse, she makes it easy to attack her program in court with this section and
similar observations in her piece:
In the first four months, the DOL received hundreds of comments on the proposed
[fiducairy] rule, including comments from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Morgan Stanley, Bank
of America, BlackRock, and other powerful financial interests. After a public hearing with
testimony from groups like Fidelity and J.P Morgan, the agency received over 100 more
comments -- including dozens from members of Congress, many of which were heavily slanted
toward industry talking points. Because the law requires agencies to respond to each concern
laid out in the public comments, when corporate interests flood agencies with comments, the
process often becomes so time-consuming and resource-intensive that it can kill or delay
final rules altogether -- and that's exactly what happened.
Warren is depicting the act of making public comments as an abuse. And her clear intent is
to reduce corporate input. This particular bit is very problematic: " .many of which were
heavily slanted toward industry talking points." Was she objecting to the fact that a lot of
the submissions were highly parallel, and therefore redundant, designed to choke the pipeline
or simply that they presented familiar pro-business tropes and were low value added? Not being
well crafted is not a basis for rejecting a public comment.
Warren sets herself for a legal challenge to her idea with this bit: "..if the regulation
somehow survives this onslaught, they'll hire fancy lawyers to challenge it in court," and she
later criticizes opponents of the fiduciary rule:
Today, the Department of Labor is led by Eugene Scalia, the very corporate lawyer and
ex-lobbyist who brought the lawsuit to kill off the proposal.
Was Warren missing in action in civics class when they presented the fact that Presidents
make appointments subject to the advice and consent of the Senate? And what would she do about
future Eugene Scalias? She is intimating that he shouldn't have been allowed to serve, but
that's the call of the Senate, not hers.
But more important, Warren makes it clear that she is so opposed to undue corporate
influence that she objects to judicial review. Help me. Philosophically, the US system allows
even the devil to have the benefit of law. But apparently not former law professor Elizabeth
Warren.
Again, the problem of ordinary people and pro-consumer organizations being outmatched in
court isn't going to be solved by treating use of the legal process as illegitimate. The idea
in her scheme that struck me as the most promising was the idea of an Office of the Public
Advocate. If I were in charge, I'd throw tons of money at it, including for litigation.
The Practical Flaws in Warren's Approach
Since this post is already long, we'll address these issues briefly. The IRS is a weak
agency that loses cases against corporate American all the time. A colleague recently confirmed
that take with an insider story on enforcement matters. The short version is that the IRS was
unable even to pursue issues only of moderate complexity. The problem isn't just expertise but
apparently also poor internal communication and coordination.
Tax avoidance is completely legal. If you don't think some of the targets of Warren's tax
would find ways to restructure their operations so as to greatly reduce their tax burdens, I
have a bridge I'd like to sell you. And they'd probably do it not so much to reduce taxes ("We
need more donations due to meanie Warren" would be a powerful fundraising cry and a lot of the
heavyweight groups and big corporations that lobby directly wouldn't miss a stride) as to avoid
funding her anti-lobbying initiatives.
And who would be least able to reorganize their lives to reduce the tax hit? The smaller
public advocates, natch.
* * *
It could be that I've simply hit upon two of Warren's weakest plans. But I have a sneaking
suspicion not. A contact who is an expert on political spending gave a big thumbs down to her
campaign reform proposal. The spectacle of Warren, whose Congressional staffers would regularly
turn out pointed, well-argued, very well supported requests for information from officials that
showed her to be operating way way above legislative norms, publishing plans that score high on
formatting and saber rattling and low on policy plumbing is a bad sign.
The most charitable interpretation is that Warren has weak people on this part of her
campaign and either doesn't know or doesn't care. But Warren historically has also show herself
to be an accomplished administrator. Is she more over her head than the press has figured
out?
Just an excellent critique. My view of Warren's plans was rather shallow and limited. I
could not find any flaws in your assessment. One might think that a senator would have a
better grasp of how DC works – or at least human nature.
"... Trying to head off redivision of the world into nationalist trade blocks by removing Trump via dubiously democratic upheavals (like color revolutions) with more or less fictional quasi-scandals as pro-Russian treason or anti-Ukrainian treason (which is "Huh?" on the face of it,) is futile. It stems from a desire to keep on "free" trading despite the secular stagnation that has set in, hoping that the sociopolitical nowhere (major at least) doesn't collapse until God or Nature or something restores the supposedly natural order of economic growth without end/crisis. ..."
"... I think efforts to keep the neoliberal international WTO/IMF/World Bank "free" trading system is futile because the lower orders are being ordered to be satisfied with a permanent, rigid class system ..."
"... If the pie is to shrink forever, all the vile masses (the deplorables) are going to hang together in their various ways, clinging to shared identity in race or religion or nationality, which will leave the international capitalists hanging, period. "Greed is good" mantra, and the redistribution of the wealth up at the end proved to be very destructive. Saying "Greed is good," then expecting selflessness from the lowers is not high-minded but self-serving. Redistribution of wealth upward has been terribly destructive to social cohesion, both domestically and in the sense of generosity towards foreigners. ..."
"... The pervasive feeling that "we" are going down and drastic action has to be taken is probably why there hasn't been much traction for impeachment til now. If Biden, shown to be shady in regards to Hunter, is nominated to lead the Democratic Party into four/eight years of Obama-esque promise to continue shrinking the status quo for the lowers, Trump will probably win. Warren might have a better chance to convince voters she means to change things (despite the example of Obama,) but she's not very appealing. And she is almost certainly likely to be manipulated like Trump. ..."
"... I *think* that's more or less what likbez, said, though obviously it's not the way likbez wanted to express it. I disagree strenuously on some details, like Warren's problem being a schoolmarm, rather than being a believer in capitalism who shares Trump's moral values against socialism, no matter what voters say. ..."
The headline will become operative in December, if as expected, the Trump Administration
maintains its refusal to nominate new judges
to the WTO appellate panel . That will render the WTO unable to take on new cases, and
bring about an effective return to the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) which
preceded the WTO .
An interesting sidelight is that Brexit No-Dealers have been keen on the merits of trading
"on WTO terms", but those terms will probably be unenforceable by the time No Deal happens (if
it does).
likbez 10.27.19 at 11:22 pm
That's another manifestation of the ascendance of "national neoliberalism," which now is
displacing "classic neoliberalism."
Attempts to remove Trump via color revolution mechanisms (Russiagate, Ukrainegate) are
essentially connected with the desire of adherents of classic neoliberalism to return to the
old paradigm and kick the can down the road until the cliff. I think it is impossible because
the neoliberal elite lost popular support (aka support of deplorables) and now is hanging in
the air. "Greed is good" mantra, and the redistribution of the wealth up at the end proved to
be very destructive.
That's why probably previous attempts to remove Trump were unsuccessful. And if corrupt
classic neoliberal Biden wins Neoliberal Dem Party nomination, the USA probably will get the
second term of Trump. Warren might have a chance as "Better Trump then Trump" although she
proved so far to be pretty inept politician, and like "original" Trump probably can be easily
coerced by the establishment, if she wins.
All this weeping and gnashing of teeth by "neoliberal Intelligentsia" does not change the
fact that neoliberalism entered the period of structural crisis demonstrated by "secular
stagnation," and, as such, its survival is far from certain. We probably can argue only about
how long it will take for the "national neoliberalism" to dismantle it and what shape or form
the new social order will take.
That does not mean that replacing the classic neoliberalism the new social order will be
better, or more just. Neoliberalism was actually two steps back in comparison with the New
Deal Capitalism that it replaced. It clearly was a social regress.
John, I am legitimate curious what you find "exactly right" in the comment above. Other than
the obvious bit in the last line about new deal vs neoliberalism, I would say it is
completely wrong, band presenting an amazingly distorted view of both the last few years and
recent history.
Neo-liberalism is not a unified thing. Right wing parties are not following the original
(the value of choice) paradigm of Milton Friedman that won the argument during the 1970s
inflation panic, but have implemented a deceitful bait and switch strategy, followed by
continually shifting the goalposts – claiming – it would of worked but we weren't
pure enough.
But parts of what Milton Friedman said (for instance the danger of bad micro-economic
design of welfare systems creating poverty traps, and the inherent problems of high tariff
rates) had a kernel of truth. (Unfortunately, Friedman's macro-economics was almost all wrong
and has done great damage.)
"In that context it felt free to override national governments on any issue that
might affect international trade, most notably environmental policies."
Not entirely sure about that. The one case where I was informed enough to really know
detail was the China and rare earths WTO case. China claimed that restrictions on exports of
separated but otherwise unprocessed rare earths were being made on environmental grounds.
Rare earth mining is a messy business, especially the way they do it.
Well, OK. And if such exports were being limited on environmental grounds then that would
be WTO compliant. Which is why the claim presumably.
It was gently or not pointed out that exports of things made from those same rare earths
were not limited in any sense. Therefore that environmental justification might not be quite
the real one. Possibly, it was an attempt to suck RE using industry into China by making rare
earths outside in short supply, but the availability for local processing being unrestricted?
Certainly, one customer of mine at the time seriously considered packing up the US factory
and moving it.
China lost the WTO case. Not because environmental reasons aren't a justification for
restrictions on trade but because no one believed that was the reason, rather than the
justification.
I don't know about other cases – shrimp, tuna – but there is at least the
possibility that it's the argument, not the environment, which wasn't sufficient
justification?
Neoliberalism gets used as a generalized term of abuse these days. Not every political and
institutional development of the last 40 years comes down to the worship of the free market.
In the EU, East Asia, and North America, some of what has taken place is the
rationalization of bureaucratic practices and the weakening of archaic localisms. Some of
these developments have been positive.
In this respect, neoliberalism in the blanket sense used by Likbez and many others is like
what the the ancien regime was, a mix of regressive and progressive tendencies. In the
aftermath of the on-going upheaval, it is likely that it will be reassessed and some of its
features will be valued if they manage to persist.
I'm thinking of international trade agreements, transnational scientific organizations,
and confederations like the European Union.
steven t johnson 10.29.19 at 12:29 am
If I may venture to translate @1?
Right-wing populism like Orban, Salvini, the Brexiteers are sweeping the globe and this is
more of the same.
Trying to head off redivision of the world into nationalist trade blocks by removing
Trump via dubiously democratic upheavals (like color revolutions) with more or less fictional
quasi-scandals as pro-Russian treason or anti-Ukrainian treason (which is "Huh?" on the face
of it,) is futile. It stems from a desire to keep on "free" trading despite the secular
stagnation that has set in, hoping that the sociopolitical nowhere (major at least) doesn't
collapse until God or Nature or something restores the supposedly natural order of economic
growth without end/crisis.
I think efforts to keep the neoliberal international WTO/IMF/World Bank "free" trading
system is futile because the lower orders are being ordered to be satisfied with a permanent,
rigid class system .
If the pie is to shrink forever, all the vile masses (the deplorables) are going to
hang together in their various ways, clinging to shared identity in race or religion or
nationality, which will leave the international capitalists hanging, period. "Greed is good"
mantra, and the redistribution of the wealth up at the end proved to be very destructive.
Saying "Greed is good," then expecting selflessness from the lowers is not high-minded but
self-serving. Redistribution of wealth upward has been terribly destructive to social
cohesion, both domestically and in the sense of generosity towards foreigners.
The pervasive feeling that "we" are going down and drastic action has to be taken is
probably why there hasn't been much traction for impeachment til now. If Biden, shown to be
shady in regards to Hunter, is nominated to lead the Democratic Party into four/eight years
of Obama-esque promise to continue shrinking the status quo for the lowers, Trump will
probably win. Warren might have a better chance to convince voters she means to change things
(despite the example of Obama,) but she's not very appealing. And she is almost certainly
likely to be manipulated like Trump.
Again, despite the fury the old internationalism is collapsing under stagnation and
weeping about it is irrelevant. Without any real ideas, we can only react to events as
nationalist predatory capitals fight for their new world.
I'm not saying the new right wing populism is better. The New Deal/Great Society did more
for America than its political successors since Nixon et al. The years since 1968 I think
have been a regression and I see no reason–alas–that it can't get even worse.
I *think* that's more or less what likbez, said, though obviously it's not the way
likbez wanted to express it. I disagree strenuously on some details, like Warren's problem
being a schoolmarm, rather than being a believer in capitalism who shares Trump's moral
values against socialism, no matter what voters say.
It is a particular mutation of the original concept similar to mutation of socialism into
national socialism, when domestic policies are mostly preserved (including rampant
deregulation) and supplemented by repressive measures (total surveillance) , but in foreign
policy "might make right" and unilateralism with the stress on strictly bilateral regulations
of trade (no WTO) somewhat modifies "Washington consensus". In other words, the foreign
financial oligarchy has a demoted status under the "national neoliberalism" regime, while the
national financial oligarchy and manufactures are elevated.
And the slogan of "financial oligarchy of all countries, unite" which is sine qua
non of classic neoliberalism is effectively dead and is replaced by protection racket of
the most political powerful players (look at Biden and Ukrainian oligarchs behavior here
;-)
> I think every sentence in that comment is either completely wrong or at least
debatable. And is likbez actually John Hewson, because that comment reads like one of John
Hewson's commentaries
> Most obviously, to define Warren and Trump as both being neoliberals drains the
term of any meaning
You are way too fast even for a political football forward ;-).
Warren capitalizes on the same discontent and the feeling of the crisis of neoliberalism
that allowed Trump to win. Yes, she is a much better candidate than Trump, and her policy
proposals are better (unless she is coerced by the Deep State like Trump in the first three
months of her Presidency).
Still, unlike Sanders in domestic policy and Tulsi in foreign policy, she is a neoliberal
reformist at heart and a neoliberal warmonger in foreign policy. Most of her policy proposals
are quite shallow, and are just a band-aid.
> Neoliberalism gets used as a generalized term of abuse these days. Not every
political and institutional development of the last 40 years comes down to the worship of
the free market.
This is a typical stance of neoliberal MSM, a popular line of attack on critics of
neoliberalism.
Yes, of course, not everything political and institutional development of the last 40
years comes down to the worship of the "free market." But how can it be otherwise? Notions of
human agency, a complex interaction of politics and economics in human affairs, technological
progress since 1970th, etc., all play a role. But a historian needs to be able to somehow
integrate the mass of evidence into a coherent and truthful story.
And IMHO this story for the last several decades is the ascendance and now decline of
"classic neoliberalism" with its stress on the neoliberal globalization and opening of the
foreign markets for transnational corporations (often via direct or indirect (financial)
pressure, or subversive actions including color revolutions and military intervention) and
replacement of it by "national neoliberalism" -- domestic neoliberalism without (or with a
different type of) neoliberal globalization.
Defining features of national neoliberalism along with the rejection of neoliberal
globalization and, in particular, multiparty treaties like WTO is massive, overwhelming
propaganda including politicized witch hunts (via neoliberal MSM), total surveillance of
citizens by the national security state institutions (three-letter agencies which now
acquired a political role), as well as elements of classic nationalism built-in.
The dominant ideology of the last 30 years was definitely connected with "worshiping of
free markets," a secular religion that displaced alternative views and, for several decades
(say 1976 -2007), dominated the discourse. So worshiping (or pretense of worshiping) of "free
market" (as if such market exists, and is not a theological construct -- a deity of some
sort) is really defining feature here.
"MSNBC names four renowned female journalists as moderators for November debate" [
NBC ]. "Moderating the Nov. 20 event, which is being co-hosted by MSNBC and The Washington
Post, will be Rachel Maddow, host of "The Rachel Maddow Show" on MSNBC; Andrea Mitchell, host
of "Andrea Mitchell Reports" on MSNBC and NBC News' chief foreign affairs correspondent;
Kristen Welker, NBC News' White House correspondent; and Ashley Parker, a White House reporter
for The Washington Post." • The count of journalists is off by at least one.
Warren (D)(1): "Warren cutting into Biden's lead in new SC 2020 Democratic poll" [
Post and Courier ]. "Biden's lead in South Carolina, which had hovered around 20 percentage
points since the summer, has shrunk Biden received 30 percent to Warren's 19 percent. Vermont
Sen. Bernie Sanders at 13 percent and California Sen. Kamala Harris at 11 percent are the only
two other candidates with double-digit results in South Carolina . The biggest gains in the
latest poll came from fifth- and sixth-place contenders, South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg
and billionaire hedge fund manager Tom Steyer." • Everybody loves a winner, but the gains
in the third tier show SC is still fluid (though perhaps not a firewall for Biden).
Yet another case where Warren's problem statement isn't commensurate with the proposed
solution .
Impeachment
"Republicans criticize House impeachment process -- while fully participating in probe" [
WaPo ]. "Then the questions begin to fly, largely from the expert staff hired by lawmakers
on the House Intelligence Committee and other panels participating in the probe. Each side gets
an equal amount of questions, as dictated by long-standing House rules guiding these
interviews. 'It starts one hour, one hour,' said Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), explaining how the
questioning moves beyond one-hour blocks for each side. 'Then it goes 45, 45, 45, 45, with
breaks, occasionally, and breaks for lunch.' Meadows, one of Trump's staunchest allies, said
each side has been allowed an unlimited amount of questions they can ask of witnesses.' Those
participating in the closed-door depositions generally say that these interviews are very
professional and that both sides have operated under
rules that were approved in January ." • As I've said, I don't like the policy on
transcripts, and my litmus test for legitimacy is that there's no secret evidence at all. I
don't much like that Republicans can't subpeona witnesses, either.
With a great weeping, gnashing of teeth, rending of garments and clutching of pearls, the Democrats have declared that the
decision to withdraw troops from Syria was a
mortal sin .
Joe Biden called it "the most shameful thing that any president has done in modern history in terms of foreign policy." Elizabeth
Warren said Trump "has cut and run on our allies," and "created a bigger-than-ever humanitarian crisis." Kamala Harris announced,
"Yet again Donald Trump [is] selling folks out."
However, it required Mayor Buttigieg to make it a personal
moral imperative .
Meanwhile, soldiers in the field are reporting that for the first time they feel ashamed -- ashamed -- of what their country
has done.
Democrats are totally honest and sincere here. It's not like they would have any
double-standards on this issue.
When Muir asked Buttigieg whether he would stick to his pledge to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan in his first year
despite warnings from top American commanders, Buttigieg ducked the question and insisted that "we have got to put an end to
endless war." Turning to Biden, Muir cited "concerns about any possible vacuum being created in Afghanistan." But Biden brushed
them off, declaring, "We don't need those troops there. I would bring them home."
What makes these statements so remarkable is that experts warn that if the United States withdraws its troops from Afghanistan
in the absence of a peace agreement, Afghanistan will suffer a fate remarkably similar to what is happening in northern Syria.
It's not like this issue is anything less than black or white.
It's not like we would eventually have
the
choice of supporting either a Kurdish/Arab militia tied however loosely to the PKK, a designated terror group perceived by
Turkey as an existential threat, or
Turkey , a NATO member.
We keep hearing how we "betrayed our allies," but who promised the Kurds that we would fight Turkey on their behalf? It's
a big jump from "Let's both fight ISIS" to "Take that, NATO ally." But our garbage media, and our garbage politicians, sort
of hand wave away the fact that you can't "betray" someone by not doing what you never promised to do, especially when no reasonable
person could ever expect you to do it.
Oh wait. It's exactly like that.
All this virtue-signaling amounts to "I want you to send your sons and daughters to kill and maybe die fighting a long-time ally
because otherwise 'Putin will win'!"
Yes, Putin will get more control over a war-torn country, a ruined economy, with bombed-out cities, and millions of refugees.
Why must we deny him of this again?
And then there is the
lack of an AUMF
for us being in Syria. Which makes our occupation of Syria illegal, both by domestic law, and
international law .
Syria is not our country and U.S. troops were never authorized by its sovereign government to be there. Whether or not Washington
likes Damascus is irrelevant, under international law U.S. troops have no right to be there. Even flights over Syrian airspace
by the U.S. coalition are a violation of international agreements.
Why doesn't Bernie or Gabbard mention that this is an illegal war? People might care.
Also, does anyone remember when putting troops in Syria was something to be avoided?
Does anyone else remember the
16 times Obama said there would be no boots on the ground in Syria?
Since 2013, President Obama has repeatedly vowed that there would be no "boots on the ground" in Syria.
But White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the president's decision Friday to send up to 50 special forces troops
to Syria doesn't change the fundamental strategy: "This is an important thing for the American people to understand. These
forces do not have a combat mission."
We now have a stage full of presidential candidates that say they love Obama, yet ignore this part of his legacy (that he himself
violated).
Finally there is our legacy in Syria. Our legacy of
war crimes .
"The Commission finds that there are reasonable grounds to believe that international coalition forces may not have directed
their attacks at a specific military objective, or failed to do so with the necessary precaution," it said.
"Launching indiscriminate attacks that result in death or injury to civilians amounts to a war crime in cases in which such
attacks are conducted recklessly," it added.
Engaging in an illegal war while committing war crimes is a "full stop" right there. No amount of virtue-signaling can justify
this.
And yet it still gets worse
.
In a now-famous secretly recorded conversation with Syrian opposition activists in New York, Former Secretary of State John
Kerry admitted that the United States was hoping to use ISIS to undermine the Syrian government. To put it bluntly, U.S. foreign
policy was duplicitous and used terrorism as a tool. This, of course, is a well-documented fact.
If we had a real media these candidates would all be crucified.
gjohnsit on Fri, 10/18/2019 - 5:38pm With a great weeping, gnashing of teeth, rending of garments and clutching of pearls,
the Democrats have declared that the decision to withdraw troops from Syria was a
mortal sin .
Joe Biden called it "the most shameful thing that any president has done in modern history in terms of foreign policy." Elizabeth
Warren said Trump "has cut and run on our allies," and "created a bigger-than-ever humanitarian crisis." Kamala Harris announced,
"Yet again Donald Trump [is] selling folks out."
However, it required Mayor Buttigieg to make it a personal
moral imperative .
Meanwhile, soldiers in the field are reporting that for the first time they feel ashamed -- ashamed -- of what their country has
done.
Democrats are totally honest and sincere here. It's not like they would have any
double-standards on this issue.
When Muir asked Buttigieg whether he would stick to his pledge to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan in his first year
despite warnings from top American commanders, Buttigieg ducked the question and insisted that "we have got to put an end to endless
war." Turning to Biden, Muir cited "concerns about any possible vacuum being created in Afghanistan." But Biden brushed them off,
declaring, "We don't need those troops there. I would bring them home."
What makes these statements so remarkable is that experts warn that if the United States withdraws its troops from Afghanistan
in the absence of a peace agreement, Afghanistan will suffer a fate remarkably similar to what is happening in northern Syria.
It's not like this issue is anything less than black or white.
It's not like we would eventually have
the choice
of supporting either a Kurdish/Arab militia tied however loosely to the PKK, a designated terror group perceived by Turkey as an
existential threat, or
Turkey , a NATO member.
We keep hearing how we "betrayed our allies," but who promised the Kurds that we would fight Turkey on their behalf? It's a
big jump from "Let's both fight ISIS" to "Take that, NATO ally." But our garbage media, and our garbage politicians, sort of hand
wave away the fact that you can't "betray" someone by not doing what you never promised to do, especially when no reasonable person
could ever expect you to do it.
Oh wait. It's exactly like that.
All this virtue-signaling amounts to "I want you to send your sons and daughters to kill and maybe die fighting a long-time ally
because otherwise 'Putin will win'!"
Yes, Putin will get more control over a war-torn country, a ruined economy, with bombed-out cities, and millions of refugees. Why
must we deny him of this again?
And then there is the
lack of an AUMF
for us being in Syria. Which makes our occupation of Syria illegal, both by domestic law, and
international law .
Syria is not our country and U.S. troops were never authorized by its sovereign government to be there. Whether or not Washington
likes Damascus is irrelevant, under international law U.S. troops have no right to be there. Even flights over Syrian airspace
by the U.S. coalition are a violation of international agreements.
Why doesn't Bernie or Gabbard mention that this is an illegal war? People might care.
Also, does anyone remember when putting troops in Syria was something to be avoided?
Does anyone else remember the
16 times Obama said there would be no boots on the ground in Syria?
Since 2013, President Obama has repeatedly vowed that there would be no "boots on the ground" in Syria.
But White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the president's decision Friday to send up to 50 special forces troops to
Syria doesn't change the fundamental strategy: "This is an important thing for the American people to understand. These forces
do not have a combat mission."
We now have a stage full of presidential candidates that say they love Obama, yet ignore this part of his legacy (that he himself
violated).
Finally there is our legacy in Syria. Our legacy of
war crimes .
"The Commission finds that there are reasonable grounds to believe that international coalition forces may not have directed their
attacks at a specific military objective, or failed to do so with the necessary precaution," it said.
"Launching indiscriminate attacks that result in death or injury to civilians amounts to a war crime in cases in which such
attacks are conducted recklessly," it added.
Engaging in an illegal war while committing war crimes is a "full stop" right there. No amount of virtue-signaling can justify
this.
And yet it still gets worse
.
In a now-famous secretly recorded conversation with Syrian opposition activists in New York, Former Secretary of State John Kerry
admitted that the United States was hoping to use ISIS to undermine the Syrian government. To put it bluntly, U.S. foreign policy
was duplicitous and used terrorism as a tool. This, of course, is a well-documented fact.
If we had a real media these candidates would all be crucified.
The UAE is pumping millions of dollars into "vast and influential" lobbying efforts in the US, using a range of public relations
companies to help shape foreign policy issues, a report by a Washington-based non-profit alleged this week.
The report published by the Center for International Policy (CIP) claims that 20 US companies were paid around $20 million
to lobby politicians and other influential institutions on foreign policy issues.
"Though the Emirati's influence operation differs notably from the Saudi's in many ways, both rely heavily on their FARA
registered lobbying and public relations firms to brandish their image in the US, and to keep their transgressions out of the
public consciousness as much as possible," the report reads.
The report is part of CIP's Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative, which aims to elucidate the "half-billion-dollar
foreign influence industry working to shape US foreign policy every single day".
The report added Emirati influence operation targeted legislators, non-profits, media outlets and think-tanks in an attempt
to portray the UAE to the world in a positive light.
The New Arab article quote "public relations firms to brandish their image in the US" has a word usage problem. The correct
word would be burnish, not brandish. You brandish your weapon. You burnish your image.
The UAE is pumping millions of dollars into "vast and influential" lobbying efforts in the US, using a range of public
relations companies to help shape foreign policy issues, a report by a Washington-based non-profit alleged this week.
The report published by the Center for International Policy (CIP) claims that 20 US companies were paid around $20 million
to lobby politicians and other influential institutions on foreign policy issues.
"Though the Emirati's influence operation differs notably from the Saudi's in many ways, both rely heavily on their FARA
registered lobbying and public relations firms to brandish their image in the US, and to keep their transgressions out of
the public consciousness as much as possible," the report reads.
The report is part of CIP's Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative, which aims to elucidate the "half-billion-dollar
foreign influence industry working to shape US foreign policy every single day".
The report added Emirati influence operation targeted legislators, non-profits, media outlets and think-tanks in an attempt
to portray the UAE to the world in a positive light.
a lot of people think it is actually kind of *staged* by an agreement with Russia and Turkey, and if so, it'll force the United
States out of northern Syria, make the US look stupid, but actually give everybody what they want. Check it out:
--Turkey makes some initial attacks in northern Syria, tells the US to get out of the way and abandon the Kurds
--The Kurds are forced to ally with Syrian forces, and they are swept into the Syrian Army ranks (negating their ability to
go independent)
--The Syrian Army moves to the border and starts manning border crossings (already happening in many places), providing a long-term
buffer between Kurds and Turkey
--The Turkish-backed terrorist forces are expended in border confrontations (Turkey really does not want them long-term)
--Once things settle down, Syrian refugees move back into Syria, out of Turkey
--US forces are forced to move out of northeastern Syria and out of the oil fields (or be surrounded and starved out by Syrian/Russian/Kurdish
forces)
--Kurds are not wholesale slaughtered, and Democratic presidential candidates are revealed for their foolishness in the whole
thing
--Trump gets more of what he wants--more US troops out of Syria (against the wishes of the deep state)
--Turkey has a protected border and the incesant attacks from Kurds drops to manageable levels due to the Syrian army border
and the Kurds becoming integrated into Syrian forces.
I give this a 50% of how it will play out. Sure, there are current battles ongoing, but so far, Turkey is not attacking Syrian
forces, who are moving up into place on the border in many areas. The central area is still fluid, but let's see where it dies
down in a couple weeks.
"Democratic presidential candidates are revealed for their foolishness" won't happen. The MSM won't allow it.
a lot of people think it is actually kind of *staged* by an agreement with Russia and Turkey, and if so, it'll force the
United States out of northern Syria, make the US look stupid, but actually give everybody what they want. Check it out:
--Turkey makes some initial attacks in northern Syria, tells the US to get out of the way and abandon the Kurds
--The Kurds are forced to ally with Syrian forces, and they are swept into the Syrian Army ranks (negating their ability
to go independent)
--The Syrian Army moves to the border and starts manning border crossings (already happening in many places), providing
a long-term buffer between Kurds and Turkey
--The Turkish-backed terrorist forces are expended in border confrontations (Turkey really does not want them long-term)
--Once things settle down, Syrian refugees move back into Syria, out of Turkey
--US forces are forced to move out of northeastern Syria and out of the oil fields (or be surrounded and starved out by
Syrian/Russian/Kurdish forces)
--Kurds are not wholesale slaughtered, and Democratic presidential candidates are revealed for their foolishness in the
whole thing
--Trump gets more of what he wants--more US troops out of Syria (against the wishes of the deep state)
--Turkey has a protected border and the incesant attacks from Kurds drops to manageable levels due to the Syrian army border
and the Kurds becoming integrated into Syrian forces.
I give this a 50% of how it will play out. Sure, there are current battles ongoing, but so far, Turkey is not attacking
Syrian forces, who are moving up into place on the border in many areas. The central area is still fluid, but let's see where
it dies down in a couple weeks.
(as Kurdish Syria is sometimes called) is that one
of the Kurd leaders became a follower of Murray Bookchin after spending a bunch of time as a Marxist-Leninist, and so portions
of Kurdish society are an experiment in Bookchinism. Here is a
piece by Bookchin's daughter on the correspondence between him and the Kurds. Hopefully the Kurds will find some protection
in the new Putin-brokered Syria.
Otherwise, yeah, the Kurds are an ally of convenience for the Democratic Party and its apologists on that most disgusting of
propaganda instruments, National Public Radio.
but it should have also been illegal for us to arm the same people that we had declared terrorists. Now those people are killing
the people who fought on our side against the ones now doing the killing.. my head is spinning with all the insane talking points
coming from people who have never met a war they didn't support.
This is a good read.
Former and current US officials have slammed the Turkish mercenary force of "Arab militias" for executing and beheading Kurds
in northern Syria. New data from Turkey reveals that almost all of these militias were armed and trained in the past by the CIA
and Pentagon.
By Max Blumenthal
Left: John McCain with then-FSA chief Salim Idriss (right) in 2013; Right: Salim Idriss (center) in October, announcing the establishment
of the National Front for Liberation, the Turkish mercenary army that has invaded northern Syria.
Hmm..kinda hard to explain that huh? The article talks about Idriss in detail. As well as Obama and Hillary's roles in the
'no boots on the ground' war.
This should embarrass every person who is moaning over Trump's actions in Syria. Turkey was coming in one way or another and
the only way to stop them was for our troops to stand in their way. But what really ticks me off is all of that equipment they
left behind on their bug out. Not just tents , TVs and air conditioners and everything in between, but they left weapons and bombs
there and they just blew them up. This will make the defense companies very happy!
After the ceasefire, US backed
#Kurds are deciding to hand over the north of
#Syria to Turkey rather than the
Syrian army. All trump had to promise them was a stake in
#Syria 's oil fields.
https://t.co/euat8DvIa4
Syrian Girl lives in Syria and has been a good source of information, but I'm not sure if what she is reporting is true. But
wouldn't that shut lots of people up?
Obama kept troops out of Syria until the last minute. Then he took a force small enough to justify his successor's escalation.
So when the Turks tried to genocide the Kurds - like they were certain to do - Trump gets the blame. But it was supposed to be
Hillary. What was in it for her? The joy of another country seeing genocide?
The Kurds were promised land and valuable oil fields in North Eastern Syria by... the US. What's wrong with this picture? Damascus
has I invited the Kurds to be part of the multi-ethnic Syria. The Kurds refused and took America's deal. We armed them to the
teeth with 10s of billions of dollars of weapons. What could go wrong? Well just about everything as the US offer was highly illegal,
they are stealing Syrian oil, and Turkey will not accept any Kurdish permanent enclave on her border. Syria, Russia, Iran, China,
Hezbollah, Iraq and more support the reunification of all of Syria. Why were the Kurds so stupid? Go it? Blind belief in the all
powerful US!
Warren (D)(1): "Elizabeth Warren to put out plan on how to pay for 'Medicare for All'" [
CNN ]. • "Pay for" being both delusional and a question nobody, including Warren,
ever asks about war, and "taxes on the middle class" being, shall we say, a well-worn,
content-free trope.
Warren (D)(2): "Why Criticize Warren?" [Nathan Robinson, Current Affairs ]. "What
will the right's main line of attack against Warren be? I think you can see it already,
actually: They will attempt to portray her as inauthentic and untrustworthy. She will be
painted as a Harvard egghead who has suddenly discovered populism for self-serving reasons, a
slippery elite who isn't telling you the truth about her agenda . What worries me about
Elizabeth Warren is that the criticisms of her as untrustworthy are not easy to wave away.
Warren began her 2020 campaign with a video claiming to be a Native American, even though she
isn't one. She
has now tried to bury the evidence that she did this, by deleting the video and all
accompanying social media posts .
I have tried, so far, to avoid lapsing into the usual discussions of "Bernie Sanders
versus Elizabeth Warren," but here I should note that one reason I think Bernie Sanders is
such a powerful potential candidate against Trump is that he doesn't have these kind of messy
problems of authenticity and honesty.
The thing almost nobody denies about Bernie is that you know where he stands."
As The Big Picture says above. This is a massive takedown, and I've focused on a single,
tactical issue, but this post is a must-read in full. If it's correct, the Warren campaign is
a train-wreck waiting to happen.
(Adding, the Cherokee issue really matters to me, because the Penobscots were enormously
powerful allies in the fight against the landfill (and cf. Standing Rock). It just drives me
bananas that Warren didn't check in with the Cherokees before declaring herself one of them.
I think it's an outrage, and I don't care if I get eye-rolls for it.)
Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren is paying Facebook Inc. to run false
advertisements that its Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg is endorsing President Donald
Trump.
Warren's campaign sponsored the posts which were blasted into the feeds of U.S. users of
the social network, as it pushed back against Facebook's policy to exempt politicians' ads
from its third-party fact-checking program.
The ads, which begin with the falsehood, quickly backtracks: "You're probably shocked. And
you might be thinking, 'how could this possibly be true?' Well, it's not." ...
"If Senator Warren wants to say things she knows to be untrue, we believe Facebook should
not be in the position of censoring that speech," Andy Stone, a spokesman for Facebook, said
in a statement to CNN on the ads.
This isn't the first time Warren has used Facebook's own platform to make a political
point. In March, Facebook took down ads from her campaign that called for the company to be
broken up, but later restored them.
This time, Warren's latest ads strike a more forceful tone, calling on users to hold the
Facebook CEO accountable and to back her mission.
"Facebook already helped elect Donald Trump once," the ads read. "Now, they're
deliberately allowing a candidate to intentionally lie to the American people."
Great tactic, and Hilarious at that. I passed it on on my face book account. Great political
humor has been a proven vote winner. Anytime you get a chuckle, the residual resentment gets
same relief.
The term "centrist" is replaced by a more appropriate term "neoliberal oligarchy"
Notable quotes:
"... Furthermore, Donald Trump might well emerge from this national ordeal with his reelection chances enhanced. Such a prospect is belatedly insinuating itself into public discourse. For that reason, certain anti-Trump pundits are already showing signs of going wobbly, suggesting , for instance, that censure rather than outright impeachment might suffice as punishment for the president's various offenses. Yet censuring Trump while allowing him to stay in office would be the equivalent of letting Harvey Weinstein off with a good tongue-lashing so that he can get back to making movies. Censure is for wimps. ..."
"... So if Trump finds himself backed into a corner, Democrats aren't necessarily in a more favorable position. And that aren't the half of it. Let me suggest that, while Trump is being pursued, it's you, my fellow Americans, who are really being played. The unspoken purpose of impeachment is not removal, but restoration. The overarching aim is not to replace Trump with Mike Pence -- the equivalent of exchanging Groucho for Harpo. No, the object of the exercise is to return power to those who created the conditions that enabled Trump to win the White House in the first place. ..."
"... For many of the main participants in this melodrama, the actual but unstated purpose of impeachment is to correct this great wrong and thereby restore history to its anointed path. ..."
"... In a recent column in The Guardian, Professor Samuel Moyn makes the essential point: Removing from office a vulgar, dishonest and utterly incompetent president comes nowhere close to capturing what's going on here. To the elites most intent on ousting Trump, far more important than anything he may say or do is what he signifies. He is a walking, talking repudiation of everything they believe and, by extension, of a future they had come to see as foreordained. ..."
"... Moyn styles these anti-Trump elites as "neoliberal oligarchy", members of the post-Cold War political mainstream that allowed ample room for nominally conservative Bushes and nominally liberal Clintons, while leaving just enough space for Barack Obama's promise of hope-and-(not-too-much) change. ..."
"... These "neoliberal oligarchy" share a common worldview. They believe in the universality of freedom as defined and practiced within the United States. They believe in corporate capitalism operating on a planetary scale. They believe in American primacy, with the United States presiding over a global order as the sole superpower. They believe in "American global leadership," which they define as primarily a military enterprise. And perhaps most of all, while collecting degrees from Georgetown, Harvard, Oxford, Wellesley, the University of Chicago, and Yale, they came to believe in a so-called meritocracy as the preferred mechanism for allocating wealth, power and privilege. All of these together comprise the sacred scripture of contemporary American political elites. And if Donald Trump's antagonists have their way, his removal will restore that sacred scripture to its proper place as the basis of policy. ..."
"... "For all their appeals to enduring moral values," Moyn writes, "the "neoliberal oligarchy" are deploying a transparent strategy to return to power." Destruction of the Trump presidency is a necessary precondition for achieving that goal. ""neoliberal oligarchy" simply want to return to the status quo interrupted by Trump, their reputations laundered by their courageous opposition to his mercurial reign, and their policies restored to credibility." Precisely. ..."
"... how does such misconduct compare to the calamities engineered by the "neoliberal oligarchy" who preceded him? ..."
"... Trump's critics speak with one voice in demanding accountability. Yet virtually no one has been held accountable for the pain, suffering, and loss inflicted by the architects of the Iraq War and the Great Recession. Why is that? As another presidential election approaches, the question not only goes unanswered, but unasked. ..."
"... To win reelection, Trump, a corrupt con man (who jumped ship on his own bankrupt casinos, money in hand, leaving others holding the bag) will cheat and lie. Yet, in the politics of the last half-century, these do not qualify as novelties. (Indeed, apart from being the son of a sitting U.S. vice president, what made Hunter Biden worth $50Gs per month to a gas company owned by a Ukrainian oligarch? I'm curious.) That the president and his associates are engaging in a cover-up is doubtless the case. Yet another cover-up proceeds in broad daylight on a vastly larger scale. "Trump's shambolic presidency somehow seems less unsavory," Moyn writes, when considering the fact that his critics refuse "to admit how massively his election signified the failure of their policies, from endless war to economic inequality." Just so. ..."
"... Exactly. Trump is the result of voter disgust with Bush III vs Clinton II, the presumed match up for a year or more leading up to 2016. Now Democrats want to do it again, thinking they can elect anybody against Trump. That's what Hillary thought too. ..."
"... Trump won for lack of alternatives. Our political class is determined to prevent any alternatives breaking through this time either. They don't want Trump, but even more they want to protect their gravy train of donor money, the huge overspending on medical care (four times the defense budget) and of course all those Forever Wars. ..."
"... Trump could win, for the same reasons as last time, even though the result would be no better than last time. ..."
"... I wish the slick I.D. politics obsessed corporate Dems nothing but the worst, absolute worst. They reap what they sow. If it means another four years of Trump, so be it. It's the price that's going to have to be paid. ..."
"... At a time when a majority of U.S. citizens cannot muster up $500 for an emergency dental bill or car repair without running down to the local "pay day loan" lender shark (now established as legitimate businesses) the corporate Dems, in their infinite wisdom, decide to concoct an impeachment circus to run simultaneously when all the dirt against the execrable Brennan and his intel minions starts to hit the press for their Russiagate hoax. Nice sleight of hand there corporate Dems. ..."
There is blood in the water and frenzied sharks are closing in for the kill. Or so they
think.
From the time of Donald Trump's election, American elites have hungered for this moment. At
long last, they have the 45th president of the United States cornered. In typically ham-handed
fashion, Trump has given his adversaries the very means to destroy him politically. They will
not waste the opportunity. Impeachment now -- finally, some will say -- qualifies as a virtual
certainty.
No doubt many surprises lie ahead. Yet the Democrats controlling the House of
Representatives have passed the point of no return. The time for prudential judgments -- the
Republican-controlled Senate will never convict, so why bother? -- is gone for good. To back
down now would expose the president's pursuers as spineless cowards. TheNew York
Times, The Washington Post, CNN and MSNBC would not soon forgive such craven behavior.
So, as President Woodrow Wilson, speaking in 1919 put it, "The stage is set, the
destiny disclosed. It has come about by no plan of our conceiving, but by the hand of God." Of
course, the issue back then was a notably weighty one: whether to ratify the Versailles Treaty.
That it now concerns a "
Mafia-like shakedown " orchestrated by one of Wilson's successors tells us something about
the trajectory of American politics over the course of the last century and it has not been a
story of ascent.
The effort to boot the president from office is certain to yield a memorable spectacle. The
rancor and contempt that have clogged American politics like a backed-up sewer since the day of
Trump's election will now find release. Watergate will pale by comparison. The uproar triggered
by Bill Clinton's "
sexual relations " will be nothing by comparison. A de facto collaboration between
Trump, those who despise him, and those who despise his critics all but guarantees that this
story will dominate the news, undoubtedly for months to come.
As this process unspools, what politicians like to call "the people's business" will go
essentially unattended. So while Congress considers whether or not to remove Trump from office,
gun-control legislation will languish, the deterioration of the nation's infrastructure will
proceed apace, needed healthcare reforms will be tabled, the military-industrial complex will
waste yet more billions, and the national debt, already at $22 trillion --
larger, that is, than the entire economy -- will continue to surge. The looming threat posed by
climate change, much talked about of late, will proceed all but unchecked. For those of us
preoccupied with America's role in the world, the obsolete assumptions and habits undergirding
what's still called " national
security " will continue to evade examination. Our endless wars will remain endless and
pointless.
By way of compensation, we might wonder what benefits impeachment is likely to yield.
Answering that question requires examining four scenarios that describe the range of
possibilities awaiting the nation.
The first and most to be desired (but least likely) is that Trump will tire of being a
public piñata and just quit. With the thrill of flying in Air Force One having
worn off, being president can't be as much fun these days. Why put up with further grief? How
much more entertaining for Trump to retire to the political sidelines where he can tweet up a
storm and indulge his penchant for name-calling. And think of the "deals" an ex-president could
make in countries like Israel, North Korea, Poland, and Saudi Arabia on which he's bestowed
favors. Cha-ching! As of yet, however, the president shows no signs of taking the easy (and
lucrative) way out.
The second possible outcome sounds almost as good but is no less implausible: a sufficient
number of Republican senators rediscover their moral compass and "do the right thing," joining
with Democrats to create the two-thirds majority needed to convict Trump and send him packing.
In the Washington of that classic 20th-century film director Frank Capra, with Jimmy Stewart
holding
forth on the Senate floor and a moist-eyed Jean Arthur cheering him on from the gallery,
this might have happened. In the real Washington of "Moscow Mitch"
McConnell , think again.
The third somewhat seamier outcome might seem a tad more likely. It postulates that
McConnell and various GOP senators facing reelection in 2020 or 2022 will calculate that
turning on Trump just might offer the best way of saving their own skins. The president's
loyalty to just about anyone, wives included, has always been highly contingent, the people
streaming out of his administration routinely making the point. So why should senatorial
loyalty to the president be any different? At the moment, however, indications that Trump
loyalists out in the hinterlands will reward such turncoats are just about nonexistent. Unless
that base were to flip, don't expect Republican senators to do anything but flop.
That leaves outcome No. 4, easily the most probable: while the House will impeach, the
Senate will decline to convict. Trump will therefore stay right where he is, with the matter of
his fitness for office effectively deferred to the November 2020 elections. Except as a source
of sadomasochistic diversion, the entire agonizing experience will, therefore, prove to be a
colossal waste of time and blather.
Furthermore, Donald Trump might well emerge from this national ordeal with his reelection
chances enhanced. Such a prospect is belatedly insinuating itself into public discourse. For
that reason, certain anti-Trump pundits are already showing signs of going wobbly,
suggesting , for instance, that censure rather than outright impeachment might suffice as
punishment for the president's various offenses. Yet censuring Trump while allowing him to stay
in office would be the equivalent of letting Harvey Weinstein off with a good tongue-lashing so
that he can get back to making movies. Censure is for wimps.
Besides, as Trump campaigns for a second term, he would almost surely wear censure like a
badge of honor. Keep in mind that Congress's
approval ratings are considerably worse than his. To more than a few members of the public,
a black mark awarded by Congress might look like a gold star.
Restoration Not Removal
So if Trump finds himself backed into a corner, Democrats aren't necessarily in a more
favorable position. And that aren't the half of it. Let me suggest that, while Trump is being
pursued, it's you, my fellow Americans, who are really being played. The unspoken purpose of
impeachment is not removal, but restoration. The overarching aim is not to replace Trump with
Mike Pence -- the equivalent of exchanging Groucho for Harpo. No, the object of the exercise is
to return power to those who created the conditions that enabled Trump to win the White House
in the first place.
Just recently, for instance, Hillary Clinton
declared Trump to be an "illegitimate president." Implicit in her charge is the conviction
-- no doubt sincere -- that people like Donald Trump are not supposed to be president.
People like Hillary Clinton -- people possessing credentials
like hers and sharing her values -- should be the chosen ones. Here we glimpse the true
meaning of legitimacy in this context. Whatever the vote in the Electoral College, Trump
doesn't deserve to be president and never did.
For many of the main participants in this melodrama, the actual but unstated purpose of
impeachment is to correct this great wrong and thereby restore history to its anointed
path.
In a
recent column in The Guardian, Professor Samuel Moyn makes the essential point:
Removing from office a vulgar, dishonest and utterly incompetent president comes nowhere close
to capturing what's going on here. To the elites most intent on ousting Trump, far more
important than anything he may say or do is what he signifies. He is a walking, talking
repudiation of everything they believe and, by extension, of a future they had come to see as
foreordained.
Moyn styles these anti-Trump elites as "neoliberal oligarchy", members of the post-Cold War political
mainstream that allowed ample room for nominally conservative Bushes and nominally liberal
Clintons, while leaving just enough space for Barack Obama's promise of hope-and-(not-too-much)
change.
These "neoliberal oligarchy" share a common worldview. They believe in the universality of freedom as
defined and practiced within the United States. They believe in corporate capitalism operating
on a planetary scale. They believe in American primacy, with the United States presiding over a
global order as the sole superpower. They believe in "American global leadership," which they
define as primarily a military enterprise. And perhaps most of all, while collecting degrees
from Georgetown, Harvard, Oxford, Wellesley, the University of Chicago, and Yale, they came to
believe in a so-called meritocracy as the preferred mechanism for allocating wealth, power and
privilege. All of these together comprise the sacred scripture of contemporary American
political elites. And if Donald Trump's antagonists have their way, his removal will restore
that sacred scripture to its proper place as the basis of policy.
"For all their appeals to enduring moral values," Moyn writes, "the "neoliberal oligarchy" are deploying
a transparent strategy to return to power." Destruction of the Trump presidency is a necessary
precondition for achieving that goal. ""neoliberal oligarchy" simply want to return to the status quo
interrupted by Trump, their reputations laundered by their courageous opposition to his
mercurial reign, and their policies restored to credibility." Precisely.
High Crimes and Misdemeanors
The U.S. military's "shock and awe" bombing of Baghdad at the start of the Iraq War, as
broadcast on CNN.
For such a scheme to succeed, however, laundering reputations alone will not suffice.
Equally important will be to bury any recollection of the catastrophes that paved the way for
an über -qualified centrist to lose to an indisputably unqualified and
unprincipled political novice in 2016.
Holding promised security assistance hostage unless a foreign leader agrees to do you
political favors is obviously and indisputably wrong. Trump's antics regarding Ukraine may even
meet some definition of criminal. Still, how does such misconduct compare to the calamities engineered by the "neoliberal
oligarchy" who preceded him? Consider, in particular, the George W. Bush
administration's decision to invade Iraq in 2003 (along with the spin-off wars that followed).
Consider, too, the reckless economic policies that produced the Great Recession of 2007-2008.
As measured by the harm inflicted on the American people (and others), the offenses for which
Trump is being impeached qualify as mere misdemeanors.
Honest people may differ on whether to attribute the Iraq War to outright lies or monumental
hubris. When it comes to tallying up the consequences, however, the intentions of those who
sold the war don't particularly matter. The results include
thousands of Americans killed; tens of thousands wounded, many grievously, or left to
struggle with the effects of PTSD; hundreds of thousands of non-Americans killed or injured ;
millions displaced ;
trillions of dollars expended; radical groups like ISIS empowered (and in its case
even formed
inside a U.S. prison in Iraq); and the Persian Gulf region plunged into turmoil from which it
has yet to recover. How do Trump's crimes stack up against these?
The Great Recession stemmed directly from economic policies implemented during the
administration of President Bill Clinton and continued by his successor. Deregulating the
banking sector was projected to produce a bonanza in which all would share. Yet, as a
direct result of
the ensuing chicanery, nearly 9 million Americans lost their jobs, while overall unemployment
shot up to 10 percent. Roughly 4 million Americans lost their homes to foreclosure. The stock
market cratered and millions saw their life savings evaporate. Again, the question must be
asked: How do these results compare to Trump's dubious dealings with Ukraine?
Trump's critics speak with one voice in demanding accountability. Yet virtually no one has
been held accountable for the pain, suffering, and loss inflicted by the architects of the Iraq
War and the Great Recession. Why is that? As another presidential election approaches, the
question not only goes unanswered, but unasked.
Sen. Carter Glass (D–Va.) and Rep. Henry B. Steagall (D–Ala.-3), the co-sponsors of
the 1932 Glass–Steagall Act separating investment and commercial banking, which was
repealed in 1999. (Wikimedia Commons)
To win reelection, Trump, a corrupt con man (who jumped ship
on his own bankrupt casinos, money in hand, leaving others holding the bag) will cheat and lie.
Yet, in the politics of the last half-century, these do not qualify as novelties. (Indeed,
apart from being the son of a sitting U.S. vice president, what made Hunter Biden
worth $50Gs per month to a gas company owned by a Ukrainian oligarch? I'm curious.) That
the president and his associates are engaging in a cover-up is doubtless the case. Yet another
cover-up proceeds in broad daylight on a vastly larger scale. "Trump's shambolic presidency
somehow seems less unsavory," Moyn writes, when considering the fact that his critics refuse
"to admit how massively his election signified the failure of their policies, from endless war
to economic inequality." Just so.
What are the real crimes? Who are the real criminals? No matter what happens in the coming
months, don't expect the Trump impeachment proceedings to come within a country mile of
addressing such questions.
Exactly. Trump is the result of voter disgust with Bush III vs Clinton II, the presumed
match up for a year or more leading up to 2016. Now Democrats want to do it again, thinking they can elect anybody against Trump. That's
what Hillary thought too.
Now the Republicans who lost their party to Trump think they can take it back with
somebody even more lame than Jeb, if only they could find someone, anyone, to run on that
non-plan.
Trump won for lack of alternatives. Our political class is determined to prevent any
alternatives breaking through this time either. They don't want Trump, but even more they
want to protect their gravy train of donor money, the huge overspending on medical care (four
times the defense budget) and of course all those Forever Wars.
Trump could win, for the same reasons as last time, even though the result would be no
better than last time.
LJ , October 9, 2019 at 17:01
Well, yeah but I recall that what won Trump the Republican Nomination was first and
foremost his stance on Immigration. This issue is what separated him from the herd of
candidates . None of them had the courage or the desire to go against Governmental Groupthink
on Immigration. All he then had to do was get on top of low energy Jeb Bush and the road was
clear. He got the base on his side on this issue and on his repeated statement that he wished
to normalize relations with Russia . He won the nomination easily. The base is still on his
side on these issues but Governmental Groupthink has prevailed in the House, the Senate, the
Intelligence Services and the Federal Courts. Funny how nobody in the Beltway, especially not
in media, is brave enough to admit that the entire Neoconservative scheme has been a disaster
and that of course we should get out of Syria . Nor can anyone recall the corruption and
warmongering that now seem that seems endemic to the Democratic Party. Of course Trump has to
wear goat's horns. "Off with his head".
Drew Hunkins , October 9, 2019 at 16:00
I wish the slick I.D. politics obsessed corporate Dems nothing but the worst, absolute
worst. They reap what they sow. If it means another four years of Trump, so be it. It's the
price that's going to have to be paid.
At a time when a majority of U.S. citizens cannot muster up $500 for an emergency dental
bill or car repair without running down to the local "pay day loan" lender shark (now
established as legitimate businesses) the corporate Dems, in their infinite wisdom, decide to
concoct an impeachment circus to run simultaneously when all the dirt against the execrable
Brennan and his intel minions starts to hit the press for their Russiagate hoax. Nice sleight
of hand there corporate Dems.
Of course, the corporate Dems would rather lose to Trump than win with a
progressive-populist like Bernie. After all, a Bernie win would mean an end to a lot of
careerism and cushy positions within the establishment political scene in Washington and
throughout the country.
Now we even have the destroyer of Libya mulling another run for the presidency.
Forget about having a job the next day and forget about the 25% interest on your credit
card or that half your income is going toward your rent or mortgage, or that you barely see
your kids b/c of the 60 hour work week, just worry about women lawyers being able to make
partner at the firm, and trans people being able to use whatever bathroom they wish and male
athletes being able to compete against women based on genitalia (no, wait, I'm confused
now).
Either class politics and class warfare comes front and center or we witness a burgeoning
neo-fascist movement in our midst. It's that simple, something has got to give!
Hillary Clinton has threatened to enter the 2020 presidential race for president after
President Donald Trump suggested on Twitter that she throw her hat in the ring in an effort to
"steal it away" from Elizabeth Warren. Trump tweeted Tuesday that "Crooked Hillary"
should run for president again to deprive the "Uber Left" Warren of a shot at the White
House, but only on "one condition" to be subpoenaed to "explain all of her high
crimes and misdemeanors."
I think that Crooked Hillary Clinton should enter the race to try and steal it away from
Uber Left Elizabeth Warren. Only one condition. The Crooked one must explain all of her high
crimes and misdemeanors including how & why she deleted 33,000 Emails AFTER getting "C"
Subpoena!
Five hours after Trump's jab, Clinton replied: "Don't tempt me. Do your job."
Reaction to Clinton's warning was mixed, to say the least. While mainstream media outlets
seemed to love the idea, many social media users recoiled in horror at the thought of a 2016
re-run.
"I don't think my heart could take it" if Hillary really runs again, one fan
proclaimed on Twitter.
"The president is dropping by the city on Thursday for one of his periodic angry
wank-fests at the Target Center, which is the venue in which this event will be inflicted
upon the Twin Cities. (And, just as an aside, given the events of the past 10 days, this one
should be a doozy.) Other Minneapolis folk are planning an extensive unwelcoming party
outside the arena, which necessarily would require increased security, which is expensive.
So, realizing that it was dealing with a notorious deadbeat -- in keeping with his customary
business plan, El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago has stiffed 10 cities this year for bills relating
to security costs that total almost a million bucks -- the company that provides the security
for the Target Center wants the president*'s campaign to shell out more than $500,000.
This has sent the president* into a Twitter tantrum against Frey, who seems not to be that
impressed by it. Right from when the visit was announced, Frey has been jabbing at the
president*'s ego. From the Star-Tribune:
"Our entire city will stand not behind the President, but behind the communities and
people who continue to make our city -- and this country -- great," Frey said. "While there
is no legal mechanism to prevent the president from visiting, his message of hatred will
never be welcome in Minneapolis."
It is a mayor's lot to deal with out-of-state troublemakers. Always has been."
This is not about Trump. This is not even about Ukraine and/or foreign powers influence on
the US election (of which Israel, UK, and Saudi are three primary examples; in this
particular order.)
Russiagate 2.0 (aka Ukrainegate) is the case, textbook example if you wish, of how the
neoliberal elite manipulates the MSM and the narrative for purposes of misdirecting attention
and perception of their true intentions and objectives -- distracting the electorate from
real issues.
An excellent observation by JohnH (October 01, 2019 at 01:47 PM )
"It all depends on which side of the Infowars you find yourself. The facts themselves are
too obscure and byzantine."
There are two competing narratives here:
1. NARRATIVE 1: CIA swamp scum tried to re-launch Russiagate as Russiagate 2.0. This is
CIA coup d'état aided and abetted by CIA-democrats like Pelosi and Schiff. Treason, as
Trump aptly said. This is narrative shared by "anti-Deep Staters" who sometimes are nicknamed
"Trumptards". Please note that the latter derogatory nickname is factually incorrect:
supporters of this narrative often do not support Trump. They just oppose machinations of the
Deep State. And/or neoliberalism personified by Clinton camp, with its rampant
corruption.
2. NARRATIVE 2: Trump tried to derail his opponent using his influence of foreign state
President (via military aid) as leverage and should be impeached for this and previous
crimes. ("Full of Schiff" commenters narrative, neoliberal democrats, or demorats.)
Supporters of this category usually bought Russiagate 1.0 narrative line, hook and sinker.
Some of them are brainwashed, but mostly simply ignorant neoliberal lemmings without even
basic political education.
In any case, while Russiagate 2.0 is probably another World Wrestling Federation style
fight, I think "anti-Deep-staters" are much closer to the truth.
What is missing here is the real problem: the crisis of neoliberalism in the USA (and
elsewhere).
So this circus serves an important purpose (intentionally or unintentionally) -- to disrupt
voters from the problems that are really burning, and are equal to a slow-progressing cancer in the
US society.
And implicitly derail Warren (being a weak politician she does not understand that, and
jumped into Ukrainegate bandwagon )
I am not that competent here, so I will just mention some obvious symptoms:
Loss of legitimacy of the ruling neoliberal elite (which demonstrated itself in 2016
with election of Trump);
Desperation of many working Americans with sliding standard of living; loss of meaningful
jobs due to offshoring of manufacturing and automation (which demonstrated itself in opioids
abuse epidemics; similar to epidemics of alcoholism in the USSR before its dissolution.
Loss of previously available freedoms. Loss of "free press" replaced by the neoliberal
echo chamber in major MSM. The uncontrolled and brutal rule of financial oligarchy and allied
with the intelligence agencies as the third rail of US politics (plus the conversion of the
state after 9/11 into national security state);
Coming within this century end of the "Petroleum Age" and the global crisis that it can
entail;
Rampant militarism, tremendous waist of resources on the arms race, and overstretched
efforts to maintain and expand global, controlled from Washington, neoliberal empire. Efforts
that since 1991 were a primary focus of unhinged after 1991 neocon faction US elite who
totally controls foreign policy establishment ("full-spectrum dominance). They are stealing money from
working people to fund an imperial project, and as part of neoliberal redistribution of wealth up
Most of the commenters here live a comfortable life in the financially secured retirement,
and, as such, are mostly satisfied with the status quo. And almost completely isolated from
the level of financial insecurity of most common Americans (healthcare racket might be the
only exception).
And re-posting of articles which confirm your own worldview (echo chamber posting) is nice
entertainment, I think ;-)
Some of those posters actually sometimes manage to find really valuable info. For which I
am thankful. In other cases, when we have a deluge of abhorrent neoliberal propaganda
postings (the specialty of Fred C. Dobbs) which often generate really insightful comments from the
members of the "anti-Deep State" camp.
Still it would be beneficial if the flow of neoliberal spam is slightly curtailed.
"... The intemperate comments of an imperial-minded candidate for the presidency ..."
"... The democrat coup/impeach/coup machine suffers is bi-polar disorder. Every they way fill the military industry complex trough! In their war manic state they supress freedom fighters, and arm their jailers, in their war depress state they support rioters in Hong Kong. If Donbass rebels were in Macao they would get US support, in Dobass the US will suppress freedom. ..."
"... With Ukraine, because the democrat neocons want to surround Russia, US national security arms Ukriane to forcibly put down Donbass as they attempt some form of "self determination". ..."
"... In the case of Hong Kong because US is enemy to the PRC (Red China at Menzie Chinn blog) the US is all for self determination, like Hitler was for pulling Sudetenland out of Czechoslovakia in 1938! ..."
"... This bipolar morality fits with deep state surveillance on Trump in 2016 and in 2019 claiming Trump doing it to Biden so that Trump/DoJ cannot fight corrupt (all) democrats ever! ..."
Is Time for the United States to Stand Up to China in Hong Kong
Tweets aren't enough. Washington must make clear that it expects Beijing to live up to its
commitments -- and it will respond when China does not.
By ELIZABETH WARREN
It Is Time for the United States to Stand Up to China in Hong Kong
Tweets aren't enough. Washington must make clear that it expects Beijing to live up to its
commitments -- and it will respond when China does not.
By ELIZABETH WARREN
[ Shocking and appalling; unethical and immoral; discrediting. The intemperate comments of an imperial-minded candidate for the presidency. ]
The democrat coup/impeach/coup machine suffers is bi-polar disorder. Every they way fill the
military industry complex trough!
In their war manic state they supress freedom fighters, and arm their jailers, in their
war depress state they support rioters in Hong Kong. If Donbass rebels were in Macao they would get US support, in Dobass the US will suppress
freedom.
With Ukraine, because the democrat neocons want to surround Russia, US national security
arms Ukriane to forcibly put down Donbass as they attempt some form of "self
determination".
In the case of Hong Kong because US is enemy to the PRC (Red China at Menzie Chinn blog)
the US is all for self determination, like Hitler was for pulling Sudetenland out of
Czechoslovakia in 1938!
This bipolar morality fits with deep state surveillance on Trump in 2016 and in 2019
claiming Trump doing it to Biden so that Trump/DoJ cannot fight corrupt (all) democrats
ever!
1) We don't know for certain what Shokin was investigating and what he wasn't.
2) Ukraine was rife with corruption. But most likely Biden was more concerned with
uprooting pro-Russian elements calling them corrupt as shorthand. Pro-Western corruption was
most likely overlooked.
3) We don't know why Hunter Biden was appointed to the Burisma board along with one of Joe
Biden's big bundlers and the CIA-friendly former President of Poland. We do know that Hunter
was put on the board immediately after the color revolution in Ukraine and that he served a
stint on the National Democratic Institute, which promotes regime change. Much more needs to
be learned about what the Bidens were up to in Ukraine and whether they were carpet baggers
cashing out.
As I have said, I would be delighted if Trump went down and took Joe Biden with him. The
last thing this country needs is a Joe Lieberman with a smiling face serving as President
which is basically what Joe Biden is.
"As I have said, I would be delighted if Trump went down and took Joe Biden with him."
Biden was already destroyed by Ukrainegate, being Pelosi sacrificial pawn (and for such
semi-senile candidate exit now looks the most logical; he can hand around for longer but the
question is why? ), but it is unclear how this will affect Trump.
In any case each accusation of Trump boomerang into Biden. And Biden China story probably
even more interesting then his Ukrainian gate story.
CIA ears over all Ukraine-gate are so visible that it hurts Pelosi case. Schiff is a sad
clown in this circus, and he has zero credibility after his well publicized love story with
Russiagate.
The fact that Warren is now favorite increases previously reluctant Wall Street support
for Trump, who is becoming kind of new Hillary, the establishment candidate.
And if you able to think, trump now looks like establishment candidate, corrupt
interventionist, who is not that far from Hillary in foreign policy and clearly as a "hard
neoliberal" aligns with Hillary "soft neoliberal" stance in domestic policy.
As Warren can pretend that she is better Trump then Trump (and we are talking about
Trump-2016 platform; Trump action were betrayal of his electorate much like was the case with
Obama) she has chances, but let's do not overestimate them.
Pelosi help with Trump re-election can't be underestimated.
If Krugman is surprised that some Democratic donors will support Trump over Warren, he is not
an analyst.
And Obama was a Wall Street prostitute, much like bill Clinton, no questions about it. Trump
betrayal of his voters actually mirror the Obama betrayal. May suspect that Warren will be
malleable with will fold to Wall Street on the first opportunity, governing like Trump-lite.
Warren Versus the Petty Plutocrats. Why do they hate her? It's mainly about their
egos.
By Paul Krugman
Remember when pundits used to argue that Elizabeth Warren wasn't likable enough to be
president? It was always a lazy take, with a strong element of sexism. And it looks
ridiculous now, watching Warren on the campaign trail. Never mind whether she's someone you'd
like to have a beer with, she's definitely someone thousands of people want to take selfies
with.
But there are some people who really, really dislike Warren: the ultrawealthy, especially
on Wall Street. They dislike her so much that some longtime Democratic donors are reportedly
considering throwing their backing behind Donald Trump, corruption, collusion and all, if
Warren is the Democratic presidential nominee.
And Warren's success is a serious possibility, because Warren's steady rise has made her a
real contender, maybe even the front-runner: While she still trails Joe Biden a bit in the
polls, betting markets currently give her a roughly 50 percent chance of securing the
nomination.
But why does Warren inspire a level of hatred and fear among the very wealthy that I
don't think we've seen directed at a presidential candidate since the days of Franklin Delano
Roosevelt?
On the surface, the answer may seem obvious. She is proposing policies, notably a tax on
fortunes exceeding $50 million, that would make the extremely wealthy a bit less so. But
delve into the question a bit more deeply, and Warren hatred becomes considerably more
puzzling.
For the only people who would be directly affected by her tax proposals are those who more
or less literally have more money than they know what to do with. Having a million or two
less wouldn't crimp their lifestyles; most of them would barely notice the change.
At the same time, even the very wealthy should be very afraid of the prospect of a Trump
re-election. Any doubts you might have had about his authoritarian instincts should have been
put to rest by his reaction to the possibility of impeachment: implicit death threats against
whistle-blowers, warnings of civil war and claims that members of Congress investigating him
are guilty of treason.
And anyone imagining that great wealth would make them safe from an autocrat's wrath
should look at the list of Russian oligarchs who crossed Vladimir Putin -- and are now ruined
or dead. So what would make the very wealthy -- even some Jewish billionaires, who should
have a very good idea of the likely consequences of right-wing dominance -- support Trump
over someone like Warren?
There is, I'd argue, an important clue in the "Obama rage" that swept Wall Street circa
2010. Objectively, the Obama administration was very good to the financial industry, even
though that industry had just led us into the worst economic crisis since the 1930s.
Major financial players were bailed out on lenient terms, and while bankers were subjected to
a long-overdue increase in regulation, the new regulations have proved fairly easy for
reputable firms to deal with.
Yet financial tycoons were furious with President Barack Obama because they felt
disrespected. In truth, Obama's rhetoric was very mild; all he ever did was suggest that some
bankers had behaved badly, which no reasonable person could deny. But with great wealth comes
great pettiness; Obama's gentle rebukes provoked fury -- and a huge swing in financial
industry political contributions toward Republicans.
The point is that many of the superrich aren't satisfied with living like kings, which
they will continue to do no matter who wins next year's election. They also expect to be
treated like kings, lionized as job creators and heroes of prosperity, and consider any
criticism an unforgivable act of lèse-majesté.
And for such people, the prospect of a Warren presidency is a nightmarish threat -- not to
their wallets, but to their egos. They can try to brush off someone like Bernie Sanders as a
rabble-rouser. But when Warren criticizes malefactors of great wealth and proposes reining in
their excesses, her evident policy sophistication -- has any previous candidate managed to
turn wonkiness into a form of charisma? -- makes her critique much harder to dismiss.
If Warren is the nominee, then, a significant number of tycoons will indeed go for Trump;
better to put democracy at risk than to countenance a challenge to their imperial
self-esteem. But will it matter?
Maybe not. These days American presidential elections are so awash in money that both
sides can count on having enough resources to saturate the airwaves.
Indeed, over-the-top attacks from the wealthy can sometimes be a political plus. That was
certainly the case for F.D.R., who reveled in his plutocratic opposition: "They are unanimous
in their hate for me -- and I welcome their hatred."
So far Warren seems to be following the same playbook, tweeting out articles about Wall
Street's hostility as if they were endorsements, which in a sense they are. It's good to have
the right enemies.
I do worry, however, how Wall Streeters will take it if they go all out to defeat Warren
and she wins anyway. Washington can bail out their balance sheets, but who can bail out their
damaged psyches?
"Deductive reasoning" within the media message is mob control.
"It ain't what you know... it's what you know that ain't so"#. Keep reading the mainstream
media!
Given enough time [and strategy wrt 2020 election] we will get to the bottom of Obama's
"criminal influence" on 2016 election.
It takes a lot more to debunk the Biden, Clinton, Nuland, Obama Ukraine drama. To my mind,
Ukraine needs to be clean as driven snow* to "earn" javelins to kill Russian speaking
rebels.
Why do US from Obama+ fund rebels in Syria (Sunni radicals mainly) and want to send tank
killers to suppress rebels where we might get in to the real deal?
# conservatives have been saying that about the 'outrage' started by the MSM for
decades.
Warren might be an improvement over the current situation. Moreover she has some sound ideas about taming the financial
oligarchy
"Best alternative to the above? Get Liz Warren elected, IMO."
True. IMHO Warren might be an improvement over the
current situation. Moreover she has some sound ideas about taming the financial oligarchy.
The idea of taking on
financial oligarchy will find strong support of voters and in some respects she is "a better Trump then Trump" as for
restoring the honor and wellbeing of the working people mercilessly squeezed and marginalized by neoliberalism in the USA.
Her book "The two income trap"(2004) suggests that this is not just a classic "bait and switch" election trick in
best Obama or Trump style.
And I would say she in her 70 is in better shape then Trump in his 73+. He shows isolated
early signs of neurologic damage (some claim sundowning syndrome:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwh6Fu9BcAw slurring speech patterns, repetitions, disorientation, etc), which is
natural for any person in his 70th subjected to his level of stress.
But it is completely unclear to me whether the impeachment favors Warren or Trump. the treat of impeachment already
cemented fractures in Trump base which now, judging from comments in forums, is really outraged.
Some people are
talking about armed resistance, which is, of course, hopeless nonsense in the current national-security state, but does show
the state of their mind.
Also nobody here can even imagine the amount of dirt Obama administration accumulated by
their actions in Ukraine. They really supported a neo-fascist party and cooperated with neo-Nazi (other important players
were Germany, Poland and Sweden). Just to achieve geopolitical victory over Russia. Kind of total reversion of WWII alliance
for me.
That avalanche of dirt can affect Warren indirectly as she proved to be a weak, unsophisticated politician by
supporting Pelosi drive for impeachment instead of pretending of being neutral. Which would be more appropriate and much
safer position.
Neoliberal democrats despite all Pelosi skills ( see https://mediaequalizer.com/martin-walsh/2017/12/gifford-heres-how-pelosi-learned-mob-like-tactics-from-her-father
) really opened a can of worms with this impeachment.
Also it looks like all of them, including Pelosi, are scared of
CIA: https://galacticconnection.com/nancy-pelosi-admits-congress-scared-cia/
== quote == In response to Senator
Dianne Feinstein’s speech last week calling out the CIA for spying on her staffers, Rep. Nancy Pelosi was asked to comment
and gave what might be the most revealing comments to date as to why Congress is so scared of the CIA:
“I salute
Sen. Feinstein,” Pelosi said at her weekly news conference of the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “I’ll tell
you, you take on the intelligence community, you’re a person of courage, and she does not do that lightly. Not without
evidence, and when I say evidence, documentation of what it is that she is putting forth.”
Pelosi added that she has
always fought for checks and balances on CIA activity and its interactions with Congress: “You don’t fight it without a price
because they come after you and they don’t always tell the truth. ==end==
I strongly doubt that Trump will ever
risk to drop a bomb by declassifying documents about Obama dirty actions in Ukraine; so to speak go "all in" against
neoliberal Democrats and part of intelligence community (and possibly be JFKed).
But Trump is unpredictable and
extremely vindictive. How he will behave after being put against the wall on fake changes is completely unclear. I wonder if
Pelosi correctly calculated all the risks.
I wrote the other day about Wall Street fear and loathing of Elizabeth Warren, suggesting
that it has more to do with threatened egos than with money per se 1/
Some more thoughts on reports that Wall Street Democrats will back Trump over Warren.
Obviously it's hard to know how big a deal this is -- how many of these guys are there, were
they ever really Dems, and will they back Trump as more revelations emerge 1/
So I remembered a sort of time capsule from the eve of the financial crisis that nicely
illustrated how these guys want to be perceived, and retrospectively explains their fury at
no longer getting to pose as economic heroes 2/
The Richest of the Rich, Proud of a New Gilded Age
The new titans often see themselves as pillars of a similarly prosperous and expansive
age, one in which their successes and their philanthropy have made government less important
than it once was.
The thing is, even at the time the idea that financial deregulation had ushered in a
golden age of prosperity was flatly contradicted by the data 3/
[Graph]
And of course the financial crisis -- which is generally considered to have begun just
three weeks after that article was published! -- made utter nonsense of their boasting 4/
But they want everyone to forget about the hollowness of their claims to glory; and Warren
won't let that happen, which makes her evil in their minds 5/
When Bill was president Warren met with Hillary and persuaded her to talk Bill into killing
Biden's increased protection for lenders from rapacious borrowers. When Hillary was senator she
supported the Bill. Warren gave an interview on the subject before she was involved in
politics. She was not happy.
Warren was the single female Democratic senator who declined to give Hillary an endorsement
before the primaries started. That's an event of some significance.
During the debates Warren took actions that helped Bernie on several occasions. Someone, I
think Paul Krugman, said Glass Stegall would have done nothing to stop the meltdown because it
didn't deal with shadow banking. Bernie was able to respond that he supported Warren's proposed
Glass Stegall bill, which did have provisions to regulate shadow banking. On another occasion
someone pointed out that Warren's bill did not break up big banks. Warren stated publicly that
the bill didn't propose breaking up too big to fail banks but she supported the idea.
Warren and Sanders both supported Clinton when she had the nomination locked up. It was
Bernie's responsibility to defend his supporters from Team Clinton's smears and insults during
and after the convention.
It wasn't Warren that Clinton invited to the Hamptons to be introduced to a few dozen of her
favorite fundraisers. It was Harris.
It wasn't Warren that Clinton invited to the Hamptons to be introduced to a few dozen of
her favorite fundraisers. It was Harris.
But, even if so, Harris was to be nothing more than a Clinton place-holder to be swept
aside one HER decided to resurrect the same Dimocratic party, which she has still not
successfully destroyed, even with minor assistance from Barack, JoJo and Wild Bill. Nope. My
contention is that Hillary Rodent Clinton will sweep the field of duped pseudo-contenders in
a fixed horse race. HRC -- still with her!~
"... The first casualty of Pelosi's cause is almost certain to be the front-runner for the party nomination. Joe Biden has already, this past week, fallen behind Senator Elizabeth Warren in Iowa, New Hampshire, and California. ..."
"... By making Ukraine the focus of the impeachment drive in the House, Pelosi has also assured that the questionable conduct of Biden and son Hunter will be front and center for the next four months before Iowa votes. ..."
"... What did Joe do? By his own admission, indeed his boast, as vice president, he ordered then-Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko to either fire the prosecutor who was investigating the company that hired Hunter Biden for $50,000 a month or forego a $1 billion U.S. loan guarantee that Kiev needed to stay current on its debts. ..."
"... There is another question raised by Biden's ultimatum to Kiev to fire the corrupt prosecutor or forego the loan guarantee. Why was the U.S. guaranteeing loans to a Kiev regime that had to be threatened with bankruptcy to get it to rid itself of a prosecutor whom all of Europe supposedly knew to be corrupt? ..."
"... This is bad news for the Biden campaign. And the principal beneficiary of Pelosi's decision that put Joe and Hunter Biden at the center of an impeachment inquiry is, again, Warren. ..."
"... Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of ..."
"... . To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com. ..."
"... the Movers and Shakers in the Democrat Party have wanted Warren as their standard bearer on the belief that Biden is "yesterday" and that the rest of the field is either too loony (O'Rourke), nondescript (Booker) or -- potentially -- too corrupt (Harris).. ..."
"... Warren is the most pro-establishment candidate of all the non-establishment candidates, that is true ..."
"... Roughly 37% of Americans love Trump and will never change their mind. On the other side there are 38% who already supported impeachment based on previous investigations. That leaves 25% of Americans who are likely to be swayed one way or the other over this. In any case, those 25% are unlikely to be on this website. ..."
"... It'll be interesting to see what the voter turnout will be in 2020. 2016 --one of the most pivotal and controversial elections in modern times--saw 42% of the electorate stay home. This was a shockingly high numbter, little noted in the press. If you tack on the 6% who voted for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein, that would mean that 48% of the electorate--nearly half--did NOT vote for either Trump or Clinton. ..."
"... Well, given that Trump has already released the transcript and Zelensky has already confirmed there were no pressure in their conversation plus said that Hunter's case is to be investigated by the AG, any impeachment hearings can only be damaging to those who decide to go further with them, because, as it turns out, there is no basis for such hearings and they were started a year before the election, showing what those who started them think regarding their own chances to win. ..."
Even before seeing the transcript of the July 25 call between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky,
Nancy Pelosi threw the door wide open to impeachment.
Though the transcript did not remotely justify the advanced billing of a "quid pro quo," Pelosi set in motion a process that is
already producing a sea change in the politics of 2020.
The great Beltway battle for the balance of this year, and perhaps next, will be over whether the Democrats can effect a coup
against a president many of them have never recognized as legitimate and have sought to bring down since before he took the oath
of office.
Pelosi on Tuesday started this rock rolling down the hill.
She has made impeachment, which did not even come up in the last Democratic debate, the issue of 2020. She has foreclosed bipartisan
compromise on gun control, the cost of prescription drugs, and infrastructure. She has put her and her party's fate and future on
the line.
With Pelosi's assent that she is now open to impeachment, she turned what was becoming a cold case into a blazing issue. If the
Democrats march up impeachment hill, fail, and fall back, or if they vote impeachment only to see the Senate exonerate the president,
that will be the climactic moment of Pelosi's career. She is betting the future of the House, and her party's hopes of capturing
the presidency, on the belief that she and her colleagues can persuade the country to support the indictment of a president for high
crimes.
One wonders: do Democrats, blinded by hatred of Trump, ever wonder how that 40 percent of the nation that sees him as the repository
of their hopes will react if, rather than beat him at the ballot box, they remove him in this way?
The first casualty of Pelosi's cause is almost certain to be the front-runner for the party nomination. Joe Biden has already,
this past week, fallen behind Senator Elizabeth Warren in Iowa, New Hampshire, and California. The Quinnipiac poll has her taking
the lead nationally for the nomination, with Biden dropping into second place for the first time since he announced his candidacy.
By making Ukraine the focus of the impeachment drive in the House, Pelosi has also assured that the questionable conduct of Biden
and son Hunter will be front and center for the next four months before Iowa votes.
What did Joe do? By his own admission, indeed his boast, as vice president, he ordered then-Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko
to either fire the prosecutor who was investigating the company that hired Hunter Biden for $50,000 a month or forego a $1 billion
U.S. loan guarantee that Kiev needed to stay current on its debts.
Biden insists the Ukrainian prosecutor was corrupt, that Hunter had done no wrong, that he himself was unaware of his son's business
ties. All these assertions have been contradicted or challenged.
There is another question raised by Biden's ultimatum to Kiev to fire the corrupt prosecutor or forego the loan guarantee. Why
was the U.S. guaranteeing loans to a Kiev regime that had to be threatened with bankruptcy to get it to rid itself of a prosecutor
whom all of Europe supposedly knew to be corrupt?
Whatever the truth of the charges, the problem here is that any investigation of the potential corruption of Hunter Biden, and
of the role of his father, the former vice president, in facilitating it, will be front and center in presidential politics between
now and New Hampshire.
This is bad news for the Biden campaign. And the principal beneficiary of Pelosi's decision that put Joe and Hunter Biden at the
center of an impeachment inquiry is, again, Warren.
Warren already appears to have emerged victorious in her battle with Bernie Sanders to become the progressives' first choice in
2020. And consider how, as she is rising, her remaining opposition is fast fading.
Senator Kamala Harris has said she is moving her campaign to Iowa for a do-or-die stand in the first battleground state. Senator
Cory Booker has called on donors to raise $1.7 million in 10 days, or he will have to pack it in. As Biden, Sanders, Harris, and
Booker fade, and "Mayor Pete" Buttigieg hovers at 5 or 6 percent in national and state polls, Warren steadily emerges as the probable
nominee.
One measure of how deeply Biden is in trouble, whether he is beginning to be seen as too risky, given the allegations against
him and his son, will be the new endorsements his candidacy receives after this week of charges and countercharges.
If there is a significant falling off, it could be fatal.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided
America Forever . To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit
the Creators website at www.creators.com.
They would be, if it were Sanders to get the nomination. Warren's chances are, obviously, better than Biden's - anyone's, save
for complete fringe wackos, are - but, if they really wanted to win, they would need Sanders. Or, even better, Gabbard. But Sanders
is too independent, dangerously so, and Gabbard is an outright enemy of their totalitarian cult. Hence, they pick Warren, who
might be vaaaaaaaaaaguely considered Sanders-lite. But lite is not enough against someone like Trump. Or, even worse for them,
they resort to all possible and impossible machinations to still get Biden nominated. It'll be a screaming mistake, but it's not
excluded at all, given how easily the've just been lured into a trap.
Happened to tune in to Rush Limbaugh yesterday just as he was saying that Pelosi's motivation to spin the wheels was at least
in part to kill two birds with one stone--Trump AND Biden. Mehhh...maybe, but it's been clear from the beginning that the Movers
and Shakers in the Democrat Party have wanted Warren as their standard bearer on the belief that Biden is "yesterday" and that
the rest of the field is either too loony (O'Rourke), nondescript (Booker) or -- potentially -- too corrupt (Harris)..
Warren is the most pro-establishment candidate of all the non-establishment candidates, that is true . Incrowd-lite.
Bernie of course is the big unknown. Will he prevail over Warren?
If this scandal sinks Biden and Trump together, the Dems will come out ahead because they are not committed to Biden as their
nominee. I think Warren will be the biggest net winner. My prediction is that we see an impeachment with the Senate voting on
party lines to acquit. That could still be very damaging to Trump's election chances, if the portion of the public who dislikes
Trump decide that he abused his power.
Roughly 37% of Americans love Trump and will never change their mind. On the other side there are
38% who already supported impeachment based on previous investigations. That leaves 25% of Americans who are likely to be
swayed one way or the other over this. In any case, those 25% are unlikely to be on this website.
The main question, other than whether there is something damning that shows up, is whether the majority of voters think a quid
pro quo is necessary for corruption to be an impeachable offense. It is required in a criminal bribery conviction, but impeachment
isn't a criminal trial. Is the president using a diplomatic call to pressure a foreign government to dig up dirt on his political
rivals something the 25% will be okay with? If they believe the story of Biden's corruption, will they see that as justification
for using a diplomatic talk to push for an investigation into it? Will moderate voters who have a high opinion of Biden from the
his time as Vice President view this as an unfair attack on him or will they change their view of him to match Trump's narrative?
Biden is in a tough spot, because he will be smeared here whether he is guilty or not. Trump is very good as slinging mud to
distract from his actions. And most Americans are very unlikely to parse through the information overload to figure out whether
the fired prosecutor is corrupt, whether the decision to fire him came from Joe or the state department/UK/EU/local protest, whether
Hunter Biden was qualified for the job with his ivy law degree/experience on corp boards/previous consulting experience, and whether
the investigation into Burisma was actuall ongoing when Shokin was fired. Who has time to read through everything and figure out
which side is manufacturing a controversy?
But if Biden decides to go down a Martyr, it wouldn't be difficult for him to take Trump with him.
It'll be interesting to see what the voter turnout will be in 2020. 2016 --one of the most pivotal and controversial elections
in modern times--saw 42% of the electorate stay home. This was a shockingly high numbter, little noted in the press. If you tack
on the 6% who voted for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein, that would mean that 48% of the electorate--nearly half--did NOT vote for
either Trump or Clinton.
These numbers are ominous and do not bode well for the future of this thing of ours.
Well, given that Trump has already released the transcript and Zelensky has already confirmed there were no pressure in their
conversation plus said that Hunter's case is to be investigated by the AG, any impeachment hearings can only be damaging
to those who decide to go further with them, because, as it turns out, there is no basis for such hearings and they were
started a year before the election, showing what those who started them think regarding their own chances to win. If Democrats
want to cut losses, they should stop it now and, using military terms, regroup immediately, nominating Gabbard who consistently
opposed this stillborn impeachment stupidity. But something makes me think they won't. Their visceral hatred to an anti-war candidate
like her is simply too strong.
I think you are missing that Trump's lawyers can subpoena people and drag up a lot of dirt on the Democrats too. I think it can
go both ways.
Still Warren can be tough for Trump. She is not tainted by Clinton. She is a chameleon; will sound sufficiently WASP in New
England and sufficiently woke in California and new York. If Buttgig becomes her sidekick he can get all the gays on-board.
You're missing one thing about Warren: she's a wonk. And she actually has some good ideas alongside the more crazy ones. Even
Tucker Carlson praised her book.
But Warren is an absolute stiff. Zero charisma. Like Kerry or Gore on their very worst day. And in this day and age, where
the only thing that counts for the overwhelming majority of low information voters are soundbites and how telegenic you come off
in a debate, someone like Trump will chew her up and spit her out for breakfast.
Warren? OK. I don't see how she could be any worse than Trump. Plus, we might not feel like we were snorkeling in a cesspool all
the time, like we do now.
Literally every progressive I know save one is team Warren. I think there might be an age divide. Progressives under thirty are
more likely to be for Sanders, and over thirty for Warren.
I have no idea what will happen with the election. But if Trump wins it after the Dems have done nothing for four years except
impeach him - every day is going to be like Christmas.
I sincerely hope that Trump is right in thinking that Biden is his biggest threat, because this affair is going to ensure Warren
is the nominee. I think a lot of proggy Dems know this as well, which partly explains their enthusiasm for impeachment at this
particular moment (not that they haven't been itching for this since November 8, 2016).
I agree Biden and Bernie are toast but Warren is far from a sure thing. Of all the democratic candidates Tulsi is the most attractive
in more ways than one and I could see Tulsi appealing to the many Trump voters who voted for him because he claimed to be non-interventionist
only to discover he is a war-pig like the rest of them. Imagine Tulsi in a debate with Trump! If not Tulsi I would bet another
high profile Dem will enter the race because Warren is un-electable and I would not be surprised to see Hillary get in the race
at the last minute. American's love re-matches and come-back stories.
In breaking news: Pelosi has just revealed who was behind all this. It's Cardinal Richelieu Russians again.
Does the girl even understand that, by saying so, she's, basically, stating that she's the chief Russian agent out there, because
she was the one who initiated that freak show?
Jesus Harold Christ, what a travelling circus. And this passes for a parliament these days.
Ukrainegate is Watergate in reverse. The farcical impeachment unintentionally acts as a foil, amplifying the significance of the
Ukraine stories in the press (John Solomon, Andrew McCarthy) which reveal a culture of corruption and venality permeating the
Democratic leadership: the Clintons, the Bidens, the DNC, the current Democratic caucus, and the entire deep state remnants of
the obama administration. We haven't seen election interference like this since the Watergate break-in and coverup. This impeachment
is the coup-de-grâce of the Democratic Party not just Biden. The Democrat faithful now have a choice between Scylla and Charybdis
- self-proclaimed socialists with a tenuous hold on reality, or the discredited establishment. As an old-school Democrat, I can
only hope that Trump buries them in 2020, so that the Democrats finally get the message and return to their pre-Clinton roots.
It is insane to pursue impeachment this late in a divisive President's mandate. The Democrats should spend their efforts selecting
a moderate nominee that doesn't show signs of cognitive decline (Only candidate that matches these requirements is Tulsi Gabbard.
) rather than make Trump a "victim" in the eyes of many.
Drama Don is doing a good enough job himself to make sure that the Democrats win in 2020. "Trump fatigue" is going to be the
most used expression next fall if Trump runs. If Trump is pushed out before the election, the Republicans may choose a charismatic
new nominee who actually has a chance to win in 2020. The biggest asset that the Democrats have in 2020 is Trump.
Somebody, somewhere, had decided that Democrats stand little chance with Biden, because he is so old and gaffe prone. So they
have put their money on Warren. Warren will choose Buttigieg as VP candidate, primarily because they want all that gay billionaire
money flowing in. At the same time, they tick the SJW boxes -woman, gay candidates, so the left will love them. The fix is in.
Hence the stupid "impeachment " controversy, which is obviously a sham to knock Biden out.
I voted for Trump, not as a Republican because I despise both political parties. I voted for him based on the need for a nationalist
trade policy, and especially because I was so against the TPP --and President Trump rewarded me for that vote his first week in
office by pulling the US out of TPP negotiations. Also I have great respect for you, Mr. Buchanan, and learned much from the 3
of your books I've read and recommended to others. But it looks like President Trump has been using his office for personal political
gain, so I am sorry to admit I support the impeachment investigation to bring the facts to light and make a judgement of whether
it is true he used the office to solicit a foreign country to help undermine his political opponent. But even before this, I'd
decided I will not vote for him again, mainly because I have become alarmed at the looming climate crisis, and believe we need
urgent policy towards full decarbonization of the global energy economy. But that doesn't motivate me to support the impeachment
inquiry, a path I hate and regret...but it seems there is no other way to demand the President not abuse his office and manipulate
foreign governments to help his political career. That is no patriot, that is corrupt and an embarrassment to our nation.
"...effect a coup against a president many of them have never seen as legitimate and have sought to bring down since before he
took the oath of office."
Every single word of that describes the Republicans in Congress during the eight years Obama was president. Every single syllable.
Remember that birth certificate? And remember that Dick Tracy villain, Pocket-Neck McConnell, an excrescence that still infects
us, standing up and actually saying, with a straight face, "Our ONLY goal is to make Obama a one-term president." Never mind an
economy that was in free-fall, right Mitch? Or a couple of bothersome wars going on?
And what about how, for the very first time in history, Standard and Poor's downgraded America's credit rating, all because
of completely meaningless Republican obstruction about the debt ceiling? And when I say completely meaningless, I mean completely
meaningless. Now, under Trump, the deficit is approaching a trillion, and those very same Republicans couldn't give a hoot.
It's all in the great 2012 book, It's Even Worse Than it Looks, by Ornstein and Mann. We've had partisanship and gridlock before.
But what was new is how the Republicans behaved under Obama: they treated him as completely illegitimate from the word go, and
absolutely refused to work with him under any and all circumstances. The stimulus, which by the way saved the entire world economy
from complete meltdown, didn't get a single Republican vote.
But Republicans can feel proud of one thing: their disgusting, scorched-earth, win-at-all-costs tactics are now business-as-usual
in Washington. Probably for all time. Nice going, guys.
Warren is the best candidate to defeat Trump. She is super smart ,honest and works hard as heck for the non 1% to get more of
a fair shake. If she softens her hard left positions she could be a great candidate
I assume most here are sick of hearing about it further today.
I enjoy speculating on what Speaker Pelosi might do with the results of the Impeachment
Inquiry by the House.
Assumption: The House finds grounds for Impeaching Trump and hands it to Pelosi.
What will she do or rather what can she do?
She can have the full House vote to Impeach and march the Articles over to the Senate.
She can have the House Censure Trump, not vote to Impeach, and go no further at this time.
That brings Trump's crimes to light, but saves the country from a Political Trial in the
Senate, that won't convict Trump.
She can hold the Committee's report for review and not go forward until and unless she
see's the POLITICAL need.
She can, IMO, have the House vote Articles of Impeachment and then HOLD them in the House
waiting to take them to the Senate at a much later date of her choice or never.
The Senate cannot act until the Speaker delivers the Articles of Impeachment. No where
does the Constitution declare WHEN those Articles, once voted, must be delivered, only that
they are to be.
She can set a new precedent if she desires. Who can stop her?
This would allow the Articles to float over Trump's head - and the Re-Election campaign
serving to restrain Trump, like a cudgel over his head - preventing or at least limiting more
of Trump's outrageous unconstitutional and illegal acts in Office until Election 2020.
Simultaneously this would allow The House to continue its multiple investigations of
Trump, including the IRS Whistle Blower complaint, further checking Trump, and even to open
more investigations into Trump's abuse of Office, e.g., his use of AG Barr on Ukraine/Biden
as well as investigations of AG Barr pursuing Ukraine/Biden.
Not to mention other investigations into Trump including NY's pursuit of Trump's Tax
Returns, which could well be as revealing as the Ukraine phone call transcript.
So, while today was interesting in D.C., the future is far more so, imho.
1. Biden is now a zombie and has less then zero changes to beat Trump. Even if nothing
explosive will be revealed by Ukraine-gate, this investigation hangs like albatross around
his neck. Each shot at Trump will ricochet into Biden. Add to this China and the best he can
do is to leave the race and claim unfair play.
2. Trump now probably will be reelected on the wave of indignation toward Corporate Dems
new witch hunt. People stopped believing neoliberal MSM around 2015, so now neolibs no longer
have the leverage they get used to. And by launching Ukraine-gate after Russiagate they
clearly overplayed their hand losing critical mass of independents (who previously were ready
to abandon Trump_
3. If unpleasant facts about neolib/neocon machinations to launch Ukraine-gate leak via
alternative press via disgruntled DNC operatives or some other insiders who are privy to the
relevant discussions in the Inner Party, they will poison/destroy the chances of any Dem
candidate be it Warren or anybody else. Joining this witch hunt greatly damages standing of
Warren exposing her as a mediocre, malleable politician ( unlike Tulsi )
4. Instead of running on policy issues the Democrats again tried to find vague dirt with
which they can tarnish Trump. This is a huge political mistake which exposes them as
political swindlers.
Neolib/neocon in Democratic Party from now on will be viewed as "The Children of
Lieutenant Schmidt" (a fictional society of swindlers from the 1931 classic "The Little
Golden Calf" by Ilf and Petrov).
I would say that Pelosi might now be able to understand better the situation in which
Wasserman-Shultz had found herself in 2016 and resign.
IMHO this is a king of zugzwang for neoliberal Dems. There is no good exit from this
situation.
After two years of falsely accusing Trump to have colluded with Russia they now allege
that he colluded with Ukraine.
In addition to overpaying their hand that makes it more difficult for the Democrats to
hide their critical role in creating and promoting Russiagate.
Here is one post from MA which tries to analyse this situation:
== quote ==
nil , Sep 25 2019 19:37 utc | 24
I think what's going in the brain trust of the DNC is something like this:
i. Biden is a non-starter with the public. He'll be devoured alive by the Republicans, who
only need to bring up his career to expose his mendacity.
ii. Warren might be co-opted, having been a Republican and fiscal conservative up to the
mid-90s, but what if she isn't?
iii. Sanders is a non-starter, but with the "people who matter". Rather than having to
threaten him with the suspicions around his wife, or go for the JFK solution, they'd rather
[make that] he didn't even get past the primaries, much less elected.
iv. As a CNN talking head said weeks ago, it's better for the wealthy people the DNC is
beholden to that their own candidate loses to Trump if that candidate is Sanders.
So better to hedge their bets start impeachment hearings, give Trump ammunition to destroy
Sanders or Warren. That way, the rich win in all scenarios:
a. If Biden wins the nomination, the campaign will be essentially mudslinging from both
sides about who is more corrupt. The rich are fine with whoever wins.
b. If Warren gets the nomination and is co-opted, the media will let the impeachment
hearings die out, or the House themselves will quickly bury it.
c. If Warren gets the nomination and is not co-opted, or if Sanders get it, the
impeachment will suck up all the air of the room, Trump will play the witchhunt card and will
be re-elected.
That's a very good idea to concentrate on your job instead of some fluff, or worse, criminal
activity.
Millions of dollars, millions of manhours of political discourse and newsmedia coverage,
were wasted on Russiagate. That's a typical "control fraud." Control fraud occurs when a
trusted person in a high position of responsibility in a company, corporation, or state
subverts the organization and engages in extensive fraud (in this case a witch hunt) for
personal gain.
Those hours could have been used researching and discussing country foreign policy,
economic policy, healthcare policy, industrial policy, environment policy and other important
for this nation topics.
Instead the Dems chased a ghost (and they knew that this a ghost) for 3 years and now
Pelosi have just signaled that they will spend the next 6 months chasing another ghost --
trying to impeach Trump for his attempt to re-launch (in his trademark clumsy, bulling way)
investigating Joe Biden's family corruption in Ukraine. Action which is in full compliance
with The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 (FCPA)
During the last two years there were actions of Trump that probably deserved launching
impeachment proceeding. For example, attempt of regime change in Venezuela. But neoliberal
Dems were fully on board with that. So the main loss which this bunch of swindlers can't
settle with is the the loss in their ability to defraud the country: I feel that the
neoliberal Democrats' real problem with Trump is that he ended their scheme of defrauding the
country in favor of his own.
Now with this Ukraine-gate scandal the US voters have, in effect, are being defrauded by a
group of the same sophisticated political swindlers that ruled the county during Clinton and
Obama administrations.
"Instead of running on policy issues the Democrats again tried to find vague dirt with
which they can tarnish Trump."
If Warren is nominated she can run on dirt because she does not have the sewage history.
If she runs on policy people will remember that she will fce 20 million families who got a
$500/month Obamacare tax. These are the families that cost Dems four elections. She should
not mention medicare at all, once she has the nomination.
Impeachment is what happens when a President has sex and lies about it. So it has become
meaningless, thanks to Repubs.
If I were Trump, I would take the impeachment and run with it. Trump will claim he got
impeached because he was hunting for Biden sewage, and there is no Biden, thanks to the
impeachment. His team agrees, take the impeachment and run with it.
Who liked Biden? None of the young turks, they want Biden out as badly as they want Trump
out. I just have this feeling, Biden is a gonner, sort of a bipartisan play if you ask
me.
For The First Time, Warren Beats Out Biden For No. 1 Spot In National Poll
--
Biden gone. Harris gone. Pete gone. Beto gone. It is between Bernie and Liz. Both of whom
will be telling 10 million families that health care is free and they will not get hit with a
$500/month tax. Problem is, voters regret on this is lifelong, a ot of voters, right here in
this blog, think Obamacare was deceptive. But these same voters now put the cost on the
federal debt machine, courtesy of Trump, and they prefer that.
Trump wins as long as there is no blue bar and Repubs avoid mass shootings in Florida or
Texas. We, this group and our favorite economists have lost credibility on medical
programs.
Sanders is spend force in any case. His endorsement does not matter much. But for Warren this
is a blunder. Tulsi is the only one out of this troika who proved to be capable politician.
As I reported on the previous thread, Sanders endorsed the impeachment proceedings in a
tweet I linked to and cited. Gabbard is apparently the only D-Party candidate that said this
decision is a mistake.
This article about her stance is actually balanced. Citing her recent interview by
FOXNews :
"'I have been consistent in saying that I believe that impeachment in this juncture would
be terribly divisive for our country at a time when we are already extremely divided,'
Gabbard explained. 'Hyper-partisanship is one of the things that's driving our country
apart.'
"'I think it's important to defeat Donald Trump. That's why I'm running for president, but
I think it's the American people who need to make their voices heard, making that decision,'
she said.
"Regardless of how you feel about Gabbard, you have to give her credit on this front.
America is extremely divided today and politicians in Washington play into that. The
impeachment saga is a prime example of their role in this division ." [My Emphasis]
When one digs deeper into the forces Gabbard's attacking, she's the most patriotic one of
the entire bunch, including the Rs. I haven't looked at her election websites recently, but
from what I see of her campaign appearances, her and Sanders seem to be sharing each other's
policy proposals, although they both choose to place more emphasis on some than others. For
Gabbard, its the wonton waste and corruption of the Empire that keeps good things from being
done for all citizens at home, whereas Sanders basically inverts the two.
"... Meanwhile, greed -- once best known for its place on the list of Seven Deadly Sins -- became a point of pride for Wall Street's Masters of the Universe. With a sophisticated smile, the rallying cry of the rich and fashionable became "1 got mine -- the rest of you are on your own." ..."
And yet America's policies were headed in the wrong direction. The big banks kept lobbying Congress to pass a bill that would
gut families' last refuge in the bankruptcy courts -- the same bill we describe in this book. (It went by the awful name Bankruptcy
Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, but it should have been called the Gut the Safety Net and Pay OIT the Big Banks Act.).
The proposed law would carefully preserve bankruptcy protections for the likes of Donald Trump and his friends, while ordinary families
that had been crushed by debts from medical problems or job losses were thrown under the bus.
When we wrote The Two-Income Trap, it was already pretty clear that the big banks would win this battle. The fight kept going
for two more years, but the tide of blame-the-unlucky combined with relentless lobbying and campaign contributions finally overwhelmed
Congress.
In 2005, the Wall Street banking industry got the changes they wanted, and struggling families lost out. After the law was rewritten,
about 800,000 families a year that once would have turned to bankruptcy to try to get back on their feet were shut out of the system.1
That was 800,000 families -- mostly people who had lost jobs, suffered a medical catastrophe, or gone through a divorce or death
in the family. And now, instead of reorganizing their finances and building some security, they were at the mercy of debt collectors
who called twenty or thirty times a day -- and could keep on calling and calling for as long as they thought they could squeeze another
nickel from a desperate family.
As it turned out, the new law tore a big hole in the last safety net for working families, just in time for the Great Recession.
Meanwhile, the bank regulators kept playing blind and deaf while the housing bubble inflated. Once it burst, the economy collapsed.
The foreclosure problem we flagged back in 2003 rolled into a global economic meltdown by 2008, as millions of people lost their
homes, and millions more lost their jobs, their savings, and their chance at a secure retirement. Overall, the total cost of the
crash was estimated as high as S14 trillion.2
Meanwhile, America's giant banks got bailed out, CEO pay shot up, the stock market roared back, and the investor class got rich
beyond even their own fevered dreams.3
A generation ago, a fortune-teller might have predicted a very different future. With so many mothers headed into the workforce,
Americans might have demanded a much heavier investment in public day care, extended school days, and better family leave policies.
Equal pay for equal work might have become sacrosanct. As wages stagnated, there might have been more urgency for raising the minimum
wage, strengthening unions, and expanding Social Security. And our commitment to affordable college and universal preschool might
have become unshakeable.
But the political landscape was changing even faster than the new economic realities. Government was quickly becoming an object
of ridicule, even to the president of the United States. Instead of staking his prestige on making government more accountable and
efficient, Ronald Reagan repeated his famous barb "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are Tin from the government
and I'm here to help."'8 After generations of faithfulness to the promise of the Constitution to promote general welfare, at the
moment when the economic foundations of the middle class began to tremble, our efforts to strengthen each other and offer a helping
hand had become the butt of a national joke.
Those who continued to believe in what we could do together faced another harsh reality: much of government had been hijacked
by the rich and powerful. Regulators who were supposed to watch out for the public interest shifted their loyalties, smiling benignly
as giant banks jacked up short-term profits by cheating families, looking the other way as giant power companies scam mod customers,
and partying with industry executives as oil companies cut comers on safety and environmental rules. In this book we told one of
those stories, about how a spineless Congress rewrote the bankruptcy laws to enrich a handful of credit card companies.
Meanwhile, greed -- once best known for its place on the list of Seven Deadly Sins -- became a point of pride for Wall Street's
Masters of the Universe. With a sophisticated smile, the rallying cry of the rich and fashionable became "1 got mine -- the rest
of you are on your own."
These shifts played nicely into each other. Every' attack on "big government" meant families lost an ally, and the rules tilted
more and These shifts played nicely into each other. Every attack on "big government" meant families lost an ally, and the rules
tilted more and more in favor of those who could hire armies of lobbyists and lawyers. Lower taxes for the wealthy -- and more money
in the pockets of those who subscribed to the greed-is-good mantra. And if the consequence meant less money for preschools or public
colleges or disability coverage -- the things that would create more security for an overstretched middle class -- then that was
just too bad.
Little by little, as the middle class got deeper and deeper in trouble, government stopped working for the middle class, or at
least it stopped working so hard. The rich paid a little less and kept a little more. Even if they didn't say it in so many words,
they got exactly what they wanted. Remember the 90 percent -- America's middle class, working class, and poor -- the ones who got
70 percent of all income growth from 1935 through 1980?
From 1980-2014, the 90 percent got nothing.9 None. Zero. Zip. Not a penny in income growth. Instead, for an entire generation,
the top 10 percent captured all of the income growth in the entire country. l(X) percent.
It didn't have to be this way. The Two-Income Trap is about families that w'ork hard, but some things go wrong along the way --
illnesses and job losses, and maybe some bad decisions. But this isn't what has put the middle class on the ropes. After all, people
have gotten sick and lost jobs and made less-than-perfect decisions for generations -- and vet, for generations America's middle
class expanded. creating more opportunity to build real economic security and pass on a brighter future to their children.
What would it take to help strengthen the middle class? The problems facing the middle-class family are complex and far-reaching,
and the solutions must be too. We wish there could be a simple silver bullet, but after a generation of relentless assault, there
just isn't. But there is one overriding idea. Together we can. It's time to say it out loud: a generation of I-got-mine policy-making
has failed -- failed miserably, completely, and overwhelmingly. And it's time to change direction before the entire middle class
has been replaced by hundreds of millions of Americans barely hanging on by their fingernails.
Americas middle class was built through investments in education, infrastructure, and research -- and by' making sure we all have
a safety net. We need to strengthen those building blocks: Step up investments in public education. Rein in the cost of college and
cut out- standing student loans. Create universal preschool and affordable child care. Upgrade infrastructure -- mass transit, energy,
communications -- to make it more attractive to build good, middle-class jobs here in America. Recognize that the modem economy can
be perilous, and a strong safety net is needed now more than ever. Strengthen disability coverage, retirement coverage, and paid
sick leave. And for heavens sake, get rid of the awful banker-backed bankruptcy law, so that when things go wrong, families at least
have a chance at a fresh start. We welcome the re-issue of The Two-Income Trap because we see the original book as capturing a critical
moment, those last few minutes in which the explanation of why so many hardworking, plav-by- tho-mlcs people were in so much trouble
was simple: It was their own fault. If only they would just pull up their socks, cinch their belts a little tighter, and stop buying
so much stuff, they -- and our country -- would be just fine. That myth has died. And we say', good riddance.
Minor quibbles aside -- Warren presumably doesn't derive most of her income from capital
owner-ship, and markets are compatible with socialism -- the
Massachusetts senator is right. She and Sanders draw their lineage from distinct political
traditions.
Warren is a regulator at heart who believes that capitalism works well as long as fair
competition exists; Sanders is a class-conscious tribune who sees capitalism as fundamentally unjust . Warren
frames her most ambitious reforms as bids to make capitalism " accountable
"; Sanders pushes legislation called the "
Stop BEZOS Act " and denounces ceos for exploiting
workers . Warren seeks a harmonious accord between workers and employers; Sanders
encourages workers to fight back.
Foreign policy differences spring from their respective traditions as well. While both are
suspicious of military interventionism, Vermont's junior senator has shown himself much more
willing to criticize the crimes of US empire -- famously proclaiming in
a 2016 debate with Hillary Clinton that "Henry Kissinger is not my friend." Warren, though a
critic of Bush-style adventurism, sees America's role in more conventional terms, arguing in a
Foreign
Affairs essay this year that we should "project American strength and values
throughout the world."
Warren's political tradition is the left edge of middle-class liberalism; Sanders hails from
America's socialist tradition. Or, to put the distinction in more personal terms: Warren is
Louis
Brandeis , Sanders is Eugene Debs .
"... Rudy Drops New Bombs: Slams Obama Cabinet 'Pattern Of Corruption'; Claims China 'Bought' Biden ..."
"... Warren wins the nomination because the issue is Swamp Sewage and she hasn't been around long enough to emit much of it. Biden has a ton of it. Trump has three years of it. ..."
Rudy Drops New Bombs: Slams Obama Cabinet 'Pattern Of Corruption'; Claims China 'Bought'
Biden
---
Rudy on a roll. Go look it up on a safe site.
Warren wins the nomination because the issue is Swamp Sewage and she hasn't been around
long enough to emit much of it. Biden has a ton of it. Trump has three years of it.
"... Warren proved to be a very weak, mediocre politician. By joining the calls to "Impeach Trump" she proved this again. And this is not the first time she made a very bad call. Looks like she is completely malleable candidate. The candidate without spine outside his favorite re-regulation issues. ..."
"... Ukraine-gate impeachment process (aka another attempt to demonize Trump after Russiagate fiasco) is what Trump badly needs now, as it will cement his voting block and might bring back those voters who are appalled by his betrayal of almost all election promises. ..."
"... As Ukraine-gate is based on a false rumor and actually implicates Biden, not Trump (and after Trump decision to open the transcript Dems now need to move goalposts like it was with the inner party member Parteigenosse Mueller witch hunt ). ..."
"... It portrays the Dems as clueless political scum who are ready to resort to dirty tricks in order to protect neoliberal warmonger Biden, and maintain Wall-Street favorable status quo. ..."
The Senate republicans should be forced to block trumps impeachment. This is a good election
issue in deep purple states with a senator up for re election. Plus a good house issue. Let
the people judge both party wagons
Trump and Biden make a perfect pair of party Totem heads
Tulsi is the only talented politician among those who are running on Democratic Platform.
And I applaud her courage to stand against the mob
Warren proved to be a very weak, mediocre politician. By joining the calls to "Impeach
Trump" she proved this again. And this is not the first time she made a very bad call. Looks like she is completely
malleable candidate. The candidate without spine outside his favorite re-regulation issues.
She essentially gave Trump additional ammunition to attack her and poach her supporters. I
would now attack her along the lines:
"Do not believe anything Warren say; she does have spine. Look how easily she was
co-opted to join this witch-hunt. If Warren wins, she will instantly fold and will do what
bought by Wall Street Dems leadership will ask her. I am not perfect but I withstood
Russiagate witch-hunt and that proves that with all my faults I am the only independent
politician in this race, who can go against the flow and deliver what was promised; please
give additional time and I will deliver"
Of course, this is disingenuous projection as Trump did the same, but that's politics
;-)
I still believe that Warren has chances to win against Trump. But with such moves by Dem
leadership this might no longer be true. Why Warren does not attack Trump disastrous domestic
and foreign policy record instead of making such questionable calls is not clear to me. Just
a diagram "Trump promises vs reality" as election advertisement might improve her
chances.
Ukraine-gate impeachment process (aka another attempt to demonize Trump after Russiagate
fiasco) is what Trump badly needs now, as it will cement his voting block and might bring
back those voters who are appalled by his betrayal of almost all election promises.
As Ukraine-gate is based on a false rumor and actually implicates Biden, not Trump (and
after Trump decision to open the transcript Dems now need to move goalposts like it was with
the inner party member Parteigenosse Mueller witch hunt ).
It portrays the Dems as clueless
political scum who are ready to resort to dirty tricks in order to protect neoliberal
warmonger Biden, and maintain Wall-Street favorable status quo.
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who has supported the nuclear agreement since its
inception, has levied criticism toward the White House. On June 18, in response to a New York
Times report titled, "Trump Adds Troops After Iran Says It Will Breach Nuclear Deal" (a
questionable media framing given that the U.S. had already violated the deal), she
tweeted:
"I hope Iran chooses a different path. But let's be clear: Trump provoked this crisis. He
has no strategy to contain it, he's burned through our friends and allies, and now he's
doubling down on military force. We can't afford another forever war."
While Warren was correct to argue against war, she opens by appearing to place blame
against Iran, neglecting to acknowledge the U.S.'s role in villainizing Iran in the first
place.
On June 20, after reports of the Navy drone were published, Warren elaborated on her
comments, adopting a stronger oppositional stance to the prospect of war with Iran.
"Trump provoked this crisis, and his reckless foreign policy by tweet will only worsen it.
I've co-sponsored legislation to prohibit a war with Iran. We need to de-escalate tensions --
not let the war hawks in this administration drag us into conflict. #NoWarWithIran"
That same day, she followed with
"Donald Trump promised to bring our troops home. Instead he has pulled out of a deal that
was working and instigated another unnecessary conflict. There is no justification for
further escalating this crisis -- we need to step back from the brink of war."
Here, Warren uses stronger language to denounce Trump's actions, but still falls short of
a moral denunciation of U.S. violence or a more incisive analysis of the Iran nuclear deal's
power relations. Meanwhile, Warren's vote for new sanctions against Iran in 2017 weakens her
legislative record. ...
Warren is far more progressive than mainstream Democrats like Joe Biden. She calls for
withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. Warren campaigns for the United
State to rejoin the nuclear accord with Iran and to end trade pacts that hurt workers.
"Warren's foreign policy positions have shifted a fair amount in recent years,
particularly during the past few months," says Stephen Zunes, a professor of politics at the
University of San Francisco, who provides foreign policy advice to the Warren campaign.
"Warren's rise shakes up Democratic field" [ The
Hill ]. "A new poll showing Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) leading former Vice President
Joe Biden in Iowa has shaken up the Democratic nomination battle -- and insiders across the
party are gaming out what it all means. Warren currently has 22 percent support to Biden's 20
percent, according to the well-respected Des Moines Register–CNN–Mediacom poll,
released Saturday night. The two are well clear of the rest of the field, with Sen. Bernie
Sanders (I-Vt.) in third place with 11 percent support . With more than four months to go, the
experts all agree that it's too early to make solid predictions. But the battle for Iowa is
heating up by the day."
Is there any reason to see what is going on as more than just Biden support bailing to "Plan
C", i.e., the next most establishment-friendly candidate who has any apparent chance of
winning? Sanders' support seems solid. Admittedly, I would much rather see Sanders slowly
eating away at the "pro-establishment" fraction of Dem voters, but there is nothing to suggest
that he is losing support.
The more I see of Warren, the less I like her- and I would not have voted for her to begin
with. I'm getting very tired of moderate Republicans being packaged and sold as
"progressives".
To her credit, Warren does have a theory of change:
After dinner, "Larry leaned back in his chair and offered me some advice," Ms. Warren
writes. "I had a choice. I could be an insider or I could be an outsider. Outsiders can say
whatever they want. But people on the inside don't listen to them. Insiders, however, get
lots of access and a chance to push their ideas. People -- powerful people -- listen to what
they have to say. But insiders also understand one unbreakable rule: They don't criticize
other insiders.
"• I'm not sure I agree. There are many, many, many of those "boutique lobbying or
consulting shops" -- "
And how is Trump's shakedown hotel any different from DNC dialing for dollars? Or would it
be better if he limited himself just renting out the Lincoln Bedroom like the Clintons did?
I want to reiterate the point that Yglesias seems incapable of recognizing* that a network
of small shops could create more damage than one guy, even a titan. Look at health care policy,
for example. It looks like Elizabeth Warren's daughter runs a body-shop for the kind of person
Yglesias regards as harmless. Thread:
Samuel Douglas Retweeted Samuel Douglas
I spent some time looking into Warren Tyagi's consulting firm (Business Talent Group), and I
learned some interesting things 1/
Elizabeth Warren's daughter co-founded HealthAllies, a venture capital-backed health
benefits firm which was later acquired by United Health Group, the second largest health
insurer in the U.S.
NOTE * Incapable of recognizing, because obviously professionals don't have class
interests.
Wow, thanks for this, Lambert. See my link to the story in a reply
above for yet another shady bit about Warren's daughter. I wouldn't normally find myself on
RedState, but searching 'WARren daughter WFP' in the googlygoo brought this up first and after
a read-through, seems pretty straight-up. It even includes reporting from Jordan Chariton in
the meat of the story.
It's time for Warren to drop out. She's way too compromised.
FOX NEWS HOST Tucker Carlson was saying nice things about Elizabeth Warren again.
Well, not entirely nice things.
Speaking at a conference of conservative journalists and intellectuals this summer (*), he
took a moment to label the liberal Massachusetts senator and top contender for the Democratic
presidential nomination a "joke" and a "living tragedy."
But he also spoke, in admiring tones and at substantial length, about "The Two-Income
Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents Are Going Broke," the book Warren wrote with her daughter in
2004.
"Elizabeth Warren wrote one of the best books I've ever read on economics," he said.
By that point, he'd already warned his audience about the perils of "monopoly power" and
declared that income inequality, which the right had long been trained to believe is "just a
pure invention of some diabolical French intellectual to destroy America," is actually
"completely real" and "totally bad."
His Bolshevist pronouncements were probably not a surprise to anyone who'd watched
Carlson's show closely in the months leading up to his speech. But Fox, despite its outsize
influence, has a relatively small audience.
And it's not just Carlson's evolution that's escaped notice. It's hard to keep track of
what most of the key players on the right are saying these days, with President Trump soaking
up so much attention.
But while the commander-in-chief thrashes about, something important is taking shape in
his shadow -- the outlines of a new conservatism inspired, or at least elevated, by his rise
to power.
It's a conservatism that tries to wrestle with the post-Cold War, post-industrial angst
that fired his election -- dropping a reflexive fealty to big business that dates back to the
Reagan era and focusing more intently on the struggles of everyday Americans.
"There are many downsides, I will say, to Trump," Carlson said, in his speech this summer.
"But one of the upsides is, the Trump election was so shocking, so unlikely ... that it did
cause some significant percentage of people to say, 'wait a second, if that can happen, what
else is true?' "
The reimagining is playing out not just on Carlson's show or in conservative journals, but
among a small batch of young, ambitious Republicans in Congress led by senators Josh Hawley
of Missouri and Marco Rubio of Florida.
Their populist -- or "nationalist" or "post-liberal" -- prescriptions sometimes smack of
opportunism. And it's still not clear how far they're willing to stray from their party. But
it looks like there are places where the new nationalists could find common cause with an
energized left.
Whether the two sides can actually forge a meaningful alliance in the glare of our
hyperpartisan politics is an open question. But a compact -- even a provisional one -- may
offer the country its best shot at building a meaningful, post-Trump politics.
. . .
CARLSON DELIVERED HIS speech at the National Conservatism Conference -- the first major
gathering aimed at forging a new, right-of-center approach in the age of Trump.
"This is our independence day," said Yoram Hazony, an Israeli political theorist and chief
organizer of the event, in his spirited opening remarks. "We declare independence from
neoconservatism, from libertarianism, from what they call classical liberalism."
"We are national conservatives," he said.
Any effort to build a right-of-center nationalism circa 2019 inevitably runs into
questions about whether it will traffic in bigotry.
And one of the speakers, University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax, seemed to do
just that -- suggesting that "cultural compatibility" should play a role in deciding which
migrants are allowed into the country.
"In effect," she said, this "means taking the position that our country will be better off
with more whites and fewer nonwhites."
But Wax's speech, however discomfiting, stood out because it was so discordant.
Conference organizers took pains to prevent hate-mongers from attending -- ultimately
rejecting six applicants. ...
"Your ideas," he said, "are not welcome here." ...
"... This is no coincidence. The DNC elite, a who's who of Wall Street donors and "party insiders," have chosen Elizabeth Warren as the safest insurance policy to Joe Biden. Warren has positioned herself as the safer version of progressivism in contradistinction to Bernie Sanders' full-fledged New Deal politics. ..."
"... In recent weeks, Elizabeth Warren has been putting smiles on the faces of the Democratic Party establishment. Her performance at the DNC's summer fundraiser in San Francisco in late August received widespread positive coverage from the corporate media. The New York Times , for example, reported that Warren has been sending private messages to Democratic Party insiders to let them know that she is more interested in leading a "revival" of the Democratic Party rather than a revolution. ..."
"... In other words, Elizabeth Warren is saying and doing all the right things to position herself as the DNC's choice for the presidential nomination should the Biden campaign continue to falter. ..."
"... The DNC is looking for a candidate who will oppose Trump but support the neoliberal and foreign policy consensus that exists in Washington. At first, Warren's mimicry of Bernie Sanders' talking points raised a few eyebrows on Wall Street. While some of those eyebrows remain raised, the DNC clearly prefers Warren's "revival" over Sanders' "political revolution." ..."
From forgetting former President Barack Obama's name to having your
wife ask voters to "swallow
a little bit" of his pro-corporate positions on healthcare, the oligarchs in control of the
two-party political system in the United States are well aware of Biden's struggles .
According to the Washington Times , Biden is losing the support from the corporate
media. The editorial
cited a study from Axios which concluded that of 100 media stories about the Biden
campaign that received the most attention on social media, 77 were negative in character. While
Biden consistently leads in the polls, the DNC elite has gone fishing for of an insurance
policy for Biden's flailing campaign.
Enter Elizabeth Warren. At first, the Massachusetts Senator seemed like a dark horse in the
race and a mere thorn in the side of Bernie Sanders. Kamala Harris appeared to be the early DNC
favorite and her campaign has worked overtime to show its commitment to a neoliberal economic
and political agenda. However, Harris was stymied by Hawaiian Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard's
thirty second run
down of her record as Defense Attorney and Attorney General for the state of California
during the second Democratic Party primary debate. Ever since, Harris has seen her stock
decline mightily
in the polls while Elizabeth Warren's polling numbers have increased dramatically.
This is no coincidence. The DNC elite, a who's who of Wall Street donors and "party
insiders," have chosen Elizabeth Warren as the safest insurance policy to Joe Biden. Warren has
positioned herself as the safer version of progressivism in contradistinction to Bernie
Sanders' full-fledged New Deal politics. As far back as late February of 2019, Warren was
deriding corporate "special interests" while signaling that she would not succumb to
"unilateral disarmament" in a general election against Trump by forgoing corporate
donations.
The progressivism of Elizabeth Warren was thus a malleable project with a history of
inconsistency, as evidenced by her constant flip-flopping on issues such as the privatization
of education in Massachusetts.
In recent weeks, Elizabeth Warren has been putting smiles on the faces of the Democratic
Party establishment. Her performance at the DNC's summer fundraiser in San Francisco in late
August received widespread positive coverage from the corporate media. The New York
Times , for example, reported that Warren has been
sending private messages to Democratic Party insiders to let them know that she is more
interested in leading a "revival" of the Democratic Party rather than a revolution.
An article
in The Atlantic provided snippet remarks from people like Don Fowler, described in the
piece as a former DNC-chair and "long-time Clinton-family loyalist," who called Warren "smart
as shit" for her inside-out approach to her political campaign. A more recent editorial in The
New York Times offered a glimpse into Warren's former big donor connections from her
2018 Senate campaign. According to the Times , Warren was able to transfer 10.4
million USD to her presidential campaign effort in part because of the generosity of the
very same corporate elite that she now condemns as holding too much influence over the
Democratic Party. NBC News further revealed that Elizabeth Warren has an open line of
communication with the much maligned but infamous Democratic Party establishment leader,
Hillary Clinton.
In other words, Elizabeth Warren is saying and doing all the right things to position
herself as the DNC's choice for the presidential nomination should the Biden campaign continue
to falter.
Donald Trump is guaranteed the nomination for the Republican Party ticket after
taking over the party in 2016 from defunct establishment figures such as Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush,
and Ted Cruz.
The DNC is looking for a candidate who will oppose Trump but support the
neoliberal and foreign policy consensus that exists in Washington. At first, Warren's mimicry
of Bernie Sanders' talking points raised a few eyebrows on Wall Street. While some of those
eyebrows remain raised, the DNC clearly prefers Warren's "revival" over Sanders' "political
revolution."
That's because Warren's campaign to "revive" the Democratic Party is bereft of political
principle. Whatever Sanders' political limitations as a "left" alternative to the
establishment, the Vermont Senator is by far more progressive than Warren. Warren voted for the
Trump Administration's recent
military budget in 2017 even after tens of billions of dollars were added by Congress to
the original proposal. During Israel's 2014 massacre of the Palestinians in Operation
Protective Edge, Warren claimed Israel had a
right to defend itself. Bernie Sanders offers a clear proposal for Medicare for All already
drafted in the Senate, while Elizabeth Warren believes that Medicare for All can be implemented
in
"many different ways." In CNN's Climate Town Hall, Warren opposed public control of utilities
while Sanders supported it. A deeper look at Elizabeth Warren reveals that she is more aligned
with the establishment than she wants the public to believe.
All of this is to say that the DNC is looking for the best-case scenario for its corporate
masters, which is the worst-case scenario for working people in the United States. The
principle goal of the DNC is to stop Bernie Sanders from getting anywhere near the nomination.
Prior to Warren becoming insurance policy for Joe Biden, the DNC hoped that the Massachusetts
Senator would split supporters of Bernie Sanders down the middle. This would lead either to a
clear path to the nomination for a handpicked candidate (Biden, Harris, fill in the blank) or
to a contested convention where the unelected but very wealthy
"superdelegates" would cast the deciding vote. Should Warren have turned out a lame duck,
the DNC could still rely on over a dozen candidates with careerist ambitions to force a
contested election at the DNC convention in Milwaukee.
Workers in the United States have no insurance policy when it comes to the 2020 presidential
election or any other election for that matter. Austerity, privatization, and super
exploitation is the law of the capitalist land in the USA. Sanders is attractive to many
workers in the U.S. because of his consistent articulation of an anti-austerity platform which
includes living wage employment, a Green New Deal to help provide that employment, and a solid
commitment to Medicare for All. But Sanders remains deeply loyal to the Democratic Party and
has stated firmly on several occasions on the campaign trail that he would support any
Democratic Party candidate should he lose the nomination. Sanders frames Donald Trump as the
most dangerous element in U.S. society even as his own party colludes to prevent him from
having a fair shot at the nomination. Sanders and his supporters must realize that Elizabeth
Warren is not a friend, but an opportunist who is more than willing to profit from their
demise. The best-case scenario for the working class is that wall to wall resistance to Sanders
will lead to a mass exodus from the party and open the door for an independent worker's party
to form amid the collapse of the DNC.
"... Ms. Warren described Washington as utterly compromised by the influence of corporations and the extremely wealthy, and laid out a detailed plan for cleansing it. ..."
"... "Corruption has put our planet at risk, corruption has broken our economy and corruption is breaking our democracy," Ms. Warren said Monday evening. "I know what's broken, I've got a plan to fix it and that's why I'm running for president of the United States." ..."
"... Their version of populism, which Mr. Sanders pioneered but did not bring to fruition when he challenged Hillary Clinton in 2016, is about attacking concentrated wealth and economic power and breaking its influence over government. Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders, effectively tied for second place in their party's primary, both describe the country's political institutions as rotten and vow to make vast changes to the economy ..."
Warren and Trump Speeches Attack Corruption,
but Two Different Kinds https://nyti.ms/2IaKMVQ
NYT - Alexander Burns - September 17
In New York, Senator Elizabeth Warren described a government compromised by the influence
of the wealthy. President Trump, in New Mexico, denounced a "failed liberal
establishment."
Senator Elizabeth Warren stood beneath a marble arch in New York City, telling a crowd of
thousands that she would lead a movement to purge the government of corruption. Not far from
the site of a historic industrial disaster, Ms. Warren described Washington as utterly
compromised by the influence of corporations and the extremely wealthy, and laid out a
detailed plan for cleansing it.
"Corruption has put our planet at risk, corruption has broken our economy and
corruption is breaking our democracy," Ms. Warren said Monday evening. "I know what's broken,
I've got a plan to fix it and that's why I'm running for president of the United
States."
Only a few hours later, on a stage outside Albuquerque, President Trump took aim at a
different phenomenon that he also described as corruption. Before his own roaring crowd, Mr.
Trump cast himself as a bulwark against the power not of corporations but of a "failed
liberal establishment" that he described as attacking the country's sovereignty and cultural
heritage.
"We're battling against the corrupt establishment of the past," Mr. Trump said, warning in
grim language: "They want to erase American history, crush religious liberty, indoctrinate
our students with left-wing ideology."
The two back-to-back addresses laid out the competing versions of populism that could come
to define the presidential campaign. From the right, there is the strain Mr. Trump brought to
maturity in 2016, combining the longstanding grievances of the white working class with a
newer, darker angst about immigration and cultural change. And on the left, there is a vastly
different populist wave still gaining strength, defined in economic terms by Ms. Warren,
Democrat of Massachusetts, and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
The messages underlined the possibility that the 2020 election could be the first in a
generation to be fought without an ally of either party's centrist establishment on the
ballot. While it is by no means certain that Ms. Warren will emerge as the Democratic
nominee, two of her party's top three candidates -- Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders -- are
trumpeting themes of economic inequality and promises of sweeping political and social
reform.
Their version of populism, which Mr. Sanders pioneered but did not bring to fruition
when he challenged Hillary Clinton in 2016, is about attacking concentrated wealth and
economic power and breaking its influence over government. Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders,
effectively tied for second place in their party's primary, both describe the country's
political institutions as rotten and vow to make vast changes to the economy . ...
Let's hope the Sanders campaign does not play this card.
"Senator Professor Warren continues to play error-free baseball in this here presidential
campaign. Not only does she schedule a certified Big Speech in Washington Square Park in New
York on Monday night to talk about the contributions of women to the labor movement not far
from the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, but also, in the afternoon, she scoops an
important endorsement across town. From The New York Times:
'The party endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont during the last presidential cycle,
at which time he described Working Families as "the closest thing" to "my vision of
democratic socialism." The group's endorsement of Ms. Warren on Monday, one of the few by a
prominent progressive organization this early in the primary, is sure to turn heads among
left-leaning Democrats who are desperate to defeat the current front-runner, Mr. Biden, in a
primary election where their party's ideological future is at stake.
Mr. Mitchell brushed off the possibility that the group's endorsement would be seen as a
sign of a splintering of the progressive left. The vote among "tens of thousands" of party
members resulted in a commanding majority for Ms. Warren, a party spokesman said; she
received more than 60 percent of the votes on the first ballot.'
The Sanders camp is already raising holy hell. They will now position SPW as a tool of her
corporate masters. (That's been going on for a while now among some of the more enthusiastic
adherents of the Sanders campaign. My guess is that it will become more general now.) The WFP
endorsement is an important and clarifying one. If there is a liberal lane, there's some
daylight open now."
"... I do like the author's take on the importance of corporations' fiduciary responsibility to shareholders, though. There WAS a time when a company's first priority was customer satisfaction. The moment they became corporations, however, customers went out the window in favor of the shareholders. ..."
Go to the section of Warren's website entitled
"Plans" and at the time of this writing you'll have a choice between a staggering 43 links.
Many of the plans could hugely impact our economy, but one stands above the rest in its
potential to overhaul our commercia landscape. Warren calls the reforms she envisions to
corporate mandates and governance
"accountable capitalism."
Corporations sometimes do bad things, and Warren's plan might stop some of them.
So just what is accountable capitalism? It was originally a bill proposed by Senator Warren
last year. In a fawning write-up in Vox
, Matthew Yglesias inadvertently exposed the idea's flimsy intellectual foundation:
Warren's plan starts from the premise that corporations that claim the legal rights of
personhood should be legally required to accept the moral obligations of personhood.
... ... ...
Warren's plan requires corporations valued at over $1 billion to obtain a special federal
charter. This charter exposes corporations to regulation from a new Office of United States
Corporations that "tells company directors to consider the interests of all relevant
stakeholders -- shareholders, but also employees, customers, and the community within which the
company operates -- when making decisions."
... ... ...
Warren has spent much of her career crusading against the harmful and unjust cozy
relationships between Wall Street and government, often to her credit. It's curious that
someone with such expertise in the matter doesn't seem at all concerned that this new
"accountability" would multiply the number of meetings, phone calls, and emails between senior
regulators and the titans of the private sector.
These billion-dollar corporations already employ armies of lawyers and accountants to
navigate regulatory minefields and turn them into weapons against their smaller competitors.
Does Warren believe this practice will stop overnight?
If most rent-seeking were a matter of nefarious corporate executives buying off weak or
greedy officials, we could just elect better people. The fact that this problem persists over
decades is indicative of a more subtle process. Rent-seeking is an inevitable systemic feature
in a network with thousands of contact points between business and government.
She had her chance in the '08 credit crash when she took on Wall Street & The
Banksters!
She ended up filling the Banksters & 1%'ers pockets with billions of Tarp funds some
of which were donated to her campaign while enacting competition killing Dodd Frank
compliance laws! No one was ever charged or convicted for the $9Trillion debacle!
I recall Barry the magical ***** had similar plans that disappeared the moment of his
coronation/deification. Campaign plans are like that: fictional lies that vanish like
magic.
I do like the author's take on the importance of corporations' fiduciary
responsibility to shareholders, though. There WAS a time when a company's first priority was
customer satisfaction. The moment they became corporations, however, customers went out the
window in favor of the shareholders.
These days, thanks to algos, things like revenue and performance don't even seem to matter
to stock valuation anymore, only buybacks and options seem to keep prices up.
The problem of corporation lack of empathy is not caused by capitalism, it is caused by
the lack of moral values of the people running the corporation. What is needed is a moral
framework within which to raise our young... Religion? Yes! correct answer.
I think the author is too generous with Warren's intentions. She pretends she cares, and
this is her misguided effort to "help". I don't think that's true.
Look at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. It, too, sounds like it's about
"helping" people. Warren proposed the whole thing, and wrote much of the legislation.
Its real purpose, if you look at its actions (which, I remind you, speak louder than
words) is to extort money from large companies in order to fund left-wing activist groups. In
nearly all its settlements, the CFPB offers companies the option to "donate" money to these
third-party groups in lieu of larger fines and penalties. They've diverted billions of
dollars to activist groups. Controlling the money allows them to control the groups, and
these groups can exert all kinds of pressure, usually in ways that would be illegal, if done
directly by the government.
It's the equivalent of having the government fund paramilitary groups or third party
propaganda.
Warren would establish this new "Office of United States Corporations" to extort even more
money, diverted to third parties to use to destroy people, companies, and anything else she'd
like to target but cannot target directly through government because of our pesky
Constitution.
She's an aspiring totalitarian dictator, using clever language and 21st century tools.
Don't pretend, for a moment, that she's interested in "helping" anyone - she'd happily kill
as many people as Hitler or Stalin ever did, if she had the chance.
Steve Peoples and Will Weissert - AP - September 16
NEW YORK -- Elizabeth Warren has released a sweeping anti-government corruption proposal,
providing a detailed policy roadmap for a fight she says is at the core of her presidential
campaign.
The Democratic senator from Massachusetts is announcing the plan Monday in Manhattan's
Washington Square Park, near the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Co., which caught fire in
1911, killing 140-plus workers. Many of those deaths later were attributed to neglected
safety features, such as doors that were locked inside the factory.
Warren's plan would ban lobbyists from many fundraising activities and serving as
political campaign bundlers, tighten limits on politicians accepting gifts or payment for
government actions and bar senior officials and members of Congress from serving on nonprofit
boards. ...
Senator Elizabeth Warren is blitzing the 2020 Democratic primary field with a series of
ambitious policy proposals covering everything from student loans to the use of federal
lands.
Her proposals have become a signature part of her campaign, solidifying her reputation as
a policy wonk and spurring a new campaign slogan: "I have a plan for that."
Big Tech breakup
Child care
Clean energy
Criminal justice
Economic patriotism
Electoral college
Farmers
Filibuster
Green energy
Gun control
Higher education
Housing
Immigration
Minority entrepreneurship
Native American issues
Opioids
Pentagon ethics
Public lands
Puerto Rico
Racial wage disparities
Reparations
Roe v. Wade
Rural communities
State Department
Tax plans
Trade
Voting rights
Wall Street regulation
"... By that point, he'd already warned his audience about the perils of "monopoly power" and declared that income inequality, which the right had long been trained to believe is "just a pure invention of some diabolical French intellectual to destroy America," is actually "completely real" and "totally bad." ..."
"... The reimagining is playing out not just on Carlson's show or in conservative journals, but among a small batch of young, ambitious Republicans in Congress led by senators Josh Hawley of Missouri and Marco Rubio of Florida. ..."
"... Their populist -- or "nationalist" or "post-liberal" -- prescriptions sometimes smack of opportunism. And it's still not clear how far they're willing to stray from their party. But it looks like there are places where the new nationalists could find common cause with an energized left. ..."
"... And one of the speakers, University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax, seemed to do just that -- suggesting that "cultural compatibility" should play a role in deciding which migrants are allowed into the country. "In effect," she said, this "means taking the position that our country will be better off with more whites and fewer nonwhites." But Wax's speech, however discomfiting, stood out because it was so discordant. Conference organizers took pains to prevent hate-mongers from attending -- ultimately rejecting six applicants. ... "Your ideas," he said, "are not welcome here." ... ..."
...But he also spoke, in admiring tones and at substantial length, about "The Two-Income Trap:
Why Middle-Class Parents Are Going Broke," the book Warren wrote with her daughter in 2004.
"Elizabeth Warren wrote one of the best books I've ever read on economics," he said.
By that point, he'd already warned his audience about the perils of "monopoly power" and
declared that income inequality, which the right had long been trained to believe is "just a
pure invention of some diabolical French intellectual to destroy America," is actually
"completely real" and "totally bad."
His Bolshevist pronouncements were probably not a surprise to anyone who'd watched Carlson's
show closely in the months leading up to his speech. But Fox, despite its outsize influence,
has a relatively small audience.
And it's not just Carlson's evolution that's escaped notice. It's hard to keep track of what
most of the key players on the right are saying these days, with President Trump soaking up so
much attention.
But while the commander-in-chief thrashes about, something important is taking shape in his
shadow -- the outlines of a new conservatism inspired, or at least elevated, by his rise to
power.
It's a conservatism that tries to wrestle with the post-Cold War, post-industrial angst that
fired his election -- dropping a reflexive fealty to big business that dates back to the Reagan
era and focusing more intently on the struggles of everyday Americans.
"There are many downsides, I will say, to Trump," Carlson said, in his speech this summer.
"But one of the upsides is, the Trump election was so shocking, so unlikely ... that it did
cause some significant percentage of people to say, 'wait a second, if that can happen, what
else is true?' "
The reimagining is playing out not just on Carlson's show or in conservative journals, but
among a small batch of young, ambitious Republicans in Congress led by senators Josh Hawley of
Missouri and Marco Rubio of Florida.
Their populist -- or "nationalist" or "post-liberal" -- prescriptions sometimes smack of
opportunism. And it's still not clear how far they're willing to stray from their party. But it
looks like there are places where the new nationalists could find common cause with an
energized left.
Whether the two sides can actually forge a meaningful alliance in the glare of our
hyperpartisan politics is an open question. But a compact -- even a provisional one -- may
offer the country its best shot at building a meaningful, post-Trump politics.
. . .
CARLSON DELIVERED HIS speech at the National Conservatism Conference -- the first major
gathering aimed at forging a new, right-of-center approach in the age of Trump.
"This is our independence day," said Yoram Hazony, an Israeli political theorist and chief
organizer of the event, in his spirited opening remarks. "We declare independence from
neoconservatism, from libertarianism, from what they call classical liberalism." "We are national conservatives," he said. Any effort to build a right-of-center nationalism circa 2019 inevitably runs into questions
about whether it will traffic in bigotry.
And one of the speakers, University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax, seemed to do just
that -- suggesting that "cultural compatibility" should play a role in deciding which migrants
are allowed into the country. "In effect," she said, this "means taking the position that our country will be better off
with more whites and fewer nonwhites." But Wax's speech, however discomfiting, stood out because it was so discordant. Conference organizers took pains to prevent hate-mongers from attending -- ultimately
rejecting six applicants. ... "Your ideas," he said, "are not welcome here." ...
* At the National Conservatism Conference, an 'Intellectual Trumpist' Movement Begins to
Take Shape
"... Any honest Eisenhower Republican would be a lot better than Clinton or Obama (although still capitalist and imperialist). I am worried, however, about the palling around with HRC and it seems to me that she is (willingly or unknowingly) being used as a firebreak to prevent voters from moving to Bernie. ..."
Essentially, Toback argues that Warren's project is to somehow hoodwink us into believing that she is an opponent of neoliberalism
when in reality she is committed to legitimating neoliberalism. For Warren, neoliberalism is simply really 2 legit 2 quit (I'll spare
you the MC Hammer video).
Still, while stark differences between Sanders, Biden and the rest seem obvious to most, when it comes to Elizabeth Warren,
many on the alleged left have taken to collapsing distinctions. They argue that Warren's just as, or even more progressive, equal
but a woman and therefore better, not quite as good but still a fundamental shift to the left, or at the very least, a serious
opponent of neoliberalism. Some have even fantasized that Sanders and Warren function as allies, despite the obvious fact that
they are, you know Running against each other.
All of these claims obscure the fundamental truth that Sanders and Warren are different in kind, not degree. Warren has always
been a market-first neoliberal and nothing she's doing now suggests deviation. Despite her barrage of plans and recent adoption
of left rhetorical shibboleths like "grassroots movements" and "structural change," Warren remains a neoliberal legitimization
machine. Anybody who's serious about amending and expanding the social contract and/or preserving the habitability of the planet
needs to oppose her candidacy now.
Toback nicely weaves together and systematically presents pretty much all the analysis I've seen here at C99%. It's well worth
reading as is the David Harvey interview linked above.
And for some icing on the cake, Toback quotes some lyrics from the splendid Leonard Cohen song 'Democracy':
"It's coming from the sorrow in the street,
the holy places where the races meet;
from the homicidal bitchin'
that goes down in every kitchen
to determine who will serve and who will eat." -- Leonard Cohen
might be someone I could support. She said all the right things. That was all I had to judge by. So I took a wait and see.
I have always been able to see the reality of actions that differ from words. Hers don't match. It's far better that she lacks
Obama's charisma and has shown who she is before she's sitting in Trump's chair.
might be someone I could support. She said all the right things. That was all I had to judge by. So I took a wait and see.
I have always been able to see the reality of actions that differ from words. Hers don't match. It's far better that she lacks
Obama's charisma and has shown who she is before she's sitting in Trump's chair.
@orlbucfan
I can sympathize with being weary of theory, but I think it's important to try to be precise in discerning a politician's ideological
underpinnings. And I think there really is a full, expanding, and even oscillating spectrum of ideologies at play.
It seems to me that fascists would more accurately be characterized as "corporate rightwingers. As fed up as I am with Warren's
phony baloney, I don't think she's a fascist or a corporate rightwinger.
Consider Harvey's portrayal of the liberal/neoliberal divide:
In liberal theory, the role of the state is minimal (a "night-watchman" state with laissez faire policies). In neo-liberalism
it is accepted that the state play an active role in promoting technological changes and endless capital accumulation through
the promotion of commodification and monetisation of everything along with the formation of powerful institutions (such as
Central Banks and the International Monetary Fund) and the rebuilding of mental conceptions of the world in favor of neoliberal
freedoms.
#3
I can sympathize with being weary of theory, but I think it's important to try to be precise in discerning a politician's ideological
underpinnings. And I think there really is a full, expanding, and even oscillating spectrum of ideologies at play.
It seems to me that fascists would more accurately be characterized as "corporate rightwingers. As fed up as I am with Warren's
phony baloney, I don't think she's a fascist or a corporate rightwinger.
Consider Harvey's portrayal of the liberal/neoliberal divide:
In liberal theory, the role of the state is minimal (a "night-watchman" state with laissez faire policies). In neo-liberalism
it is accepted that the state play an active role in promoting technological changes and endless capital accumulation through
the promotion of commodification and monetisation of everything along with the formation of powerful institutions (such
as Central Banks and the International Monetary Fund) and the rebuilding of mental conceptions of the world in favor of
neoliberal freedoms.
#3
I can sympathize with being weary of theory, but I think it's important to try to be precise in discerning a politician's ideological
underpinnings. And I think there really is a full, expanding, and even oscillating spectrum of ideologies at play.
It seems to me that fascists would more accurately be characterized as "corporate rightwingers. As fed up as I am with Warren's
phony baloney, I don't think she's a fascist or a corporate rightwinger.
Consider Harvey's portrayal of the liberal/neoliberal divide:
In liberal theory, the role of the state is minimal (a "night-watchman" state with laissez faire policies). In neo-liberalism
it is accepted that the state play an active role in promoting technological changes and endless capital accumulation through
the promotion of commodification and monetisation of everything along with the formation of powerful institutions (such
as Central Banks and the International Monetary Fund) and the rebuilding of mental conceptions of the world in favor of
neoliberal freedoms.
over toward Obama. I don't think she's to the left of him. Then again, I'm not really sure how much of what she says I believe.
A lot of it seems mushy and ill-defined (what is "access to healthcare?"), and she certainly isn't consistent in her support for
MFA. For that matter, how can you take large donations from the people who put us where we are if you intend to change the system
they created? Does that mean that the multi-millionaires and billionaires don't like the system they created? That they see its
destructiveness and now, finally, want to head it off? That's the only logical way you can put together "I'm going to change the
system" and "I'm going to take large donations from people who built, maintain, and profit from the system." Since I've seen no
evidence that the "smart money," or any other money, is interested in changing the system, I'd have to reject this hypothesis.
So what am I left with? I'm left with guessing that Warren is another one of those "all we need to do is tweak the system a
little" types--but if that's the case, she's not going to solve global warming, the health care crisis, the economic crisis, the
collapse of wages, the destruction of basic human rights, the destruction--or distortion--of the rule of law, or the endless wars.
All those things have been put in place by the people she wants to take lots of money from. And take it in the dark, too. Spiffing.
She was an outspoken opponent of the TPP in 2015 before she could be seen reasonably as posturing for a Presidential run. The
TPP is the essence of neoliberalism.
I have seen her as an Eisenhower Republican and therefore to the left of the Democratic leadership. I think the Consumer Protection
Agency was an attempt at moderating some of the worst effects of unrestrained capitalism.
Any honest Eisenhower Republican would be a lot better than Clinton or Obama (although still capitalist and imperialist).
I am worried, however, about the palling around with HRC and it seems to me that she is (willingly or unknowingly) being used
as a firebreak to prevent voters from moving to Bernie.
slippery...just like Clinton (Bill I mean). And don't get me started on this whole palling around with Hillary crap. I mean
really Liz?
These idiots don't hire themselves. The problem is Trump. It doesn't matter whether Bolton
(or Pompeo, or Hook, or Abrams) is in or out as long as Trump himself is in the White
House.
That realization has turned my 2016 protest vote for Trump into a 2020 protest vote for
Elizabeth Warren. The underlying principle is be the same, voting yet again for the lesser
of two evils.
Elizabeth Warren Stands Out at New Hampshire Democratic
Party Convention https://nyti.ms/2POixCr
NYT - Katie Glueck - September 7
MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s backers roared supportive slogans and banged on
drums as they camped outside Southern New Hampshire University Arena. Backers of Senator
Elizabeth Warren marched as part of a jazz-inflected brass band. A fan of Senator Amy
Klobuchar admonished passers-by to consider electability, and banners associated with Senator
Bernie Sanders that highlighted his own standing in the polls appeared aimed at drawing a
contrast with Mr. Biden.
The New Hampshire Democratic Party State Convention drew 19 of the presidential candidates
and some of the state's most committed party activists -- including more than 1,200 delegates
-- to its gathering here Saturday, offering an early test of campaign organization and
enthusiasm in a contest that is traditionally a must-win for candidates from neighboring
states.
This cycle, that includes Mr. Sanders of Vermont, who won New Hampshire by a wide margin
in 2016, and Ms. Warren of Massachusetts, whose ground game is often regarded as the most
extensive in a contest that party officials describe as still fluid -- though Ms. Warren
received the most enthusiastic reception of the day, with an opening standing ovation that
stretched on for nearly two minutes.
Her supporters wielded inflatable noise makers and she received thunderous applause
throughout her address.
"There is a lot at stake and people are scared," she said. "But we can't choose a
candidate we don't believe in because we're scared."
It's a version of a line that Ms. Warren has deployed before, though it took on new
significance when she deployed it Saturday, days before she faces off against Mr. Biden for
the first time on the debate stage.
While many voters feel warmly toward Mr. Biden, some have also cited the perception that
he is the most electable candidate in the race, rather than displaying outright enthusiasm
for his campaign.
"There's that sense of, we know who Joe is and we trust him," said former State Senator
Sylvia Larsen, the former New Hampshire Senate president. "There's still a little bit of
people still looking around to say, 'Well, O.K., so what else is out there? Where are the
voices? Who else might be a voice?'"
Mr. Biden, the former vice president, was the first of the presidential contenders to
speak, and he received a polite though hardly raucous reception as attendees trickled into
the arena, which was not yet full on Saturday morning.
Mr. Biden has led in most polls here since entering the race -- though the surveys have
been relatively few. He is focused on blue-collar voters, moderates and other Democrats who
believe his more centrist brand offers the most promising path to defeating Mr. Trump, in
contrast to the more progressive coalitions Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders are working to
build.
On the ground, Mr. Sanders's supporters challenged the notion that Mr. Biden is the only
candidate well positioned to defeat Mr. Trump.
"Bernie beats Trump," read one banner hanging in the arena. Outside, another banner
affixed to a pro-Sanders tent read, "In poll after poll after poll Bernie BEATS Trump."
Mr. Sanders received frequent applause throughout his speech and his supporters -- who
appeared dispersed throughout the arena -- greeted many of his remarks with loud whoops.
"Together, we will make Donald Trump a one-term president," he said. "But frankly,
frankly, it is not enough just to defeat Trump. We must do much, much more. We must finally
create a government and an economy that works for all of us, not just the one percent."
In a sign of organizational strength, Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., was also a
prominent presence at the convention: He had a large cheering contingent that punctuated his
address with rounds of applause. Flush with a field-leading fund-raising haul, his campaign
has significantly expanded its presence in New Hampshire, and has announced the opening of 12
new offices in the state.
Senator Kamala Harris of California had a visible support section, too -- her fans wore
bright yellow T-shirts -- and she also received applause and cheers.
Yet Ms. Harris's standing in the polls has slipped over the summer, and party leaders here
say she does not have the same footprint in the state as some of the other contenders.
Perhaps reflecting those dynamics -- and a lunchtime-hour speaking slot -- her ability to
excite the room was at times uneven.
"Everybody else and the pundits can ride polls; I'm not on that roller coaster," she told
reporters after her speech. "I am working hard, we are steady, I don't get high with the
polls, I don't go low with the polls."
Senator Cory Booker, too, found himself brushing off the polls when speaking to reporters
after giving an energetic speech that resonated in the room. His candidacy has mystified some
veteran New Hampshire Democrats who note his relatively stagnant poll numbers despite
extensive on-the-ground campaign organization, endorsements and an ability to deliver a fiery
speech.
Certainly, the convention is an imperfect test of the state of the New Hampshire primary.
It's a window into the mood of the most plugged-in activists, but isn't necessarily
representative of the entire electorate that will turn out on Primary Day -- and it also drew
attendees from out of state, from places including Massachusetts, New Jersey and even, in at
least one case, California. ...
In comparison with Joe Biden or Kamala Harris, Warren is huge progress even with her warts and all.
Notable quotes:
"... the DNC is already gaming polls, cherry-picking which are "official" for their 2% threshhold. MSNBC and other networks and pundits also cherry-pick. Or even simply outright lie if the poll doesn't match what they want it to. ..."
"... Polling should either be eliminated or held to MUCH more consistent and much more scientific standards. (demographics, prediction analysis, neutral rather than leading questions, standardized formats, etc.) Until then they're simply more and more useless as predictors of the real poll, the primaries or general. ..."
"... The difference no is, that countries like Canada, the U.S., Australia, UK, Poland, Ukraine, Hungary and with the AfD Germany are either as fascist, or more fascist than ever before. Once again, Russia is hyped up to be the eternal arch enemy of 'Western fascist values', 'freedom and democracy'. How much more difficult would it be today to round up resistance against a fascist axis that is hellbent to march again Russia? ..."
"... Sure, Trudeau is nothing but a bag of lukewarm air, but he employs hard core fascists in his cabinet – paid for by the Canadian people. ..."
"... History will look at the Sanders Warren debacle in the same way it must look now at the theft of the nomination of Henry A. Wallace in favor of the person that had no whatsoever second thoughts about dropping two nukes on an enemy that had already succumbed to the Soviet forces. Henry A. Wallace would heve never dropped these nukes. He was a staunch supporter of the 'common man'. All his policies reflected that. He was a presidential nominee for, of and by the people. ..."
"... To all the mindless party members of the Democratic fascist party: if you repeat history by allowing for the second time to install a puppet of the fascist powers in the U.S., you bear the full responsibilty for the dropping of the next nukes. ..."
"... The difference between Sanders and Wallace is a painful one. Wallace fought against the theft of his nomination with all he got. Subsequently, he realized that the 'Democratic' party would never allow for a person with integrity and the well being of the people at heart to win any nomination. He would have won the following presidency as a third party nominee – Trumann however knew how to prevent that. ..."
"... Much of what is sickening about the US as an imperial power today was present well before 1944 – indeed was present during the 19th century when the US made colonies of Hawaii and the Philippines in the 1890s, and occupied Haiti in 1915 (?), not leaving that country until the 1930s. ..."
"... Forgive me for saying so, but is a party of working folks really supposed to be grovelling for favours from billionaires? ..."
"... I think Gabbard is as authentic a new voice as i have ever seen in the DNC. She may well make it as an independent. Would Sanders? ..."
"... I'd say if a Gabbard/Paul grassroots campaign run by the Sanders 'momentum' network got their act together the USA may finally mature into a proper democracy not owned by their neolib con artistes. ..."
"... America where democracy has been extinguished and their increasingly paranoid voters are under the mistaken belief that yet another talking head can return them to a fair and impartial existence. ..."
"... Too late. Money is king and those that have most want more. The sideshow of elections produces the performing clowns such as Trump, Obama, Bush etc.all spouting the same vacuous promises on behalf of their wealthy benefactors. No real choice or change and an illusion of caring for the welfare of their citizenry. Listen carefully to the clowns, it's the sound of money talking. ..."
So: the rise of Elizabeth Warren gives the billionaires a 'progressive' candidate who might either win the
nomination or else at least split progressive voters during the primaries (between Sanders and Warren) and thus give
the nomination to Buttigieg, who is their first choice (especially since both Biden and Harris have been faltering so
badly of late).
I feel like any analysis that even mentions polls is guesswork, because nowadays polls are almost
entirely useless. In that they aren't accurately measuring people who are actually going to go to
open/semi-open or even closed primaries, and caucuses. The cohort of likely voters is different from
the cohort who bothers to pick up a phone call from an unknown (polling) number. Or make it through a
whole poll. Or do any online polls. Or have a reachable phone # at all.
Plus the fact that the DNC is already gaming polls, cherry-picking which are "official" for their
2% threshhold. MSNBC and other networks and pundits also cherry-pick. Or even simply outright lie if
the poll doesn't match what they want it to.
Polling should either be eliminated or held to MUCH more consistent and much more scientific
standards. (demographics, prediction analysis, neutral rather than leading questions, standardized
formats, etc.) Until then they're simply more and more useless as predictors of the real poll, the
primaries or general.
I liked the article other than that though.
mark
"Vote for me, I'm gay!"
"Vote for me, I'm a Red Indian!"
Daniel Rich
Do these 'Democratic Party billionaires ' have names and further affiliations?
Could it be that most of these 'Democratic Party billionaires ' favor the Apartheid State?
Hmmmmm?
George Cornell
David Bradley's The Atlanticmagazine headlined on August 26th, "Elizabeth Warren Manages to Woo the
Democratic Establishment". Wooing in American politics = betraying your principles, cutting deals,
bending to the wishes of the powerful, and all round submissive boot-licking.
Roberto
That would be describing successful politics in any country at any time in history.
An unsuccessful politician would do the inverse of what you list. For those with good memories,
let's try to name some.
George Cornell
Not everyone would agree with that definition of success, but you are quite right.
wardropper
Voice in the "Emperor's New Clothes" story:
"Why don't we just ban all financial support of presidential candidates? – I thought this was supposed
to be about the person best qualified and best suited to run the country "
HEY! Somebody shut that
child up right now, will you!
The significance of Sanders is this: if he wins the nomination he will have done so by leading an
insurrectionary movement, not only within the Democratic Party but in US society itself. He simply
cannot win otherwise. And if he wins the primaries it will have been in spite of the great mass of
money and Establishment influence having been mobilised against him.
In other words he is right to call his supporters a "revolution."
It is of course equally true of the Corbyn movement- any victories are immense defeats for both the
Establishment and its media. That, in itself is important.
And nowhere more than in Canada where the third and fourth parties- the NDP and the Greens- continue
to tack further and further to the right, trying to catch up with the rightward swing of the Liberal
Party -now close to full on neo-naziism- and the ultra right Tories.
Thank You for the link. While I am keenly aware of the untold history of WWII and the fact that
Hitler would have never gotten where he was from 1933-1941 without the propping up by both U.S. and
Zionist interests (mind the redundancy), eager to crush the perceived anti-capitalist behemoth
Soviet Union, I am wondering about the present re-run of the same story unfolding.
The difference
no is, that countries like Canada, the U.S., Australia, UK, Poland, Ukraine, Hungary and with the
AfD Germany are either as fascist, or more fascist than ever before. Once again, Russia is hyped up
to be the eternal arch enemy of 'Western fascist values', 'freedom and democracy'. How much more
difficult would it be today to round up resistance against a fascist axis that is hellbent to march
again Russia?
Sure, Trudeau is nothing but a bag of lukewarm air, but he employs hard core fascists in his
cabinet – paid for by the Canadian people. The rest of the what goes for the 'value West' is more
of a disgrace than at any time before. These are the real dark ages, as I have stated before.
Nothing good can come from these psychopathic puppets in control of countries that ought to deserve
much better. Maybe, just maybe, the people of the countries in question should read Rudi Dutschke's
works about 'Extra Parliamentary Opposition' – for Dummies?
Until Turkey is able to produce S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems – it will buy weapons from Russia.
Turkey intends to buy from Russia additional S-400 air defense systems
While Bernie Sanders is no Henry A. Wallace by a long shot, Elizabeth Warren is the new Harry Trumann.
The Democrats are still the Democratic fascist Party of America and have their party base hypnotized
into believing that it has the well being of its voters on its mind.
That is of course a lie and
pure propaganda. And since the U.S. is the second most vulnerable nation to propaganda and fascism –
with Germany being the number one, in both the past and the present – the people that refuse to leave
the Democratic Fascist Party are remiscent of those people who kept following Hitler, even after it
had become clear that his 'party' would drive Germany into the abyss.
For the brownshirt-like followers of proven war criminals that both lead, or finance the 'party',
absolutely no crime is big enough that would warrant to turn their back on the fascist party.
History
will look at the Sanders Warren debacle in the same way it must look now at
the theft
of the nomination of Henry A. Wallace
in favor of the person that had no whatsoever second
thoughts about dropping two nukes on an enemy that had already succumbed to the Soviet forces. Henry
A. Wallace would heve never dropped these nukes. He was a staunch supporter of the 'common man'. All
his policies reflected that. He was a presidential nominee for, of and by the people.
That did not sit too well with the fascists and they stole the nomination from him. Present day
America has turned into this corrupt cesspool because of this stolen nomination. Everything that is
sickening about the U.S. today, started in 1944. All the surveillance, the mindcontrol, the cold war
and the transformation into a wannabe empire – they are all the result of this infamy by the hands of
the Democratic fascists.
To all the mindless party members of the Democratic fascist party: if you repeat history by
allowing for the second time to install a puppet of the fascist powers in the U.S., you bear the full
responsibilty for the dropping of the next nukes. Suffering from such deep sitting cognitive
dissonance, party members will find all kinds of excuses to prevent the truth from coming out. Just as
there was no war crime by Clinton and Obama sufficient enough to not cheer them like the greatest
baseball team ever. Leave the Democratic fascist party now, or have history piss on your graves.
Norcal
Very convincing argument and link, perfectly done. Thank you nottheonly1.
nottheonly1
Thank You, Norcal. It may be best to download these video clips, since they are all taken down
one after another based on 'copyright issues'.
The difference between Sanders and Wallace is a painful one. Wallace fought against the theft
of his nomination with all he got. Subsequently, he realized that the 'Democratic' party would
never allow for a person with integrity and the well being of the people at heart to win any
nomination. He would have won the following presidency as a third party nominee – Trumann
however knew how to prevent that. As the clip states, the American people only have to be
frightened and you can sell them their own demise on a golden platter. The ridicule and shaming
of those who want a third party can also be traced back to this time.
It is equally very disturbing that the owner class managed to brain wash the people into
accepting the use of 'oligarchs', 'billionaires', or 'donors' when in truth they are the real
fascists Henry Wallace had warned about. This must be reversed by all means available. People
must understand that the concerted use of these euphemisms will make it next to impossible to
accept what these persons really are and what their goals are.
Jen
Much of what is sickening about the US as an imperial power today was present well before 1944 –
indeed was present during the 19th century when the US made colonies of Hawaii and the Philippines
in the 1890s, and occupied Haiti in 1915 (?), not leaving that country until the 1930s. Of course
there was also the genocide of First Nations peoples through the theft of their lands, the wars
waged to force them onto reservations, and the massive slaughter of bison as a way of destroying
many indigenous cultures.
nottheonly1
Yes, but never before was the deliberate change of course towards fascism so blatant than with
the ouster of Wallace. This was the watershed moment that turned the U.S. into the greatest
threat for humanity. When You read about Wallace, You will find out that he generally wanted
reconcile with the Native Indian Nation. He wanted cooperation with the Soviet Union/Russians
for a lasting global peace and prosperity for everyone, not just a few American maggots. Present
day U.S. started at that real day of infamy.
Lysias
Wallace was also a big supporter of establishing Israel.
Seamus Padraig
So, whereas they would be able to deal with Warren, they wouldn't be able to deal with Sanders,
whose policy-record is remarkably progressive in all respects, and not only on domestic U.S.
matters.
Frankly, Bernie could be better on foreign policy. While he
did
vote against the Iraq War–I give him all due credit for that–he hasn't really opposed any of
Washington's other wars, coups and régime-change operations in recent memory. Oh: and Bernie, the
self-described socialist, once referred to Hugo Chavez as a "dead dictator". That being said, he would
still be preferable to the remaining flotsam in the today's Democrap Party.
Rhys Jaggar
Forgive me for saying so, but is a party of working folks really supposed to be grovelling for favours
from billionaires? The Republicans are supposed to be the party for the rich, not the Democrats .
And is not time for billionaires to be bumped off by politicians, not politicians bumped off by
billionaires?
A tad uncritical on Sanders, especially his foreign policies, but otherwise an excellent and closely
argued takedown of the risible but sadly widespread delusion that America is a democracy. Thanks Eric.
Wilmers31
Democracy itself does not say anything about quality of life, it's just a system. US democracy runs
on money. Most thing in life do – pretending it is otherwise, that's where the problem is.
Democracy is just the shell – if you fill it with sh1t it's bad; if you fill it with honey it's
sweet.
Biden is remote-controllable, he'd do as told – so of course big money would prefer him.
I've just the other day written
this piece on democracy
. The immediate context is
the fiasco re the UK Queen granting Boris Johnson's request to prorogue (temporarily dissolve)
parliament, but the issues run deeper and wider.
Dungroanin
I skimmed through and didn't spot one mention of Gabbard!
Seems as if she is being non-personed
and ignored as a viable candidate (much like JC has been over here).
There is a long way to that election yet. (The US, ours is finally within reach, unless some
wildebeast tramples in )
The DNC dirty tricks won't wash this time – perhaps its time to start reading and talking about
the nitty gritty of these leaked mails – if for nothing else for the bravery and ultimate sacrifice
of Seth Rich.
Well I'm already stretched perilous thin, DG, but will give it thought.
Meantime,
this piece from last week
by Katia Novella Miller, first of a two parts with second part to
follow on the same KBNB World News site, gives a precis of what Wikileaks showed the world.
The lack of mention of Gabbard is telling, as is the fact the Billionaire crowd (Rubinites) are
pushing for a candidate I ain't even heard of.
The fact remains, a Sanders – Gabbard ticket
against Trump is the preferable outcome for many observers on the Left.
Just as a reminder, neither Sanders & Gabbard are God like figures, in much the same way
Corbyn ain't, however, they are the best available at this juncture in time if we really want
some change, even if it is incremental.
Dungroanin
I think Gabbard is as authentic a new voice as i have ever seen in the DNC. She may well make
it as an independent. Would Sanders?
I read somewhere that the US electorate were self
identified as third Republican, Democrat and independent.
If they were given an independent ticket- not part of the two billionaire funded main
parties then enough may join the independent third from these.
I'd say if a Gabbard/Paul grassroots campaign run by the Sanders 'momentum' network got
their act together the USA may finally mature into a proper democracy not owned by their
neolib con artistes.
Grafter
America where democracy has been extinguished and their increasingly paranoid voters are under the
mistaken belief that yet another talking head can return them to a fair and impartial existence.
Too
late. Money is king and those that have most want more. The sideshow of elections produces the
performing clowns such as Trump, Obama, Bush etc.all spouting the same vacuous promises on behalf of
their wealthy benefactors. No real choice or change and an illusion of caring for the welfare of their
citizenry. Listen carefully to the clowns, it's the sound of money talking.
"... What do all those "safe" candidates have in common? Oh, that's right- they all lost . ..."
"... So the more overtly neoliberal candidates are stalling or bailing, with the more progressive candidates (actually or putatively) -- Sanders and Warren -- sailing along. Is that some kind of surprise? ..."
Warren has the Acela corridor's backing and that has been expressed in some fawning
coverage from the likes of the WaPo and NYT. Krugman has hinted that she's his candidate as
well.
Unless something completely untoward happens, expect her to get great reviews in the next
debate.
I don't see how a classic Massachusetts liberal like Warren (to me she's very close to
Teddy K in her policy views ) motivates enough abstaining voters to beat Trump. Not enough
there, there.
Re the polls: Matt Taibbi recently wrote that if Biden lost ground Sanders would be the
likely gainer, since Bernie is the second choice for most Biden supporters. But it appears
Warren is benefiting as Biden slides.
Too bad. Still, maybe it's just the minority of Biden supporters who pick Warren as their
2nd choice who are bailing on Biden so far. Sanders may still gain if the more hard-core
Bidenites begin to leave.
As for Beto's plan to snatch our AK's and AR's, good for him for being so forthright. It's
a terrible idea, but one can appreciate the flat-out honesty.
" the enduring questions surrounding Biden's age and fitness for office may mean
Democrats will lack the "safe" choice they have had in the past, whether the candidate has
been former Vice President Al Gore in 2000, former U.S. Senator John Kerry in 2004 or
Clinton, the former U.S. senator and secretary of state, in 2008 and 2016."
What do all those "safe" candidates have in common? Oh, that's right- they all lost
.
That and they didn't upset the apple carts of the political consultants and the major
donors.
Funnily I think the author is missing several 'safe' candidates still in the running, all
of whom might secure the nomination on the second ballot depending on who the superdelegate
darling is. All of whom would probably be able to uphold that loss record of the safe
candidate.
I didn't click through to read if it was a joke, but I suspect "safe" for Team Blue types
means "a candidate who most assuredly won't be criticized by the Republicans."
Al Gore would blunt whining about the deficit. John Kerry was for a "stronger America."
Hillary was so qualified and had faced all arrows including machine gun fire in Serbia.
Yep, those moderate Republicans are going to eliminate the need for Team Blue elites to ever
have to worry about the poors again.
Right -- and none of them had the press openly speculating about a lack of cognitive
capacity, as is happening with the current "safe" candidate. That's what passes for "safe"
these days, I guess.
Also: "Biden's appeal wanes," Gillibrand crashes and burns, Harris "hasn't caught fire,"
and Black Lives Matter of South Bend calls for Buttigieg to resign as mayor. (What
language(s) will "Mayor Pete" give his resignation speech in, one wonders.)
So the more
overtly neoliberal candidates are stalling or bailing, with the more progressive candidates
(actually or putatively) -- Sanders and Warren -- sailing along. Is that some kind of
surprise?
I work for a law firm that represents Wall Street banks and I can tell you who they don't
like, and that is Sanders and Warren. They hate that Warren created the CFPB and blew the
whistle on Wells Fargo and all the other games being played by Wall Street banks. Therefore, I
will vote for either of them, Warren preferred.
"... It also has Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, front-runners for the presidential nomination, who reject the neoliberal economic policies that the Democratic Party has been championing since the waning days of the Carter administration. ..."
"... In calling them front-runners, I haven't forgotten Joe Biden, still in the lead in most polls. It is just that I think that, after nearly three years of Trump, the candidacy of a doddering Clintonite doofus doesn't – and shouldn't -- merit serious consideration. I trust that this will become increasingly apparent even to the most dull-witted Democratic pundits, and of course to the vast majority of Democratic voters, as the election season unfolds. ..."
"... The better to defeat Trump and Trumpism next year, Sanders or Warren or whichever candidate finally gets the nod, along with the several rays of light in Congress – there are more of them than just the four that Trump would send back to "where they came from" -- will undoubtedly make common cause with corporate Democrats at a tactical level. ..."
With Trump acting out egregiously and mainstream Democrats in the House doing nothing more about it than talking up a storm, it
would be hard to imagine the public mood not shifting in ways that would force a turn for the better.
Thus, despite the best efforts of Democratic National Committee flacks at MSNBC, CNN, and, of course, The New York Times, The
Washington Post, and, worst of all, PBS and NPR, the Democratic Party now has a "squad" with which its Pelosiite-Hoyerite-Schumerian
leadership must contend.
It also has Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, front-runners for the presidential nomination, who reject the neoliberal
economic policies that the Democratic Party has been championing since the waning days of the Carter administration.
In calling them front-runners, I haven't forgotten Joe Biden, still in the lead in most polls. It is just that I think that,
after nearly three years of Trump, the candidacy of a doddering Clintonite doofus doesn't – and shouldn't -- merit serious consideration.
I trust that this will become increasingly apparent even to the most dull-witted Democratic pundits, and of course to the vast majority
of Democratic voters, as the election season unfolds.
The better to defeat Trump and Trumpism next year, Sanders or Warren or whichever candidate finally gets the nod, along with
the several rays of light in Congress – there are more of them than just the four that Trump would send back to "where they came
from" -- will undoubtedly make common cause with corporate Democrats at a tactical level.
This is all to the good. Nevertheless, the time to start working to assure that it goes no deeper than that is already upon
us.
When the dust clears, it will become evident that the squad-like new guys and the leading Democrats of the past are not on the
same path; that the former want to reconstruct the Democratic Party in ways that will make it authentically progressive, while the
latter, wittingly or not, want to restore and bolster the Party that made Trump and Trumpism possible and even inevitable.
... ... ...
Could the Israel lobby be next? As Israeli politics veers ever farther to the right, its lobby's stranglehold over the Democratic
Party, though far from shot, is in plain decline -- as increasingly many American Jews, especially but not only millennials, lose
interest in the ethnocratic settler state, or find themselves embarrassed by it.
... ... ...
ANDREW LEVINE is the author most recently of THE AMERICAN IDEOLOGY (Routledge) and
POLITICAL KEY WORDS (Blackwell)
as well as of many other books and articles in political philosophy. His most recent book is
In Bad Faith: What's Wrong With the
Opium of the People . He was a Professor (philosophy) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Research Professor (philosophy)
at the University of Maryland-College Park. He is a contributor to
Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics
of Illusion (AK Press).
Strawmannirg has got to be the most cynical behavior in the world. Weiner is the cynic. I
think Liz's "the system is rigged " comment invites discussion. It is not a closed door at
all. It is a plea for good capitalism. Which most people assume is possible. It's time to
define just what kind of capitalism will work and what it needs to continue to be, or finally
become, a useful economic ideology. High time.
Burns me to see yet another "water is not wet" argument being foisted by the NYT, hard to
imagine another reason the editorial board pushed for this line *except* to protect the
current corrupt one percenters who call their shots. Once Liz The Marionette gets appointed
we might get some fluff but the rot will persist, eventually rot becomes putrefaction and the
polity dies. Gore Vidal called America and Christianity "death cults".
All true from both yourself and Paine/Plp except "Hard for the status quo to form a
consensus" which is inherently false based purely on semantics. The status quo must always be
a consensus of sorts or it would not be the status quo regardless of how sordid a sort of
consensus it represents. At the very least our status quo represents the effective majority
consensus of the political elite over matters of governing and simultaneously the effective
consensus of the governed to not overwhelmingly reject the majority consensus of the
political elite. This is not to say that the governed are happy about what they get, but if
they overwhelmingly rejected the political establishment then it would no longer be the
status quo political establishment. Elites learned since the Great Depression that if they
limited their abuse of the common man sufficiently then the combination of general public
apathy regarding politics and the bureaucracy along with the inherent fear of ordinary people
taking action to bring about uncertain change would forever preserve complete elite control
of government apparatus.
"... I have been for Tulsi because of her foreign policy and wanted her to be able to give voice to her position during the primary so as to move Bernie to improve his foreign policy positions and also the public. Tulsi was the one who quit the DNC during the 2016 primary over how Bernie was cheated, so is not afraid to stand up to power - and why they hate her ..."
"... I believe that the Democratic leadership does not want Tulsi in the debates because they do not want her to take out another candidate like she did in the second debate to Harris at -12% at around 5% now - not a top tier candidate now. ..."
"... They have given numerous hit job articles to Bernie, while all of Warrens - including today - are glowing. That should be a clue about Warren. Also in 2016 she sided with Hillary, not Bernie. ..."
Michael Tracey is the one that wrote the RCP article and also has a video on the topic.
He also does a great job calling out the Russiagate BS.
"Tulsi getting screwed by the DNC" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZMMlQNidlQ&t=440s
There is only one more qualifying poll Monmouth ( tomorrow) before the debates and she
needs two more. Even though the she has qualified in numerous polls such as the Boston
Globe that are not allowed by the DNC. Yes they screwed her.
"It's Official--Tulsi to be Screwed Out of 3rd Debate!!" https://caucus99percent.com/content/its-official-tulsi-be-screwed-out-3rd-debate
I have been for Tulsi because of her foreign policy and wanted her to be able to
give voice to her position during the primary so as to move Bernie to improve his foreign
policy positions and also the public. Tulsi was the one who quit the DNC during the 2016
primary over how Bernie was cheated, so is not afraid to stand up to power - and why they
hate her .
I believe that the Democratic leadership does not want Tulsi in the debates because
they do not want her to take out another candidate like she did in the second debate to
Harris at -12% at around 5% now - not a top tier candidate now.
I am loving now how Bernie is taking on the corporate media and their BS to their
faces.
"Bernie Sanders took a well-deserved shot at The Washington Post this week, saying that
the Jeff Bezos-owned paper doesn't like him because he routinely goes after Amazon for the
horrible treatment of their workers. NBC wasn't too happy about this, and claimed that
Bernie was assaulting "the free press," and said his attacks were just like Trump's"
The powers that be really wanted Joe Biden, but it will become obvious in the coming
months that he has serious cognitive issues - ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2Q0E2dzTJw
).
The only other viable candidate against Bernie is Warren , which it appears the elite
are falling in love with. Warren didn't become a Democrat until 2011 or when she was 62. In
the 90's Warren was on the side of Dow Chemical in the breast implant cases, helping to
reduce payouts to the victims. She will be like Obama - Hope and Change during the election
and Neoliberal when president. I read the NYTimes to see what the Oligarchs are up too.
They have given numerous hit job articles to Bernie, while all of Warrens -
including today - are glowing. That should be a clue about Warren. Also in 2016 she sided
with Hillary, not Bernie.
Trump does not want a new trade deal with China. He wants to decouple the U.S.
economy from the future enemy.
That may well be what is going on here. Something between total insanity and managed
insanity. The next president will unravel all of this in a year or so of effort. That is what
is so damaging. No business can plan on what is next. No policy is long term.
This is pure Trumpian logic unhinged. Hit them twice as hard as they hit you. I would not
dare to guess who is winding him up and pointing him in this direction. Trump has had one of
his busiest weeks yet.
I see Elisabeth Warren's crowd sizes are getting very large. I will feel better when no
one shows up to a Trump rally. China has time to wait this out and the ability to raise some
chaos on their own to help undermine Trump.
I see Elisabeth Warren's crowd sizes are getting very large. I will feel better when no one
shows up to a Trump rally.
I sympathize, but Elizabeth Warren is terrible on foreign policy. When the IDF was
slaughtering civilians in Gaza in 2014 she pushed to release a few hundred million dollars to
"help" Israel "defend" itself. The MSM loves Warren. She is a neoliberal capitalist, liberal
interventionist and splits Sanders' vote.
In the recent Camp Kotok MMT discussion (recording for the public posted here https://soundcloud.com/user-529956811/mmt-discussion-raw
), two things stood out for me (believe both were stated by Samuel Rines @SamuelRines on
twitter):
– MMT is "inevitable" (although it is arguable whether his definition and understanding
is correct)
– Warren is the assumed democratic nominee (Bernie or anyone else was not mentioned at
all in ~30 min of this recording)
So, sounds like the FIRE sector is looking to get nice and comfortable while nominally
paying tribute to the plebeians (lest they revolt, that was intimated by above mentioned
Sam)
Yes, is way Warren is a connuation of "Trump tradition" in the USA politics: reling of hate
toward the neoliberalism establishment to get the most votes.
...in a piece
Warren wrote for Medium in which she (rightly) warned of "a precarious economy that is
built on debt -- both household debt and corporate debt." Notably missing was the national
debt, which amounts to around $182,900 per taxpayer and which Warren's policies would only
steepen. How exactly is a government flailing in red ink supposed to make the country solvent?
And what of the fact that some of the economy's woes -- student loan debt, for example -- were
themselves at least in part caused by federal interventions?
Those objections aside, it would be wrong to dismiss Warren as just another statist liberal.
She's deeper than that, first of all, having written extensively about economics, including
her book The Two-Income Trap . But more importantly, she's put her finger on something very
important in the American electorate. It's the same force that helped propel Donald Trump to
victory in 2016: a seething anger against goliath institutions that seem to prize profit and
power over the greater welfare. This is firmly in the tradition of most American populisms,
which have worried less about the size of government and more about gilded influence rendering
it inert.
Warren thus has a real claim to the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party, which is
deeply skeptical of corporate power. She could even try to out-populist Donald Trump. She's
already released more detailed policy proposals than any of her Democratic rivals, everything
from sledgehammering the rich with new taxes to canceling student debt to wielding antitrust
against big tech companies to subsidizing childcare. All this is chum to at least some of the
Democratic base (old-school sorts rather than the SJWs obsessed with race and gender), and as a
result, she's surged to either second or third place in the primary, depending on what poll you
check. She's even elicited praise from some conservative intellectuals, who view her as an
economic nationalist friendly to the family against the blackhearted forces of big.
America has been in a populist mood since the crash of 2008, yet in every presidential
election since then, there's been at least one distinctly plutocratic candidate in the race. In
2008, it was perennial Washingtonian John McCain. In 2012, it was former Bain Capital magnate
Mitt Romney. (The stupidest explanation for why Romney lost was always that tea party activists
dragged him down. Romney lost because he sounded like an imposter and looked like the guy who
fired your brother from that firm back in 1982.) And in 2016, it was, of course, Hillary
Clinton, whose candidacy is what happens when you feed a stock portfolio and a government
security clearance into a concentrate machine.
If Elizabeth Warren wins the Democratic nomination next year, it will be the first time
since Bear Stearns exploded that both parties' candidates seem to reflect back the national
temperament. It will also pose a test for Warren herself. On one hand, her economic policies,
bad though they might be, stand a real chance of attracting voters, given their digestibility
and focus on relieving high costs of living. On the other hand -- this is where Fauxcahontas
comes back in -- a white woman claiming Indian status in order to teach at Harvard Law is
pretty much everything Americans hate about politically correct identity politics.
The question, then, is which image of Warren will stick: one is a balm to the country's
economic anxiety; the other is unacceptable to its cultural grievances. Right now we can only
speculate, though it seems certain that Trump will try to define her as the latter while much
of the media will intervene in the other direction.
Her entire political theory seems to have been that giant corporations should not be
allowed to utterly screw the common man. That is about it, and for this she is called a
commie radical. I like her, little afraid of foreign policy
Warren was born into a middle class family, Trump wasn't. Trump is playing the populist, he
has no idea what average Americans deal with.
Warren was raised on the family lore of having native ancestry and she does. Not much
but she does and that's all it takes to start family lore. Her Native American ancestor was
from around the time of the American Revolution and it's easy to see how that legend could
be passed down. There is no proof she ever benefited from this, she was just proud to have
Native American ancestry.
Funny how the RW is so outraged by this one thing. Maybe it would be better for her to
con people, lie and make stuff up nonstop like Trump. It seems a never ending blizzard of
lies and falsehoods renders one immune.
Let's remember that our only effective populist, in fact our only effective president, was
a rich patrician. FDR's roots went back to the Mayflower, yet he was able to break the
influence of the banks and give us 50 years of bubble-free prosperity. The only thing that
counts is GETTING THE WORK DONE.
Her economics aren't bad. She herself claims to be a capitalist, she just wants our massive
economy to also benefit regular folks instead of just the elites. And whatever economic
program she proposes is most likely further left than she thinks necessary because that's a
better negotiating position to start from. Remember every proposal has to go through both
branches of Congress to become law, and they will absolutely try to make everything more
pro-corporate because that is their donor base.
"And what of the fact that some of the economy's woes -- student loan debt, for example --
were themselves at least in part caused by federal
interventions?"
Mr. Purple might want to remind himself that 75% of federal student financial aid in the
1970's was in the form of grants, not loans, and that it was only after the intervention of
conservative Republican congressman Gerald "Jerry" Solomon and the Reagan Administration
that the mix of federal student financial aid was changed to be 75% loans and only 25%
grants. I believe the Congressman used to rail against free riding college students, which
is all well and good until one finds that the "free hand of the market" becomes warped by
so many people being in so much debt, and all of them being too small to save.
Democrats might want to ask Joe Biden about this, considering his support for
legislation that made it harder to discharge student debt in bankruptcy proceedings. They
might also ask Senator Warren about this subject.
Warren believed her family story. Trump, on the other hand, knew that his family was not
Swedish, but knowingly continued the lie for decades, including in "The Art of Deal " -
claimin his grandfather came "from Sweden as a child" (rather than dodging the draft in
Bavaria who made his fortune in red light districts of the Yukon territory before trying to
return to the Reich).
Warren made no money from her heritage claims, but the $413 million (in today's dollars)
given to Trump by his daddy was made by lying to Holocaust survivors in Brooklyn and Queens
who, understandably, did not want to rent property from a German.
Vanity Fair asked him in 1990 if he were not in fact of German origin. "Actually, it was
very difficult," Donald replied. "My father was not German; my father's parents were German
Swedish, and really sort of all over Europe and I was even thinking in the second edition
of putting more emphasis on other places because I was getting so many letters from Sweden:
Would I come over and speak to Parliament? Would I come meet with the president?"
This column was pretty much as I expected. It started out by rehashing all of the Fox News
talking points about Warren, without debunking those that were without merit.
After that it touched on Morning Joe's take on her, just to make it 'fair and
balanced'.
Then it acknowledged, briefly, that she has been correct in many areas. No comment on
how the CFPB recovered hundreds of millions of $$ from corporations that abused their power
or broke the law.
Then it mis-characterized the impact of her policies "sledgehammering the rich",
"economic policies, bad though they might be".
Dismiss Warren all you want. She could very well be the nominee, or the VP. She would
eviscerate Trump in a debate. Her knowledge of issues, facts and policies would show Trump
to be what he is. A narcissistic, idiotic, in-over-his-head clueless and dangerous buffoon.
I anticipate Trump would fall back on his favorite tropes. Pocahontas, socialist,
communist, and MAGA.
My opinion is that the average American is getting really tired of Trump's shtick. The
country is looking for somebody with real solutions to real problems. This reality tv star
act is getting pretty old....
Good article. Especially enjoyed this turn of phrase:
"And in 2016, it was, of course, Hillary Clinton, whose candidacy is what happens when
you feed a stock portfolio and a government security clearance into a concentrate
machine."
Really enjoyable.
I don't think anyone is going to care about the pocahontas thing. This election will be
squarely about Trump. I think Warren is by far the best candidate the dems can bring out if
they want to beat him. A Warren/Buttigieg or a Warren/Tulsi ticket would likely be a
winner.
Bernie's a little too far to the left for Joe Lunchbucket, Joe Biden is a crooked
Hillary wannabe, Kamala Harris is unlikeable, and the rest won't rise out of the dust.
The whole business about her supposed Native American ancestry and whatever claims she made
will make no difference to anybody other than folks like Matt Purple who wouldn't support
her under any circumstances anyway.
Consider that the best-known advocate of the "Pocahontas" epithet is of course Donald
Trump, whose entire reputation is built on a foundation of bulls--t and flim-flam.
"Thus in retrospect was it the "Obama" in "Obamacare" that was the primary driver of
opposition from conservatives, only for their concerns over federal intrusion to mostly
disappear once Trump was at the controls."
No. What disappeared was the Individual Mandate. THAT was what rankled me...the
government can do whatever stupid thing they want as long as they don't try to force me
into it.
There's a lot wrong here -- although Warren is a terrific story teller -- but it's really
too bad that Obama didn't say "accounting control fraud," instead of "predatory lending."
Although it's not clear that Warren would have understood him if he had.
You're damn right there's problems with Warren's Obama story: he does five minutes of
research about her career and focus before she arrives, makes sure to be backlit upon her
entrance, rings what comes across as a transparently canned bell and she swoons!
I get that that most people were taken in by that talented, fraudulent shapeshifter, but
this is painful to watch.
'The senator had tough words for one of Joe Biden's signature laws'
by Gideon Resnick, Political Reporter...08.14.19...10:57AM ET
"Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) suggested in an interview Tuesday evening that she would
seek the repeal of the 1994 crime bill -- a historic though highly controversial measure tied
closely to one of her closest competitors for the Democratic presidential nomination.
It "needs to be changed, needs to be rolled back, needs to be repealed." Warren said of
the law, which has become widely bemoaned by criminal justice reform advocates for its
tough-on-crime measures, harsh sentencing guidelines, and general encouragement of the war on
drugs."...
"Biden just 1 point ahead of Warren in new weekly tracking poll"
By Julia Manchester...08/14/19...11:04 AM EDT
"Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is trailing former Vice President Joe Biden by just 1
point in a new Economist–YouGov weekly tracking poll.
Biden sits at 21 percent support in the survey, while Warren is close behind at 20
percent. The next candidate is Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) at 16 percent support among
voters."...
Pennsylvania voters have very strong -- and mostly negative -- views about President
Donald Trump, and about half say they will vote against him no matter his opponent, according
to a new poll of registered voters across the state.
Over multiple questions and surveys, a clear portrait emerges of an electorate deeply
polarized over the president, with strongly held feelings on either side.
About half of voters had a "strongly unfavorable" opinion of the president, twice the
number who held a "strongly favorable" opinion.
And while the divisions among Democratic voters are real during this primary election,
especially across groups such as age, race, and income, the real divide is between the
parties and ideologies: Most Democrats, regardless of which candidate they support, say they
will vote against Trump no matter what. ...
MONACA, Pa. (AP) -- President Donald Trump sought to take credit Tuesday for the
construction of a major manufacturing facility in western Pennsylvania as he tries to
reinvigorate supporters in the Rust Belt towns who helped send him to the White House in
2016.
Trump visited Shell Oil Co.'s soon-to-be completed Pennsylvania Petrochemicals Complex,
which will turn the area's vast natural gas deposits into plastics. The facility, which
critics claim will become the largest air polluter in western Pennsylvania, is being built in
an area hungry for investment.
Speaking to a crowd of thousands of workers dressed in fluorescent orange-and-yellow
vests, Trump said, "This would have never happened without me and us."
In fact, Shell announced its plans to build the complex in 2012, when President Barack
Obama was in office.
A Shell spokesperson said employees were paid for their time attending Trump's
remarks.
Trump used the official White House event as an opportunity to assail his Democratic
rivals, saying, "I don't think they give a damn about Western Pennsylvania, do you?"
The focus is part of a continued push by the Trump administration to increase the
economy's dependence on fossil fuels in defiance of increasingly urgent warnings about
climate change. And it's an embrace of plastic at a time when much of the world is sounding
alarms over its impact.
"We don't need it from the Middle East anymore," Trump said of oil and natural gas,
calling the employees "the backbone of this country."
Trump's appeals to blue-collar workers helped him win Beaver County, where the plant is
located, by more than 18 percentage points in 2016, only to have voters turn to Democrats in
2018's midterm elections. In one of a series of defeats that led to Republicans' loss of the
House, voters sent Democrat Conor Lamb to Congress after the prosperity promised by Trump's
tax cuts failed to materialize.
Beaver County is still struggling to recover from the shuttering of steel plants in the
1980s that surged the unemployment rate to nearly 30%. Former mill towns like Aliquippa have
seen their populations shrink, while nearby Pittsburgh has lured major tech companies like
Google and Uber, fueling an economic renaissance in a city that reliably votes
Democratic.
Trump claimed that his steel and aluminum tariffs have saved those industries and that
they are now "thriving." a description that exaggerates the recovery of the steel
industry.
Trump also took credit for the addition of 600,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs. Labor
Department figures show that roughly 500,000 factory jobs have been added under his
presidency. ...
(Apparently, workers' pay would be docked if they
did not attend; and they were advised to 'behave'.)
"... Among the reasons why Biden, Sanders, and Warren will be difficult to topple from the top tier: a significant portion of their supporters say they have made up their minds about the race. ..."
"... This is especially the case with Sanders. Nearly half -- 48 percent -- of his supporters said they would definitely vote for him... ..."
A new poll out Tuesday on the New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary shows the
outcome is anyone's guess between former vice president Joe Biden, Senator Bernie Sanders of
Vermont, and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
Beyond which candidate had what level of support in the first-in-the-nation presidential
primary -- scheduled for February 2020 -- a deeper dive into the Suffolk University/Boston
Globe poll provides a number of other big-picture takeaways.
The top tier is hard to crack
Biden, Sanders, and Warren are the only candidates with support in the double digits (21
percent, 17 percent, and 14 percent, respectively), and a closer read suggests that might not
change anytime soon. Much of this has to do with the fact that a significant portion of their
support is locked down. Nearly half of Sanders' and Biden's supporters in the poll say they
their mind is made up and they aren't looking at supporting anyone else in the field.
Something dramatic could occur, of course, but odds are that the status quo will remain for a
while.
Further, if there are big changes in the race, the poll found that Warren, not someone
else outside of the top three, is in the best position to benefit. Warren was the "second
choice" of 21 percent of respondents. No one else was even close to her in that category.
While Sanders has support locked down now, and Warren has the best potential to
grow , Biden, it appears, has his own lane of supporters that no other candidate is even
contesting. Biden's support is very strong among older voters, moderates, and union members.
For the most part, these voters aren't even looking at other options.
New Hampshire Democrats are moderate
For all the conversation about how far left the Democratic Party has moved in recent
years, the poll shows likely Democratic primary voters have not moved the same way. Yes, a
majority back the Green New Deal concept and Medicare for All, but more than 50 percent
describe themselves as either moderate, conservative, or very conservative. This is compared
with the 45 percent who say they are either liberal or very liberal. While this might seem
like a near tie, consider this survey polled likely Democratic voters -- the party's base --
which is the most liberal. ...
... In fourth place is Senator Kamala Harris of California at 8 percent, followed by South
Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg at 6 percent and Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii at 3
percent.
Among the reasons why Biden, Sanders, and Warren will be difficult to topple from the
top tier: a significant portion of their supporters say they have made up their minds about
the race.
This is especially the case with Sanders. Nearly half -- 48 percent -- of his
supporters said they would definitely vote for him...
Remember all those lies Krugman, EMike and Kurt said about "Bernie Bros?" Well turns out they
are the out of touch elites, not Sanders supporters. They were projecting. Krugman won't even
go all in for Warren!!!
Sanders and Warren voters have astonishingly little in common
His backers are younger, make less money, have fewer degrees and are less engaged in
politics.
By HOLLY OTTERBEIN
07/12/2019 05:01 AM EDT
PHILADELPHIA -- Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are two of the most ideologically
aligned candidates in the Democratic primary -- both left-wing populists who rail against a
"rigged" economic system.
But the fellow enemies of the 1 percent have surprisingly different bases of support.
In poll after poll, Sanders appeals to lower-income and less-educated people; Warren beats
Sanders among those with postgraduate degrees. Sanders performs better with men, Warren with
women. Younger people who vote less frequently are more often in Sanders' camp; seniors who
follow politics closely generally prefer Warren.
Sanders also has won over more African Americans than Warren: He earns a greater share of
support from black voters than any candidate in the race except for Joe Biden, according to
the latest Morning Consult surveys.
For progressive activists, who are gathering this week in Philadelphia at the annual
Netroots Nation conference, it's both promising and a source of concern that the two leading
left-wingers in the primary attract such distinct fans. It demonstrates that a progressive
economic message can excite different parts of the electorate, but it also means that Sanders
and Warren likely need to expand their bases in order to win the Democratic nomination.
Put another way, if their voters could magically be aligned behind one or the other, it
would vastly increase the odds of a Democratic nominee on the left wing of the ideological
spectrum.
The fact that Warren and Sanders' bases don't perfectly overlap hasn't garnered much
public attention, but it's something very much on the minds of their aides and allies.
"It shows that the media does not base their perceptions on data that is publicly
available," said Ari Rabin-Havt, chief of staff to the Sanders campaign. "I think people
develop overly simplistic views of politics that presume that people who live in the real
world think the same way as elite media in D.C. and New York."
It's not a given that Sanders voters would flock to Warren, or vice versa, if one of them
left the race and endorsed the other. In Morning Consult, Reuters-Ipsos and Washington
Post-ABC News polls, more Sanders supporters name Biden as their second choice than Warren --
and a higher percentage of Warren voters pick Kamala Harris as their No. 2 than Sanders,
according to recent surveys.
Wes Bode, a retired contractor in the first-in-the-nation caucus state of Iowa,
illustrates the point: He said he likes that Sanders has "new ideas," such as free college
tuition, and recently attended one of his town halls in the state. But he's fond of Biden,
too, because he's "for the working man."
It might seem unusual that a voter's top picks for 2020 are the two candidates who best
represent the opposite poles of the Democratic Party. But a person like Bode is actually more
common than someone like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose favorites are Sanders and
Warren.
For Sanders, the need to grow his base is a problem that dates back to his 2016 run. He
failed to win the nomination that year in large part because he was unable to win over older
voters, especially older voters of color.
"Two places where Bernie has always struggled with is older voters and women to some
degree," said Mark Longabaugh, a top strategist to Sanders in 2016. "Warren is identifiably a
Democrat and runs as a Democrat, so I think many more establishment Democrats in the party
are more drawn to her -- whereas Bernie very intentionally ran for reelection as an
independent and identifies as an independent, and appeals to those who look inside the
Democratic Party and think it's not their thing."
During the 2020 campaign, Sanders' advisers have acknowledged that he needs to appeal more
to older voters, and he's recently been holding more intimate events in the early states that
tend to attract more senior crowds than his rallies do. His team is also trying hard to
expand the primary electorate by turning out infrequent voters.
Warren, meanwhile, is aggressively working to win African American support. Her allies
argue that her performance at events such as Al Sharpton's National Action Network convention
and the She the People conference show that she has room to grow among black voters.
"If you were looking to buy a rising stock, you would look at future market share and
indicators of strong fundamentals," said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change
Campaign Committee, which backs Warren. "Elizabeth Warren has consistently connected on a gut
level with black audiences ... getting standing ovations after connecting her inspiring plans
to her personal story of struggle growing up poor in Oklahoma and being a single mom in
Texas."
Several Democratic operatives said they believe Warren has the ability to expand her base
to include black women in particular.
"She impressed 2,000 top women of color activists at [our conference]," said Aimee
Allison, founder of She the People. "Elizabeth Warren has deepened, sharpened and made racial
justice a grounding component of her policies."
A look at their poll numbers shows how distinct the pools of support for Sanders vs.
Warren are.
Twenty-two percent of Democratic primary voters who earn less than $50,000 annually
support Sanders, while 12 percent are for Warren, according to an average of the past four
weeks of Morning Consult polling. Of those without college degrees, 22 percent are behind
Sanders; 10 percent back Warren.
Roughly the same percentage of voters with bachelor's degrees -- 16 percent and 15
percent, respectively -- support Sanders and Warren. But among those with postgraduate
degrees, 12 percent are for Sanders and 19 percent are for Warren.
There's a similar split based on age, gender and interest in politics. Sanders wins more
than one-third of the 18- to 29-year-olds, while Warren gets 11 percent of them. Warren has
the support of 13 percent of those aged 30 to 44, 12 percent of those aged 45 to 54, and 13
percent of those aged both 55 to 64 and 65 and up. Sanders' support goes down as the age of
voters goes up: He is backed by 25 percent of 30- to 44-year-olds, 17 percent of 45- to
54-year-olds, 12 percent of 55- to 64-year-olds, and 8 percent of those 65 and older.
Twenty percent of men support Sanders and 11 percent support Warren; 18 percent of women
are behind Sanders and 14 percent are behind Warren.
Warren also performs best among voters who are "extremely interested" in politics (winning
17 percent of them), while Sanders is strongest among those who are "not at all interested"
(26 percent).
As for black voters, 19 percent are behind Sanders, while 9 percent support Warren.
With Biden still atop most polls, even after a widely panned performance at the first
Democratic debate, some progressives still fear that Warren and Sanders could divide the left
and hand the nomination to the former vice president.
"There's a lot of time left in this campaign," said Sean McElwee, co-founder of the
liberal think tank Data for Progress. "But one thing that's clear is that it's very important
for the left that we ensure that we don't split the field and allow someone like Joe Biden to
be the nominee."
"Elizabeth Warren on student loans: New bill would cancel debt for millions"
By Katie Lobosco, CNN...18 hrs ago
"Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is introducing a bill Tuesday that would cancel the
student loan debts of tens of millions of Americans, a plan she first proposed on the
campaign trail in April.
The 2020 Democratic presidential candidate is partnering with South Carolina Rep. James
Clyburn, also a Democrat, who will sponsor companion legislation in the House.
The bill would forgive $50,000 in student loans for Americans in households earning less
than $100,000 a year, resulting in immediate relief to more than an estimated 95% of the 45
million Americans with student debt.
For those earning more than $100,000, the bill would offer partial debt relief with the
amount getting gradually smaller until it phases out. Households that make more than $250,000
are not eligible for any debt relief.
Warren's campaign has said that she would pay for the debt relief -- as well as her plan
to make tuition free at public colleges -- with revenue from her proposed wealth tax. It
would assess a 2% tax on wealth above $50 million and a 3% tax on wealth above $1
billion.
The one-time debt cancellation could cost $640 billion, the campaign has said."...
Warren's campaign has said that she would pay for the debt relief -- as well as her plan
to make tuition free at public colleges -- with revenue from her proposed wealth tax. It
would assess a 2% tax on wealth above $50 million and a 3% tax on wealth above $1
billion.
The one-time debt cancellation could cost $640 billion, the campaign has said.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, another Democratic presidential hopeful, also has a student
debt cancellation proposal. But his goes further and would cancel all $1.6 trillion in
outstanding loan debt. There would be no eligibility limitations and it would be paid for
with a new tax on Wall Street speculation. Sanders has proposed making tuition free at public
colleges, as well.
As proposed, Warren's bill would ensure that the debt canceled would not be taxed as
income. Those borrowers with private loans would be allowed to convert them into federal
loans so that they could be forgiven. ...
When the United States government wants to raise money from individuals, its mode of
choice, for more than a century, has been to tax what people earn -- the income they receive
from work or investments.
But what if instead the government taxed the wealth you had accumulated?
That is the idea behind a policy Senator Elizabeth Warren has embraced in her presidential
campaign. It represents a more substantial rethinking of the federal government's approach to
taxation than anything a major presidential candidate has proposed in recent memory -- a new
wealth tax that would have enormous implications for inequality.
It would shift more of the burden of paying for government toward the families that have
accumulated fortunes in the hundreds of millions or billions of dollars. And over time, such
a tax would make it less likely that such fortunes develop.
What is the Warren plan?
Developed by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, two University of California, Berkeley,
economists who are leading scholars of inequality, the proposal is to tax a family's wealth
above $50 million at 2 percent a year, with an additional surcharge of 1 percent on wealth
over $1 billion.
Mr. Saez and Mr. Zucman estimate that 75,000 households would owe such a tax, or about one
out of 1,700 American families.
A family worth $60 million would owe the federal government $200,000 in wealth tax, over
and above what they may owe on income from wages, dividends or interest payments.
If the estimates of his net worth are accurate, Mr. Buffett would owe the I.R.S. about
$2.5 billion a year, in addition to income or capital gains taxes. The Waltons would owe
about $1.3 billion each.
The tax would therefore chip away at the net worth of the extremely rich, especially if
they mainly hold investments with low returns, like bonds, or depreciating assets like
yachts.
It would work a little like the property tax that most cities and states impose on real
estate, an annual payment tied to the value of assets rather than income. But instead of
applying just to homes and land, it would apply to everything: fine art collections, yachts
and privately held businesses.
What are the arguments against it?
They are both philosophical and practical.
On the philosophical side, you can argue that people who have earned money, and paid
appropriate income tax on it, are entitled to the wealth they accumulate.
Moreover, the wealth that individual families accumulate under the current system is
arguably likelier to be put to work investing in large-scale projects that make the economy
stronger. They can invest in innovative companies, for example, or huge real estate projects,
in ways that small investors generally can't. ...
2016 was widely recognized as the year of "populism," more adequately described as the year
of revolt against the political Establishment -- in both Parties. The Democratic Primary in
2016 was a battle of progressive forces against the Democratic Establishment, and the battle
lines were clearly drawn. Those lines remain much the same as we approach 2020.
On the Progressive or Populist side were those who opposed the endless wars in the Middle
East, and on the Establishment side those who supported those long and bloody wars. On the
Progressive Side were those who supported badly needed domestic reforms, most notably Medicare
for All, which after all is a reform of almost 20% of the entire economy and a reform that has
to do with life itself. In contrast on the Establishment side were those who supported
ObamaCare, a device for leaving our health care to the tender mercies of the Insurance
behemoths with its ever increasing premiums and ever decreasing coverage.
In 2016 the pundits gave progressives little chance of success. Hillary Clinton was a
shoo-in, we were all assured by a horde of "reliable sources." And given the control that the
Clintonites exercised over the Democratic Party apparatus, there was little prospect of a
successful rebellion and every chance of having one's career badly damaged by opposing Party
elite. Summer soldiers and duplicitous candidates were not interested in challenging the
Establishment.
In 2016 Bernie Sanders was the only politician who was willing to take on the Establishment.
Although not technically a Democrat, he caucused with them and worked with them. And he was a
lifelong, reliable and ardent advocate for Medicare for All and a consistent opponent of the
endless wars. For these things he was prepared to do battle against overwhelming odds on the
chance that he might prevail and because from his grass roots contacts he sensed that a
rebellion was brewing.
In 2016 only one among the current crop of candidates followed Bernie, supported him and
joined him on the campaign trail -- Tulsi Gabbard. At the time she was a two term Congresswoman
and Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), a career building position, from
which she would have to resign in order to support one of the candidates. Moreover, reports
said she bridled at the internal bias of the DNC in favor of Hillary. To express her
displeasure with the DNC and to support Bernie, she had to defy the Clinton Establishment,
which might even have terminated her political career. But she was a foe of the endless wars,
partly based on her own experience as a National Guard member who had been deployed to Iraq in
a medical unit and saw the ravages of war first hand. So she joined Bernie, introducing him at
many of his rallies and strengthening his antiwar message.
Bernie and Tulsi proved themselves in the defining battle of 2016. They let us know
unequivocally where they stand. And Bernie might well have won the nomination were he not
cheated out of it by the Establishment which continues to control the levers of power in the
Democratic Party to this day.
In 2016 these two stood in stark contrast to the other 2020 Democratic candidates. Let us
take one example of these others, Elizabeth Warren, a darling of the main stream media which
often refers to her as ideologically aligned to Bernie Sanders. Perhaps she is so aligned at
times -- at least in words; she is after all in favor of Medicare for All, although she hastens
to add that she is "open to other approaches." That qualifier is balm to the ears of the
Insurance behemoths. Translation: she has already surrendered before the battle has begun.
In 2016 a critical primary for Bernie was Masschusetts where Senator Warren wields
considerable influence. Clinton defeated Sanders there by a mere 1.5% whereas she had lost to
Obama there by 15% in 2008. Wikipedia has this to say of the
primary:
"Following the primary, Elizabeth Warren, the state's senior US senator, was widely
criticized by Sanders supporters online for her refusal to endorse him prior to the primary.
Supporters of Bernie Sanders have argued that an endorsement from Warren, whose political
positions were similar to that of Sanders's, and who was a frequent critic of Hillary Clinton
in the past, could have handed Massachusetts to him. "
One must conclude that either Warren does not genuinely share the views of Sanders or she is
loath to buck the Establishment and fight for those views. In either event she, and the others
who failed to back Bernie in 2016, are not made of the stuff that can win Medicare for All,
bring an end to the regime change wars and illegal sanctions of the last four or more
administrations, begin serious negotiations to end the existential nuclear peril, and address
the many other problems facing us and all of humanity.
“Bernie walked the walk”
When was that? The time he toured through Baltimore and called it a third world city while
assiduously not discussing how, why, and because of who it became so?
The way he openly sold out to Clinton and ducked into his new third manor house to avoid
being held to task for leaving his base out to dry the very moment they were ready to
seriously break ranks from the neolib political machine?
Is he walking the walk now as he tries to rationalize away his underpaying of his campaign
workers and cuts hours to minimize the costs of the 15 dollar floor price he demanded for
everyone other employer?
The man is a DNC stooge through and through.
And Tulsi being anti-war out of personal squeamishness doesn’t make up for the rest of
her painfully party-line-compliant platform, particularly when the Deep State has multiple
active avenues available to at the very least keep our military presence still existing
military presence trapped and held hostage. All the dove cooing in recorded world history
won’t hold up when, not if, Britain or France or whoever deliberately sinks another
navy vessel and drags her by the hair into another desert scrum.
@Tusk As with the 1960 Presidential Election, Hillary stole that election fair and
square. Had Sanders went full third party, it would’ve destroyed the Democrats
outright. Despite Clinton’s cheating, Bernie went ahead and bent the knee. Strangely
enough, Trump’s victory saved Sanders and his faction. Had Clinton won, she
would’ve purged the Sanders supporters relentlessly.
There is such a thing as a tactical retreat. Now he’s able to play again.
is that our “establishment elite” have failed the United States of
America.
How, you may ask ?
The answer is simple.
By defrauded us into multiple illegal wars of aggression they have bankrupted the entire
nation.
The iron fact is that because our “elites” lied us into illegal war we are now
22.5 trillion dollars in heinous debt.
Why is this okay ?
The answer is simple.
It is not okay, NOT AT ALL .
And it is not enough (anymore) to just demand we “end our wars”, Mr.
Walsh.
The cost in treasure has been too high and the burden on the US taxpayer too obscene.
Without demanding “accountability” from our elites, who lied us into this
catastrophe, our nation is most probably going under.
I say…. make them pay …”every penny”…. for the cost of
the wars they lied us into.
An initiative, like the “War fraud Accountability Act” (retroactive to 2002)
would do just that.
it would replenish the coffers of our nation with all the assets of the larcenous
profiteers who deceived us all….into heinous war debt.
As we witness the rise of China as the new global economic powerhouse, we can see first
hand how a nation can rise to immense wealth and global influence “precisely
because” it was never deceived by its “ruling class” into squandering all
its resources initiating and fighting endless criminal wars.
Just imagine where the USA would be today, had we chosen the same course.
Until Dems are willing to refuse to depend on Haim Saban’s “generous
donation” to the Dem candidate, none of their candidates will deserve to be the the
POTUS candidate. Ditto for the Republicans and their fetish with Shelly Adelson. Candidates
must kowtow to Israel or else there will be no dough for them and they might even be
challenged in their incumbencies next time around by ADL/AIPAC. Until we get rid of Israeli
money and political power, we are toast.
1)Both Sanders and Gabbard are onboard for going to war against Christian Russia over
Crimea..Sanders has gone so far as saying that a Military response against Russia is an
option if all else fails in getting Russia out of Crimea…
2)Both Sanders and Gabbard are waging a war of RACIAL EXTERMINATION against Working Class
Native Born White American Males….And that’s WHITE GENOCIDE!!!!
@Kronos Bernie “bent the knee” once and got to enjoy his lakeside home and
his wife protected from fraud prosecution after she stole money from People’s United
Bank for her college scam.
He is owned.
If Tulsi were a serious threat she would be neutralized one way or another.
“Progressives” are virtue signaling fools–the kleptocracy marches on and
laughs at them.
One has to wonder where Dems like Warren and their identity politics is taking the US.
Will everyone who even slightly disagrees with them be labeled a terrorist?
OK, obviously I need to weigh in on Elizabeth Warren's trade proposal. I've been a huge
fan of her plans so far. This one, not so much, although some of the critiques are overdone
1/
Last month, I released my economic patriotism agenda -- my commitment to fundamentally
changing the government's approach to the economy so that we put the interests of American
workers and families ahead of the interests of multinational corporations. I've already
released my ideas for applying economic patriotism to manufacturing and to Wall Street. This
is my plan for using economic patriotism to overhaul our approach to trade.
8:41 AM - 30 Jul 2019
The truth is that this would have been a bad and destructive plan if implemented in, say,
1980. At this point it's still problematic, but not disastrous (this is going to be a long
tweet storm) 2/
Background: the way we currently do trade negotiations is that professionals negotiate out
of public view, but with input from key business players. Then Congress gets an up or down
vote on the result 3/
This can sound like a process rigged in favor of special interests. But it was created by
FDR, and its actual intent was largely the opposite. It took away the ability of
Congresspeople to stuff trade bills with goodies for their donors and districts 4/
And while business interests certainly got a lot of input, it was set up in a way that set
different groups against each other -- exporters versus import-competing industries -- and
this served the interests of the general public 5/
Without this system we wouldn't have achieved the great opening of world markets after
World War II -- and that opening was a very good thing overall, especially for poor
countries, and helped promote peace 6/
So what has changed? The key point is that the system pretty much achieved its goals;
we're a low-tariff world. And that has had a peculiar consequence: these days "trade
negotiations" aren't mainly about trade, they're about intellectual property and regulation
7/
And it's not at all clear that such deals are actually good for the world, which is why I
was a soft opponent of TPP 8/
Not to keep you in suspense, I'm thumbs down. I don't think the proposal is likely to be
the terrible, worker-destroying pact some progressives assert, but it doesn't look like a
good thing either for the world or for the United States, and you have to wonder why the
Obama administration, in particular, would consider devoting any political capital to getting
this through.
So what Warren proposes is that we partially unravel the system FDR built, making trade
negotiations more transparent and giving Congress a bigger role in shaping the deals. This
sounds more democratic, but that's a bit deceiving 9/
Mainly it would substitute one kind of special interest distortion for another. That would
have been a clearly bad thing when trade deals were actually about trade. Today, I think it's
ambiguous 10/
Warren would also expand the criteria for trade policy to include a number of non-trade
goals, like labor rights and environmental protection. Here again there are arguments on both
sides 11/
On one side, the potential for abuse would be large -- we could be slapping tariffs on
countries for all kinds of reasons, turning trade policy into global power politics, which
would be really bas for smaller, weaker countries 12/
On the other hand, there are some cases where trade policy will almost surely have to be
used to enforce some common action. If we ever do act on climate change, carbon tariffs will
be needed to discipline free riders 13/
"President Obama on Sunday praised the energy bill passed by the House late last week as
an 'extraordinary first step,' but he spoke out against a provision that would impose trade
penalties on countries that do not accept limits on global warming pollution."
And I also think the report gives a false impression of what this is about, making it seem
as if it's nothing but dirty politics...
Overall, this is the weakest Warren plan so far. (Still waiting to hear from her on health
care! Harris has taken point there, and done it well) But it's not bad enough to change the
verdict that she's the strongest contender on policy grounds 14/
He backs Harris's attempt to split difference on health care reform.
The problem with PK and Kurt and EMike is that if you don't deliver better services and
rising living standards - no matter the excuses we don't care about your excuses -
you're going to get more racism, demagogues like Trump and toxic politics.
The Dems's track record for the past 40 years is objectively awful. PK lives in a rich
man's bubble if he believes corporate trade has been good for humanity and peace.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D) sparred Tuesday night
over her proposed "no first use" policy on nuclear weapons during the Democratic debate.
In defending the proposed policy, Warren argued for diplomatic and economic solutions to
conflict, saying "we should not be asking our military to take on jobs that do not have a
military solution."
But Bullock opposed that proposal, saying, "I don't want to turn around and say, 'Well,
Detroit has to be gone before we would ever use that.'"
Warren is the lead sponsor of the Senate version of a bill that would make it U.S. policy
not to use nuclear weapons first.
It has long been the policy of the United States that the country reserves the right to
launch a preemptive nuclear strike.
Former President Obama reportedly weighed changing the policy before leaving office, but
ultimately did not after advisers argued doing so could embolden adversaries.
Backers of a no first use policy argue it would improve U.S. national security by reducing
the risk of miscalculation while still allowing the United States to launch a nuclear strike
in response to an attack.
During the debate, Warren argued such a policy would "make the world safer."
"The United States is not going to use nuclear weapons preemptively, and we need to say so
to the entire world," she said. "It reduces the likelihood that someone miscalculates,
someone misunderstands."
Bullock argued he wouldn't want to take the option off the table, but that there should be
negotiations to eliminate nuclear weapons.
"Never, I hope, certainly in my term or anyone else would we really even get close to
pulling that trigger," he said. "Going from a position of strength, we should be negotiating
down so there aren't nuclear weapons. But drawing those lines in the sand at this point, I
wouldn't do."
Warren shot back that the world is closer to nuclear warfare after Trump's presidency,
which is seeing the end of a landmark arms control agreement with Russia, the development of
a low-yield submarine-launched warhead and the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear
agreement.
"We don't expand trust around the world by saying, 'you know, we might be the first one to
use a nuclear weapon,'" she said. "We have to have an announced policy that is one the entire
world can live with."
Bullock said he agreed on the need to return to nonproliferation standards but that
unpredictable enemies such as North Korea require keeping first use as an option.
"When so many crazy folks are getting closer to having a nuclear weapon, I don't want them
to think, 'I could strike this country,'" he said. "Part of the strength really is to
deter."
----
Long-standing US policy has been to lump chemical,
biological and nuclear weapons in a single
category. So, our guv'mint implicitly reserves the
right to respond to a chemical attack (say) with
nuclear weapons. This was how the US got het up
about Iraq's supposed 'weapons of mass destruction',
which is how the US lumps them together under
the heading 'CBN' weapons. Iraq certainly
had chemical weapons, possibly biological ones,
and much less plausibly a nuclear weapons program.
It was all about those mysterious 'aluminum tubes',
which supposedly could be used for uranium-enriching centrifuges. (Not these tubes,
apparently.)
But I digress. Suffice it to say, the US has
quite a few self-serving policies.
Now, the real question is, how much longer
do we want to have Mr Trump in control
of the nuclear football, as the nuke-
authorizing gadget is known?
Who gives a monkeys? The real issue is that the selfish, disorientated and cowardly way the
Dems are conducting this race is handing Trump a winning platform for 2020.
After long hard thinking I have come to the sad conclusion that Trump is right and that he is
indeed a genius. He has achieved what he had set out to do. He has polarised the standard
bearer for democracy in the world. He has enriched himself and his family. He has broken
American society, possibly irreversibly. He has brought about change in the worlds economies.
He has also managed to set the debate and the stage to win in 2020. Now some may say he has
been an awful president, but looking at his strategy he has been highly successful. He may
not be what we want but he has certainly been better at feeling the pulse of America and
deciding which medicine to give. A truly evil genius indeed.
Sanders and Warren are the only two with some kind of personality. The others look like they
were created by lobbyists and corporate donors in a lab on a computer like Kelly Lebrock from
Weird Science.
The point about taxes going up is a red herring and a straw man argument. If you get
insurance through your employer, you pay anywhere from $300/month to $1200/month for yourself
and family. Through a Medicare for all plan, that payment would disappear. Yes, you'd pay
more in taxes to cover your health insurance, but it would likely be lower than private
insurance, a net gain, with better coverage, no deductible or co-pays. Even if it was the
same, it's still a wash. You're eliminating an expense for a tax. Plus, you're not paying for
some executive's perks and exorbitant salary.
Personally, I'd feel better paying $50,000-$75,000/year to a government administrator than
$10M-$20M/year + perks to a CEO.
Obama was simply being honest there. By any standard, Obama, both Clinton's, Gore (except for
climate change) and Biden are at best moderate Republicans. Each would qualify as being to
the right of Richard Nixon (leaving aside the issue of integrity).
In the case of Bill Clinton, Americans had not got woken to the fact that, while a little
less by Democrats, the middle class was nontheless being screwed by both parties. Obama's
rhetoric was enough cover to fool the public into thinking he would fight for real change.
Both Gore and especially Hillary showed what the public now thinks of "moderates". Bernie
Sanders and/or Elizabeth Warren are the only chances to beat Trump in 2020.
Reparations for slavery, the elimination of private insurance, free health care for anyone
who overstays a visa or walks over from Mexico, and a crystal lady.
We are in trouble. My nightmare of a Trump re-election is more and more likely.
Warren and Sanders clearly demonstrated that a party wanting to win should nominate one of
them.
They enthralled the audience, and showed they possess a vision for the future that every
other Democratic candidate claims to eventually want, when there's time, maybe, perhaps if
they get a majority someday.
Clearly Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren were the clear winners of the night! They shamed
the listless other candidates, none of whom exhibited a similar energy, excitement &
vision for the future of the country. Despite a definite veneer of displeasure by your
account, both the audience at the event, and those watching at home felt the excitement of
progressive proposals won the day.
When Sanders declared he's in favor of free healthcare and free education for illegal
immigrants there was -at best - muted criticism from the other candidates.
Most Americans are likely outraged by this suggestion and this will play in Trump's
favor.
It's obvious that John Delaney is simply a plant by Big Business (which has both the centrist
Democrats and all of Republicans in its pocket) to troll and derail the candidacy of
progressives Sanders and Warren. His sole function is to throw a monkey wrench in their path
and be a "nattering nabob of negativism" (to quote Agnew) regarding their policies. That's
all he does all day and all night, and the centrist-loving moderators and journalists love
giving him infinite time to do his damage
The answer is obvious: if you want your best shot at 86-ing the orange pestilence, then it
has to be Warren/Sanders or Sanders/Warren. You're not supposed to signal your vice-president
until after you've got the nomination, I know, but surely having Trump as president has
shredded all previous norms? Go now, right now, and say that it'll be you two. You can even
keep it open and say that you don't know who'll head the ticket but it will be Warren and
Sanders. That would crush all opposition and keep churning interesting as a guessing game.
Maybe Warren should head the ticket. I know that Sanders is very sharp and he plays
basketball but if he was president then he'd be asking for a second term and to get sworn in
when he's 83 and being in one's eighties might be too much of a psychological barrier. My
suggestion, though, would be it's Sanders/Warren but on the promise that Sanders will step
aside during his first term, after two years and one day (meaning that Warren could serve out
the rest of the term and still then run for two more terms under her own steam).
That would guarantee the first female president and so quieten down the phoney-baloney
identity politics drones; better, it would mean that the US would get an excellent leader in
Elizabeth Warren, no matter her bodily organs; it would pull together the Crooked H.
adherents and get them on side, if they truly care about getting female in there and if it
doesn't it will expose them as the phonies they are. And it would keep matters on policy,
when Trump is weak, rather than personalities, which is the territory on which Trump wants to
fight.
Warren: "We beat it by being the party of big structural change." The issue is whether
"regulation" is big enough and structural enough.
Sanders: "To stand with the working class* of American that for the last 45 years has been
decimated." Then the Canada bus trip. "We need a mass political movement. Take on the greed
and the corruption of the ruling class of this country." Plugs website.
Sanders was better; working the bus trip in was good.
NOTE *
Guardian paraphrase : "Bernie Sanders pledged to stand by the US middle class , recounting his recent trip to Canada to
emphasize the high price of insulin in America." Lol.
The allergy to the phrase "working class" is not accidental. They want as many Americans
as possible thinking they're just temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
As someone who has spent most of my life in the working class, made it to the middle, got
knocked down again, and made my way back up to the middle again, there is most certainly a
difference.
When was the last time (if ever) that someone said the words "ruling class" in a
presidential debate? (I assume that Eugene Debs was never invited to any presidential
debate.)
Even that Bernie said "working class" won points with me. Typical of the Guardian to change
it to "middle class".
Williamson was impressive.
I liked that Warren showed fire and guts. Her policies would be a real change for the better,
especially if pushed farther. My real question about her is whether she would stand up to the
other side and fight to win.
For me, the biggest difference between Bernie and Warren is that I am starting to hope that
Warren would really fight, but I know Bernie would.
I like Bernie better, but I like Warren too, and I *DO* trust her to fight.
The big tell was when she went to Washington as a Senator and Larry Summers said don't
criticize us in public if you want to be part of the club, and she not only ignored that but
told on him publicly!
Two actually GOOD people! They were my dream team last night.
I agree. I'm highly skeptical of Warren delivering anything (especially a victory), and I
don't really trust her to try very hard to implement her plans. Watching her in this debate
opened a thin crack in my icy wall of distrust. I hope she proves me wrong.
Eh . Warren for all her sociopolitical baggage is a completely different animal to the
Blue Dog Corporatist DNC fundie or the Free Market Conservative slash Goat picked me to
administrate reality for everyone dilemma.
But yeah feel [tm] free [tm] to play curricular firing squad and then wonder why ones head
is sore from the effects of banging on an sacrilegious edifice .
I think a photo finish by Sanders and Warren, Buttigieg in the running followed by
Klobuchar, Beto fading, the centrists losing big, Williamson a dark horse coming up on the
outside.
By one key metric -- Google interest -- Marianne Willamson was the dominant figure of the debate. and that's tells a lot about
debate aorgnizers which are not interested in real political debase. Just interested in the debate as a political show. They
are too interested in promoted identity politics to devide the electorate, to allow discussion of really important for the
nation question such as rampant militarism.
Notable quotes:
"... A lot of liberals will love her for her quip, "I don't understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running to the president of the United States to talk about what we really can't do and shouldn't fight for." ..."
"... Of course, she's celebrating one of the big problems in our political system -- no presidential candidate wants to acknowledge the limits of the power of the office, the presence of the opposition party, judicial review, the inherent difficulties of enacting sweeping changes through legislation, or the limit of government policy to solve problems in society. ..."
"... One of the reasons Americans are so cynical is that they've seen plenty of politicians come and go, with almost every one of them promising the moon and very few living up to the hype. ..."
A lot of liberals will love her for her quip, "I don't understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of
running to the president of the United States to talk about what we really can't do and shouldn't fight for."
Of course, she's celebrating one of the big problems in our political system -- no presidential
candidate wants to acknowledge the limits of the power of the office, the presence of the opposition party,
judicial review, the inherent difficulties of enacting sweeping changes through legislation, or the limit of
government policy to solve problems in society.
One of the reasons Americans are so cynical is that they've seen plenty of politicians come and go, with
almost every one of them promising the moon and very few living up to the hype.
Advertisement
Warren shamelessly insisted that the government could pay for quality health care for every American -- and
illegal immigrants, too! -- just by raising taxes on billionaires and big corporations. Warren made clear
tonight that she's not going to let a little thing like fiscal reality get in between her and the nomination.
... ... ...
Tonight was another night where you could easily forget Amy Klobuchar was on stage. Back when Klobuchar's campaign was in the
nascent stage, people wondered how "Minnesota nice" would play on a national debate stage. We can now declare it boring,
predictable, and forgettable.
"... I like Elizabeth Warren, I would vote for her, . Not fond of some of her foreign policy positions, and I don't like how worked up Trump gets her. Forget about Trump, lets here what you plan on doing with the presidency E. Warren! ..."
"... Biden and Harris are both IMO DNC monsters like Clinton who will get us into nuclear war due to a combination of excessive hubris and flat out neocon/neolib stupidity. ..."
"... Warren's okay but it's hard to get past her support for Hillary in 2016 and not for Sanders whose policies reflect hers. So for me, Sanders is still the best, Warren 2nd. However, Trump will destroy him with Socialist scaremongering. ..."
"... Biden is older and will not want war (with any country) complicating his Presidency, and may choose a VP ready to succeed him if he decides not to run for a second term. He will return to the JCPOA. I don't like Biden's ingratiation with Zionists, but the reality is that Biden and Trump will be the choices, so hold your nose, because it's Biden or war and further regime change ambitions with Trump and maybe even a manipulated Trump 3rd term using war as the excuse to prolong his mandate! ..."
"... Biden has no conception of giving up office. As to war he will be as ready to start wars as he was when he and Obama and Hillary were all part of the same administration. ..."
I like Elizabeth Warren, I would vote for her, . Not fond of some of her foreign policy positions, and I don't like how worked
up Trump gets her. Forget about Trump, lets here what you plan on doing with the presidency E. Warren!
In the primaries I will support Gabbard, I believe she is as real of an anti-war candidate as there is, not perfect, but it
is all relative.
Sanders would get my vote, too, although I do fear he is a bit of a "sheep-dog" but I'd give him a shot.
If not one of those candidates, oddly, I'll vote for Trump. Biden and Harris are both IMO DNC monsters like Clinton who will
get us into nuclear war due to a combination of excessive hubris and flat out neocon/neolib stupidity.
I see a repeat of the 2016 election on the horizon, with the DNC doubling down on idiocy and losing in a similar fashion. They
haven't learnt a thing from 2016 and think hyperventilating while screaming Trump, Trump, Trump is going to win the election.
Warren's okay but it's hard to get past her support for Hillary in 2016 and not for Sanders whose policies reflect hers. So
for me, Sanders is still the best, Warren 2nd. However, Trump will destroy him with Socialist scaremongering.
My bet is that the nominee will be Biden, because Biden can beat Trump in the election and Democrats, at the last minute, will
vote out of fear of running someone who might lose to Trump.
My feeling is that there will be war in Trump's second term. Trump will be much bolder and more fascist after getting another
mandate and having nothing to lose. Trump will be a war President having invested more than any other President on military hardware
and itching to show it off. He hasn't fired his hawks for a reason. He will be more full of himself and his own importance in
history. His Zionist financiers will get their money's worth in spades. His agenda will be more hostile on Iran and China and
he'll finish what he started in Venezuela. He will lose the detente with NK, and after the election, he will no longer give friendly
lip service to Russia especially on Syria and Venezuela and will expect Russia to go along with what he has planned for Iran.
Biden is older and will not want war (with any country) complicating his Presidency, and may choose a VP ready to succeed him
if he decides not to run for a second term. He will return to the JCPOA. I don't like Biden's ingratiation with Zionists, but
the reality is that Biden and Trump will be the choices, so hold your nose, because it's Biden or war and further regime change
ambitions with Trump and maybe even a manipulated Trump 3rd term using war as the excuse to prolong his mandate!
"My bet is that the nominee will be Biden, because Biden can beat Trump in the election and Democrats, at the last minute,
will vote out of fear of running someone who might lose to Trump....."
Biden is Hillary without the feminist support. No way that he could beat Trump.
"Biden is older and will not want war (with any country) complicating his Presidency, and may choose a VP ready to succeed
him if he decides not to run for a second term. .."
Biden has no conception of giving up office. As to war he will be as ready to start wars as he was when he and Obama and Hillary
were all part of the same administration.
There is only one Democrat, among the announced candidates, who can beat Trump and his name is Sanders.
The purpose of the "Clintonized" Democratic Party is to diffuse public dissent to neoliberal rule in an orderly fashion. The
militarization of US economy and society means that by joining the war coalition, the Democratic party doesn't have to win any presidential
elections to remain in power. Because military-industrial complex rules the country.
Yes Clinton neoliberals want to stay in control and derail Sanders, much like they did in 2016. Biden and Harris are Clinton faction
Trojan horses to accomplish that. But times changed and they might have to agree on Warren inread of Biden of Harris.
Notable quotes:
"... Trump fought the swamp, and the swamp won. Trump campaigned on ending our stupid pointless wars and spending that money on ourselves – and it looked at first like he might actually deliver (how RACIST of the man!) but not to worry, he is now surrounded by uber hawks and the defense industry dollars are continuing to flow. Which the Democrats are fine with. ..."
"... Trump campaigned on a populist platform, but once elected the only thing he really pushed for was a big juicy tax cut for himself and his billionaire buddies – which the Democrats are fine with (how come they can easily block attempts to stop the flow of cheap labor across the southern border, but not block massive giveaway tax cuts to the super rich? Because they have their priorities). ..."
"... So yeah, Trump is governing a lot like Hilary Clinton would have. ..."
"... I think it's much more likely that a Sanders victory would see the Clintonistas digging even further into the underbelly of the Democratic Party. There they would covertly and overtly sabotage Sanders, brief against him in the press and weaken, corrupt and hamstring any legislation that he proposes ..."
"... electing Sanders can not be the endgame, only the beginning. I think Nax is completely right that a Sanders win would bring on the full wrath of all its opponents. Then the real battle would begin. ..."
"... The notion that real change could happen in this country by winning an election or two is naive in the extreme. But that doesn't make it impossible. ..."
"... Lots of people hired by the Clintons, Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Cuomo, etc. will have to be defenestrated. Lose their public sector jobs, if not outright charged with crimes. No one must be left in a position to hurt you after the election. Anyone on the "other side" must lose all power or ability to damage you, except those too weak. These people can be turned and used by you; they can be kept in line with fear. But all the leaders must go. ..."
"... In order for Sanders to survive the onslaught that will surely come, he must have a jobs program ready to go on day one of his administration- and competent people committed to his cause ready to cary out the plan. ..."
"... Besides preventing social movements from undertaking independent political activity to their left, the Democrats have been adept at killing social movements altogether. They have done – and continue to do – this in four key ways: ..."
"... i) inducing "progressive" movement activists (e.g. Medea Benjamin of Code Pink and the leaders of Moveon.org and United for Peace and Justice today) to focus scarce resources on electing and defending capitalist politicians who are certain to betray peaceful- and populist-sounding campaign promises upon the attainment of power; ..."
"... (ii) pressuring activists to "rein in their movements, thereby undercutting the potential for struggle from below;" ..."
"... (iii) using material and social (status) incentives to buy off social movement leaders; ..."
"... iv) feeding a pervasive sense of futility regarding activity against the dominant social and political order, with its business party duopoly. ..."
"... It is not broken. It is fixed. Against us. ..."
"... Obama spent tens of trillions of dollars saving Wall Street – at the expense of Main Street – so that nothing got resolved about the problems that caused the crash in the first place. Trump's policies are doubling down on these problems so there is going to be a major disruption coming down the track. A major recession perhaps or maybe even worse. ..."
"... The militarization of US economy and society underscores your scenario. By being part of the war coalition, the Democratic party, as now constituted, doesn't have to win any presidential elections. The purpose of the Democratic party is to diffuse public dissent in an orderly fashion. This allows the war machine to grind on and the politicians are paid handsomely for their efforts. ..."
"... By joining the war coalition, the Democrats only have leverage over Republicans if the majority of citizens get "uppity" and start demanding social concessions. Democrats put down the revolt by subterfuge, which is less costly and allows the fiction of American Democracy and freedom to persist for a while longer. Republicans, while preferring more overt methods of repressing the working class, allow the fiction to continue because their support for authoritarian principles can stay hidden in the background. ..."
"... When this political theatre in the US finally reaches its end date, what lies behind the curtain will surely shock most of the population and I have little faith that the citizenry are prepared to deal with the consequences. A society of feckless consumers is little prepared to deal with hard core imperialists who's time has reached its end. ..."
"... This wrath of frustrated Imperialists will be turned upon the citizenry ..."
"... By owning the means of production, the Oligarchs will be able to produce the machinery of oppression without the resort to 'money.' In revolutionary times, the most valuable commodity would be flying lead. ..."
"... Could that be why "our" three-letter agencies have been stocking up on that substance for awhile, now? ..."
"... " The purpose of the Democratic Party is to diffuse public dissent in an orderly fashion." ..."
"... Yes, this election is starting to remind me of 2004. High-up Dems, believing they're playing the long game, sacrifice the election to maintain standing with big biz donors. ..."
"... Sadly, when Sanders speaks of a "revolution", and when he is referred to as a revolutionary, while at the same time accepting that the Democratic Party is a Party of the top 10%, puts into context just how low the bar is for a political revolution in America. ..."
"... actual democracy is an impediment to those who wield power in today's America, and in that respect the class war continues to be waged, primarily through divisive social issues to divert our attention from the looting being done by and for the rich and the decline in opportunity and economic security for everyone else. ..."
"... the Democratic Party consultant class, I call them leeches, is fighting for its power at the expense of the party and the country. ..."
"... The DLC-type New Democrats (corporatists) have been working to destroy New Deal Democrats and policies as a force in the party. The New Deal Democrats brought in bank regulations, social security, medicare, the voting rights act, restraint on financial predation, and various economic protections for the little-guy and for Main Street businesses. ..."
"... The DLC Dems have brought deregulation of the banks and financial sector, an attempt to cut social security, expansion of prisons, tax cuts for corporations and the billionaires, the return of monopoly power, and the economic squeeze on Main Street businesses forced to compete with monopolies. ..."
That 2020 existential battle, of course, is always cast as between the Democrats and the Republicans.
But there's another existential battle going on, one that will occur before the main event -- the battle for control of the Democratic
Party. In the long run, that battle may turn out to be more important than the one that immediately follows it.
... ... ...
Before mainstream Democrats can begin the "existential battle" with the forces of Trump and Republicanism, they have to win the
existential battle against the force that wants to force change on their own party.
They're engaged in that battle today, and it seems almost all of the "liberal media," sensing the existential nature of the threat,
is helping them win it. Katie Halper, in a second perceptive piece on the media's obvious anti-Sanders bias, "
MSNBC's Anti-Sanders
Bias Is Getting Truly Ridiculous ," writes: "When MSNBC legal analyst Mimi Rocah (
7/21/19 ) said that Bernie Sanders 'made [her] skin crawl,'
though she 'can't even identify for you what exactly it is,' she was just expressing more overtly the
anti-Sanders bias that pervades the network."
... ... ...
MSNBC is clearly acting as a messaging arm of the Democratic Party mainstream in its battle with progressives in general and Sanders
in particular, and Zerlina Maxwell, who's been variously employed by that mainstream, from her work with Clinton to her work on MSNBC,
is an agent in that effort.
Let me repeat what Matt Taibbi wrote: " [Sanders'] election would mean a complete overhaul of the Democratic Party, forcing
everyone who ever worked for a Clinton to look toward the private sector. "
Agreed. Trump fought the swamp, and the swamp won. Trump campaigned on ending our stupid pointless wars and spending that
money on ourselves – and it looked at first like he might actually deliver (how RACIST of the man!) but not to worry, he is now
surrounded by uber hawks and the defense industry dollars are continuing to flow. Which the Democrats are fine with.
Trump campaigned on enforcing the laws against illegal immigration and limiting legal immigration, but he's now pretty much
given up, the southern border is open full "Camp of the Saints" style and he's pushing for more legal 'guest' workers to satisfy
the corporate demands for cheap labor – and the Democrats are for this (though Sanders started to object back in 2015 before he
was beaten down).
Trump campaigned on a populist platform, but once elected the only thing he really pushed for was a big juicy tax cut for
himself and his billionaire buddies – which the Democrats are fine with (how come they can easily block attempts to stop the flow
of cheap labor across the southern border, but not block massive giveaway tax cuts to the super rich? Because they have their
priorities).
Soon I expect that Trump will propose massive regressive tax increases on the working class – which of course the Democrats
will be fine with ('to save the planet').
So yeah, Trump is governing a lot like Hilary Clinton would have.
And elections are pretty much pointless. Even if Sanders does win, he'll get beaten down faster even than Trump was.
I think people have a hard time with real inflection points. Most of life uses more short-term linear decision making. But
at inflection points we have multiple possibilities that turn into rather surprising turns of events, such as Brexit and Trump.
We still have people saying in the UK – "but they wouldn't do that!" The hell "they" won't. Norms are thrown out of the window
and people start realising how wide the options are. This is not positive or negative. Just change or transformation.
That is my philosophical way of agreeing with you! It is easy to point at the hostility of the mainstream media and DNC as
there being no way for Sanders to win. After all in 2004, look what the media and DNC did to Howard Dean. But people weren't dying
then like they are now. The "Great Recession" wasn't on anyone's radar. People felt rich, like everything would be fine. We are
not in that situation – the facts on the ground are so wildly different that the DNC and mainstream media will find it hard to
stay in control.
I think it's much more likely that a Sanders victory would see the Clintonistas digging even further into the underbelly
of the Democratic Party. There they would covertly and overtly sabotage Sanders, brief against him in the press and weaken, corrupt
and hamstring any legislation that he proposes.
If Sanders should win against Trump expect the establishment to go into full revolt. Capital strike, mass layoffs, federal
reserve hiking interest rates to induce a recession, a rotating cast of Democrats siding with Republicans to block legislation,
press comparing him to worse than Carter before he even takes office and vilifying him all day every day.
I wouldn't be shocked to see Israel and the Saudis generate a crisis in, for example, Iran so Sanders either bends the knee
to the neocons or gets to be portrayed as a cowardly failure for abandoning our 'allies' for the rest of his term.
You've just convinced me that the American Experiment is doomed. No one else but Sanders can pull America out of its long slow
death spiral and your litany of the tactics of subversion of his presidency is persuasive that even in the event of his electoral
victory, there will be no changing of the national direction.
I'm reading a series of essays by Morris Berman in his book "Are We There Yet". A lot of critics complain that he is too much
the pessimist, but he presents some good arguments, dark though they may be, that the American Experiment was doomed from the
start due to the inherent flaw of Every Man For Himself and its "get mine and the hell with everybody else" attitude that has
been a part of the experiment from the beginning.
He is absolutely right about one thing, we are a country strongly based on hustling for money as much or more than anything
else, and both Trump and the Clintons are classic examples of this, and why the country often gets the leaders it deserves.
That's why I believe that we need people like Sanders and Gabbard in the Oval Office. It is also why I believe that should
either end up even getting close, Nax is correct. Those with power in this country will not accept the results and will do whatever
is necessary to subvert them, and the Voter will buy that subversion hook, line, and sinker.
No. The point is that electing Sanders can not be the endgame, only the beginning. I think Nax is completely right that
a Sanders win would bring on the full wrath of all its opponents. Then the real battle would begin.
The notion that real change could happen in this country by winning an election or two is naive in the extreme. But that
doesn't make it impossible.
Lots of people hired by the Clintons, Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Cuomo, etc. will have to be defenestrated. Lose their public
sector jobs, if not outright charged with crimes. No one must be left in a position to hurt you after the election. Anyone on
the "other side" must lose all power or ability to damage you, except those too weak. These people can be turned and used by you;
they can be kept in line with fear. But all the leaders must go.
In order for Sanders to survive the onslaught that will surely come, he must have a jobs program ready to go on day one
of his administration- and competent people committed to his cause ready to cary out the plan.
The high ground is being able to express a new vision for the common good, 24/7, and do something to bring it about. You win
even if you suffer losses.
Without that, life in the USA will become very disruptive to say the least.
Mainstream Dems are performing their role very well. Most likely I am preaching to the choir. But anyways, here is a review
of Lance Selfa's book "Democrats: a critical history" by Paul Street :
Besides preventing social movements from undertaking independent political activity to their left, the Democrats have
been adept at killing social movements altogether. They have done – and continue to do – this in four key ways:
i) inducing "progressive" movement activists (e.g. Medea Benjamin of Code Pink and the leaders of Moveon.org and United
for Peace and Justice today) to focus scarce resources on electing and defending capitalist politicians who are certain to
betray peaceful- and populist-sounding campaign promises upon the attainment of power;
(ii) pressuring activists to "rein in their movements, thereby undercutting the potential for struggle from below;"
(iii) using material and social (status) incentives to buy off social movement leaders;
iv) feeding a pervasive sense of futility regarding activity against the dominant social and political order, with its
business party duopoly.
Pretty bad optics on MSNBC's part being unable to do simple numbers and I can fully believe that their motto starts with the
words "This is who we are". Jimmy Dore has put out a few videos on how bad MSNBC has been towards Bernie and Progressives lately
so it is becoming pretty blatant. Just spitballing a loose theory here but perhaps the Democrats have decided on a "poisoned chalice"
strategy and do want not to win in 2020.
After 2008 the whole economy should have had a major re-set but Obama spent tens of trillions of dollars saving Wall Street
– at the expense of Main Street – so that nothing got resolved about the problems that caused the crash in the first place. Trump's
policies are doubling down on these problems so there is going to be a major disruption coming down the track. A major recession
perhaps or maybe even worse.
Point is that perhaps the Democrats have calculated that it would be best for them to leave the Republicans in power to own
this crash which will help them long term. And this explains why most of those democrat candidates look like they have fallen
out of a clown car. The ones capable of going head to head with Trump are sidelined while their weakest candidates are pushed
forward – people like Biden and Harris. Just a theory mind.
The militarization of US economy and society underscores your scenario. By being part of the war coalition, the Democratic
party, as now constituted, doesn't have to win any presidential elections. The purpose of the Democratic party is to diffuse public
dissent in an orderly fashion. This allows the war machine to grind on and the politicians are paid handsomely for their efforts.
By joining the war coalition, the Democrats only have leverage over Republicans if the majority of citizens get "uppity"
and start demanding social concessions. Democrats put down the revolt by subterfuge, which is less costly and allows the fiction
of American Democracy and freedom to persist for a while longer. Republicans, while preferring more overt methods of repressing
the working class, allow the fiction to continue because their support for authoritarian principles can stay hidden in the background.
I have little faith in my fellow citizens as the majority are too brainwashed to see the danger of this political theatre.
Most ignore politics, while those that do show an interest exercise that effort mainly by supporting whatever faction they belong.
Larger issues and connections between current events remain a mystery to them as a result.
Military defeat seems the only means to break this cycle. Democrats, being the fake peaceniks that they are, will be more than
happy to defer to their more authoritarian Republican counterparts when dealing with issues concerning war and peace. Look no
further than Tulsi Gabbard's treatment in the party. The question is really should the country continue down this Imperialist
path.
In one sense, economic recession will be the least of our problems in the future. When this political theatre in the US
finally reaches its end date, what lies behind the curtain will surely shock most of the population and I have little faith that
the citizenry are prepared to deal with the consequences. A society of feckless consumers is little prepared to deal with hard
core imperialists who's time has reached its end.
This wrath of frustrated Imperialists will be turned upon the citizenry.
By owning the means of production, the Oligarchs will be able to produce the machinery of oppression without the resort
to 'money.'
In revolutionary times, the most valuable commodity would be flying lead.
If the nation wishes true deliverance, not just from Trump and Republicans, but from the painful state that got Trump elected
in the first place, it will first have to believe in a savior.
No, no, no, no, no. No oooshy religion, which is part of what got us into this mess. Cities on a hill. The Exceptional Nation(tm).
Obligatory burbling of Amazing Grace. Assumptions that everyone is a Methodist. And after Deliverance, the U S of A will be magically
re-virginated (for the umpteenth time), pure and worthy of Manifest Destiny once again.
If you want to be saved, stick to your own church. Stop dragging it into the public sphere. This absurd and sloppy religious
language is part of the problem. At the very least it is kitsch. At its worst it leads us to bomb Muslim nations and engage in
"Crusades."
Other than that, the article makes some important points. In a year or so, there will be a lot of comments here on whether
or not to vote for the pre-failed Democratic candidate, once the Party dumps Bernie Sanders. There is no requirement of voting
for the Democrats, unless you truly do believe that they will bring the Deliverance (and untarnish your tarnished virtue). Vote
your conscience. Not who Nate Silver indicates.
Yes, this election is starting to remind me of 2004. High-up Dems, believing they're playing the long game, sacrifice the
election to maintain standing with big biz donors. The leading issue of the day (Iraq/GWOT/Patriot Act) was erased from mainstream
US politics and has been since. Don't for a minute think they won't do a similar thing now. Big donors don't particularly fear
Trump, nor a 6-3 conservative supreme court, nor a Bolton state dept, nor a racist DHS/ICE – those are not money issues for them.
Sadly, when Sanders speaks of a "revolution", and when he is referred to as a revolutionary, while at the same time accepting
that the Democratic Party is a Party of the top 10%, puts into context just how low the bar is for a political revolution in America.
The candidate who would fight and would govern for the 90% of Americans is a revolutionary.
The fact that it can be said as a given that neither major Party is being run specifically to serve the vast majority of our
country is itself an admission for that the class war begun by Reagan has been won, in more of a silent coup, and the rich have
control of our nation.
Sadly, actual democracy is an impediment to those who wield power in today's America, and in that respect the class war
continues to be waged, primarily through divisive social issues to divert our attention from the looting being done by and for
the rich and the decline in opportunity and economic security for everyone else.
Sanders is considered a revolutionary merely for stating the obvious, stating the truth. That is what makes him dangerous to
those that run the Democratic Party, and more broadly those who run this nation.
Sanders would do better to cast himself not as a revolutionary, but as a person of the people, with the belief that good government
does not favor the wants of the richest over the needs of our country. That is what makes him a threat. To the rich unseen who
hold power, to the Republican Party, and to some Democrats.
I agree with the thesis here, and confess to being puzzled by comments on LGM (for example) politics threads of the ilk "I'm
with Warren but am good with Buttigieg too," or "I'm with Sanders but am good with Harris, too," etc.
I love reading Taibbi, but in
his article , that quote, " Sanders is the revolutionary. His election would mean a complete overhaul of the Democratic
Party, forcing everyone who ever worked for a Clinton to look toward the private sector ," should be the lede, and its buried
2/3 of the way down.
This primary season is about how the Democratic Party consultant class, I call them leeches, is fighting for its power
at the expense of the party and the country.
Yves writes: it is unfortunate that this struggle is being personified, as in too often treated by the media and political
operatives as being about Sanders.
I agree. Sanders represents the continuing New Deal-type policies. The DLC-type New Democrats (corporatists) have been
working to destroy New Deal Democrats and policies as a force in the party. The New Deal Democrats brought in bank regulations,
social security, medicare, the voting rights act, restraint on financial predation, and various economic protections for the little-guy
and for Main Street businesses.
The DLC Dems have brought deregulation of the banks and financial sector, an attempt to cut social security, expansion
of prisons, tax cuts for corporations and the billionaires, the return of monopoly power, and the economic squeeze on Main Street
businesses forced to compete with monopolies.
The MSM won't talk about any of the programmatic differences between the two sides. The MSM won't recognize the New Deal style
Democratic voters even exist; the New Deal wing voters are quickly labeled 'deplorable' instead voters with competing economic
policies to the current economic policies.
So, we're left with the MSM focusing on personalities to avoid talking about the real policy differences, imo.
When Bernie talks about a revolution, he explains how it must be from the grassroots, from the bottom up. If he manages to
get elected, his supporters have to make sure they get behind the politicians who also support him and, if they don't, get rid
of them.
Without continuing mass protests, nothing is going to happen. Other countries have figured this out but Americans remain clueless.
Warren's plan would overhaul the process by which the U.S. proposes, writes, finalizes and
enforces trade deals while imposing strict standards for any nation seeking or currently in a
free trade deal with the U.S.
ADVERTISEMENT
In a Medium post outlining the
extensive trade proposal, Warren said her approach to trade is centered on using the United
States' immense leverage to protect domestic industries and workers.
Warren argued U.S trade policy has ceded too much power to international corporations,
squandering the country's ability to defend its manufacturers, farmers and laborers.
"As President, I won't hand America's leverage to big corporations to use for their own
narrow purposes," Warren wrote. "We will engage in international trade -- but on our terms and
only when it benefits American families."
Trump has imposed more than $250 billion in tariffs on Chinese goods, foreign steel and
aluminum, solar panels, and washing machines since taking office in 2017. The president has
used import taxes as leverage in trade talks and inducement for companies to produce goods in
the U.S., but manufacturing job gains and activity have faded throughout the year.
U.S. farmers and ranchers have also lost billions of dollars in foreign sales due to
retaliatory tariffs imposed on American agricultural goods.
Warren acknowledged that while tariffs "are an important tool, they are not by themselves a
long-term solution to our failed trade agenda and must be part of a broader strategy that this
Administration clearly lacks."
Warren said she instead would pursue deals and renegotiate current agreement to "force other
countries to raise the bar on everything from labor and environmental standards to
anti-corruption rules to access to medicine to tax enforcement."
To do so, Warren would expand the ability of Congress and noncorporate advocates to see and
shape trade deals as their being negotiated, not after they have been submitted to lawmakers
for approval
Warren proposed staffing trade advisory panels with a majority of representatives from labor
and environmental and consumer advocacy groups. She also called for special advisory panels for
consumers, rural areas and each region of the country, "so that critical voices are at the
table during negotiations."
Under Warren's plan, trade negotiators would be required to submit drafts of pending
agreements to Congress and submit them for public comment through the same process used by
federal regulators to propose and finalize rules.
Warren's plan also raises the bar for entry into a trade deal with the U.S. and seizes more
power for the federal government to enforce agreements.
Warren proposed a list of nine standards required of any country seeking a U.S. trade deal
including several international tax, climate and human rights treaties. She noted that the U.S.
"shamefully" does not comply with some of these standards, but would do so under her
presidency.
The plan also excludes any nation on the Treasury Department's currency manipulation
monitoring list from a potential U.S. trade deal. As of May, that list includes China, Germany,
Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam.
Nations in trade deals with the U.S. would also be required to support subsidies for green
energy, follow U.S. food inspection standards, pay a fee on goods produced using
"carbon-intensive" processes and agree to stricter anti-trust standards.
"... Besides preventing social movements from undertaking independent political activity to their left, the Democrats have been adept at killing social movements altogether. They have done – and continue to do – this in four key ways: ..."
"... i) inducing "progressive" movement activists (e.g. Medea Benjamin of Code Pink and the leaders of Moveon.org and United for Peace and Justice today) to focus scarce resources on electing and defending capitalist politicians who are certain to betray peaceful- and populist-sounding campaign promises upon the attainment of power; ..."
"... (ii) pressuring activists to "rein in their movements, thereby undercutting the potential for struggle from below;" ..."
"... (iii) using material and social (status) incentives to buy off social movement leaders; ..."
"... iv) feeding a pervasive sense of futility regarding activity against the dominant social and political order, with its business party duopoly. ..."
"... It is not broken. It is fixed. Against us. ..."
"... The militarization of US economy and society underscores your scenario. By being part of the war coalition, the Democratic party, as now constituted, doesn't have to win any presidential elections. The purpose of the Democratic party is to diffuse public dissent in an orderly fashion. This allows the war machine to grind on and the politicians are paid handsomely for their efforts. ..."
"... By joining the war coalition, the Democrats only have leverage over Republicans if the majority of citizens get "uppity" and start demanding social concessions. Democrats put down the revolt by subterfuge, which is less costly and allows the fiction of American Democracy and freedom to persist for a while longer. Republicans, while preferring more overt methods of repressing the working class, allow the fiction to continue because their support for authoritarian principles can stay hidden in the background. ..."
"... When this political theatre in the US finally reaches its end date, what lies behind the curtain will surely shock most of the population and I have little faith that the citizenry are prepared to deal with the consequences. A society of feckless consumers is little prepared to deal with hard core imperialists who's time has reached its end. ..."
"... This wrath of frustrated Imperialists will be turned upon the citizenry ..."
Mainstream Dems are performing their role very well. Most likely I am preaching to the choir. But anyways, here is a review
of Lance Selfa's book "Democrats: a critical history" by Paul Street :
Besides preventing social movements from undertaking independent political activity to their left, the Democrats have
been adept at killing social movements altogether. They have done – and continue to do – this in four key ways:
i) inducing "progressive" movement activists (e.g. Medea Benjamin of Code Pink and the leaders of Moveon.org and United
for Peace and Justice today) to focus scarce resources on electing and defending capitalist politicians who are certain to
betray peaceful- and populist-sounding campaign promises upon the attainment of power;
(ii) pressuring activists to "rein in their movements, thereby undercutting the potential for struggle from below;"
(iii) using material and social (status) incentives to buy off social movement leaders;
iv) feeding a pervasive sense of futility regarding activity against the dominant social and political order, with its
business party duopoly.
The militarization of US economy and society underscores your scenario. By being part of the war coalition, the Democratic
party, as now constituted, doesn't have to win any presidential elections. The purpose of the Democratic party is to diffuse public
dissent in an orderly fashion. This allows the war machine to grind on and the politicians are paid handsomely for their efforts.
By joining the war coalition, the Democrats only have leverage over Republicans if the majority of citizens get "uppity"
and start demanding social concessions. Democrats put down the revolt by subterfuge, which is less costly and allows the fiction
of American Democracy and freedom to persist for a while longer. Republicans, while preferring more overt methods of repressing
the working class, allow the fiction to continue because their support for authoritarian principles can stay hidden in the background.
I have little faith in my fellow citizens as the majority are too brainwashed to see the danger of this political theatre.
Most ignore politics, while those that do show an interest exercise that effort mainly by supporting whatever faction they belong.
Larger issues and connections between current events remain a mystery to them as a result.
Military defeat seems the only means to break this cycle. Democrats, being the fake peaceniks that they are, will be more than
happy to defer to their more authoritarian Republican counterparts when dealing with issues concerning war and peace. Look no
further than Tulsi Gabbard's treatment in the party. The question is really should the country continue down this Imperialist
path.
In one sense, economic recession will be the least of our problems in the future. When this political theatre in the US
finally reaches its end date, what lies behind the curtain will surely shock most of the population and I have little faith that
the citizenry are prepared to deal with the consequences. A society of feckless consumers is little prepared to deal with hard
core imperialists who's time has reached its end.
This wrath of frustrated Imperialists will be turned upon the citizenry.
"... But Dean Baker, the co-founder of the liberal Centre for Economic and Policy Research, said that the increase in corporate debt has corresponded with higher profits and manageably low interest rates. "The idea that you're going to have this massive cascade of defaults - it's very hard to see," Baker said. ..."
"... Michael Madowitz, an economist at the Centre for American Progress, said that most predictions about recessions were wrong, not just those offered by politicians. ..."
"... But he interpreted Warren's essay as a broader warning about how Trump's efforts to support growth by curbing regulations and attacking government institutions might eventually be destructive ..."
"... With my total lack of understanding of world economics I predict a stock market crash sometime between May 2020 and October 2020 and a recession, including Australia (worse than the unofficial one we have really been in here in Australia for the last 10 years), over following few years. ..."
Elizabeth Warren became a household name thanks to her prescient warning of what became a global financial crisis.
Now she's staking her credentials on another forecast of fiscal trauma ahead. The Democratic presidential candidate published an
online essay this week saying that a rise in consumer and corporate debt is imperilling the longest expansion in US history.
"Whether
it's this year or next year, the odds of another economic downturn are high - and growing," Warren wrote.
Her prediction could help
her win over primary voters by tapping into anxieties about middle-class economic stability despite broad gains over the past decade.
But Warren's opponents could seize on her warning to undermine her credibility should a crash fail to materialise before next year's
election, and some economists sympathetic to her agenda say that - for the moment - her conclusion of a looming recession is overblown.
Recessions are notoriously difficult to forecast. Warren first warned in 2003 about subprime mortgage lending, yet it was roughly
five years later when the US housing market fully collapsed.
And although her dire forecast echoed in style some warnings made by
Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, Warren hasn't aligned with him in portraying her potential election to the White
House as the only way to avert disaster. "I went through this back in the years before the 2008 crash, and no one wanted to listen.
So, here we are again," Warren said on Capitol Hill last week. "I'm trying to point out where the warning signs are. I hope
our regulators and Congress listen, make changes, and that the economy strengthens."
Even economists who like her prescription are skeptical about her diagnosis. Warren rooted her concerns about
the economy in a Federal Reserve report that found a 6.8 per cent increase in household debt over the past decade, allowing the Massachusetts
senator to write that American families are "taking on more debt than ever before." But that figure is not adjusted for inflation,
nor is it adjusted for population growth - and the number of US households has risen by 9.5 per cent during the same period, meaning
that Fed data also shows debt levels have fallen on a per capita basis.
"I don't see a huge bubble on the other side of household
debt that is going to savage people's assets," said Josh Bivens, director of research at the liberal Economic Policy Institute. At
the moment, families can afford their debt because of low interest rates, and that minimises the risks to the economy. American households
are devoting less than 10 per cent of their disposable income to debt service, down from roughly 13 per cent in 2008, according to
the Fed. This doesn't mean that Warren is wrong to conclude that families are burdened by student debt and childcare costs, just
that data suggests the debt produced by those expenses is unlikely to cause a downturn.
Part of Warren's forecast hinges on a spike
in interest rates that seems unlikely as most benchmark rates have declined since November. Warren has assembled a litany of proposals
aimed at bringing down household debt, through student loan forgiveness and affordable childcare availability as well as a housing
plan designed to lower rent costs. She touted her policy agenda - which has propelled her higher in the polls - as ways to avert
her predicted crash.
Warren's warning of a downturn is a somewhat unique maneuver for a presidential candidate. Past White House hopefuls have waited
for the downturns to start before capitalising on them. Bill Clinton won the presidency in 1992, for example, on a post-recession
message summed up by then-adviser James Carville's edict to focus on "the economy, stupid."
Warren also warned this week that an increase in corporate borrowing could crush the economy.
But Dean Baker, the co-founder of the liberal Centre for Economic and Policy Research, said that the increase in corporate debt
has corresponded with higher profits and manageably low interest rates. "The idea that you're going to have this massive cascade
of defaults - it's very hard to see," Baker said.
While the US economy may not be entering into a recession, many economic forecasters say growth is still slowing because of global
and demographic pressures. Evidence of this has already caused Fed officials to signal that they plan to cut interest rates at their
meeting next week. Trump has repeatedly called for the Fed to make even steeper cuts to improve his economic track record.
Michael Madowitz, an economist at the Centre for American Progress, said that most predictions about recessions were wrong, not
just those offered by politicians.
But he interpreted Warren's essay as a broader warning about how Trump's efforts to support growth by curbing regulations and
attacking government institutions might eventually be destructive. "It's hard to say what a debt-driven problem would look like until
it happens," Madowitz said.
"I think it's also reasonable to elevate concern at the moment given how politicised Trump has made apolitical economic institutions
like the Fed. That's not a free lunch. It creates real risks, so it's more important than usual to think about what happens if things
go bump in the night."
AP Mick 8 hours ago
I really have no idea about economics - seriously the mechanics of world financing, where every country seems
to in debt baffles me. But if you look at the last 40 years or so - my adult life - there seems to be a stock market crash about
each 10 years and a recession in the USA about each 10 years. From memory, stock markets in 1987, 1997, 2008 (I suppose also dot
com stuff in around 1999/2000 as well). Recessions in the US in early 90's, early 2000's, 2009 into 2010's.
With my total lack of understanding of world economics I predict a stock market crash sometime between May 2020 and October 2020
and a recession, including Australia (worse than the unofficial one we have really been in here in Australia for the last 10 years),
over following few years.
I wonder how my predictions will stand up to the experts. Gillespie 8 hours ago No facts seem to be the hallmark of your post.
"Warren first warned in 2003 about subprime mortgage lending" shshus 10 hours ago The incoming economic meltdown in a insanely indebted
global ponzi scheme is a no brainer. Despite Trump's usual bombast, the US economy is hardly growing and manufacturing is already
in recession. The lunatic policies of central banks to offer free money at almost zero interest rates has caused a greed based credit
frenzy that is simply unsustainable. The coming economic collapse will be far worse as the trade wars between US and China and rest
of the world will simply compound the problem. Australia is particularly vulnerable in both economic and strategic terms. Time to
batten the hatches, rather than pile on more consumer debt.
That bill alone makes Warren a viable candidate again, despite all her previous blunders. She is a courageous woman, that
Warren. And she might wipe the floor with the completely subservant to Israel lobby Trump. Who betrayed his electorate
in all major promises.
Notable quotes:
"... Not only would Warren's legislation prohibit some of the most destructive private equity activities, but it would end their ability to act as traditional asset managers, taking fees and incurring close to no risk if their investments go belly up. The bill takes the explicit and radical view that: ..."
"... Private funds should have a stake in the outcome of their investments, enjoying returns if those investments are successful but ab-1sorbing losses if those investments fail. ..."
"... Critics will say that Warren's bill has no chance of passing, which is currently true but misses the point. ..."
"... firms would share responsibility for the liabilities of companies under their control, including debt, legal judgments, and pension obligations to "better align the incentives of private equity firms and the companies they own." The bill, if enacted, would end the tax subsidy for excessive leverage and closes the carried interest loophole. ..."
"... The bill also seeks to ban dividends to investors for two years after a firm is acquired. Worker pay would be prioritized in the bankruptcy process, with guidelines intended to ensure affected employees are more likely to receive severance pay and pensions. It would also clarify gift cards are consumer deposits, ensuring their priority in bankruptcy proceedings. If enacted, private equity managers will be required to disclose fees, returns, and political expenditures. ..."
"... This is a bold set of proposals that targets abuses that hurt workers and investors. Most readers may not appreciate the significance of the two-year restriction on dividends. One return-goosing strategy that often leaves companies crippled or bankrupt in its wake is the "dividend recap" in which the acquired company takes on yet more debt for the purpose of paying a special dividend to its investors. Another strategy that Appelbaum and Batt have discussed at length is the "op co/prop co." Here the new owners take real estate owned by the company, sell it to a new entity with the former owner leasing it. The leases are typically set high so as to allow for the "prop co" to be sold at a richer price. This strategy is often a direct contributor to the death of businesses, since ones that own their real estate usually do so because they are in cyclical industries, and not having lease payments enables the to ride out bad times. The proceeds of sale of the real estate is usually dividended out to the investors, hence the dividend restriction would also pour cold water on this approach. ..."
"... However, there is precedent in private equity for recognizing joint and several liability of an investment fund for the obligations of its portfolio companies. In a case that winded its way through the federal courts until last year ( Sun Capital Partners III, LP v. New England Teamsters & Trucking Indus. Pension Fund ), the federal court held that Sun Capital Partners III was liable under ERISA, the federal pension law, for the unfunded pension obligations of Scott Brass, a portfolio company of that fund. The court's key finding was that Sun Capital played an active management role in Scott Brass and that its claim of passive investor status therefore should not be respected. ..."
"... Needless to say, private equity firms have worked hard to minimize their exposure to the Sun Capital decision, for example by avoiding purchasing companies with defined benefit pension plans. The Warren bill, however, is so broad in the sweep of liability it imposes that PE firms would be unlikely to be able to structure around it. It is hard to imagine the investors in private equity funds accepting liability for what could be enormous sums of unfunded pension liabilities ultimately flowing onto them. Either they would have to set up shell companies to fund their PE investments that could absorb the potential liability, or they would have to give up on the asset class. Either way, it would mean big changes to the industry and potentially a major contraction of it. ..."
"... I am surprised that Warren sought to make private equity funds responsible for the portfolio company debts by "joint and several liability". You can get to economically pretty much the same end by requiring the general partner and potentially also key employees to guarantee the debt and by preventing them from assigning or buying insurance to protect the guarantor from being liable. There is ample precedent for that for entrepreneurs. Small business corporate credit cards and nearly all small business loans require a personal guarantee. ..."
"... Warren's bill also has strong pro-investor provisions. It takes on the biggest feature of the ongoing investor scamming, which is the failure of PE managers to disclose to the investors all of the fees they receive from portfolio companies. The solution proposed by the bill to this problem is exceedingly straightforward, basically proclaiming, "Oh yeah, now you will have to disclose that." The bill also abolishes the ability of private equity managers to claim long term capital gains treatment on the 20 percent of fund profits that they receive, which is unrelated to the return on any capital that the private equity managers may happen to invest in a fund. ..."
"... We need a reparations movement for all those workers harmed by private equity. Seriously. ..."
"... It's so nice to see someone taking steps to protect the rights and compensation of the people actually doing the work at the companies and putting their interests first in case of bankruptcy. That those who worked hardest to make the company succeed were somehow the ones who took it in the shorts the worst has always struck me as a glaring inequity bordering on cruelty. ..."
Elizabeth Warren's
Stop Wall Street Looting Act , which is co-sponsored by Tammy Baldwin, Sherrod Brown, Mark Pocan and Pramila Jayapal, seeks to
fundamentally alter the way private equity firms operate. While the likely impetus for Warren's bill was the spate of private-equity-induced
retail bankruptcies, with Toys 'R' Us particularly prominent, the bill addresses all the areas targeted by critics of private equity:
how it hurts workers and investors and short-changes the tax man, thus burdening taxpayers generally.
That Time Warren Cheered Trump. Well, this was disappointing... Elizabeth Warren stands up
and applauds Trump's promise that "America will never be a socialist country." https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=416898935744430
Looks like Warren weakness is her inability to distinguish between key issues and periferal
issues.
While her program is good and is the only one that calls for "structural change" (which is
really needed as neoliberalism outlived its usefulness) it mixes apple and oranges. One thing
is to stop neoliberal transformation of the society and the other is restitution for black
slaves. In the latter case why not to Indians ?
I'd argue that Warren's newly tight and coherent story, in which her life's arc tracks the
country's, is contributing to her rise, in part because it protects her against other stories
-- the nasty ones told by her opponents, first, and then echoed by the media doubters
influenced by her opponents. Her big national-stage debut came when she
tangled with Barack Obama's administration over bank bailouts, then set up the powerhouse
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). But she was dismissed as too polarizing, even by
some Democrats, and was passed over to run it. In 2012, Massachusetts's Scott Brown mocked Warren as
"the Professor," a know-it-all Harvard schoolmarm, before she beat him to take his Senate seat.
After that, Donald Trump began
trashing her as "Pocahontas" in the wake of a controversy on the campaign trail about her
mother's rumored Native American roots. And Warren scored an own goal with a video that announced
she had "confirmed" her Native heritage with a DNA test, a claim that ignored the brutal
history of blood-quantum requirements and genetic pseudoscience in the construction of
race.
When she announced her presidential run this year, some national political reporters
raised
questions about her likability
, finding new ways to compare
her to Hillary Clinton, another female candidate widely dismissed as unlikable. A month into
Warren's campaign, it seemed the media was poised to Clintonize her off the primary stage. But
it turned out she had a plan for that, too.
I n the tale that is captivating crowds on the campaign trail, Warren is not a professor or
a political star but a hardscrabble Oklahoma "late-in-life baby" or, as her mother called her,
"the surprise." Her elder brothers had joined the military; she was the last one at home, just
a middle-schooler when her father had the massive heart attack that would cost him his job. "I
remember the day we lost the station wagon," she tells crowds, lowering her voice. "I learned
the words 'mortgage' and 'foreclosure' " listening to her parents talk when they thought
she was asleep, she recalls. One day she walked in on her mother in her bedroom, crying and
saying over and over, " 'We are not going to lose this house.' She was 50 years old,"
Warren adds, "had never worked outside the home, and she was terrified."
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This part of the story has been a Warren staple for years: Her mother put on her best dress
and her high heels and walked down to a Sears, where she got a minimum-wage job. Warren got a
private lesson from her mother's sacrifice -- "You do what you have to to take care of those
you love" -- and a political one, too. "That minimum-wage job saved our house, and it saved our
family." In the 1960s, she says, "a minimum-wage job could support a family of three. Now the
minimum wage can't keep a momma and a baby out of poverty."
That's Act I of Warren's story and of the disappearing American middle class whose
collective story her family's arc symbolizes. In Act II, she walks the crowd through her early
career, including some personal choices that turned her path rockier: early marriage, dropping
out of college. But her focus now is on what made it possible for her to rise from the working
class. Warren tells us how she went back to school and got her teaching certificate at a public
university, then went to law school at another public university. Both cost only a few hundred
dollars in tuition a year. She always ends with a crowd-pleaser: "My daddy ended up as a
janitor, but his baby daughter got the opportunity to become a public-school teacher, a law
professor, a US senator, and run for president!"
Warren has honed this story since her 2012 Senate campaign. Remember her "Nobody in this
country got rich on his own" speech ? It was an explanation of how the
elite amassed wealth thanks to government investments in roads, schools, energy, and police
protection, which drew more than 1 million views on YouTube. Over the years, she has become the
best explainer of the way the US government, sometime around 1980, flipped from building the
middle class to protecting the wealthy. Her 2014 book, A Fighting Chance , explains how
Warren (once a Republican, like two of her brothers) saw her own family's struggle in the
stories of those families whose bankruptcies she studied as a lawyer -- families she once
thought might have been slackers. Starting in 1989, with a book she cowrote on bankruptcy and
consumer credit, her writing has charted the way government policies turned against the middle
class and toward corporations. That research got her tapped by then–Senate majority
leader Harry Reid to oversee
the Troubled Assets Relief Program after the 2008 financial crash and made her a
favorite on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart . Starting in the mid-2000s, she
publicly clashed with prominent Democrats,
including Biden , a senator at the time, over bankruptcy reforms, and later with
then–Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner over the bank bailouts.
Sanders, of course, has a story too, about a government that works for the "millionaires and
billionaires." But he has a hard time connecting his family's stories of struggle to his
policies. After his first few campaign events, he ditched the details about growing up poor in
Brooklyn. In early June, he returned to his personal story in a New York Timesop-ed .
W arren preaches the need for "big structural change" so often that a crowd chanted the
phrase back at her during a speech in San Francisco the first weekend in June. Then she gets
specific. In Act III of her stump speech, she lays out her dizzying array of plans. But by then
they're not dizzying, because she has anchored them to her life and the lives of her listeners.
The rapport she develops with her audience, sharing her tragedies and disappointments --
questionable choices and all -- makes her bold policy pitches feel believable. She starts with
her proposed wealth tax: two cents on every dollar of your worth after $50 million, which she
says would raise $2.75 trillion over 10 years. (She has also proposed a 7 percent surtax on
corporate profits above $100 million.)
Warren sells the tax with a vivid, effective comparison. "How many of you own a home?" she
asks. At most of her stops in Iowa, it was roughly half the crowd. "Well, you already pay a
wealth tax on your major asset. You pay a property tax, right?" People start nodding. "I just
want to make sure we're also taxing the diamonds, the Rembrandts, the yachts, and the stock
portfolios." Nobody in those Iowa crowds seemed to have a problem with that.
Then she lays out the shocking fact that
people in the top 1 percent pay roughly 3.2 percent of their wealth in taxes, while the bottom
99 percent pay 7.4 percent.
That "big structural change" would pay for the items on Warren's agenda -- the programs that
would rebuild the opportunity ladder to the middle class -- that have become her signature:
free technical school or two- or four-year public college; at least partial loan forgiveness
for 95 percent of those with student debt; universal child care and prekindergarten, with costs
capped at 7 percent of family income; and a pay hike for child-care workers.
"Big structural change" would also include strengthening unions and giving workers 40
percent of the seats on corporate boards. Warren promises to break up Big Tech and Big Finance.
She calls for a constitutional amendment to protect the right to vote and vows to push to
overturn Citizens United . To those who say it's too much, she ends every public event
the same way: "What do you think they said to the abolitionists? 'Too hard!' To the suffragists
fighting to get women the right to vote? 'Too hard!' To the foot soldiers of the civil-rights
movement, to the activists who wanted equal marriage? 'Give up now!' " But none of them
gave up, she adds, and she won't either. Closing that way, she got a standing ovation at every
event I attended.
R ecently, Warren has incorporated into her pitch the stark differences between what
mid-20th-century government offered to black and white Americans. This wasn't always the case.
After a speech she
delivered at the Roosevelt Institute in 2015, I heard black audience members complain about her
whitewashed version of the era when government built the (white) middle class. Many black
workers were ineligible for Social Security; the GI Bill didn't prohibit racial
discrimination ; and federal loan guarantees systematically excluded black home buyers and
black neighborhoods. "I love Elizabeth, but those stories about the '50s drive me crazy," one
black progressive said.
The critiques must have made their way to Warren. Ta-Nehisi Coates recently
toldThe New Yorker that after his influential Atlanticessay
"The Case for Reparations" appeared five years ago, the Massachusetts senator asked to meet
with him. "She had read it. She was deeply serious, and she had questions." Now, when Warren
talks about the New Deal, she is quick to mention the ways African Americans were shut out. Her
fortunes on the campaign trail brightened after April's She the People forum in Houston, where she joined eight
other candidates in talking to what the group's founder, Aimee Allison, calls "the real
Democratic base": women of color, many from the South. California's Kamala Harris, only the
second African-American woman ever elected to the US Senate, might have had the edge coming in,
but Warren surprised the crowd. "She walked in to polite applause and walked out to a standing
ovation," Allison said, after the candidate impressed the crowd with policies to address black
maternal-health disparities, the black-white wealth gap, pay inequity, and more.
G Jutson says:
July 4, 2019 at 1:00 pm
Well here we are in the circular firing squad Obama warned us about. Sander's fan boys vs.
Warren women. Sanders has been our voice in DC on the issues for a generation. He has changed
the debate. Thank you Bernie. Now a Capitalist that wants to really reform it can be a viable
candidate. Warren is that person. We supported Sanders last time to help us get to this
stage. Time to pass the baton to someone that can beat Trump. After the Sept. debates I
expect The Nation to endorse Warren and to still hear grumbling from those that think moving
on from candidate Bernie somehow means unfaithfulness to his/our message .
Kenneth Viste says: June 27, 2019 at 5:52 am
I would like to hear her talk about free college as an investment in people rather than an
expense. Educated people earn more and therefore pay more taxes than uneducated so it pays to
educate the populous to the highest level possible.
Jim Dickinson says: June 26, 2019 at 7:11 pm
Warren gets it and IMO is probably the best Democratic candidate of the bunch. Biden does
not get it and I get depressed seeing him poll above Warren with his tired corporate ideas
from the past.
I have a different take on her not being progressive enough. Her progressive politics are
grounded in reality and not in the pie in the sky dreams of Sanders, et al. The US is a
massively regressive nation and proposing doing everything at once, including a total revamp
of our healthcare system is simply unrealistic.
That was my problem with Sanders, who's ideas I agree with. There is no way in hell to
make the US into a progressive dream in one election - NONE.
I too dream of a progressive US that most likely goes well beyond what most people
envision. But I also have watched those dreams collapse many, many times in the past when we
reach too far. I hope that we can make important but obtainable changes which might make the
great unwashed masses see who cares about them and who does not.
I hope that she does well because she has a plan for many of the ills of this nation. The
US could certainly use some coherent plans after the chaos and insanity of the Trump years.
Arguing about who was the best Democratic candidate in 2016 helped put this schmuck in office
and I hope that we don't go down that path again.
Caleb Melamed says: June 26, 2019 at 2:13 pm
I had a misunderstanding about one key aspect of Warren's political history. I had always
thought that she was neutral in 2016 between Sanders and Hillary Clinton. On CNN this
morning, a news clip showed that Warren in fact endorsed Hillary Clinton publicly, shouting
"I'm with her," BEFORE Sanders withdrew from the race. This action had the effect of
weakening Sanders' bargaining position vis a vis Clinton once he actually withdrew. Clinton
proceeded to treat Sanders and his movement like a dish rag. I am now less ready to support
Warren in any way.
Robert Andrews says: June 26, 2019 at 12:17 pm
I have three main reasons I do not want Senator Warren nominate which are:
Not going all out for a single payer healthcare system. This is a massive problem with
Warren. With her starting out by moving certain groups to Medicare is sketchy at best. Which
groups would be graced first? I am sure whoever is left behind will be thrilled. Is Warren
going to expand Medicare so that supplemental coverages will not be needed anymore? Crying
about going too far too fast is a losing attitude. You go after the most powerful lobby in
the country full bore if you want any kind of real and lasting changes.
With Warren's positions and actions with foreign policy this statement is striking, "Once
Warren's foreign policy record is scrutinized, her status as a progressive champion starts to
wither. While Warren is not on the far right of Democratic politics on war and peace, she
also is not a progressive -- nor a leader -- and has failed to use her powerful position on
the Senate Armed Services Committee to challenge the status quo" - Sarah Lazare. She is the
web editor at In These Times. She comes from a background in independent journalism for
publications including The Intercept, The Nation, and Tom Dispatch. She tweets at
@sarahlazare.
Lastly, the stench with selling off her integrity with receiving corporate donations again
if nominated is overpowering.
For reference, she was a registered Republican until the mid 1990's.
Joan Walsh, why don't you give congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard any presence with your
articles? Her level of integrity out shines any other female candidate and Gabbard's
positions and actions are progressive. I don't want to hear that she isn't a major player,
because you have included Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. Gabbard's media blackout has been
dramatic, thank you for your contribution with it also.
Robert Andrews says: June 27, 2019 at 8:29 am
I was impressed with Warren on the debate, especially since she finally opened her arms to
a single payer healthcare system.
Caleb Melamed says: June 26, 2019 at 2:35 pm
Gabbard is playing a very important role in this race, whatever her numbers (which are
probably higher than those being reported and are sure to go up after tonight). In some ways,
her position in 2020 resembles that of Sanders in 2016--the progressive outlier, specifically
on issues relating to the U.S. policy of endless war. Gabbard makes Sanders look more
mainstream by comparison on this issue (though their difference is more one of emphasis than
substance), making it much harder for the DNC establishment to demonize and ostracize
Sanders. (Third Way really, really wants to stop Sanders--they have called him an
"existential threat.") Gabbard's important role in this respect is one reason the DNC and its
factotums are expending such effort on sliming her.
By the way, Nation, you have now reprinted my first comment to this article five (5)
times!
Clark Shanahan says: June 26, 2019 at 1:19 pm
Tulsi,
Our most eloquent anti-military-interventionism candidate, hands down.
Richard Phelps says: June 26, 2019 at 1:29 pm
Unfortunately EW doesn't beat Trump past the margin of error in all the polls I have seen.
Bernie does in most. The other scary factor is how so many neoliberals are now talking nice
about her. They want anyone but the true, consistent progressive, Bernie. And her backing
away from putting us on a human path on health care, like so many other countries, is
foreboding of a sellout to the health insurance companies, a group focused on profits over
health care for our citizens. A group with no redeeming social value. 40,000+ people die each
year due to lack of medical care, so the company executives can have their 8 figure salaries
and golden parachutes when they retire. Also don't forget they are adamantly anti union.
Where is Warren's fervor to ride our country of this leach on society? PS I donated $250 to
her last Senate campaign. I like her. She is just not what we need to stop the final stages
of oligarchic take over, where so much of our resources are wasted on the Pentagon and
unnecessary wars and black opps. It is not Bernie or bust, it is Bernie or oligarchy!!!
Walter Pewen says: June 27, 2019 at 10:52 am
Frankly, having family from Oklahoma I'd say Warren IS a progressive. Start reading
backwards and you will find out.
Clark Shanahan says: June 26, 2019 at 1:24 pm
You certainly shall never see her call out AIPAC.
She has since tried to shift her posture.. but, her original take was lamentable.
You really need to give Hillary responsibility for her loss, Andy
Also, to Obama, who sold control of the DNC over to Clinton Inc in Sept, 2015.
I'll vote for Warren, of course.
Sadly, with our endless wars and our rogue state Israel, Ms Warren is way too deferential;
seemingly hopeless.
Walter Pewen says: June 28, 2019 at 11:22 am
I don't want to vote for Biden. And if he gets the nomination I probably won't. And I've
voted the ticket since 1976. I DO NOT like Joe Biden. Contrary to the media mind fuck we are
getting in this era. And I'll wager a LOT of people don't like him. He is a dick.
Karin Eckvall says: June 26, 2019 at 10:50 am
Well-done article Ms. Walsh. Walter, I want to vote for her but can't because although she
has plans to deal with the waste and corruption at the Pentagon, she has not renounced our
endless militarism, our establishment-endorsed mission to police the world and to change
regimes whenever we feel like it.
You can bet that the likes of Rachel Maddow will never change their tune on the subject
of Russiagate.
However, with the election season heating up, it might seem wise for them to
start singing a different tune altogether, such as Sanders and Warren are too radical to have
any chance of defeating Trump.
The saddest thing of all is that the Dems' fixation on Russia
and Putin is now coming back to bite them in the ass. Trump could not have asked for a better
gift.
The problem here is that the US population is too brainwashing with jingoism and Exceptionalism to value Tulsi message. The
US army is mercenary army and unlike situation with the draft people generally do not care much when mercenaries die. That makes
any anti-war candidate vulnerable to "Russiagate" smear.
He/she need to have a strong domestic program to appeal to voters, So far Warren is in better position in this area then
Tulsi.
Notable quotes:
"... The Drudge Report website had its poll running while the debate was going on and it registered overwhelmingly in favor of Hawaiian Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard. Likewise, the Washington Examiner , a right-wing paper, opined that Gabbard had won by a knockout based on its own polling. Google's search engine reportedly saw a surge in searches linked to Tulsi Gabbard both during and after the debate. ..."
"... On the following day traditional conservative Pat Buchanan produced an article entitled "Memo for Trump: Trade Bolton for Tulsi," similar to a comment made by Republican consultant Frank Luntz "She's a long-shot to win the presidency, but Tulsi Gabbard is sounding like a prime candidate for Secretary of Defense." ..."
"... In response to a comment by neoliberal Congressman Tim Ryan who said that the U.S. has to remain "engaged" in places like Afghanistan, she referred to two American soldiers who had been killed that very day, saying "Is that what you will tell the parents of those two soldiers who were just killed in Afghanistan? Well, we just have to be engaged? As a soldier, I will tell you that answer is unacceptable." ..."
"... Tulsi also declared war on the Washington Establishment, saying that "For too long our leaders have failed us, taking us into one regime change war after the next, leading us into a new Cold War and arms race, costing us trillions of our hard-earned tax payer dollars and countless lives. This insanity must end." ..."
"... Blunt words, but it was a statement that few Americans whose livelihoods are not linked to "defense" or to the shamelessly corrupt U.S. Congress and media could disagree with, as it is clear that Washington is at the bottom of a deep hole and persists in digging ..."
"... In the collective judgment of America's Establishment, Tulsi Gabbard and anyone like her must be destroyed. She would not be the first victim of the political process shutting out undesirable opinions. One can go all the way back to Eugene McCarthy and his opposition to the Vietnam War back in 1968. ..."
"... And the beat goes on. In 2016, Debbie Wasserman Shultz, head of the Democratic National Committee, fixed the nomination process so that Bernie Sanders, a peace candidate, would be marginalized and super hawk Hillary Clinton would be selected. Fortunately, the odor emanating from anything having to do with the Clintons kept her from being elected or we would already be at war with Russia and possibly also with China. ..."
"... Tulsi Gabbard has let the genie of "end the forever wars" out of the bottle and it will be difficult to force it back in. She just might shake up the Democratic Party's priorities, leading to more questions about just what has been wrong with U.S. foreign policy over the past twenty years. ..."
"... Yes, to some critics, Tulsi Gabbard is not a perfect candidate . On most domestic issues she appears to be a typical liberal Democrat and is also conventional in terms of her accommodation with Jewish power, but she also breaks with the Democratic Party establishment with her pledge to pardon Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange and Edward Snowden. ..."
"... She also has more of a moral compass than Elizabeth Warren, who cleverly evades the whole issue of Middle East policy, or a Joe Biden who would kiss Benjamin Netanyahu's ass without any hesitation at all. Gabbard has openly criticized Netanyahu and she has also condemned Israel's killing of "unarmed civilians" in Gaza. As a Hindu, her view of Muslims is somewhat complicated based on the historical interaction of the two groups, but she has moderated her views recently. ..."
"... To be sure, Americans have heard much of the same before, much of it from out of the mouth of a gentleman named Donald Trump, but Tulsi Gabbard could well be the only genuine antiwar candidate that might truly be electable in the past fifty years. ..."
Last Wednesday’s debate among half of the announced Democratic Party candidates to become their party’s nominee for
president in 2020 was notable for its lack of drama. Many of those called on to speak had little to say apart from the usual
liberal bromides about health care, jobs, education and how the United States is a country of immigrants. On the following
day the mainstream media anointed Elizabeth Warren as the winner based on the coherency of her message even though she said
little that differed from what was being presented by most of the others on the stage. She just said it better, more
articulately.
The New York Times’
coverage was typical, praising Warren for her grasp of the issues and her ability to present the same
clearly and concisely, and citing a comment "They could teach
classes in how Warren talks about a problem and weaves in answers into a story. She's not just
wonk and stats." It then went on to lump most of the other candidates together, describing
their performances as "ha[ving] one or two strong answers, but none of them had the electric,
campaign-launching moment they were hoping for."
Inevitably, however, there was some disagreement on who had actually done best based on
viewer reactions as well as the perceptions of some of the media that might not exactly be
described as mainstream. The Drudge Report website
had
its poll running while the debate was going on and it registered overwhelmingly in favor of
Hawaiian Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard. Likewise, the Washington Examiner , a right-wing
paper, opined that Gabbard had won by a knockout based on its own polling. Google's search
engine reportedly saw a surge in searches linked to Tulsi Gabbard both during and after the
debate.
On the following day traditional conservative Pat Buchanan produced
an
article entitled "Memo for Trump: Trade Bolton for Tulsi," similar to a comment made by
Republican consultant Frank Luntz "She's a long-shot
to win the presidency, but Tulsi Gabbard is sounding like a prime candidate for Secretary of
Defense."
Tulsi, campaigning on her anti-war credentials, was indeed not like the other candidates,
confronting directly the issue of war and peace which the other potential candidates studiously
avoided. In response to a comment by neoliberal Congressman Tim Ryan who said that the U.S. has
to remain "engaged" in places like Afghanistan, she referred to two American soldiers who had
been killed that very day, saying "Is that what you will tell the parents of those two soldiers
who were just killed in Afghanistan? Well, we just have to be engaged? As a soldier, I will
tell you that answer is unacceptable."
At another point she expanded on her thinking about America's wars, saying "Let's deal with
the situation where we are, where this president and his chickenhawk cabinet have led us to the
brink of war with Iran. I served in the war in Iraq at the height of the war in 2005, a war
that took over 4,000 of my brothers and sisters in uniforms' lives. The American people need to
understand that this war with Iran would be far more devastating, far more costly than anything
that we ever saw in Iraq. It would take many more lives. It would exacerbate the refugee
crisis. And it wouldn't be just contained within Iran. This would turn into a regional war.
This is why it's so important that every one of us, every single American, stand up and say no
war with Iran."
Tulsi also declared war on the Washington Establishment,
saying
that "For too long our leaders have failed us, taking us into one regime change war after
the next, leading us into a new Cold War and arms race, costing us trillions of our hard-earned
tax payer dollars and countless lives. This insanity must end."
Blunt words, but it was a statement that few Americans whose livelihoods are not linked to
"defense" or to the shamelessly corrupt U.S. Congress and media could disagree with, as it is
clear that Washington is at the bottom of a deep hole and persists in digging. So why was there
such a difference between what ordinary Americans and the Establishment punditry were seeing on
their television screens? The difference was not so much in perception as in the desire to see
a certain outcome. Anti-war takes away a lot of people's rice bowls, be they directly employed
on "defense" or part of the vast army of lobbyists and think tank parasites that keep the money
flowing out of the taxpayers' pockets and into the pockets of Raytheon, General Dynamics,
Boeing and Lockheed Martin like a perpetual motion machine.
In the collective judgment of America's Establishment, Tulsi Gabbard and anyone like her
must be destroyed. She would not be the first victim of the political process shutting out
undesirable opinions. One can go all the way back to Eugene McCarthy and his opposition to the
Vietnam War back in 1968. McCarthy was right and Lyndon Johnson and the rest of the Democratic
Party were wrong. More recently, Congressman Ron Paul tried twice to bring some sanity to the
Republican Party. He too was marginalized deliberately by the GOP party apparatus working
hand-in-hand with the media, to include the final insult of his being denied any opportunity to
speak or have his delegates recognized at the 2012 nominating convention.
And the beat goes on. In 2016, Debbie Wasserman Shultz, head of the Democratic National
Committee, fixed the nomination process so that Bernie Sanders, a peace candidate, would be
marginalized and super hawk Hillary Clinton would be selected. Fortunately, the odor emanating
from anything having to do with the Clintons kept her from being elected or we would already be
at war with Russia and possibly also with China.
Tulsi Gabbard has let the genie of "end the forever wars" out of the bottle and it will be
difficult to force it back in. She just might shake up the Democratic Party's priorities,
leading to more questions about just what has been wrong with U.S. foreign policy over the past
twenty years. To qualify for the second round of debates she has to gain a couple of points in
her approval rating or bring in more donations, either of which is definitely possible based on
her performance. It is to be hoped that that will occur and that there will be no Debbie
Wasserman Schultz hiding somewhere in the process who will finagle the polling results.
Yes, to some critics, Tulsi Gabbard is
not a perfect candidate . On most domestic issues she appears to be a typical liberal
Democrat and is also conventional in terms of her accommodation with Jewish power, but she also
breaks with the Democratic Party establishment with her pledge to pardon Chelsea Manning,
Julian Assange and Edward Snowden.
She also has more of a moral compass than Elizabeth Warren,
who cleverly evades the whole issue of Middle East policy, or a Joe Biden who would kiss
Benjamin Netanyahu's ass without any hesitation at all. Gabbard has openly criticized Netanyahu
and she has also condemned Israel's killing of "unarmed civilians" in Gaza. As a Hindu, her
view of Muslims is somewhat complicated based on the historical interaction of the two groups,
but she has moderated her views recently.
To be sure, Americans have heard much of the same before, much of it from out of the
mouth of a gentleman named Donald Trump, but Tulsi Gabbard could well be the only genuine
antiwar candidate that might truly be electable in the past fifty years. It is essential
that we Americans who are concerned about the future of our country should listen to what she
has to say very carefully and to respond accordingly.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a
501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more
interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is
councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its
email is [email protected]
Just in time for the 2020 presidential election, the Democrats have discovered that there is
real economic inequality in the United States. But they have not yet fully addressed the role
that the Democratic party and its leaders have played in creating this vast inequality that led
to the election of President Donald Trump in 2016.
The presidential candidates have been slow to fully recognize the role that former President
Bill Clinton's globalization policies (NAFTA and WTO) played in the outsourcing of American
jobs or the lowering of wages for workers.
As the Democratic presidential debates have shown, Vice President Biden is having a hard
time defending his long public record, especially as an opponent of federally mandated "forced"
busing to integrate our public schools decades after the Supreme Court's overturning of racial
segregation in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). As a Senator Joe Biden was a free
trade advocate as well.
But Senator Biden played a large role in creating inequality in two additional realms. He
was a strong backer of a 2005 bankruptcy "reform" law that made it harder for people to file
personal bankruptcy and to wipe out all of their debts. Given that perhaps as many as fifty
percent of all personal bankruptcies in America are caused by debt incurred from health care
not covered by insurance, this was an especially cruel blow to those seeking relief from their
heavy debt loads.
In "'
Lock the S.O.B.s Up: Joe Biden and the Era of Mass Incarceration ," The New York
Times documents his decades-long support of tough on criminals legislation, culminating in
the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. This bill, signed into law by President
Clinton, has been blamed for the jailing of high numbers of African Americans and other
minorities, in particular.
Unlike the Republicans whose goal is to increase inequality by lowering taxes on the
wealthy, at least the Democrats seem sincere about reducing it. To do this, they have fallen
all over themselves to offer free college tuition and to reduce student loan debt. Sen. Bernie
Sanders recently proposed to
eliminate all student loans entirely .
Why have Democrats focused on college as a means of solving economic inequality? Statistics
have shown that in general the more education you have, the higher your lifetime earnings will
be. For example, men with bachelor's degrees earn nearly a million more
dollars in median lifetime earnings than high school graduates.
"... If her trend of seriously closing the favorability gap with Joe Biden is any indication, if her broad but incomplete acceptability to the Clinton and the Sanders wings of the Democratic party is any indication, we would have to answer that question with a fairly emphatic, "yes, she can." ..."
On the first night of the first Democratic debates, Elizabeth Warren gave a master class in
when to speak and when to keep one's mouth shut. This is a lesson former Vice President Joe
Biden could learn a ton from.
When Waren did speak, it was clear, passionate, on point, and richly factual. On health
care, she even surprised a bit by committing to eliminating private insurance where she has
previously hedged her betting.
... ... ...
Can Warren beat Biden? If her trend of seriously closing the favorability gap
with Joe Biden is any indication, if her broad but incomplete acceptability to the Clinton and
the Sanders wings of the Democratic party is any indication, we would have to answer that
question with a fairly emphatic, "yes, she can."
Whether she will depends on a number of factors, some within, some beyond her control. In my
view, the most critical tasks within her control are finding a way to a coherent foreign policy
position and pivoting to an efficient answer on the DNA testing question that simultaneously
educates regarding and firmly rejects blood quantum theories of race.
"... Sanders and Warren are not what they claim to be. They are both updating Roosevelt's New Deal and more closely resemble the Social Democrats that have governed western European democracies for years, delivering higher standards of living than that experienced by Americans. ..."
"... In May 2009, the moderate Senator from Illinois, Dick Durbin, said: "The banks – hard to believe when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created – are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place." ..."
"... In the new book, Banking on the People , by Ellen Brown, readers can get an idea of the way large banks, insurers, and the giant shadow banking system – money market funds, hedge funds, mortgage brokers, and other unregulated financial intermediaries – speculate and shift deep risk and their failures onto Uncle Sam. These corporate predators gouge customers, and, remarkably, show a deep aversion for productive investment as if people matter. ..."
"... Control of our political economy is not a conservative/liberal or red state/blue state issue. When confronted with the specifics of the corporate state or corporate socialism, people from all political persuasions will recognize the potential perils to our democracy. No one wants to lose essential freedoms or to continue to pay the price of this runaway crony capitalism. ..."
"... The gigantic corporations have been built with the thralldom of deep debt – corporate debt to fund stock buybacks (while reporting record profits), consumer debt, student loan debt, and, of course, government debt caused by drastic corporate and super-rich tax cuts. Many trillions of dollars have been stolen from future generations. ..."
Trump Invites Debates over Omnivorous Crony Capitalism
Donald J. Trump's 2020 election strategy is to connect
his potential Democratic opponents with "socialism." Trump plans to use this attack on the
Democrats even if Senator Bernie Sanders, who proudly calls himself a "democratic socialist,"
doesn't become the presidential nominee (Sanders has been decisively re-elected in Vermont).
Senator Elizabeth Warren is distancing herself from the socialist "label." She went so far
as to
tell the New England Council "I am a capitalist to my bones."
Sanders and Warren are not what they claim to be. They are both updating Roosevelt's New
Deal and more closely resemble the Social Democrats that have governed western European
democracies for years, delivering higher standards of living than that experienced by
Americans.
The original doctrine of socialism meant government ownership of the means of production
– heavy industries, railroads, banks, and the like. Nobody in national politics today is
suggesting such a takeover. As one quipster put it, "How can Washington take ownership of the
banks when the banks own Washington?"
Confronting Trump on the "socialism" taboo can open up a great debate about the value of
government intervention for the good of the public. Sanders can effectively argue that people
must choose either democratic socialism or the current failing system of corporate socialism.
That choice is not difficult. Such an American democratic socialism could provide almost all of
the long overdue solutions this country needs: full more efficient Medicare for all;
tuition-free education; living wages; stronger unions; a tax system that works for the people;
investments in infrastructure and public works; reforms for a massive, runaway military budget;
the end of most corporate welfare; government promotion of renewable energies; and the end of
subsidies for fossil fuels and nuclear power.
In my presidential campaigns I tried to make corporate socialism – also called
corporate welfare or crony capitalism – a major issue. Small business is capitalism
– free to go bankrupt – while corporate capitalism – free to get bailouts
from Washington – is really a form of corporate socialism. This point about a corporate
government was documented many years ago in books such as America, Inc. (1971) by Morton
Mintz and Jerry Cohen.
Now, it is even easier to make the case that our political economy is largely controlled by
giant corporations and their political toadies. Today the concentration of power and wealth is
staggering. Just six capitalist men have wealth to equal the wealth of half of the world's
population.
The Wall Street collapse of 2008-2009 destroyed eight million jobs, lost trillions of
dollars in pension and mutual funds, and pushed millions of families to lose their homes.
Against this backdrop, the U.S. government used trillions of taxpayer dollars to bail out, in
various ways, the greedy, financial giants, whose reckless speculating caused the collapse.
In May 2009, the moderate Senator from Illinois, Dick Durbin, said: "The banks – hard
to believe when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created – are still
the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place."
Is there a single federal government agency or department that can say its most powerful
outside influence is NOT corporate? Even the Labor Department and the National Labor Relations
Board are under more corporate power than union power.
Who better than Trump, on an anti-socialist fantasy campaign kick, can call attention to the
reality that Big Business controls the government and by extension controls the people? In
September 2000, a Business Week poll found over 70 percent of people agreeing that big
business has too much control over their lives (this was before the horrific corporate
crimes and scandals of the past two decades). Maybe that is why support in polls for
"socialism" against "capitalism" in the U.S. is at a 60 year high.
People have long experienced American-style "socialism." For example, the publicly owned
water and electric utilities, public parks and forests, the Postal Service, public libraries,
FDIC guarantees of bank deposits (now up to $250,000), Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid,
etc.
What the public is not sufficiently alert to is that Big Business has been profitably taking
over control, if not outright ownership, of these public assets.
In the new book, Banking on the
People , by Ellen Brown, readers can get an idea of the way large banks, insurers, and
the giant shadow banking system – money market funds, hedge funds, mortgage brokers, and
other unregulated financial intermediaries – speculate and shift deep risk and their
failures onto Uncle Sam. These corporate predators gouge customers, and, remarkably, show a
deep aversion for productive investment as if people matter.
Moreover, they just keep developing new, ever riskier, multi-tiered instruments (eg.
derivatives) to make money from money through evermore complex, abstract, secret,
reckless, entangled, globally destabilizing, networks. Gambling with other people's money is a
relentless Wall Street tradition.
The crashes that inevitably emerge end up impoverishing ordinary people who pay the price
with their livelihoods.
Will the Democrats and other engaged people take Trump on if he tries to make "socialism"
the big scare in 2020? Control of our political economy is not a conservative/liberal or red
state/blue state issue. When confronted with the specifics of the corporate state or corporate
socialism, people from all political persuasions will recognize the potential perils to our
democracy. No one wants to lose essential freedoms or to continue to pay the price of this
runaway crony capitalism.
The gigantic corporations have been built with the thralldom of deep debt – corporate
debt to fund stock buybacks (while reporting record profits), consumer debt, student loan debt,
and, of course, government debt caused by drastic corporate and super-rich tax cuts. Many
trillions of dollars have been stolen from future generations.
No wonder a small group of billionaires, including George Soros,
Eli Broad , and Nick Hanauer, have just publicly urged a modest tax on the super wealthy.
As Hanauer, a history buff and advocate of higher minimum wages, says – "the pitchforks
are coming."
We’ll see how neoliberal MSM will spin this, but I would say Sanders emerged unscathed, Harris attacked and "wounded" Biden, Biden
sounded like a lightweight, Gillibrand seems to be a very unpleasant person although different form Harris...
Notable quotes:
"... as if polling on donald trump and stuff is just so interesting ..."
"... Kamala Harris got more floor time than anyone else. Harris ended Biden's campaign. The debate is rigged against Bernie Sanders. ..."
"... Did Harris get the debate questions in advance? ..."
"... Her manner of speaking is like someone who doesn’t care, doesn’t take the whole thing seriously. It’s like someone who is cheaply casually condescending on the whole thing, on her having to be there. That’s what I perceived. It is deeply disqualifying from any leadership position. “Food fight”? We at that level now? That makes her cool? My god, what garbage. ..."
"... Harris will alienate The Deplorables, the military, the White Working Class or even black people, who know her as Kamala The Cop. ..."
Pathetic, the whole scene is pathetic. What a way to run a putative democracy, bring back the league of women voters to run
the debates and that idiot with the graphs during commercial breaks while watching this online, I want to break his freaking head
sorry.
I had the idea that your sensibilities were rather more refined than that, knowing anything about or not.
Her manner of speaking is like someone who doesn’t care, doesn’t take the whole thing seriously. It’s like someone who
is cheaply casually condescending on the whole thing, on her having to be there. That’s what I perceived. It is deeply disqualifying
from any leadership position. “Food fight”? We at that level now? That makes her cool? My god, what garbage.
FWIW, Boot Edge Edge’s prehensile sincerity was masterful in my view – shows some real talent.
I’m just observing this out of academic interest and hope we’ll all have a chance to vote for Bernie in the general. But from
tonight, Boot Edge Edge to me stood out as a talent – and everyone else (besides Bernie who was reliably on message and will keep
going more or less the same after this) was garbage or unnecessary (Biden is a disgrace), and the first debate was better.
Cal2, June 27, 2019 at 11:19 pm
In that case, Donald Trump gets our votes, as well as keeping all the potential crossovers, who had supported Trump last time,
and would have voted for Sanders-Gabbard.
Harris will alienate The Deplorables, the military, the White Working Class or even black people, who know her as Kamala
The Cop.
Sanders-Harris would be political suicide for the Democrats.
"... Warren's announcement of her presidential candidacy made clear that she considers Trump to be merely a symptom of this larger problem – the detritus of a crumbling democracy. Just cleaning up the garbage is not going to solve the systemic problem of plutocracy from which he emerged. If not systemically fixed today with more than cosmetics, Warren understands, the corrupt plutocracy is capable of generating even more toxic products tomorrow. ..."
Sanders, by contrast, was not a troublemaker at all. He talked about his blue-sky political
ideals as something he believed in passionately, but he separated that idealism from his
practical legislative work, which was grounded in vote counts." In other words Warren put
principles over party in the interest of advancing the issues she cared about, like a true
progressive. Sanders' messaging "revolution" was all talk and bluster but no show. Warren has
been praised
for "picking strategic battles she won with a specific set of political skills. 'I would say
she's the best progressive Democratic politician I've seen since Bobby Kennedy,'" reports the
political writer Robert Kuttner. Before she went into electoral politics Warren had already
received credit from Obama and others for establishing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
(CFPB) a progressive half-billion dollar New Deal-type agency. Can another person be named who
has been responsible for establishing a comparable key regulatory agency in recent decades? By
contrast the not easily dismissed explanation about
Sanders' lack of such accomplishments is "in a business where personal relations count, Sanders
is viewed as a brusque and inflexible loner."
Which then is the true WaPo "Revolutionary?" The tame lion who talks a good game or the
principled brinkswoman who plays a good game? It is Warren who complained to the NYT: " Democrats have been unwilling to get out there and fight." Warren did fight during
her campaign for and service in the Senate, even acquiring a reputation
(among
males , at least) for "stridency" as she was learning the ropes for coping with a
systemically corrupt political order. We should doubt anyone within such a system who is not as
strident or angry as Warren. That stance tended to enhance her power to change the system, at
least until she decided to campaign for president as a way to acquire more power to reform it.
She then appropriately revealed
"a folksier, more accessible side that wasn't always apparent in her role" in the Senate.
Former congressman Barney Frank, always a sharp observer of such matters, said of Warren,
after she had barely completed two years of her brand new "strident" career in electoral
politics: "Right now, she's as powerful a spokesperson on public policy as you could be in the
minority . She has an absolute veto over certain public-policy issues, because Democrats are
not going to cross her . Democrats are afraid of Elizabeth Warren." Can anything remotely
similar be said of Sanders after his 30 years in Washington? Indeed, Frank expressed what
Politico reported as a consensus view
that "[Sanders'] legislative record was to state the ideological position he took on the left,
but with the exception of a few small things, he never got anything done . He has always talked
about revolution, but on Dodd-Frank and Obamacare, he left the pitchfork at home and joined the
Democrats."
Warren acquired power to make change. After two more years she was so powerful that the
Clinton establishment unsuccessfully pressured her to endorse Clinton in the primaries, and
Sanders' acolytes would blame her for not making Sanders the victor by performing as his
unsolicited super-endorser. It takes exceptional strategic and other political skills, focus
and commitment to gain such power in such a short time. Unlike Sanders, even Warren's enemies
do not claim she is ineffective.
Warren, no less than Sanders, has clearly stated that the reason for her candidacy is to
fight "against a small group that holds far too much power, not just in our economy, but also
in our democracy." She says her purpose is not "to just tinker around the edges --
a tax credit here, a regulation there. Our fight is for big, structural change" of
plutocracy, "a rigged system that props up the rich and the powerful and kicks dirt on everyone
else." WaPo must have missed these parts of Warren's presidential
announcement speech which promised this challenge to the power of the systemically corrupt
plutocracy. It is the central motif of her campaign. And of course, "she has a plan for that"
– her first plan. It is her
bill S.3357. 15 th Cong. – the "Anti-Corruption and Public Integrity
Act."
Warren's announcement of her presidential candidacy made clear that she considers Trump to
be merely a symptom of this larger problem – the detritus of a crumbling democracy. Just
cleaning up the garbage is not going to solve the systemic problem of plutocracy from which he
emerged. If not systemically fixed today with more than cosmetics, Warren understands, the
corrupt plutocracy is capable of generating even more toxic products tomorrow.
Therefore, from the very start of her highly effective campaign Warren positioned herself in
opposition not just to Trump but to the economically "rich and powerful [who] have rigged our
political system as well. They've bought off or bullied politicians in both parties to
make sure Washington is always on their side." Like Sanders at his best , she calls this system by its proper name. "When
government works only for the wealthy and well-connected, that is corruption --
plain and simple. Corruption is a cancer on our democracy. And we will get rid of it
only with strong medicine -- with real, structural reform. Our fight is to
change the rules so that our government, our economy, and our democracy work for
everyone." She emphasized to Emily Bazelon, writing for the NYT: " It's structural change that interests me." She
toldTIME "If we want to make real change in this country, it's got to be systemic
change."
Ignoring the fetid distraction of Trump to focus her advocacy instead on the necessary
systemic reforms is a winning progressive strategy. Establishment Democrats will again
predictably
ignore this strategy, as they did in 2016, at their peril. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has already
accurately
predicted the result of sending what Naomi Klein calls ,
"tepid centrists carrying the baggage of decades of neoliberal suffering" to battle against
mobilized totalitarians: "We have a very real risk of losing the presidency to Donald Trump if
we don't have a presidential candidate that's fighting for true transformational change in
lives of working people in the United States."
Warren has taken on the task of defeating, not appeasing, the corrupt establishment which is
willing in 2020 as it was in 2016 to take just that risk in order to preclude a progressive
revival. Warren's plan is, "First: We need to change the rules to clean up Washington. End the
corruption." This is not an opportunistic aspersion by a political con-artist, like Trump's
totally phony "drain the swamp" slogan, soon belied by his own most corrupt administration in
recent history. With Trump second to none in pandering to plutocrats, even a broad section of
his own base has abandoned the remaining mere 23% of
Americans who think he has made any progress on this central campaign promise. In Warren's
case, according to a New Yorkerprofile , "her agenda
of reversing income inequality and beating back the influence of corporate power in politics .
are issues that Warren has pursued for three decades." Her mission has nothing to do with
political calculation. It constitutes hard-earned strategic wisdom about priorities.
Once the systemic corruption is ended all the other crises from climate change and energy to
health and food policy and much more can finally all respond to currently disempowered
majorities. Systemic anti-corruption reform sustains itself first through the watchdog agencies
it creates; solutions for these other issues are not similarly sustainable once the corrupt
plutocracy refocuses its purchased influence on any modest measures that may filter through its
defenses in singular and usually highly constricted moments of reform. For example Obama's
singular unambiguous reform – the Iran nuclear deal – and other more modest Obama
reforms have been killed or wounded by Trump, because Obama left the MIC, Big
Pharma, Wall Street and the other components of the corrupt plutocracy with even
more power than he found them. Through his strategic malfeasance, for motives that
historians will need to pick over, Obama's 8 years were therefore not just unproductive, but
counterproductive for democracy and social justice.
For Warren this issue of the corrupt plutocracy is not just a majoritarian favorite adopted
to boost a political campaign. Obama campaigned
as one "tired of business as usual in Washington" who would "overcome all the big money and
influence" there and get the "lobbyists [who] dominate our government system in Washington" and
their "undue influence" out of "our way." But he woke up president not so "tired of business as
usual in Washington"after all. Refreshed by record-setting campaign cash from the Wall Street
plutocracy he did the opposite
of what many thought to be his central campaign promise. Roger D. Hodge, Mendacity of Hope:
Barack Obama and the Betrayal of American Liberalism (2010) ( Obama
"the best friend Wall Street could hope for").
Warren does not seem to be just another mendacious politician on this priority issue of the
day. It is one for which Warren's prior expertise and activism drew her into politics. This is
uniquely her
own issue, emergent from a highly successful academic and policy career which brought her
into contact with the corruption which then shaped her views about its centrality. It is less
that Warren needs to be president in the mode of the usual megalomaniacal career politician
than that this paramount issue calls her to bring to the presidency her unique skills acquired
during an extraordinarily successful career outside of electoral politics. Warren herself
confides : "I know why I'm here. I have ideas for how we bring systemic change to this
country. And we're running out of time." As a University of Chicago economist told the
NYT ,
"Wall Street and its allies are more afraid of her than Bernie because when she says she'll
change the rules, she's the one who knows how to do it." Such knowledge is a relevant strategic
distinction, unlike WaPo's "Revolution versus Reform" nonsense, for the very reason that
progressive failure has for two generations been driven by lack of competent strategy not lack
of motivational ideology.
Zach Carter's
argument quoted above can be interpreted to suggest another answer than WaPo's misguided
theory for this key question of the difference between Sanders and Warren. Some claim their
differences are merely symbolic, "differences of temperament, style," " and
world views," much in the same manner as the other candidates who are mining the plutocratic
wing's war-chest of symbolic and diversionary identity politics, and single issue politics,
while at the same time they raise
money from plutocrats to seed and foster those divide and conquer divisions and strategic
errors among progressives. That argument goes that these are just different flavors of
progressivism, wholly unrelated to strategic success. But to deny the existence of objectively
important – indeed decisive strategic – differences between the two progressives in
the race would also be just as wrong as the ridiculous and disputable subjectivity of the
"Revolution versus Reform" distraction marketed by WaPo and others. It invites progressives to
distribute themselves randomly according to the subjective appeal of various styles and smiles
rather than be guided by disciplined thoughtful strategic choice which has become the decisive
factor for recovering democracy.
In the face of such distracting theories of difference, it is important for progressives to
debate and answer this question for themselves, well before the primaries, so as not to
squander their resources of time, finances and conviviality fighting
among themselves over largely subjective triggers during the important lead-up to the primary
elections. For the primaries they must be strategically united in order to win against a
plutocracy which rarely finds itself strategically impaired. I have argued at length
elsewhere that the contemporary uniquely extended failure of democracy in America since
Buckley – which can be quantified by the metric of rising economic inequality
– is fundamentally due to the failure of progressives over two generations to unite
behind effective strategy to fight the corrupt plutocracy as their priority. At those times of
similarly profound crises in the past, progressives have successfully formulated and united
behind effective strategy. In the United States, due to its own systemic cultural legacy of
racist slavery, genocide, and imperialism, joined by more universally shared issues of
patriarchy and plutocracy, there will always be fertile soil for the emergence of latent
anti-democratic elements into a totalitarian mobilization when an authentic and competent
opposition is laking. This was understood from early days, such as Franklin's famous
qualification "if you can keep it."
Trump is the direct and predictable product of the progressive failure to have forged an
effective opposition to corrupt plutocracy by the time of that strategic moment when popular
trust has been lost in the plutocratic "
center ." Lack of a unifying progressive strategy meant that volatile and highly
manipulable proto-totalitarian element would look elsewhere. As Slavoj Zizek, Trouble in
Paradise (2014) 115, posits: "The rise of Fascism is not only the Left's failure, but also
proof that there was a revolutionary potential, a dissatisfaction, which the Left was not able
to mobilize." Proto-totalitarian Trumpism is what arises when progressives are unable to unite
strategically.
The Plutocracy and its propagandists take a keen and well-financed interest in prolonging
this division among progressives. They now back Biden, or Trump. Recent reliable polling shows
Biden 30% – Sanders 19% – Warren 15%. This current data shows that supporters of
the two progressives, if united, would defeat the
plutocracy 's
status quo candidate. As the progressive choice between Sanders and Warren lingers through
the summer of 2019 in a mere contest of subjective tastes it will aggravate yet another in a
series of historical failures by progressives to unite strategically and competently at a time
when the stakes are now the highest. Continued progressive failure to act strategically for
decisively wresting control of the Democratic Party from its corrupt plutocratic establishment
will only move the country further in the direction of totalitarianism. Sanders failed at this
task in 2016 though progressives provided him resources and support to do the job. Yet another
progressive failure to organize strategically behind a competent progressive in the 2020
primaries could be terminal. The likes of WaPo will not do it for them. The necessary exercise
of their own strategic judgment in this choice needed to prevail in 2020 will be a useful
exercise of an unexercised muscle by progressives. To elect a strategist progressives must
master the strategy.
The purpose of this article is to discuss four issues for which there is evidence of an
objectively salient strategic difference between these two leading alternatives to Biden beyond
those already discussed. Though the " eminently
beatable" Biden currently leads the plutocracy's large stable of compromised candidates, it is
difficult to imagine Biden not tripping fatally over his own serial, legendarily tone-deaf and
unrepented gaffes. The plutocracy may need to draw on its deep bench in later innings.
Progressives need be prepared. The objective evidence below can assist progressives in making
the necessary early strategic choice between the two progressives for opposing the plutocracy's
eventual candidate which will help them to resist predictable distractions. The alternative to
such a strategic decision is bickering over subjective, standard-free, factually contested
assertions that too often seem to belie unattractive motivations if not actual bot
provocateurs.
Some might object that 2019 is too early for progressives to rely on polls or even to make
such a choice. My own experience in authoring a long 2015 Huffington Post article strongly
supporting Sanders is that discerning use of early polling data can provide a reliable guide to
what will remain as the decisive factors through to the end of the campaign cycle, and even
beyond. The present piece is offered in the same spirit as my 2015
article which remains relevant as an example of how early the disastrous outcome of the
establishment Democrats' 2016 status quo approach could be predicted. Since the decisive
factors are now discernible there is no advantage and great risk in delaying the inevitable
choice that progressives will make.
I disclose my personal views at the outset, if they are not already clear. Though I
supported Sanders extensively through advocacy and as a state delegate for Sanders in 2016,
lending a good deal of my time and even some money to the effort, my experience produced high
regard for self-organizing Sanders supporters but quite the opposite for the man himself.
Certainly by the time of his craven speech
at the Democratic Convention in July, if
notearlier , I had
concluded he was an incompetent
betrayer of the important role and opportunity he had been granted by his supporters, which
he wasted at a crucial moment in American history. When he is compared to Elizabeth Warren, I
now find Sanders to be
unreliable , inauthentic, and wrongly motivated as a career politician with no other
relevant skill base. This perspective has been elaborated at greater length by Jeffrey St.
Clair (2016), as referenced below.
Sanders is concededly good at expounding majoritarian policies and his nominal independence
allows him rhetorical distance from the plutocratic wing of the Democrats, which creates guilt
by association and a fat target
for the proto-totalitarian (also called "populist") right-wing. I do not deny the sincerity of
his progressive views. He has a role. That role is not a leadership role. The problem with
Sanders is execution. Chris Smith
makes a similar point in Vanity Fair when he observes that Sanders "is very good at
raising money .what Sanders was less good at in 2016 was spending his large pile of money to
win votes. Particularly the crucial Democratic primary votes of women and African-Americans.
Sanders is showing little sign that he's going to get it right this time around." Marketing
strategy is not political strategy. Sanders ran a both lucrative and wasteful 2016 campaign in
these respects and also in his failure to elaborate detailed strategy to support his big
themes, which also drew justifiable criticism of his competence.
If Bernie Sanders has not, Elizabeth Warren clearly has learned each of these lessons from
Sanders' flawed campaign. She has been generating detailed policy at such a fast pace it is
difficult to see anyone catching up to her, though Sanders has tried by feebly issuing a less
nuanced version of Wilson's college debt plan. Warren has demonstrated her ability to run a
highly effective campaign on limited funds. Spending money effectively is a strategic skill.
There do not seem to be any third-string cronies around her siphoning off funds into useless
sideshows. One imagines that if Warren possessed Sanders' 2016 mostly wasted pile of loot she
would already have reorganized the Inauthentic Opposition party – as Sheldon Wolin described the Democrats
in 2008 – into a true opposition party that it was designed by Martin Van Buren
to be at its inception.
As for Sanders' problem with reaching African-Americans, according to Rev. Al
Sharpton his progressive rival has no such problem. Of course, "Kamala [Harris] connects
with black-church audiences. Cory Booker, too," says Sharpton. "And I'll tell you who surprised
me: Liz Warren. She rocked my organization's convention like she was taking Baptist preacher
lessons." Warren thus readily solves the biggest demographic problem Sanders had and still has:
black women, particularly in the south. And this Oklahoma woman might also surprise with her
ability to use "
southern charm " to flip the script for white women still living under the South's
unreconstructed patriarchy. Her primary-election campaign strategy has been preparing her with
the experience to play an unprecedented role in American political history in the 2020 general
election.
An establishment Democratic Congressman offered
a similar observation about Warren's potential: "If she can make the leap to being a candidate
that played in the rural Midwest it could be really interesting to watch." By comparison
Sanders, used to "giving the same stump speech at event after event, numb to the hunger of the
beast he had awakened," St. Clair (2016) 8, brings a known and dated turn to the stage, which
like Biden's has little potential to surprise on its up side potential among new demographics
in this manner. The sooner Warren becomes the acknowledged front runner in the party, the
sooner she can use her proven networking skills within the party to bring some order to the
crowded primary field for purposes of deploying them effectively to reach various such
disaffected demographics. She is the person most capable of turning the lemon of an overcrowded
field of contenders into lemonade. Organizing such cooperation is something foreign to Sanders'
experience, which was demonstrated in his shutting out potential allies from his campaign. Yet
it is a significant potential strategic factor that Warren can uniquely bring for the essential
redefinition of the Democratic Party in 2020.
We already know Sanders capitulated to the plutocracy in 2016 for no
reason that he could credibly
explain . After promising his supporters to carry the fight to the Convention floor he
folded long prior to the Convention. What exactly is to be gained by progressives in trusting
Sanders not to do the same thing again? We now have the alternative of Warren who gives us no
reason to doubt and some reason to trust that she will " persist " with strategic intelligence rather
than capitulate under similar circumstances. She combines the unique qualities of a true policy
expert with the ability to communicate. But most important she is someone who has not been a
career politician, and therefore is not, like Sanders, "year after year: a politician who
promises one thing and delivers, time and again, something else entirely." St. Clair (2016) 18.
In 2016 this habit, in the form of deference to the plutocracy he campaigned against, delivered
Trump.
Having disclosed this general point of view toward the two progressives, I try to remove
these subjective understandings largely derived from my involvement in 2016 on behalf of
Sanders' effort from the analysis below of four objective factors that distinguish Sanders'
from Warren based on opinion polling of their supporters. Those with a different experience
than mine can nevertheless use these objective factors to make a strategic progressive choice.
The issue raised here is not so much about the contested fact-based considerations above, but
about the necessity for progressives to made a strategic decision based on uncontested
objective facts. The argument is that there is no reason to delay making that strategic
choice.
... ... ...
If it is true that Warren is attracting support on her merits and not for her
gender, the men who are supporting Sanders in excess numbers and at the same time prioritized a
progressive victory in 2020 should make a primary choice only after they a) get better informed
about Warren, b) read the writing of polling trendlines on the wall, c) not be fooled by
Sanders' "socialism" gambit, and d) eschew even the appearance of gender bias by immediately
unifying progressive support behind Warren.
2016 was then, 2020 is already now. Warren is not remotely a Clinton.*
* This article is based in part on the author's book, "Strategy for Democracy: From
Systemic Corruption to Proto-Totalitarianism in the Second Gilded Age Plutocracy, and
Progressive Responses" which is currently available as a free ebook .
Rob Hager is a public interest litigator who filed an amicus brief
in the Montana sequel to Citizens United and has worked as an international consultant on
anti-corruption policy and legislation.
"... The Democratic Party, thanks largely to the Clintons and their DLC nonsense, has certainly moved to the right. So far right that I haven't been able to call it the Democratic Party. ..."
"... Every Democrat should sign on to FDR's 1944 Economic Bill of Rights speech. It is hardly radical, but rather the foundation of the modern Democratic Party, or at least was before being abrogated by the "new Democrats." Any Dem not supporting it is at best one of the "Republican-lights" who led the Dem party into the wilderness. It would also behoove the party to resurrect FDR's Veep Henry Wallace's NY Times articles about the nature of big businesses and fascism, also from '44. Now that was a party of the people. 7 Replies ..."
In its most recent analysis, Gallup
found that from 1994 to 2018, the percentage of all Democrats who call themselves liberal more
than doubled from 25 percent to 51 percent.
Over the same period, the percentage of Democratic moderates and conservatives fell
steadily, with the share of moderates dropping from 48 to 34 percent, and of conservatives
dropping from 25 to 13 percent. These trends began to accelerate during the administration of
George W. Bush and have continued unabated during the Obama and Trump presidencies.
... ... ...
The anti-establishment faction contributed significantly to the large turnout increases in
Democratic primaries last year.
Pew found that from 2014 to 2018, turnout in House primaries rose from 13.7 to 19.6 percent
of all registered Democrats, in Senate primaries from 16.6 to 22.2 percent and in governor
primaries from 17.1 to 24.5 percent.
... ... ...
The extensive support among prospective Democratic presidential candidates for
Medicare for All , government-guaranteed jobs and a higher minimum wage reflects the
widespread desire in the electorate for greater
protection from the vicissitudes of market capitalism -- in response to "increasingly
incomplete risk protection in an era of dramatic social change," as the political scientist
Jacob Hacker put it in "
Privatizing Risk without Privatizing the Welfare State: The Hidden Politics of Social Policy
Retrenchment in the United States ." Support for such protections is showing signs of
becoming a litmus test for candidates running in the 2020 Democratic presidential
primaries.
... ... ...
Sawhill looks at the ideological shifts in the Democratic electorate less from a historical
perspective and more as a response to contemporary economic and social dislocation. Among both
conservatives and liberals, Sawhill argued, there is "an intellectual awakening about the flaws
of modern capitalism" -- a recognition of the failings of "neoliberalism, the idea that a
market economy with a few light guardrails is the best way to organize a society." This
intellectual climate may result in greater receptivity among voters to more radical
proposals.
These "big, bold leftist ideas" pose a strategic problem for liberals and the Democratic
Party," (sigh). Here we go again. I am an older guy (Caucasian). I attended Texas A&M
University from 1978 to 1982. My tuition payments during that entire time was $4 per credit
hour. Same for every Texas resident during that time. Roughly $128 per year. Had Texas
A&M not offered education at this modest entry point financially, I would still be
working in the Holiday Inn kitchen washing dishes. Like I was in high school. So, I don't
understand why older guys who went to school on the cheap, like me, and probably like Mr.
Edsall, are writing articles about "radical" proposals like "free" or at least "affordable"
education for Americans. We could achieve this very easily if America refocused on domestic
growth and health and pulled itself out of its continuous wars. America has spent $6 Trillion
dollars on war since 2001. For what? Nothing. Imagine how much college tuition we could have
paid instead. Imagine how that would change America. What is radical is killing people of
color in other countries for no goal and no reason. Let's refocus on domestic USA issues that
are important. Like how to get folks educated so they/we can participate in the US economy.
Mr. Edsall, what did you pay to
go to school per year? Was that "radically" cheap? For me, it was not radical to pay $128 per year. It was a blessing.
Bruce Rozenblit Kansas City, MO
Jan. 23 Times Pick
To the conservative, liberal means socialist. Unfortunately, they don't know what socialism
is. They think socialism is doing nothing and getting paid for it, a freeloader society.
Socialism is government interference in the free market, interference in production.
Ethanol
is socialism. Oil and gas subsidies are socialism. Agricultural price supports are socialism.
Tax breaks and subsidies are socialism. The defence industry is socialism. All of these
socialist policies greatly benefit big business. What liberals want is socialism of a similar
nature that benefits people. This would include healthcare, education, public transportation,
retirement, and childcare. Currently, people work their tails off to generate the profits
that pay for corporate socialism and get next to nothing in return. Daycare costs as much as
many jobs pay.
Kids graduate from college $50,000 in debt. Get sick and immediately go
bankrupt. They have to work past 70. Pursuing these policies is not some far out leftist
agenda. They are the norm in most industrialized nations.
It's hard to live free or die if
you don't have anything to eat. It's easy to be a libertarian if you make a million bucks a
year. Liberals are not advocating getting paid for doing nothing. They want people to have
something to do and get paid for it. That is the message that should be pushed. Sounds pretty
American to me. 27 Replies
This old white (liberal) man regrets that I was born too late for the FDR New Deal era and
too early to be part of this younger generation taking us back to our roots. I lived in
America when we had a strong middle class and I have lived through the Republican
deconstruction of the middle class, I much preferred the former.
Economic Security and FDR's second bill of rights is a very
good place for this new generation to pick up the baton and start running. 4 Replies
Are these really moves to the left, or only in comparison to the lurch further right by the republicans. What is wrong with
affordable education, health care, maternal and paternal leave, and a host of other programs that benefit all people? Why
shouldn't we have more progressive tax rates? These are not radical ideas. 6 Replies
As a senior, who has been a healthcare provider for decades, I hope that people will not be
afraid if they get sick, that people will not fear going bankrupt if they get sick, that they
do not have to fear they will die needlessly if they get sick, because they did not have
proper access to haeathcare treatment. If a 29 year old woman from Queens, Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez, can fulfill my hopes and dreams, and alleviate these fears, just to get humane
healthcare - then I say "You Go Girl!" What a wonderful world that would be..... 9 Replies
Moving to the left??? I'm 64 years old. I started out on the left and haven't moved leftward
in all these years. I'm just as far left now as when I registered to vote as a Democrat when
I was 18. We called it being liberal and the Democratic Party reflected my beliefs.
The
Democratic Party, thanks largely to the Clintons and their DLC nonsense, has certainly moved
to the right. So far right that I haven't been able to call it the Democratic Party. So far
right that I have seriously considered changing my party affiliation. Right now, the only
think keeping me in the party is this influx of vibrant new faces. One thing that will make
me leave is any ascendancy of the corporate lapdog "New Democrat Coalition" attempting to
keep my party in thrall to the Republicans. No. The electorate has not shifted sharply
leftward. We've been here all along. Our party went down a wrong path. It had better get back
on track or become a footnote. 12 Replies
I work with young adults in a university setting. The university I work for used to be really
inexpensive. It is still relatively inexpensive and still a bargain. Most of the students
have student loans. They can not make enough money in the summer or during the term to pay
for tuition, fees, housing, and food. They need jobs that will pay enough to pay for those
loans. They also need portable health care. As the employer based health insurance gets
worse, that portable health care becomes a necessity so they can move to where the jobs are.
So if a livable wage and universal health care are far left ideas then so be it. I am a
leftist. 1 Reply
Every Democrat should sign on to FDR's 1944 Economic Bill of Rights speech. It is hardly
radical, but rather the foundation of the modern Democratic Party, or at least was before
being abrogated by the "new Democrats." Any Dem not supporting it is at best one of the
"Republican-lights" who led the Dem party into the wilderness. It would also behoove the
party to resurrect FDR's Veep Henry Wallace's NY Times articles about the nature of big
businesses and fascism, also from '44. Now that was a party of the people. 7 Replies
@Michael. Pell grants and cheap tuition allowed me to obtain a degree in aerospace
engineering in 1985. I'd like to think that that benefited our country, not radicalized it.
I don't think that's entirely accurate, and even if true, leaving students to
the predations of private lenders isn't the answer. Although I'm willing to entertain your
thesis, soaring tuition has also been the way to make up for the underfunding of state
universities by state legislatures.
At the same time, there's been an increase since the 70s
in de luxe facilities and bloated administrator salaries. When administrators make budget
cuts, it isn't for recreational facilities and their own salaries -- it's the classics and
history departments, and it's to faculty, with poorly paid part-time adjuncts teaching an
unconscionable share of courses. So universities have been exacerbating the same unequal
division between the people who actually do the work (faculty) and the people who allocate
salaries (administrators) -- so too as in the business world, as you say.
I have a friend who lives on the West Coast and is constantly posting on social media about
"white privilege" and how we all need to embrace far left policies to "even the playing
field" for minorities. I always bristle at this, not because I don't support these policies,
but because this person chooses to live in a city with actually very few minorities. She also
lives in a state that's thriving, with new jobs, new residents and skyrocketing real estate
values. I, by contrast, live in a state that's declining....steadily losing jobs, businesses
and residents....leaving many people feeling uneasy and afraid. I also live in a city with a
VERY high minority crime rate, which also makes people uneasy and afraid. Coastal liberals
like my friend will instantly consider anyone who mentions this a racist, and hypocritically
suggest that our (assumed) racism is what's driving our politics. But when I look around here
and see so many Trump supporters (myself NOT included), I don't see racists desperately
trying to retain their white privilege in a changing world. I see human beings living in a
time and place of great uncertainty and they're scared! If Dems fail to notice this, and fail
to create an inclusive message that addresses the fears of EVERYBODY in the working/middle
class, regardless of their skin color, they do so at their own peril. Especially in parts of
the country like mine that hold the key to regaining the WH. Preaching as my friend does is
exactly how to lose. 5 Replies
A majority of Americans, including independent voters and some Republicans favor Medicare for
all, a Green New Deal, and higher taxes on the rich. While Trump has polarized voters around
race, Ocasio-Cortez is polarizing around class -- the three-fourths of Americans working
paycheck to paycheck against the 1 percenters and their minions in both parties. Reading the
tea leaves of polls and current Democratic Party factions as Edsall does, is like obsessing
about Herbert Hoover's contradictory policies that worsened the Depression. If Ocasio-Cortez
becomes bolder and calls for raising the business taxes and closing tax incentives,
infrastructure expansion, and federal jobs guarantee, she'll transform the American political
debate from the racist wall meme to the redistribution of wealth and power America needs. 1
Reply
Labels such as 'liberal" fail to characterize the political agenda articulated by Bernie
Sanders. By style and substance, Sanders represented a departure from the hum-drum norm. Is
something wrong about aspiring to free college education in an era when student debt totals
$1.5 trilliion? His mantle falls to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her followers. One hundred
years ago, American progressivism was spawned by Robert La Follette. As governor and senator
from Wisconsin, and as failed third party candidate for president, La Follette called for
laws to protect youth from horrendous labor practices. He called for laws to protect civil
rights. In time, many of La Follette's positions became mainstream. Will history repeated
itself? Maybe. The rise of "liberalism" in the Democratic Party is therapeutic, as evidenced
by youthful audiences who attended the Sander's rallies. Increasing voter turnout will take
back government from a minority that undermines the essence of a democratic system. A
Democratic counterbalance to the Republican "Freedom Caucus" may appear divisive to some. To
others, it offers a path to the future. 4 Replies
Ok, from the perspective of a rural white midwest retiree independent with post graduate
education, the issues weren't the democrats moving to the left, it was the Republican party
turning right (and they show no signs of stopping). Who is against an equal opportunity for
an equal quality education for everyone? My college costs years ago could be met with a
barely minimum wage job and low cost health insurance provided by the school and I could
graduate without debt even from graduate school. Seeing what years of Republican rule did to
our college and university systems with a raise in tuition almost every year while
legislative support declined every year, who is happy with that? Unions that used to provide
a majority of the apprenticeships in good jobs in the skilled were killed by a thousand tiny
cuts passed by Republicans over the years. The social safety net that used to be a hand up
became an ever diminishing hand out. What happened is those that had made it even to the
middle class pulled the ladder up behind them, taking away the self same advantages they had
in the past and denying future generations the opportunity. The young democrats and
independents coming along see this all too clearly. 1 Reply
These so-called liberal and progressive ideas aren't new. They work now in other countries
and have so for many, many years, but the rich keep screaming capitalism good, socialism bad
all the while slapping tariffs on products and subsidizing farmers who get to pretend that
this is somehow still a free market. It's fun to watch my neighbors do mental gymnastics to
justify why subsidizing soy bean farmers to offset the tariffs is a strong free market, but
that subsidizing solar panels and healthcare is socialism AKA the devil's work. All of this
underscores the reality that, much like geography, Americans are terrible with economics.
The tensions between progressive and moderate positions, liberal and conservative positions
in the Democratic Party and in independents, flow from and vary based on information on and
an understanding of the issues. What seems to one, at first glance, radically
progressive/liberal becomes more mainstream when one is better informed. Take just one issue,
Medicare for all, a progressive/liberal objective. At first glance people object based on two
main points: costs and nefarious socialism. How do you pay for Medicare for all? Will it add
to the debt? Will socialism replace our capitalist economy? People who have private medical
insurance pay thousands in premiums, deductibles, co-pays each year. The private insurance is
for profit, paying CEO's million dollar salaries and returns to stockholders. People paying
these private insurance premiums would pay less for Medicare and have more in their own
pockets. Medicare for all is no more nefariously socialistic than social security. Has social
security ended capitalism and made America a socialist country? I think not. Is social
security or Medicare adding to the national debt? Only if Congress will continue to play
their tribal political games. These programs are currently solvent but definitely need
tweaking to avoid near term shortfalls. A bipartisan commission could solve the long term
solvency issues. The more we know and understand about progressive/liberal ideas, the less
radical they become. The solution is education. 17 Replies
@Bruce Rozenblit Absolutely correct. According to the Bible of Saint Reagan, Socialism for
corporations and the rich: Good. Socialism for the poor and working class: bad.
@Michael - cheaper tuition starts with getting the Federal Govt out of the student loan
business, it's as simple as that. Virtually unlimited tuition dollars is what drove up
tuition rates. Higher Ed is a business, make no mistake.
@Bruce, have you ever considered creating a new "reality" network where the truth about
things could be told? You're quite good at articulating and defining how the world works,
without all the usual nonsense. I really appreciate your comments.
Can we please, please stop talking about AOC? Sure, she's young and energetic and is worthy
of note, but what has she accomplished? It's easy to go to a rooftop- or a twitter account-
and yell "health care and education for all!' But please, AOC, tell us how you are going to
not only pay for these ideas but actually get them through Congress and the Senate? It's just
noise, until then, and worse, you're creating a great target for the right that will NOT move
with you and certainly can label these ideas as leftist nutism- which would be fine, if we
weren't trying to get Trump out of office ASAP.. Dreams are great. Ideals are great. But
people who can get stuff actually done move the needle...less rhetoric, more actual plans
please.. 10 Replies
Its ok for a far right bigoted clown to be elected to the president and a tax cut crazy party
that wants to have a full scale assault against the environment and force more medical
related bankruptcies to be in charge? The safe candidate protected by 800 superdelegates in
2016 was met with a crushing defeat. The Democratic establishment wants a safe neo con
corporatist democrat. Fair taxation and redistribution of wealth is not some far out kooky
idea. The idea that the wealthiest Americans getaway with paying tax at 15%, if at all, is
ruinous to the country. Especially since there is an insane compulsion to spend outlandish
trillions on "national security". Universal health care would save the country billions of
dollars. Medicare controls costs much more effectively than private insurers. As with defense
the US spends billions more on health care than other countries and has worse medical
outcomes. Gentrification has opened fissures in the Democrats. The wealthy price out other
established communities. The problems of San Francisco and Seattle and other places with
gentrification need to be addressed before an open fissure develops in the party. 2 Replies
@Midwest Josh It's time for higher education to stop being a business. Likewise it's time to
stop electing leaders who are businessmen/women. 38 Replies
One could argue that many of these ideas are not that far left - rather it's a result of more
and more Americans realizing that WE are not the problem. Clean water and air, affordable
health care and affordable education are not that radical.
@Midwest Josh Hmmm, how old are you Midwest Josh? There were student loans back in the 1970s
when college cost me about $400 a year. Maybe something happened when that failed Hollywood
actor spouted slogans like "Government is not the solution, government is the problem" (and,
no, it was not taken out of context, he most definitely DID mean that government is the
problem - look it up) www.remember-to-breathe.org 38 Replies
You are studying this like it represents some kind of wave but in fact it is just a few
districts out of 435. These young women seem extraordinarily simply because the liberal media
says they are extraordinary. If the media attention on these new representatives were to
cease, no one except their families, their staff, and maybe Stephen Colbert would notice. 9
Replies
Finally, the left came out of its hibernation. We have spent the last decade or more either
sleeping or hiding, while at the same time, the Tea Party, the Freedom Caucus, Trump, and his
minions were taking over our government---It is such a breath of fresh air to finally listen
to airwaves filled with outrage over CEO's making millions of dollars an hour, of companies
that have become monopolies, of tax plans that bring back the middle class---it took us a
while, but we are back. 2 Replies
For so long (40+ years) the political spectrum has been pulled wildly and radically to the
right across so many issues. The Democratic party has for the most part ''triangulated''
their stances accordingly to essentially go along with republicans and corporate interests
for a bargain of even more tax/corporate giveaways to hold the line on social issues or
programs. It has now gotten to the point that continuous war has been waged for two (2)
decades and all the exorbitant costs that go along with that. There has been cut, after cut
after cut whereas some people and businesses are not paying any taxes at all now.
Infrastructure, social spending and education are all suffering because the cupboard is now
bare in the greatest and most richest country in the world. It just came out the other day
that ONLY (26) people have as much wealth as the bottom half of the entire world's
population. That amount of wealth in relation to dwindling resources of our planet and
crushing poverty for billions is abjectly obscene on so many levels. Coupled with all of the
above, is the continued erosion of human rights. (especially for women and dominion over
their own bodies) People are realizing that the founding fathers had a vision of a secular
and Progressive nation and are looking for answers and people that are going to give it to
them. They are realizing that the Democratic party is the only party that will stand up for
them and be consistent for all.
Democrats just don't like to win presidential elections. Go ahead. Move left. But remember,
you are not taking the rest of the country with you. As a NeverTrump Republican, I'll vote
for a moderate Democrat in 2020. No lefties. Sorry. Don't give the country a reason to give
Trump four more years. Win the electoral college vote instead of complaining about it. The
anti-Trump is a moderate. 5 Replies
"These "big, bold leftist ideas" pose a strategic problem." No they don't. The Real Problem
is the non-thinking non-Liberal 40% of Democrats and their simpatico Republicans who are
programmed to scream, "How will we pay for all that?" Don't they know all that money will
just be stolen? They were silent when that money was stolen by the 0.1% for the Tax Giveaway
(they're now working on tax giveaway 2.0) and by the military-industrial complex (to whom
Trump gave an extra $200,000,000,000 last year), various boondoggle theft-schemes like the
Wall, the popular forever Wars (17 years of Iraq/Afghanistan has cost $2,400,000,000,000 (or
7 times WW2)), and the Wall Street bailouts. Don't those so-called Democrats realize whose
money that was? First of all, it's our money. And second, our money "spent" on the People is
a highly positive investment with a positive ROI. Compare that to money thrown into the usual
money pits which has no return at all - except more terrorists for the military, more income
inequality for the Rich, and Average incomes of $422,000 for Wall Street. When the People's
money is continually stolen, how can anyone continue to believe that we're living in a
democracy?
Bruce, a succinct summary of your post is this: What we have now is socialism for the wealthy
and corporations (who, as SCOTUS has made clear, are people, too) and rugged individualism
for the rest of us. What we're asking for is nothing more than a level playing field for all.
And I hope that within my lifetime SCOTUS will have an epiphany and conclude that, gosh,
maybe corporations aren't people after all. We can only hope. 27 Replies
Edsall writes with his normal studious care, and makes some good points. Still, I am growing
weary of these "Democrats should be careful and move back to the center" opinions. Trump
showed us that the old 'left-right-center' way of thinking is no longer applicable. These
progressive policies appeal to a broad majority of Americans not because of their ideological
position, but because so many are suffering and are ready to give power to representatives
who will finally fight for working families. Policies like medicare for all are broadly
popular because the health insurance system is broken and most people are fed up and ready to
throw the greedy bums out. We've been trying the technocratic incrementalism strategy for too
long, with too little to show for it. Bold integrity is exactly what we need. 1 Reply
@Bruce Rozenblit Thank you; as others have commented already, this is so well said. To build
on your point: just yesterday, a commenter on a NYT article described AOC as a communist.
Incredible. The extent to which decent, pragmatic and, in a bygone era, mainstream, ideas are
now painted as dangerous, extreme, and anti-American is both absurd and disturbing. 27
Replies
If Hillary were President, there would never have been a shutdown. That is the lesson that
Mrs. Pelosi, AOC and Democrats should carry forward to 2020. 5 Replies
@LTJ No one is promoting ''free stuff'' - what is being proposed is that people/corporations
pay into a system Progressively upwards (especially on incomes above 10,000,000 dollars per
year) that allowed them and gave them the infrastructure to get rich in the first place. I am
sure you would agree that people having multiple homes, cars, and luxury items while children
go hungry in the richest nation in the world is obscene on its face. Aye ?
@Ronny Respectfully, President Clinton had a role in the deconstruction of the middle class.
My point is many of the folks in the news today were in congress that far back. Say what you
will about President Trump and Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez,I believe they both have exposed
the left,the right,the press for what they are. Please choose your own example. I don't agree
with all of her positions, but I can't express how I enjoy her making the folks that under
their watch led us to where we find ourselves today squirm and try to hide their anger for
doing what she does so well. I've been waiting 55 years for this. Thank you AOC.
@Bruce Rozenblit Bruce, spot on. The point of the New Deal was not to replace capitalism with
socialism, but to save capitalism from itself by achieving the balance that would preserve a
capitalist economic system but one in which the concerns of the many in terms of freedom from
want and freedom from fear were addressed. In other words, the rich get to continue to be
rich, but not without paying the price of not being hung in the public square - by funding an
expanding middle class. A middle class that by becoming consumers, made the rich even richer.
But then greed took over and their messiah Saint Reagan convinced this large middle class
that they too could be rich and so cutting taxes for the wealthy (and in the process
redistributing the wealth from the expanding middle class to the wealthy) would one day
benefit them - when they were wealthy. Drunk on the promise of future wealth, and working
harder than ever, the middle class failed to notice whose ox was being gored and voted
Republican. And now finally, the pendulum swings. Amen. 27 Replies
@Socrates I'm reminded of a poll I saw several years ago that presented positions on issues
without attaching them to any individual politician or affixing labels of party or ideology.
The pol aimed to express the issue in neutral language without dog whistles or buzzwords.
When the pollsters had the data, they looked for the member of Congress whose positions best
reflected the view of the majority of respondents. It was Dennis Kucinich, the scary liberal
socialist bogeyman of his day.
I lived in Europe for a long time. Not even most right wing parties there wish to abolish
universal healthcare, replace low or tuition-free colleges with college debt, etc. The US has
politically drifted far to the right when the center Democrats were in charge. Now Trump is
lurching the country to extreme raw capitalism at the cost of national debt, even our
environment and climate, Democrats need to stop incrementalism. Simple as that. 1 Reply
@Michael Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was opposed to the eternal triumvirate axis of inhumane
evil aka capitalism, militarism and racism. King was a left-wing socialist community
organizer. In the mode of Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. And the Nazarene of Matthew 25:
31- 46. America's military and prison industrial complexes are the antithesis of America' s
proclaimed interests and values. America is number one in arms, money and prisoners. MAGA? 38
Replies
Bernie and AOC don't seem all that radical to me for the reason this op-ed points out -- I
grew up in a New Deal Democratic family. My Grampa was an electrician supervisor for the City
of Chicago and my Granma was a legal secretary. They wanted universal health care and free
education and jobs for all. Those things made sense then, and they make sense now. They
provide solutions to the deep problems of our society, so who wouldn't want them? We've had a
lab test -- other than actual jobs for all Northern Europe has these things and we don't.
Neo-liberalism, its Pay-Go formula for government, and its benefits for the rich fails on
most counts except producing massive inequality and concentrated wealth. Bernie voters want
solutions to inequality and climate change, and they are readily available if government can
be wrested from the hands of Republicans like Trump and neo-liberals.
@Michael To me, the key sentence in your excellent post is that American needs to "refocus on
domestic growth and health and pull itself out of its continuous wars." All policiticians
hoping for our votes in the future need to make clear where they stand on this. As to those
who say that making all those weapons creates jobs, is there any reason that we couldn't
instead start producing other quality goods in the U.S. again? 38 Replies
@chele Me too! I am 72 y/o, retired, college educated at a rather tough school in which to
gain entrance. Lived below my means for over 40 years. Parents are both WW2 Marine Corps
officers(not career), who voted Republican and were active in local elections. They would be
shocked and disgusted at what that "party" represents now.
I think you look at all this in a vacuum. Democrats veered left because there was a need to
counterbalance what was happening on the right. They see Republicans aggressively trying to
undo all the gains the left had achieved the previous several decades. Civil rights, Womens'
rights, anti-poverty efforts, and so on all not just being pushed to the right, but forced to
the right with a bulldozer. It got to a tipping point where Democrats could clearly see the
forest for the trees. A great deal of this was a result of Republicans inability to candy
coat their agenda. Universal healthcare....not being replaced by affordable alternatives, but
by nothing. Tax cuts that were supposed to help the middle class, but, as evidenced by the
government shutdown, giving them no economic breathing room. And, in fact, making their tax
cut temporary, something nearly impossible to reverse with such a high deficit. Attacking
immigrants with no plan on who, actually, would do the work immigrants do. The list goes on
and on. In the past, many social programs were put in place not so much to alleviate
suffering as to silence the masses. Now Republicans feel the time has come to take it all
back, offering easily seen through false promises as replacements. That the left should see
the big picture here and say "Not so fast" should come as absolutely no surprise. All they
need now is a leader eloquent enough to rally the masses.
I think the Democratic Party is finally returning to its roots. We are now engaging in the
same politics which gave us control of the House for about fifty years. I went to my first
International Union convention is 1972 at which Ted Kennedy was one of the featured speakers.
One of the themes of the convention was healthcare for all. Now it treated as some sort of
radical proposal from the left. I am not certain why clean air and water, affordable health
care and housing, combating climate change, raising wages, taxing the highest income
brackets, updating our infrastructure, solving the immigration issue, and providing aid not
weapons to other nations, are considered liberal or socialistic. I think it represents the
thinking of a progressive society looking to the future rather than living in the past. 1
Reply
@David G. I would also say that many people think a cooperative economic enterprise, such as
a worker owned factory, is Socialism. But this is blatantly wrong and is pushed by the rich
business and stock owners to denigrate these types of businesses. Cooperatives have often
proven themselves quite successful in navigating a free market system, while simultaneously
focussing on workers rights and ownership. We need more if this in North America. 27 Replies
@Samuel She's been in office less than a month. You want to shut down the conversation that
is finally bringing real hope & passion to average people, & is bringing a new set of
goals (& more integrity) to the Democratic Party? Paying for single-payer has been
rehashed many times; just look at all the other 'civilized' countries who have it. For once,
try putting the savings from ending co-pays, deductibles, & premiums into the equation.
Think about the savings from large-group bids, & negotiations for drug prices, & the
savings from preventative medicine heading off more expensive advanced treatment. Bernie
Sanders has been explaining all this for years now. 'Less rhetoric'? The conversation is
(finally) just now getting started! You start by explaining what is possible. When enough
people understand it, the needle will start to move. Watch.
@JBC, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez was voted into congress and then the media took notice. It wasn't
the other way around. My only hope is that she stays the course.
@Bruce Rozenblit And don't forget the biggest socialist project of our time - the wall! And
withholding 800k employee checks to do so? That's socialism at gun point. 27 Replies
There are two points left out of all of the analysis of both Pressley's and Ocasio-Cortez's
campaigns. First of all, both women did old fashioned retail politics, knocking on doors,
sending out postcards, gathering as many volunteers as they could and talking about the
issues with voters face to face. They took nothing for granted. This is precisely what
Crowley and Capuano did not do. Second, they actually listened to the voters regarding what
they needed and wanted in Congressional representation. What both of the stand for is neither
Liberal or Conservative. What they stand for human values. This is not to say that Capuano
and Crowley did not stand for these same values, but they took the voter for granted. That is
how you lose elections. The Democrats are going back to their roots. They have found that the
Mid-terms proved that issues of Health Care, minimum wages, good educations for all despite
economic circumstances, and how important immigration is to this country really matter to the
voters. They need to be braver in getting this across before the next election And the press
might want to start calling the candidates Humane, period. 1 Reply
@MIMA Yes, absolutely. I'm retired from the healthcare field after practicing 38 years. It is
unconscionable that we question the access of healthcare to everyone. The complaint usually
heard from the right is about "the takers." Data I've seen indicates that the majority on
"the dole" are workers, who can't make ends meet in the gig economy or the disabled. That
some lazy grubbers are in the system is unavoidable; perfection is the enemy of the good.
@Stu Sutin I agree, "Liberal" is too broad a term, as so-called liberals do not agree on
everything, especially the degree. We can be socially liberal, while economically
moderate--or vice versa. Some believe in John Maynard Keynes economics, but appose abortion.
Some want free college tuition, while others support public schools but do not support the
public paying for higher education. Our foreign policy beliefs often differ greatly. What
joins us is a belief in a bottom up economy, not top down--and a greater belief in civil
liberties and a greater distribution of wealth. Beyond that, our religious and cultural
beliefs often differ.
I think the Internet has provided an influx of new understanding for the American left.
They've learned that things considered radical here are considered unexceptional in the rest
of the developed world. There is a realization that the only reason these are not normal here
is because of a lack of political will to enact them. That will is building as the ongoing
inequities are splashed across the front pages and the twitter feeds. It is the beginning of
the end for American exceptionalism (a term coined by Stalin as America resisted the wave of
socialism spreading around the world in the early 20th century). Unbridled capitalism lasted
longer than communism but only because its costs were hidden longer. We need to find the
sustainable middle path that allows for entrepreneurship along with a strong social safety
net (and environmental protection). This new crop of progressive Democrats (with strong
electoral backing) might lead the way.
at 63, I was there. I don't want second Trump administration either, but the route to a
Democratic victory is not cozying up to the corporations and the wealthy, but by stating
clearly, like FDR, "they are unanimous in their hate for me, and I welcome their hatred." We
need people who are willing to say that the rich deserve to be taxed at a higher rate,
because they have benefited more from our society, that no income deserves to be taxed at a
lower rate than the wages paid to working people, and that vast wealth needs to be earned,
not inherited. Emmanuel Saez makes persuasive arguments, but they need to be made in the
language of the working people. 12 Replies
@Michael Your $128 a year would be more like $414 or so in today's dollars. Still . . . I
went to Brooklyn College, part of the tuition-free City University of New York from
1969-1973. We paid a $53 general fee at the start of every semester ($24 for a summer
semester), and that was it. Wealthy or poor, everyone paid the same amount (about $334 in
today's dollars). 38 Replies
@JRS Democratic party leaders have been in favor of more border security and an overhauled
immigration system for as long as I've been alive. The suggestion (clearly this comment's
intention) that Democrats favor "open" borders, ports, etc., is a myth propagated by an ever
more influential right wing. And it's working: it's been repeated so often that it's now
virtually an assumption that Democrats favor open borders, despite that fact that any
critical thought on the subjection indicates the opposite is true.
I'm a very moderate Democrat -liberal on social issues and very supportive of free global
trade- who would vote for any of the current Democrats over Trump, but would leave the party
if AOC's ideas became the norm. I don't have a problem in principle with a 70% top marginal
tax rate or AOC's Green New Deal- Meaning, these aren't moral issues for me per se. I just
believe they would bankrupt the economy and push us into a chaos far worse than what we're
seeing under Trump. 5 Replies
@Michael The increase in fees for education to include the books along with the lowering of
standards for the classes taken is part and parcel of the reagan revolution to remake
American society. One of the most problematic things for those seeking to undo what FDR did
was the plethora of well educated and well read people American had managed to create. How
were they going to be able to overcome this? You can deduce whatever methods you may know but
I saw them tank the economy on purpose and prey on the fear that it created with more and
more radical propaganda. Once they got into office they removed the best and brightest of our
Civil Service and began making legal the crimes they wanted to commit and changing laws and
procedures for how things were done so that people would eventually come to think of this as
the "right" way when it was in fact purpose designed to deny them their due. 38 Replies
Younger candidates, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, appeal to younger voters. John Kennedy
appealed to WWII veterans, most of whom were in their 30s when they elected him. One of the
reasons for Barack Obama's support in 2008 among younger voters is that he was a younger
candidate and they identified with a younger candidate. That appeal to a younger electorate
will play a larger role in future elections. Don't focus too strongly on issues. Democrats
will win by a landslide in 2020 if they nominate a younger candidate that can inspire younger
voters. November 3, 2020. 1 Reply
@Samuel Actually, running a campaign and getting elected is a significant accomplishment.
Before anyone decides about what bills to promote and means of paying for them, we need a
momentum of discourse, and promoting that discourse is another major accomplishment. You and
many millions of others, also, have good reasons to be frustrated. Let's just try to actually
"work" at talking the talking and walking the walk, and maybe we will--or maybe we
won't--arrive some place where we can see some improvement.
The interesting part of this piece is the statement about politicians moving unwillingly. So
some Democratic Congressmen and Congresswomen are allowing their personal beliefs to be
compromised for the glory of being elected or re-elected? Sounds like someone I would not
care to support. 2 Replies
A great essay! The wild card in all this analysis, of course, is what happens when these
(now) young voters, age, eventually partner, and have kids. As every generation has shown,
the needs of a voter changes as they age. I'm surrounded by many new neighbors with little
kids who moved out of Brooklyn and Jersey City who suddenly find themselves concerned about
rising property taxes- they now see the balance between taxes and services. Not something
they worried about a few years ago. 2 Replies
@Tracy Rupp I am a senior citizen heterosexual white male. I do not apologize for my race,
gender, etc. In fact, I am proud of our accomplishments. I do apologize for my personal
wrongs, and strive to improve myself.
"This will be difficult, given the fact that what is being proposed is a much larger role for
government, and that those who are most in need of government support are in the bottom half
of the income distribution and disproportionately minority -- in a country with a long racist
history." True enough, but if progressives want actual people in that bottom half to lead
happier lives, the focus of any programs should not be to employ armies in left-leaning and
self-perpetuating "agencies," but rather to devise policies to help people develop the
self-discipline to: A) finish high school, B) postpone the bearing of children until marriage
(not as a religious construct but as a practical expression of commitment to the child's
future), and; C) Find and get a regular job. These are supported by what objective, empirical
data we have. These have not struck me as objectives of the rising left in the Democratic
party. Mostly, I see endless moral preening, and a tribal demonizing of the "other," just
exactly as they accuse the "other." In this case the "other" is we insufficiently "woke" but
entirely moderate white folks who still comprise a plurality of Americans. I see success on
the left as based primarily on an ability to express performative outrage. But remember, you
build a house one brick at a time, which can be pretty boring, and delivers no jolt of
dopamine as would manning the barricades, but which results in a warm, dry, comfortable place
to live. 4 Replies
@Concerned Citizen For your information, Holiday Inns typically had a restaurant in the hotel
in the days Michael is talking about so... whatever! 38 Replies
My father fought in Germany during WWII, then came home and went to college on the GI bill.
Both my parents received federal assistance for a loan on their first house. Later, during
retirement, they were taken care of by Medicare and given an income by Social Security. They
worked hard, kept their values, lived modestly, and voted for Democrats. Apparently, they
were wild-eyed, leftist-socialist radicals, and I never knew it.
@Bruce Shigeura AOC in some ways is doing what Bernie was doing -- mobilizing people around
class as you say -- but the difference is that AOC doesn't shy away from issues of racial
justice. Bernie seemed to want to unite people by ignoring issues of race, as if he was
afraid that mentioning race too much might drive Whites away. AOC seems able to hold whites
on the class issue while still speaking to the racial justice issues that are important to
non-Whites. She's an extraordinary phenomenon: smart, engaging, articulate and with personal
connections to both the White and Non-White worlds, so she threatens neither and appeals to
both.
@Stu Sutin "Is something wrong about aspiring to free college education in an era when
student debt totals $1.5 trilliion?" Yes. If you're the Congressperson who gets his/her
funding from the lenders.
A O-C has yet to open a district office. A O-C is more interested in "national" issues and
exposure than those of her district. What A O-C may have forgotten is that it is her district
and constituents that have to re-elect her in less than 2 tears (or not): "Would you rather
have a Congress member with an amazing local services office, or one that leads nationally on
issues?" she queried her 1.9 million followers on Instagram -- a number that is well over
twice the population of her district. The results strongly favored national issues."
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/22/nyregion/aoc-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-district-office.html
As Mr. Edsall points out, her district is not necessarily progressive and liberal and while
there may be national issues, at the bottom line, many of her instagram groupies are not her
constituents. Democrats like to constantly point out that Ms. Clinton won the popular vote,
and she was the non-liberal-progressive Democrat. I am sure that the Republicans pray for the
success of the Democratic left. They seek to give voice to that left. That will bring the
swing votes right back to or over to the Republicans, without, but possibly even with Mr.
Trump (if the Democrats cross a left-wing tipping point). Bottom line, instagram is fine and
likes are great, twitter is good for snappy answers, but representatives to the House have to
deliver to their district and constituents. A O-C leads, but to the salvation of the
Republican party. 6 Replies
@Joshua Schwartz M. Ocasio-Cortez explained on The Late Show the other night that the reason
she has not opened her district office is due to the Government Shutdown. The people charged
with setting up the office are on furlough, the money for the office is being held up and she
staff or furnish the office.
Isn't this somehow the natural swing of things? Years of heavy-handed politics benefitting
small minorities on the right have taken their toll, so now new ideas are up at bat. By the
way, these ideas aren't really that bold at all - many countries have living minimum wages or
mandatory healthcare, and are thriving, with a much happier population. Only in the context
of decades-long, almost brainwash-like pounding of these ideas as 'Un-American' or
'socialist' can they be seen as 'bold'. American exeptionalism has led to a seriously
unbalanced and dangerously threatened social contract. Tell me again, Republicans: why is a
diverse, healthy and productive population living under inspiration instead of constant fear
so bad?
The "experts" offering advice here seem to have forgotten that Hillary Clinton listened to
them in 2016: the party decided that appealing to suburban Republicans and Jeb Bush voters
was more important than exciting the Democratic party base. The other hazard of calculated
politics is that the candidate is revealed to be a phony, believing in nothing but power or
that it's simply "her turn" -- an uncompelling program for a voter. 1 Reply
They will all face primary challengers in 2020. Tlaib and Omar didn't even win a majority of
the primary vote. There were so many candidates running in those primaries, they only managed
a plurality. And let's be honest about the demographic changes in the districts Pressley and
Ocasio Cortez won. They went from primarily ethnic White to minority majority. Both women
explicitly campaigned on the premise that their identity made them more representative of the
district than an old White male incumbent. Let's not sugarcoat what happened: they ran
explicitly racist campaigns. They won with tribalism, not liberal values. Democrats actually
need more candidates like Lucy McBath, Antonio Delgado, and Kendra Horn if they want to
retain Congressional control and change policy. And many minorities and immigrants aren't
interested in the far left faction. We don't have a problem with Obama and a moderate
approach to social democracy.
@JABarry - Some data: Canada has a program like Medicare for All, and its bottom line health
care statistics are better than ours in spite of a worse climate. We paid $9506.20 per person
for health care in 2016. In Canada, they paid $4643.70. If our system we as efficient as
Canada's, we would save over $1.5 TRILLION each and every year. This is money that can be
used for better purposes. If one uses the bottom line statistics, we see that both Canada and
the UK (real socialized medicine) do better than we do: Life expectancy at birth (OECD):
Canada- 81.9, UK - 81.1, US - 78.8 Infant Mortality (OECD)(Deaths per 1,000): Canada - 4.7,
UK - 3.8, US - 6.0 Maternal Mortality (WHO): Canada - 7, UK - 9, US - 14 Instead of worrying
how we would pay for it, we will have the problem of how to spend all the money we would
save. BTW can you point to a period where too high federal debt hurt the economy? In 1837 the
federal debt as a percentage of GDP was 0%; it was 16% in October of 1929. Both were followed
horrendous depression. It was 121% in 1946 followed by 27 years of Great Prosperity.
Best comment in some time. I work and live too much in the'big flat'. I am a very hard core
Chicago Democratic Liberal from birth, but the distressed towns and small cities are facing
extinction. then what?
@In the know I'm formerly Republican, and female. I'm on the ACA, and while premiums were
going up slowly, they've exploded in the past two years due to Republican sabatoge. They are
certainly no reason to vote for Trump.
@Midwest Then the rich will only be eligible for college. Give me government intervention any
time. I am retired military . Off base in Lewes De a mans hair cut is now 20.00 plus tips.
Just a plain cut. On base with gov intervention it 12.00 . Capitalism you support is only for
the 1 percent the 99 percent never gets ahead. 38 Replies
She has a massive throng of twitter followers, is completely unconcerned with facts, uses
publicity to gain power and seems unwilling to negotiate on her positions. Remind you of
anyone else? 3 Replies
The establishment is trying so hard to spin the progressives push on the issues of Medicare
for All, free state college and university tuition, a livable wage of $15/hr as ponies and
fairy dust and an extreme "socialist" makeover/takeover of America. But from all the polls
that I've seen, these policies are actually quite popular even with a majority of
Republicans. Yes, a majority of Republicans. A Medicare for All would cover everybody,
eliminate health insurance premiums for individuals and businesses ( which by the way are
competing with businesses in other countries that have a single-payer system) and would save
$2 trillion over ten years (Koch bothers funded study). The result would be a healthy and
educated populace. But how to pay for this? Well, we spend over $700 billion on our military
while Russia spends $20 billion and China spends $146 billion, so there seems to be plenty of
money that is already being spent to be redirected back to us without compromising national
security. A Medicare for All system supports a private healthcare system just as it is now,
except instead of giving some insurance company our premium who then skims off a big chunk
for their profit, we pay it to our government who then administers the payments to the
healthcare provider(s). The system is in place and has been for people 65 years and older and
works very well with high satisfaction rates. Just expand it to all. 2 Replies
@Midwest Josh Wrong!!! Tuition's have skyrocketed because for past 35 years States have
slashed support for public universities. The Federal Government took over student loan
business from predatory banks which was a very good thing but unfortunately have kept
interest rates high ... Student loans is a profit center for Federal Government 38 Replies
@Concerned Citizen Go ahead and check the holiday inn in Palestine Texas. It had a small
restaurant in 1978. I was their dishwasher. There was no ford plant nearby. 38 Replies
@Bruce Rozenblit Well put. As Martin Luther King Jr. said: "We all too often have socialism
for the rich and rugged free market capitalism for the poor." 27 Replies
@stuart They used to call it the "Democratic wing of the Democratic party". I was glad when
Thomas Edsall finally got around, in this piece, to mentioning that what is often thought of
as a radical leftist turn today, due to just how far to the right our general political
discussions had gone, was actually pretty much mainstream Democratic policy for much of the
middle 20th century.
@Len Charlap Quite simply Canada's healthcare quality is ranked 16th in the world, while ours
is lower ranked at 23rd. And we pay twice as much. That indicates some funny business going
on.
It is remarkable that "big, bold leftist ideas" include - preserving the historical
relationship between the minimum wage and the cost of living - lowering the cost of college
to something in line with what obtained for most public colleges and universities in the 50s,
60s and 70s and exist in the rest of the Western world today - adapting our existing Medicare
system to deliver universal coverage of the kind generally supported across the political
spectrum in Canada and the UK Democrats should reject the "leftist" label for these ideas and
explain that it is opposition to these mainstream ideas that is, in fact, ideological and
extreme. 2 Replies
@Marc Except that's outright false. Offices are open. All the other new Congress members from
New York are setup and taking care of people. She doesn't care about constituent service. She
revels in the media attention, but isn't getting anything done even in the background. NY has
three Congress members (Lowey, Serrano, Meng) whose under-appreciated work on the
appropriations committee actually helps ensure our region's needs and liberal priorities are
reflected in federal spending. Meanwhile Ocasio Cortez is working on unseating Democrats
incumbents she deems insufficiently leftist e.g. Cuellar, Jeffries. Who needs Republicans
when you have Socialists trying to destroy the Democratic Party.
The NYT should consider getting some columnists who reflect the new (FDR? new?) trends in the
country and in the Democratic party. The old Clinton/Biden/Edsall Republican lite approach --
all in for Wall Street -- is dying. Good riddens. BTW I'm a 65 year old electrical engineer.
1 Reply
You're missing something big here, sir. Capuano was a Clinton superdelegate in 2016 who
declared well before the primaries (like all other Mass superdelegates, save for Warren who
waited until well after the primaries.) Thereby in effect telling constituents that their
vote was irrelevant, as they were willing to override it. Somerville went for Sanders 57% to
42%. Putting party over voters maybe isn't a great idea when 51% of voters in Massachusetts
are registered Unenrolled (Independent) and can vote in primaries. Bit rich to signal that
our votes don't matter, but then expect it later as it maybe actually does matter after all.
Pressley was all in for Clinton, which is of course suspect. But like me, she had only one
vote.
@C Wolfe Wow. Funky Irishman has been, for many months, writing about and presenting
excellent data showing that the US is actually a center-left (if not strongly progressive)
country. I used to present this evidence to Richard Luettgen (where has he gone??) who kept
insisting we are center-right (but never, as was his custom, presented any evidence for
this). your example is the best I've ever seen. I'm a member of a 4000-strong Facebook group,
the "Rational Republicans" (seriously - a local attorney with a decidedly liberal bent
started it and almost beat regressive Patrick McHenry here in Asheville). I've been making
this point on the FB page for the past year and people are stunned when they see the numbers.
I'm going to post your example as well. Excellent!
It's funny to watch people shocked when she makes her proposal. Her ideas are very old and
have worked in the past in various cultures. But the point that she can voice them is because
she can. Her people put her there because she said those things with their approval. She
reflects her community ideals. Just like Steve King.
I'm already tired of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and I'm a liberal and Hispanic...its constant
overkill, everybody falling over her, total overexposure. The news media has found their
darling for the moment. Let's see what she accomplishes, what bills she proposes and passes
that is the work to be done not being in the news 24/7.
Until the left figures out that every single one of their most desired Policy Implementations
are only feasible with controlled immigration and secured borders doesn't matter who the
messenger is. Want Single Payer Healthcare? Can't have it and Open Borders too. Want free
College? Can't have it and Open Borders too. Want Guaranteed Basic Income? Cannot have it in
any form without absolutely controlling the Border. So, either you want that influx of new
voters to win elections or you want to see new policy changes that will benefit all
Americans. Pick one and fight for it. You seem to have chosen the new voters. 3 Replies
@Matt Williams But they are extraordinary, relative to their bought and paid for colleagues.
That came first and the media is reporting it. Their authenticity is naive, but it shouldn't
be, and that's the story. It's a glimmer of hope for democracy that may be extinguished -
let's celebrate this light in the darkness, while it lasts.
@Bruce Rozenblit This is. Spot. On. The socialism of: Privatize the profits, socialize the
losses. It's defined American economic and social policy for the last 30+ years and we can
see the results today. 27 Replies
@shstl I agree and as a moderate Democrat, I already feel like an outsider, so imagine what
independents are thinking. AOC stated that she wants to primary Hakeem Jeffries, who is a
moderate. With statements like these, made before spending a day in congress, who needs the
GOP to tear apart the Democratic party? Sanders didn't even win the primary and his
supporters claim the primary was stolen. We lost the house and senate all by ourselves. I
already have AOC fatigue and my rejoice for the blue wave is still there but fading.
The Democratic party was shoved to the right with Bill Clinton's Third Way ideology that made
its focus the same wealthy donor class as the Republicans, while breaking promises to its
former base, the middle and working class. This led to the unchecked capitalism that produced
the Crash of '08, and the subsequent bail out to Wall St. The powers running the DNC - all
Third Way disciples, like Hilary - refused to take up any of these "socialist" causes because
their wealthy donors didn't want to have their escalating wealth diminished. Meanwhile these
Democrats In Republican Clothing were banking on continued support from those they had
abandoned. And they got it for years...until now. Now, finally, we're getting candidates who
represent those abandoned, and who are refusing to hew to the poobah's Third Way agenda. But
the Old Guard is trying to retain their power by labeling these candidates as "socialists",
and "far left". Well, if that's true, then FDR was a "socialist" too. Funny though how all
those "socialists" who voted for FDR, Truman, JFK, and LBJ enjoyed such capitalistic benefits
like good paying jobs, benefits, home ownership, good education, and the fruits of Big
Guv'mint like the Interstate Highway system, electricity, schools, the Space Program and all
the benefits that produced. It was only when we turned our backs on that success and relied
on unchecked capitalism that most of America began their slide backwards. We need to go left
to go forward.
Why is the media lionizing this ignorant, undisciplined child? She should shut up, sit down,
learn how to listen and learn from her elders in government. She is acting like a college
student, who has no one to hold her accountable for her reckless, stupid behavior. Why does
the media seem to be enamored of her?????
@Michael Lucky for you. I went to the University of Michigan at roughly the same time and it
was no where near that cheap--not even close. And housing? Don't get me started on that. Even
then it took my breath away. 38 Replies
@chele That which you are pleased to call the DLC nonsense originated not with the Clintons,
but with one of the worst presidential defeats the Democratic party ever suffered: the 1972
campaign of George McGovern. That debacle resulted in a second Nixon administration and I
hope that the current trends within the Democratic party do not result in a second Trump
administration.
It is exceeding strange to me that "Conservatives" in the US consider Medicare for all and
universal access to higher education as being radical, pie-in-the-sky, proposals. Here in
Canada we have had universal medicare for a half a century and it has proven itself to be
relatively effective and efficient and has not driven us into penury. As for free access to
education beyond high school, I remember learning a while ago that the US government
discovered that it had earned a return of 700% on the money spent on the GI Bill after WWII
which allowed returning GIs to go to colleges and universities. The problem with American
conservatives is that they see investments in the health, welfare and education of the
citizenry as wasteful expenditures, and wasteful expenditures such as the resources going to
an already bloated military, and of course tax cuts for themselves as investments.
@chele Amen to you! I too am old guy (79) and think Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a savior of
the Democratic Party! She is young and has great ideas. I agree with you about the Clintons,
they led the party down a sinkhole. I agree with just about everything I have heard
Alexandria espouse. She is refreshing. Glad she is kicking the butts of those old guard
Democrats that have fossilized in place--they are dinosaurs. 12 Replies
@Tracy Rupp The problem with blaming a group based on demographics, rather than behavior or
ideology, is that you are likely to be disappointed. There are a lot of people who are not
old white men who are just as seduced by money, power, and local privilege as was the old
guard. Feminists writing letters to condemn a male student who made charges of being sexually
harassed by his female professor; African American activists who refuse to reject the
antisemitism of charismatic cult leaders. Human beings in charge will be flawed, regardless
of their race, gender identity, or sexual orientation. As the balance of power changes hands,
corruption too will become more diverse. 6 Replies
Money is the mother's milk of politics, so let me comment on "many of whom did not want the
Democrats to nominate a candidate with deep ties to party regulars and to the major donor
community." Include me. Because the major donor community is Charles E Schumer, Leader
Democrats, House Top Contributors, 1989 - 2018 1 Goldman Sachs 2 Citigroup Inc 3 Paul, Weiss
et al 4 JPMorgan Chase & Co 5 Credit Suisse Group That is Wall Street Nancy Pelosi,
leader Democrats, House Top Contributors, 2017 - 2018 1 Facebook Inc 2 Alphabet Inc (Google)
2 Salesforce.com 4 University of California 5 Intel Corp $13,035 That is Silicon Valley . The
U of CA should spent its money on students What is the interest of these donors ? For Wall
Street, it is maximizing profits by suppressing wages, outsourcing to of enterprises it owns
to low wage countries, and immigration of people willing to work for less For Silicon Valley
it is Mining your data, violating your privacy, and immigration of people willing to work for
less via H1B To win general (not primary) elections you need large amounts of money. At in
return for this money, you need to take care of your donors, lest you find you without money
in the next election Until the Democratic Party frees itself of this system, it will spout
liberal rhetoric, but do little to help average Americans As Sanders showed, it can do so,
running on small donations. DNC, eye on frightened donors, killed his attempt. 1 Reply
"The most active wing of the Democratic Party -- the roughly 20 percent of the party's
electorate that votes in primaries and wields disproportionate influence over which issues
get prioritized -- has moved decisively to the left." Yet it seems that you feel that the
party should ignore them and move to the center right in order to capture suburban Republican
women, who will revert back to the Republican party as soon as (and if) it regains something
resembling sanity. Do you seriously think that its worth jettisoning what you describe as
"the most active wing of the party" for that? 2 Replies
@David G. See Norway, Denmark, Germany, England and Finland. Citizens have jobs and health
care; education is affordable and subsidized. Not all young people attend universities; many
go to vocational schools which prepare them for good jobs. We could do the same. 27 Replies
@Midwest Josh That is so NOT true Midwest Josh. The unattainable loans and interest problems
are because the private sector has been allowed into the student loan game. The government
should be the underwriter for all student loan programs unless individual schools offer
specialized lending programs. Whenever the government privatizes anything the real abuse
starts and the little guy gets hurt. 38 Replies
@Bruce Rozenblit, at the end of a long line of commenters, I add my congratulations for a
well-articulated overview of our political dilemma. Both "trickle-down"economics and
"neo-liberalism" have brought us to this pass, giving both Democrats and Republicans a way of
rewarding their corporate masters. I believe both Cinton and Obama believed they could find a
balance between the corporate agenda and a secure society. We see with hindsight how this has
hailed to materialize, and are rightly seeking a more equitable system – one that
addresses the common sense needs of all of us. I, for one, am overjoyed that the younger
generation has found its voice, and has a cause to support. My recollection of demonstrating
against the Viet Nam war (and the draft), marching for civil rights, and even trying to
promote the (then largely inchoate) women's rights movement, still evokes a passionate
nostalgia. We have witnessed an entire generation that lacked passion for any cause beyond
their individual desires. It's good to have young men and women reminding us of our values,
our aspirations, and our power as citizens. As the bumper sticker says, "If you think
education is expensive – try ignorance." Thanks again for a fine post. 27 Replies
@Quiet Waiting That was FIFTY YEARS AGO. People who fought in the Spanish-American War were
still casting ballots, for heaven's sake. McGovern has been used by Third Way apologists as a
cautionary tale to provide cover for doing what they clearly wanted to do anyway. The other
reality is that the McGovern/Nixon race took place in a time when there was broad consensus
that many of the social programs Republicans are now salivating over privatizing weren't
going anywhere. 12 Replies
Abolishing ICE is tantamount to having open borders. No modern country can allow all people
who are able to get to its borders to just move in, and take advantage of its government
services. If a country were to start offering Medicare for All, no or reduced college
tuition, a universal jobs guarantee, a $15 minimum wage, and wage subsidies to the entire
bottom half through an expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit, paid maternity/paternity
leave, and free child care, it would need tax-payers to support these plans. It could not
afford to support all of the poor, uneducated migrants who have been illegally crossing our
borders, let alone all of those who would run here if ICE were to be abolished. Look at
Canada which has more of a social safety net than is offered in our country. It has
practically no illegal immigrants. (A long term illegal immigrant had to sue for the
government to pay for her extensive medical care, and the court decisions appear to have
limited government payment of her medical bills just to her and not to other illegal
migrants.) It picks the vast majority of its legal immigrants on a merit system that
prioritizes those who would contribute a special needed skill to the Canadian economy, who
are fluent in English and/or French, and who could easily assimilate. Thus, most of Canada's
immigrants start paying hefty taxes as soon as they move to Canada, helping to support the
country's social safety net. 1 Reply
@Samuel To pay for universal health care you capture all the money currently being spent for
the health care system. That includes all the employer insurance premiums, VA medical care
costs, military medical costs, all out-of-pocket expenses, everything. That provides plenty
of money for our health care needs as exemplified by the costs in other advanced countries
with better systems. Also re-activate parts of the ACA that were designed to control and
reduce costs but that have gone unfunded. Reduce hospital and hospital administration costs,
which are exorbitant and provide little real health care benefit. There will be plenty of
funds for actual provider salaries (physicians, nurses, technicians, pharmacists, etc). 10
Replies
You have to accept some of this polling data with a grain of salt. Most of the population has
no idea what "moderate," "slightly liberal," or extremely liberal mean. These tend to be
labels that signify how closely people feel attached to other people on the left side of the
ideological spectrum. The same is true, btw, of people on the right. The odd thing is that if
you ask Trump voters about the economic policies they favor, they generally agree that social
security ought to be expanded, that the government has an obligation to see that everyone has
medical care, that taxes on the rich should be higher and that we ought to be spending more
money, not less on education. Where you see a divergence is on issues tightly aligned with
Trump and on matters that touch on racial resentment. Trump voters do not favor cuts in
spending on the poor, though they do support cuts in "welfare." The moral of the story is
that a strategic Democratic politician who can speak to these Trump voters on a policy level
or at the level of values -- I'm thinking Sharrod Brown -- may be able to win in 2020 with a
landslide.
I saw AOC on the Colbert Show recently and one of her first statements was in regards to
wearing red nail polish. I turned it off. Enough of the red lipstick as well. Please. Next
she'll discuss large hoop earrings. 1 Reply
O'Cortez is a "Fantasy Socialist. She says the stupidest and most outlandish things so the
media puts a microphone in front of her face. She hates when folks fact check her because
nothing she is saying adds up. O'Cortez has all of the same "spread the wealth" tendencies as
the previous president who was much more cunning and clever at hiding his true Socialist
self.
@chele Right on. I expect there is a very large contingent of us. It is disheartening to be
associated by age and ethnicity with the corporatist financial elite power mongers who
control both parties and the media. But we can still continue vote the right way and spread
the word to fight corruption and corporatism. Eschew New Democrats like ORourke. The first
commitment to find out about is the commitment to restore democracy and cut off the power of
the financial elite in politics. All the other liberal sounding stuff is a lie if that first
commitment is not there. Because none of it will happen while the financial elite are
controlling votes. There will always be enough defectors against, for example, the mainstream
support for medicare for all national health care to keep it from happening if New Democrats
aren't understood as the republican lite fifth column corrupters they really are. 12 Replies
Chock full of very interesting data, but we tend to to believe Zeitz's conclusion that Dems
are just returning to their roots, following the spectacular 2008 failures that saw no
prosecutions - in starkest contrast to the S&L failure and boatload of bankers charged:
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/04/magazine/only-one-top-banker-jail-financial-crisis.html
To the extent this primary voter data is replicated across the country in Dem primaries, and
not just the AOC and Ayana Pressley races, we could be convinced some massive swing is
occurring in Dem primary results. Until then, we tend to believe that the cycle of 30-50
House seats which swing back and forth as Dem or GOP from time to time (not the exact same
30-50 districts each cycle, but about 30-50 in total per election cycle or two) is a
continuation of a long-term voting trend. Unpacking the egregious GOP'er gerrymandering, as
is the goal of Eric Holder and Barack Obama: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/us/politics/voting-gerrymander-elections.html
which has blunted Dem voter effects, will be of far more consequence - get ready !
@Michael Gig'em dude. Class of '88, and I feel the same way. And as far as I can tell, the
increase has been almost totally because state support has fallen in order to fund tax cuts
for the people, like us, who got the free education. Who says you can't have your cake and
eat it too? You just have to raid everyone else's plate. 38 Replies
I understand the Andy Warhol concept of everyone having 15 minutes of fame. But it's absurd
that AOC's 15 minutes of fame coincide with her first 15 minutes in office.
Ocasio-Cortez and the rest haven't been in Congress a month. Get back to me when anyone of
them even gets a bill passed naming a Post Office. Until the, maybe you ought to learn your
jobs?
@In the know, Your party invented the fundamental ACA program. It was the brainchild of the
Heritage Foundation that started this fiasco that you'd like to blame on Dems. Also, you
simply cannot argue that the Republicans attempted to implement the program in good faith.
They have done everything they can to sabotage it. In the end, Republicans don't want people
to have affordable health care. It doesn't fit their "family-unfriendly" philosophy.
Furthermore, the only real business-friendly ideas Republicans embrace are a) eliminate
taxes, b) remove regulations, c) pay employees nothing. If you as a woman believe these are
notions that strengthen you or your family, I'm at a total loss in understanding your
reasoning.
@Matt Williams - You are ignoring the many statistics in the article that apply to the
Democratic party as a whole. For example: "From 2008 to 2018, the percentage of Democrats who
said the government should create "a way for immigrants already here illegally to become
citizens if the meet certain requirements" grew from 29 to 51 percent, while the share who
said "there should be better border security and stronger enforcement of immigration laws"
fell from 21 to 5 percent." There are many others.
"...as millennials and minorities become an ever-larger proportion of the party, it will have
a natural constituency..." I would counter that as they start to actually pay taxes then the
millennials will adopt the standard liberal plaint, 'raise the taxes on everybody except me'
@D I Shaw I think the precise point is that would much easier to do A,B, and C if there were
universal health care, job guarantees, and clean water to drink. It is much easier to make
good long-term decisions when you aren't kept in a state of perpetual desperation.
These 'new' ideas are not new, nor are they 'progressive democrats'', nor are they even the
democratic party's per se. More importantly, the 'issue', for which no one has come up with a
solution, is the same -- how are we going to pay for this all? The GAO reported in '16 that
Sander's proposal for payment was completely unsustainable. Similarly, Cortez's plan for a
tax rate of 70% of earnings (not capital gains) over $10mm per annum does not come close to
funding 'medicare for all', 'free collage/trade school', and 'the New Green Deal'. Our
military is a 'jobs program' rooted in certain state's economy -- it is going to be very
difficult to substantially reduce those expenditures any time soon. The purpose of government
is governance -- what politician is going to have the integrity and cujones to tell the
American people that we need these 'liberal' policies, but that every single one of us is
going to have to contribute, even those at the far lower income strata? Are we all willing to
work longer in life and live in much smaller houses/apartments to do what is necessary? If
the answer is yes, then and only then can any of us claim the moral high ground. Until then,
it's just empty rhetoric for political gain and personal Aggrandizement of so-called
progressives. 5 Replies
@chele I'm an "elder millennial" in my 30s. The first US election I really paid attention to
was in 2000. Remember how all of the Democrats would gripe about, "oh I really *like* Nader,
but the Green Party candidate is never going to win..." It's a party in dire straights when
the ideological base doesn't even particularly love its candidates on the issues. Repeat in
2004 with Kerry. Obama managed to win based on charisma and the nation's collective disgust
with the neocons, but then we did it again with Hillary. 12 Replies
Sorry libs, but with the exception of the Left Coast, and Manhattan, there is not alot of
attention given AOC and her silly class warfare 70% tax nonsense, that goes with the Dem/Lib
territory--nothing new or exciting with her. Being a certain ethnicity or gender is not
exciting or inherently "good" as Progressives attempt to convince others. Identity politics
is nonsense. When she does something of merit, not simply engage in publicity stunts and
class warfare nonsense then maybe she will get some attention outside of Lib/Wacko world.
"With all the attention that is being paid to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley,
Rashida Tlaib" Other than these opinion pages and the Lib coasts, not so much. 2 Replies
Since Reagan there has been a steady drumbeat to the right and far-right policies. We've
lived so long in this bubble that we've normalized these For-the-Rich policies as centrist.
So I don't accept the writer's premise that the Democratic party is moving to a radical left.
The Democratic party is simply embracing pro middle class policies that were once the norm
between 1935-1979. And I welcome the shift of the pendulum. 1 Reply
@Giacomo That's right, this country can afford trillions for the Pentagon system--the
military-industrial complex, to coin a phrase--and foolishly criminal wars, but it can't
afford national health insurance, something that some industrialized countries have had since
the late 19th century. Anybody who thinks these ideas are "radical" or "leftist" clearly
understands nothing about politics.
The shift claimed by Mr. Edsall among democratic voters who claim to be liberal or
progressive is more illusion than reality. With President Obama more democrats are willing
and indeed proud that our party represents the cutting edge principle that we protect the
needs and interests of those struggling to find a place in our society. For a long time
Democrats bought into the notion that the word liberal was some how shameful. But now with
the machinations of a McConnell and Trump it becomes obvious that Democratic principles of
justice for all and fighting for economic equality are not outside ideas, but actually
central to the growth of our country. No longer will we kow tow to a false stilted opinion,
but stand up proudly for what we believe and fight for.
AOC behaves like a sanctimonious know-it-all teenager....entertaining for about 5 minutes,
then just plain annoying and tiresome. Does not bode well for the Democratic Party,...
Actually, people like AOC or Bernie aren't that far left at all. Internationally, they'd be
considered pretty centrist. They're simply seen as "far left" because the Overton window in
DC is far to the right. Even domestically, policies like universal healthcare and a living
wage enjoy solid majority support, so they're perfectly mainstream
I understand what you are saying, but please remember- half of this country thinks- rightly
or wrongly- that AOC and many of her ideals are unobtainable and socialist. Whether they are
or are not is NOT the point. We need ideas that are palatable to the mainstream, average
American- not just those of us on the liberal wings. And I AM one of those. Since you bring
up Bernie- how well did that work out? The country isn't ready for those ideas. And rightly
or wrongly, pursuing them at all cost will end up winning Trump the next election.
@Jose Pieste Well here in Australia its 10 minute waits for appointments made on the same
day. I have MS and see my specialist without a problem. And the government through the PBS
prescription benefit scheme pays $78 of my $80 daily tablets. We are not as phenomenally
wealthy a country as the USA and we mange it with universal health care. I pay about $30
Australian for each doctor's visit and sometimes with bulk billing that is free too. You
reflect a uniquely American attitude about social services that is not reflective of what is
done in other modern democracies. I really do feel for you my friend and for all Americans
who have been comprehensively hoodwinked by the "can't afford it" myth. You can pay for
trillion dollar tax cuts for people who don't need it. Honestly mate - you have been conned.
@Samuel Rep. Ocasio-Cortez has sponsored or co-sponsored 18 bills in the House, including
original co-sponsor with Rep. Pressley of H.R.678 -- 116th Congress (2019-2020) To provide
back pay to low-wage contractor employees, and for other purposes. 10 Replies
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, as is well documented here and throughout world media, prefers spotlights
and baffling interviews to opening her district office and serving her electorate. As with
every other media creation, the shiny star that it has made of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez will fade
soon. The arc of her House career will as well. 4 Replies
"What pundits today decry as a radical turn in Democratic policy and politics actually finds
its antecedents in 1944." This quote in the article should have been the lede. Instead, it
appears 66 paragraphs into the article. What is now being called "left" used to be called
"center." It used to be called the values and the core of the Democratic party.
@Derek Flint There was a reason for the DLC's decision to be more center left. The Democrats
were losing and this gave them a chance to win, which they did with Clinton, almost Gore, and
Obama. 12 Replies
@Jason A. Representatives should represent their constituents. For example, if most of the
voters one represents want Medicare, perhaps that's a sign that one should reconsider their
anti-Medicare views. And think about why constituents want Medicare.
The leftward swing of the Democrats is in direct proportion to the rightward swing of the
Republicans and a gut reaction to the GOP's failure to do anything constructive while in
power -- i.e. failure to replace Obamacare with Trump's promise of "cheaper and better;"
failure to repair our crumbling infrastructure, and yet another failed attempt at
trickle-down economics by robbing the U.S. Treasury with a massive tax cut for the rich that
provided absolutely no benefits for the middle class and the poor. As always, what the
Republicans destroy the Democrats will have to fix.
@Quiet Waiting, the DLC was officially formed after Mondale's loss, in '85. the DLC's main
position is that economic populism is not politically feasible. But I don't recall either
McGovern or Mondale's losses being attributed to being too pro-worker, too pro-regulation of
capitalism, or making tax rates progressive again. Further, the idea that economic populism
has no political value was just disproved by a demagogue took advantage of it to get elected.
The RP's mid-term losses and other data points show that people in the middle are realizing
Trump's not really a populist. Those economic Trump voters, some of whom voted for Obama
twice, are up for grabs. Why would you be afraid that the DP's shift to raising taxes on the
wealthy and being pro-worker will result in a Trump victory? 12 Replies
@Michael The cost of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security has increased as a fraction of
tax receipts. Twice the as many people go to college as when you went, so the subsidies are
spread more thinly. Colleges have more bureaucrats than professors because of multiple
mandates regarding sex, race, income, sexual preference, etc. People have not been willing to
see taxes raised, so things like college subsidies get squeezed. The US decided in the 1940s
that the only way to avoid a repeat of WW1 and WW2 was to provide a security blanket for
Western Europe and Japan (and really, the world), and prevent military buildups in either
region while encouraging economic development. The world is as a result more peaceful,
prosperous, and free than ever in human history, despite "its continuous wars" as you put it.
For the US to pull back would endanger the stability that gave us this peace and prosperity,
but Trump is with you all the way on that one, so it must be a good idea. Liberal reforms
will mean tax increases, especially Medicare for all, but also more college subsidies, which
largely benefit the middle class and up. Liberal reformers need to convince the public to
send more money to the IRS, for which there is no evident support. Let's not confuse
opposition to Trump with a liberal groundswell. 38 Replies
Why do Political Commentators and Analysts keep operating under the delusion that people vote
their skin colour ? People vote their economic interests. I am all in favour of National
Health Care Letting Immigrants who have not committed a crime stay and become citizens. But I
am also in favour of stricter Border Control as I feel our duty is to the poor citizens of
America. Send Economic aid to poorer countries, help them establish just governments. As for
Ocasio-Cortez, she is aiming too high and has too many lies about her past to go much higher.
The meanings of these labels--liberal, left, center, conservative--, and of the spectrum
along which they supposedly lie, changes year to year, and most pundits and politicians seem
to use them to suit their own purposes. When you realize that a significant group of people
voted for Obama and then for Trump, you realize how radically the politics of the moment can
redefine the terms. The Democrats could create a narrative that unites the interests of all
economically disadvantaged people, including white people. Doing so would create a broad
majority and win elections, but it would arouse the fury of the oligarchs, who will demonize
them as "socialists." But as Obamacare proved, if actually you do something that helps people
across the board even the Republicans and the media will have a hard time convincing people
that they are oppressed, for example, by access to health insurance. For the oligarchs, as
for the Republicans, success depends on creating a narrative that pits the middle class
against the poor. In its current, most vulgar form, this includes pitting disadvantaged white
people against all the rest, but the Republicans have an advantage in that their party is
united behind the narrative. Democratic politicians may be united against Trump, but that
means nothing. The challenge will be uniting the politicians who run on economic justice with
the establishment Democrats who have succeeded by hiding their economic conservativism behind
identity politics.
I applaude AOC. I am 72 white male. I have been waiting for someone like AOC to emerge. I
wish her the best and will work for her positions and re-elections and ultimate ambitions.
She is a great leader, teacher, learner, whip smart, and should not be taken likely. Go for
it AOC! Realize your full potential.
Someone as thoroughly imbedded in the establishment as this Op-Ed writer is necessarily going
to need to be educated on what the political center of gravity really is. The Democrats have
shifted RIGHT over the past few decades. Under Bill Clinton and Pelosi, Schumer, Feinstein
and Obama. They are not left, not center-left, not center, but instead center-right. They
have pursued a center-right agenda that does not engage with the rigged economy or widening
inequality, or inadequate pay, or monopolist abuse of power, or adequate regulation and
punishment of corporate crime. They have enthusiastically embraced our deeply stupid wars of
choice, and wasted trillions that could have been put to productive use at home. The new
generation of progressive Democrats seek to move the debate BACK TO THE CENTER or Center-Left
if you will. Not the Left or Far-Left. They want to address the issues the current Democrat
Establishment have ignored or exacerbated, because they are in essence, the same rarified
rich as the lobbyists and donors they mingle with. The issues that affect MOST of us, but not
the FEW of them. The endgame of this shift is that Obama engineered a pseudo-recovery that
saw the very rich recover their gains, but the poor become MORE impoverished. Such is the
rigged economy, 21st Century style. Things have to change, the old guard have to be neutered.
Too much wealth and power is concentrated in too few hands, and it's too detrimental to our
pseudo-democracy.
This is the difference between R & D's. OAC may get her support from well-to-do, educated
whites, but her platform focuses on those left behind. Even her green revolution will provide
jobs for those less well off. R's, on the other hand, vote only for candidates that further
their selfish interests.
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and her legislative cohorts are a much needed breath of fresh, progressive
air for the U.S. Congress. And I say that as someone going on age 70 who was raised and
educated in the conservative Deep South. Go left, young people!
@Bruce Rozenblit Unfortunately, the hot button on fox is the word socialism. so undo the
negative press there and have a chance of implementing fairer policies. 27 Replies
@Samuel "It's easy to go to a rooftop- or a twitter account- and yell "health care and
education for all!'" Its not easy to get anyone to listen. The moral impetus precedes the
"actual plans," which come out of the legislative process, Why would you be against this
getting attention?Unless, of course, you oppose health care and education for all. 10 Replies
The further the Democrats go Left with all the cultural politics including white people
bashing and calling Men toxic, the further I am heading towards the right. I personally can't
stand what the Democratic Party has turned into. We'll see who wins in 2020. I think a lot of
people forget what happens in mid term elections. People vote for change and then, after
seeing what they wrought, switch back.
I am a old white male geezer and lifelong liberal living in complete voter disenfranchisement
in Florida due to gerrymandering, voter suppression and rigged election machines (how else
does one explain over 30,000 votes in Broward County that failed to register a preference for
the Senate or Governor in a race where the Republican squeaked in by recount?). I am pleased
to finally see the party moving away from corporatist and quisling centrists to take on
issues of critical import for the economy, the environment and the literal health of the
nation. As "moderate" Republicans come to a cognitive realization that they too are victims
of the fascist oligarch billionaire agenda to end democracy; they too will move to the left.
So, I for one am not going to worry an iota about this hand-wringing over something akin to
revolution and instead welome what amounts to the return of my fellow New Deal Democrats.
Too much attention here to this new cohort of self important attention seekers presenting as
civil servants. Not one of them has had any legislative experience in their lives how can
they do all they say they want. They have no grasp of policy economics and politics. Are they
too good to recall the wise words of Sam Rayburn - "Those who go along get along" or is that
too quaint outdated and patriarchal for them? Why dont journalists and other pols call them
out. Example, AOC calls for 70% marginal tax rate - saying we had it before, ha ha. Yes but
only when defense spending as percent of gdp was 20-40 percent, in the depth of WW2 and the
cold war, life and death struggles - it is now 5%, no one has the stomach for those rates
now, and no need for them to boot. Free school, free healthcare, viva la stat! yeah ok who
will pay for it? Lots of ideas no plans, flash in the pan is what it is, it will die down
then settle in for a long winter.
There is a difference between posturing as a leader and actually leading. So, there is
another, and very direct, way for real Americans to end the shutdown: Recall petitions. With
very little money, why not target Mitch McConnell. Laid off federal workers could go
door-to-door in Kentucky. The message, not just to the Senate majority leader, would be
powerful. And this need not be limited. There are some easy targets among GOP senators.
Perhaps Ms. Ocasio-Cortez can achieve greater national standing with a clipboard and pen down
on the hustings.
All this fuss over a bright young person who stopped complaining and ran for office. She has
a platform. Time will tell how effective she will be. Right now, she's connecting to those
young and old who believe we can do better. If you had a choice who would you rather share a
beer with?A Trump supporter who has no interest beyond building an ineffective wall or an
Ocasio-Cortez supporter, full of ideas, some fanciful, some interesting but most off all
energy and light versus fear and hate?
I'm a liberal Democrat and I remain very skeptical regarding the platforms of these new
members of Congress. Youthful exuberance is admirable, but it's not sufficient to address
complicated issues related to fairness. Fairness does not always mean equity of wealth. Some
people have more because they have worked more, worked longer, or took more risks with their
money. Should the nurse who worked three jobs to make $150,000/year be made to sacrifice a
significant portion for those who chose to work less? Such an anecdotal question may seem
naive, but these are the kinds of questions asked by regular Americans who often value social
programs, but also value fairness. The claim that only some tiny fraction of the 1% will bear
the cost of new programs and will alone suffer increased taxation is simply untrue, and those
who are making this claim know it. This tiny group of wealthy knows how to hide its money
off-shore and in other ways, as documented in the Times last year. Everyone knows the
low-lying fruit for increased taxation is the upper middle class: Those who work hard and
save hard and are nowhere near the top of the wealth pyramid. It's that nurse with the three
jobs, or the small business owner who now clears $200,000 a year, or the pair of teachers
who, after 25 years of teaching, now bring home $150,000 combined. Those are the targets of
the proposed "new" taxes. Don't believe the hype. I'm a liberal, and I know what's up with
these people. 4 Replies
Ocasio-Cortez represents the success of a progressive in ousting a white liberal in a safely
Democratic district. While interesting, that doesn't provide much of a blueprint for winning
in 2020 in districts and states that voted for Trump. As noted elsewhere in this newspaper,
of the roughly 60 new Democrats in Congress elected in 2018, two-thirds, were pragmatic
moderates that flipped Republican seats. Progressives were notably less successful in
flipping Republican seats.
Just keep in mind that what the author deems "radical" ideas are considered mainstream in the
rest of the developed world. We are an extreme outlier in lacking some form of universal
health care, for example. Also, while the NYT clearly saw Bernie's 2016 campaign as
shockingly radical, the very people Edsall says we must court were wild about Bernie. His
message about income inequality resonates with anyone living paycheck to paycheck and the
only thing "radical" about it is that he said the truth out loud about the effects of
unbridled capitalism. The neoliberal types that the NYT embraces are the milquetoast people
who attract a rather small group of voters, so, I am not too eager to accept his analysis. I
fully expect the Times to back Gillibrand and Biden, maybe even that other corporatist,
Booker. They don't scare the moneyed class.
The Dems have been drifting to the right for decades, egged on by pundits who keep telling
them to move to the center. Do the math: moving to the center just moves the center to the
right. Frankly, Nixon was more liberal than most of today's Dems. A move to the left is long
overdue.
The rumblings in the Democratic party may represent a realization that WE THE PEOPLE deserve
a bigger slice of the pie. Democrats such as Sanders, Warren and AOC are tapping into a
reservoir of voters who have been excluded from the American Dream by design. The new message
seems to be "fairness". I think that translates into government which does the most good for
the greatest number of people. Candidates who embody that principle will be the new leaders.
Ignore at your peril.
@Quiet Waiting: if voters believe republicans are helping them economically then follow them
off the cliff. Hopefully enough voters will try a more humane form of capitalism. 12 Replies
Ms Ocasio Cortez is a partial illustration of Reagan's dictum that "The trouble with our
liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so". In
the case of AOC she is not only very ignorant but she believes many things that are actually
not true. For her to actually believe that the "world will end in 12 years" and
simultaneously believe that, even if true, Congress could change this awful fact is so
breathtakingly ignorant one hardly knows where to start.
Maybe it's worth considering that a lot of those spooky millennials, the stuff of campfire
scare stories, themselves grew up in the suburbs. They are the children of privilege who have
matured into a world that is far less secure and promising than that of their swing-voter
soccer moms. Health care, student debt, secure retirement, and the ability to support a
family are serious concerns for them. And don't even get me started on climate change and the
fossil fuel world's stranglehold on our polity.
@dudley thompson, if you are one of those elite moderate liberals against the "lefties"
concern about college and medical costs, protections for workers and the environment, and
progressive taxation, then in the end getting your vote isn't worth sacrificing the votes of
all the other people who do care about those things. Your "moderate" way may calm those swing
voters who fear change, and allow them to vote for the Democrat, but it also demoralizes and
disappoints the much larger group of potential Democratic voters that craves change.
@Jessica Summerfield ..."article described AOC as a communist." And I saw an article describe
Ross Douthat as a "columnist"... equally misleading. Will the calumny never cease? 27 Replies
Thomas, this "left" used to be known as the middle. A commitment to housing instead of an
acceptance of homelessness. Dignity. A tax system designed to tax wealthy people, not, as we
have now, a tax system designed to tax the middle class and poor. Can we all just take a look
at what is being promoted -- look at what AOC is proposing compared to Eisenhower era tax
rates. We have lurched right so that event center-right is now considered left.
Rage is the political fuel that fires up the Left. Rage also is the source of some very bad
ideas. Having bad ideas is the reason people don't vote for a political party in a
presidential election. The democrats are now the party of socialism, open borders, very high
taxes, anti-religious bigotry, abolishment of free speech, rewriting the constitution,
stuffing the Supreme Court, impeachment of the President, and being intolerance of other
views. They have also alienated 64 million Americans by calling them deplorables, racist and
a host of other derogatory terms. Not a good strategy to win over voters in swing states.
They also have attacked all men and white men in particular. They think masculinity is toxic
and that gender is not biological but what a person believes themselves to be (noticed that I
used the plural pronoun?). So far a long list of bad ideas. Let's see how it plays out in
2020. 1 Reply
We need to be careful what we refer to as left. Is the concept that we have access to
affordable housing, healthcare, and decent jobs really a position of the far left? Not
really. The 1944 progressives saw access to basic life as a right of all people. This is why
young educated progressives support policies that encourage success within the unregulated
capitalist economy that has been created over the last 40 years. The evidence illustrates
that federal and state governments need to help people survive, otherwise we are looking at
massive amounts of inequality that affect the economy and ultimately affect the very people,
the extremely rich, who support deregulation.
@Bruce Rozenblit The Republicans great skill has been selling lies to the socially
conservative to get their greedy financial agenda through. They have never cared about their
voters other than how best to spin their rhetoric. 27 Replies
Moving left takes a twitter account, a quixotic mentality and the word free. Its sedition
arousing rhetoric is blinkered by the lack of a viable strategy to support and move it
forward. Liberals thrive on the free media attention which feeds their rancor and aplomb.
Liberals are the infants of the Democratic Party. They're young, cute and full of amusing
antics. They have an idyllic view of what the world can be but without efficacy. When they
are challenged, or don't get enough attention, they revert to petulance. As all mammals do,
most liberals eventually grow up to join the Democratic median. Those that don't become the
party regalers brought out when the base needs energized. They grow old and fade away,
remembered only for their flamboyance and dystopian view of the world. The Democratic Party
has never been more fractured since its inception. With close to thirty potential candidates
for President, it is going to take a coalition within their party in order to put forth a
viable nominee. Then the party infighting will commence which will lead the party into
defeat. Democrats must focus on a untied party platform which is viable and will produce
results for the American people. Enough of the loquacious hyperbole and misandrous language;
it's time to stop reacting and start leading.
If it looks like the Democrats are moving strongly to the left, it's because they have
stopped chasing the GOP over the cliff in a vain effort to meet them in some mythical middle.
That's why the gap is widening; Republicans have not slowed in their headlong rush to
disaster. In truth it is the Republican Party and its messaging machine that has been doing
its best to drag America to the extreme right by controlling the narrative and broadcasting
talking points picked up and amplified by the Mainstream Media. The Mainstream Media has its
own issues. Increasingly consolidated under corporate ownership into fewer and fewer hands,
it has developed a reflex aversion to anything that looks too 'left' and a suspicion of
anything that looks progressive. The desperate battle for eyeballs in a fragmenting market
has also taken a toll; deep journalism or reporting that risks alienating any part of the
shrinking audience for traditional news is anathema to the bean counters who have
financialized everything. Deliberate intimidation by the right has also taken a toll.
Republicans have no answers; Democrats do - and that's the gist of it. The real challenge is
to prevail against a party that has embraced disinformation, the politics of resentment and
destruction - and the Mainstream Media that has failed to call them out on it.
We are looking at a future Speaker of the House. Watch out Republicans, this woman is not
afraid of you white, stodgy, misogynistic and racist haters. Your party, once a viable and
caring party, is dead.
The Republican Party used to be a moderate political party that was fully capable of
governing. Over the years, the right wing of the party assumed control and they became a
radically conservative party that basically hated government and did nothing for the benefit
of average Americans. As a result, many voters came to believe that a more liberal stance was
preferred to what the Republicans had become. Basically, the Republican Party veered sharply
to the right and went off and left a lot of their earlier supporters, like me.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the perfect foil to the Trump twitter fest we've been subjected
to for the past 2 years. However, enough of the tit for tat -- I would still like to see the
freshman representative put forth some legislation for a vote.
In terms of policies, this "sharp shift to the left" represents a return to the New Deal and
the Great Society and a renewed commitment to civil rights. It is a return to things we never
should have turned away from.
@Tracy Rupp Don't be so quick to condemn. The really old white men of today defeated Germany
and Japan. Then those same old white men went into Korea and then Vietnam. Ok so maybe you
have a point.
Shifted to the LEFT? After decades of movement to the Right, by the GOP and even assisted by
Dems such as the Clintons, etc., this political movement is merely a correction, not a
radical shift as your article contends.
Just as the reader comments from yesterday's opinion piece on the Covington School story by
David Brooks reveal rampant confirmation bias, the comments here reveal an equally relevant
truth: nobody, but nobody, eats their own like the left. The "Down With Us" culture in full
effect.
I am confused about what message, what issues resonate with the "moderate" people who are
disaffected from the liberal message of the Democrats on the left. What policies would bring
them to vote Democratic, what is it about health care for all, a living wage and opening the
voting process to all people are they opposed to. Is it policy or message that has them
wavering?
@dudley thompson Do you consider Eisenhower leftist? (highest tax rates ever). How about
Nixon? (established the EPA). We have lurched so far right in this country that the middle
looks left. I'm sick of the labels -- listen to what these leaders are actually proposing. If
you don't understand how the marginal tax rate works, look it up. If you don't realize we
once didn't accept mass homelessness and mass incarceration as a fact of life in America,
learn some history. We're living in a myopic, distorted not-so-fun-house where up is down and
center is left. We need to look with fresh eyes and ask what our communal values are and what
America stands for. 5 Replies
Here is a thought I would like to share with the New York Times: Thomas Edsall's article is
excellent. The corollary I draw from it that the paper that projects itself as the voice of
the liberals in this county has to understand that it has fallen behind times. If the
statistics and commentary accompanying it is a criteria to consider, The Times should move to
a more progressive editorial platform. The sooner, the better! The support given by this
paper to Hillary Rodham Clinton over Bernie Sanders in 2016 is unforgivable. The attitude
exhibited towards Elizabeth Warren is hardy different. This has to change if you want to keep
your relevance unless you believe publishing Edsall's essay is just part of your "diversity"
policy. What the followers of AOC and other progressives are clamoring for are very basic
human needs that have been delivered in affluent (and not so affluent) societies all over the
globe. No need to name those countries, by now the list is well known. What do we need
delivered: Universal Healthcare, Free Public Education K through College, No Citizens United,
Total Campaign Finance Reform, Regulation of Wall Street, Regulation of Pharma, Regulation of
Big Tech, Gender Equality, 21st Century Infrastructure. All paid for by cutting the Military
and Defense Budget Waste (cf Charlie Grassley, a buddy of Karl Marx) and taxing the top
percent at levels AOC cites and Professors Suez and Zucman concur with in their Times OpEd.
Democrats need to win elections first. Progressive ideas may have support on the coasts and
cities but fall flat in red states where there is still widespread dislike for immigrants and
minorities and strong opposition to "having my hard-earned tax money supporting free stuff
for the undeserving who can't/won't take care of themselves." Because the Electoral College
gives red states disproportionate representation the Democrats must win some red states to
win a presidential election. Running on a strong progressive platform won't work in those
Republican-majority states. What Democrats need is a "Trojan Horse" candidate. Someone who
can win with a moderate message that has broad appeal across the entire country but who will
support and enact a strong progressive agenda once he/she is elected. And on a local election
level, Democrats need to field candidates whose message is appropriate for their local
constituency -- progressive in liberal states, more moderate in conservative areas. Winning
elections comes first. Let's do what it takes to win and not let our progressive wish list
blind us to the importance of winning elections.
@Westchester Guy: Leftists want amnesty and, eventually, open borders. This is utterly and
totally incompatible with their push for "free" college, universal health care, and so forth.
The fiscal infeasibility is so obvious that one could only believe in these coexisting
policies if they were blinded by something, like Trump hatred, or just plain dishonest. The
"leftist" label for the new Democrat party is entirely appropriate. You also have your own
bigots to counter Trump. The difference is that their bigotry is sanctioned by most of the
mainstream media.
Has AOC or any other liberal offered any feasible policy to improve the lives of the people
they claim to help? Just take a good hard look at NYC where AOC is from which for many years
the Public Housing Authority cannot even provide adequate heat in the building the city owns.
So while AOC dreams of taxing the wealthy 70% perhaps she needs to slow down and catch up to
reality to realize what she offers is only building towards another Venezuela.
This article is half poison pill. By reading it, you learn a lot about Democratic Party
voting patterns, but you also have to endure a number of false ideas, the worst of which is
Edsall's warning that radical Democrats will foment internal chaos leading to electoral loss.
The fact is, it is the corporate democrats, who in the last 40 years abandoned the base of
working, blue collar democrats in favor of their Wall Street overlords. It is the corporate
democrats who created the billionaire class by reducing corporate tax rates. It is the
corporate Democrats who by reducing marginal tax rates created the plutocracy. It is the
corporate democrats who gave *Trillions of Dollars* to Bush and Obama's perpetual wars and
$70 Billion more than the defense department asks. This impoverishing the citizenry with debt
is their legacy as much as the Republicans. This shoveling of money to the 1% who abandoned
the middle class has been a train ridden by Corporate Democrats. It is the Corporate
Democrats who caused all this friction by letting the middle class fall off the edge of the
economic cliff -- all the while proclaiming how much they care. They show up on MLK day and
read flowing speeches from the podium when what we really need is activism and changes in
marginal tax rates, defense spending and the Medical Insurance and care oligopoly. So now
there is revolution brewing in response to the Corporate Democrats' appeasement of the
Oligarchy? Good. Bring it on.
Honestly, it is the centrist, neoliberal wing of the Democratic party that gave up on talking
to the Midwest and focused on the coasts. That was the Clinton strategy and it didn't work.
Although AOC comes from an urban area, her message is broad: she is for the struggling,
working person. Edsall underestimates AOC's basis in economic thinking and her appeal to
flyover country. She speaks carefully and justly to social issues, but she also speaks to the
"kitchen table" issues that middle America is concerned with--in a much more real way than
the neoliberal Dems have figured out how to.
Please end you outsized coverage of AOC. I really don't know how you justify all the news
coverage. She is one of 435 representatives, and a new one at that. No accomplishments, just
a large Instagram following.
@John Patt Everybody over the age of 50 should apologize for giving our young people
catastrophic climate change, endless wars, broken healthcare, crumbling infrastructure, ever
widening income and wealth disparates, unaffordable post-secondary education, rampant gun
violence, no voice for labor. We over 50 didn't care enough to vote and to make enough
political noise to keep these things from happening. We over 50 all have personal
responsibilities for this messed up world we're leaving the young. 6 Replies
@Zor The answer is no. Remember Schumer saying that for every urban vote Democrats lost by
running Hillary, they would gain 2 suburban votes. It didn't turn out that way. The centrist,
corporatist Democrats (including Hillary and Biden) have no clue how to reach the working
class of any race. The working class focus of AOC is the Democratic Party's best chance at a
future. But of course the establishment, centrist, corporatist Democrats are still focused on
helping their big money donors. Here's another question: Just how are establishment,
centrist, corporatist Democrats different from Republicans?
Here's my thing- though I'm a deeply liberal person who shares a lot of political beliefs
with Ocasio-Cortez, I'm am not the least bit interested in her. Why? Because she's one
representative of a district all the way across the country from where I live. I care about
about my newly flipped district in Sherman Oaks. I care about my solidly Democratic district
in Santa Rosa. Just because one charismatic representative from Brooklyn has a good Twitter
feed doesn't mean that I have to care or that she deserves a highly-placed role on an
important committee. She's a freshman. Let her learn. And then, go ahead and tell me she
deserves a seat.
There really is not a far left in America. You guys have this weird aversion to moderate
sensible socialism that -as the saying goes- is only in America. Our conservative government
in Australia accepts it as a given the things AOC is fighting for. There is nothing weird
about universal health care in modern advanced countries. The conservatives have a magic word
in the USA that they us as a bogeyman and the word is socialism. Ironically they don't mind
Trump snuggling up to extreme left dictators like Kim and ex KGB Soviet operatives like Don's
supervisor Vlad Putin who by definition had to be a card carrying communist to get to his
position. But moderate socialism is all over northern Europe, NZ, UK and Australia. You
people are oppressed by conservatives playing the "that's socialism" card at every turn. We
never ask where does the money come from? here. The money seems to be there in all the
countries that take care of the health of their citizens. America is a wonderful country with
fantastic people- I love visiting... but to use an Aussie word - crikey I wouldn't want to
live there. 1 Reply
A.O.C. Alexandria "Overexposure" Cortez. This young woman is talented but should pace herself
a bit. It's not a marathon but it's not a sprint either. Let's call it "middle distance" in
track terms. You need to save some breath for when it's really needed. Pace for long term
influence on policy. Or be a "one hit wonder".
@Matt Williams Exactly. I'm a Democratic in a conservative area, and all my Democrat friends
think this woman is nuts. Our Senator Jon Tester is wonderful. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? Hard
pass. 9 Replies
@Cass You may self-identify as a moderate but you sound like a conservative. Please go join
the other party of no ideas if AOC strikes you as radical. The majority of Democrats don't
agree with you.
Ideology fails when it meets reality. Trump and McConnell are busy teaching the American
middle class what it is to be reduced to poverty - health care they can't afford, rising
taxes on those who have had some economic success, elimination of well paying jobs, and on
and on. Those voters are understandably interested in pocket book issues, the resurgence of
progressive candidates meets this newly emphasized need. In addition, look at the population
demographics. The baby boomers were a "bump" in population, they in turn have produced a new
bump in their children, who are now adults. The boomers were quite left, their children have
inherited some of this belief system - equal rights and protection and support of those with
less opportunity. The voters in general are also completely fed up with politicians lying to
them and taking away their benefits. They generally have a mistrust both of the right wing
destruction of our norms, and the Democrats failure to fight back (Garland should have been
appointed even in the face of McConnell's calumny). The new face of the Democratic party
feeds pocketbook issues, a belief that America is, in fact, a melting pot, and the need for
restoration of our Democracy. This pretty much covers all the bases, the Democrats just need
to get better at educating the populace.
By and large, the majority of 2600+ counties that Trump carried are not economically well
off. However, they are socially very traditional. Do the Democrats have a message that will
resonate with millions of these traditional white middle/lower middle class voters in the
hinterland? 1 Reply
have you listened to her interviews? she doesn't say much of anything. all political about
all these socialist ideas with no means or method of how to get there. and thank goodness she
has no clue how to get there
I used to be friends with a very high-achieving guy I met as a 15-year-old on a teen summer
tour in Israel, run by the national Reform synagogue movement, in 1985. In the course of our
frienship spanning the final years of high school through the beginning of college, gradually
fading to an email or 2 once every couple years; our different paths & outlooks became
very stark, though we'd both call ourselves liberals. My friend left no stone unturned in his
unambivalent achievement orientation, embracing w/religious fervor the absolute virtue of
success, the unimpeachable morality & integrity of our meritocracy, & meritocratic
ideals/ethos. Naturally, he wound up at Harvard, majoring in government, followed by Harvard
Law. What struck me throughout was the unvarnished "empiricism" of his outlook: rarefied,
lofty principles or romantic ideals seemed alien: the nitty gritty of practical &
procedural realities were the whole picture. The one time we explicitly discussed comparative
politics, he only gravitated toward the topic of Harold Washington's coalition-building
prowess. He was an ardent Zionist ("Jewish homeland!"), with little apparent interest in
theology or spirituality for that matter. Eventually he went into corporate law, negotiating
executive compensation. I think he epitomized the Clinton Democrat: A "Social justice," equal
opportunity for all, meritocracy "synthesis." In a word, that peculiarly "practical,"
pragmatic liberalism was *ultimately conservative*.
Let us all remember that since Reagan the "center" has moved decidedly right. So when we talk
about a move left, we are moving back to where we were in the 1950s-1970's. For example take
AOC's tax proposal. Right out of that time period. Look at the GOP platform in the 1950's. It
reads like a progressive platform today. So let's put this in perspective. Everything is
relative and we have adjusted to right wing dominant politics today.
Edsall looks at the fact the Democrats (and, indeed, the whole country) are moving in a
progressive direction. He does not look at the question of why. I maintain that with an
increase in educated voters, the country is moving towards policies that work, that are good
for the country as a whole, not just for a minority. The other wealthy countries, all with a
universal government health care system such as an improved Medicare for all, get BETTER
health care as measured by all 16 of the bottom line public health statistics for ALL of
their people at a cost of less than HALF per person as we pay. High inequality has been bad
for the economy and governance of this country. Look at what happened in 1929 and 2008 both
preceded by periods of high inequality. Compare that with the long period of low inequality
after WWII of Great Prosperity. Today as a result of terrible SCOTUS decisions, the Super
Rich pushing the country towards oligarchy. The situation at our borders was actually better
before 2003 when ICE was created. It has perpetrated so many atrocities, rightly garnered
such a terrible reputation, why isn't it time to abolish the thing and start over with a new
more humane organization. After all, the Germans did not keep the Gestapo after the war. I
running out of space, but let me end by saying we are now getting more progressive voters
that say that 2 + 3 = 5, and fewer conservative ones who say 2 + 3 = 23 and fewer moderates
who want to compromise on 2 + 3 = 14.
@Concerned Citizen, likewise, public education is funded largely by property taxes, even on
those who do not have children in school, or whose children are out of school. This is not
"someone else's" money! It is all our money, and this is the way we choose to employ it
– to educate all our children, realizing, I hope, that educated children are a major
asset of a developed country. 38 Replies
Until AOC starts to achieve some actual LEGISTATIVE VICTORIES, I'm not prepared to follow her
ANYWHERE. I'm willing to listen to what she has to say, some of which I agree with and some I
question. I lean Left on most issues but I'm not a fanatic, and fanatics exist on BOTH sides
of the political spectrum. I believe that one must PROVE themselves before being beatified.
In substance, I'm open to the "new wing" of the Democratic party which I am, officially, a
member of. Let me add that I will NEVER cast a vote for anyone calling themselves a
Republican because that very label is forever tainted in my book. But I don't much care for
the 'tit for tat' Tweeting from AOC either, writing about Joe Lieberman (whom I do not like)
"who dat"? What is "dat", Miss AOC?
The insane part of this never gets addressed. Why should Americans political interests and
aspirations be controlled by two monopolistic parties? 1 Reply
The country may be in a need of a more social agenda, but this agenda must perceptible help
the depressed white rural folk first. Nothing will work what make those, who are already
falling behind feel like a "basket of deplorables". I hope AOC will find a way not just to
become a poster star of the progressive urban left, but also understand the ailing of the
depressed rural right.
The Democratic Party needs to do a very good job of educating an electorate (and possibly
some of its own members) that has for more than 30 years drunk the kool-aid of the "lower our
taxes," small government, and deregulation gurus. We have such a predatory capitalism now,
with government failing over and over again to reign in huge corporations headed by those who
think they should be determining everything from economic to housing to health to foreign
policy. Enough already. Most of the young members of Congress need a lot more experience and
more immersion in the nitty gritty of creating legislation before they can take the reins,
but they can educate their constituents. And maybe they can convince others that everyone
gains through a more level playing field.
Calling these ideas left is a joke. AOC and Bernie Sanders would practically be conservatives
in Canada and Europe. What we have are 3 unofficial parties: 1. The party of people with good
ideas who aren't afraid to speak about them because they aren't beholden to big donors 2. The
party of watered down, unpopular ideas that are vetted by 20 pollsters and donors before
seeing the light of day 3. The party that gets into office by tapping into people's primal
fears, and avoids policy altogether Republicans have been moving the goalposts for decades
now, how can you even tell left from right anymore?
@A. Stanton Since 1990, there have been funding gaps, shutdowns or serious threats of
shutdowns almost every year. The have become routine tactics in the effort of each party to
drive a hard bargain.
Running up the Democratic vote in Blue states by pandering to left leaning views will not
unseat DJT in 2020. Winning the popular vote by 3 or 3 million yields the same results.
Unless or until we adopt the Nation Popular Vote Intrastate Compact or reapportion the House
more equitably, Republicans will continue to exploit the Electoral College's
antimajoritarianism. Courting the minority of lefties mimics DJT's courting of his base; last
November proved that elections are won in the middle. Appealing to moderates in purple states
is the only path to 270. If you have any doubt, ask private citizen HRC how much good the
Democratic over-vote did for her.
@Bruce Rozenblit What is exceedingly strange to me is that those who rail against socialism
completely misread socialism at it's very roots; Family. 27 Replies
Yes, because all these pundits got 2016 so right. They are people with their own opinions,
just like everyone else, except the punditry has a vested interest in maintaining the status
quo that has been so good to them for so long. Enough already! Times, you're as much to blame
as these pundits for 2016!
When progressive solutions are proposed, the opposition yells "socialism" while others bring
up the cost of progressive solutions. No one talks about the significant portion of our
nation's wealth spent on the military. We don't audit the Pentagon or do due diligence on the
efficiency of huge projects undertaken by the military nor do we question the profits of the
industrial-military complex. Meanwhile, Russia manipulated our latest presidential race,
underscoring the worry over cyber attacks. Climate events in the country mean our citizens
experience life changing events not brought on by terrorists or immigrants. A medical event
in a family can initiate bankruptcy; we all live on that edge. Our infrastructure projects
have been delayed for so long that America looks like a second rate country. Income
inequality is ongoing with no sign of lessening. Suicide is on the increase while death by
drugs is an epidemic. An education for students can mean large debt; efforts to train the
workforce for the technological world are inconsistent. For many of us, the hate and fear
promoted in this country is repulsive. Because our society works for an ever smaller number
of us, Americans are increasingly understanding that a sustainable, just society works for
all it's citizens. We are exhausted by the stalemate in Washington leaving us caring very
little about the labels of progressive, moderate, or conservative. We just know what needs to
change.
Edall's final point that thsese are Democrats returning to Democratic roots and not a wave of
radicalism. I along with a lot of other older voters was infected with a kind of gradualism.
I voted for Hilary, much now to my dismay. AOC among others is stating what she, and what
many of us want. The old Democratic party was a mirror image of Republicans, with taking the
same money, voting for the same wars, and within it all a kind of shame,liberal as a kind of
curse, where we were afraid to make our own agenda, make our own plan for America. taking the
burden, in health care, college education, immigration, is an investment in the future
The New Democratic approach in essence is taking wealth and redistributing it, along with
promising free goods and services. Is that high-minded or simply a Brave New World. The
underlying assumption seems to be the rest of America will not find that worrisome, and that
what happened in MA and NY represents a nationwide trend. 3 Replies
These voters are not moving to the left. They are correcting a trend to the right that
accelerated with Reagan: the rise of corporate dominance and societal control; the loss of
worker rights, healthcare and protections through destruction of our unions; and the mass
incarceration of our nation's young African American men for minor drug offenses, thus
destroying their futures and communities. These "left" liberals are fighting to bring back
democratic norms and values that were once taken for granted among those of all political
stripes.
I have always voted in every primary. I have always voted for the most "leftist" available.
So did my whole family, and all the people with whom I discussed our voting. The issue was
always "most leftist available." That often was not very leftist at all. That is what has
changed. Now the option is there. It isn't because we vote for it. We vote for it now because
now we can, now the choice is there. What has changed is not so much the voters as the
invisible primary before anyone asks us voters. What changed is the Overton Window of
potential choices allowed to us. I think voters would have done this a long time ago, if
they'd had the opportunity. So why now? Abject failure of our politics to solve our problems
has been true for decades, so it isn't mere failure. I'd like to think it was voter
rebellion. We just wouldn't vote for their sell outs. Here, that meant Bernie won our
primary, and then we did not turn out for Her. We finally forced it. The money men could not
get away with it anymore.
It is strange that Mr Edsall frames Medicare 4 All , Free College , and higher taxes on
wealthy as RADICAL leftist ideas .. when it fact each of these proposals have the majority of
support from Americans.. The most current poll shows 70% support for Medicare 4 All.. so you
are only radical if you DON'T support.
Unless the progressives start addressing the concerns of the middle class, they will drive
the Democratic Party right off the cliff. You remember us, don't you? People who have tried
to do things right and work hard. Granted, our cares and concerns aren't that sexy or
tweetable so it's easy for you newly elected firebrands to overlook us. Don't forget, we are
the ones who will ultimately foot the bills for your giveaways.
The notion that democrats are moving leftward is borne on revisionist history. There's
nothing new or bold being proposed; Zeitz is right on the money.
"Medicare for All, government-guaranteed jobs and a higher minimum wage" I have a question to
all the "progressive" Democratic voices in Congress - how are you going to pay for such an
agenda? Money doesn't just grow on trees. Either you will have to cut funds from another
program, or raise taxes. Most of these progressive people favor raising taxes on the wealthy.
But what is your definition of "wealthy"? $10 million in annual income? $1 million in annual
income? $500k? $200k? Almost all the proposals I have seen coming from progressives involves
increasing tax rates for families making more than $200k, either through higher rates, phased
out deductions, or ineligibility for certain programs. A professional couple where both are
software engineers could easily surpass this threshold, but they are not rich. They struggle
to pay the mortgage, save for the future, pay taxes, and provide for their children. Why
should they be forced to pay more in taxes percentage-wise than a family earning $100k or
$60k? It is for these reasons that I as an independent will never support progressive
candidates. These candidates lack basic math abilities and a basic notion of fairness. So if
the Democratic party starts to embrace some of the policies espoused by these progressives,
they are on a path to lose elections in the future. 1 Reply
@AutumnLeaf Mitch McConnell blocked Obama at every turn; he denied him the appointment of a
moderate respected Judge to the SC, a Judge the GOP had voted for on the Superior Court.
Congress wasted time with 40 attempts to declare the ACA unconstitutional; the Plan was
modeled on a Romney Plan in MA. Scalia's Citizens United Decision declared that corporations
are people; Scalia knew that he was using a Superior Ct. Decision with a transcription error:
word spoken: corporation; word transcribed: individual. Scalia spent a lot of time at
corporate lodges, "hunting"; mainly eating until he finally ate himself to death. McConnell
spends his time with mine owners. Trump spends his time with lobbyists for Israel and Saudi
Arabia. 9 Replies
I think this article underscores the incredible opportunity available to the left if they
pick a radical democratic socialist candidate. If they are already winning the college
educated crowd that is gentrifying these major urban areas and losing the poorer minority
crowd that is voting for people like the Clinton's over Sanders or Crowley over AOC; we are
getting the people whom one would think would be less incentivized to vote for our platform
and we can gain the people who would benefit more from our platform.Therefore, it is really
just a question of exposure and talking to these people. Reaching out to minorities; talking
about mass-incarceration, how it disproportinately affects precisely these minority voters
that we have to gain; and how the moderate democrats have been benefiting economically and
politically from the chaos and inequities in these communities for years. It is a question of
messaging. Minorities are our natural allies. They are disproportinately affected by the
inequality; and as soon as we can reach them; tell them that there brothers, husbands, sons
are coming home, and that we have a job for them to support their family when they do, that
is a huge % of voters that will swing our way, and accelerate the pace of our revolution--and
what critics will come to remember as the end of their decadence and control over all facets
of society, to the detriment of everyone else. The end is coming--and a new, better society
is on the verge of being reborn 1 Reply
Of all of those quoted in this article, the only one who really gets it right is Joshua
Zeitz. FDR's 1944 State of the Union address should be required reading for every Democrat,
and every Establishment talking head who warns against alienating suburban voters by
advocating for a New Deal social safety net. I share the sentiments of many on who have
responded by noting that it was, and is, the leadership of the Democratic Party that has
moved right rather than the Democratic electorate that shifted left. Don't believe me? Go
back through the sixteen years of the Clinton and Obama presidencies and see how many times
each referenced Ronald Reagan versus even mentioning Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, or
Lyndon Johnson.
Medicare for all? Get ready for 6-week waits for a 10 minute appointment (and that will be
just for primary care). After that, expect to wait 6-12 months to see a specialist. 1 Reply
@José Franco I will not dig out social security trustees' projections of future
funding requirements or the possible solutions bandied about by politicians (google them),
but one single tweak would eliminate any projected shortfalls. Currently the FICA
contribution is limited to earnings of $132,900. Those who earn over that amount pay no FICA
tax on the earnings above that level. The person earning a million dollars in 2019 will stop
paying FICA on his earnings by mid-February. Applying FICA to all earnings of all earners
would keep social security solvent. No raise in retirement age, no reduction in benefits, no
insolvency. As to Medicare's solvency and public benefits, see the excellent comments of Len
Charlap. 17 Replies
There are several issues upon which I and my like-minded moderate family members will cast
our votes in 2020: - Border security and the end to the brazen exploitation of our citizenry
by the millions of foreign migrants who illegally, and with an attitude of entitlement,
trespass into our sovereign country year after year...costing our taxpayers billions. -
Reckless proposals to increase government benefit programs that aren't affordable without
raising taxes, threatening our already stressed social security safety net. - The rise of
Antisemitism and the mendacious obsession with Israel amongst leftists within Congress, as
well as within the ranks of their constituents. Democrats will need to address these issues
to our satisfaction if they want our votes. 2 Replies
Ed, it's time to retire. If you spent time looking at the actual data, Democratic primary
voters, particularly those in overly restrictive closed primary states like New York, are
older, wealthier, "socially liberal" and "fiscally conservative." They are what we would have
called moderate/Rockefeller Republicans 40 years ago, but they vote Democratic because that's
who their parents voted for. Most progressive voters today, the ones who support Medicare for
all, investment in public higher education, taxation on wealth (you know, those pesky issues
that mainstream Democrats used to support 30-40 years ago) are younger and more likely to be
unaffiliated with any political party. This is why Bernie did much better in states with open
primaries, and Hillary did better in closed primary states like NY AOC won in spite of NY's
restrictive primary system. She was able to achieve this because many of the older Democratic
establishment voters who would have voted for Crowley stayed home, and she was able to
motivate enough first-time young voters in her district to register as a Dem and vote for
her. (First time voters in NY can register with party 30 days prior to primary election)
Let's be clear though: your premise that Dem primary voters are driving the party's shift to
the left couldn't be further from the truth--the progressive shift in the body politic you
describe is coming from younger, independent, working class voters and is redefining the
American left.
From the NYT , Edsall April 19, 2018 The Democrats' Gentrification Problem "Conversely, in
the struggling Syracuse metropolitan area (Clinton 53.9 percent, Trump 40.1 percent),
families moving in between 2005 and 2016 had median household incomes of $35,219 -- $7,229
less than the median income of the families moving out of the region, $42,448." Syracuse, a
democratic City in one of the most democratic States in the US, so assuredly democratic that
Democratic Presidential candidates rarely show up has been left by the Democrats and the
Democratic Governor ,Cuomo, in a death spiral of getting poorer by the day That in a State,
that includes NYC, the international capital of the global billionaire elite. Exactly, what
have the Democrats done to help ?
"Sawhill argues that if the goal of Democrats is victory, as opposed to ideological purity,
they must focus on general election swing voters who are not die-hard Democrats." Wow, what
an original argument! I have been hearing the exact same thing since I registered to vote at
age 18 in 1977. Democrats are always urged to support the "sensible, centrist" candidates who
keep on losing elections to Republicans who drag their party, and the whole country by
default, even further to the right. JFK was called a communist and worse by pundits like this
and he would have won by a landslide in 1964. How about if Democrats for once push for
policies that are backed by 90 percent of Americans, like Medicare For All, the higher
minimum wage, universal college education, renewable energy and the rest of the Green New
Deal and higher marginal tax rates for the rich. I would love to see just one presidential
candidate run on this platform before I die so I can fill out my ballot without holding my
nose. 1 Reply
Kind of make sense considering how far to the right the Republican Party has gone with the
Donald. And he's a guy who was a Democrat at one point. He's a dangerous mr nobody. Let's
counter going far to the left so we can come back to some middle ground.
@Len Charlap Canada can also more easily afford universal healthcare and a stronger social
safety net because it doesn't have the outsized military budget that we do. 17 Replies
@Ronny I agree with you - have a subsidized education - (rather I prefer to say equal access
to education) as well as health care guarantees to a greater extent equality of opportunity -
which is what all democratic societies should strive for. It's not equality of outcome but
equality of opportunity. Children should not be punished for have parents of lesser means or
being born on the wrong side of the tracks...
Until I see well-crafted legislation that is initiated by her that will help improve the
lives of many she's just another politician with sound bite platitudes. She doesn't even have
a district office in the Bronx yet to the chagrin of many of the constituents.
@Midwest Josh Perhaps student loans made by the FED at the rates they charge the big banks in
their heist of the American economy achieved back in 1913. 38 Replies
AOC is a liberal darling who's stated (on 60 Minutes) that unemployment rates are low because
everyone is working two jobs; I might add, that has nothing to do with how unemployment rates
are figured and come on, "everyone?" And recently she's stated that the world will end in 12
years if we don't do something about climate change. Come on, this is silliness, ignorance
and borderline stupidity. If she's the poster child for the Democrats, then she's the gift
that will keep on giving to the GOP.
I grew up during the Vietnam War, and over the years came to admire the American people who
ultimately forced their government to withdraw from an immoral (and disastrous) military
adventure. This is rare in human history. Rare in American history too, as the follies in
Iraq drag on and on to remind us. Perhaps the American people are becoming themselves again.
I wouldn't call it drifting left at all.
Thomas Edsall's column is yet another conservative spin on Democrats from The New York Times.
Where are the voices of progressive Democrats, who form the overwhelming majority of New York
City residents? Of New York state residents? Who form the core of the Democratic Party's
support. The Times insists that these conservative voices are the only ones deserving of
publication here. Where in the world did the notion come from that The Times was a "liberal"
publication?
@Chris Young, It seems you aonly approve of departments that teach what you consider
"productive." If schools become an adjuct to the marketplace, then only the material,
quantifiable results will be the metric by which the value of education is measured. This
will leave us, as in some ways we are already becoming, a population that emulates robots,
and has no use for critical thinking, ethics, or art. The profit in education is in the
quality of the students it turns out into the world, not on a corporate balance sheet. 38
Replies
It's all good but important to expand the focus on the entirety of the Democrats in Congress
- and the amazing age range and gender mix. The opportunities are vast - an intergenerational
government of forward thinking, principled women and men. Please media pundits - avoid focus
on only 1 or 2. There are brilliant ideas pouring forth - let the ideas from every corner
flow! Remember that the intense media focus on Trump, liberal as well as conservative,
contributed significantly to what happened in election 2016.
If by liberal you mean the circular firing squad of the politics of aggrievement, no. My
politics fall in line with FDR's Second Bill of Rights. Here he describes them in 1944
https://youtu.be/3EZ5bx9AyI4
"...true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security & independence.
"Necessitous men are not free men." People who are hungry & out of a job are the stuff of
which dictatorships are made... We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under
which a new basis of security & prosperity can be established for all -- regardless of
station, race, or creed. Among these are: The right to a useful and remunerative job...; The
right to earn enough to provide adequate food & clothing & recreation; The right of
every farmer to raise & sell his products at a return which will give him & his
family a decent living; The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an
atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition & domination by monopolies at home or
abroad; The right of every family to a decent home; The right to adequate medical care &
the opportunity to achieve & enjoy good health; The right to adequate protection from the
economic fears of old age, sickness, accident & unemployment; The right to a good
education." That is where Democrats used to be. Then came the Corporate Democrats, the DLC
and the Clintons.
This piece misses more than it hits. Where it misses particularly is in it's insistence that
the Class interest of working class Democrats pulls the Party right, rather than left, and
that the insurgents are mostly young, white gentrifying liberals. This is not altogether
false, but misses that many of the gentrifiers are not middle class themselves, but lower
middle class young people with huge college debt who could never dream of living in upper
middle class enclaves like most of the opinion writers in the Time for example. So they move
into the inner city, make it safe for professionals, and then yes, Brooklyn goes white.
Harlem goes white. Berkeley loses its working class majority. Etc. The big problem for the
left of the Democratic Party is not that its mostly young, white and middle class; it is that
the very term "liberal" is now widely understood by working class people as meaning
"establishment." And they are against the "establishment". As it happens, so are the young
insurgents. This then is the task for the left of the Democrats; to unite the culturally
conservative working class with the emerging multi-racial, multi-ethnic youth vote to take
down both the reactionary Right and the Liberal establishment. And the only reason such a
sentiment seems crazy is that the New York Times, far from being a bastion of the resistance
to Trump is actually a bulwark of that Liberal Establishment. Stats are stats but the future
is unwritten.
AOC is pretty interesting. She's charismatic, fearless....and I'm trying to think of
something else. OH, she's personally attractive. If the government gig falls apart she can
probably get TV work. But as an intellectual light or a rational political leader -- she is
clearly lacking. OF course that may not matter as the earth will come to an end in 12 years.
Which is even more ludicrous than saying the earth is only 6000 years old. She is simply
spouting far left talking points which are driven by emotion, not rational thought. And she
keeps making unforced errors in her public speaking engagements. She really doesn't appear to
understand what she's talking about and can't respond to reasonable questions about her
policy positions. But then, that's not too unlike much of the left. So maybe she's a perfect
fit for a fact free faction which is beginning to run the dem party. 1 Reply
One commenter gave a really insightful look at socialism for corporations and the rich here,
otherwise known to most of us as corporate welfare, including subsidies to oil companies, who
seem rich enough, but nevertheless, extend their "impoverished" bank accounts for more of our
dollars. Successful corporations, will reward investors, CEO's, hedge fund managers, all
those at the top, but the worker, not too much for that drone, who was part of the reason of
the success of that corporation. Socialism has been tainted by countries with autocratic
rulers , uneducated masses, and ofttimes, as in Latin America, religious masses. But,
Scandinavia, has shown us a socialism to envy. It's confident citizens know that much of what
makes life livable has been achieved. Finland rates as one of the happiest countries in the
world. Taxes are high, but one isn't bankrupted because of illness, one doesn't lose a home
because of a catastrophic illness, education is encouraged, and one doesn't have to pay the
debt off for 30 years or more. The infrastructure is a priority, war is not. It just seems
like it's a secure way to live. This is socialism I wish we could duplicate. Does anyone
consider that socialism also includes our police, libraries, fire stations, roads, and so
much more? Used for the good of society, it's a boon for all, rather than unregulated
capitalism which enriches the few at the expense of most of us. 3 Replies
@Reilly Diefenbach "Democratic socialism" isn't a thing, but implies two contradictory
ideals. Social democracy is thing, a good thing, and in line with what Nordic nations have.
38 Replies
Never has someone gotta so much for doing so little. None of this means anything if it
doesn't become law. As a life long Liberal Democrat (there, I said it) myself, I find it
infuriating when Liberal/Progressive politicians get out-sized credit for their good
intentions while those same good intentions threaten party unity. The Progressive idea of
party unity seems to be limited to getting what they want or they'll walk away. They just
know better, so there's no need for compromise. Never mind that they have no way of enacting
any of this legislation -- and more often than not Progressives lose at the polls. These
"kids" need to wake up and realize that there are no moral victories in politics. The ONLY
goal of any Democrat has to be unseating Trump and McConnell, everything else is a noise, and
a dangerous distraction.
I support universal health care, free college for students who meet enhanced entrance
requirements and raising marginal tax rates to 70% on wealthy Americans. Yet I do not support
an expansion of the EITC, ending immigration enforcement or putting workers on boards of
directors. So where do I stand? All my life I've voted Democratic. But there has been a
seismic shift in politics. And after the shift I will most likely vote Republican or for a
third party. The issue that causes my change in affiliation is the Me Too movement. I find it
repugnant that feminists seem to argue that the media rather than the courts should determine
guilt or innocence in sexual assault cases. Bill Cosby had an agreement with Andrea Constand
in their case. But feminists weren't happy with the outcome. So they resorted to extra-legal
means to get Cosby convicted. This included a media campaign in which the NY Times and the
New Yorker wrote stories highlighting accusations of 60 women for which statutes of
limitations had elapsed. But statutes of limitations are there for a reason. This became
clear in the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh which degenerated into a trial for rape. Nobody
except maybe the accuser could remember in any detail events at the party in which the rape
had presumably occurred. So the confirmation became one of character assassination in which
Kavanaugh was convicted of drinking beer. I will NEVER vote for any politician who supports
the Me Too movement.
"... protection from the vicissitudes of market capitalism"? People want protection from
monopoly capitalism. The left-right frame is a fallacy. If you put the actual policies on the
table, the great majority want single payer, clean elections, action on climate change, etc.
Pitting Left v. Right only redounds to tribalism. It ends up with a President who shuts down
the business of which he himself is the CEO. That's not great.
"... The massive student-debt jubilee would be financed with a tax on Wall Street: Specifically, a 0.5% tax on stock trades, a 0.1% tax on bond trades and a .005% tax on derivatives trades. ..."
"... By introducing the student-debt plan, Sanders has outmaneuvered Elizabeth "I have a plan for that" Warren ..."
In his latest attempt to one-up Elizabeth Warren and establish his brand of "democratic
socialism" as something entirely different from the progressive capitalism practiced by some of
his peers, Bernie Sanders is preparing to unveil a new plan that would involve cancelling all
of the country's outstanding $1.6 trillion in student debt.
The massive student-debt jubilee would be financed with a tax on Wall Street:
Specifically, a 0.5% tax on stock trades, a 0.1% tax on bond trades and a .005% tax on
derivatives trades.
Additionally, Sanders' plan would also provide states with $48 billion to eliminate tuition
and fees at public colleges and universities. Thanks to the market effect, private schools
would almost certainly be forced to cut prices to draw talented students who could simply
attend a state school for free.
Reps Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Pramila Jayapal of Washington have already signed on to
introduce Sanders' legislation in the House on Monday.
The timing of this latest in a series of bold socialist policy proposals from Sanders -
let's not forget, Bernie is largely responsible for making Medicare for All a mainstream issue
in the Democratic Party - comes just ahead of the first Democratic primary debate, where
Sanders will face off directly against his No. 1 rival: Vice President Joe Biden, who has
marketed his candidacy as a return to the 'sensible centrism' of the Democratic Party of
yesteryear.
By introducing the student-debt plan, Sanders has outmaneuvered Elizabeth "I have a plan
for that" Warren and established himself as the most far-left candidate in the crowded
Democratic Primary field. Hopefully, this can help stall Warren's recent advance in the polls.
The plan should help Sanders highlight how Biden's domestic platform includes little in the way
of welfare expansion during the upcoming debate.
My federal student loan monthly statement says I don't have to make a payment. I don't
qualify for any forgiveness because I'm responsible. Nonetheless, I pay the loan every month.
The balance goes down but every month it's still the same story.
I have to imagine the provider prefers students to see that it says zero dollars owed this
month with the hope that they don't pay because it says 0 dollars owed, default, and rack up
a bunch of fees and interest that the student doesn't see in the fine print.
The provider can then get paid by the taxpayer no questions asked. Much more profit and
payment is significantly faster.
Education costs are in the stratosphere 'because' of conversion of univeristires into
neoliberal institution. Which mean that the costs will skyrocket even more.
Somebody once said: If the neoliberal government took over management of the Sahara
desert, in five years, there would be a shortage of sand.
The only way to rein in neoliberals in government is to stop giving them so damned much
money...
The guaranteed student loan program created a mechanism that increases the price of
education. Before the program, graduates could expect 10 times the cost of a years' tuition.
Now, they'de lucky to get one year. The Americans were pushed out of this business and the
UN-Americans replaced them. This goes on for decades until the marks realized that they've
been screwed. ... The victims are in full support since they've been systematically dumbed
down that it seems like a good idea. It's not. This is a bailout of a failed neoliberal
institution.
Establishment comedian Bill Maher warned that if 2020 Democrats run "a campaign based on reparations and concentration camps"
it will be "very hard to win the election" against President Trump.
Warren reintroduced the Refund Equality Act, a bill that would allow same-sex couples to
amend past tax returns and receive refunds from the IRS.
"The federal government forced legally married same-sex couples in Massachusetts to file
as individuals and pay more in taxes for almost a decade," Warren said in a statement.
"We need to call out that discrimination and to make it right - Congress should pass the
Refund Equality Act immediately."
"... Sanders supported Clinton too in the general election. He also actively campaigned for her. ..."
"... apples and oranges, Thomas and Herr, Would you care to defend her "posture" on NATO? Ditto, for her contributing to the "Evil Vlad" narrative? Israel?? Wiki: Warren states she supports a two state solution, but she believes Palestinian application for membership in the UN isn't helpful.[63] ..."
"... "Warren lied about her ancestry to circumvent diversity quotas. Why should anyone believe anything she has to say?" You are going to be told this a million times before 11/20 but that's bullshit. It's been well established that she didn't get any job because of that. ..."
"... "In the most exhaustive review undertaken of Elizabeth Warren's professional history, the Globe found clear evidence, in documents and interviews, that her claim to Native American ethnicity was never considered by the Harvard Law faculty, which voted resoundingly to hire her, or by those who hired her to four prior positions at other law schools. At every step of her remarkable rise in the legal profession, the people responsible for hiring her saw her as a white woman." ..."
"... With Warren and Sanders talking complete sense about our oligarchy, the electorate's expectations are going to improve. Nothing could be better. We've been asked to settle for Republican-lite servants of mammon for too long in the Democratic Party and that's going to change. ..."
"... Hell, if we're going to fine them for data breaches, do we start with the DNC? ..."
"... In a poll last week of 2,312 registered voters in South Carolina, Warren gained nine points to reach 17% compared to Biden's 37%. Among 18-34 year olds, Warren is leading 24% to Sanders' 19% and Biden's 17%. ..."
"... I keep hearing from the mainstream media that Biden is leading in the polls. But we ought to note that Biden's up against a group including Warren, Sanders, Harris etc who are pushing a progressive policies, and if you take their percentages together, Biden cannot compete. Once one of these progressive takes the lead in the group, and hires all the others as running mate, cabinet members etc, he or she will be unbeatable against both Biden and Trump. ..."
"... The latest of that polling features Sanders and Biden nearly neck and neck as far as approval goes. Funny you don't hear about that on CNN or MSNBC. ..."
"... American voters have spent so long being treated like idiots by politicians and to an even greater extent the press that Warren comes across as something new and interesting by comparison. ..."
"... This election won't be decided by defecting Trump voters. ..."
"... Those who would be swayed by Trump using "Pocahontas" as a slur or would even pay attention to it wouldn't vote for Warren anyway. He's not going to change any minds with it, just rile up his existing sheep. ..."
"... That's a very narrow view of her position on Israel. She also supported the Iran treaty, boycotting Netanyahu's speech to the Senate, called on Israel to stop colonizing the West Bank and to recognize the right of Palestinians in Gaza to peaceful protest – her comments about aggression toward Gaza were about Israeli response to missiles fired by Hamas. I don't mind her having a nuanced response to what is in fact a very complex situation. ..."
"... Nerd used to be just an insult, aimed at anyone more intelligent, thoughtful or better-informed than the speaker. But I think now, like 'queer' and other words, it has been reclaimed and repurposed in a much more positive light. ..."
Clinton said vote for me because I am a woman, Warren says vote for me because I am a potential leader who happens to be a woman.
Good luck to her and the US
Don't get me wrong. I would certainly vote for her, if needed. I believe she's quite green behind the ears on foreign policy and
how inequality is a global issue. Her backing of our entitled neoliberal wife of an ex-president & neocon dismayed me.
Sanders gets the bigger picture on poverty, race, and war/ neocolonialism:
if you wish: MLK Jr's take on "The Three Evils".
apples and oranges, Thomas and Herr, Would you care to defend her "posture" on NATO? Ditto, for her contributing to the "Evil
Vlad" narrative? Israel?? Wiki: Warren states she supports a two state solution, but she believes Palestinian application
for membership in the UN isn't helpful.[63]
In a town hall meeting in August 2014, Warren defended Israel's shelling of
schools and hospitals during that summer's Israel–Gaza conflict, stating that "when Hamas puts its rocket launchers next to hospitals,
next to schools, they're using their civilian population to protect their military assets. And I believe Israel has a right, at
that point, to defend itself". She also questioned whether future US aid to Israel should be contingent on the halting of Israeli
settlements in the West Bank.[64] In addition she defended her vote in favor of granting Israel $225 million to fund the Iron
Dome air defence system.[65]
While the 2020 election feels critical, the 2024 election will decide the future. Like Trump himself, his base is filled with
old people who are still loyal to Ronald Reagan's Republican Party. Old people watch FoxNews, old people vote, old people love
Trump and in 2016, old people decided the election.
Younger people do NOT vote. The younger someone is, the less likely they are to vote. However, young people voted for Obama,
twice, but when Hillary came along, they stayed home and let the old people choose the president.
And then, in 2018 the young voted again and we learned the next generation plans to take this country into the future. If the
young vote in 2020, Trump is toast. If the young stay home, Trump will see a second term.
However, by 2024 the young will assume their rightful place in history and the age of old white men running the country, and
the world will come to an end.
You are making assumptions that old people are idiots. Making assumptions that middle aged people do not exist or are small in
numbers. Trump gets 200 or so electoral votes. He loses. I don't see any case he wins. He is past his 'used by date' even for
Republicans. You loose Tx to the Ds its game over, add PA and OH to the list. It doesn't even matter what crazy FL man thinks.
Don't forget modern geriatric medicine, by which the dinosaurs in the senate and elsewhere in the hardening arteries of the US
body politic will live - and hold ofice - for even longer than Strom Thurmond. They can afford the private medical insurance to
pay for it.
By the way, MeRaffey , I hope you meant to omit to punctuate in your last phrase so that it would read: ... the age
of old white men running the country and the world will come to an end . Your comma has me worried.
Warren/Harris, said it before but it makes sense. I would've preferred Biden to Clinton but I can't see him getting the same turnout
as Warren. Opinions on Trump are now fixed, it's a red herring to worry about "firing up" Trump supporters, they are already as
fired up as they can get. Swing voters are probably going to vote by where the economy is which is out of our control. Ideally
Democrats will be just as fired up as Trumpists, the investigations will suppress their enthusiasm somewhat (though they wouldn't
care if he killed someone so...) and the coming Trump recession will be brought on by his trade wars and the blame will therefore
fall where it should.
Warren lied about her ancestry to circumvent diversity quotas. Why should anyone believe anything she has to say? Furthermore,
What exactly is she promising that is any different then any of the other radical leftists running right now? It's all "Free Stuff"
that she's going to make the rich pay for. Um..yeah, that always works out doesn't it? Who needs real math when fuzzy math makes
us believe the combined wealth of the richest Americans will finance all this "free" stuff to say nothing about why so many Americans
feel entitled to the earnings of others. Remember folks, if a politician says 2+2=6 then it must be true.
"Warren lied about her ancestry to circumvent diversity quotas. Why should anyone believe anything she has to say?" You are
going to be told this a million times before 11/20 but that's bullshit. It's been well established that she didn't get any job
because of that.
She claimed Native American ancestry on her application to Harvard, a job she got and it wasn't the first time she played this
card either. But hey, in a political party that loves to change races and genders and expects everyone else to go along with the
charade by all means go ahead and believe what you want to believe.
A lie, see Snopes, see any link you've been given each time you post this lie. She got it on merit.
"In the most exhaustive review undertaken of Elizabeth Warren's professional history, the Globe found clear evidence, in
documents and interviews, that her claim to Native American ethnicity was never considered by the Harvard Law faculty, which voted
resoundingly to hire her, or by those who hired her to four prior positions at other law schools. At every step of her remarkable
rise in the legal profession, the people responsible for hiring her saw her as a white woman."
With Warren and Sanders talking complete sense about our oligarchy, the electorate's expectations are going to improve. Nothing
could be better. We've been asked to settle for Republican-lite servants of mammon for too long in the Democratic Party and that's
going to change.
The danger, of course, is that in this transition period Biden gets nominated. However much centrists will clamor for voters
to hold their nose and vote for him, that's not an electoral strategy. Trump's best chance of winning is that Biden gets nominated
and the progressive base of the Democratic Party is totally demoralized and lacking energy by late 2020.
After the US public allowed themselves to be hypnotized by Trump's campaign of fatuous lies, empty promises and racist dog whistles,
I doubted the electorate possessed the wit to understand actual policies. Maybe they've finally woken up - time will tell.
Do you understand how elections work? The US public were hypnotized? He lost the popular vote. The fault lies with the Republican
establishment for letting him put the R after his name. Perot ran on essentially the same ticket back in 92 as a third party candidate.
He got 18% of the vote. Had he run as a Republican he could well have won.
Oh dear. The question is, do you know how US elections work? The popular vote is irrelevant. He's the 5th POTUS who lost
the popular vote. Almost 63 million hypnotized dolts voted for him, and he won - that's why he currently resides in the WH
Or neither "hypnotized" nor "dolts." The people I knew who voted for him in North Carolina thought he was an asshole. But they
wanted a conservative Supreme Court for the next two decades and he has delivered that for them. Why do you assume that people
on the right are idiots who don't know what they want? That essential presumption by the left is one of the reasons the left lost
last time.
As one who used to be a Warren supporter, I think she is both patronizing voters and pandering to them. These policies have some
detail, sure, but they don't deal with the consequences that Warren knows very well lurk in the wings and as a result they don't
necessarily make sense.
Her proposal for free college is one example – sounds great, while in reality it would benefit the better-off middle class
at the expense of the most vulnerable students and create a cascade of problems that she has no plans to fix.
Again, fining companies for data breaches? Surely we should fine them *if* they don't immediately report data breaches to their
customers– or maybe if they haven't maintained appropriate data security, although I'd love to see proving that one to a court.
Hell, if we're going to fine them for data breaches, do we start with the DNC?
PS To be clear, I'd still take her in a second over Fat Nixon, I just wish she would pander less and keep her plans to the sensible
and achievable, like her consumer protection bureau, which was a fantastic idea.
Yes, (politely) do you? The fines for HIPAA violation have to do with noncompliance with the act, not with an uncontrollable data
breach. The fines increase on a sliding scale if "willful neglect" has been found (the data were not properly secured) or if the
company delays in reporting a data breach/violation.
Yep - No more old white guys - just being disgusted by Trump is not enough - people want new ideas. EW all the way - with AOC
by her side as well hopefully.
There is nothing Trump fears more than the stigma of being a one term pres - his ego would implode.
Oh, I think he fears going to prison more. Michael Cohen was right – the minute Trump is no longer protected by the presidency
he is going to be facing charges, on tax evasion if nothing else. He will do anything to keep his protection for more years. He's
probably hoping to die in office. (I'd add something to that, but I don't want the Secret Service visiting me!)
The DNC is again placing it's foot on the scale in favor of Biden. I believe that they know Bernie is less likely to win because
of America's irrational fear of the word, "socialism." That's why they put Biden and Sanders on the stage together and pushed
out Elizabeth Warren to the other debate with lesser known and less popular candidates. They do not what her, with her solid plans,
to confront Biden, which would give her a greater boost in the polls and more recognition across the nation.
And who was watching the drawing? Who set up the drawing? Are you saying that there was independent oversight on its setup? Or
do you just take the DNC's word for it?
An inability to believe in coincidence will take you to some strange places. If Sanders and Warren drawn the same night you could
make an argument that Biden was getting set up to look good against the lightweight opponents. Or had Sanders drawn the undercard
that he was being marginalized. Warren will do fine either way. She's a great candidate. Biden isn't.
Biden rides high on President Obama's very long coat tails and Wall Street money even without detailed plans that actually help
the working class and the poor. Bernie is riding high on his honest fight for the working class and the poor.
Elizabeth Warren is rising fast because she not only agrees with Bernie on fighting for the working class and the poor,
but she has detailed plans that are holding up to independent economic scrutiny.
Both Warren and Sanders are honest in their fight for economic justice for all and recognize that the root cause of poverty
and lower middle class' struggle is corporate and wealthy-individual money in politics. They aim to stop it.
Biden claims he can negotiate with McConnell. Obama reached out to McConnell his entire term and drew back a nub. The same
will be true of Biden. For the Republicans and Trumpians, it's all about making Democrats fail no matter how much it hurts the
working class and the poor. Their propaganda network will always assist and sustain them by appealing to the emotions and prejudices
of millions of Americans.
Biden claims he can negotiate with McConnell. Obama reached out to McConnell his entire term and drew back a nub. The same
will be true of Biden.
The same will be true of any Democrat though. There is no way around it except by expanding the powers of the office
of the President, which is what has given Trump such a wide ability to repeal Obama-era policies.
Any Democrat coming up against a Republican Senate will have the same thing happen to them, although I can imagine the Republicans
will hate Biden marginally less than Obama given that he's not black.
There is no way around it except by expanding the powers of the office of the President, which is what has given Trump such
a wide ability to repeal Obama-era policies.
Not the first year of his presidency. His Republican Party controlled Congress and they mostly hated Obama as well. As long
as there was full control of congress, it was easy. It was not easy to remove the ACA because so many Americans liked it.
Now remember that the reasons Trump was appointed to office by the EC, was that enough far-right people voted, together with
the "conservative" media adding to Russia's concentration of propaganda in the key states (stats provided to the Russians by the
Trump campaign) and lifted him just enough to overcome the votes of ~3 million voters. Far more voters are now counting on voting
against him and for the best Democratic candidate.
Progressives do not want to expand the powers of the Oval Office. That is the wrong thing to do. True change for the better
can only come through the ballet box and by educating the voters to exactly why our government is dysfunctional and is replete
with corruption.
I think the most popular message to all voters (from farmers to all others in the working class) is that corporate and private
money in politics is the root cause of government corruption and dysfunction and why the collective wealth of the working class
is steadily redistributing to the uber-wealthy.
The only candidates who what to change the economy to a DEMAND-side economy is are those who actually and loudly advocate it.
But just voting for a progressive president while putting the "conservative" obstructionists (those who maintain the high capacity
money pipeline that runs from Wall Street to their pockets) back into Congress will mean the corruption and dysfunction will continue.
Voters must be replaced by a super-majority liberal/progressive Congress, and with that, Elizabeth Warren will make that change.
I think she also knows that she should've and easily could've been president right now. That strange piece yesterday, talking
about Biden and Sanders standing in front of good female candidates of today: leaving aside a keen Biden getting bullied out of
2016 by Clinton already having things sewn up, Sanders was notoriously late jumping into 2016 because he was waiting on Warren.
If Warren was going to run against the wretched Clinton, he wouldn't. Warren choked so Sanders had to do it himself. Warren must
know that she would have dismantled Crooked H and, seeing as Clinton was the only person who could've lost to el diablo naranja,
Warren would've hammered Trump too. Hence, Warren's got some making up to do and seems very determined.
She's always been my tip. If I was an American, I would vote for Tulsi Gabbard in a second but Warren is a strong candidate
and I always thought that her announcing on the last day of last year was going to give her licence to say to other candidates:
"I've been running since 2018!". Warren is the candidate that liars for Clinton tried to pretend that Clinton was. A note of caution,
though: someone posted a Republican survey of exactly four years ago yesterday. Bush was on 22%, Trump was polling 1%. Long time
to go yet.
In a poll last week of 2,312 registered voters in South Carolina, Warren gained nine points to reach 17% compared to
Biden's 37%. Among 18-34 year olds, Warren is leading 24% to Sanders' 19% and Biden's 17%.
I keep hearing from the mainstream media that Biden is leading in the polls. But we ought to note that Biden's up against
a group including Warren, Sanders, Harris etc who are pushing a progressive policies, and if you take their percentages together,
Biden cannot compete. Once one of these progressive takes the lead in the group, and hires all the others as running mate, cabinet
members etc, he or she will be unbeatable against both Biden and Trump.
There is no sure way of knowing how that would play out. You may be interested in looking at the Morning Consult Poll, which comes
out weekly. If you scroll down to Second Choices... it gives possible outcomes for where votes may fall. According to MC poll
the 2nd choice for Sanders voters is Biden, 2nd for Biden is Sanders, 2nd for Warren is Harris, 2nd for Buttigieg is Biden, and
2nd for Harris is Biden. The poll also shows results for early primary states, if you click on "Early Primary States". https://morningconsult.com/2020-democratic-primary
/
Only one question: are these the same polls that were running in ninth 2016? And if they are why do we give a crap what any of
them say since we know they are all horribly wrong?
The latest of that polling features Sanders and Biden nearly neck and neck as far as approval goes. Funny you don't hear about
that on CNN or MSNBC.
It's clear to me that the US public want action, and that means progressive policies. They were conned last time into thinking
Trump represented change. But a Hillary Mark II candidate such as Biden will lead to another Trump victory.
American voters have spent so long being treated like idiots by politicians and to an even greater extent the press that Warren
comes across as something new and interesting by comparison.
There is no doubt that Warren is the best policy brain in the Democratic Party. She also has some good ideas, and some not so
good ones.
Were I American, I would be tempted to vote for her. But her candidacy is hopeless. It may be unfair, but the Pocahontas issue
will kill her bid stone dead in the general election. Trump would be licking his chops over a Warren run.
Those who would be swayed by Trump using "Pocahontas" as a slur or would even pay attention to it wouldn't vote for Warren
anyway. He's not going to change any minds with it, just rile up his existing sheep.
That's a very narrow view of her position on Israel. She also supported the Iran treaty, boycotting Netanyahu's speech to
the Senate, called on Israel to stop colonizing the West Bank and to recognize the right of Palestinians in Gaza to peaceful protest
– her comments about aggression toward Gaza were about Israeli response to missiles fired by Hamas. I don't mind her having a
nuanced response to what is in fact a very complex situation.
Warren has treated voters as adults, smart enough to handle her wonky style of campaigning. Instead of spoon-feeding prospective
voters soundbites, Warren is giving them heaps to digest – and her polling surge shows that voters appreciate the nerdy policy
talk.
If talking sense and enunciating real policies is regarded as "wonky"and "nerdy"in the USA then Warren doesn't have a hope and
Trump is a shoe-in.
Nerd used to be just an insult, aimed at anyone more intelligent, thoughtful or better-informed than the speaker. But I think
now, like 'queer' and other words, it has been reclaimed and repurposed in a much more positive light.
Mr. Biden had
support from 32% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents - in line with his 33%
support from last month.
Ms.
Warren , meanwhile, is now at 15% - up 5 points from last month - and Mr. Sanders was at 14%
support.
... ... ...
The Monmouth survey of 306 registered voters who identified themselves as Democrats or
Democratic leaners was taken from June 12-17 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 5.6
percentage points.
... ... ...
And a new survey from the firm Avalanche Strategy
found that when the notion of "electability" was taken off the table, Ms. Warren was the top choice of
Democratic voters at 21%, followed by Mr. Biden and Mr. Sanders at 19% apiece.
"... There's a simple reason for Warren's sudden rise in the polls : the public has an appetite for policy. Of all the Democratic candidates, Warren's campaign has been by far the most ideas-driven and ambitious in its policy proposals. And voters love it. ..."
"... Week in and week out, she has been crisscrossing the country to tell receptive voters her ideas for an ultra-millionaire tax, student debt cancellation and breaking up big tech. She has also weighed in on reproductive rights, vaccines, the opioid crisis and algorithmic discrimination in automated loans. Her bevy of white papers demonstrates that there isn't a policy area Warren won't touch and she isn't worried about repelling anyone with hard-hitting proposals. ..."
"... Better than any other candidate, Warren has articulated a connection between her personal and professional struggles and her ideas, lending an air of authenticity to her campaign. Her backstory – teacher turned reluctant stay-at-home mom turned Harvard Law School professor – clearly resonates with voters in important states such as Iowa and South Carolina. ..."
"... Rule of thumb that is true for all politicians regardless of party. Most of what they promise they will do will never happen and much of does happen does not occur in the way they promised when they campaigned. ..."
n Friday, the Massachusetts senator
Elizabeth Warren co-sponsored a bill to impose mandatory fines on companies that have data
breaches. It was the kind of consumer welfare legislation that in the past would have been
unremarkable. But in an era when Congress has consistently shirked its duty to shield
consumers, the bill stood out.
The legislation capped a week in which Warren surged in the polls. Less than eight months
before the Iowa caucus, Warren is making strides in 2020 primary polls. According to an
NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey of 1,000 adults, 64% of Democratic primary voters in
June were enthusiastic or comfortable with Warren, compared with 57% in March. Fewer of these
voters were enthusiastic or comfortable with Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, who have
lost 11 and six points, respectively, since March.
There's more. In a poll last week of 2,312 registered voters in South Carolina, Warren
gained nine points to reach 17% compared to Biden's 37%. Among 18-34 year olds, Warren is
leading 24% to Sanders' 19% and Biden's 17%.
There's a simple reason for Warren's sudden rise in the polls: the public has an appetite
for policy
There's a simple reason for
Warren's sudden rise in the polls : the public has an appetite for policy. Of all the
Democratic candidates, Warren's campaign has been by far the most ideas-driven and ambitious in
its policy proposals. And voters love it.
Rather than condescend to voters, like most politicians, Warren has treated voters as
adults, smart enough to handle her wonky style of campaigning. Instead of spoon-feeding
prospective voters soundbites, Warren is giving them heaps to digest – and her polling
surge shows that voters appreciate the nerdy policy talk.
Indeed, since Warren declared her candidacy for president, she has been offering policy
prescriptions for our country's most pressing ailments – and she hasn't been
brainstorming in a bubble.
Week in and week out, she has been crisscrossing the country to tell receptive voters her
ideas for an ultra-millionaire tax, student debt cancellation and breaking up big tech. She has
also weighed in on reproductive rights, vaccines, the opioid crisis and algorithmic
discrimination in automated loans. Her bevy of white papers demonstrates that there isn't a
policy area Warren won't touch and she isn't worried about repelling anyone with hard-hitting
proposals.
Better than any other candidate, Warren has articulated a connection between her personal
and professional struggles and her ideas, lending an air of authenticity to her campaign. Her
backstory – teacher turned reluctant stay-at-home mom turned Harvard Law School professor
– clearly resonates with voters in important states such as Iowa and South Carolina.
That sense of reciprocity has turned Warren into a populist rock star. Instead of appealing
to the lowest common denominator among the voting public, she's listening to and learning from
voters in an ideas-driven campaign that doesn't take voters for granted.
The strategy is paying off – and proving wrong the outdated political wisdom that
Americans don't care about the intricacies of government.
In May, Warren traveled to Kermit, West Virginia, the heart of Trump country, to pitch a
$2.7bn-a-year plan to combat opioid addiction.
"Her stance is decisive and bold," Nathan Casian-Lakes
told CBS News . "She has research and resources to back her ideas."
Jill Priluck's reporting and analysis has appeared in
the New Yorker, Slate, Reuters and elsewhere
I've decided that I want to see Warren as President. She is honest and has many good ideas
about the economy and offering a leg up to minorities and the poor. Her integrity is
unimpeachable. I have donated small sums to her campaign. Bernie has not spoken in detail the
way Warren has although his democratic socialism goes in a positive direction. There are many
voters who feel that he is too old. I hope that he will approve Warren as the best candidate
in the running. Biden's moment is long gone. For now I believe that another recession lurks
in the near future and Warren, as a wonk, is the best person to deal with it.
She also does not take a dime of PAC money, which helps keep her mind cleared of hidden
agendas. Because of that, she is the first candidate who campaign I've donated to.
Rule of thumb that is true for all politicians regardless of party. Most of what they promise
they will do will never happen and much of does happen does not occur in the way they
promised when they campaigned.
In the case of Sen Warren she talks a lot of wonderful stuff,
paid by rich people. Expect the same results. The courts will probably shoot down the wealth
tax as described by Warren anyway which means everything she promises just dies.
Technocratic, neoliberal, Clinton Democrat ideas which have already proven to fail.
She's for the working class, so long as that working class wears a white collar.
but she declared that she will take "the money" in the general election if she wins the nomination. Do you expect that money
to come with no strings attached. Clearly this video
implied that she knows differently.
This video shows that as a member of Congress she is cognizant of the "as Senator Clinton, the pressures are very different"
Warren knows EXACTLY what she is doing when she says she will take the money in the general if nominated.
Okay, Warren made a mistake in claiming Native American heritage, which enabled her to
advance professionally as a "diversity" candidate. But that would have to count as a venial
not mortal sin. She is doing considerable good on the campaign trail, and I believe that she
means to try to follow through on her detailed promises.
"... 780 billion per year on defense without a enemy in sight, and no nation spending a tenth that, seems to be a place one could get a dollar or two. ..."
"... As Chomsky notes in 'manufacturing consent', the mass media that is not 'Right' is 'Centrist' and will support a centrist candidate over one advocating more radical change. ..."
"... Here's an idea. If Warren was a true progressive she wouldn't have been a registered Republican for 5 years, and she would have endorsed Bernie over Hillary in the 2016 primaries. ..."
Her backstory – teacher turned reluctant stay-at-home mom turned Harvard Law
School professor – clearly resonates with voters in important states such as Iowa and
South Carolina.
Working people who are struggling in Iowa and South Carolina say: "She's just like
us!"
Please expand upon the "Constitutional issues of a wealth tax".
Looks pretty clear to me.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 1: The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes,
Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general
Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout
the United States.
"Please expand upon the "Constitutional issues of a wealth tax".
"Looks pretty clear to me."
The point is that the question would go to a Republican Supreme Court which could indeed
find a wealth tax unconstitutional. If you want to know why, do a search. There's lots
written on it.
I don't know. Seems a lot more substance this go round than the last, near as I can tell.
Last go round climate change got one question and 45 seconds in response, by both candidates
in the general. The media certainly wants and will allow that to happen, but any dem who does
would be a idiot.
Seems last go round gender preference was a main thing. Warren will I think not fall into
that trap. White male midwestern industrial voters are at large, what lost HRC key states,
she took for granted. White male voters and usually their spouses, will not have a part of a
program that seems to leave them out of things.
Substance is the name of the game for warren, but to counter Trump one needs to throw out the barbs as well, as she did in
her twitter post on not being on his propaganda outlet Fox.
"I won't do a town hall with Fox News because I won't invite millions of Democratic primary
voters to tune in, inflate ratings, and help sell ads for an outlet that profits from racism
and hate. If you agree, sign our petition.
Yes that is Elizabeth Warren calling them racists and haters. A guy like Trump calls names
and it is par for the course. A woman who conducts herself as your local librarian or grade
school teacher, and you have to take pause and listen, is there substance to this? Seems
there is.
This new Elizabeth Warren, name calling and all, I find must more to my liking than that
before. Which is the why to her newfound popularity. Substance and calling a pig a pig not a
dog or some other thing.
I think you made a good case. she isn't my favorite but still acceptable.
In no particular order, for me it is Gabbard, Sanders, Williamson, Warren or Yang. the other
18 would be like voting for the GOP with some protection against the conservative slant on
social issues.
The right wingers that post here won't debate me because I'll expose them. They know how
the system works and they use it to their advantage. Socialism is about getting free stuff
but the issue here is who gets the free stuff. Supply side econ says that the rich are
entitled to the free stuff and the less fortunate aren't entitled to it. this is killing
upward mobility.
Iceland, Denmark and Sweden repealed their wealth taxes because they don't work. The
Scandinavian countries pay for their safety net by embracing capitalism and taxing the hell
out of everyone. Maybe we should embrace that model? Or does Warren's base simply all of the
benefits of that system without paying for it?
They're not similar countries to the USA, at all. US citizens are taxed no matter where they
choose to live on earth. This is not the case in most countries.
The Scandinavian countries pay for their safety net by embracing capitalism and taxing
the hell out of everyone. Maybe we should embrace that model?
It would be a hell of a lot better than the government acting as the paymaster for large
corporations - paying their workers with food stamps because the corporations don't pay them
sufficiently to live on.
You do know that is how the US works, right? Corporations don't pay their workers enough, so
the government (i.e. taxpayers) pick up the tab.
To add the average family of four, assuming one stays with the kids so they do not pay day
care costs, at Walmart earning a average salary , is eligible for federal food assistance and
in most states, Medicaid.
California for several decades paid for most of kids college education and even today, New
Mexico does the same. New Mexico is indeed one of the poorest states, and if they figured out
how to do that(under a republican governor years ago), most places could. The tax rate here
is about on average, no higher than most.
780 billion per year on defense without a enemy in sight, and no nation spending a tenth
that, seems to be a place one could get a dollar or two.
Smart and lucid. All the right ideas, without using the " S " word that people in the
USA do not really understand, and have a big fear of
I'd extent that from "The USA" to "The USA & the editorial staff of most papers in
England", and include some writers for this paper in that catchall.
'Socialist' Sanders and 'Left Wing' Labour as personified by Corbyn are all very well as
useful poles to beat the Right with in polemics, but when it looks like they might actually
gain access to the corridors of power, suddenly they become villains that have to be defeated
so that sensible 'moderates' can retain power....
Warren was receiving more support from this particular paper even before she announced her
candidacy than Sanders has or I suspect will even if he gains the nomination.
As Chomsky notes in 'manufacturing consent', the mass media that is not 'Right' is
'Centrist' and will support a centrist candidate over one advocating more radical change.
Those labels are totally irrelevant in the USA. Calling someone 'right' or 'left' or
'socialist' in the USA has nothing to do with dictionary definitions. They all mean to say
one thing: I disagree with them because they're wrong.
On Friday, the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren co-sponsored a bill to impose
mandatory fines on companies that have data breaches.
Warren is the politician who operates like a blind-folded person desperately trying to hit
a pinata. In her political realm, such companies simply twist in the wind and make easy
targets. Her policy is equivalent to any store or home being burglarized and then being fined by
government for being a victim of crime. Complete mindlessness describes the policy.
Yes. Of course every politician should simply lie down and let the corporations get away with
every damn thing. I mean, that's worked really well for most Americans since Reagan.
Agreed that is a stupid policy.
If the company suffers a data breach owing to poor security or conceals or unduly delays
disclosure of the data breach, then it would make sense to fine the company or to hold the
company civilly liable to those injured by the data breach. But a blanket fine for any company that suffers a data breach is dumb.
The Labor party in Australia surprised me with the boldness and coherency of their plans and
it was a great thing to see a party running a campaign on ideas and principles.
They lost the election.
Here's an idea. If Warren was a true progressive she wouldn't have been a registered
Republican for 5 years, and she would have endorsed Bernie over Hillary in the 2016
primaries.
What a really stupid thing to write and think. Do you have any inkling of the history of the
Republican and Democratic parties? I was born in a Republican household (progressive) and it
took me living overseas for 20 years to realize what a nasty little insurgency had taken the
Republicans from what Teddy Roosevelt championed to what he described as swine; the
Dixiecrats. Ignorance is not bliss no matter how hard you try to pretend.
One thing that needs to be done involves an honest discussion about the costs of Warren's
proposals and the fact that the US already has a $22 TRILLION national debt with more than $1
TRILLION being added each year at a minimum. A former US Comptroller General stated in 2015
that even the official National Debt figure is a misrepresentation and that taking into
account an honest understanding of the nation's actual legal obligations the figure was
actually $65 TRILLION.
If anyone wants to see it even worse just look at economist Lawrence Kotlikoff's infinite horizon estimates that placed future already promised commitments at
$220 TRILLION. My point is that Warren and everyone else in the DC political establishment,
is "blowing smoke" and that the US is bankrupt and needs a serious strategy to mitigate that
fact rather than reckless proposals aimed to attract votes.
That is not going to happen and
the country is in a fundamental financial crisis.
Its repinlicans who increase your deficits. Reagan believed deficits don't matter.
The bush tax cuts...and now Trumps tax cuts and QE. He's expanding credit, which looks like
real growth, but is it? Only the US can do this, because it runs the global dollar. We should
have had the Bankor. But the yanks ensured that did not happen.
Nobody expects Congress to deliver on a president's campaign promises. That's not how
the system works.
True. We use to call it "obstructionist" when the other party in congress
unreasonably opposed a president's proposals. We no longer use that term, though. Now we call
it "resistance". I'm sure there are at least a few republicans who see being part of the
"resistance" exciting if Warren wins the White House.
At first I thought she must be mad, running for president. Then I started listening to her
ideas and looking at how they were being received.
There are millions of young people, youngish people, and parents whose lives would actually
be changed by her college loan plan. Even conservatives admit that "her math is correct" and
"it's doable."
Then I started watching her in town halls and found her to be VERY different from that
awkward lady in the kitchen having a beer. She's warm, direct, funny, casually
self-deprecating, and easily able to translate complex ideas into readily understood ones.
Free college and health care, and the rich pay. Who wouldn't get on board with that?
Well, since you asked. I don't have any student debt and I don't need any more
health care. If we are buying votes with "free" stuff, what do I get for free?
I do like a good brisket. Can we carve out some of that tax on those nasty millionaires
for my grocery fund?
Well, as a rock ribbed Republican, you only one choice.
Not applicable since I'm not a republican. I did vote for Trump, after voting
for Obama twice. I'm an independent, and we outnumber either republicans or democrats.
For me it's a toss-up between Warren and Sanders. When it comes to who will actually get to
run against Trump, if a dining room set and 4 chairs gets the Democratic nomination, they get
my vote in the general election.
The fix is already in I think. Your table and chairs name is Sleepy Joe Biden.
Of course, it's still a long time to the election and mortality rates may kick in.
Warren is rising fast because A) she stands for something and B) she does an excellent job of
explaining how America can make the journey from where it is (including rampant inequality)
to where it needs to be to offer a future to all its people, not just to those who are white,
rich and privileged! Plus, she is super smart & sassy!
For her entire career, Warren's singular focus has been the growing fragility of America's
middle class. She made the unusual choice as a law professor to concentrate relentlessly on
data, and the data that alarms her shows corporate profits creeping up over the last 40 years
while employees' share of the pie shrinks. This shift occurred, Warren argues, because in the
1980s, politicians began reworking the rules for the market to the specifications of
corporations that effectively owned the politicians. In Warren's view of history, "The constant
tension in a democracy is that those with money will try to capture the government to turn it
to their own purposes." Over the last four decades, people with money have been winning, in a
million ways, many cleverly hidden from view. That's why economists have estimated that the
wealthiest top 0.1 percent of Americans now own nearly as much as the bottom 90 percent.
As a presidential candidate, Warren has rolled out proposal after proposal to rewrite the
rules again, this time on behalf of a majority of American families. On the trail, she says "I
have a plan for that" so often that it has turned into a T-shirt slogan. Warren has plans
(about 20 so far, detailed and multipart) for making housing and child care affordable,
forgiving college-loan debt, tackling the opioid crisis, protecting public lands, manufacturing
green products, cracking down on lobbying in Washington and giving workers a voice in selecting
corporate board members. Her grand overarching ambition is to end America's second Gilded
Age.
"Ask me who my favorite president is," Warren said. When I paused, she said, "Teddy
Roosevelt." Warren admires Roosevelt for his efforts to break up the giant corporations of his
day -- Standard Oil and railroad holding companies -- in the name of increasing competition.
She thinks that today that model would increase hiring and productivity. Warren, who has called
herself "a capitalist to my bones," appreciated Roosevelt's argument that trustbusting was
helpful, not hostile, to the functioning of the market and the government. She brought up his
warning that monopolies can use their wealth and power to strangle democracy. "If you go back
and read his stuff, it's not only about the economic dominance; it's the political influence,"
she said.
What's crucial, Roosevelt believed, is to make the market serve "the public good." Warren
puts it like this: "It's structural change that interests me. And when I say structural, the
point is to say if you get the structures right, then the markets start to work to produce
value across the board, not just sucking it all up to the top."
Warren (D)(1): "Elizabeth Warren to introduce bill cancelling up to $50,000 in student debt
for most borrowers" [
MarketWatch ]. "The Democratic Senator of Massachusetts plans to introduce legislation in
the coming weeks that mirrors her presidential campaign proposal
Under the proposal
Warren released as part of her presidential campaign in April, borrowers with a household
income of less than $100,000 would have $50,000 of their student debt cancelled and borrowers
with an income between $100,000 and $250,000 would be eligible for some student debt
cancellation -- though not the full $50,000. Borrowers earning $250,000 or more would receive
no debt cancellation.
Her campaign estimated the plan would cost $640 billion, which would be paid through a tax
on the ultra-wealthy." • I don't think it makes sense to introduce free college without
giving relief to those who, because they chose to be born at the wrong time, are subject to a
lifetime of debt, so kudos to Warren.
That said, note the complex eligibility requirements; Warren just can't help herself. Also,
of course, you can drown in an inch of water, so pragmatically, even $50,000 might not mean all
that much, especially since servicers gotta servicer.
Warren (D)(2): "Elizabeth Warren's plan to pass her plans" (interview) [Ezra Klein,
Vox ]. Klein: "Do you think that there's a way to sequence your agenda such that you're
building momentum as opposed to losing it?" Warren: "Here's my theory: It starts now. That's
what true grassroots building is about. Green New Deal. More and more people are in that fight
and say that matters to me. Medicare-for-all, that fight that matters to me [No, it doesn't.
–lambert]. As those issues over the next year and a quarter get clearer, sharper, they're
issues worth fighting for, and issues where we truly have leadership on it, have people out
there knocking doors over it . You asked me about my theory about this. This is the importance
of engaging everyone. The importance not just of talking to other senators and representatives
but the importance of engaging people across this country." • This language seems awfully
vague, to me. For example, when Sanders says "Not me, us," I know there's a campaign structured
to back the words up. I don't get that sense with Warren. I also know that Sanders knows who
his enemies are ("the billionaires"). Here again, Warren feels gauzy to me ("the wealthy"). And
then there's this. Warren: "I believe in markets But markets without rules are theft." This is
silly. Markets with rules can be theft too! That's what
phishing equilibria are all about! (And the Bearded One would would argue that labor
markets under capitalism are theft , by definition.) But I'd very much
like to hear the views of readers less jaundiced than I am. Clearly Warren has a complex piece
of policy in her head, and so she and Klein are soul-mates.
Warren (D)(1): [Team Warren, Medium ]. "The
rising cost of rent reflects a basic supply-and-demand problem. There aren't enough places to
rent that are affordable to lower-income families. That's because developers can usually turn
bigger profits by building fancier new units targeted at higher-income families rather than
units targeted at lower-income families. The result is a huge hole in the marketplace."
•
I'm not a housing maven by any stretch of the imagination, but I think a story that doesn't
consider the role of private equity in snapping up distressed housing after the Crash is likely
to be a fairy tale.
Warren (D)(2): "The Memo: Warren's rise is threat to Sanders" [
The Hill ]. "'She certainly does seem to be taking votes away from him,' said Democratic
strategist Julie Roginsky. 'It seems as if, as she is rising, he is falling.'" • The
national averages don't show that.
"... As it is, it seems that the corporate Democrats and Clintonites new strategy is to promote Warren and then start leaning on
her heavily in an effort to convert Warren to the neoliberal "dark side" or have her not be a problem for them. ..."
"... Her stance on single payer is troubling and telling, and her foreign policy positions and worldview are absolutely atrocious.
She has good policy ideas (not great political instincts), but none of the ideas at the present time have movements behind them and
would need those movements to push them through. ..."
"... As for Warren, I believe she could have value in a narrowly defined (finance-related) role in a Sanders administration. I will
not vote for her for president. Her foreign policy is atrocious, she doesn't support single payer, and she has proven herself to be
a garden variety neoliberal on all but her own niche issues. ..."
As it is, it seems that the corporate Democrats and Clintonites new strategy is to promote Warren and then start leaning
on her heavily in an effort to convert Warren to the neoliberal "dark side" or have her not be a problem for them.
Warren has unfortunately shown just how easy it is to get her to back down under pressure and there is also the fact that she
has been willing to carry water for the Clintonites before to advance her own political career like she did in the 2016 election.
At this point, I would seriously consider Yang to be my third choice after Sanders and Gabbard if it came down to it. Warren
would probably be either incapable or unwilling to face any serious political opposition either from Trump or neoliberal Democrats
and would probably cave.
Her stance on single payer is troubling and telling, and her foreign policy positions and worldview are absolutely atrocious.
She has good policy ideas (not great political instincts), but none of the ideas at the present time have movements behind them
and would need those movements to push them through.
Is she the person to lead movements and to help them grow? I can't see anyone making that case. She has had an impact on issues,
with the CFPB, which is good, but that was her work within academia. Different animal than actual movement building. Here, we
have single payer and she has backtracked.
So, changes that may happen down the road, great. At least provides some alternatives and possibly a path from here to there.
But, the fights we could win in the shorter term? Waffles. No thanks. I think she can play a great role in her current position
or if Bernie were to win, in his administration, but I think she would be very problematic as a general election nominee. Just
my opinion. I like her more than Biden and a number of others running but that says more about them than her.
The first thought that entered my mind when I saw that quote from Biden was that he really is suffering from cognitive decline.
As for Warren, I believe she could have value in a narrowly defined (finance-related) role in a Sanders administration.
I will not vote for her for president. Her foreign policy is atrocious, she doesn't support single payer, and she has proven herself
to be a garden variety neoliberal on all but her own niche issues.
The only candidates besides Sanders I would vote for (Gabbard and Gravel) have less chance of getting the nomination than he
does. If Sanders is not the Democratic nominee, I will once again be voting Green.
"... "When the modern corporation acquires power over markets, power in the community, power over the state and power over belief, it is a political instrument, different in degree but not in kind from the state itself. To hold otherwise -- to deny the political character of the modern corporation -- is not merely to avoid the reality. It is to disguise the reality. The victims of that disguise are those we instruct in error." ..."
"There
was time when average Americans could be counted upon to know correctly whether the country was going up or down, because in those
days when America prospered, the American people prospered as well. These days things are different.
Let's look at it in a statistical sense. If you look at it from the middle of the 1930's (the Depression) up until the year
1980, the lower 90 percent of the population of this country, what you might call the American people, that group took home 70
percent of the growth in the country's income. If you look at the same numbers from 1997 up until now, from the height of the
great Dot Com bubble up to the present, you will find that this same group, the American people, pocketed none of this country's
income growth at all.
Our share of these great good times was zero, folks. The upper ten percent of the population, by which we mean our country's
financiers and managers and professionals, consumed the entire thing. To be a young person in America these days is to understand
instinctively the downward slope that so many of us are on."
Thomas Frank, Kansas City Missouri, 6 April 2017
"When the modern corporation acquires power over markets, power in the community, power over the state and power over belief,
it is a political instrument, different in degree but not in kind from the state itself. To hold otherwise -- to deny the political
character of the modern corporation -- is not merely to avoid the reality. It is to disguise the reality. The victims of that
disguise are those we instruct in error."
John Kenneth Galbraith
One of the older male anchors on financial TV today noted, in a very condescending tone, that for some reason Elizabeth Warren
'has an attitude' when it comes to corporations.
I hope she and some of her like minded fellows get their opportunity to extend the hand of equal justice to these smug serial
felons, pampered polecats, and corporatist clowns. It has been a long time coming.
"... "I feel duped," said the voter, Renee Elliott, who was laid off from her job at the Indianapolis Carrier plant. "I don't have a lot of faith in political candidates much anymore. They make promises. They make them and break them." ..."
"... Warren rose to her feet. "The thing is, you can't just wave your arms," the she said, gesturing energetically. "You've really got to have a plan – and I do have a plan." ..."
"... But despite the burst of momentum, Warren's path to the nomination has two major roadblocks: Sanders and Biden. Her success will depend on whether she can deliver a one-two punch: replacing Sanders as the progressive standard bearer while building a coalition broad enough to rival Biden. ..."
"... "She sounds like Donald Trump at his best," conservative Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson told his largely Republican audience as he read from Warren's proposal during the opening monologue of his show this week. The plan calls for "aggressive intervention on behalf of American workers" to boost the economy and create new jobs, including a $2tn investment in federal funding in clean energy programs. ..."
"... His praise was all the more surprising because Warren has vowed not to participate in town halls on Fox News, calling the network a "hate-for-profit racket that gives a megaphone to racists and conspiracists" ..."
The senator's 'I have a plan' mantra has become a rallying cry as she edges her way to the
top – but is it enough to get past the roadblocks of Biden and Sanders?
Elizabeth Warren at a campaign rally in Fairfax, Virginia, on 16 May. Photograph: Cliff
Owen/AP Plan by plan, Elizabeth Warren is making inroads
and gaining on her rivals in the 2020 Democratic race to take on Donald Trump.
This week a Morning Consult poll saw Warren break
into the double digits at 10%, putting her in third place behind Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden.
A recent
Economist/YouGov poll found Warren was making gains among liberal voters, with Democrats
considering the Massachusetts senator for the Democratic presidential nomination in nearly
equal measure with Sanders.
Her intense campaigning on a vast swathe of specific issues has achieved viral moments on
the internet – even including one woman whom
Warren advised on her love life – as well as playing well during recent television
events.
At a televised town hall in Indiana this week, Warren listened intently as a woman who voted
for Trump in 2016 described her disillusionment – not only with a president who failed to
bring back manufacturing jobs as he said he promised but with an entire political system
stymied by dysfunction.
"I feel duped," said the voter, Renee Elliott, who was laid off from her job at the
Indianapolis Carrier plant. "I don't have a lot of faith in political candidates much anymore.
They make promises. They make them and break them."
Warren rose to her feet. "The thing is, you can't just wave your arms," the she said,
gesturing energetically. "You've really got to have a plan – and I do have a plan."
That mantra – a nod to the steady churn of policy blueprints Warren's campaign has
released – has become a rallying cry for Warren as she edges her way to the top of the
crowded Democratic presidential primary field.
But despite the burst of momentum, Warren's path to the nomination has two major roadblocks:
Sanders and Biden. Her success will depend on whether she can deliver a one-two punch:
replacing Sanders as the progressive standard bearer while building a coalition broad enough to
rival Biden.
Warren began that work this week with a multi-stop tour of the midwest designed to show her
strength among working class voters who supported Trump. Ahead of the visit, Warren unveiled a
plan she described as "economic patriotism", which earned startling praise from one of Trump's
most loyal supporters.
"She sounds like Donald Trump at his best," conservative Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson
told his largely Republican audience as he read from Warren's proposal during the opening
monologue of his show this week. The plan calls for "aggressive intervention on behalf of
American workers" to boost the economy and create new jobs, including a $2tn investment in
federal funding in clean energy programs.
His praise was all the more surprising because Warren has vowed not to participate in town
halls on Fox News, calling the network a "hate-for-profit racket that gives a megaphone to
racists and conspiracists".
The debate over whether
Democrats should appear on Fox News for a town hall has divided the field. Sanders, whose
televised Fox News town hall generated the highest viewership of any such event, argued
that it is important to speak to the network's massive and heavily Republican audience.
As Warren courts working-class voters in the midwest, she continues to focus heavily on the
early states of Iowa and New Hampshire. After jumping into the race on New Year's Eve 2018,
Warren
immediately set to work , scooping up talent and building a massive
operation in Iowa. Her campaign is betting a strong showing in the first in the nation
caucuses will propel her in New Hampshire, which neighbors Massachusetts, and then boost her in
Nevada and South Carolina.
But as Warren gains momentum, moderate candidates are becoming more vocal about their
concern that choosing a nominee from the party's populist wing will hand Trump the
election.
"If we want to beat Donald Trump and achieve big progressive goals, socialism is not the
answer," former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper told Democrats in California last weekend.
Though his comments were met with boos and jeers among the convention's liberal crowd, his
warning is at the heart of the debate over who should be the Democratic presidential
nominee.
Warren has pointedly distinguished herself as a capitalist as opposed to a socialist or a
democratic socialist, but she has not backed away from a populist platform that embraces
sweeping economic reforms.
In her address to the California Democratic party, Warren rejected appeals for
moderation.
"Some say if we all calm down, the Republicans will come to their senses," she said. "But
our country is in a time of crisis. The time for small ideas is over."
TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS: Good evening and welcome to Tucker Carlson Tonight. Let's begin
tonight with a thought experiment: What if the Republican leadership here in Washington had
bothered to learn the lessons of the 2016 election? What if they'd cared enough to do that.
What if they'd understood, and embraced, the economic nationalism that was at the heart of
Donald Trump's presidential campaign? What would the world look like now, two and a half years
later? For starters, Republicans in congress would regularly be saying things like this.
Quote:
"I'm deeply grateful for the opportunities America has given me. But the giant 'American'
corporations who control our economy don't seem to feel the same way. They certainly don't act
like it. Sure, these companies wave the flag -- but they have no loyalty or
allegiance to America. Levi's is an iconic American brand, but the company operates only 2% of
its factories here. Dixon Ticonderoga -- maker of the famous №2
pencil -- has 'moved almost all of its pencil production to Mexico and China.'
And General Electric recently shut down an industrial engine factory in Wisconsin and shipped
the jobs to Canada. The list goes on and on. These 'American' companies show only one real
loyalty: to the short-term interests of their shareholders, a third of whom are foreign
investors. If they can close up an American factory and ship jobs overseas to save a nickel,
that's exactly what they will do -- abandoning loyal American workers and
hollowing out American cities along the way. Politicians love to say they care about American
jobs. But for decades, those same politicians have cited 'free market principles' and refused
to intervene in markets on behalf of American workers. And of course, they ignore those same
supposed principles and intervene regularly to protect the interests of multinational
corporations and international capital. The result? Millions of good jobs lost overseas and a
generation of stagnant wages, growing inequality, and sluggish economic growth. If Washington
wants to put a stop to this, it can. If we want faster growth, stronger American industry, and
more good American jobs, then our government should do what other leading nations do and act
aggressively to achieve those goals instead of catering to the financial interests of companies
with no particular allegiance to America.... The truth is that Washington policies --
not unstoppable market forces -- are a key driver of the problems American
workers face. From our trade agreements to our tax code, we have encouraged companies to invest
abroad, ship jobs overseas, and keep wages low. All in the interest of serving multinational
companies and international capital with no particular loyalty to the United States....It's
becoming easier and easier to shift capital and jobs from one country to another. That's why
our government has to care more about defending and creating American jobs than ever
before -- not less. We can navigate the changes ahead if we embrace economic
patriotism and make American workers our highest priority, rather than continuing to cater to
the interests of companies and people with no allegiance to America."
End quote. Now let's say you regularly vote Republican. Ask yourself: what part of that
statement did you disagree with? Was there a single word that seemed wrong? Probably not.
Here's the depressing part: Nobody you voted for said that, or would ever say it. Republicans
in congress can't promise to protect American industries. They wouldn't dare. It might violate
some principle of Austrian economics. It might make the Koch brothers angry. It might alienate
the libertarian ideologues who, to this day, fund most Republican campaigns. So, no, a
Republican did not say that. Sadly.
Instead, the words you just heard are from, and brace yourself here, Senator Elizabeth
Warren of Massachusetts. Yesterday, Warren released what she's calling her "plan for economic
patriotism." Amazingly, that's pretty much exactly what it is: economic patriotism. There's not
a word about identity politics in the document. There are no hysterics about gun control or
climate change. There's no lecture about the plight of transgender illegal immigrants. It's
just pure old fashioned economics: how to preserve good-paying American jobs. Even more
remarkable: Many of Warren's policy prescriptions make obvious sense: she says the US
government should buy American products when it can. Of course it should. She says we need more
workplace apprenticeship programs, because four-year degrees aren't right for everyone. That's
true. She says taxpayers ought to benefit from the research and development they fund. And yet,
she writes, "we often see American companies take that researchand use it to manufacture
products overseas, like Apple did with the iPhone. The companies get rich, and American
taxpayers have subsidized the creation of low-wage foreign jobs." And so on. She sounds like
Donald Trump at his best. Who is this Elizabeth Warren, you ask? Not the race hustling, gun
grabbing, abortion extremist you thought you knew. Unfortunately Elizabeth Warren is still all
of those things too. And that is exactly the problem, not just with Warren, but with American
politics. In Washington, almost nobody speaks for the majority of voters. You're either a
libertarian zealot controlled by the banks, yammering on about entrepreneurship and how we need
to cut entitlements. That's one side of the aisle. Or, worse, you're some decadent trust fund
socialist who wants to ban passenger cars and give Medicaid to illegal aliens. That's the other
side. There isn't a caucus that represents where most Americans actually are: nationalist on
economics, fairly traditional on the social issues. Imagine a politician who wanted to make
your healthcare cheaper, but wasn't ghoulishly excited about partial birth abortion. Imagine
someone who genuinely respected the nuclear family, and sympathized with the culture of rural
America, but at the same time was willing to take your side against rapacious credit card
companies bleeding you dry at 35 percent interest. Would you vote for someone like that? My
gosh. Of course. Who wouldn't? That candidate would be elected in a landslide. Every single
time. Yet that candidate is the opposite of pretty much everyone currently serving in congress.
Our leadership class remains resolutely libertarian: committed to the rhetoric of markets when
it serves them; utterly libertine on questions of culture. Republicans will lecture you about
how payday loan scams are a critical part of a market economy. Then they'll work to make it
easier for your kids to smoke weed because, hey, freedom. Democrats will nod in total
agreement. They're on the same page.
Just last week, the Trump administration announced an innovative new way to protect American
workers from the ever-cascading tidal wave of cheap third-world labor flooding this country.
Until the Mexican government stops pushing illegal aliens north over our border, we will impose
tariffs on all Mexican goods we import. That's the kind of thing you'd do to protect your
country if you cared about your people. The Democrats, of course, opposed it. They don't even
pretend to care about America anymore. Here's what the Republicans said:
MITCH MCCONNELL: Look, I think it's safe to say – you've talked to all of our
members and we're not fans of tariffs. We're still hoping this can be avoided.
"We're not fans of tariffs." Imagine a more supercilious, out of touch, infuriating
response. You can't, because there isn't one. In other words, says Mitch McConnell, the idea
may work in practice. But we're against it, because it doesn't work in theory. That's the
Republican Party, 2019. No wonder they keep losing. They deserve it. Will they ever change?
Warren (D)(1): "Elizabeth Warren's latest big idea is 'economic patriotism'" [
Vox ].
"The specific Warren proposal on this score has three parts, a Green Apollo
Program, a Green Marshall Plan, and a Green Industrial Mobilization. The Apollo Program is a
ten-fold increase in clean energy R&D funding, the Marshall Plan is a $100 billion
program to help foreign countries buy American-made clean technology, and the Industrial
Mobilization (which it would perhaps be more natural to call a 'Green New Deal,' were that
name not already taken) proposes a massive $1.5 trillion federal procurement initiative over
10 years to buy 'American-made clean, renewable, and emission free products for federal,
state, and local use and for export.'
That's roughly the scale of federal spending on defense
acquisition and would of course turn the federal government into a huge player in this
market."
• I bet Warren's policy shop didn't copy and paste from other proposals
either
Readers here are brainwashed. Industrial policy is based on a partnership between
manufacturing, banks and finance, government, and workers. All of these relationships are
built on trust and all the members stand to profit. This is the secret of Germany's and
Scandinavia's over 200 years of success. It is called stakeholder capitalism. It includes all
members of society. Germany is the world's largest exporter for a reason. It has
approximately 1,500 banks, 70% of them are non-profit and restricted to lending for loans
that are productive - create jobs and add value.
The English/American model of capitalism is called shareholder capitalism. Shareholder
because the owners are absentee landlords. The financial markets rule, all other members
serve. The communities are shells - people are distrustful of each other and of the social
institutions. Shareholders don't live in the communities that add the value. They are the
elites, and are spread throughout the world.
Readers here might not like Elizabeth Warren, and that's ok. I don't really like her. But
her ideas are good. No Republican or corporate Democrat would ever embrace her ideas.
The irony is that Trump campaigned on similar ideas as Warren's. Why do you people think
Trump is engaging in all the trade war rhetoric? It's for the same ends as Warren's ideas,
except her ideas are more complete. Trump doesn't bring enough to the table. He needs to
include labor, banks, manufacturers, and government. He hasn't because his ideas are not
developed.
All the blabber mouths on Zero Hedge complaining about how full of **** academia is and
now is your chance to actually stand for something. Do you think industrial policy is built
on "snowflake" studies in Harvard?
No, it's in vocational schools and mentoring. Apprenticeships, and so forth.
Un-*******-believable. Zero Hedge is no different from Rush Limbaugh, a big fat closeted
queen.
What ever happened to states rights? Ever increasing central governmental control is not
the answer, and was never intended to be. The Democrats spout about "Democracy!!!". This is
nothing of the sort. They are perfectly happy to tell someone in Nebraska what to do, even if
they have no idea corn grows in dirt. Narcissistic sociopaths is what they are. It's time to
neuter them.
Unfortunately, a fair number of people are listening to her. The article below warns that
her push towards socialism as many progressives, liberals, or those simply left of center are
proposing, would be a grave mistake. Socialism is not the answer to combating inequality.
Well, down here in Australia we had a Federal election a couple of weeks ago, and the
opposition party, the Labor Party(ie the equivalent of your Democrats) was soundly defeated
partially because of their radical "climate change" policies.
Quite obviously the left cannot grasp the fact that not everybody buys into the climate
change hoax/industry. After the election many "journalists" who work for our national
broadcaster, the ABC, which is funded by the Feds, came out on social media describing the
result as a catastrophe for the climate and branded Australians as stupid. Sound familiar,
just like a certain someone who labeled half of America as deplorables.
Australians are not stupid, and realised that the changes Labor were proposing were too
radical. Their plan called for a 45 percent reduction in emissions by 2030. It should be
noted that despite rhetoric to the contrary by Labor, it is a well established fact that
Australia is far exceeding it's Kyoto & Paris targets.
Yet, the Labor party wanted to take these steps.
Labor, a party which is supposed to be in support of the workers, had they have won
governmengt, would have no doubt done everything in their power to prevent the Adani coal
mine in Queensland going ahead!
FFS, what sort of a world are we living in where coal mining is viewed by the left as a
criminal activity?
The result of Labor's insanity, they did not win back a single seat in Qld, and in the
Hunter Valley in NSW, a massive coal mining town, one particular seat there has been held by
Labor for 25 years with a healthy margin. The local Labor candidate, Joel Fitzgibbon, managed
to still hold onto the seat despite a 20 percent swing against him!
The fact is, as I am sure you are all aware being intelligent people on ZH, is you cannot
take radical steps like what was proposed by Labor & in the process destroy the economy.
These changes, if they are to be implemented, need to happen over the course of decades,
four, five, maybe six, I don't know.
But more importantly, there needs to be serious discussion as to whether man made "climate
change" is real because it does not seem to be, and obviously the vast majority of people are
not buying into it. much to the chagrin of the left.
In Australia, and I am sure the same happens in America, the only people buying the
climate change ******** are the cafe latte/upper class inner city snobs.
The other thing that escapes the minds of the left in Australia is simple mathematics. We
are a population of 24 million in a world of 7.5 billion, that makes us 0.33 of 1 percent of
the world population. Even if Australia cut it's emissions to zero tomorrow, it will make no
difference to the world when we have China & India building coal fired power
stations.
Ironically, the high priest of climate change, Al Gore, is down here at the moment, in
Queensland of all places where voters told the left where to get off, on a $300,000 taxpayer
funded love-in. From memory, didn't Al Gore state in his doco in 2006 that within 10 years
the Earth would be facing a climate catastrophe? lol
You go girl.... Lynn Rothschild will back you once she counts con-tracts and loans
filtered back into her " All Inclusive Capitalism" banking system... She's got your back. She
was was only kiddig about rewrting an ecconomic plan for Hillary and ditching yours....xoxo
Lynn
"on Tuesday Elizabeth Warren proposed
spending $2 trillion on a new "green manufacturing" program that would invest in research
and exporting American clean energy technology."
"In my administration, we will stop making excuses. We will pursue aggressive new
government policies to support American workers."
"In my administration, we will NOT stop making excuses. We will pursue aggressive new
government TOTALITARIAN policies to support American Stalinist ideals ."
Dems only need few select states to campaign in and they will win elections all the time.
Everybody is playing the racists card when they do not like what is said or done!!
"... United States is neither a Republic and even less Socialistic. US, in the technical literature, is called a Polyarchy (state capitalism). Polyarchy (state capitalism) idea is old, it goes back to James Madison and the foundation of the US Constitution. A Polyarchy is a system in which power resides in the hands of those who Madison called the wealth of the nation. The educated and responsible class of men. The rest of the population is to be fragmented and distracted. They are allowed to participate every couple of years by voting. That's it. The population have little choice among the educated and responsible men they are voting for. ..."
"... Polyarchy (state capitalism) it is a system where small group actually rules on behalf of capital, and majority's decision making is confined to choosing among selective number of elites within tightly controlled elective process. It is a form of consensual domination made possible by the structural domination of the global capital which allowed concentration of political powers. ..."
Uh, no, Tom, she won't be collecting a lot of voters, well, at least not near enough. Biden
has already been "chosen" like Hillary was over Bernie last time. You should know by now Tom,
we don't select our candidates, they're chosen for us for our own good. 2 hours ago
This is going to take a long time. You just can't turn this ship around overnight.
US Political System:
United States is neither a Republic and even less Socialistic. US, in the technical
literature, is called a Polyarchy (state capitalism). Polyarchy (state capitalism) idea is old,
it goes back to James Madison and the foundation of the US Constitution. A Polyarchy is a
system in which power resides in the hands of those who Madison called the wealth of the
nation. The educated and responsible class of men. The rest of the population is to be
fragmented and distracted. They are allowed to participate every couple of years by voting.
That's it. The population have little choice among the educated and responsible men they are
voting for.
This is not an accident. America was founded on the principle, explained by the Founding
Father that the primary goal of government is to protect the minority of the opulent against
the majority. That is how the US Constitution was designed sort of ensuring that there will be
a lot of struggle. US is not as the same as it were two centuries ago but that remains the
elites ideal.
Polyarchy (state capitalism) it is a system where small group actually rules on behalf of
capital, and majority's decision making is confined to choosing among selective number of
elites within tightly controlled elective process. It is a form of consensual domination made
possible by the structural domination of the global capital which allowed concentration of
political powers.
A republic is SUBORDINATE to democracy. Polyarchy can't be subordinated to any form of
Democracy. 2 hours ago Is the author, to use an English term, daft? Tulsi Gabbard won't get out
of the primaries, much less defeat Sanders or Biden. Farage achieved his goal (Brexit), then
found out (SHOCK!) that the will of the people doesn't mean anything anymore.
If Luongo had wanted to talk about the people's uprising, he should've mentioned the Tea
Party. 3 hours ago Gabbard appears to have some moral fibre and half a backbone, at least for a
politician, regardless of their views, Farage is a slimy charlatan opportunistic populist shill
3 hours ago (Edited) I like Tulsi Gabbard on MIC stuff (and as a surfer in my youth - still
dream about that almost endless pipeline at Jeffreys Bay in August), but...
On everything else?
She votes along party lines no matter what bollocks legislation the Democrats put in front
of Congress. And anyone standing full-square behind Saunders on his socialist/marxist
agenda?
Do me a favour. 1 hour ago (Edited) Farage left because he saw what UKIP was becoming...a
zionazi party.
Also Gabbard is a CFR member. 3 hours ago Gold, Goats and Guns? Certainly not guns under
President Gabbard! Here's her idea of "common sense gun control:"
I'm totally against warmongering, but I have to ask - what good is it to stop foreign
warmongering, only to turn around and incite civil war here by further raping the 2nd
Amendment? The CFR ties are disturbing as hell, too. And to compare Gabbard to Ron Paul? No,
just...no! 3 hours ago Always been a fan of Bernie, but I hope Gabbard becomes president. The
world would breathe a huge sigh of relief (before the assassination). 4 hours ago By this time
in his 1st term, Obama had started the US Wars in Syria and Libya and has restarted the Iraq
War.
Thus far Trump has ended the War in Syria, pledged not to get us dragged into Libya's civil
wars and started a peace process with North Korea.
Venezuela and Iran look scary. We don't know what Gabbard would actually do when faced with
the same events. Obama talked peace too.
Warren (D)(1): "Trump backers applaud Warren in heart of MAGA country" [
Politico ].
West Virginia: "It was a startling spectacle in the heart of Trump country: At least a dozen
supporters of the president -- some wearing MAGA stickers -- nodding their heads, at times
even clapping, for liberal firebrand Elizabeth Warren . LeeAnn Blankenship, a 38-year-old
coach and supervisor at a home visitation company who grew up in Kermit and wore a sharp pink
suit, said she may now support Warren in 2020 after voting for Trump in 2016.
'She's a good ol' country girl like anyone else,' she said of Warren, who grew up in Oklahoma. 'She's
earned where she is, it wasn't given to her. I respect that.'"
Also: "The 63-year-old fire
chief, Wilburn 'Tommy' Preece, warned Warren and her team beforehand that the area was 'Trump
country' and to not necessarily expect a friendly reception. But he also told her that the town would welcome anyone, of any party, who wanted to address the opioid
crisis ." ( More on West
Virginia in 2018 .
Best part is a WaPo headline: "Bernie Sanders Supporter Attends Every
DNC Rule Change Meeting. DNC Member Calls Her a Russian Plant." • Lol. I've been saying
"lol" a lot, lately.)
Warren (D)(2): "Our military can help lead the fight in combating climate change"
[Elizabeth Warren,
Medium ]. "In short, climate change is real, it is worsening by the day, and it is
undermining our military readiness. And instead of meeting this threat head-on, Washington is
ignoring it -- and making it worse . That's why today I am introducing my
Defense Climate Resiliency and Readiness Act to harden the U.S. military against the threat
posed by climate change, and to leverage its huge energy footprint as part of our climate
solution.
It starts with an ambitious goal: consistent with the objectives of the Green New
Deal, the Pentagon should achieve net zero carbon emissions for all its non-combat bases and
infrastructure by 2030 .. We don't have to choose between a green military and an effective
one . Together, we can work with our military to fight climate change -- and
win." • On the one hand, the Pentagon's energy footprint is huge, and it's a good idea
to do something about that. On the other, putting solar panels on every tank that went into
Iraq Well, there are larger questions to be asked. A lot of dunking on Warren about this. It
might play in the heartland, though.
Her call for impeachment procedures is a blunder. She is trying to play the dominant mood of the Dems crowd, not
understanding that in this case Biden will be the winner.
Notable quotes:
"... Beto O'Rourke, the rich-kid airhead who declared shortly before the Mueller report was released that Trump, "beyond the shadow of a doubt, sought to collude with the Russian government," will not fare much better. ..."
"... Sen. Elizabeth Warren meanwhile seems to be tripping over her own two feet as she predicts one moment that Trump is heading to jail , declares the next that voters don't care about the Mueller report because they're too concerned with bread-and-butter issues, and then calls for dragging Congress into the impeachment morass regardless. ..."
Besides Fox News – whose ratings have soared while Russia-obsessed CNN’s have plummeted – the chief beneficiary is Trump.
Post-Mueller, the man has the wind in his sails. Come 2020, Sen. Bernie Sanders could cut through his phony populism with ease.
But if Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post succeeds in tarring him with Russia the same way it tried to tar Trump, then the Democratic
nominee will be a bland centrist whom the incumbent will happily bludgeon.
Former Vice President Joe Biden – the John McCain-loving, speech-slurring, child-fondler who was for a wall along the Mexican
border before he was against it – will end up as a bug splat on the Orange One’s windshield.
Beto O'Rourke, the rich-kid airhead who
declared shortly before the Mueller report was released that Trump, "beyond the shadow of a
doubt, sought to collude with the Russian government," will not fare much better.
Sen.
Elizabeth Warren meanwhile seems to be tripping over her own two feet as she predicts one
moment that Trump is
heading to jail , declares the next that voters
don't care about the Mueller report because they're too concerned with bread-and-butter
issues, and then calls for dragging Congress into the
impeachment morass regardless.
Such "logic" is lost on voters, so it seems to be a safe bet that enough will stay home next
Election Day to allow the rough beast to slouch towards Bethlehem yet again.
Good domestic policy suggestions and debate skills. Horrible understanding of foreign policy
(he completely subscribes to the Russiagate hoax)
His capitulation to Hillary in 2016 still linger behind his back despite all bravado. he
betrayed his followers, many of who put money of this while being far from rich. he betrayed them
all. As such he does not deserve to run.
Warren and Tulsi are definitely better options then Sanders for 2020.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., became a household name in 2016 when he ran a progressive
campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination -- and came close to securing it. He's back
in the 2020 race, but this time up against more than 20 other candidates. Sanders sits down
with Judy Woodruff to discuss trade with China, health care, student debt, Russian election
interference and more.
Here's a summary of the day thus far: Donald Trump praised attorney
general William Barr for opening what appears to be a broad investigation of the Russia
counterespionage investigation that swept up the Trump campaign. Barr appointed a US attorney
to lead the inquiry and reportedly has got the CIA and DNI involved.
Senator Elizabeth Warren took a "hard pass" on an offer to do a Fox News town hall event,
calling the network "hate-for-profit".
Warren definitely have the courage to put forward those important proposals. Lobbyists like
Cory Booker of course attack them.
Notable quotes:
"... It's called Anti-Trust laws not her "opinions"... ..."
"... Let's be honest, Booker isn't fit to shine Warren's shoes! I wonder if Cory's ass is jealous of all the shit that just came out of his mouth!! SMDH ..."
"... CB bought and paid for by drug companies. Of course he doesn't like Warren. But ask him about Americans right to free speech and he puts after the needs of any foriegn country ..."
"... He who looks like a slick bouncer for the big money monopolies, is looking to get a piece of it ..."
Cory- .Most Americans will NOT think you are Presidential Caliber.Where's the MONEY coming
from? Small donor contributions? I don't even think you'll get the Black & hispanic
vote.Why do this?
You are stealing the votes from way more qualified candidates. Bad idea if
you want to have Democratic POTUS in 2020
CB bought and paid for by drug companies. Of course he doesn't like Warren. But ask him
about Americans right to free speech and he puts after the needs of any foriegn
country
After that Trump remark, Cory can bite my butt. Whatever disagreements I may have with
Warren, she has some very daring, intelligent, and discussion-worthy policies. We need her in
the next administration, whether as potus or in the cabinet. Sheesh, Cory, burn your bridges,
sir.
"... It's not obvious to me that universal access to college education is a progressive goal. ..."
"... I think it is extremely important to understand where Warren is coming from on this. Warren initially became active in politics because she recognized the pernicious nature of debt and the impact it had on well-being. I ..."
"... Warren's emphasis in this particular initiative, it seems to me, is to alleviate debt so that individuals can pursue more advanced functionings/capabilities. ..."
"... The more a college degree is the norm, the worse things are for people without one. Making it easier to get a college degree increases the degree to which its the norm, and will almost inevitably have the same impact on the value of a college degree as the growth in high-school attendance (noted by Sam Tobin-Hochstadt above) had on the value of a high school degree. ..."
"... The debate on this subject strikes me as misguided because it says nothing about what students learn. A good high school education should be enough to prepare young people for most kinds of work. In most jobs, even those allegedly requiring college degrees, the way people learn most of what they need to know is through on the job training. Many high school graduates have not received a good education, though, and go to college as, in effect, remedial high school. ..."
by Harry on May 6, 2019 Ganesh Sitaraman argues in
the Garun that, contrary to appearances, and contrary to the criticism that it has earned,
Elizabeth Warren's college plan really is progressive, because it is funded by taxation that
comes exclusively from a wealth tax on those with more than $50 million in assets. Its
progressive, he says, because it redistributes down. In some technical sense perhaps he's
right.
But this, quite odd, argument caught my eye:
But the critics at times also suggest that if any significant amount of benefits go to
middle-class or upper-middle class people, then the plan is also not progressive. This is
where things get confusing. The critics can't mean this in a specific sense because the plan
is, as I have said, extremely progressive in the distribution of costs. They must mean that
for any policy to be progressive that it must benefit the poor and working class more than it
benefits the middle and upper classes. T his is a bizarre and, I think, fundamentally
incorrect use of the term progressive .
The logic of the critics' position is that public investments in programs that help
everyone, including middle- and upper-class people, aren't progressive. This means that the
critics would have to oppose public parks and public K-12 education, public swimming pools
and public basketball courts, even public libraries. These are all public options that offer
universal access at a low (or free) price to everyone.
But the problem isn't that the wealthy get to benefit from tuition free college. I don't
think anyone objects to that. Rather, the more affluent someone is, on average, the more they
benefit from the plan. This is a general feature of tuition-free college plans and it is built
into the design.
Sandy Baum and Sarah Turner explain:
But in general, the plans make up the difference between financial aid -- such as the Pell
Grant and need-based aid provided by states -- and the published price of public colleges.
This means the largest rewards go to students who do not qualify for financial aid. In plans
that include four-year colleges, the largest benefits go to students at the most expensive
four-year institutions. Such schools enroll a greater proportion of well-heeled students, who
have had better opportunities at the K-12 level than their peers at either two-year colleges
or less-selective four-year schools. (Flagship institutions have more resources per student,
too.) .
For a clearer picture of how regressive these policies are, consider how net tuition --
again, that's what most free-tuition plans cover -- varies among students at different income
levels at four-year institutions. For those with incomes less than $35,000, average net
tuition was $2,300 in 2015-16; for students from families with incomes between $35,000 and
$70,000, it was $4,800; for those between $70,000 and $120,000, it was $8,100; and finally,
for families with incomes higher than $120,000, it was more than $11,000. (These figures
don't include living expenses.)
Many low-income students receive enough aid from sources like the Pell Grant to cover
their tuition and fees. At community colleges nationally, for example, among students from
families with incomes less than $35,000, 81 percent already pay no net tuition after
accounting for federal, state and institutional grant aid, according to survey data for
2015-16. At four-year publics, almost 60 percent of these low-income students pay
nothing.
If you take progressivism to mean "improvement of society by reform", Warren's plan is
clearly progressive. It reduces the pie going to the rich, greatly improves the lot of
students who are less than rich, and doesn't harm the poor.
Who cares – as long as this plan -(and hopefully an even more extended plan) puts an
end to a big part of the insanity of the (stupid and greedy) US education system?
In other words – let's call it "conservative" that might help to have it passed!
The difficulty with the plan as proposed is not whether it is progressive or not but that it
targets the wrong behavior – borrowing for education. If the goal is to make education
more accessible – subsidize the university directly to either facilitate point of
admission grants in the first place or simply bring down tuition cost to all attendees.
Under this proposal (assuming one thinks Warren would win and it could get passed) the
maximizing strategy is to borrow as much as one possibly can with the hope/expectation that
it would ultimately be forgiven. If that's the "right" strategy, then it would benefit those
with the greatest borrowing capacity which most certainly is not students from low income
families but is in fact families which could probably pay most of the cost themselves but
would choose not to in order to capture a benefit they couldn't access directly by virtue of
being 'too rich' for grants or other direct aid.
"Rather, the more affluent someone is, on average, the more they benefit from the plan. "
This doesn't seem like a fair description of what's going on. If Starbucks gives a free muffin to everyone who buys a latte, it's theoretically helping
the rich more than the poor under this way of looking at things. The rich can afford the
muffin; the poor can't. So the rich will get more free muffins. But the rich don't give a
crap. They can easily just buy the damn muffin in the first place. They're not really being
helped, because the whole damn system helps them already. They're just about as well off with
or without the free muffin.
Same here. My kid's going to Stanford. I'm effin rich and I don't give a crap about
financial aid. If it was free I'd have an extra 75k a year, but how many Tesla's do I need
really? How many houses in Hawaii do I need? But when I was a kid I was lower middle class. I
didn't even apply to Stanford because it was just too much. Yeah, I could have gone rotc or
gotten aid, but my parents just couldn't bust out their contribution. Stanford just wasn't in
the cards. And Stanford's a terrible example, it had needs blind admissions and can afford
to just give money away if it wants.
I don't understand the fear, in certain areas of what's apparently the left, of giving
benefits to people in the middle of the income/wealth curve.
The expansion of the term "middle class" doesn't help with this, nor does the expansion of
education. These debates often sound as if some of the participants think of "middle class"
as the children of physicians and attorneys, who moreover are compensated the way they were
in the 1950s.
The ability to switch between "it's reasonable to have 100% college attendance within 5
years from now" and "of course college is only for the elite classes" is not reassuring to
the average more or less educated observer (who may or may not be satisfied, depending on
temperament and so on, with the answer that of course such matters are above her head).
The actual plan is for free tuition at public colleges. So not "the most expensive
four-year institutions" that Baum and Turner discuss. [HB: they're referring to the most
expensive 4-year public institutions]
There's also expanded support for non-tuition expenses, means-tested debt cancellation,
and a fund for historically black universities, all of which make the plan more progressive.
And beyond that, I could argue that, for lower-income students on the margin of being able to
attend and complete school, we should count not only the direct financial aid granted, but
also the lifetime benefits of the education the aid enables. But suffice it to say, I think
you're attacking a caricature.
the college plan does not actually offer 'universal access'
Given that something like one third of Americans gets a college degree, Warren's plan
seems good enough. It's not obvious to me that universal access to college education is a
progressive goal.
I think it is extremely important to understand where Warren is coming from on this. Warren
initially became active in politics because she recognized the pernicious nature of debt and
the impact it had on well-being. If you are trying to get out from under the burden of debt
your capabilities for flourishing are severely restricted, and these restrictions can easily
become generational. One of the more difficult debts that people are facing are student
debts. This was made especially difficult by the 2005 bankruptcy bill which made it close to
impossible for individuals to get out from under student debt by entering in to Chapter 7
bankruptcy.
Warren's emphasis in this particular initiative, it seems to me, is to alleviate debt so
that individuals can pursue more advanced functionings/capabilities. So if you think that the
definition of progressive is creating situations where more individuals in a society are
given greater opportunities for flourishing then the plan does strike me as progressive (an
Aristotelian interpretation of Dewey such as promoted by Nussbaum might fall in this
direction). There is another issue however that might be closer to the idea of helping those
from lowest social strata, something that is not being discussed near enough. Internet
technologies helped to promote online for profit universities which has (and I suppose
continues to) prey and those most desperate to escape poverty with limited resources. The
largest part of their organizations are administrators who help students to secure loans with
promises of high paying jobs once they complete their degrees. These places really do prey on
the most vulnerable (homeless youth for instance) and they bait individuals with hope in to
incurring extremely high debt. The loan companies are fine with this I am guess because of
the bankruptcy act (they can follow them for life). This is also not regulated (I think you
can thank Kaplan/Washington Post for that). Warren's initiative would help them get out from
under debt immediately and kick start their life.
I agree k-12 is more important, but it is also far more complicated. This plan is like a
shot of adrenaline into the social blood stream and it might not even be necessary in a few
years. I think it dangerous to make the good the enemy or the perfect, or the perfect the
critic of the good.
– and how cynical does one have to be – to redefine a plan canceling the vast
majority of outstanding student loan debt – as some kind of ("NON-progressive") present
for "the rich"?
But even apart from that, the argument of the post seems like it would suggest that many
things that we currently fund publicly are not progressive in a problematic way. Everything
from arts to national parks to math research "benefits" the rich more than the poor. There's
possibly a case that public provision of these goods is problematic when we as a society
could spend that money on those who are more disadvantaged. But that's a very strong claim
and implicates far more than free college.
Finally, it's worth comparing the previous major expansion of education in the US. The
point at which high school attendance was as widespread as college attendance is now (about
70% of high school graduates enroll in college of some form right away) was around 1930, well
after universal free high school was available. I think moving to universal free college is
an important step to raise those rates, just as free high school was.
It strikes me that the argument made here against a universal program of tuition free college
is not all that different than an argument made against social security -- that the benefits
go disproportionately to middle class and professional class individuals. Since in the case
of Social Security, one has to be in gainfully employed to participate and one's benefits
are, up to a cap, based on one's contributions, middle class and professional class
individuals receive greater benefits. Poor individuals, including those who have not been
employed for long periods of time, receive less benefits. (There are quirks in this 10 second
summary, such as disability benefits, but not so much as to alter this basic functioning.)
Every now and again, there are proposals to "means test" social security, using this
functioning as the reasoning. A couple of points are worth considering.
First, it is the universality of social security that makes it a political 'third rail,'
such that no matter how it would like to do away with such a 'socialist' program, the GOP
never acts on proposals to privatize it, even when they have the Presidency and the
majorities that would allow it to get through Congress. The universality thus provides a
vital security to the benefits that poor and working people receive from the program, since
it makes it politically impossible to take it away. Since social security is often the only
pension that many poor and working people get (unlike middle class and professional class
individuals who have other sources of retirement income), the loss of it would be far more
devastating to them. There is an important way, therefore, that they are served by the
current configuration of the system, even given its skewing.
Second, and following from the above, it is important to recognize that the great bulk of
proposals to "means test" Social Security come from the libertarian right, not the left, and
that they are designed to undercut the support for Social Security, in order to make its
privatization politically viable.
Most colleges and universities "means test" financial aid for their students, which is one
of the reasons why it is generally inadequate and heavily weighted toward loans as opposed to
grants. I think it is a fair generalization of American social welfare experience history to
say that "means tested" programs are both more vulnerable politically (think of the Reagan
'welfare queen' narrative) and more poorly funded than universal programs.
There are additional argument about the skewing of Social Security benefits, such as the
fact that they go disproportionately to the elderly, while those currently living in poverty
are disproportionately children. This argument mistakes the positive effects of the program
-- before Social Security and Medicare the elderly were the most impoverished -- for an
inegalitarian design element.
The solution to the fact that children bear the brunt of poverty in the US is not to
undermine the program that has lifted the elderly out of poverty but to institute programs
that address the problem of childhood poverty. Universal quality day care, for example,
provides the greatest immediate economic benefits to middle class and professional class
families who are now paying for such services, but it provides poor and working class kids
with an education 'head start' that would otherwise go only to the children of those families
that could afford to pay for it. And insofar as day care is provided, it makes it easier for
poor and working class parents (often in one parent households) to obtain decent
employment.
So the failings of universal programs are best addressed, I would argue, by filling in the
gaps with more universal programs, not 'means testing' them.
To the extent that Warren's 'free tuition' proposal addresses only some of the financial
disadvantages of poor and working people obtaining a college education, the response should
not be "oh, this is not progressive," but what do we do to address the other issues, such as
living expenses. It is not as if there are no models on how to do this. All we need to do is
look at Nordic countries that provide post-secondary students both free tuition and living
expenses.
Having grown up and gone to university in Germany it is simply incomprehensible to me that
there is tuition supporters on the political left in the U.S. It's true that free college
isn't universal in the same sense free K-12 education is. But neither are libraries (they
exclude those who are functionally illiterate completely, and their services surely go mostly
to upper middle class people who have opportunity and education to read regularly), for
example. Neither are roads – the poor overwhelmingly live in inner cities, often take
public transport – it's middle class suburbanites that mostly profit. Speaking of
public transport, I assume Henry opposes rail; it is very middle class, the poor use buses.
(The last argument actually has considerable traction in Los Angeles, it's not completely far
fetched.)
I agree that Warren's free college and debt forgiveness plans would not be very progressive,
but I'd propose that I think the dynamic mechanism built in would make it worse than a static
analysis shows.
(Note that most of my siblings and in-laws do not have college degrees; this perspective
is based on my own observations.)
The more a college degree is the norm, the worse things are for people without one. Making
it easier to get a college degree increases the degree to which its the norm, and will almost
inevitably have the same impact on the value of a college degree as the growth in high-school
attendance (noted by Sam Tobin-Hochstadt above) had on the value of a high school degree.
(We're already seeing this: many positions that used to require a college degree now require
a specific degree, or a masters degree.) This will increase age discrimination, and further
worsen the position of the people for whom college is unattractive for reasons other than
money.
To give a particular example of a mechanism (idiosyncratic, but one I know specifically).
Until a couple decades ago, getting a KY electrician's license required 4 years experience
under a licensed electrician, and passing the code test. Then the system changed; now it
requires a 2-year degree and 2 years experience, OR 8 years experience. This was great for
colleges. The working electricians don't think the new electricians are better prepared as
they used to be, but all of a sudden people who don't find sitting in a classroom for an
additional 2 years attractive are hugely disadvantaged. Another example would be nursing
licenses; talk to any older LPN and you'll get an earful about how LPN's are devalued as RNs
and BSNs have become the norm.
I suspect tuition reform will be complex, difficult and subject to gaming. Being simple
minded I offer an inadequate but simple palliative. Make student loan debt dischargeable in
bankruptcy. You can max out your credit cards on cars, clothes, booze or whatever and be able
to discharge these debts but not for higher education.
The inability to even threaten bankruptcy gives all the power to collection companies.
Students have no leverage at all. The threat of bankruptcy would allow for negotiated
reductions in principal as well as payments.
Bankruptcy does carry a lot of negative consequences so it would offset the likely
objections about moral hazards, blah, blah. I would also favor an additional method of
discharging student debt. If your debt is to a for-profit school that can't meet some minimum
standards for student employment in their field of study then total discharge without the
need for bankruptcy. For-profit vocational schools intensively target low income and minority
students without providing significant value for money.
Progressivity looks much better if the program sticks to free community college, at least
until there is universal access to 4-year schools. That's what Tennessee did (IIRC the only
example that is actually operational).
Harry: it doesn't seem as if you responded to my comment. I'll try again.
1. A policy is progressive if it is redistributive.
2. Warren's plan is redistributive.
3. Thus, Warren's plan is progressive.
Comments about how effective the redistribution is are fine, but to claim a non-ideal
distribution framework invalidates the program's claims to being progressive seems spurious.
And I don't think this definition of progressive is somehow wildly ideosyncratic.
To whine that free college is somehow not progressive because not everyone will go to college
is a ridiculous argument, one of those supposedly-left-but-actually-right arguments that I
get so tired of. To assume that the class makeup of matriculators will be unchanged with free
college is to discount knock-on effects. This is a weird, weird post. I guess I'm going back to ignoring this site.
The debate on this subject strikes me as misguided because it says nothing about what
students learn. A good high school education should be enough to prepare young people for
most kinds of work. In most jobs, even those allegedly requiring college degrees, the way
people learn most of what they need to know is through on the job training. Many high school
graduates have not received a good education, though, and go to college as, in effect,
remedial high school.
Readers who attended an average American high school, as I did long ago, will know that
there are certain students, especially boys, who are itching to be done with school. It is
far more productive to give them a decent high school education and have them start working
than to tell them they need another two to four years of what to them is pointless
rigamarole.
Rather than extending the years of education, I would reduce the high school graduation
age to 17 and reduce summer vacations by four weeks, so that a 17 year old would graduate
with as many weeks of schooling as an 18 year old now. (Teachers would get correspondingly
higher pay, which should make them happy.)
Harry Truman never went to college. John Major became a banker and later prime minister of
Britain without doing so. Neither performed noticeably worse than their college-educated
peers. If a college education is not necessary to rise to the highest office in the land, why
is it necessary for lesser employment except in a few specialized areas?
An experiment that I would like to see tried is to bring back the federal civil service
exam, allowing applicants without college degrees who score high enough to enter U.S.
government jobs currently reserved for those with college degrees.
I would love to have a social conservative who was as red-hot on the abuse of corporate
power as she is. Of course there's no way she would ever win the Democratic nomination if she
were a social conservative, nor would she be a US Senator from Massachusetts.
Back in 2011, when she announced for the Massachusetts Senate race on an anti-big business
platform, I wrote in this space that she was "a
Democrat I could vote for." In 2014, observing how far gone she is on cultural leftism, I
lamented that
I wanted so bad for her to be good -- but hey, you can't always get what you want.
Warren's vision of human flourishing is fundamentally a conservative one -- or at least it
would be if the family were still at the center of the conservative conception of politics.
What she argues for is the right of families to thrive, not be the slave of financial
interests, corporate power, housing monopolies, the educational establishment, or any other
external force. She believes, radically, alas, in 2018, that we all have a right to food,
water, housing, education, and medical care. The idea that hard-working Americans should be
able to raise their children in comfort and with a sense of dignity is not, or at least
should not be, the exclusive purview of any one politician or party. The fact that Warren
very frequently does seem to be among the only elected officials in this country who both
affirms these things and has taken the trouble to think carefully about them is a reminder
that the centrism rejected by her and fellow travelers on the left and the right alike is not
only noxious but omnipresent.
Warren's economic vision of human flourishing -- that is, the economic conditions she
believes must be in place for people to flourish -- is fundamentally conservative, in an older,
more organic sense. Old-fashioned Catholic reactionaries understand exactly what she's talking
about, and so would the kind of Christian conservatives who read Wendell Berry and
Crunchy Cons (which, alas, came out about 13 years too early).
Elizabeth Warren said that out loud. Nobody seemed to mind. She'd never say that today.
It's not allowed like so much else that is true and important. She can't talk about the
things that she believed 10 years ago. No modern Democrat can.
If anyone had suggested to me five years ago that the most incisive public critic of
capitalism in the United States would be Tucker Carlson, I would have smiled blandly and
mentioned an imaginary appointment I was late for. But that is exactly what the Fox News host
revealed himself to be last week with an extraordinary monologue about the state of American
conservative thinking. In 15 minutes he denounced the obsession with GDP, the tolerance of
payday lending and other financial pathologies, the fetishization of technology, the
guru-like worship of CEOs, and the indifference to the anxieties and pathologies of the poor
and the vulnerable characteristic of both of our major political parties. It was a
masterpiece of political rhetoric. He ended by calling upon the GOP to re-examine its
attitude towards the free market.
Carlson's monologue is valuable because unlike so many progressive critics of our social
and economic order he has gone beyond the question of the inequitable distribution of wealth
to the more important one about the nature of late capitalist consumer culture and the
inherently degrading effects it has had on our society. The GOP's blinkered inability to see
beyond the specifications of the new iPhone or the latest video game or the infinite variety
of streaming entertainment and Chinese plastic to the spiritual poverty of suicide and drug
abuse is shared with the Democratic Socialists of America, whose vision of authentic human
flourishing seems to be a boutique eco-friendly version of our present consumer society. This
is lipstick on a pig.
And:
It is difficult for me to understand exactly why conservatives have come around to their
present uncritical attitude toward unbridled capitalism. It cannot be for electoral reasons.
Survey after survey reveals that a vast majority of the American people hold views that would
be described as socially conservative and economically moderate to progressive. A
presidential candidate who spoke capably to both of these sets of concerns would be the
greatest political force in three generations.
The answer is that for conservatives the market has become a cult. No book better explains
the appeal of classical liberal economics than The Golden Bough , Sir James Frazer's
history of magic. Frazer identified certain immutable principles that have governed magical
thinking throughout the ages. Among these is the imitative principle according to which a
favorable outcome is obtained by mimicry -- the endless chants of entrepreneurship, vague
nonsense about charter schools, calls for tax cuts for people who don't make enough money to
benefit from them. There also is taboo, the primitive assumption that by not speaking the
name of a thing, the thing itself will be thereby be exorcised. This is one reason that any
attempt to criticize the current consensus is met with whingeing about "socialism." This
catch-all talisman is meant to protect against everything from the Cultural Revolution to
modest restrictions on overdraft fees imposed at the behest of consultants.
"In the real world you are going to have to keep companies from getting too powerful if you
want a free(ish) market."
"So, is it possible that in this everything-can-be-bought-and-sold culture that the
massive corporations made the very rational choice to buy themselves a government?"
Noah makes an excellent point about the differences between public- and private-sector unions
and collective bargaining units. I would personally add that public-sector unions would never
have been necessary if governments were not run under the same philosophy as private-sector
employers: minimize the cost of employees by any means possible. I've always held that
regardless of any definition of necessity, public-sector unionization was and remains a bad
idea.
I also don't know of a better alternative. Sometimes it's the evil you must handle, rather
than the lesser of two evils.
As for the shifts in the socio-economic realities, there's a necessary categorization
necessary when discussing women in the workforce. I offer these broad categories which are
likely arguable. It's a starting point, not a line in the sand.
Families at or below the poverty line: when you control for the benefits of a stay-at-home
parent, these families only ever had one option to get above the poverty line enough to no
longer need public assistance, and that was a second income. The entire motivation for
minimum wage, stable work hours and such was an attempt to mitigate the need for a second
income. It gets politicized and complicated from there, partially for good reasons, but
unless you look at a given family's income limitations before criticizing the woman's working
instead of being at home, you are ignoring the consequences of poverty, which cannot be
mitigated by parenting.
The woman has a higher income potential: it started well before the employment argument,
as in decades previous women were "permitted" to attain higher education in skill and content
areas beyond nursing and teaching. One reaction to that, an analysis conclusion I arrive at
personally, was to routinely discriminate against female employees in both compensation and
promotion. The prevailing "wisdom" (again, my personal POV) was that women are going to get
pregnant anyway, why encourage them away from that? If the only disparity in compensation was
for unpaid leave due to pregnancy and childbirth, you might have avoided a large part of the
feminist revolution.
The broad mix of "women belong in " arguments based on some moral construct (religious or
other): this is where the feminist revolution was inevitable. It comes down to personal
agency and choice. I have an Orthodox Jewish relative whose wife fully, happily and
creatively embraces her religiously mandated role. She's very intelligent, an erudite writer
and speaker, and is as much a pillar of her community as any male in it. We should avoid
extreme examples like Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun, but her plight without fatal consequences is
precisely what many women face, and want to escape. Feminism simply states that such women
have the right to make that different choice, and the power the men of their community have
over them is a denial of a human right.
I'm sure other broad categories need to be described. I'll leave this before it gets
beyond being too long.
@kgasmart "I defy Elizabeth Warren, or any other prominent lefty, to publicly restate her
thesis that the entry of women into the workforce has ultimately harmed the family.
Imagine the furious tweetstorms. How dare she suggests it's been anything but wonderful
for women themselves – and thus, for society as a whole. Evidence to the contrary be
damned as 'hateful,' of course."
You don't understand the left. And no, having once been in favor of SSM doesn't mean you
understand the left. I and many others will happily say the following: "Society was not
prepared for the mass entry of women into the workplace. Childcare suffered, work-life
balance suffered, male-female relations suffered."
The problem here is that we follow that up with: "The problem was not women having basic
aspirations to the dignity and relative economic security work offers. The problem was a
government captured by the rich who don't understand what policy for families that can't
afford nannies would look like. The problem was also a social structure which valued families
less than it valued proscribed gender roles. Time to chart a different course."
Trust me, feminists talk all the time about how much harder it is to have a family these
days. We just don't think the problem exists because women selfishly wanted basic economic
security.
Warren is a smart, informed academic with some solid views on economic issues.
On the other hand, she is a terrible politician, and not suited for high executive office.
She lacks gravitas and has no intuition for the optics of what she does, going from gaffe to
gaffe. She'd be chewed up and spit out before she became a contender.
While I think HRC had terrible ideas, I never questioned her capacity to project authority
and credibility, that is, "act presidential". In contrast, Obama's dork factor got him in
trouble on a number of occasions (although his "communist salute" stands out), and Warren is
many times more a dork than Obama.
"I confess I have never understood her appeal. She is the very model of a useless New England
scold, constantly seeking to regulate just about everything. There is almost no problem that
more government, more regulation – usually with no oversight – cannot fix. No,
thank you."
This sounds like someone who has not researched Warren's writings and positions
and just does not like her style (i.e. New England Scold). I think her style, which would
be fine in a man (e.g. who is a scold if not Bernie) will primary her out.
The market is not a Platonic deity, floating in the sky and imposing goodness and
prosperity from on high. It is the creation of our choices, our laws, and our democratic
process. We know, for instance, that pornography has radically altered how young boys
perceive their relationships with women and sex, and that the pornography industry has
acquired a lot of wealth in the process of creating and distributing that content. Just last
month, we learned that a Chinese entity created the first gene-edited baby, using a
technology developed in the United States. Some company, here or there, will eventually
create a lot of prosperity by using this gene-editing technology (called CRISPR) in an
unethical way, quite literally playing God with the most sacred power in the universe -- the
creation of human life. In the past few years, it has become abundantly clear that Apple --
despite self-righteously refusing to cooperate with American security officials -- has
willingly complied with the requirements of the Chinese surveillance state, even as China
builds concentration camps for dissidents and religious minorities. And, as Carlson
mentioned, there are marijuana companies pushing for legalization, though we know from the
Colorado experience that legalization increases use, and from other studies that use is
concentrated among the lower class, causing a host of social problems in the process.
I'm an anti-capitalist so of course I'd agree with JD Vance that there's no good reason to
trust the free market or the owners of capitalist enterprises. Nonetheless, I can't join him
in his specific criticisms of free markets here, and I think this kind of underscores the
difficulties there may be in building bridges between social conservatives and social
liberals. Bridges can certainly be built, for sure, but it will take some work and some
painful compromises, and this is a good example of why: several of the things that JD Vance
points to as examples of free markets gone wrong, are things that I'd say are good
things, not bad ones.
I'm not going to defend pornography (although I'm not particularly going to criticize it
that much either: while I distrust conservative / orthodox Christian sexual ethics, I don't
really care about pornography per se and would be happy if the more violent / weird /
disturbing stuff was banned). Gene editing of humans though strikes me as a clearly good
thing: why wouldn't we want our species to be more peaceful, better looking, more pro-social
and more healthy? And why wouldn't we, at the margins, want to raise people who might
otherwise be born with serious physical or mental handicaps to be 'fixed'? I have a lot of
fears for the future of the world, but the idea that gene editing of our species might become
commonplace is one of the things that makes me hopeful. I also think it's a good thing that
tech companies are cooperating with the Chinese state: not because I like China and its
government, particularly, but because I believe strongly in the sovereign nation state and in
the right of national governments to decide how foreign companies are going to behave on
their territory. I'd much rather a world in which companies in China are constrained by the
Chinese state than one in which they're constrained by no rules at all other than their own
will. Finally, the legalization of marijuana and other soft drugs seems to me to be a good
thing as well.
I'm sure that JD Vance and I can come to lots of agreement over other issues, but I did
want to point out there may be stumbling blocks over social issues as well- precisely because
these issues do matter. They don't matter as much as the economic issues, but they do matter
somewhat.
"We believe that family, local communities, and voluntary associations are the first
guarantors of human dignity, and cultivate mutual care. National institutions and policies
should support, not supplant them."
Quite seriously, the entire party could have been invented by Rod, and I mean that as the
highest endorsement.
"You think creating a power vacuum will prevent big businesses from imposing their will on
the population? Go back and look at your beloved 19th century and tell me that absent
government intervention corporations won't crush peoples lives for a few extra cents."
Absolutely. Absent government help, businesses can't do anything except offer people goods
or services, or offer to purchase their labor or goods or services, on terms the individuals
may or may not find advantageous compared to the status quo. When Big Business ran roughshod
over people in the 19th Century, it was because government helped them (e.g., court cases
letting businesses off the hook for their liabilities because of the supposed need for
"progress").
Not all specialties are created equal. It is clear that a person who take loan to became
obtain a degree in communications is deeply misguided as chances to get a well paying job with
this specially are close to zero. Many "humanitarian" specialties are similar -- unemployment is
almost guaranteed and if a person was misled we should prosecute greedy university administrators
and jail some of them. Such specialties should have a disclaimer: employment is difficult to
obtain. Unemployment is almost garanteed. Take the courses at your own risk.
At the same time for STEM degrees Warren proposal makes more sense as people who enrolled
into those specialties tried a more realistic approach, but probably job market turned bad or
level of talent is not enough or both. while people in this specialties are needed but their
chances for employment are crippled by the flow of H1B applicants so part of those costs should
be subsidized by fees for large H1B employers, such as Microsoft and Google. Or something like
that.
At the same time why we should forgive a person the debt if the particular person specialized
in, say, dance? What is the social value of oversupply of dancers? So probably subsidies should
be selective and limited to STEM specialties and selected "high social value" humanitarian
specialties.
So the loan forgiveness is a crippled, somewhat unfair but still a reasonable approach.
But the key problem is not loads but greed of neoliberal educational institutions. Cost of
tuition skyrocketed after 1980 and that's not accidental: this is drect result of neoliberalism
corruption of higher education. The ability of government to prosecute "too greedy" colleges is
important. Limits of salary of administrators and especially president and vice president and
deens are critical.
Notable quotes:
"... The total cost of Warren's plan would be $1.25 trillion over 10 years, with the debt forgiveness portion consisting of a one-time cost of $640 billion. Warren plans to pay for her plan by imposing an annual tax of 2 percent on all families that have $50 million or more in wealth. ..."
"... Warren is right to focus attention on the matter of student loans. This is a major issue for young people and experts have been warning of a crisis for years. ..."
"... After all, they are victims of a scam perpetrated by the education cartel and the federal government. ..."
"... Here's how it works: the education cartel sells the lie that only those with four-year college degrees can succeed in life. Then they steer everyone with a pulse towards a university. ..."
"... The government steps in and subsidizes student loans that allow almost anyone to go to college, regardless of their ability to pay the loans back. ..."
"... College is not for everyone and there's no reason to keep promoting that idea. ..."
"... Reduce the overabundance of administrators. The number has exploded since the 1990s. ..."
"... A lot of required courses are just padding to make the experience drag on for four years. That creates unneeded expenditures of time and money. ..."
"... several nations currently do offer virtually free college educations & I don’t believe their diplomas are of less value for it. ..."
Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren recently jolted the Democratic presidential primary
race by tackling one of the most important issues of our time: student loans and the cost of
higher education. Warren called for
canceling up to $50,000 of student loan debt for every American making under $100,000 a
year. In addition, she would make two- and four-year public college tuitions free for all new
students.
The total cost of Warren's plan would be $1.25 trillion over 10 years, with the debt
forgiveness portion consisting of a one-time cost of $640 billion. Warren plans to pay for her
plan by imposing an annual tax of 2 percent on all families that have $50 million or more in
wealth.
Warren is right to focus attention on the matter of student loans. This is a major issue
for young people and experts have been warning of a crisis for
years.
But in most cases, it isn't right to blame student loan borrowers for their predicaments.
After all, they are victims of a scam perpetrated by the education cartel and the federal
government.
Here's how it works: the education cartel sells the lie that only those with four-year
college degrees can succeed in life. Then they steer everyone with a pulse towards a
university.
The government steps in and subsidizes student loans that allow almost anyone to go to
college, regardless of their ability to pay the loans back. These loans are a trap, and
not just with regard to their cost. The government, which
took over the student loan industry , forbids borrowers from discharging that debt in
bankruptcy proceedings.
How do such cheap and easy student loans affect universities? For starters, they have caused
a proliferation of degrees that offer poor returns on
investment . In addition, they have led to the dilution of the value of previously
marketable degrees such as those in the humanities and international relations, as more
students enter those programs than could ever hope to work in their respective fields. For
example, in 2013, half of all those who had graduated from college were working in jobs that
did not require degrees .
But worst of all, the easy access to student loans has destroyed the price mechanism, which
is so important for determining the real supply and demand of a product. Since government is
the ultimate payer, tuition has been pushed sky high. The rate of tuition increase has
actually
outpaced inflation threefold .
Is Elizabeth Warren's plan the solution? No! It will only make things worse.
For starters, the wealth tax that she would use to fund her plan is likely
unconstitutional . But even if it was upheld by the Supreme Court, it would still be bad
policy. Countries that have imposed wealth taxes like France and Sweden have found that the
rich simply
leave and take their assets with them rather than pay more.
As for the idea of universal student loan debt forgiveness, it is a bad policy on the
merits. For starters, it does not make economic sense to forgive the debts of those who will
earn at least $17,500 more a year than those who don't go to college.
Also, although the student loan bubble has been inflated by the actions of both the
education cartel and government, at the end of the day, loans are a contract. Those who are
able to pay them down should and not be bailed out.
... ... ...
Finally, we need to promote alternatives to college. There are many well-paying jobs out
there that
don't require degrees . There are also apprentice programs offered by organizations like
Praxis . We should encourage
entrepreneurship, which is how so many in this country have lifted themselves out of poverty.
College is not for everyone and there's no reason to keep promoting that idea.
Kevin Boyd is a freelance writer based in Louisiana. He is a contributor to The
Hayride, a southern news and politics site. He has also been published in , The Federalist, The
Atlanta Journal-Constitution , and The New York Observer among other publications.
How to make college cost effective. Two major reforms
1. Reduce the overabundance of administrators. The number has exploded since the
1990s.
2. Restructure college. Most programs don’t need to be four years long. Most can be
cut to 2 1/2 – 3 years. A chemistry student should be taking courses required for a
chemistry degree, nothing more (unless he/she wants to). A lot of required courses are just
padding to make the experience drag on for four years. That creates unneeded expenditures of
time and money.
After doing the above, then maybe we can talk about “free” college.
I personally believe that we should each pay our own way through life as much as possible,
but several nations currently do offer virtually free college educations & I don’t
believe their diplomas are of less value for it.
I agree with you that other avenues like trades should be encouraged. A four year degree
isn’t necessary for everyone.
Too often caught between Randian individualism on one hand and big-government collectivism
on the other, America's working-class parents need a champion.
They might well have had one in Elizabeth Warren, whose 2003 book, The Two-Income Trap , co-authored with her daughter Amelia
Warren Tyagi, was unafraid to skewer sacred cows. Long a samizdat favorite among socially
conservative writers, the book recently got a new dose of attention after being spotlighted on
the Right by Fox News's
Tucker Carlson and on the Left by Vox's
Matthew Yglesias .
The book's main takeaway was that two-earner families in the early 2000s seemed to be less,
rather than more, financially stable than one-earner families in the 1970s. Whereas
stay-at-home moms used to provide families with an implicit safety net, able to enter the
workforce if circumstances required, the dramatic rise of the two-earner family had effectively
bid up the cost of everyday life. Rather than the additional income giving families more
breathing room, they argue, "Mom's paycheck has been pumped directly into the basic costs of
keeping the children in the middle class."
Warren and Warren Tyagi report that as recently as the late 1970s, a married mother was
roughly twice as likely to stay at home with her children than work full-time. But by 2000,
those figures had almost reversed. Both parents had been pressed into the workforce to
maintain adequate standards of living for their families -- the "two-income trap" of the book's
title. Advertisement
What caused the trap to be sprung? Cornell University economist Francine Blau has helpfully
drawn a picture of women's changing responsiveness to
labor market wages during the 20th century. In her work with Laurence Kahn, Blau found that
women's wage elasticities -- how responsive their work decisions were to changes in their
potential wages -- used to be far more heavily driven by their husband's earning potential or
lack thereof (what economists call cross-wage elasticity). Over time, Blau and Kahn found,
women's responsiveness to wages -- their own or their husbands -- began to fall, and their
labor force participation choices began to more closely resemble men's, providing empirical
backing to the story Warren and Warren Tyagi tell.
Increasing opportunity and education were certainly one driver of this trend. In 1960, just
5.8
percent of all women over age 25 had a bachelor's degree or higher. Today, 41.7 percent of
mothers aged 25 and over have a college degree. Many of these women entered careers in which
they found fulfillment and meaning, and the opportunity costs, both financially and
professionally, of staying home might have been quite high.
But what about the plurality of middle- and working-class moms who weren't necessarily
looking for a career with a path up the corporate ladder? What was pushing them into full-time
work for pay, despite consistently
telling pollsters they wished they could work less?
The essential point, stressed by Warren and Warren Tyagi, was the extent to which this
massive shift was driven by a desire to provide for one's children. The American Dream has as
many interpretations as it does adherents, but a baseline definition would surely include
giving your children a better life. Many women in America's working and middle classes entered
the labor force purely to provide the best possible option for their families.
Warren's academic work and cheeky refusal to fold under pressure when her nomination as
Obama's consumer ('home ec.'?) finance czar was stymied by the GOP are worthy of respect. I'd
like to see her make a strong run at the dem nomination, but am put off by her recent
tendency to adopt silly far-left talking points and sentiments (her Native DNA, advocating
for reparations, etc.). Nice try, Liz, but I'm still leaning Bernie's direction.
As far as the details of the economic analysis related above, though, I am unqualified to
make any judgment – haven't read the book. But one enormously significant economic
development in the early 70s wasn't mentioned at all, so I assume she and her daughter passed
it over as well. In his first term R. Milhouse Nixon untethered, once & for all, the
value of the dollar from traditional hard currency. The economy has been coming along nicely
ever since, except for one problematic aspect: with a floating currency we are all now living
in an economic environment dominated by the vicissitudes of supplies and demands, are we not?
It took awhile to effect the housing market, but signs of the difference it made began to
emerge fairly quickly, and accelerated sharply when the tides of globalism washed lots of
third world lucre up on our western shores. Now, as clearly implied by both Warren and the
author of this article, young Americans whose parents may not have even been born back then
– the early 70s – are probably permanently priced out of the housing market in
places that used to have only a marginally higher cost of entry – i.e. urban
California, where I have lived and worked for most of my nearly 60 years. In places like this
even a 3-earner income may not suffice! Maybe we should bring back the gold standard, because
it seems to me that as long as unfettered competition coupled to supply/demand and (EZ credit
$) is the underlying dynamic of the American economy we're headed for the New Feudalism. Of
course, nothing could be more conservative than that, right? What say you, TAColytes?
"Funny that policy makers never want to help families by taking a little chunk out of hedge
funds and shareholders and vulture capitalists and sharing it with American workers."
Funny that Warren HAS brought up raising taxes on the rich.
The military sucks up 54% of
discretionary federal spending. Pentagon bloat has a huge effect on domestic priorities; the
nearly $1
trillion a year that goes to exploiting, oppressing, torturing, maiming and murdering
foreigners could go to building schools, college scholarships, curing diseases, poetry slams,
whatever. Anything, even tax cuts for the rich, would be better than bombs. But as then GOP
presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said in 2015, "The military is not a social experiment.
The purpose of the military is to
kill people and break things ." If you're like me, you want as little killing and breaking
as possible.
Unfortunately, no major Democratic presidential candidate favors substantial cuts to
Pentagon appropriations.
Current frontrunner Joe Biden (
33% in the polls) doesn't talk
much about defense spending. He reminds us that his son served in Iraq (so he cares about
the military) and that we shouldn't prioritize defense over domestic programs. Vague. Though
specific programs might get trimmed, Lockheed Martin could rest easy under a President
Biden.
"Since he arrived in Congress, [runner-up] Bernie Sanders [19%] has been a fierce
crusader against Pentagon spending , calling for defense cuts that few Democrats have been
willing to support," The Hill reported in 2016. "As late as 2002, he supported a 50 percent cut
for the Pentagon." Bernie is
still a Pentagon critic but he won't commit to a specific amount to cut. He wouldn't
slash and Bern. He'd trim.
Elizabeth Warren (8%) wants "to identify which programs actually benefit American security
in the 21st century, and which programs merely line the pockets of defense contractors -- then
pull out a sharp knife and make some
cuts ."
... ... ...
Kamala Harris (5%) has not weighed
in on military spending. She has received substantial campaign contributions from the
defense industry, though.
The Democrats on Wars for Fun
As senator, Biden voted for the optional wars against
Afghanistan and
Iraq . He
lied about his votes so maybe he felt bad about them. He similarly seems to regret
his ro le in
destroying Libya.
Sanders voted to invade Afghanistan . His
comment at the time reads as hopelessly naïve about the bloodthirsty Bush-Cheney regime:
"The use of force is one tool that we have at our disposal to fight against the horror of
terrorism and mass murder it is something that must be used wisely and with great discretion."
Sanders voted against
invading Iraq , favored regime change in Libya (
albeit nonviolently ) and voted to bomb Syria .
There have been no major new wars since 2013, when Warren joined the Senate so her antiwar
bona fides have not been tested. Like many of her colleagues, she wants an end to the "forever
war" against Afghanistan. She also wants us out of
Syria .
Democrats on NSA Spying Against Americans
... ... ...
Joe Biden, though to the right on other foreign-policy issues, was a critic of NSA spying
for years, going
back at least to 2006. Under Obama, however, he
backtracked . Even worse, Biden
called the president of Ecuador in 2013 to request that he deny asylum to NSA whistleblower
Edward Snowden.
Update 10: Though she isn't in the room today, Sen. Elizabeth Warren felt she needed to
communicate a very important message to Barr: That she would like him to resign.
AG Barr is a disgrace, and his alarming efforts to suppress the Mueller report show that
he's not a credible head of federal law enforcement. He should resign -- and based on the
actual facts in the Mueller report, Congress should begin impeachment proceedings against the
President.
This is
the second in two recent
Real News Network interviews with Bill Black, white collar criminologist and frequent Naked
Capitalism contributor. Bill is author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and teaches
economics and law at the University of Missouri Kansas City (UMKC).
Bill argues that the problem isn't deficient laws, which is Warren's focus. He says
instead:
It's far better to focus on using the existing criminal laws but changing the things in
the system that are so criminogenic and changing institutionally the regulators, the F.B.I.,
and the prosecutors, so that you go back to systems that we've always known how to make work.
The simple example is task forces. What produced the huge success in the savings and loan,
the Commercial Bank, and the Enron era fraud prosecutions? It was these task forces where we
brought everyone together to actually bring prosecutions. They killed those criminal task
forces, both under the Bush administration and under the Obama administration.
I think this is cause for optimism. For it means we don't have to go through the long and
torturous process of passing new laws to get somewhere with fixing a deeply broken system. The
Dodd-Frank Act wasn't passed until July 2010, despite the huge clamor to do something about the
banks that created the Great Financial Crisis. And then it took many years for all affected
agencies to finish rule-makings necessary to administer and enforce the law. Imagine if we had
to do that again to get somewhere with the necessary clean-up.
Instead, we merely have to elect politicians who will appoint necessary personnel to
confront the prevailing criminogenic environment. I know, I know – that's a big ask too.
But believe me, it would be even bigger if we must also take the preliminary step of passing
new legislation as well.
MARC STEINER Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Mark Steiner. Always good to have you
with us. Now if you were watching the previous segment and you saw what Bill Black and I were
talking about, you saw that we were kind of diving into the history of this. Why it's so
difficult to prosecute or maybe it's not, and we're finding out why. But what we didn't jump
into was about Elizabeth Warren's proposal. Do they make sense? If they passed, will they
actually make a difference. What is it that we do we need, more laws like that or do we need
more regulation? What would solve the crisis that we seem to constantly be falling into? And
we're still here with Bill Black as always, which is great. So Bill, let me just jump right
into this. Her proposals -- do they meet muster? Do they actually make a difference? Some
people say she's piddling around the edges. What do you think?
BILL BLACK So for example, the proposed bill on Too Big to Jail would largely recreate the
entities that we had during the great financial crisis, which led to virtually no prosecutions. So yes, we need more resources, but bringing back SIGTARP, the special inspector general for
the Treasury, would have next to no effects.
The criminal referrals have to come from the
banking regulatory agencies. They have essentially been terminated. You need new leadership at
those entities that were actually going to make criminal referrals. The second part -- would it
change things to be able to prosecute simply by showing negligence? Well yes, but it would
still be a massive battle to show negligence in those circumstances and at the end of the day,
the judge could just give probation. And judges are going to be very hostile to it,
particularly after Trump gets all these judicial appointees.
You would just see a wave, if you
used a simple negligence standard of conservative judges who didn't think it was fair to make
it that easy to prosecute folks. They would give people probation. Prosecutors wouldn't want to
go through a huge fight just to get probation and such. And so, it would be immensely
ineffective, and it would break.
There'd be maybe some progressive judges that would actually
give the maximum term, but that's only one year under her proposal. So you're not going to get
significant deterrence through those mechanisms. It's far better to focus on using the existing
criminal laws but changing the things in the system that are so criminogenic and changing
institutionally the regulators, the F.B.I., and the prosecutors, so that you go back to systems
that we've always known how to make work. The simple example is task forces.
What produced the
huge success in the savings and loan, the Commercial Bank, and the Enron era fraud
prosecutions? It was these task forces where we brought everyone together to actually bring
prosecutions. They killed those criminal task forces, both under the Bush administration and
under the Obama administration. So we don't have to reinvent the bike. We don't have to design
a new vehicle. We have a vehicle that works for successful prosecutions. We actually need to
use it and to do that, we need people in charge who have the will to prosecute elite
white-collar criminals.
MARC STEINER So you do agree with a critique of these bills, saying what we need is just to
have greater regulation and enforce regulations we have? We don't need new prosecutorial tools?
Is that what you're saying?
BILL BLACK No I completely reject that view in Slate that is by two folks who have really
extreme views. One thinks that we prosecute and sentence elite white-collar criminals way too
much and much too heavily. And the other, for example, has written an article saying, we
shouldn't make wage theft which is theft, a crime.
Even though it's Walmart's dominant strategy
and it makes it impossible for more honest merchants to compete against Walmart, that is an
insane view. And of course, it will never happen because you're going to put the same people in
charge who don't believe. If they don't believe in prosecuting, you think seriously they
believe in regulating the big banks?
MARC STEINER What I'm asking you though Bill, to critique that, what do you think? Are the
bills that Elizabeth Warren is suggesting unnecessary, other than maybe putting more money into
regulatory agencies to oversee all of this? Are you saying that we have enough prosecutorial
tools?
BILL BLACK They're unnecessary. The specifics in the bills are unnecessary. But that doesn't
mean that regulation is the answer to it, although it's part of the issue.
MARC STEINER I got you. Right.
BILL BLACK What you need is leaders who will use the tools we know work, to do the
prosecutions. And they made absolutely sure -- that's Lanny Breuer who you talked about in the
first episode of this thing, that actually said to a nationwide audience on video that he was
kept awake and fearing not what the bank criminals were doing but fearing that somebody might
lose their job in banks because of it.
You know he doesn't represent the American people at
that point. If you put Lanny Breuer in, you could put 10,000 F.B.I. agents and you would still
get no prosecutions, because Lanny Breuer simply isn't going to prosecute just like Eric Holder
simply wasn't going to prosecute.
It's not just the US, but the UK, too. Readers may be aware that the British government is seeking a successor to Mark Carney at
the Bank of England, which has resumed most, but not all, of its former supervisory
responsibilities this decade.
One of the candidates, Andrew Bailey, a former Bank official and currently head of the
conduct risk regulator, is desperate for the Bank job and publicly and privately speaking
about lightening the regulatory load. Not only that, Bailey is also reluctant to take action
against the well connected and have anything going on that will have an impact on his
application, vide the current London Capital Finance scandal.
At a recent address to asset managers, Bailey said that not on Brexit + day 1, but soon
after the red pen would be applied to the UK rule book. He implied that prosecutions would be
a rarity. It was very much a plea to firms to stay after Brexit and to lobby for his
candidacy.
I am old enough remember clearly the Blue Arrow case in the 1980's ( easily looked up )
but essentially a share rigging operation. The smokescreen advanced by the establishment in
these cases had always been the same; that company fraud is far to complicated for ordinary
mortals to understand . But in the Blue Arrow case they ( the jury ) did understand it, which
terrified the establishment, and word came down from on high that no such prosecutions should
ever happen again . And then we had ' light touch regulation '. And then we had the Great
Financial Crash.
I do indeed Colonel. Both scandals seem almost quaint in the light of the scale of the
manipulation and fraud in the years leading up to the GFC and subsequently; and the
unwillingness of both the UK and US government to even attempt to bring about prosecutions.
The intertwining of politics and big business ( ' the revolving door ' ) has played a large
part in this and IMHO distressed the wider public to such an extent that when they had the
opportunity to show their displeasure they did so and voted for Brexit and Trump.
Those regulators and their ilk need trips to the Old Bailey, although that is not likely
to happen in the foreseeable future. Too much is riding on the Brexit preparations, until the
next panic, and then the following panic. All of those militate against any action that would
harm the fabric of, ahem, pay packets.
If you put Lanny Breuer in, you could put 10,000 F.B.I. agents and you would still get
no prosecutions, because Lanny Breuer simply isn't going to prosecute just like Eric Holder
simply wasn't going to prosecute.
IMHO, you could put Bill Black in, many, if not most of those 10,000 F.B.I. agents would
passively resist, and you would still get no prosecutions.
We're seeing, with Trump, what passive resistance looks like, the same will be done to
Bernie if elected.
The massive momentum of neo-liberal rule is baked in, and has been quite successful at
making sure Trump doesn't screw any of their plans up, in fact Trump derangement syndrome
seems to be working better than they could ever have dreamed to cover the really nasty stuff
that's going on while the people are treated to Russia, Russia, Russia! 24/7.
Bernie would face the same, but probably worse, more intense resistance from what would be
a unified, bi-partisan resistance, the 10%, with forty years worth of Washington Consensus
training under their belts, all either chanting in unison against the evils of socialism, or
sticking their fingers in their ears and chanting Na, Na, Na, Na!
After 9/11, the FBI pulled thousands of agents off white collar crime and switched them to
fighting terrorism, in hindsight, this seems closer to evidence of a plan than an accident of
history.
By now, most, if not all those agents have decided that for the sake of their careers,
they had better forget about what they used to think was important.
It would probably take all of Bernie's first term to bring the public up to speed, and in
alignment with the effort to prosecute the banksters, and that's being optimistic.
Right now, half the electorate believes that dead-beat borrowers crashed the economy in
2008.
You don't need the FBI to prosecute bank crimes. In his book version of Inside Job,
Charles Ferguson laid out the evidence for WaMu (and IIRC another bank) that was sufficient
to be able to indict executives. There was plenty of evidence in the public domain.
Yes, and what is it we are discussing, the reasons why no indictments were made, and what
is to be done about it?
My point is that changes in leadership, IMO are insufficient to prompt those indictments
into being in the near term because in the period since 2008, everything possible has been
done to load the federal bureaucracy with politically reliable persons dedicated to helping
defend the status quo.
I might add that ' The Resistance' has, IMO, been focused almost exclusively on
making sure Trump is not reelected, thereby protecting democratic rice bowls, and sadly, not
so much on preventing his destroying regulatory systems, the courts, and every remnant of the
New Deal.
The situation we're facing is the Augean Stables, except that it's been 40 years, not 30,
that the filth has been building up without a proper cleaning.
So, being wildly optimistic, we elect Bernie Sanders, and if we're lucky, start a
generation long process against a strong head wind.
That said, I remain wildly optimistic that that is what will happen, I just can't help
myself.
I'm not a legal expert but what about going after banks, most of which do business in NY
state, by using the existing Martin Act like Eliot Spitzer. According to
this older article :
"Spitzer's big gun was New York's Martin Act. The law allowed him to subpoena virtually
any document from anyone doing business in the state. Because the law permits prosecutors to
pursue either civil or criminal penalties, Spitzer could refuse to tell suspects which one he
was seeking. Spitzer's willingness to wield the considerable powers permitted by the Martin
Act turned the New York AG's office from a backwater into a rainmaker and made the SEC, which
could impose only puny civil penalties, look like a peashooter.
Spitzer used the Martin Act
to drag angry and unwilling corporate executives into his office for questioning. Then he'd
subpoena huge company files.
Dedicated staff combed through them and, almost inevitably,
found a smoking gun: secretive after-hours trading between mutual funds and hedge funds;
alleged bid rigging at Marsh; and emails from Wall Street analyst Jack Grubman bragging to
his mistress about how he'd recommended a shoddy company in a three-way deal to help his
boss, Citigroup chairman Sandy Weill, humiliate a corporate foe.
Spitzer would then wave "the
bloody shirt," as journalist Roger Donway puts it, in front of the cameras, show off the
worst offenses he had uncovered and use them to tar and feather an entire industry."
Senator Elizabeth Warren's Q&A at the March 7, 2013 Banking Committee hearing entitled
"Patterns of Abuse: Assessing Bank Secrecy Act Compliance and Enforcement." Witnesses were:
David Cohen, Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, United States Department
of the Treasury; Thomas Curry, Comptroller, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency; and
Jerome H. Powell, Governor, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
HSBC has a long history dealing in illicit, immoral drugs. In fact, the bank was
established to facilitate such. "After the British established Hong Kong as a colony in the
aftermath of the First Opium War, local merchants felt the need for a bank to finance the
growing trade between China and Europe (with traded products including opium). They
established the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Company Limited in Hong Kong (March 1865) and
Shanghai (one month later)." ~ Wikipedia Another good source is the book "Dope, Inc." RESIST
!!!
Obviously nobody wants to take responsibilities. They would not even consider what is
morally wrong or acceptable. These are the people we pay salaries to protect us, 316 million
Americans? So we still pay a hefty salary to Senator Powell and David Cohn in Treasury
department? Are these people in cahoots with those who laundered money at J P Morgan ? Do
they make money from both sides? Peel off the tax payers and get bribes from the banks which
launder the money ? I assume this is just a game. Banksters on Wall Street who suck our blood
are still outside on the prowl. They did it in 2008 and are looking for the next move
soon.
What gets me is these banks are part of the illicit drug trade with no chance of jail
time, but if one of the peasants gets busted with a single joint.Prosecution,jail, fines, you
name it, it's throw the book time.We need more people like Warren in government.
Elizabeth Warren may have smart policies. But Bernie Sanders has mass politics.
Last week I wrote
an article
praising Elizabeth Warren for advancing the student debt conversation. While I think her proposal falls short of what we
deserve -- a full-on student debt jubilee, no means-testing or exceptions -- I'm impressed by how seriously it takes the
problem of student debt, leaving Obama-style "refinancing" behind in favor of large-scale debt forgiveness, commensurate
with the gravity of the crisis.
The student debt proposal was one of many recent plans released by Warren in recent
months, ramping up in the last few weeks. Some are better than others. Her
Ultra-Millionaire Tax
is a winner, as is her
Real
Corporate Profits Tax
. Warren's universal childcare plan is promising overall, though it retains
unnecessary
fees
for users. Her
affordable
housing plan
is one-sidedly market-based: its central proposal is to incentivize local governments to remove zoning
restrictions. That needs to be complemented by heavy investments in social housing, a policy
recently
floated
by the People's Policy Project.
But criticisms aside, Warren's proposals trend in a
positive direction. At the very least, they demonstrate a willingness to tackle working people's real problems
with debt, housing, health, and childcare. If they were to materialize, many of these proposals would
significantly improve life for working people -- maybe not as much as we'd like, but enough to be considered a
positive development, especially after decades of Democratic disinterest in policies that threaten corporate
profits or meaningfully redistribute wealth.
So it's understandable why many on the Left have reacted to
Warren's policy blitz with delight. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. The proposals she's pumping out are
exciting, but more to the point, they are a strategy for raising her campaign's profile.
It's not standard in presidential politics to bust out
of the gate with a constant stream of detailed policy ideas. The other candidates aren't
behind
on
releasing policy proposals -- Warren is way ahead, doing something unusual. Bernie Sanders doesn't even have
his policy team fully assembled yet, nor do the others. We need to ask why Warren feels compelled to adopt
this early traction-gaining strategy to begin with.
In my view, Warren's policy blitz is a bid to
distinguish herself in light of her difficulty thus far in cohering an organic base. Put bluntly, Warren is
turning her campaign into a policy factory because she's had trouble inspiring people with a broad-strokes
political vision the way her closest ideological competitor, Bernie Sanders, has.
This strategy may work to boost her campaign prospects, but it's a bad omen for any presidential
administration seriously committed to taking on the ruling elite. If you can't impart to millions of working
people the sense that they are carrying out a historic mission during your campaign -- a "
political
revolution
" driven by "
Not
Me, Us
" -- you won't be able to mobilize them to exert pressure on the state to challenge the interests
of capital when it really counts, during your presidency.
Part of Warren's trouble in the area of mass politics can be traced to the fact that she's neither an
establishment plaything nor an opponent of capitalism. To her credit, Warren won't take corporate money (at
least
during the primary
), and she evades the regular donor circuit. That means that to make her campaign
viable, she needs masses of ordinary people to believe in her project strongly enough to donate their own
hard-earned money to her campaign. Unlike Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, or certainly Joe
Biden, she can't
paper
over
her lackluster popular support with fat checks from elites.
So far, those masses have failed to materialize. That's largely because Warren's temperate political
ideology makes it hard for her to say the things necessary to get their attention. She's great at diagnosing
the worst problems of capitalism and has plans to address them, but her rhetoric doesn't polarize along
class lines. She therefore struggles to define her constituency and identify who exactly that constituency
is up against.
Warren hates egregious inequality, but
fundamentally believes
in the superior rationality of markets. She has unwavering faith in capitalism,
calling herself
"a capitalist to my bones" -- her primary concern is that it has been led astray. At a
time when socialism is
becoming synonymous
with efforts to put people over profit, Warren disavows it. When Donald Trump
declared that "America will never be a socialist country" a couple of months ago, Sanders stayed slouched in
his chair, while Warren
rose to
her feet
in applause.
This means that while Warren knows down to the last detail what she'd like better regulations to look
like, she's not quite solid on the antagonists and protagonists, i.e. which broader social forces need to be
arranged against which other forces to make change.
Sanders's vision of social conflict is quite clear, and is summed up by the name of his
town hall
last year:
CEOs vs. Workers. To make favorable policy materialize and to protect it from reversal, the forces of
workers need to be arranged against the forces of CEOs. Nearly everything Sanders says and does leads back
to this core belief in the power of ordinary working people to take on capitalist elites themselves. As he
puts it
, "Real change never takes place from the top on down. It always takes place from the bottom on
up."
In Warren's case, where oppositional rhetoric appears at all, the contest more often comes across as
"Smart Progressive Policymakers vs. Bad Rules." Not only is there no room in that rivalry for ordinary
people, but the enemy is also faceless. The enemy is incorrect policy, and it must be corrected by expert
policy correctors. Elect Warren, on the basis of her demonstrated expertise, and she will deftly set about
changing the rules so that capitalism doesn't produce so many awful externalities.
Sanders may as well have been winking at Warren when he said, in a
video
screened recently to thousands of self-organized groups of Bernie supporters in every congressional
district:
No president, not the best intentioned, not the most honest person in the world, no one person can do
it alone. Now why is that? Because this is what is not talked about in the media, not talked about in
Congress: the power structure of America is such that a small number of wealthy individuals and large
corporate entities have so much influence over the economic and political life of this country that no
one person can do it.
You think we're gonna pass Medicare for All tomorrow because the president of the United States says
that's what we should do? You think we're gonna take on the fossil fuel industry and effectively and
aggressively combat climate change change because the president of the United States thinks we should do
that? A lot of presidents say, "Gee I have a great idea. I woke up yesterday and I think health care
for all's a good idea." That's not the way it happens. It happens when millions of people stand up and
demand it.
It's unsurprising that Bernie's broad vision of social conflict is more inspiring than Warren's. After
decades of skyrocketing living costs and stagnating wages, many working people are spoiling for a fight.
That nascent fighting spirit can be seen in the popular protest movements that began in 2011, the
unprecedented popularity of Sanders's dark-horse candidacy in 2016, and the teachers strike wave that kicked
off last year.
Unencumbered by an awkward mixture of admiration for capitalism and disapproval of its ugliest excesses,
Bernie Sanders is uniquely capable of picking that fight -- and making ordinary working people feel like
they're at the center of it, that it's theirs to win.
It's the trouble Warren has had breaking through in this way that explains why she has turned to cranking
out hyper-detailed proposals. She's making up with wonkery what she lacks in big-picture political clarity.
In the process, she's successfully grabbing headlines and winning the hearts of left technocrats with
prominent platforms. That might translate into some boost in popular support. But it's not obvious that such
support will ever rival that of a
candidate who tells workers
, "This is class warfare, and we're going to stand up and fight."
We are right to admire many of the ideas coming out of the Warren campaign. Best-case scenario, they will
spur a progressive policy arms race, which would be to the benefit of all.
But we shouldn't see her policy blitz purely as a sign of strength. It may actually be an SOS message, a
panicked response to her campaign's shortcomings in the field of mass politics. And of course, mass politics
are necessary for creating durable and militant constituencies that can
self-organize
outside the state, which is in turn necessary to win and preserve a progressive policy
agenda against the interests of capitalists -- an agenda that Warren and Sanders largely share.
Warren's policy blitz strategy may pay off in the short term. But in the long term, there's no substitute
for naming the sides, picking a side, and building up your side to fight the other side. And that's Bernie's
game.
She rips the Obama White House for its allegiance to Citibank. But she does nto understadn that the problem is not with
Citibank, but with the neoliberalism as the social system. Sad...
Democrats and Republicans are just two sides of the same coin as for neoliberalism. Which presuppose protecting banks, like
Citigroup, and other big corporations. The USA political system is not a Democracy, we have become an Oligarchy with a two Party
twist (Poliarchy) in whihc ordinary voters are just statists who have No voice for anyone except approving one of the two
preselected by big money candidates. It's time we put a stop to this nonsense or we'll all go down with ship.
Anyway, on a positive note
"Each time a person stands up for an ideal to improve the lot of others, they send forth a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistence." RFK
This budget deal is absolutely disgusting. More financial deregulation, the potential for
a second TARP, cuts to pensions, and cuts to funding for Pell Grants to help out students.
Once again, the people lose.
So tough, so strong, and so right. And I love that she's not afraid to rip into Democrats
and the White House for their complicity in selling out our country and tax dollars to the
big banks. We need more strong politicians on both sides of the aisle like this.
It's not party specific, though the Republicans are the worst. Both parties are to be
blame. The biggest blame goes to the Americans who do not vote and those who have no clue who
or what they are voting for. The government is the way it is, it's because of the attitude of
Americans towards politics. Majority do not give a shit and hence you have that pile up in
Washington and states legislature.
Elizabeth Warren is like a fictional do gooder character from Hollywood. No one take her
seriously.
Blame all the politicians you want, you Americans voting or not voting are the lousiest
employers in the world, because you hire a bunch of corruptors into your government. These
corruptors in fact control your lives.
They abuse your money, spending every penny on everything but on you. You would not hand
over your wallet or bank accounts to a strangers, yet are precisely doing that by putting
these corruptors in the government.
This speech encapsulates and exposes all that is wrong with America in general and with
our governance in particular. Taking the heinous provision out of the bill would be a great
first baby step toward cleaning up our politics, economy and collective spirit as a nation.
All the "smart money" says that Warren is engaged in a Quixotic attempt to do something good
in a system that is irredeemably corrupted by money and the lust for power. The cynics may be
right, perhaps America is doomed to be consumed by the parasites to the last drop of
blood...but maybe not. Maybe this ugly indefensibly corrupt malevolent move to put the
taxpayers back on the hook for the next trillion dollar bail out theft will be sufficient to
wake up hundreds of millions of us. When the people wake up and turn on the lights, the
crooks and the legally corrupt will slither away back into their hole...and many may just
wind up in prison, where they belong. But so long as corrupt dirty dastardly interests can
keepAmerica deceived and asleep, they will continue to drain our nation's life's blood dry.
Please share this video widely. If half as many folks watch this speech as watched the Miley
Cyrus "Wrecking Ball" YouTube, the provision to which Warren is objecting will be taken out
very quickly indeed.
As George Carlin said a decade ago,who are we going to replace these politicians with?
They did not fall out of the sky or come from a distant planet. They are US. You can vote all
you want and replace every last one of them but nothing will change. It is human nature.
Besides the road from being on the local town council, to the mayor,Gov then into the Capital
is littered with test to weed out anyone who might really pose a danger to the system. The
occasional odd one that does make it to power is castrated or there simply to give the
illusion that elections matter. Unless you can eliminate the attraction of greed,ego and
power nothing will ever change. Just a quick look back at history tells you what is happening
now and what will be going on in our future. The only difference is there are more zeros.
"... Although the causal relationships are difficult to untangle, there are solid grounds for believing that the rise in monopoly power has played a role in exacerbating income inequality, weakening workers' bargaining power, and slowing the rate of innovation. ..."
"... The debate about how to regulate the sector is eerily reminiscent of the debate over financial regulation in the early 2000s. Proponents of a light regulatory touch argued that finance was too complicated for regulators to keep up with innovation, and that derivatives trading allows banks to make wholesale changes to their risk profile in the blink of an eye. And the financial industry put its money where its mouth was, paying salaries so much higher than those in the public sector that any research assistant the Federal Reserve System trained to work on financial issues would be enticed with offers exceeding what their boss's boss was earning. ..."
"... It is a problem that cannot be overcome without addressing fundamental questions about the role of the state, privacy, and how US firms can compete globally against China, where the government is using domestic tech companies to collect data on its citizens at an exponential pace. And yet many would prefer to avoid them. ..."
"... At this point, ideas for regulating Big Tech are just sketches, and of course more serious analysis is warranted. An open, informed discussion that is not squelched by lobbying dollars is a national imperative. ..."
The debate about how to regulate
the tech sector is eerily reminiscent of the debate over financial regulation in the early 2000s. Fortunately, one US politician
has mustered the courage to call for a total rethink of America's exceptionally permissive merger and acquisition policy over the
past four decades.
CAMBRIDGE – Displaying a degree of courage and clarity that is difficult to overstate, US senator and presidential candidate Elizabeth
Warren has taken on Big Tech, including Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple. Warren's proposals amount to a
total rethink of the
United States' exceptionally permissive merger and acquisition policy over the past four decades. Indeed, Big Tech is only the poster
child for a significant increase
in monopoly and oligopoly power across a broad swath of the American economy. Although the best approach is still far from clear,
I
could not agree more that something needs to done, especially when it comes to Big Tech's ability to buy out potential competitors
and use their platform dominance to move into other lines of business.
Warren is courageous because Big Tech is big money for most leading Democratic candidates, particularly progressives, for whom
California is a veritable campaign-financing ATM. And although one can certainly object, Warren is not alone in thinking that the
tech giants have gained excessive market dominance; in fact, it is one of the few issues in Washington on which there is some semblance
of agreement . Other
candidates, most notably Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, have also taken
principled stands
Although the causal relationships are difficult to untangle, there are solid grounds for believing that the rise in monopoly power
has
played a role in exacerbating income inequality, weakening workers' bargaining power, and slowing the rate of innovation. And,
perhaps outside of China, it is a global problem, because US tech monopolies have often achieved market dominance before local regulators
and politicians know what has happened. The European Union, in particular, has been trying to steer its own course on
technology regulation . Recently,
the United Kingdom commissioned an expert group, chaired by former President Barack Obama's chief economist (and now my colleague)
Jason Furman , that produced a
very useful report on approaches to the tech sector.
The debate about how to regulate the sector is eerily reminiscent of the debate over financial regulation in the early 2000s.
Proponents of a light regulatory touch argued that finance was too complicated for regulators to keep up with innovation, and that
derivatives trading allows banks to make wholesale changes to their risk profile in the blink of an eye. And the financial industry
put its money where its mouth was, paying salaries so much higher than those in the public sector that any research assistant the
Federal Reserve System trained to work on financial issues would be enticed with offers exceeding what their boss's boss was earning.
There will be similar problems staffing tech regulatory offices and antitrust legal divisions if the push for tighter regulation
gains traction. To succeed, political leaders need to be focused and determined, and not easily bought. One only has to recall the
2008 financial crisis and its painful aftermath to comprehend what can happen when a sector becomes too politically influential.
And the US and world economy are, if anything, even more vulnerable to Big Tech than to the financial sector, owing both to cyber
aggression and vulnerabilities in social media that can pervert political debate.
Another parallel with the financial sector is the outsize role of US regulators. As with US foreign policy, when they sneeze,
the entire world can catch a cold. The 2008 financial crisis was sparked by vulnerabilities in the US and the United Kingdom, but
quickly went global. A US-based cyber crisis could easily do the same. This creates an "externality," or global commons problem,
because US regulators allow risks to build up in the system without adequately considering international implications.
It is a problem that cannot be overcome without addressing fundamental questions about the role of the state, privacy, and how
US firms can compete globally against China, where the government is using domestic tech companies to collect data on its citizens
at an exponential pace. And yet many would prefer to avoid them.
That's why there has been
fierce pushback against Warren for daring to suggest that even if many services seem to be provided for free, there might still
be something wrong. There was the same kind of pushback from the financial sector fifteen years ago, and from the railroads back
in the late 1800s. Writing in the March 1881 issue of The Atlantic , the progressive activist Henry Demarest Lloyd
warned that,
"Our treatment of 'the railroad problem' will show the quality and caliber of our political sense. It will go far in foreshadowing
the future lines of our social and political growth. It may indicate whether the American democracy, like all the democratic experiments
which have preceded it, is to become extinct because the people had not wit enough or virtue enough to make the common good supreme."
Lloyd's words still ring true today. At this point, ideas for regulating Big Tech are just sketches, and of course more serious
analysis is warranted. An open, informed discussion that is not squelched by lobbying dollars is a national imperative.
The debate
that Warren has joined is not about whether to establish socialism. It is about making capitalist competition fairer and, ultimately,
stronger.
Kenneth Rogoff, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Harvard University
and recipient of the 2011 Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics, was the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund
from 2001 to 2003. The co-author of This Time is Different:
Eight Centuries of Financial Folly , his new book, The Curse of Cash , was released in August 2016.
MARC STEINER Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Mark Steiner. Great to have you all with
us. Senator Elizabeth Warren is attempting to make waves with her bold pronouncements during
her bid for this presidency. She's introduced two bills into the Senate. The first is called
the Corporate Executive Accountability Act, which will hold corporate executives of
million-dollar corporations criminally liable for negligence with potential prison time. The
other is called The Too Big to Jail Act, creating a corporate crime strike force. In the wake
of the 2008 meltdown, where there were no criminal prosecutions of note despite ruining
millions of lives in our country, it's led to a roiling discontent in America. Why has it been
so difficult to prosecute bankers and corporate leaders and executives in our country? Why has
the government been so reluctant to do so? And in the unlikely circumstance that Warren's bills
will get passed in the Senate, what would be the result and complications if they did? Joining
us once again to sort through all of this is a man who knows a thing or two about white-collar
crime. Bill Black -- Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of
Missouri-Kansas City, white- collar criminologist, former financial regulator, the author of
the book The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One, and a regular contributor here at The Real
News. Bill, welcome back. Good to have you with us. Thank you. So this has obviously been
building since 2008. People have been wanting some answer, but I think most folks don't know
really what that means. I've been reading a lot of pieces that are pro and con about what
Elizabeth Warren is suggesting. Let's go through what she's suggesting and get your initial
read and analysis of that.
BILL BLACK Okay. So as you said, there are two different acts. She just rolled one of them
out a couple of days ago and they fit together. One is addressed more directly to the financial
crisis and the other one is prompted by the financial crisis, but broader than it. That second
one would propose to change the requirement to get a guilty verdict to a demonstration of
negligence on the part of officers when they commit the really serious crimes. The other act
would basically provide more resources to go after elite, white-collar criminals.
MARC STEINER In the New York Times, there was a quote from Lanny Breuer who is a Justice
Department, Criminal Division official former head. He said on Frontline, "when we can't prove
beyond a reasonable doubt that there was a criminal intent, then we have a constitutional duty
not to bring those cases." And Attorney General Eric Holder told the Senate committee that some
banks would become "too big," that prosecuting them would have negatively affected the economy.
In other words, they've become too big to jail. And then, in Britain there it was said that if
you start prosecuting these people, then it threatens the very foundations of the free
enterprise system. So Bill, what's the problem here?
BILL BLACK So the problem is the people at the top in both the United States and the United
Kingdom. For example, Prime Minister Blair complained at a time when the Financial Supervisory
Authority -- which is referred to over there as the Fundamentally Supine Authority [laughter]
-- was absolutely not regulating anything, that it was outrageous overregulation, and how dare
they treat bankers as potential criminals. We have the combination of Breuer and Holder where
the only issue is, which of them was more moronic on this subject, and it was a dead tie.
MARC STEINER So tell me why do you use the word "moronic?"
BILL BLACK Because it's a family show.
MARC STEINER [laughter]
BILL BLACK So seriously, to go through these things, let's recall that in much more
difficult cases in the savings and loan debacle, we oriented the prosecutions entirely towards
the most elite defendants. And here's the first thing: There is never a problem to the
financial system from prosecuting individual criminals. It is not good for a financial system
to be run by criminals. You strengthen the financial system when you convict and remove
criminals from running the largest bank. [laugher]
MARC STEINER Let me just ask you a question about that. But is the nature of the competition
among banks and the competition to make as much money as humanly possible -- like the scandal
that happened in 2008 that tanked our economy for a while and put millions of people into huge
financial jeopardy -- that seems to me to be the daily workings of those institutions. And the
issue
BILL BLACK No, no.
MARC STEINER Go ahead. Tell me why you say no.
BILL BLACK Banks don't do anything.
MARC STEINER The people in them do, though.
BILL BLACK The bankers do things and bankers shape the institutions, so institutions matter
enormously. And that's the first big thing in a critique of Senator Warren. If anybody is close
to Senator Warren, please send her this link. [laughter] We can really help. She's got exactly
the right ideas, but she isn't an expert in criminology. She wasn't part of the efforts to
prosecute folks successfully that I'm about to describe. We can really, really help her be
effective and we're willing to help any candidate be effective on these issues. Two enormous
institutional changes have made the world vastly more criminogenic. Those changes are: we got
rid of true partnerships where you had joint and several liability. Therefore, it really paid
to make sure that you didn't make a partner, someone who was super sleazy, because then they
could sue you -- not them, not the sleazy partner, but you and it was absolutely no defense
that you had nothing to do with it. Your entire net worth could be taken. That's what a true
partnership was. We got rid of true partnerships throughout the financial world. The second
thing is modern executive compensation. Modern executive compensation not only creates the
incentives to defraud, because you can be made wealthy. It provides the means to defraud. This
allows you to convert corporate assets to your own personal wealth in a way that has very
little risk of prosecution and it allowed you to suborn the controls but also [allowed] the
lower officers and employees to actually commit the fraudulent acts, which are usually
accounting for you in a way that you'd have plausible deniability. We can change both and we
must change both of those incredibly perverse incentives if we want to deal with fraud
successfully. So that's the missing part of her plan and I think she would agree with
everything I've said. Now we have a detailed plan -- we being the bank whistleblowers united --
that we put out two years ago in the election, two and a half years ago. We'll put this on the
website, or at least the links to it for folks who want to know the kind of institutional steps
you need to start changing this. But even with what I've said about this much more criminogenic
environment, it remains true that we could have prosecuted successfully elite officers and
every one of the major participants that committed these frauds. Indeed in many ways it would
have been easier than during the savings and loan debacle, because unlike the savings and loan
debacle, we have superb whistleblowers -- literally hundreds of whistleblowers who can say
explicitly that these frauds occurred. And then we do it the old-fashioned way. That would give
us the ability to prosecute midlevel officials and we can take it up the food chain by flipping
them so that they give us information on the more senior folks. In some cases, our
whistleblowers were right there in the C-suite and that would have included for example, a dead
to rights prosecution against Robert Rubin. That's as senior as you can get at city, a dead to
right prosecution of Mozilo at Countrywide. And we have other institutions like Wells Fargo
where the following happened, so it's easy to look at liar's loans. Liar's loans again had a
fraud incidence of 90 percent -- nine-zero. So the only entities doing liar's loans as a
significant product are fraudulent. Similarly, if they're doing appraisal fraud, extorting
appraisers to inflate appraisals, that only occurs at fraudulent shops. So Wells actually
checked and it's easy to check and that's an important point. The fact that the Department of
Justice never did this, and the banking agencies never did this, is a demonstration that they
didn't want to actually conduct investigations. Here's how you check: so in a liar's loan, you
don't verify the borrower's income, but the borrower signs at the same time a permission that
says you can check this against my I.R.S. forms. And here's a hint: none of us deliberately
inflate our income on our income tax returns because we'd have to pay more taxes. [laughter] So
in the case of both Countrywide and Wells Fargo, we know that senior management who was given
the results said, these kinds of loans, liar's loans, are majority frauds. And we know that
senior management in both cases said, you know what we should do? Many, many more of those.
That is a great criminal case. At J.P. Morgan, we have a great criminal case.
MARC STEINER Let me just interrupt you for a second, Bill. I want people to understand this
because everything you're reading in the press right now, almost every article, whether they
seem to like what Elizabeth Warren is suggesting, or oppose it, have questions about it. Almost
everybody to a person I've read has said, it's almost impossible to prosecute these cases. We
don't have a law to do it, that prosecuting somebody for, as she's suggesting, for negligence
would not get the job done even if her bill ever passed. And so, talk a bit about that though.
I'm very curious since clearly, you're going against the common wisdom that most people would
have and anything they read -- whether it's The New York Times or anywhere else -- that we
don't have the laws to make prosecutions work, which is one of the reasons why we're not
prosecuting people.
BILL BLACK Okay so everybody you've read, has never been involved in these successful
prosecutions.
MARC STEINER No, but if they're journalists and they've studied it, they should know what
they're talking about.
BILL BLACK Seriously? [laughter]
MARC STEINER You would think, right? Well I would hope so. Anyway, but go ahead.
[laughter].
BILL BLACK No, I would not think so. I don't think that at all because otherwise, they would
have talked to people like us who actually did it. So let's go back. Under the same laws in the
savings and loan debacle, we were able to hyper-prioritized prosecutions against the most elite
folks. So we're going after folks in the C-Suite -- the C.E.O.s, the chief operating officers,
the boards of directors, and such. We got over a thousand convictions in these cases, just the
ones designated as major. We did over 600 prosecutions of the most elite of the elite, against
the best criminal defense lawyers in the world with the same laws, and we got over a ninety
percent conviction rate. So can it be done? Of course it can be done. We've shown that it can
be done. Maybe our cases were just simple because it was just savings and loans and these are
big banks. Actually, the prosecutions in many of these cases were easier. The loans in the
savings and loan debacle, were actually much more complicated than home loans. They were
commercial construction loans, $80-90 million dollars at-a-pop often. That's far more complex
to explain to a jury, than a home loan and something as easy as a liar's loan and extorting an
appraiser. In addition, there are massively more whistleblowers. I cannot remember the name of
a significant whistleblower in the savings and loan debacle that was critical to prosecutions.
I'm sure there were a couple, but again we have literally hundreds of whistleblowers who came
forward in this crisis. This crisis occurred because first the Bush administration and then the
Obama administration, were unwilling to investigate, unwilling to prosecute. And here's again
the key. There are about two F.B.I. white-collar specialists per industry in the United States
-- not per firm, per industry. So that means they don't have expertise in individual industries
and they don't walk a beat, or they'd never find it. They only come when there's a criminal
referral. Our agency, our much tinier agency back in the savings and loan debacle, made over
thirty thousand criminal referrals. All of the federal banking regulatory agencies, much bigger
in the great financial crisis, made fewer than a dozen criminal referrals, 30,000 to under a
dozen. That means that the banking regulatory agencies basically ceased functioning in terms of
criminal referrals. And why? That's the third big change and the third big change is
ideological. What you saw is, both under the Republicans and under Bill Clinton -- the
Democratic Party, the due Democrats, the Wall Street wing of the party -- they were simply
unwilling to even think of bankers as criminals. I got out of the regulatory ranks when under
Bill Clinton we were ordered, and I witnessed personally, to refer to the industry as our
customers. Not the American people as our customers, the industry as our customers. Well do you
make criminal referrals on your customers?
MARC STEINER So we're here talking to Bill Black and we've been covering some of the history
of this. What we are going to do is we're going to take a break here and come back with another
segment shortly and really probe into what Elizabeth Warren has said she wants to make into
law. Would that make a difference? Does it fall short and it could lead to more prosecutions?
We're going to come back to that. So you want to hit the next segment with Bill Black and Marc
Steiner. Bill, thank you once again for being with The Real News. It's always a pleasure to
have you with us.
BILL BLACK Thank you.
MARC STEINER And I'm Mark Steiner here for The Real News Network. Take care.
Looks like she is incompetent beyond her narrow specialty and financial issues. This way she
deprive herself of votes that otherwise belong to her. And what she is trying to achieve ?
President Pence? Come on !
The most aggressive response to the full Mueller report has, naturally, come from the most
liberal wings of the Democratic Party. Last month, I sketched out six chief
Democratic blocs (from most liberal to most moderate): the Super Progressives, the Very
Progressives, the Progressive New Guard, the Progressive Old Guard, the Moderates and
Conservative Democrats. Many of the party's Super Progressives , including U.S. Reps.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York,
Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and
Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, are already talking about impeachment, as is a key voice in the
party's Very Progressive bloc, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
"... foreign policy scarcely moves the needle in the US electorate at large so that won't necessarily help Trump nor hinder Bernie except on the outer fringes. Americans are tired of endless wars so the Demotards should generally be favoured on this issue whether or not warranted so long as they play their cards right. ..."
"... US Presidential elections definitely turn on the economy. A slowdown or recession before 11/2020 and Trump is toast. Also, the conversation has clearly moved left on economic inequality and healthcare. Bernie owns these issues and to the extent he can make his way through the primaries he will stand a great chance of unseating Trump. ..."
"... Warren does too but as you stated she is not telegenic nor peronable. Her .01% Native American schtick really hurt her credibility. That was a dumb move. ..."
"... Gabbard is certainly telegenic and hasn't been blackballed as much as she is simply not well-known. She's in the field at the moment. Her chances appear more real farther down the road so running now could be seen as a first step in the eventual process. I doubt Bernie will choose her as VP but who knows? ..."
Russiagate will scarcely matter to most voters by election time 2020. Trump has already
received whatever positives he will receive courtesy of Barr's whitewashing. It is clear
among
a majourity of Americans that Trump obstructed justice and the drip drip of continued
information, hearings, etc will not improve his standing. May not hurt him but definitely
will not help him gain voters at the margins.
Likewise, foreign policy scarcely moves the needle in the US electorate at large so that
won't necessarily help Trump nor hinder Bernie except on the outer fringes. Americans are
tired of endless wars so the Demotards should generally be favoured on this issue whether or
not warranted so long as they play their cards right.
Trump may gain an advantage among more conservative-tinged independent voters if he
continues to work in concert with Russia and Israel on Middle East issues in the sense that
many may see these alliances as promoting strength and peace (whether warranted or not). The
coming deal with China on trade will benefit Trump too...as long as the economy keeps humming
along.
US Presidential elections definitely turn on the economy. A slowdown or recession before
11/2020 and Trump is toast. Also, the conversation has clearly moved left on economic
inequality and healthcare. Bernie owns these issues and to the extent he can make his way
through the primaries he will stand a great chance of unseating Trump.
Warren does too but as you stated she is not telegenic nor peronable. Her .01% Native
American schtick really hurt her credibility. That was a dumb move. Are some of her problems
related to gender bias? Without a doubt. However, as I have long said, the first American
female president will not come from the baby boom. The first American female president will
more likely be a millenial.
Gabbard is certainly telegenic and hasn't been blackballed as
much as she is simply not well-known. She's in the field at the moment. Her chances appear
more real farther down the road so running now could be seen as a first step in the eventual
process. I doubt Bernie will choose her as VP but who knows?
That's a blunder, but it does not matter as much as her blunder with "reparations"
Warren is not telegenic nor personable. Her .01% Native
American schtick really hurt her credibility.
Notable quotes:
"... On facebook in May 2017, "We know that the Russians hacked into American systems to try to influence our election." ..."
"... Warren is crap. There are only two genuine leading candidates, Tulsi Gabbard and Bernie Sanders that offer some serious prospect of change and either could get there. ..."
re Warren, she is also a "Russia! Russia! Russia!" type.
On facebook in May 2017, "We know that the Russians hacked into American systems to try to
influence our election."
The other day on CNN she said, re the Mueller report, "Three things just totally jump off
the page. The first is that a hostile foreign government attacked our 2016 election in order
to help Donald Trump. The evidence is just there. Read it, footnote after footnote, page
after page documentation. ..."
Not saying that most other candidates aren't the same.
Thank you spudski #26, Warren is crap. There are only two genuine leading candidates, Tulsi
Gabbard and Bernie Sanders that offer some serious prospect of change and either could get
there. Any change away from the Belligerant faction would be welcome. But it needs a Congress
and a Senate to combine with the change agenda to make a concrete, durable new direction.
That is a daunting task but achievable in these times.
It will be interesting to watch Creepy Joe Biden eat shit but he is just the bait, I look
forward to the switch being revealed. Nothing will surprise me.
On Monday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) released
a wide-ranging plan to fix the U.S. college system, with proposals including making two-year
and four-year public college free and expanding the size and scope of the federal Pell Grant
program. And one particularly radical idea is sure to grab the attention of young people around
the country: wiping out student loan debt for the vast majority of American borrowers. "The
time for half-measures is over," Warren, one of many politicians and public figures hoping to
secure the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, wrote in a post published Monday on Medium.
"My broad cancellation plan is a real solution to our student debt crisis. It helps millions of
families and removes a weight that's holding back our economy." Last year, outstanding student
debt in the U.S. topped $1.5
trillion , a growing financial burden that Warren argues is "crushing millions of families
and acting as an anchor on our economy." "It's reducing home ownership rates," she wrote. "It's
leading fewer people to start businesses. It's forcing students to drop out of school before
getting a degree. It's a problem for all of us." To address the problem, Warren is suggesting
what she calls a "truly transformational" approach: wiping out $50,000 in student loan debt for
anyone with a household income below $100,000. People with student loans and a household income
between $100,000 and $250,000 would receive substantial relief as well. At that point, "the
$50,000 cancellation amount phases out by $1 for every $3 in income above $100,000," Warren
wrote.
Warren has the same foreign policy as all the others, invade, sanction, destroy. Steal oil,
gold and assets. The US has become a deluded neurotic police state rife with addiction and so
addled it is no longer a force for good in any sphere.
In short it is now a part of the
problem and no longer a part of any workable solution. Who becomes POTUS is therefore
irrelevant.
Warren is flawed ideologically and personally, US citizens need to wake up and recognise that the POTUS is an irrelevant position with no authority and that until you
tackle the neocon ridden nature of US politics nothing will ever change.
There is no hope in
systems, only hope in people. Politics has become irrelevant in the face of our impending
extinction.
"... Posturing as a would-be American native and supporting racial retributions is as far from qualifying as an intellectual powerhouse as it gets. She would be better than Trump, obviously, but then anybody would. ..."
It may well not be Warren who wins the Democratic nomination, but whoever does will be
campaigning on her ideas
since her initial announcement in December, Warren's campaign has rolled out a series of
detailed policy proposals in quick succession, outlining structural changes to major
industries, government functions, and regulatory procedures that would facilitate more
equitable representation in the federal government and overhaul the economy in favor of the
working class. These policy proposals have made Warren the Democratic party's new intellectual
center of gravity, a formidable influence who is steadily pushing the presidential primary
field to the left and forcing all of her primary challengers to define their political
positions against hers.
Warren has become the Democratic party's new intellectual center of gravity
Warren herself is an anti-trust nerd, having come to the Senate from a career as an academic
studying corporate and banking law. On the stump, she's most detailed in the same areas where
she is most passionate, like when she talks about about breaking
up huge tech companies such as Amazon and Google, and implementing a 21st-century --
version of the Glass-Steagall act that would separate commercial and investment banking (she
has also called for prosecuting and
jailing bank executives who break the law). But her policy agenda is broader than that,
taking on pocketbook issues that have resonance with working families.
Warren outlined a huge overhaul of the childcare system that would revolutionize the
quality, cost and curriculum of early childhood education, with subsidies for families and a
living wage for caregivers. It's a proposal that she talks about in the context of her own
career when, as a young mother and fledgling legal mind, she almost had to give up a job as a
law professor because childcare for her young son was too expensive.
Warren has also proposed a housing plan
that would limit huge investors' abilities to buy up homes, give incentives for localities to
adopt renters' protections, and build new public housing. Crucially, and uniquely, her housing
plan would also provide home
ownership grants to buyers in minority communities that have historically been "redlined",
a term for the racist federal housing policies that denied federally backed mortgages to black
families. The provision, aimed to help black and brown families buy their first homes, is a
crucial step toward amending the racial wealth gap, and it has helped sparked a broader
conversation within the party about the need to
pay reparations to the descendants of slaves -- a concept that Warren has also
endorsed.
Taking her cues from pro-democracy and voting rights advocates such as Stacey Abrams, Warren
has also taken on anti-majoritarian constitutional provisions, aiming to make American
democracy more representative and less structurally hostile to a progressive agenda. She has
called for abolishing the
electoral college , the unfair institution the US uses to elect chief executives that makes
a vote in New York count less than a vote in Wyoming, and which has resulted in two disastrous
Republican presidencies in the past two decades. She has advocated eliminating the filibuster
, an archaic procedural quirk of the Senate that would keep the Democrats from ever passing
their agenda if they were to regain control of that body. And she has signaled a willingness to
pack the
courts , another move that will be necessary to implement leftist policies such as Medicare
for All -- because even if the next Democratic president can pass her agenda through Congress,
she will not be able to protect it from the malfeasance of a federal bench filled with
conservative Trump appointees eager to strike it down.
When other candidates campaign, Warren's strong policy positions force them to define
themselves against her
Warren has been the first to propose all of these policies, and it is not difficult to see
other candidates falling in line behind her, issuing belated and imitative policy proposals, or
being forced to position themselves to her right. Warren has promised not to go negative
against other Democrats , but her campaign's intellectual
project also serves a political purpose: when other candidates campaign, her strong policy
positions force them to define themselves against her.
After Warren announced her childcare overhaul, senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Kamala Harris
rolled out plans similarly designed to combat gendered economic injustice, calling for
guaranteed family leave and
better teacher
pay , respectively. After Warren rolled out her pro-democracy agenda of eliminating the
electoral college, abolishing the filibuster and packing the courts, her ideological rival
Bernie Sanders was forced to come out against
both eliminating the filibuster and
packing the courts , damaging his reputation with a party base who knew that without these
interventions, a progressive agenda will probably never be enacted. The pressure eventually
forced Sanders to cave to Warren's vision and concede that he would be open to eliminating the
filibuster in order to pass Medicare for All.
There's still a long time before the first contests, and it's possible that Warren will
succumb to the flaws that her critics see in her campaign. In particular, she might not be able
to raise enough money. She's decided not to take any Pac money and not to fundraise with
wealthy donors, a position that may be as much practical as it is principled: the super-rich
are not likely to donate to Warren anyway, since she has such a detailed plan, called the
Ultra Millionaire Tax , to redistribute their money. She may fall victim to the seemingly
unshakable controversy over her old claims of Native American ancestry, and she seems doomed to
be smeared and underestimated for her sex, called
cold and unlikable for her intellect and then, as with other female candidates, derided as
pandering when she tries to seem more relatable.
But it would be a mistake to write Warren off as a virtuous also-ran, the kind of candidate
whose intellectual and moral commitments doom her in a race dominated by the deep divisions in
the electorate and the craven demagoguery of the incumbent. Elizabeth Warren does not seem to
be running for president to make a point, or to position herself for a different job. Instead,
she is making bold interventions in the political imagination of the party. It may well not be
Warren who wins the Democratic nomination, but whoever does will be campaigning on her
ideas.
Thanks Ken and Thomas. I couldn't have said it better myself. Are we going to pare down the
list of Democratic candidates on the basis of one or two stupid missteps? Looking through the
Bible, I note that Jesus lost his temper at the money-changers and put down the hard-working
Martha. So, he's out too.
Not only the USA, with everyone becoming wealthier, the need for education has declined,
across the western world, being liberal or educated has become a swear word. Social media and
lazy journalists are doing the rest, its all propaganda now, and permanent contradictory
stories means only simple messages cut through the noise, hatred, immigrants, islamophobia,
anti-semitism, etc. are classic messages that get through and stir people's emotions.
Intellect doesn't win elections with a gullible electorate
It was a mistake and it was self-interested and it was unethical. And it was a different time
before tribal groups in the US developed and enforced laws regarding membership status. Had
Trump not shown disdain for her and all native Americans by calling her Pocahontas as though
it were a racial slur, few would have made a big deal from this mistake.
Warren did confess without need to do so that she had purchased distressed mortgages to turn
a profit as a young lawyer like so many of her ethically misguided law colleagues.
If you are
or intimately know more than two attorneys you know this was and in some towns and cities
still is common practice for building wealth among lawyers who have first notice when these
“deals” are posted at the local Court House. Find me a “clean” lawyer
anywhere if you can and I doubt you can — they write law and protect themselves and
wealthy constituents mightily in doing so.
If you can help remove most of them from political
office and replace them with people working professions of greater merit I stand with you.
Congress needs intellectual strength and diversity
of backgrounds.
Unfortunately she opposes wars of choice from the position of an impressive service record
in Iraq so she gets ignored in favour of the ridiculous Elizabeth Warren here and in other
places. Warren's window was last time anyway when she was coming off the back of viral public
speeches about inequality.
Posturing as a would-be American native and supporting racial retributions is as far from
qualifying as an intellectual powerhouse as it gets.
She would be better than Trump, obviously, but then anybody would.
While I'd prefer the genders reversed, I think she would be an ideal running mate for the
front-runner among the declared candidates.
Sanders has much more assiduously defined the moral center that any candidate for
president must have: unapologetic confrontation with the oligarchy. Warren is the
intellectual weapon such an administration could deploy on the specifics of banking and
anti-trust.
This is all the more practical given that Warren has failed to tie race, social justice
and criminal justice issues all together in her values-based worldview -- certainly not to
the extent that Sanders has, his being well beyond any other candidate's efforts.
Because Obama was a canny corporate move to place someone that offered such qualities as
intelligence and grammar in sharp relief to GW Bush while remaining closely controlled by the
oligarchy.
Do you include her fraudulent and offensive claims to Native American heritage in that?
As CNN has reported, as far back as 1986 she was falsely claiming "American Indian" heritage
on official documents.
Despite repeated calls by the leaders of the Tribal Nations, she has still failed to
apologise. That's some intellectual powerhouse..
At least 60 companies reported an effective federal tax rate of zero, meaning they owe
nothing in federal taxes for 2018, and that tax burden then falls on the rest of us. Senator
Elizabeth Warren has a plan to fix that. She joins Stephanie Ruhle in her first interview since
unveiling her proposal.
60 years ago every job offered health insurance, retirement plans, paid vacation, and all
sorts of other benefits. It's time to have them pay a share of our societies costs, they use
the same roads, breathe the same air, and drink the same water...
Warren has consistently amazed me with her proposals... I hope she will make it to the
debates, since everyone's fawning over Bernie and Beto for their fundraising capabilities, I
hope they are not trying to sink her...
Warren Buffet, who saved 28 or so million on his, himself said trumps tax deal was
foolish..but he also said he wouldn't turn it down, which i don't blame him on that..
Senator Warren makes some excellent points (as usual): "market" implies a competitive
environment, so when huge corps squeeze out competitors, it's no longer a "market".
Corporations/rich individuals always say they made their profits themselves (independently of
others or of any social structure systems). Really? If you were living/doing business on a
mountaintop, disconnected from everyone else and any infrastructure support, you would have
done just as well? That's a load of crap, and if they had any responsibility at all (as
opposed to just pure greed), they'd be willing to give back a bit and contribute to the
system(s) they build their wealth on.
The fact is that the wealthy all over the world do not want their position of privilege to
be challenged. This is why Bernie Sanders has been saying (for several DECADES) that the only
way to move our society forward is to build from the bottom up... not the top down. And he is
100% correct.
The main way big corporations corrupt the movement is by lobbing for tax preferential regime.
Neoliberalism included "voodoo" supply side economics thory that speculates that lower taxes
increase employment, while in reality they mostly increase the wealth of capital owners. This
theory is brainwashed itno people minds by relentless neoliberal propaganda machine -- all major
MSM are controlled by neoliberals. Common people have no say in this gbig game.
But tax regime is the battlefield were big capital fights labor and big capital since 1970
won all major battles.
Notable quotes:
"... "Because of relentless lobbying, our corporate income tax rules are filled with so many loopholes and exemptions and deductions that even companies that tell shareholders they have made more than a billion dollars in profits can end up paying no corporate income taxes," Warren wrote in a Medium post unveiling the plan. "Let's bring in the revenue we need to invest in opportunity for all Americans. And let's make this year the last year any company with massive profits pays zero federal taxes." ..."
"... Warren's plan is aimed at large corporations -- ones that have generally paid lower tax rates than smaller companies in recent years. The GOP tax cut law nearly doubled the number of publicly held companies that paid no federal taxes from 30 to 60 in the last year alone, according to a recent study from the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. ..."
"... This is the latest significant tax proposal the Massachusetts senator has unveiled as part of her campaign platform, which also includes a two percent surtax on people with more than $50 million in assets and a three percent surtax on those who have $1 billion. ..."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) unveiled a major plank in her
platform to tax the rich on Thursday, introducing plans for a new tax on all corporations that
clear $100 million in annual profits.
Warren's "real corporate profits tax" is aimed at large corporations like Amazon that have
generated huge profits in recent years while almost entirely avoiding federal taxes through a
series of loopholes and credits.
"Because of relentless lobbying, our corporate income tax rules are filled with so many
loopholes and exemptions and deductions that even companies that tell shareholders they have
made more than a billion dollars in profits can end up paying no corporate income taxes,"
Warren
wrote in a Medium post unveiling the plan. "Let's bring in the revenue we need to invest in
opportunity for all Americans. And let's make this year the last year any company with massive
profits pays zero federal taxes."
The plan would institute a seven percent tax on profits over $100 million in addition to
current taxes. An economic analysis released by Warren's campaign estimated that at least 1,200
companies would be forced to pay new taxes under the plan, generating a net revenue boost of at
least $1 trillion for the government.
Warren's plan is aimed at large corporations -- ones that have generally paid lower tax
rates than smaller companies in recent years. The GOP tax cut law nearly doubled the number of
publicly held companies that paid no federal taxes from 30 to 60 in the last year alone,
according to a recent study from the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic
Policy.
This is the latest significant tax proposal the Massachusetts senator has unveiled as part
of her campaign platform, which also includes a two percent surtax on people with more than $50
million in assets and a three percent surtax on those who have $1 billion.
The plans have earned her plaudits on the left and drawn concern from some more
business-friendly moderate Democrats.
But so far, they haven't proven a game-changer in the presidential race. Warren continues to
struggle to siphon off a significant chunk of voters who backed Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) last
election, her natural base of support. She's regularly polled in the mid- to upper-single
digits in recent state and national polls, in the second tier of candidates.
And she
raised just $6 million in her first quarter in the campaign, her team announced yesterday.
That's not a terrible haul in a crowded field, especially since she's sworn off big donors, but
it's nothing compared to the huge sums she pulled in as a Senate candidate -- and trailed even
upstart South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D).
She also spent almost all of that money, having
built out a large staff in the early primary states with a high payroll.
And Sanders isn't giving her much room on her left: He reintroduced a
sweeping Medicare for all plan on Wednesday, which she cosponsored, a move that puts
pressure on Warren and other Democrats to keep up as they try to woo the progressive wing of
the party base.
NEW YORK -- Senator Elizabeth Warren lobbed another policy grenade into the Democratic
primary Friday, announcing she supports drastically changing the Senate by eliminating its
legendary filibuster to give her party a better chance of implementing its ambitious
agenda.
The move puts her campaign rivals on the spot to explain how they would pass their own
ambitious legislative priorities if the Senate keeps its rule in place requiring a 60-vote
supermajority to advance most bills.
Warren's announcement allows her to swerve to the left of Senator Bernie Sanders of
Vermont in a meaningful way at a time when she's straggling far behind him in early polls and
grass-roots fund-raising.
Sanders, who popularized proposals like free college and Medicare for All among Democrats
during his 2016 run for president, has been reluctant to support scrapping the filibuster.
That raises questions about how he would be able to pass his sweeping proposals into law
should he become president, given Democrats are extremely unlikely to have 60 seats in the
Senate.
"I'm not running for president just to talk about making real, structural change," Warren
told a group of activists at a conference organized by the Rev. Al Sharpton, where she
announced her opposition to the filibuster. "I'm serious about getting it done. And part of
getting it done means waking up to the reality of the United States Senate."
The appearance in New York caps off a three-week run that has seen Warren call for making
it easier to send executives to jail for corporate crimes, unveil a proposal to break up farm
monopolies, endorse forming a commission to study reparations for the descendants of slaves,
and say she would like to abolish the Electoral College so presidents are elected by popular
vote.
"Bernie Sanders, nobody's to his left on policy, but there's lots of running room on his
left on procedural changes that would be necessary to enact those policies," said Brian
Fallon, a former top Hillary Clinton aide and the founder of the liberal advocacy group
Demand Justice.
Sanders said he's not "crazy about" the idea of getting rid of the filibuster in an
interview in February, but said in a later statement that he is open to reform.
Getting rid of the Senate filibuster, which has been around since the mid-1800s, was once
seen as a radical proposal that would undermine the chamber's ability to take a deliberative
approach to major issues. But Democratic and Republican majorities have chipped away at it in
recent years, jettisoning filibusters for Cabinet and Supreme Court nominees.
Just this week, Senate Republicans infuriated Democrats by unilaterally reducing the
amount of debate time for other executive branch and judicial nominees before a filibuster
could be ended.
The move to ditch the filibuster has gained currency among liberals frustrated that the
Senate is more Republican than the general public because of liberals clustering on the
coasts and the constitutional requirement that all states get two senators regardless of
population.
President Trump and Barack Obama have complained about the filibuster, with Obama saying
last year that it made it "almost impossible" to govern.
Though probably too wonky a proposal to reach the average voter, the debate over the
Senate filibuster animates the Democratic activists who are watching the primary the most
closely and whose support the candidates are vying to win. Those activists are unmoved by
candidates who say they'll be able to persuade Republicans to sign onto their ambitious
liberal legislation.
"The idea that you can win people over by inviting them over for drinks on the Truman
Balcony -- that is completely out of vogue," Fallon said.
Other candidates have also called for getting rid of the filibuster, including Governor
J*a*y Inslee of Washington and Representative Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, who is pondering
a run. However, Warren is the first sitting senator in the race to do so. Senator Kamala
Harris of California, who signed a letter in 2017 affirming the filibuster, now says she's
conflicted about it.
The filibuster's defenders say it protects the rights of the minority party, and forces
the majority to compromise. Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, who also signed the 2017
letter, has said he is concerned that getting rid of the filibuster would mean Republicans
would be able to more easily pass legislation in the future over Democrats' objections.
In her speech to the National Action Network's activists, a largely black crowd, Warren
framed the filibuster as a tool of "racists" who used it for decades to block civil rights
legislation, including a bill to make lynching a federal crime that was first introduced in
the early 1900s. The legislation finally passed this year.
"We can't sit around for 100 years while climate change destroys our planet, while
corruption pervades every nook and cranny of Washington, and while too much of a child's fate
in life still rests on the color of their skin," she said.
After her speech, Warren told reporters that she is concerned about the bills Republicans
would be able to pass without the filibuster, but that getting rid of it is worth it for
Democrats. "Of course I'm worried. But I'm also worried about a minority that blocks real
change that we need to make in this country," she said.
The calls to eliminate the filibuster are part of a larger debate among Democrats about
reforming US democracy after they lost the 2000 and 2016 presidential elections despite
winning the popular vote. Warren, along with several other Democrats, has also called to
abolish the Electoral College. Warren, Harris, and former representative Beto O'Rourke of
Texas are also open to the idea of the next president expanding the number of seats on the
Supreme Court to offset its conservative majority.
Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist who pushes a host of liberal policies, has
been more conservative on these proposals than many of his presidential campaign rivals. He
is against expanding the court, arguing it would be a slippery slope that Republicans could
also take advantage of, and is still on the fence about ditching the filibuster and
abolishing the Electoral College.
Warren declined to call out her Senate colleagues when asked whether she was surprised
they had not endorsed the idea of ending the filibuster. "All I can do is keep running the
campaign I'm running and talking about these ideas," she said.
Too often caught between Randian individualism on one hand and big-government collectivism
on the other, America's working-class parents need a champion.
They might well have had one in Elizabeth Warren, whose 2003 book, The Two-Income Trap , co-authored with her daughter Amelia
Warren Tyagi, was unafraid to skewer sacred cows. Long a samizdat favorite among socially
conservative writers, the book recently got a new dose of attention after being spotlighted on
the Right by Fox News's
Tucker Carlson and on the Left by Vox's
Matthew Yglesias .
The book's main takeaway was that two-earner families in the early 2000s seemed to be less,
rather than more, financially stable than one-earner families in the 1970s. Whereas
stay-at-home moms used to provide families with an implicit safety net, able to enter the
workforce if circumstances required, the dramatic rise of the two-earner family had effectively
bid up the cost of everyday life. Rather than the additional income giving families more
breathing room, they argue, "Mom's paycheck has been pumped directly into the basic costs of
keeping the children in the middle class."
Warren and Warren Tyagi report that as recently as the late 1970s, a married mother was
roughly twice as likely to stay at home with her children than work full-time. But by 2000,
those figures had almost reversed. Both parents had been pressed into the workforce to maintain
adequate standards of living for their families -- the "two-income trap" of the book's
title.
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What caused the trap to be sprung? Cornell University economist Francine Blau has helpfully
drawn a picture of women's changing responsiveness to
labor market wages during the 20th century. In her work with Laurence Kahn, Blau found that
women's wage elasticities -- how responsive their work decisions were to changes in their
potential wages -- used to be far more heavily driven by their husband's earning potential or
lack thereof (what economists call cross-wage elasticity). Over time, Blau and Kahn found,
women's responsiveness to wages -- their own or their husbands -- began to fall, and their
labor force participation choices began to more closely resemble men's, providing empirical
backing to the story Warren and Warren Tyagi tell.
Increasing opportunity and education were certainly one driver of this trend. In 1960, just
5.8
percent of all women over age 25 had a bachelor's degree or higher. Today, 41.7 percent of
mothers aged 25 and over have a college degree. Many of these women entered careers in which
they found fulfillment and meaning, and the opportunity costs, both financially and
professionally, of staying home might have been quite high.
But what about the plurality of middle- and working-class moms who weren't necessarily
looking for a career with a path up the corporate ladder? What was pushing them into full-time
work for pay, despite consistently
telling pollsters they wished they could work less?
The essential point, stressed by Warren and Warren Tyagi, was the extent to which this
massive shift was driven by a desire to provide for one's children. The American Dream has as
many interpretations as it does adherents, but a baseline definition would surely include
giving your children a better life. Many women in America's working and middle classes entered
the labor force purely to provide the best possible option for their families.
In the search for good neighborhoods and good schools, a bidding war quickly became an arms
race. There were "two words so powerful the families would pursue them to the brink of
bankruptcy: safety and education ." The authors underplay the extent to which
policy had explicitly sought to preserve home values, driven by their use as investment
vehicles and retirement accounts, a dynamic covered expertly by William Fischel's The Homevoter Hypothesis . But their broader
point is accurate -- rising house prices, aided and abetted by policy choices around land use,
have made it harder for families to afford the cost of living in 21st-century America.
Another factor in the springing of the trap? Divorce. In her 2000 book about how feminism had failed women, Danielle
Crittenden writes about how fear of dependency, especially in an era of no-fault divorce, had
caused women to rank financial independence highly.
These two factors, along with others Warren and Warren Tyagi explore, made it difficult for
families to unilaterally disarm without losing their place in the middle class. "Today's
middle-class mother is trapped," they write. "She can't afford to work, and she can't afford to
quit."
A quiet armistice may have been declared in the so-called "mommy wars," but the underlying
pressures haven't gone away since The Two-Income Trap was published. If anything,
they've gotten worse.
Warren and Warren Tyagi propose severing the link between housing and school districts
through a "well-designed voucher program," calling the public education system "the heart of
the problem." They correctly note that "schools in middle-class neighborhoods may be labeled
'public,'" but that parents effectively pay tuition by purchasing a home within a carefully
selected school district. Breaking the cartel that ties educational outcomes to zip codes would
increase choices for families and open the door to further educational pluralism.
Warren and Warren Tyagi are also unafraid to tell unpopular truths about the futility of
additional funding for colleges (identifying "faith in the power of higher education [as] the
new secular religion"), housing affordability ("direct subsidies are likely to add more
ammunition to the already ruinous bidding wars, ultimately driving home prices even higher"),
universal child care (which "would create yet another comparative disadvantage for
single-income families trying to compete in the marketplace"), and usurious credit (Warren's
long work on bankruptcy requires deeper treatment than this space allows, but their questioning
of our over-reliance on consumer debt deserves a fuller hearing).
Warren's presidential campaign contains elements of this attempt to make life easier for
families, but the shades of her vision of a pro-family economic policy seem paler than they
were a decade and a half ago.
Her universal child
care plan , for example, seemingly contradicts her prior stated worries about
disadvantaging stay-at-home parents. While she explicitly -- and wisely -- steers clear of a
subsidy-based approach, her attempt to "create a network of child care options" does less to
directly support families who aren't looking for formal care. In a sense, Warren would
replicate the public school experience for the under-five crowd -- if you don't want to
participate, that's fine, but you'll bear the cost on your own. A true pro-family populism
would seek to increase the choice set for all families, regardless of their work-life
situations.
Warren's housing plan has
similarly good intentions, seeking to increase the supply of affordable housing rather than
simply trying to subsidize demand. Her competitive education grant would reward municipalities
for relaxing restrictive zoning requirements. But while her campaign has yet to release a plan
on education, it seems unlikely we'll see the kind of bold approach to educational choice she
espoused in 2003. Populist sympathizers of all ideological stripes should hope I'm proven
wrong.
Warren's attempt at pro-family progressive populism seems honest. If not for certain
infamous biographical missteps, her personal story would be one of how America is still a land
of opportunity -- the daughter of a Oklahoma department store salesman who worked her way to a
law degree, a professorship, and a Senate seat. There's a congruence in her positioning of
economic security as a family values issue and the resurgent interest in a pro-worker,
pro-family conservative agenda. And unlike so many politicians, her personal experience seems
to have instilled an understanding of why so many dual-earner families see work as a means to
the end of providing a better life for their children rather than an end in itself.
A politician willing to question the sacred cows of double-income families, more money
for schools, and easy credit is the kind of politician this populist moment requires. A
candidate willing to call into question an economic model that prioritizes GDP growth over all
else would boldly position himself or herself as being on the side of families whose vision of
the American Dream involves a better life for their children, yet who are exhausted and hemmed
in by costs.
How Warren needs to position her platform to navigate the vicissitudes of a Democratic Party
primary will likely not be the best way to address the needs of the modern American family. But
in a crowded field, an uncompromising vision of increased choice for families across all
dimensions -- not just within the public school system, for example, but among all options of
education -- would be an impressive accomplishment and a way of distinguishing herself from the
pack. An explicit defense of parenthood as a social good would be unconventional but
welcome.
Still, a marker of how far the conversation around families has shifted from the early 2000s
is the extent to which Warren's and Warren Tyagi's view of parenthood as something more than an
individual "lifestyle choice" would now be viewed as radical, particularly on the Left. "That
may be true from the perspective of an individual choosing whether or not to have a child,"
they write, "but it isn't true for society at large. What happens to a nation that rewards the
childless and penalizes the parents?"
What indeed. Paging the Elizabeth Warren of 2003 -- your country needs you.
Patrick T. Brown ( @PTBwrites ) is a master's of public affairs student at
Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
Doe anyone think the middle and especially upper middle class would be in favor of a school
choice plan that would cause their housing values to take hit? And there's another big
roadblock with a school choice program: the need for transportation. Two years ago my next
door neighbors who were able to place their young son in a good school across town sold their
house and moved to be closer to the school since the daily cross-town commute at rush hour
was just too much.
They might well have had one in Elizabeth Warren, whose 2003 book, The Two-Income Trap,
co-authored with her daughter Amelia Warren Tyagi, was unafraid to skewer sacred cows.
It's more recent than that. The first edition was 2003, but a second edition came out in
2016, by which time Mom probably knew she might be running for president. It's got a new
introduction by the authors, so obviously it was done with their cooperation.
I haven't read either edition, so I don't know what's been changed in the new one.
I am struck again and again, by the unbelievable power of the forces in the political
arena pushing everyone who is a Democrat because they are fiscally liberal* to ALSO become
socially liberal,* and everyone who is a Republican because they are socially conservative*
to ALSO become fiscally conservative.*
The net result of the laws of motion seem to systematically take the ideological space of
"socially conservative, fiscally liberal" (the old New Deal) and push everyone in it either
out to the usual left "fiscally liberal, socially liberal" or the usual right "socially
conservative, fiscally conservative" quadrants.
This article shows how it's happening with Elizabeth Warren in one direction, and it's
happened constantly with socially conservative Republicans who get yanked back to the proper
quadrant anytime they try to move to a direction of economic policy that doesn't involve tax
cuts for the rich and actually help their constituents.
One can have all the opinions on better ways to do things for the good of society, but if
those ideas are not politically viable, it creates a change in directions. Warren probably by
now .realizes how complicated all of these policy issues are and the unintended consequence
of these policies are always a factor and a risk. Elizabeth Warren seems to have a good grasp
of complicated issues, but that never get her the support she would need to prevail in this
campaign. We currently live in the age of "Fantasyland" spewed by both the Trump RINOs and
the Lunatic Left. Warren is a thinker. That is not helpful these days.
What happened is that Warren wants the Team D nomination, and Team D, like Team R, could not
care less about the 99.9% of Americans who are not non-campaign bundlers or big contributors.
In fact, Team D (again, just like Team R) is actively hostile to any proposal that might
take money out of the pockets of the .1%, or otherwise affect the way the the economic pie is
sliced.
If this was the 1970s Warren would probably have supported busing. Pocahontas – leave
my safe neighborhood, my children's schools, and my home equity alone. Because these well
meaning social engineering schemes seldom work out as planned. As a middle class American I
will probably get the short end of the stick.
Funny that policy makers never want to help families by taking a little chunk out of hedge
funds and shareholders and vulture capitalists and sharing it with American workers. Talk
about "the heart of the problem."
My wife and I did a sort of calculation. In our state child care would be about 11,000 per
child per year. Also, you can't drop them off if they are sick, so you have to use your sick
days for them. Oh, and if you don't use the child care if you're on vacation, you still need
to pay to hold the slot. With two kids and taxes, she has to clear well over 30k per year to
about break even.
Add in the fact you'll be missing out on their childhood, spending maybe three or so hours
per day with them, is it really worth it?
The more I see the 'big tech' developments, they are basically things your pay for to let
you work so you can afford to work. TaskRabbit, Fivrer, DoorDash, etc basically give you free
time so you can work more.
"What happens to a nation that rewards the childless and penalizes the parents?"
Laughing.
They become liberals, democrats, anarchists, socialists, communists . . . supporters of
murdering children in the womb, efficiency advocates by way of eugenics . . . and other
assorted malcontents against ordered society.
But in my view, what has damaged economic sociology has been the shift in practice without
any assessment what it would do to the traditional family dynamic between husbands and wives
in family construction. That simply demanding that space be made for women and millions of
women would seriously tighten the job market for all and disrupt the pillars upon which our
nation was built, despite its problems.
Power dynamic, chivalry outran practical realities and that remains the case in
increasingly stratifying civil demands.
And while I sympathetic to the complaint about bussing, that had a very little impact on
the employment numbers which government and businesses and edication raced to fill the
discrimination expectations with women, and primarily white women.
tired comment, but accurate nonetheless, so instead of hiring men in response to
discrimination, those men were instead replaced by women, most of whom already had access via
the cultural dynamics of the majority.
Warren and Warren Tyagi propose severing the link between housing and school districts
through a "well-designed voucher program," calling the public education system "the heart of
the problem." [ ]
In my opinion, Warner's education voucher proposal by guaranteeing voucher dollar
enrollment in the affluent zip codes ignores the heart of the education problem. Affluent zip
codes do not ensure a child's academic success via 'better' teachers and educational
materials. Public schools in the big cities are filled with teachers who have their masters
and Ph.D's along with continuing education requirements.
Student success is fundamentally based upon parental commitment and community involvement.
Are the parents committed to their children's academic success? Does the parent(s) provide a
conducive and safe home environment? Does the child have a quiet space to study, do their
homework and prepare for school? Does the parent(s) sit down and teach? Review the child's
homework? Do the parents volunteer at the school? Are they involved with school events? Is
education a top priority? Or is school a babysitting service to drop off and pick up?
Those affluent zip codes are more than a number. For the most part, they are a supportive
community of families.
A child's academic success is assuredly tethered to the parental guiding hands. Simply, a
child's success begins at home with parents who care about their children's future.
Probably, every conservative will agree, that the basic flaw is materialism. Thus, with
materialism, personal values that cannot be sold or bought for money, are neglected in favour
of the gross domestic product per capita philosophy. Such personal values are, for instance,
family values, that is, children need both a mother, especially when they are below teenage,
and a father, especially when they are teenagers, and perhaps most important, a father and a
mother need one another. All this family thing does, however, not enter into the money
economy of big government. Whence, on the side of families, those need to take quite brave
choices, to choose morals above money. And on the side of the government, this needs to tax
the rich and help the poor. In fact, according to the World Bank, economic growth is
stimulated best, if governments help the poor directly, rather than with obscure subsidies to
the economic system. However, there is also the difficulty with difficult access to regular
jobs. By no doubt, abortion genosuicide decreases demand on the most simple of goods and
services, causing unemployment for the poor, and driving up costs of raising children.
Society then goes into socialism, with genosuicide instead of economic growth, while the
money flows into pension funds of the upper middle class. Governments must simply help the
poor. Humankind has always been able to produce twice the amount of good food that it needs,
but bureaucratic governments keep the poor enslaved, to fill them with lie.
Warren's academic work and cheeky refusal to fold under pressure when her nomination as
Obama's consumer ('home ec.'?) finance czar was stymied by the GOP are worthy of respect. I'd
like to see her make a strong run at the dem nomination, but am put off by her recent
tendency to adopt silly far-left talking points and sentiments (her Native DNA, advocating
for reparations, etc.). Nice try, Liz, but I'm still leaning Bernie's direction.
As far as the details of the economic analysis related above, though, I am unqualified to
make any judgment – haven't read the book. But one enormously significant economic
development in the early 70s wasn't mentioned at all, so I assume she and her daughter passed
it over as well. In his first term R. Milhouse Nixon untethered, once & for all, the
value of the dollar from traditional hard currency. The economy has been coming along nicely
ever since, except for one problematic aspect: with a floating currency we are all now living
in an economic environment dominated by the vicissitudes of supplies and demands, are we not?
It took awhile to effect the housing market, but signs of the difference it made began to
emerge fairly quickly, and accelerated sharply when the tides of globalism washed lots of
third world lucre up on our western shores. Now, as clearly implied by both Warren and the
author of this article, young Americans whose parents may not have even been born back then
– the early 70s – are probably permanently priced out of the housing market in
places that used to have only a marginally higher cost of entry – i.e. urban
California, where I have lived and worked for most of my nearly 60 years. In places like this
even a 3-earner income may not suffice! Maybe we should bring back the gold standard, because
it seems to me that as long as unfettered competition coupled to supply/demand and (EZ credit
$) is the underlying dynamic of the American economy we're headed for the New Feudalism. Of
course, nothing could be more conservative than that, right? What say you, TAColytes?
"Maybe we should bring back the gold standard, because it seems to me that as long as
unfettered competition coupled to supply/demand and (EZ credit $) is the underlying dynamic
of the American economy we're headed for the New Feudalism."
I take it you think the old one has departed.
It was in the area of how businesses and government were reciprocating unhealthy and
unfair business practices is where I think her advocacy was most accurate. But she has
abandoned all of that.
"Funny that policy makers never want to help families by taking a little chunk out of hedge
funds and shareholders and vulture capitalists and sharing it with American workers."
Funny that Warren HAS brought up raising taxes on the rich.
"... "I'm not running for president just to talk about making real, structural change. I'm serious about getting it done," the speech reads. "And part of getting it done means waking up to the reality of the United States Senate." ..."
"... Advocates including Warren also say the end of the filibuster would make it easier for the Senate to pass meaningful legislation to combat the climate crisis and to further other progressive causes. ..."
"... "We can't sit around for 100 years while the rich and powerful get richer and more powerful and everyone else falls further and further behind," Warren's speech reads. "We can't sit around for 100 years while climate change destroys our planet, while corruption pervades every nook and cranny of Washington, and while too much of a child's fate in life still rests on the color of their skin. Enough with that." ..."
"We can't sit around for 100 years while the rich and powerful get richer and more powerful
and everyone else falls further and further behind."
The 2020 presidential candidate is expected to endorse the proposal in a speech
at the National Action Network Convention in New York Friday morning.
"When Democrats next have power, we should be bold and clear: We're done with two sets of
rules -- one for the Republicans and one for the Democrats," Warren is expected to say. "And
that means when Democrats have the White House again, if Mitch McConnell tries to do what he
did to President Obama and puts small-minded partisanship ahead of solving the massive problems
facing this country, then we should get rid of the filibuster."
"I'm not running for president just to talk about making real, structural change. I'm
serious about getting it done," the speech reads. "And part of getting it done means waking up
to the reality of the United States Senate."
Getting rid of the filibuster -- the Senate procedure which allows a minority party to delay
a vote by drawing out debate and block legislation from passing by requiring a "supermajority"
of 60 senators to approve it -- would be a key step toward passing progressive measures,
advocates say.
At the NAN Convention, Warren is expected to note that the filibuster has stopped the Senate
from passing radical justice legislation for decades, including an
anti-lynching bill which was first introduced a century ago but didn't pass until December
2018.
"It nearly became the law back then. It passed the House in 1922. But it got killed in the
Senate -- by a filibuster. And then it got killed again. And again. And again," Warren plans to
say. "More than 200 times. An entire century of obstruction because a small group of racists
stopped the entire nation from doing what was right."
Advocates including Warren also say the end of the filibuster would make it easier for the
Senate to pass meaningful legislation to combat the climate crisis and to further other
progressive causes.
"We can't sit around for 100 years while the rich and powerful get richer and more powerful
and everyone else falls further and further behind," Warren's speech reads. "We can't sit
around for 100 years while climate change destroys our planet, while corruption pervades every
nook and cranny of Washington, and while too much of a child's fate in life still rests on the
color of their skin. Enough with that."
Warren joins
fellow 2020 Democratic hopefuls Pete Buttigieg and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee in endorsing the
end of the filibuster. Her speech Friday will represent her latest push for "structural change"
that she says would have far-reaching positive effects on the lives of working Americans. Since
announcing her candidacy in January she has called for a tax on the wealth of the
richest Americans to combat economic inequality and fund progressive programs, a
universal childcare plan, and a breakup
of powerful tech giants , among other proposals.
At CNN's town hall
event on Monday, the American people saw something we'd been told was impossible: Elizabeth
Warren winning over a crowd.
The Massachusetts senator took aim at a variety of subjects: the Electoral College,
Mississippi's racist state flag, the rise of
white nationalism . Always, she was met with thunderous applause. Even a simple Bible verse
-- from Matthew 25:35–40, about moral obligation to the poor and hungry -- prompted
cheers so loud and prolonged that Warren had to pause and repeat herself in order to make her
voice heard over the noise. Yet this was the same woman the media routinely frames as too
wonky, too nerdy, too socially stunted. But then, Warren has always been an exceptionally
charismatic candidate. We just forget that fact when she's campaigning -- due, in large part,
to our deep and lingering distrust for female intelligence.
Warren is bursting with what we might call "charisma" in male candidates: She has the folksy
demeanor of Joe Biden, the ferocious conviction of Bernie Sanders, the deep intelligence of
fellow law professor Barack Obama. But Warren is not a man, and so those traits are framed as
liabilities, rather than strengths. According to the media, Warren is an uptight schoolmarm, a
" wonky
professor ," a scold, a wimpy Dukakis, a wooden John Kerry, or (worse) a nerdier Al
Gore.
The criticism has hit her from the left and right. The far-right Daily Caller accused
her of looking
weird when she drank beer ; on social media, conservatives spread vicious (and viciously
ableist) rumors that Warren took antipsychotic drugs that treated "irritability caused by
autism ." On the other end
of the spectrum, Amber A'Lee Frost, the lone female co-host of the socialist podcast Chapo
Trap House , wrote for The Baffler (and, when The Baffler retracted her
article, for Jacobin) that Warren was "
weak " and "
not charismatic ." Frost deplored the "Type-A Tracy Flicks" who dared support "this Lisa
Simpson of a dark-horse candidate."
Casting Warren as a sheltered, Ivory Tower type is odd, given that her politics and diction
are not exactly elitist. Yet none of this is new; the same stereotypes were levied against
Warren in 2011, during her Senate campaign.
Strangely, the first nerdification of Warren was a purely local phenomenon -- one which
happened even as national media was falling in love with her. Jon Stewart publicly
adored her , and her ingenuity in proposing the creation of the Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau a few years prior earned her respect among the rising populist wing of the
party. Her fame was further catapulted when a speech -- a video of Warren speaking, seemingly
off-the-cuff , in a constituent's living room -- went viral. "Nobody in this country got
rich on his own, nobody," Warren proclaimed, pointing up the ways entrepreneurs benefit from
publicly funded services like roads and schools and fire departments.
"First-time candidates don't usually articulate a progressive economic message quite this
well," the Washington
Monthly declared . The New Yorker called it " the most important political
speech of this campaign season. " That enthusiasm continued throughout Warren's first
Senate bid. Writing for the New York Times , Rebecca Traister noted
that "the early devotion to Warren recalls the ardor once felt by many for Obama." (Obama
himself famously echoed
Warren's message -- "you didn't build that" -- on the 2012 campaign trail.)
Locally, Warren prompted a much different discussion, with scores of Massachusetts analysts
describing her as stiff and unlikable. Boston-based Democratic analyst Dan Payne bemoaned her
"know-it-all style" and wished aloud she would " be more authentic I want her to
just sound like a human being, not read the script that makes her sound like some angry,
hectoring schoolmarm." In a long profile for Boston magazine, reporter Janelle Nanos
quoted Thomas Whalen, a political historian at Boston University, who called Warren a "flawed
candidate," someone who was " desperately
trying to find a message that's going to resonate. " In that same article, Nanos asked
Warren point-blank about her "likability problem." Warren's response seemed to stem from deep
frustration: "People tell me everywhere I go why they care that I got in this race," she said.
"I can't answer the question because I literally haven't experienced what you're talking
about."
By demanding that Warren disguise her exceptional talents, we are asking her to lose.
Thankfully, she's not listening.
There's an element of gaslighting here: It only takes a reporter a few sources -- and an
op-ed columnist a single, fleeting judgment -- to declare a candidate "unlikable." After that
label has been applied, any effort the candidate makes to win people over can be cast as
"inauthentic." Likability is in this way a self-reinforcing accusation, one which is amplified
every time the candidate tries to tackle it. (Recall Hillary Clinton, who was asked about her
"likability" at seemingly
every debate or
town hall for eight straight years -- then furiously accused of pandering every time she
made an effort to seem more "approachable.")
It's significant that the "
I hate you; please respond" line of political sabotage only ever seems to be aimed at
women. It's also revealing that, when all these men talked about how Warren could win them
over, their "campaign" advice sounded suspiciously close to makeover tips. In his article,
Payne advised Warren to "lose the
granny glasses," "soften the hair," and employ a professional voice coach to "deepen her voice,
which grates on some." Payne seemed to suggest that Elizabeth Warren look like a model and
sound like a
man -- anything to disguise the grisly reality of a smart woman making her case.
Warren won her Senate race, and the "schoolmarm" stereotype largely vanished as her national
profile grew. By 2014, grassroots activists were begging her to run for president; by mid-2016,
CNN had named her " Donald Trump's chief antagonist ." She's
since given a stream of incendiary interviews and handed the contemporary women's movement its
most popular
meme . All this should be enough to prove any candidate's "charisma." Yet, now that she's
thrown her hat into the presidential ring, the firebrand has become a Poindexter once
again.
The digs at Warren's "professorial" style hurt her because, on some level, they're true.
Warren really is an intellectual, a scholar; moreover, she really is running an exceptionally
ideas-focused campaign, regularly turning out detailed and exhaustive policy proposals at a
point when most of the other candidates don't even have policy sections on their websites.
What's galling is the suggestion that this is a bad thing.
Yes, male candidates have suffered from being too smart -- just ask Gore, who ran on climate
change 20 years before it was trendy. But just as often, their intelligence helps them. Obama's
sophistication and
public reading lists endeared him to liberals. And just a few days ago, Indiana Mayor Pete
Buttigieg was widely praised for learning
Norwegian in order to read an author's untranslated works. Yet, Warren is dorky, a teacher's
pet, a try-hard Tracy Flick, or Lisa Simpson. A "know-it-all."
The "schoolmarm" stereotype now applied to Warren has always been used to demean educated
women. In the Victorian era, we called them "bluestockings" -- unmarried, unattractive women
who had dared to prioritize intellectual development over finding a man. They are, in the words
of one contemporary writer, "
frumpy and frowly in the extreme, with no social talents ." Educators say that 21st century
girls are still afraid to talk in class because of "sexist bullying" which sends the message
that smart girls are unfeminine: "For girls, peers tell them 'if you are swotty and clever and
answer too many questions, you are not attractive ,'" claims Mary
Bousted, joint general-secretary of the U.K.'s National Education Union. Female academics still
report being made to feel " unsexual, unattractive, unwomanly, and
unnatural. " We can deplore all this as antiquated thinking, but even now, grown men are
still demanding that Warren ditch her glasses or "soften" her hair -- to work on being prettier
so as to make her intelligence less threatening.
Warren is cast as a bloodless intellectual when she focuses on policy, a scolding lecturer
when she leans into her skills as a rabble-rouser; either way, her intelligence is always too
much and out of place. Her eloquence is framed, not as inspiring, but as "angry" and
"hectoring." Being an effective orator makes her "strident." It's not solely confined to the
media, but reporters seem anxious to signal-boost anyone who complains: Anonymous male
colleagues call her "irritating," telling Vanity Fair that "she projects a 'holier than
thou' attitude" and that "
she has a moralizing to her. " That same quality in male candidates is hailed as moral
clarity.
Warren is accused, in plain language, of being uppity -- a woman who has the bad grace to be
smarter than the men around her, without downplaying it to assuage their egos. But running in a
presidential race is all about proving that you are smarter than the other guy. By demanding
that Warren disguise her exceptional talents, we are asking her to lose. Thankfully, she's not
listening. She is a smart woman, after all.
Warren supported Hillary that the;s a huge black spot on her credentials. She also king of a hawk in forign policy diligitly repeated
stupid Depart of State talking points and making herself a fool. I especially like here blabbing about authoritarian regimes. From former
Harvard professor we should expect better that this.
To a certain extent he message about rigged system is authentic as She drive this horse for a long time. But that does
not means that she can't betray here electorate like Trump or Obama. She perfectly can. And is quite possible. Several details of her
biography suggest that she is a female careerist -- using dirty tricks to be promoted and paying her gender as an offensive weapon
(looks also at her use of Cherokee heritage claim)
But there is no ideal people and among establishment candidates she is the most electable despite all flows of her foreign
policy positions.
Notable quotes:
"... Comparing Elizabeth Warren to Trump is disingenuous. Trump is just ranting and defensive, without any evidence to back up his claims. What Elizabeth Warren is saying is just a matter of paying attention. ..."
"... This analysis completely ignores the outrageous, overarching influence of money and financial privilege over American politics. Equating Bill Clinton's dalliance with Trump's disrespect for all norms of decency and the truth? Please. Warren is right. Just look at the legislative obscenity of the recent tax bill and then try and equivocate they left and the right. I am not buying this false equivalency. ..."
"... Please, Elizabeth Warren is nothing like Trump. She's a brilliant, honest, tireless fighter for ordinary Americans. She wants a fair shake for them, just as FDR wanted a fair shake -- a "New Deal" -- for our Country. ..."
"... The so-called "left" in America (moderates anywhere else on the globe) have never varied from saying that money = power. They still say that today, and raise money like crazy for candidates thereby proving their own point. ..."
"... Conservatives in America (far-right extremists anywhere else on the globe) are much quieter about the influence of dough, but raise money like crazy for candidates thereby proving the "left's" point. ..."
The president and the senator both want you to know that our system is "rigged."
... ... ...
For decades, the left sought to dethrone the idea of truth. Truth was not an absolute. It was a matter of power. Of perspective.
Of narrative. "Truth is a thing of this world," wrote Michel Foucault. "Each society has its regime of truth, its 'general politics'
of truth: that is, the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true."
Then Kellyanne Conway gave us "alternative facts" and Rudy Giuliani said, "
Truth isn't truth"
-- and progressives rushed to defend the inviolability of facts and truth.
For decades, the left sought to dethrone reverence for the Constitution. "The Constitution," wrote progressive historian Howard
Zinn, "serves the interests of a wealthy elite" and enables "the elite to keep control with a minimum of coercion, a maximum of law
-- all made palatable by the fanfare of patriotism and unity."
Then
Donald Trump attacked freedom of the press and birthright citizenship, and flouted the emoluments clause, and assailed the impartiality
of the judiciary. And progressives rediscovered the treasure that is our Constitutional inheritance.
... ... ...
To an audience of nearly 500 new graduates and their families at the historically black college, the Massachusetts senator laid
out a bleak vision of America. "The rules are rigged because the rich and powerful have bought and paid for too many politicians,"
she said. "The rich and powerful want us pointing fingers at each other so we won't notice they are getting richer and more powerful,"
she said. "Two sets of rules: one for the wealthy and the well-connected. And one for everybody else," she said.
"That's how a rigged system works," she said.
It was a curious vision coming from a person whose life story, like that of tens millions of Americans who have risen far above
their small beginnings, refutes her own thesis. It was curious, also, coming from someone who presumably believes that various forms
of rigging are required to un-rig past rigging. Affirmative action in college admissions and aggressive minority recruitment
in corporations are also forms of "rigging."
But however one feels about various types of rigging, the echo of Trump was unmistakable. "It's being proven we have a rigged
system," the president said
at
one of his rallies last year . "Doesn't happen so easy. But this system -- gonna be a lot of changes. This is a rigged system."
Trump's claim that the system is rigged represents yet another instance of his ideological pickpocketing of progressives. From
C. Wright Mills ("The Power Elite") to Noam Chomsky ("Manufacturing Consent"), the animating belief of the far left has been, as
Tom Hayden put it, that we live in a "false
democracy," controlled by an unaccountable, deceitful and shadowy elite. Trump has names for it: the globalists; the deep state;
the fake news. Orange, it turns out, is the new red.
Of course, Warren and Trump have very different ideas as to just who the malefactors of great wealth really are. Is it Sheldon
Adelson or George Soros? The Koch brothers or the Ford Foundation? Posterity will be forgiven if it loses track of which alleged
conspiracy to rig the system was of the far-right and which was of the far left.
What it will remember is that here was another era in which a president and one of his leading opponents abandoned the prouder
traditions of American politics in favor of paranoid ones. Compare Warren's grim message to Bill Clinton's sunny one from his first
inaugural: "There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America."
At some point, it will be worth asking Senator Warren: Rigged compared to when? A generation ago a black president would have
been unthinkable. Two generations ago, a woman on the Supreme Court. And rigged compared to what? Electoral politics in Japan, which
have been dominated by a single party for decades? The class system in Brazil, dominated by a single race for centuries?
Bret L. Stephens has been an Opinion columnist with The Times since April 2017. He won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary at
The Wall Street Journal in 2013 and was previously editor in chief of The Jerusalem Post.
Warren is saying the system is rigged to suppress the middle class and poor in favor of the wealthy, which is easy to substantiate.
Trump is saying the system is rigged to suppress the white right, which is easy to refute. One statement is an economic fact,
the other is a racist trope. There is no equivalence here. ScottW Chapel Hill, NC Dec. 20, 2018
Sen. Warren supports Medicare for All, meaningful banking/financial regulations, regulations that benefit consumers, a living
wage, etc. Trump supports none of these policies--not a one. Trying to equate Trump with Warren is just stupid.
Comparing Elizabeth Warren to Trump is disingenuous. Trump is just ranting and defensive, without any evidence to back up his
claims. What Elizabeth Warren is saying is just a matter of paying attention. I don't need to list all the ways in which money
buys everything in politics. It's always a matter of following the money. Bret Stephens conveniently avoids looking at economics.
His supposed counterexamples are at best irrelevant to the issue: We've had a black President. We have women on the Supreme Court.
How are those examples proof that the system isn't rigged in favor of the wealthy and corporations? No doubt he thinks Plutocracy
is part of the natural order of things. He should go back to the Wall Street Journal where his myopia is more appropriate. MarnS
Nevada Dec. 20, 2018 Times Pick
Unfortunately Bret there are no "optimists" in the GOP, including yourself being one who has bounced back and forth in your
positions regarding the Trump presidency. Though you have found your way on CNN or MSNBC spouting your disappointments about the
state of the nation, the fact remains is that your a hardened, right wing opinion writer who may have less of an ideal when it
comes to America being a democratic nation. No, you can conveniently ignore the actions of your conservative party in there gerrymandering,
in their changing the rules for governors of the Democrat persuasion, or gross deliberate voter suppression that has placed your
party in power positions by, in effect, stealing elections. You are a writer with a forked tongue trying, at times in a passive
manner, to separate yourself from Trump, and the evilness of the current GOP Party without understanding that the definition of
"conservative" has changed to the radical. And that is documented by your writings in the WSJ. Yet, you cannot even dream about
truly being on the left side of an argument other than beating your breast with the fact that the GOP has disappeared, as we have
known it, in the hands of radicalism (which prior to Trump you participated in the escalation of radical conservatism), and your
party can never be revived as it once was...and we all pray it never will be so.
This analysis completely ignores the outrageous, overarching influence of money and financial privilege over American politics.
Equating Bill Clinton's dalliance with Trump's disrespect for all norms of decency and the truth? Please. Warren is right. Just
look at the legislative obscenity of the recent tax bill and then try and equivocate they left and the right. I am not buying
this false equivalency.
FYI, Foucault was offering critiques of "regimes of truth," not of truth itself. That's very different. Like most historians,
he spent an impressive amount of time in archives where he collected evidence in order to write books that give truthful accounts
of the past. You make a caricature of Foucault, and then of the entire left.
Rich Casagrande Slingerlands, NY Dec. 20, 2018 Times Pick
Please, Elizabeth Warren is nothing like Trump. She's a brilliant, honest, tireless fighter for ordinary Americans. She wants
a fair shake for them, just as FDR wanted a fair shake -- a "New Deal" -- for our Country. While much of the rest of the world was
turning to communism or fascism, FDR saved American capitalism by shaking it up. Oh how we could use a large dose of that today.
Whoa! Line by line, Mr Stephens offers statements that are way off base and should be refuted. Are you saying you disagree
with Warren? Do you think the "system" in America for the last 400 years has not been generally "rigged" against African-Americans?
But the gist of his column, and the main argument of conservatives these days, is that the left and the right are equally out
of line; that what the right says and does may be bad, but the left does the same sort of thing and is just as bad. This is not
true Bret, and you know it. The left desperately tries to find the high road, and anyone who supports Trump these days or believes
in most of his policies is either someone who has abandoned morality or is a fool. And that is the truth, Bret.
Calling out our system as "rigged" is nothing new for Sen. Warren. She's been stating that publicly since being a regular Bill
Moyer's guest on his PBS program 20 years ago -- and clearly already on a "prep for national politics" stump. What undercuts her
own integrity regarding "rigged" is that she chose, after much wait & anticipation, to throw her support to Hillary Clinton in
the summer of 2016. Not Bernie Sanders. She knew HRC had little integrity. And it's highly likely she knew the DNC primary was
rigged in favor of Clinton -- as it's widely been proven.
My point here highlights one of several reasons why Sen. Warren is unelectable
in the 2020 presidential general election. This is not to compare her in any way to Trump -- he's a venal, disturbed & dangerous
traitor to our country. However, if winning the WH in 2020 is the goal, Elizabeth Warren ain't got the goods to get the necessary
votes across our Republic.
There's a good case to be made that the far left exists in two separate dimensions. I offer myself in evidence. Among the policies
and social changes I advocate: Medicare for all Aggressively progressive taxation.
I don't recognize any freedom to corner as much wealth as one can while other people must labor at two or three jobs just to
feed their families on peanut butter.
I do think there's a bit of rigging afoot. Restrictions on the ownership of firearms comparable to those in Japan.
A society free from all forms of identity discrimination or prejudice. I'm bitterly opposed to racism, anti-Semitism, sexism,
homophobia; any example you care to give, including those without short handles, such as prejudice against Muslims or transgender
people.
Yes, I know I have this in common with decent conservatives, but I'm thinking of partisan realities in the US today. I should
add that I don't mind the prospect of WASPS like me becoming just another minority.
But-- I can't picture myself as a socialist -- hair combed straight back, and all that.
The rigorously progressive personality type rubs me the wrong way. Leftist cant grates on every fiber of my being. Che Guevara
T-shirts make the lip curl. When my knee jerks, it jerks against things like that old leftist conceit that truth is what you make
it. I look at the far-left agenda and see a lot to like. I look at the far-left milieu and see didactic arrogance, frigidity,
and pat attitudes. I'm a Democrat in disarray.
The so-called "left" in America (moderates anywhere else on the globe) have never varied from saying that money = power. They
still say that today, and raise money like crazy for candidates thereby proving their own point.
Conservatives in America (far-right
extremists anywhere else on the globe) are much quieter about the influence of dough, but raise money like crazy for candidates
thereby proving the "left's" point.
Reality? Money in America is everything. Period. Just try to run for office, influence policy,
and/or change the direction of the country as a sole, intelligent, concerned poor person and see how far you get.
But sophistication of intelligence agencies now reached very high level. Russiage was pretty dirty but pretty slick operation. British
thre letter againces were even more devious, if we view Skripals poisoning as MI5/Mi6 "witness protection" operation due to possible
Skripal role in creating Steele dossier. So let's keep wanting the evnet. The election 2020 might be event more interesting the Elections
of 2016. Who would suggest in 2015 that he/she elects man candidate from Israel lobby instead of a woman candidate from the same lobby?
Notable quotes:
"... The consistent derogation of Trump in the New York Times or on MSNBC may be helpful in keeping the resistance fired up, but it is counterproductive when it comes to breaking down the Trump coalition. His followers take every attack on their leader as an attack on them. ..."
"... Adorno also observed that demagoguery of this sort is a profession, a livelihood with well-tested methods. Trump is a far more familiar figure than may at first appear. The demagogue's appeals, Adorno wrote, 'have been standardised, similarly to the advertising slogans which proved to be most valuable in the promotion of business'. Trump's background in salesmanship and reality TV prepared him perfectly for his present role. ..."
"... the leader can guess the psychological wants and needs of those susceptible to his propaganda because he resembles them psychologically, and is distinguished from them by a capacity to express without inhibitions what is latent in them, rather than by any intrinsic superiority. ..."
"... The leaders are generally oral character types, with a compulsion to speak incessantly and to befool the others. The famous spell they exercise over their followers seems largely to depend on their orality: language itself, devoid of its rational significance, functions in a magical way and furthers those archaic regressions which reduce individuals to members of crowds. ..."
"... Since uninhibited associative speech presupposes at least a temporary lack of ego control, it can indicate weakness as well as strength. The agitators' boasting is frequently accompanied by hints of weakness, often merged with claims of strength. This was particularly striking, Adorno wrote, when the agitator begged for monetary contributions. ..."
"... Since 8 November 2016, many people have concluded that what they understandably view as a catastrophe was the result of the neglect by neoliberal elites of the white working class, simply put. Inspired by Bernie Sanders, they believe that the Democratic Party has to reorient its politics from the idea that 'a few get rich first' to protection for the least advantaged. ..."
"... Of those providing his roughly 40 per cent approval ratings, half say they 'strongly approve' and are probably lost to the Democrats. ..."
One might object that Trump, a billionaire TV star, does not resemble his followers. But this misses the powerful intimacy that he
establishes with them, at rallies, on TV and on Twitter. Part of his malicious genius lies in his ability to forge a bond with people
who are otherwise excluded from the world to which he belongs. Even as he cast Hillary Clinton as the tool of international finance,
he said:
I do deals – big deals – all the time. I know and work with all the toughest operators in the world of high-stakes global finance.
These are hard-driving, vicious cut-throat financial killers, the kind of people who leave blood all over the boardroom table
and fight to the bitter end to gain maximum advantage.
With these words he brought his followers into the boardroom with him and encouraged them to take part in a shared, cynical exposure
of the soiled motives and practices that lie behind wealth. His role in the Birther movement, the prelude to his successful presidential
campaign, was not only racist, but also showed that he was at home with the most ignorant, benighted, prejudiced people in America.
Who else but a complete loser would engage in Birtherism, so far from the Hollywood, Silicon Valley and Harvard aura that elevated
Obama, but also distanced him from the masses?
The consistent derogation of Trump in the New York Times or on MSNBC may be helpful in keeping the resistance fired up, but
it is counterproductive when it comes to breaking down the Trump coalition. His followers take every attack on their leader as an
attack on them. 'The fascist leader's startling symptoms of inferiority', Adorno wrote, 'his resemblance to ham actors and asocial
psychopaths', facilitates the identification, which is the basis of the ideal. On the Access Hollywood tape, which was widely assumed
would finish him, Trump was giving voice to a common enough daydream, but with 'greater force' and greater 'freedom of libido' than
his followers allow themselves. And he was bolstering the narcissism of the women who support him, too, by describing himself as
helpless in the grip of his desires for them.
Adorno also observed that demagoguery of this sort is a profession, a livelihood with well-tested methods. Trump is a far
more familiar figure than may at first appear. The demagogue's appeals, Adorno wrote, 'have been standardised, similarly to the advertising
slogans which proved to be most valuable in the promotion of business'. Trump's background in salesmanship and reality TV prepared
him perfectly for his present role. According to Adorno,
the leader can guess the psychological wants and needs of those susceptible to his propaganda because he resembles them
psychologically, and is distinguished from them by a capacity to express without inhibitions what is latent in them, rather than
by any intrinsic superiority.
To meet the unconscious wishes of his audience, the leader
simply turns his own unconscious outward Experience has taught him consciously to exploit this faculty, to make rational use
of his irrationality, similarly to the actor, or a certain type of journalist who knows how to sell their sensitivity.
All he has to do in order to make the sale, to get his TV audience to click, or to arouse a campaign rally, is exploit his own
psychology.
Using old-fashioned but still illuminating language, Adorno continued:
The leaders are generally oral character types, with a compulsion to speak incessantly and to befool the others. The famous
spell they exercise over their followers seems largely to depend on their orality: language itself, devoid of its rational significance,
functions in a magical way and furthers those archaic regressions which reduce individuals to members of crowds.
Since uninhibited associative speech presupposes at least a temporary lack of ego control, it can indicate weakness as well
as strength. The agitators' boasting is frequently accompanied by hints of weakness, often merged with claims of strength. This was
particularly striking, Adorno wrote, when the agitator begged for monetary contributions. As with the Birther movement or Access
Hollywood, Trump's self-debasement – pretending to sell steaks on the campaign trail – forges a bond that secures his idealised status.
Since 8 November 2016, many people have concluded that what they understandably view as a catastrophe was the result of the
neglect by neoliberal elites of the white working class, simply put. Inspired by Bernie Sanders, they believe that the Democratic
Party has to reorient its politics from the idea that 'a few get rich first' to protection for the least advantaged.
Yet no one who lived through the civil rights and feminist rebellions of recent decades can believe that an economic programme
per se is a sufficient basis for a Democratic-led politics.
This holds as well when it comes to trying to reach out to Trump's supporters. Of those providing his roughly 40 per cent
approval ratings, half say they 'strongly approve' and are probably lost to the Democrats. But if we understand the personal
level at which pro-Trump strivings operate, we may better appeal to the other half, and in that way forestall the coming emergency.
In 2016, Cannon wrote that Warren would indeed bring more warmth than Clinton,
pointing to an anecdote she shared on Facebook about how she would bake her mother a "heart
shaped cake" as a child. He contrasted that with Clinton's sarcastic "I suppose I could have
stayed home and baked cookies"
comment from 1992 , which was a response to ongoing questions about why she chose to
continue her law practice when her husband was governor of Arkansas.
For some Bernie Sanders supporters, meanwhile, praising Warren was a way to deflect
accusations of sexism. In a 2016
Huffington Post opinion piece titled, "I Despise Hillary Clinton And It Has Nothing to Do
With Her Gender," Isaac Saul wrote that he "and many Sanders supporters would vote for
Elizabeth Warren if she were in the race over Hillary or Bernie." (
Saul apologized to Clinton for being a "smug young journalist" and "Bernie Bro" in a follow
up article months later, writing that his views of her changed after he endeavored to learn
more about her history).
So what's going on here? Has Warren become incredibly unlikable over the past two years? Or
is this change more an indication of her growing power. High-achieving women, sociologist
Marianne Cooper wrote in a 2013 Harvard Business
Review article , are judged differently than men because "their very success -- and
specifically the behaviors that created that success -- violates our expectations about how
women are supposed to behave." When women act competitively or assertively rather than warm and
nurturing, Cooper writes, they "elicit pushback from others for being insufficiently feminine
and too masculine." As a society, she says, "we are deeply uncomfortable with powerful women.
In fact, we don't often really like them."
The former interim head of the Democratic Party just accused Hillary Clinton's campaign of
"unethical" conduct that "compromised the party's integrity." The Clinton campaign's alleged sin: A hostile takeover
of the Democratic National Committee before her primary with Sen. Bernie Sanders had concluded.
Donna Brazile's op-ed in Politico
is the equivalent of taking the smoldering embers of the 2016 primary and
throwing some gasoline on them. Just about everything she says in the piece will inflame Sanders's passionate
supporters who were already suspicious of the Democratic establishment and already had reason to believe -- based on
leaked DNC emails
-- that the committee wasn't as neutral in the primary as it was supposed to be.
But the op-ed doesn't break too much new provable, factual ground, relying more upon Brazile's
own perception of the situation and hearsay. In the op-ed, Brazile says:
Clinton's campaign took care of the party's debt and "put it on a starvation diet. It had become dependent on
her campaign for survival, for which [Clinton] expected to wield control of its operations." She described
Clinton's control of the DNC as a "cancer."
Gary Gensler, the chief financial officer of Clinton's campaign, told her the DNC was (these are Brazile's
words) "fully under the control of Hillary's campaign, which seemed to confirm the suspicions of the Bernie camp."
She "couldn't write a news release without passing it by Brooklyn."
Then-Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, whose
pressured resignation after the leaked emails
left Brazile in charge as interim chairwoman, "let Clinton's
headquarters in Brooklyn do as it desired" because she didn't want to tell the party's leaders how dire the DNC's
financial situation was. Brazile says Wasserman Schultz arranged a $2 million loan from the Clinton campaign
without the consent of party officers like herself, contrary to party rules.
Brazile sums it up near the end: "If the fight had been fair, one campaign would not have control
of the party before the voters had decided which one they wanted to lead. This was not a criminal act, but as I saw
it, it compromised the party's integrity."
None of this is truly shocking. In fact, Brazile is largely writing about things we already knew
about. The joint fundraising agreement between the Clinton campaign and the DNC
was already known about and the subject of derision
among Sanders's supporters. But it's worth noting that
Sanders was given a similar opportunity and passed on using it, as Brazile notes.
There were also those emails from the DNC hack released by WikiLeaks that
showed some at the DNC were hardly studiously neutral
. One email chain discussed bringing Sanders's Jewish
religion into the campaign, others spoke of him derisively, and in one a lawyer who worked for both Clinton and the
DNC advised the committee on how to respond to questions about the Clinton joint fundraising committee. The emails
even cast plenty of doubt on Brazile's neutrality, given she shared with the Clinton campaign
details
of questions to be asked at a pair of CNN forums
for the Democratic candidates in March 2016, before she was
interim chair but when she was still a DNC official. Brazile, who was a CNN pundit at the time, lost her CNN job over
that.
The timeline here is also important. Many of those emails described above came after it was
abundantly clear that Clinton would be the nominee, barring a massive and almost impossible shift in primary votes.
It may have been in poor taste and contrary to protocol, but the outcome was largely decided long before Sanders
ended his campaign. Brazile doesn't dwell too much on the timeline, so it's not clear exactly how in-the-bag Clinton
had the nomination when the alleged takeover began. It's also not clear exactly what Clinton got for her alleged
control.
This is also somewhat self-serving for Brazile, given the DNC continued to struggle during and
after her tenure,
especially financially
. The op-ed is excerpted from her forthcoming book, "Hacks: The Inside Story of the
Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House." Losses like the one in 2016 will certainly lead
to plenty of finger-pointing, and Brazile's book title and description allude to it containing plenty of that.
But taking on the Clintons is definitely something that most in the party wouldn't take lightly.
And Brazile's allegation that Clinton was effectively controlling the DNC is the kind of thing that could lead to
some further soul-searching and even bloodletting in the Democratic Party. It's largely been able to paper over its
internal divisions since the primary season in 2016, given the great unifier for Democrats that is President Trump.
Sanders himself has somewhat toned down his criticism of the DNC during that span, but what he
says -- especially given he seems to want to run again in 2020 -- will go a long way in determining how the party moves
forward.
Warren is trying to treat not just the symptoms but the underlying disease. She has
proposed a universal child-care
and pre-K program that echoes the universal high school movement of the early 20th century. She favors not only a tougher approach
to future mergers, as many Democrats do, but also
a breakup of Facebook
and other tech companies that have come to resemble monopolies. She wants to require corporations to include worker representatives
on their boards -- to end the era of "shareholder-value maximization," in which companies care almost exclusively about the interests
of their shareholders, often
at the expense of their workers, their communities and their country.
Warren was also the first high-profile politician to call for
an annual wealth
tax , on fortunes greater than $50 million. This tax is the logical extension of research by the economist Thomas Piketty and
others, which has shown how extreme wealth perpetuates itself. Historically, such concentration has often led to
the decline
of powerful societies. Warren, unlike some Democrats, comfortably explains that she is not socialist. She is a capitalist and,
like Franklin D. Roosevelt, is trying to save American capitalism from its own excesses.
"Sometimes, bigger ideas are more possible to accomplish," Warren told me during
a
recent conversation about the economy at her Washington apartment. "Because you can inspire people."
... ... ...
Warren's agenda is a series of such bold ideas. She isn't pushing for a byzantine system of tax credits for child care. She wants
a universal program of pre-K and child care, administered locally, with higher pay for teachers and affordable tuition for families.
And to anyone who asks, "But how will you pay for that?" Warren has an answer. Her wealth tax
would raise more than $250 billion
a year, about four times the estimated cost of universal child care. She is, in her populist way, the fiscal conservative in the
campaign.
"... Elizabeth Warren has infuriated bankers and alienated half of Washington, all in the name of a new consumer protection agency she may not get to run ..."
"... At this point, Warren says, the banker made a confession. "We recognize that we have an unsustainable model, and it cannot work forever," she says he told her. "If we told people how much these things cost, they wouldn't use them." ..."
"... Warren's life is a blur of building and promoting the agency she dreamed up -- and that she may never get to lead. On leave from Harvard, she has spent hundreds of hours on Capitol Hill visiting with members of Congress, Democrat and Republican, and flown across the country meeting with the heads of the nation's major banks and many smaller ones. If most financial firms have yet to embrace the bureau, she's made some headway, at least, among the community banks. "Some of my colleagues have not gotten there yet because they are convinced she's close to the antichrist," says Roger Beverage, the head of the Oklahoma Bankers Assn. "I don't think she's doing anything but speaking from the heart on community banks." ..."
"... While Washington bickers, Warren has built the CFPB largely to her specs and almost entirely free of interference from Congress and the Administration, which devotes most of its attention to fixing the economy. Few Cabinet secretaries can claim to have left as indelible a mark on the departments they lead as Elizabeth Warren has already left on the one she doesn't. ..."
Elizabeth Warren has infuriated bankers and alienated half of Washington, all in the name of a new consumer protection agency
she may not get to run
Elizabeth Warren's admirers often refer to her as a grandmother from Oklahoma. This is technically true. It's also what you might
call posturing. Warren, 62, is a Harvard professor and perhaps the country's top expert on bankruptcy law. Over the past four years
she has managed to stoke a fervent debate over the government's role in protecting American consumers from what she sees as the predatory
practices of financial institutions, and she has positioned herself as the person to oversee a new federal agency to rewrite the
rules of lending. Warren is a grandma from Oklahoma in roughly the same way Ralph Nader is a pensioner with a thing about cars.
If the grandmother perception is plausible, it's largely because Warren has a gift for parables and for placing herself in the
middle of them as the embodiment of moral force. Thus, her account of the precise moment she realized that changing the way banks
lend was going to require a new federal bureaucracy -- and that it was up to her to create it.
Warren begins her tale in the spring of 2007, before the housing crash and the financial crisis. She was on a plane back to Boston
after a series of discouraging meetings with credit-card company executives. She had tried to sell them on an idea called the "clean
card" that grew out of her academic work and her side gig as a guest on such shows as Dr. Phil , where she dispensed empathy
and advice to audience members who were one bad check away from losing everything. The concept was simple: Offer the equivalent of
a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval to any credit-card company that disclosed all of its costs and fees up front, no fine print.
After a few meetings in which she was politely rebuffed, one executive walked Warren to the door and, with his arm around her,
let her in on a trade secret: If he admitted that his card's actual rate was 17 percent, while his competitors were still claiming
theirs was only 2.9 percent, his customers would desert him for the seemingly cheaper option, seal of approval or not. No credit-card
company would ever go along with a clean card unless all of them did. And the only way to get all of them to do it was to require
it by law.
At this point, Warren says, the banker made a confession. "We recognize that we have an unsustainable model, and it cannot
work forever," she says he told her. "If we told people how much these things cost, they wouldn't use them."
Here she pauses for effect, and to take a sip of herbal tea. Warren is slight and kinetic, with wide, pale blue eyes behind rimless
glasses. She punctuates her sentences with exclamations like "Holy guacamole!" It's difficult to tell whether these are spontaneous
or deliberately deployed to soften her imposing professorial mien. Warren, who grew up poor and went to college on a debate scholarship,
understands the power of expression. When she wants to underline a point, she leans in to conspire with her listener; then her voice
goes quiet, as it does when she says she knew instantly the condescending executive was right. Her clean card was a flop.
And so, on the flight home, Warren turned to the problem of how to push those credit-card companies into doing the right thing.
By landing time, she says, she had her answer: a powerful new federal agency whose sole mission would be to protect consumers, not
only from confusing credit cards but from what she calls the "tricks and traps" of all dangerous financial products. The same way
the Consumer Product Safety Commission guards against dangerous household products or the Food and Drug Administration watches out
for contaminated produce and quack medications. The way Warren tells it, she pulled a piece of paper out of her backpack and got
to work right there on the plane. "I started sketching out the problem and what the agency should look like."
It's a good story, even if the timeline is a little off. Warren's aides say she first pitched the idea of a consumer financial
protection agency to then-Senator Barack Obama's office months before her fateful meeting with the executive. Whatever the idea's
provenance, there's no doubting its influence. In a summer 2007 article in the journal Democracy , Warren outlined what her
guardian agency would look like. "It is impossible to buy a toaster that has a one-in-five chance of bursting into flames and burning
down your house," she wrote. "But it is possible to refinance an existing home with a mortgage that has the same one-in-five chance
of putting the family out on the street -- and the mortgage won't even carry a disclosure of that fact to the homeowner." One was
effectively regulated. The other was not.
The annals of academia are stuffed with provocative proposals. Most die in the library. A little over four years after she first
dreamed it up, Warren's has become a reality. Last summer, President Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer
Protection Act, a package of financial reforms meant to prevent another economic meltdown. One of the bill's pillars is Warren's
watchdog agency, now called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
On July 21, exactly a year after Dodd-Frank became law, the CFPB is scheduled to open for business with a broad mandate to root
out "unfair, deceptive, or abusive" lending practices. Consolidating functions previously scattered across seven different agencies,
the bureau will have the power to dictate the terms of every consumer lending product on the market, from mortgages and credit cards
to student, overdraft, and car loans. It will supervise not only banks and credit unions but credit-card companies, mortgage servicers,
credit bureaus, debt collectors, payday lenders, and check-cashing shops. Dozens of researchers will track trends in the lending
market and keep an eye on new products. Teams of examiners will prowl the halls of financial institutions to ensure compliance. The
bureau is already at work on its first major initiative: simplifying the bewildering bank forms you sign when you buy a house.
Warren's life is a blur of building and promoting the agency she dreamed up -- and that she may never get to lead. On leave
from Harvard, she has spent hundreds of hours on Capitol Hill visiting with members of Congress, Democrat and Republican, and flown
across the country meeting with the heads of the nation's major banks and many smaller ones. If most financial firms have yet to
embrace the bureau, she's made some headway, at least, among the community banks. "Some of my colleagues have not gotten there yet
because they are convinced she's close to the antichrist," says Roger Beverage, the head of the Oklahoma Bankers Assn. "I don't think
she's doing anything but speaking from the heart on community banks."
One other person she has not yet won over: Barack Obama. The President has not nominated her to head the bureau. Instead, last
fall he gave her the title of special assistant to the President and special adviser to the Treasury and tasked her with getting
the place up and running. For now, she is the non-head of a non-agency. The White House refuses to say whether Obama will eventually
put her up for the job, allowing only that he is considering several candidates. In the coded language of appointment politics, it
is a signal that they are seriously considering passing Warren over for someone else. A White House official says the Administration
would like to have a nominee in place before Congress leaves for its August recess.
There's a reason for their wariness. The White House is reluctant to antagonize congressional Republicans in the middle of contentious
negotiations over the federal debt ceiling. Warren's position requires Senate approval, and Republicans, many of whom regard the
CFPB as more clumsy government meddling in the free market, are vehemently opposed to allowing its creator to be installed at its
helm. Republicans have used a parliamentary maneuver to keep the Senate from officially adjourning for its traditional summer break,
thus depriving Obama of the opportunity to sidestep their objections and make Warren a recess appointment.
"She's probably a nice person, as far as I know," says Senator Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), the ranking member of the Banking Committee,
which will hold hearings on the eventual nominee for the post. Shelby has said Warren is too ideological to lead the agency, a judgment
shared by many of his Republican colleagues. "She's a professor and all this," he says in a tone that makes it clear he is not paying
her a compliment. "To think up something, to create something of this magnitude, and then look to be the head of it, I wouldn't do
that," Shelby says. "It looks like you created yourself a good job, a good power thing."
Warren is not waiting for permission to do the job she may never get. She and her small team have hired hundreds of people, at
a recent clip of more than 80 per month. The agency has already outgrown its office space and is divided between two buildings in
downtown Washington -- with branches to be opened across the country. A fledgling staff of researchers is cranking out the CFPB's
first reports, and its first bank examiners are being trained. Meanwhile, the office softball team has compiled a 2-3 record.
Above all, an institutional culture is emerging, and it is largely loyal to Warren and her idea of what the agency should be.
She has attracted several top hires from outside the federal government. The bureau's chief operating officer, Catherine West, was
previously president of Capital One; its head of research, Sendhil Mullainathan, is a behavioral economist and star Harvard professor;
the chief of enforcement, Richard Cordray, is the former attorney general of Ohio; Raj Date, her deputy and head of the bureau's
Research, Markets and Regulation Div., is a former banker at Capital One and Deutsche Bank. Warren, whose reputation as a scholar
rests on her pioneering use of bankruptcy data, has imbued the place with her faith in quantitative analysis. Researchers she recruited
and hired have begun to build the bureau's database of financial information, with a broad mandate to keep track of lending markets
and find ways to make financial information more easily digestible.
While Washington bickers, Warren has built the CFPB largely to her specs and almost entirely free of interference from Congress
and the Administration, which devotes most of its attention to fixing the economy. Few Cabinet secretaries can claim to have left
as indelible a mark on the departments they lead as Elizabeth Warren has already left on the one she doesn't.
The CFPB's main offices are on two floors of a russet-colored office building a few blocks northwest of the White House. The government-gray
cubicles and hallways spill over with new hires -- many of them young -- working 12- and 14-hour days elbow to elbow, pale and exuding
a dogged cheerfulness that suggests that, no, they do not miss the sun. By the elevator bank is a calendar counting down the days
until July 21.
Ten years ago, before she became a liberal icon, Warren was a popular Harvard professor known for taking a maternal interest in
the students she chose as research assistants. She was famous, but only in the small corner of academia that cared about bankruptcy.
"In my opinion she is the best bankruptcy scholar in the country," says Samuel Bufford, a law professor at Penn State who got to
know Warren decades ago as a bankruptcy judge in California's Central District.
Work Warren did with Jay Westbrook, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin, and Teresa Sullivan, a sociologist who
is now president of the University of Virginia, reshaped the scholarly understanding of bankruptcy. Analyzing thousands of filings
and interviewing many of the debtors themselves, they found that those who go bankrupt weren't, as commonly assumed, primarily poor
or financially reckless. A great many of them were solidly middle class and had been driven to bankruptcy by circumstances they did
not choose or could not control: the loss of a job, a medical disaster, or a divorce. The explosion in consumer credit in recent
decades had only exacerbated the situation -- almost without realizing it, households could now slide faster and further into debt
than ever before.
Warren, Westbrook, and Sullivan all saw their bankruptcy findings as a window into the broader travails of the financially fragile
middle class. More than her co-authors, though, Warren sought a larger audience for the message. In 2003, along with her daughter,
Amelia Warren Tyagi, she wrote The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers & Fathers Are Going Broke , a book that combined
arguments about the political and economic forces eroding middle-class financial stability with practical advice about how households
could fight them. The language was sharper than in her academic work: "Subprime lending, payday loans, and the host of predatory,
high-interest loan products that target minority neighborhoods should be called by their true names: legally sanctioned corporate
plans to steal from minorities," Warren and Tyagi wrote.
The book got attention and Warren became a frequent TV guest. She was invited to give speeches and sit on panels on bankruptcy
and debt. She was a regular on comedian Al Franken's radio show on the now defunct Air America network. "She's quite brilliant. She
was always just an excellent guest," recalls Franken, now a Democratic U.S. Senator from Minnesota. "She has a very good sense of
humor."
In 2003, Warren attended a fundraiser in Cambridge for Barack Obama, then running for U.S. Senate. When she walked up to shake
his hand, he greeted her with two words: "predatory lending." As a senator, Obama would occasionally call Warren for her thoughts,
though the two never became close.
It was the financial crisis that made Warren a star. In November 2008, in a nod to her growing reputation as a consumer advocate,
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid chose Warren to chair the congressional panel overseeing the TARP financial rescue program. The
reports she helped produce over the next two and a half years and the hearings she helped lead gave the panel a higher profile than
even its creators had predicted, as she articulated concerns that many Americans had about the wisdom of a massive Wall Street bailout.
In perhaps her most famous moment, Warren grilled Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on AIG's share of the aid money and how it
was that so much of it had ended up simply reimbursing the investment banks the insurer owed money.
Warren used her role on the panel, and the newfound visibility it gave her, to push for her agency. She worked the idea into a
special report the committee released in January 2009, among a list of recommendations to head off fut ure financial crises. She
wrote op-ed pieces, was on TV constantly, and met with at least 80 members of Congress. She also brought the idea to the Administration.
Over a long lunch at an Indian restaurant in Washington, she pitched the concept to White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers,
whom she knew from his tenure as Harvard's president. Inside Treasury, the idea was taken up by Michael Barr, a key architect of
Dodd-Frank and a lawyer Warren had known for years. At least within the White House, Barr recalls, it wasn't hard to build support.
"I think there was a general consensus that built pretty quickly that this was a good option," he says. "I didn't get any significant
pushback on the idea." Barr's inside advocacy, combined with Warren's PR blitz, paid off. In June 2009, Obama released a "white paper"
laying out his own financial regulatory proposals, and Warren's agency was in it.
Among the CFPB staff there is a strongly held belief that they have the opportunity not only to reshape an industry but reinvent
what a government agency can be, to rescue the idea of bureaucracy from its association with sclerosis and timidity. People there
emphasize that they are creating a 21st century agency. Still, there's a throwback Great Society feel to the place, with its faith
in the abilities of very smart unelected administrators, armed with data, to iron out the inefficiencies and injustices of the world.
"Nobody looks at consumer finance regulation as it existed over the past decade and says, 'Yeah, that seemed to work all right, let's
do more of that,' " says Raj Date, a square-jawed 40-year-old who speaks in the confident, numbers-heavy parlance of Wall Street.
Regardless of whether the CFPB has a director by its July 21 "transfer date," there are certain things it will immediately begin
to do. One is to send teams of examiners into banks and credit unions to make sure they are complying with existing consumer finance
regulations. When the bureau is fully staffed up -- initially, it will have some 500 employees and an annual budget of around $500
million -- a majority of the people who work there will be examiners. The bureau has only supervisory power over banks with assets
of more than $10 billion, though the rules it writes will still apply to smaller banks. Banks on the low end of the scale will see
a team of examiners for a few weeks every two years, unless there are specific complaints to investigate. Most of the biggest banks,
those with assets of $100 billion and up, will have CFPB examiners in residence year-round. The examiners will go to work parsing
the terms of mortgages and other loans, searching for evidence of consumer harm. They'll look at how the products are marketed and
sold to make sure it's done transparently, that costs and fees are disclosed up front.
What the bureau will not be able to do without a director is send its examiners into nonbank financial institutions. Dodd-Frank
gives the CFPB jurisdiction over payday lenders, check cashers, mortgage brokers, student loan companies, and the like. Because this
is an expansion of regulatory powers, it will not take effect until a permanent director is in place.
The bureau is less willing to discuss the specifics of what will happen when it finds evidence of wrongdoing. The press office
refused to make the head of enforcement, Richard Cordray, available for an interview. Like other enforcement agencies, the CFPB will
have a variety of measures at its fingertips: It will be able to give firms a talking-to, or issue so-called "supervisory guidance"
papers on problematic financial products. It will be able to send cease-and-desist orders. And if all else fails, the bureau will
be able to take offenders to court.
The CFPB will also have broad rule-making powers over everything from credit-card marketing campaigns to car loan terms to the
size of bank overdraft fees. For now, it has confined itself to initiatives less likely to arouse wide opposition among financial
firms. The major one at the moment is developing a clear, simple, two-page mortgage form that merges the two confusing ones borrowers
now confront. Bureau staff met with consumer advocates and mortgage brokers last fall, then put up two versions of a possible new
form on the bureau's website, where consumers were invited to leave critiques. About 14,000 people weighed in. The forms are now
being shown to focus groups around the country. A new version is due out in August.
This lengthy process is meant to demonstrate the bureau's commitment to a sort of radical openness to counter accusations that
it's a body of unaccountable bureaucrats. In another gesture, Warren's calendar is posted on the website so that anyone can see who
has a claim on her time. The undeniable sense among bureau staffers that they are political targets tempers that commitment to transparency
a bit. The press office is jittery about allowing reporters to talk to staff on the record, and Warren agreed to two interviews on
the condition that Bloomberg Businessweek allow her to approve quotes before publication.
If the supervision and enforcement division is the long arm of the bureau, its eyes and brain will be Research, Markets and Regulations,
headed by Raj Date. Teams of analysts will follow various markets -- credit cards, mortgages, or student loans -- to spot trends
and examine new products. Economists and other social scientists on staff will help write financial disclosure forms that make intuitive
sense. The benefits of this sort of work, Date argues, will extend beyond just protecting consumers. It will help spot signs of more
systemic risks. If the bureau and its market research teams had been in place five years ago, he says, they would have spotted evidence
of the coming mortgage meltdown and could have coordinated with the bureau's enforcement division to head it off. "If it was someone's
job to be in touch with the marketplace and monitor what was going on," Date says, "it would have been very difficult not to notice
that three different kinds of mortgages had gone from nothing to a very surprising share of the overall marketplace in the span of,
honestly, like three years."
Were it not for a head of prematurely gray hair, Patrick McHenry could still pass for the college Republican he once was. Elected
to Congress from North Carolina seven years ago at age 29, he speaks through an assiduous smile and arches his eyebrows as he listens
-- furrowing them quizzically at arguments he disagrees with. In late May, McHenry assumed the role of Warren's chief antagonist
in Congress. At an oversight hearing he was chairing, McHenry accused Warren of misleading Congress about whether she had given advice
to Treasury and Justice Dept. officials who were investigating companies for mortgage fraud. McHenry said she had concealed her conversations.
Warren insisted she had disclosed them.
The hearing then took a bizarre turn. McHenry called for a recess so members of the committee could go to the House floor for
a vote. Warren replied that she had agreed to testify for an hour and could not stay any longer. "Congressman, you are causing problems,"
she said. "We had an agreement." Offended, McHenry shot back: "You're making this up, Ms. Warren. This is not the case." Warren's
response, an outraged gasp, was played on cable news.
In a conversation a month later in his Capitol Hill office, McHenry is eager to emphasize that his problem is not with Warren,
but with the bureau itself. That's not to say he feels he has anything to apologize for. "I've asked questions of a litany of Administration
officials from Democrat and Republican Administrations, and I've never seen an action by any witness like I saw that day," he says.
Like most congressional Republicans -- and a broad array of business groups, including the Chamber of Commerce, the Financial
Services Roundtable, and the National Association of Federal Credit Unions -- McHenry opposed the creation of the CFPB and voted
against Dodd-Frank. At the time, the bureau's opponents argued that its seemingly noble goals would not only hurt financial firms
-- depriving them of the ability to compensate for risky borrowers by charging higher interest rates -- they would also hurt borrowers.
The prospect of limits on the sort of rates and fees they could charge would cause banks and payday lenders alike to lend less and
to not lend at all to marginal borrowers at a time when the economy needed as much credit as it could get.
Where it's not actively harmful, McHenry argues, the bureau will be redundant. If there's fraud or deceptive marketing in the
consumer lending market, the federal government can prosecute it through the Federal Trade Commission. Clearer mortgage forms are
all well and good, but Congress can take care of that, he says, noting that he introduced legislation for a simpler mortgage form
three years ago. In response to arguments like these, Warren simply points to the record of those existing regulators: the Fed and
the Housing & Urban Development Dept. have haggled over a simpler mortgage form for years. As for fears that the bureau will cap
the interest rates companies can charge, she notes that Dodd-Frank explicitly prevents it from doing that.
Warren has been uncharacteristically tightlipped about her own ambitions. She refuses to say whether she even wants the job and
has never publicly expressed a desire for it. In a way, the White House may do her a favor by not nominating her. If the President
decides to go with a compromise candidate to appease Republicans, she will be spared the indignity of being tossed aside. She can't
be said to have lost a job she was never offered.
Yet Warren gives the distinct impression that she will not suffer long if the President passes her over. Harvard has more than
its share of celebrity professors who have gone to Washington and returned. The experience could also lead to a different kind of
life in politics: Democrats in Massachusetts have been urging her to come home to run for Senate against Republican Scott Brown.
There would be books to write, television appearances to make, and, who knows, maybe a show of her own. And whatever happens, she
will get to tell the second half of the story of how she started a government agency. Whether the story ends with her confirmation
or being driven from town, it's almost certain that the character of Elizabeth Warren will come out looking just fine.
( Corrects the year Elizabeth Warren moved to Washington to work at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau )
Elizabeth Warren had a good speech at UC-Berkeley. She focused on the middle class family balance sheet and risk shifting.
Regulatory policies and a credit based monetary system have resulted in massive real price increases in inelastic areas of demand
such as healthcare, education and housing eroding purchasing power.
Further, trade policies have put U.S. manufacturing at a massive disadvantage to the likes of China, which has subsidized
state-owned enterprises, has essentially slave labor costs and low to no environmental regulations. Unrestrained immigration policies
have resulted in a massive supply wave of semi- and unskilled labor suppressing wages.
Recommended initial steps to reform:
1. Change the monetary system-deleverage economy with the Chicago Plan (100% reserve banking) and fund massive infrastructure
lowering total factor costs and increasing productivity. This would eliminate
2. Adopt a healthcare system that drives HC to 10% to 12% of GDP. France's maybe? Medicare model needs serious reform but is
great at low admin costs.
3. Raise tariffs across the board or enact labor and environmental tariffs on the likes of China and other Asian export model
countries.
4. Take savings from healthcare costs and interest and invest in human capital–educational attainment and apprenticeships programs.
5. Enforce border security restricting future immigration dramatically and let economy absorb labor supply over time.
As I have said in other comments, I like Liz Warren a lot within the limits of what she is good at doing (i.e. not President)
such as Secretary of the Treasury etc. And I think she likes the media spotlight and to hear herself talk a little to much, but
all quibbling aside, can we clone her??? The above comment and video just reinforce "Stick to what you are really good at Liz!".
I am not a Liz Warren fan boi to the extent Lambert is of AOC, but it seems that most of the time when I hear Warren, Sanders,
or AOC say something my first reaction is "Yes, what she/he said!".
The column praises Elizabeth Warren. Leonhardt (like his colleague Paul Krugman) is careful
to refrain from declaring his intention to vote for her in the primary. I am planning to vote
for her. I mostly agreed with the column to begin with, but was not convinced by Leonard's
praise of Warren's emphasis on aiming for more equal pre-fiscal distribution of income rather
than just relying on taxes and transfers to redistribute.
In particular, I was not convinced by
This history suggests that the Democratic Party's economic agenda needs to become more
ambitious. Modest changes in the top marginal tax rate or in middle-class tax credits aren't
enough. The country needs an economic policy that measures up to the scale of our
challenges.
Here two issues are combined. One is modest vs major changes. The other is that
predistribution is needed in addition to redistribution, as discussed even more clearly
here
"Clinton and Obama focused on boosting growth and redistribution," Gabriel Zucman, a
University of California, Berkeley, economist who has advised Warren, says. "Warren is
focusing on how pretax income can be made more equal."
The option of a large change in the top marginal tax rate and a large middle class tax
credit isn't considered in the op-ed. I think this would be excellent policy which has
overwhelming popular support as measured by polls (including the support of a large fraction of
self declared Republicans). I note from time to time that, since 1976 both the Democrats who
have been elected president campaigned on higher taxes on high incomes and lower taxes on the
middle class (and IIRC none of the candidates who lost did).
After the jump, I will make my usual case. But first, I note Leonardt's excellent argument
for why "soak the rich and spread it out thin" isn't a sufficient complete market oriented
egalitarian program. It is phrased as a question.
"How can the next president make changes that will endure, rather than be undone by a future
president, as both Obama's and Clinton's top-end tax increases were?"
Ahh yes. High taxes on high income and high wealth would solve a lot of problems. But they
will be reversed. New programs such as Obamacare or Warren's proposed universal pre-K and
subsidized day care will not. Nor will regulatory reforms such as mandatory paid sick leave and
mandatory paid family leave. I am convinced that relatively complicated proposals are more
politically feasible, not because it is easier to implement them, but because it is very hard
to eliminate programs used by large numbers of middle class voters.
I'd note that I had already conceded the advantage of a regulatory approach which relies on
the illusion that the costs must be born by the regulated firms. Here I note that fleet fuel
economy standards are much more popular than increased gasoline taxes. One is a market oriented
approach. The other is one that hides behind the market as consumers don't know that part of
the price of a gas guzzler pays the shadow price of reducing fleet average milage.
OK my usual argument after the jump
It is unusual for me to disagree with Baker, Leonhardt, and (especially) Krugman. I am quite
sure that the Democratic candidate for president should campaign on higher taxes on the rich
and lower taxes for the non-rich.
To be sure, I can see that that isn't the only possible policy improvement. Above, I note
the advantages of hiding spending by mandating spending by firms and of creating entitlements
which are very hard for the GOP to eliminate. I'd add that we have to do a lot to deal with
global warming. Competition policy is needed for market efficiency. I think unions and
restrictions on firing without cause have an effect on power relations which is good in
addition to the effect on income distribution.
But I don't understand the (mildly) skeptical tone. I will set up and knock down some straw
men
1) Total straw -- US voters are ideological conservatives and operational liberals. They
reject soaking the rich, class war, and redistribution. To convince them to help the non rich,
one has to disguise what one is doing.
2) Extremely high marginal tax rates are bad for the economy. Here this is often conceded,
in particular by people arguing for modest increases in the top marginal tax rate. The claim is
not supported by actual evidence. In particular the top rate was 70% during the 60s boom.
3) High tax rates cause tax avoidance. This reduces efficiency and also means that they
don't generate the naively expected revenue. There is very little evidence that this is a huge issue . In
particular there was a huge increase in tax sheltering after the 1981 Kemp-Roth tax cuts and
reforms. It is possible to design a tax code which makes avoidance difficult (as shown by the
1986 Kemp-Bradley tax reform). It is very hard to implement such a code without campaigning on
soaking the rich and promoting class uh struggle.
4) More generally, redistribution does not work -- the post tax income distribution is not
equalized because the rich find a way. This is super straw again. All the international and
time series evidence points the other way.
I don't see a political or policy argument against a large increase in taxes on high incomes
(70% bracket starting at $400,000 a year) used to finance a large expansion of the EITC (so
most households receive it).
I think a problem is that a simple solution does not please nerds. I think another is that a
large fraction of the elite would pay the high taxes and it is easier to trick them into trying
to make corporations pay the costs.
First, whenever anybody (that I hear or read) talks about what to do with the revenue from
higher taxes on the rich, they always suggest this or that government program (education,
medical, housing). I always think of putting more money back in the pockets of my middle 59%
incomes to make up for the higher consumer prices they will have to pay when the bottom 40%
get unionized.
Of course the 59% can use that money to pay taxes for said government programs -- money is
fungible. But, that re-inserts an important element or dimension or facet which seems
perpetually forgotten (would not be in continental Europe or maybe French Canada).
Don't forget: predistribution goal = a reunionized labor market. Don't just look to Europe
for redistribution goals -- look at their predistribution too.
Bert Schlitz , March 17, 2019 10:14 pm
Nobody in the 60's that was taxed at a marginal 70% rate paid 70%. The top effective rate
was about 32-38%, which was far higher than today, but you get the point. The income tax code
was as much control of where investment would take place as much as anything ..Ronald Reagan
whined about this for years. Shove it grease ball. There was a reason why.
Redistribution won't work because the system is a debt based ponzi scheme. The US really
hasn't grown much since 1980, instead you have had the growth in debt.
You need to get rid of the federal reserve system's banks control of the financial system,
which they have had since the 1830's in terms of national control(from Hamilton's Philly,
which was the financial epicenter before that) and de Rothschild free since the 1930's(when
the bank of de Rothschild ala the Bank of England's reserve currency collapsed). Once we have
a debt free currency that is usury free, then you can develop and handle intense changes like
ecological problems ala Climate Change, which the modern plutocrats cannot and will not
solve.
They have been ramming debt in peoples face since 1950 and since 1980 it has gotten
vulgar. They know they are full of shit and can't win a fair game.
run75441 , March 18, 2019 6:09 am
Robert:
Would you agree a secure healthcare system without work requirements for those who can not
afford healthcare is a form of pre-distribution of income? Today's ACA was only a step in the
right direction and is being tampered with by ideologs to limit its reach. It can be improved
upon and have a socio-economic impact on people. Over at Medpage where I comment on
healthcare, the author makes this comment:
"Investing in improvements in patients' social determinants of health -- non-medical areas
such as housing, transportation, and food insecurity -- is another potentially big area, he
said. "It's a major opportunity for plans to position around this and make it real. The more
plans can address social determinants of health, [the more] plans can become truly
organizations dedicated to health as opposed to organizations dedicated to incurring medical
costs, and that to me is a bright future and a bright way to position the industry."
Many of the "social determinants of health" are not consciously decided by the patient and
are predetermined by income, social status or politics, and education. What is being said in
this paragraph makes for nice rhetoric and is mostly unachievable due to the three factors I
suggested. And yes, you can make some progress. People can make healthy choices once the
pre-determinants to doing so are resolved.
Another factor which was left dangling when Liebermann decided to be an ass is Long Term
Healthcare for the elderly and those who are no longer capable. Medicare is only temporary
and Medicaid forces one to be destitute. There is a large number of people who are
approaching the time when they will need such healthcare till death. We have no plans for
this tsunami of people.
The tax break was passed using Reconciliation. In 7-8 years out, there is a planned shift
in taxes to be levied on the middle income brackets to insure the continuamce of Trump's tax
break for the 100 or so thousand households it was skewed towards. If not rescinding the tax
break then it should be fixed so it sunsets as did Bush's tax break due to its budget
creating deficit. Someone running for the Pres position should be discussing this and
pointing out how Republicans have deliberately undermined the middle income brackets.
We should not limit solutions to just income when there are so many areas we are lacking
in today.
Mu $.02.
Robert Waldmann , March 18, 2019 4:47 pm
I guess I consider food stamps, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security old age pensions and
disability pensions to be redistribution. My distinction is whether it is tax financed.
Providing goods or services as in Medicare and food stamps seems to me basically the same as
providing cash as in TANF and old age pensions.
There is also a difference between means tested and age dependent eligiability, but I
don't consider it fundamental.
I assert that Medicare (especially plan B) is a kind of welfare basically like TANF and
food stamps.
(and look forward to a calm and tranquil discussion of that opinion).
run75441 , March 18, 2019 9:01 pm
Robert:
Medicare is 41% funded by general revenues. The rest comes from payroll taxes and
beneficiary premiums. Advantage plans cost more than traditional Medicare for providing the
same benefits and also extract a premium fee. I do not believe I have been mean to you. I
usually question to learn more. I am happy to have your input.
I am writing for Consumer Safety Org on Woman's healthcare this time and also an article
on the Swiss struggling to pay for cancer fighting drugs.
"... Warren could have easily gone either way, succumbing to the emotive demands of the Never Trump mob. She instead opted to stick to the traditional progressive position on undeclared war, even if it meant siding with the president. ..."
"... Bravo Congressman Khanna. And to those progs who share his sympathies with those of us who have consistently opposed US military adventurism. Howard Dean's comments that American troops should take a bullet in support of "women's rights" in Afghanistan (!) only underscores why he serves as comic relief and really should consider wearing tassels and bells. ..."
"... Trump – and Bernie – put their fingers on the electoral zeitgeist in 2016: the oligarchy is out of control, its servants in Washington have turned their backs on the middle class, and we need to stop getting into stupid, needless wars. ..."
"... "Principles", LOL? What principles? When have Democrats ever not campaigned on a "bring them home, no torture, etc" peace platform and then governed on a deep state neocon foreign policy, with entitlements to drone anyone on earth in Obama's case? At least horrible neocon Republicans are honest enough to say what they believe when they run. ..."
"... Hillary was full hawk. It was Trump who said he was less hawkish. Yeah, he hasn't lived up to that either. But Democrats can't go hawkish in response. They already were the hawks. ..."
When President Donald Trump announced in December that he wanted an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, there was
more silence and opposition from the Left than approval. The 2016 election's highest-profile progressive, Senator Bernie Sanders,
said virtually nothing at the time. The 2018 midterm election's Left celeb, former congressman Beto O'Rourke, kept mum too. The 2004
liberal hero, Howard Dean, came out against troop withdrawals,
saying they would damage women's rights
in Afghanistan.
The liberal news outlet on which Warren made her statement, MSNBC, which had already been sounding more like Fox News circa 2003,
warned that withdrawal from Syria could hurt national security. The left-leaning news channel has even made common cause with Bill
Kristol and other neoconservatives in its shared opposition to all things Trump.
Maddow herself has not only vocally opposed the president's decision, but has become arguably more popular than ever with liberal
viewers by peddling
wild-eyed anti-Trump conspiracy theories worthy of Alex Jones. Reacting to one of her cockamamie theories, progressive journalist
Glenn Greenwald tweeted , "She is Glenn Beck
standing at the chalkboard. Liberals celebrate her (relatively) high ratings as proof that she's right, but Beck himself proved that
nothing produces higher cable ratings than feeding deranged partisans unhinged conspiracy theories that flatter their beliefs."
The Trump derangement that has so enveloped the Left on everything, including foreign policy, is precisely what makes Democratic
presidential candidate Warren's Syria withdrawal position so noteworthy. One can safely assume that Sanders, O'Rourke, Dean, MSNBC,
Maddow, and many of their fellow progressive travelers' silence on or resistance to troop withdrawal is simply them gauging what
their liberal audiences currently want or will accept.
Warren could have easily gone either way, succumbing to the emotive demands of the Never Trump mob. She instead opted to stick
to the traditional progressive position on undeclared war, even if it meant siding with the president.
... ... ...
Jack Hunter is the former political editor of Rare.us and co-authored the 2011 book The Tea Party Goes to Washington with
Senator Rand Paul.
The antiwar movement is not a "liberal" movement. Hundreds of mainly your people addressed the San Francisco board of supervisors
asking them to condemn an Israeli full-fledged attack on Gaza. When they were finished, without objection from one single supervisor,
the issued was tabled and let sink permanently in the Bay, never to be heard of again. Had the situation been reversed and Israel
under attack there most probably would have been a resolution in nanoseconds. Maybe even half the board volunteering to join the
IDF? People believed Trump would act more objectively. That is why he got a lot of peace votes. What AIPAC wants there is a high
probability our liberal politicians will oblige quickly and willingly. Who really represents America remains a mystery?
"That abiding hatred will continue to play an outsized and often illogical role in determining what most Democrats believe about
foreign policy."
True, but the prowar tendency with mainstream liberals ( think Clintonites) is older than that. The antiwar movement among
mainstream liberals died the instant Obama entered the White House. And even before that Clinton and Kerry and others supported
the Iraq War. I think this goes all the way back to Gulf War I, and possibly further. Democrats were still mostly antiwar to some
degree after Vietnam and they also opposed Reagan's proxy wars in Central America and Angola. Some opposed the Gulf War, but it
seemed a big success at the time and so it became centrist and smart to kick the Vietnam War syndrome and be prowar. Bill Clinton
has his little war in Serbia, which was seen as a success and so being prowar became the centrist Dem position. Obama was careful
to say he wasn't antiwar, just against dumb wars. Gore opposed going into Iraq, but on technocratic grounds.
And in popular culture, in the West Wing the liberal fantasy President was bombing an imaginary Mideast terrorist country.
Showed he was a tough guy, but measured, unlike some of the even more warlike fictitious Republicans in that show. I remember
Toby Ziegler, one of the main characters, ranting to his pro diplomacy wife that we needed to go in and civilize those crazy Muslims.
So it isn't just an illogical overreaction to Trump, though that is part of it.
Won't happen. Gabbard is solid and sincere but she's not Hillary so she won't be the candidate. Hillary is the candidate forever.
If Hillary is too drunk to stand up, or too obviously dead, Kamala will serve as Hillary's regent.
The problem isn't THAT Trump is pulling the troops out of Syria. The problem is HOW Trump is pulling the troops out of Syria.
The Left isn't fighting about 'keeping troops indefinitely in Syria' vs pulling troops out of Syria'. Its a fight over 'pulling
troops out in a way that makes it so that we don't have to go back in like Obama and Iraq' vs 'backing the reckless pull out Trump
is going to do'.
For Democrats, everything depends on what the polls say, which issues seem important to get elected. They will say anything,
no matter how irrational & outrageously insane if the polls say Democrat voters like them. If American involvement in Syria, Iraq,
Afghanistan are less important according to the polls, Democratic 2020 hopefuls will not bother to focus on it.
For True Christian conservatives, everything depends on how issues line up to God's laws. Polls do not change what is morally
right, & what is morally evil.
"I am glad Donald Trump is withdrawing troops from Syria. Congress never authorized the intervention."
Bravo Congressman Khanna. And to those progs who share his sympathies with those of us who have consistently opposed US
military adventurism. Howard Dean's comments that American troops should take a bullet in support of "women's rights" in Afghanistan
(!) only underscores why he serves as comic relief and really should consider wearing tassels and bells.
Kasoy: "For True Christian conservatives, everything depends on how issues line up to God's laws. Polls do not change what is
morally right, & what is morally evil."
I think that needs the trademark symbol, i.e True Christians™
The Second Coming of Jack Hunter. Given his well-documented views on race, it's no surprise he's all in on Trump. That surely
outweighs Trump's massive spending and corruption that most true libertarians oppose.
Trump – and Bernie – put their fingers on the electoral zeitgeist in 2016: the oligarchy is out of control, its servants in
Washington have turned their backs on the middle class, and we need to stop getting into stupid, needless wars.
Of course, the left would come out against puppies and sunshine if Trump came out for those things.
But if they are smart, they'd recognize that on war, or his lack of interest in starting new wars, even the broken Trump clock
has been right twice a day.
The flip side of this phenomenon is that so many Republican voters supported Trump's withdrawal from Syria. Had it been Obama
withdrawing the troops, I suspect 80-90% of Republicans would have opposed the withdrawal.
This does show that Republicans are listening to Trump more than Lindsey Graham or Marco Rubio on foreign policy. But once
Trump leaves office, I fear the party will swing back towards the neocons.
"Principles", LOL? What principles? When have Democrats ever not campaigned on a "bring them home, no torture, etc" peace
platform and then governed on a deep state neocon foreign policy, with entitlements to drone anyone on earth in Obama's case?
At least horrible neocon Republicans are honest enough to say what they believe when they run.
Dopey Trump campaigned on something different and has now surrounded himself with GOP hawks, probably because he's lazy and
doesn't know any better.
Bernie, much like Ron Paul was, 180 degrees away, is the only one who might do different if he got into office, and the rate
the left is going he may very well be the nominee.
Hillary was full hawk. It was Trump who said he was less hawkish. Yeah, he hasn't lived up to that either. But Democrats can't
go hawkish in response. They already were the hawks.
The least bad comment on Democrats is that everyone in DC is a hawk, not just them.
"Three companies have vast power over our economy and our democracy. Facebook, Amazon, and
Google," read the ads which began to run on Friday, According to Politico
. "We all use them. But in their rise to power, they've bulldozed competition, used our private
information for profit, and tilted the playing field in their favor."
As these companies have grown larger and more powerful, they have used their resources and
control over the way we use the Internet to squash small businesses and innovation , and
substitute their own financial interests for the broader interests of the American people. To
restore the balance of power in our democracy, to promote competition, and to ensure that the
next generation of technology innovation is as vibrant as the last, it's time to break up our
biggest tech companies. -Elizabeth Warren
Facebook confirmed with Politico that the ads had been taken down and said said the
company is reviewing the matter. "The person said, according to an initial review, that the
removal could be linked to the company's policies about using Facebook's
brand in posts ."
Around a dozen other ads placed by Warren were not affected.
On Friday she called for legislation that would designate large technology companies as
"platform utilities," and for the appointment of regulators who'd unwind technology mergers
that undermine competition and harm innovation and small businesses.
"The idea behind this is for the people in this room," for tech entrepreneurs who want to
try out "that new idea," Warren told a packed and enthusiastic crowd. "We want to keep that
marketplace competitive and not let a giant who has an incredible competitive advantage snuff
that out."
Warren said venture capital "in this area" has dropped by about 20 percent because of a
perceived uneven playing field. She didn't provide more detail or say where she obtained her
figures.
Elizabeth Warren's proposal to break up "Big Tech" companies is sure to stoke debate and add to the tension
between the Democratic Party and reliably Democratic Silicon Valley. While breaking up Big Tech isn't likely to
happen anytime soon, one nuance in her proposal is worth thinking about, and that's whether tech companies that
operate large marketplaces should also be able to participate in said marketplaces.
The most obvious impact this would have would be on Amazon. While in the universe of the American retail
industry Amazon's market share remains in the single digits, in e-commerce it's got around
50
percent market share
. When consumers shop on Amazon, they're presented with items sold by Amazon, and also
items that Amazon doesn't own or warehouse but merely hosts the listings. It's also increasingly getting into the
advertising business, so that when you're searching you'll be presented with a list of sponsored products in
addition to whatever results a search may generate.
A third-party seller on Amazon has a difficult relationship with Amazon, which can act both as partner and
competitor. Amazon can use its huge data sets to see how successful third-party sellers and products are, and if
they meet a certain profitability threshold Amazon can decide to compete with that third-party seller directly.
Someone might say, isn't that what grocery stores or Costco do with private label goods or Costco's Kirkland
brand? But the difference is that in physical retail, there are all sorts of stores where a producer can sell
their products -- Walmart, Target, Costco, major grocery chains, and so on. In e-commerce, with half the market
share, Amazon has a dominant position. While in the short run Amazon being able to compete with its third-party
sellers may be good for consumers, who can end up with lower prices, in the long run it may mean fewer producers
even bother to come up with new products, feeling that eventually Amazon will crowd them out of the marketplace.
Would restricting Amazon, which has grown so quickly and is popular with consumers, harm the economy?
Government's antitrust fight with Microsoft a generation ago ended up paying dividends for innovation. In the
2000s a common critique of Microsoft was that it "missed" the internet, and smartphones, and social media, but to
some extent that may have been because the company feared an expansion in emerging technologies would bring back
more scrutiny from the government. As a result, new tech platforms and companies bloomed. The same could happen in
the next decade if Amazon's ambitions were reined in a little.
"Break up Big Tech" is an easy emotional hook, but hopefully Warren's proposal will get all Americans to think
more about the power of tech companies and their platforms, and whether regulatory changes would best serve both
consumers and producers.
In a recent issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD,
Matt Labash highlighted
the sad story of Trump University, one of the Donald's biggest failures. Here's an excerpt:
But most egregious was Trump University, a purported real estate school that attracted the attention of New York's attorney general,
who brought a $40 million suit on behalf of 5,000 people. The New York Times described Trump U as "a bait-and-switch scheme,"
with students lured "by free sessions, then offered packages ranging from $10,000 to $35,000 for sham courses that were supposed
to teach them how to become successful real estate investors." Though Trump himself was largely absentee, one advertisement featured
him proclaiming, "Just copy exactly what I've done and get rich." While some students were hoping to glean wisdom directly from
the success oracle, there was no such luck. At one seminar, attendees were told they'd get to have their picture taken with Trump.
Instead, they ended up getting snapped with his cardboard cutout. What must have been a crushing disappointment to aspiring real
estate barons is a boon to Republican-primary metaphor hunters.
Read the whole article
here , which documents
Trump at his Trumpiest, from his penchant for cheating at golf to his sensitivity to being called a "short-fingered vulgarian."
Michael Warrenis a senior writer at The
Weekly Standard.
"A pension is not a 'gratuity.' A pension is wages you could have taken in cash, but
prudently and conservatively set aside for your old age. It's your money. If your
employer, for every pay period, does not set aside and designate it to go into a
pension plan, your employer is stealing from you. The way to get this is to require pay
stubs to itemize the amount of money that has been contributed to your pension plan."
David Cay Johnston
"Capitalism is at risk of failing today not because we are running out of innovations,
or because markets are failing to inspire private actions, but because we've lost sight
of the operational failings of unfettered gluttony. We are neglecting a torrent of
market failures in infrastructure, finance, and the environment. We are turning our
backs on a grotesque worsening of income inequality and willfully continuing to slash
social benefits. We are destroying the Earth as if we are indeed the last generation."
Jeffrey Sachs
"We are coming apart as a society, and inequality is right at the core of that. When
the 90 percent are getting worse off and they're trying to figure out what happened,
they're not people like me who get to spend four or five hours a day studying these
things and then writing about them -- they're people who have to make a living and get
through life. And they're going to be swayed by demagogues and filled with fear about
the other, rather than bringing us together.
President Theodore Roosevelt said we shall all rise together or we shall all fall
together, and we need to have an appreciation of that.
I think it would be easy for someone to arrive in the near future and really create
forces that would lead to trouble in this country. And you see people who, they're not
the leaders to pull it off, but we have suggestions that the president should be
killed, that he's not an American, that Texas can secede, that states can ignore
federal law, and these are things that don't lack for antecedents in America history
but they're clearly on the rise.
In addition to that, we have this large, very well-funded news organization that is
premised on misconstruing facts and telling lies, Faux News that is creating, in a
large segment of the population -- somewhere around one-fifth and one-fourth of it --
belief in all sorts of things that are detrimental to our well-being.
So, no, I don't see this happening tomorrow, but I have said for many years that if we
don't get a handle on this then one of these days our descendants are going to sit down
in high-school history class and open a textbook that begins with the words:
The
United States of America was
and then it will dissect how our experiment in
self-governance came apart."
Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) is expected to introduce a new tax bill today. The senator
says his bill would tax the sale of stocks, bonds and derivatives at a 0.1 rate. It would apply
to any transaction in the United States. The senator says his proposal would clamp down on
speculation and some high frequency trading that artificially creates more market
volatility.
"... As Sen. Elizabeth Warren has famously said with respect to cabinet and other political appointments, "Personnel Is Policy." You can see the outline of the Trump administration's real policies being shaped before our eyes via his proposed cabinet appointees, covered by Politico and other sites. ..."
"... Sanders, Warren and others should hold Trump's feet to the fire on the truly populist things he said and offer to work with him on that stuff. Like preserving Social Security and Medicare and getting out of wars. ..."
Not surprised at all. The election is over, the voters are now moot. As Sen. Elizabeth Warren
has famously said with respect to cabinet and other political appointments, "Personnel Is Policy."
You can see the outline of the Trump administration's real policies being shaped before our eyes
via his proposed cabinet appointees, covered by Politico and other sites.
Also no mention of NAFTA or renegotiating trade deals in the new transition agenda. Instead
there's just a bunch of vague Chamber of Commercesque language about making America attractive
to investors. I think our hopes for a disruptive Trump presidency are quickly being dashed.
Sanders, Warren and others should hold Trump's feet to the fire on the truly populist things
he said and offer to work with him on that stuff. Like preserving Social Security and Medicare
and getting out of wars.
As to the last point, appointing Bolton or Corker Secretary of State would be a clear indication
he was just talking. A clear violation of campaign promises that would make Obama look like a
choirboy. Trump may be W on steroids.
I can't imagine how he's neglected to update his transition plan regarding nafta. After all,
he's already been president-elect for, what, 36 hours now? And he only talked about it umpteen
times during the campaign. I'm sure he'll renege.
Hell, it took Clinton 8 hours to give her concession speech.
On the bright side, he managed to kill TPP just by getting elected. Was that quick enough for
you?
This just in .Saint Obama is no longer infallible among Dems. Winds of change are blowing. Six months ago, you couldn't get
away with saying this kind of thing.
"The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Obama will receive the sum - equal to his annual pay as president - for a speech
at Cantor Fitzgerald LP's healthcare conference, though there has been no public announcement yet."
=======================================
Sheer coincidence that what Obama campaigned on and what Obama governed on appear to be influenced by rich people. Physics prevents
single payer health care .dark energy, dark matter, dark, dark, money ..
Until a strong majority of dems are ready to say what is patently obvious to anyone even mildly willing to acknowledge reality,
i.e., that policy is decided not by a majority of voters, but by a majority of dollars, than there is simply no hope for reform.
... just as the day was ending, news broke that Rep. Duncan D. Hunter (R-Calif.), an early Trump backer,
was indicted for misusing campaign funds for personal expenses big and small, including dental bills and a trip to Italy.
And this sort of behavior isn't even what Warren is targeting.
Warren's bill takes on what is usually termed the legalized corruption, the dirty dealings of Washington. Among other things,
the legislation would:
Increase salaries for congressional staffers, so they will be less tempted to "audition" for lobbying jobs while working for government.
Ban the "revolving door" for elected officials expand how lobbying is defined to include anyone who is paid to lobby the federal
government as well as halt permitting any American to take money from "foreign governments foreign individuals and foreign companies"
for lobbying purposes.
Prohibit elected officials from holding investments in individual stocks require that presidential candidates
make their tax returns public
The goal? To make government once again responsive to voters, not the corporations and the wealthy donors responsible for the
vast majority of the $3.37 billion spent lobbying Washington in
2017. That money buys results, but only for the people paying the bills. As Warren said:
Corruption has seeped into the fabric of our government, tilting thousands of decisions away from the public good and toward
the desires of those at the top. And, over time, bit by bit, like a cancer eating away at our democracy, corruption has eroded
Americans' faith in our government.
This is not hyperbole. A 2014
academic study found the U.S. government policy almost always reflected the desires of the donor class over the will of the majority
of voters, while a 2016 report by the progressive think tank
Demos determined
political donors have distinctly different views from most Americans on issues ranging from financial regulation to abortion rights.
A tax reform package that showers benefits on corporations and the wealthiest among us? Consider it done. But a crackdown on drug
pricing, buttressing of Social Security without cutting benefits, expansion of Medicare and Medicaid, or progress combating global
warming, all of which majorities say they want? Not so fast.
Sen. Warren (D-Mass.) said on June 5 that she will introduce "sweeping anti-corruption legislation to clean up corporate money sloshing
around Washington." (Georgetown Law)
It's not just what laws get passed, but who is held accountable under those laws. No one in a high position went to jail for the
financial crisis. Foreclosure fraud on the part of the banks was punished with a slap on the wrist – if that. All too many corporations
treat their customers with complete impunity, as scandals ranging from the
Equifax hack to
Wells Fargo's many misdeeds demonstrate. It feels as if there is no one minding the store -- if you are rich and connected enough,
that is.
This behavior leaves us enraged, feeling like outsiders peering in on our own elected government. A Gallup poll found 3 out of
4 voters surveyed described corruption as "
widespread throughout the government " -- in 2010. There's a reason Trump's claim he would "drain the swamp" resonated. No one,
after all, thought Trump was clean. His stated argument was, in fact, the opposite. He claimed his success a businessman navigating
the corrupt U.S. system gave him just the right set of insight and tools to clean up Washington.
We all know now that was just another audacious Trump con. The tax reform package almost certainly benefited his own bottom line,
though we don't know that for sure since he has not released his taxes.
Andrew Wheeler , the acting head
of the Environmental Protection Agency, is a former lobbyist for the coal industry.
Alex Azar , the secretary of Health and Human Services, is a former top executive of pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly. At the Education
Department, the revolving door is alive and well, with
former George W. Bush administration officials who went on to work at for-profit institutions of higher education
returning to government
service to advise Betsy De Vos who is -- surprise! -- cutting the sector multiple breaks.
And all this, under our current laws, is allowed.
To be clear, this is not a matter of Republicans Good, Democrats Bad. As Warren put it on Tuesday, "This problem is far bigger
than Trump." An Obama-era attempt to slow the revolving door
was riddled with loopholes
that allowed the appointment of Wall Street insiders to too many regulatory posts. Subsequently, more than a few Obama appointees
have gone on to work for big business as lobbyists.
Corruption, legal or illegal, rots the system from the inside out. In an environment where it seems anything goes, it's not hard
to think that, well, anything goes -- like Cohen and Manafort, who almost certainly would have gotten away with their behavior if
not for the Mueller investigation, and Hunter, who ignored multiple warnings from his campaign treasurer and instead continued to
do such things as pass off the purchase of a pair of shorts as sporting equipment intended for use by "wounded warriors."
There is, of course, no way Warren's bill would clean up this entire festering mess. But healthy democracies need government officials
-- elected and unelected -- to behave both ethically and honestly. Warren is putting our governing and business classes on notice.
Simply saying the law is on your side isn't good enough. The voters won't stand for that.
On Tuesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren
addressed the National Press Club , outlining with great specificity a host of proposals on
issues including eliminating financial conflicts, close the revolving door between business and
government and, perhaps most notably, reforming
corporate structures .
Warren gave a blistering attack on corporate power run amok, giving example after example,
like Congressman Billy Tauzin doing the pharmaceutical lobby's bidding by preventing a bill for
expanded Medicare coverage from allowing the program to negotiate lower drug prices. Noted
Warren: "In December of 2003, the very same month the bill was signed into law, PhRMA -- the
drug companies' biggest lobbying group -- dangled the possibility that Billy could be their
next CEO.
"In February of 2004, Congressman Tauzin announced that he wouldn't seek re-election. Ten
months later, he became CEO of PhRMA -- at an annual salary of $2 million. Big Pharma certainly
knows how to say 'thank you for your service.'"
But I found that Warren's tenacity when ripping things like corporate lobbyists'
"pre-bribes" suddenly evaporated when dealing with issues like the enormous military budget and
Israeli assaults on Palestinian children.
... ... ...
Said Warren of her own financial reform proposals: "Inside Washington, some of these
proposals will be very unpopular, even with some of my friends. Outside Washington, I expect
that most people will see these ideas as no-brainers and be shocked they're not already the
law.
Why doesn't the same principle apply to funding perpetual wars and massive human rights
abuses against children?
Sam Husseini is an independent journalist, senior analyst at the Institute for Public
Accuracy and founder of VotePact .org.
Follow him on twitter: @samhusseini
August 22, 2018,
10:46 am OpenSecrets shows that Senator Warren has received funds from the pro-Israel
PAC Joint Action Committee for Political Affairs for the 2018 election cycle. Among the
largest funders of this PAC are billionaire venture capitalist J.B. Pritzker and his wife. At
the start of Israel's 2014 massacre in Gaza, the PAC issued a statement in support of Israel.
August 22, 2018,
12:36 pm No surprise there, ckg. I cannot think of anyone in Congress nor in the US cabinet
that is not 99-100% in Israel supporters' pockets. Nor can I think of anyone that is
diplomatically focused. Nor can I think of anyone that is seriously objecting to the slaughter
in Yemen, the ongoing attempt to topple Assad, and the endless war in Afghanistan, etc.
Then there's this: the US and too many others pay/subsidize Israel for the privilege of
dictating foreign policy and for their own selfish, ridiculous claims of being 'surrounded by
enemies'. A nuclear- armed state (though never inspected nor properly declared) keeps this
trope/cliché alive???
How many billions should Americans and others pay to Israel for nothing in return?
August 23, 2018, 7:10 am
Standing up to the Israel lobby now is suicidal. Nobody will risk a career to support a
dissident until the dam breaks as it always does.
Power doesn't work linearly. It goes in cycles. Zionism is tied up with money which is a
function of the economic system. Warren is playing a long game. She knows the people at the Fed
are clueless. She knows there is going to be an awful crash. She knows there will be a new
economic system based on the people rather than the elites..
"... By Joshua Weitz, a research associate at the Academic-Industry Research Network and an incoming graduate student in the PhD program in political science at Brown University ..."
By Joshua Weitz, a research associate at the Academic-Industry Research Network and an incoming
graduate student in the PhD program in political science at Brown University
Since leaving office President Obama has drawn widespread criticism for accepting a
$400,000 speaking fee from the Wall Street investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald, including from
Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Only a few months out of office, the move has been
viewed as emblematic of the cozy relationship between the financial sector and political elites.
But as the President's critics have voiced outrage over the decision many have been reluctant
to criticize the record-setting
$65 million book deal that Barack and Michelle Obama landed jointly this February with Penguin
Random House (PRH). Writing in the Washington Post, for example,
Ruth Marcus argues that while the Wall Street speech "feels like unfortunate icing on an already
distasteful cake," the book deal is little more than the outcome of market forces fueled by consumer
demand: "If the market bears $60 million to hear from the Obamas, great."
Obama centrists don't have to worry just about Sanders' popularity. Elizabeth Warren, who is increasingly appearing as a plausible
presidential candidate for 2020, has also risen as an economic populist critic of the former president.
She has been perfectly willing to challenge Obama by name, saying he was wrong to claim at a commencement address at Rutgers last
year that "the system isn't as rigged as you think." "No, President Obama, the system is as rigged as we think," she writes in her
new book This Fight Is Our Fight. "In fact, it's worse than most Americans realize." She even went so far as to say she was "troubled"
by Obama's willingness to take his six-figure speaking fee from Wall Street. There is indeed a fight brewing, but it's not Obama
v. Trump, but Obama v. Warren-Sanders.
And this is where the real difficulty lies for the Democrats. The trouble with the popular and eminently reasonable Sanders-Warren
platform-reasonable for all those, Obama and Clinton included, who express dismay over our country's rampaging levels of Gilded Age-style
inequality-is that it alienates the donor class that butters the DNC's bread. With Clinton's downfall, and with the popularity of
economic populism rising in left circles, Obama has to step in and reassert his more centrist brand of Democratic politics. And what
better way to do so than by conspicuously cashing a check from those who would fund said politics?
Oh please, stop quoting Andy Slavitt, the United Healthcare Ingenix algo man. That guy is
the biggest crook that made his money early on with RX discounts with his company that he and
Senator Warren's daughter, Amelia sold to United Healthcare.
He's out there trying to do his own reputation restore routine. Go back to 2009 and read
about the short paying of MDs by Ingenix, which is now Optum Insights, he was the CEO and
remember it was just around 3 years ago or so he sat there quarterly with United CEO Hemsley
at those quarterly meetings.
Look him up, wants 40k to speak and he puts the perception out there he does this for
free, not so.
I think you're missing the context. Lambert is quoting him by way of showing that the
sleazy establishment types are just fine with him. Thanks for the extra background on that
particular swamp-dweller, though.
Alex Azar is a Dartmouth grad (Gov't & Economics '88) just like Jeff Immelt (Applied
Math & Economics '78). So much damage to society from such a small department!
Since 2014, Ross has been the vice-chairman of the board of Bank of Cyprus PCL, the
largest bank in Cyprus.
He served under U.S. President Bill Clinton on the board of the U.S.-Russia Investment
Fund. Later, under New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Ross served as the Mayor's
privatization advisor.
She raise important question about Trump university
Notable quotes:
"... That was brutally enlightening. I mean, I heard from the news that she didn't have a clue about education, but I didn't know it was this bad. America's education system desperately needs to be improved, but I don't see that coming with her... ..."
"... Senator Warren's zeal and interrogation skills are both admirable. ..."
I am an Australian observer, What I see of Elizabeth Warren, she should be the next
American President, 1, she has a brain, 2, she has dignity, 3, she knows what she is dong,
(she has a clue, unlike the current one ) no one scares this woman.
Betsy deVos got raked over the coals by both Franken and Warren... deVos isn't qualified
to be a teacher's aid for a kindergarten class much less run the D. of Ed. scary!
We need more Elizabeth Warrens in America. And we need new rules in our governance. Can
you imagine if this was a real life corporate board interview. Would DeVos be hired by that
board? Be honest....... DeVos was beyond stupid here.
That was brutally enlightening. I mean, I heard from the news that she didn't have a clue
about education, but I didn't know it was this bad. America's education system desperately
needs to be improved, but I don't see that coming with her...
I am not a fan either way of DeVos, but this was nothing but a platform for Warren to fast
talk over her, and a way to slam Trump, call him a crook and fraud, and be condescending
non-stop.
Elizabeth Warren has some good ideas at times, but this was bullying and
showboating on her part and she wasted her time lecturing instead of really giving her a real
opportunity to answer a few strong questions to see where she stood on certain topics. Pity.
Has Warren been held accountable for the billions of waste and fraud committed by the
congress in the past 8 years on failed policies, laws, etc.
And by the way, how many people
in Washington, D C have had experience running a Trillion dollar bank? What a rather dumb
question since the answer is NOBODY.
"Destroys?" She basically ask her a bunch of questions she already knew the answer to just
to point out she hasn't taken out a student loan or has experience overseeing a trillion
dollar program. Then Liz proceeds to derive her own answer prior to Besty answering herself.
A cop may not have saved someones life before so by that logic the cop is not qualified to
save lives? Sure, she may not have experience with student loans but that doesn't mean she
doesn't understand compound interest, inflation and economics. Maybe these hearings would be
a better use of tax payer's money if they weren't merely a forum to broadcast the fact that
you don't like someone's political affiliations.
So having focused on being a community organizer is fine for running for president, but
somehow NOT for running a federal agency under a president? Meanwhile, when it comes to
following the spirit of regulations as opposed to regulations themselves, which (if any) were
NOT violated when a certain senator used to be a professor at Harvard and proclaimed that she
was of American Indian heritage, while such a classification "coincidentally" benefited
whomever claimed it?
Having said that, Senator Warren's zeal and interrogation skills are
both admirable. So is the way in which Betsy Devos diplomatically handles such an onslaught
of pointed questions that some say are agenda-driven.
This is democracy at work and it's
refreshing to see. Thanks Youtube and all who helped bring this about.
Senator Warren. You are a US Senator. What is your plan for insuring the United States
won't run up 10's of trillions of debt which will bankrupt our country? Senator Warren, have
you ever balanced a budget? Do you know what a balanced budget is? Senator Warren, what is
your plan for protecting US citizens from criminal illegal aliens? Do you know, Senator
Warren, we already have laws in place to protect US citizens from criminal illegal aliens?
They're called immigration laws.
Tim Sloan has all the characteristics of a crook. He is remorseless, misleading, lacks
responsibility, tries to cause confusion of the facts, and a manipulator. This guy was the
CFO and claims he was removed from the scams. Yeah right!
I know Tim Sloan did not do a good job and Senator Warren grilled him to the point where I
feel bad for him. She is so good at finding out the truth and cornering the guilty like a
rat.
I don't know all the ins-and-outs of Tim Sloan, probably some fair criticism, but he
doesn't strike me as a crook. For Pocahontas to say he should be "fired", the same charge
could be made at Pocahontas - that she should resign (fire herself from the Senate); the scam
of her claiming Native American heritage to further her career was TOTALLY bogus.
If she would shut up about being an Indian and attacking Trump and focus on attacking the
banks she would win I'm a Trump supporter and I would vote for her. She is great on the
fed
Trump is a dangerous and in his own way very capability media person, a propagandist who is
capable fully exploit this story. She really needs to call Trump Pinocchio to neutralize this
line of attack
Notable quotes:
"... She has too much excess baggage to run for president. She reminds me a little bit of Hillary mixed with Trump. She used to or still supports Susie Orman, the self proclaimed financial wizard. Orman is a lier and has cheated many people and has made a lot of money off people who fell for her get rich sceems. Orman is a lot like Trump. I don't mind having a woman president but just not this ine! ..."
"... Donald and Fred Trump both claimed that their family is from Switzerland when they are are actually 2nd and 3rd generation German immigrants and still have a whole town of living relatives in Germany. I'm sure we need to demand Donald Trump take a DNA test and also exhume and test Fred Trump's remains . I mean since these matters are clearly so important to everyone. Come on let's dig up the president's dead father to solve a petty political dispute! ..."
"... CNN literally can't do an interview without being obsessed with race. ..."
"... She mentions her native ancestry. It's a point of pride to her, she has no shame of it. Trumps bullying her lead her to get the DNA test. It made her look foolish, like she would do anything to shut the bully up. Whatever her action they have a reaction of insulting her. Because they are racist. ..."
"... OMG, What controversy with Warren?? No one outside of DC cares about the ancestry.. Trump is literally a Mob Boss... ..."
Most White ppl in the U.S. think they are Cherokee, even though they aren't. In fact, I
know White conservatives who claim Cherokee. Sure she went a step too far 30-40yrs ago, but
at least she actually cares about Natives. Conservatives, on the other hand, claim to be
Native Americans, support DAPL, could care less about them and mock Natives any chance they
get
--Principal Chief Richard Sneed "It's media fodder. It's sensationalism. That's what it
is,. All it takes is for one person to say they're offended, and then everybody does a dog
pile. But to me, it's 'Wait a second. Let's get to some of the facts here.' Sen. Warren has
always been a friend to tribes. And we need all the allies we can get."
I see the hate on the comments...it looks like the KKK types are here donning their MAGA
hats. Are they tight? Lowering your, already low, IQs further? Yeah
The whole DNA thing is such a silly, irrelevant distraction. It's so utterly unimportant.
But we're now going to find that those sideshows become the focus of the race rather than any
real discussion on policy. I'm becoming more and more convinced that people are increasingly
too stupid or simply lazy and cynical to bother thinking about things that actually
matter.
Why? The poor learned the loopholes just like the rich. That's why she checked the
native American box. And the hypocrisy of "President" Trump's past brought out from the time
he stated he was running, this women was right next to Hillary knocking him down.
I don't buy the soft casual talk about not going to the past. She messes with the wrong
man and then her skeletons came our of the closet. She deserved it
Nothing we First Nations people despise more than a white person so ashamed of themselves
try and pretend they are one of us . We have more respect for white people who are strong and
proud of their own people . She is not only very weak , she is a traitor to her people . We
do not respect people ashamed of themselves .
I also hope all you upright citizens are out there demanding a boycott of Chuck Norris.
I'm sure you're outraged by Walker Texas Ranger, correct? You know that tv show where one of
the whitest guys in America claimed both in the show and outside of the show for marketing
purposes that he is native American. I assume you all want Chuck Norris to take a DNA test
and prove it right? Guys? Right?
They should simply agree on what is the proper genetic mix that is acceptable
ideologically to determine which genetic mix is less or not acceptable so that the proper
mistreatment of the lesser sort can be determined and enforced by popular consensus. This
seems almost to be having the force and effect of law socially and politically. This is
becoming a strange mix of nostalgic notions of virtue while at the same time embracing the
basic premise of Nuremburg.
She has too much excess baggage to run for president. She reminds me a little bit of
Hillary mixed with Trump. She used to or still supports Susie Orman, the self proclaimed
financial wizard. Orman is a lier and has cheated many people and has made a lot of money off
people who fell for her get rich sceems. Orman is a lot like Trump. I don't mind having a
woman president but just not this ine!
Donald and Fred Trump both claimed that their family is from Switzerland when they are are
actually 2nd and 3rd generation German immigrants and still have a whole town of living
relatives in Germany. I'm sure we need to demand Donald Trump take a DNA test and also exhume
and test Fred Trump's remains . I mean since these matters are clearly so important to
everyone. Come on let's dig up the president's dead father to solve a petty political
dispute!
CNN literally can't do an interview without being obsessed with race. Warren would
probably had a chance if they gave her a support like they do Harris. ...now here comes the
twist I actually do not support her or anyone on the left but she didn't even get a solid
chance she might as well drop out now and endorse someone.
She mentions her native ancestry. It's a point of pride to her, she has no shame of it.
Trumps bullying her lead her to get the DNA test. It made her look foolish, like she would do
anything to shut the bully up. Whatever her action they have a reaction of insulting her.
Because they are racist.
It's so annoying how anytime a decent person fucks up nowadays they're forced to spend
like an entire year apologizing, and that's only if they don't automatically lose their
entire career right after said fuck up. She admits she shouldn't have done it, great, now
lets get back to policy.
I just don't understand how some people can't accept her apology for the Native American
fiasco, yet they give trump all the slack in the world. This is a man who bragged about
grabbing women by the pussy..... The double standard is just ridiculous.
Taxation itself does not solve the problem. You also need to cut MIC. Only in this case
orginary americans will benefit. Andf that Mmieans that Eligeth Warren will face tremendous
slander campaign neocons.
If Elizabeth Warren is nominated for president, and I hope she will be, I believe we will
see the most virulent, vile and vituperative campaign imaginable against her by the right,
the wealthy and the corporate interests. It will be a battle for the soul of this country.
But if anyone can make the case to the middle class for real economic and tax reform in the
face of the attacks that such a plan will face, Elizabeth Warren is the person to do it. She
has a first class intellect, she has remarkable communication skills and, as she says, this
is her life. She's not running in order to "be" president, she's running to enact policies
that have the potential of turning the tide in this country in favor of the people and away
from the plutocrats. And in this, she will face real opposition from many within her own
party. It's going to be an interesting two years.
Paul, it would be great if you could compare the revenue effects of this Warren proposal
with the actual tax policies that were in effect during the Eisenhower administration. It
seems that the progressive taxation rates of that era, topping out at about 90% marginal
rates, should and could be the "gold standard" for comparison with current plans.
The neolib/libertarian campaign, stretching back to those years and even earlier, has been
wildly successful in brainwashing Americans with regard to both public finance and the link
with tax structures. And the removal of controls on money in politics has us in a truly toxic
environment that in my view has already tipped us into an oligo-klepto-plutocracy. The
ravaging of all three branches of government has reached critical mass, and we're teetering
on the brink in a way that may not be reversible.
Any candidate who is promising health care for all and a substantial response to climate
change and crumbling infrastructure, has to be talking taxation of the wealthy either by
income tax or wealth tax or both. Otherwise, they are just blowing smoke. Elizabeth has that
combination in her platform.
It is a tragic commentary on the American political system that FDR felt he had to make a
compromise with the Devil in order to gain the passage of progressive legislation.
The situation continues today with the institutions of the electoral college and
especially the US Senate, where the population of several small easily manipulated states can
hold equal power to representatives of states with many times more people. In our times the
circumstances often result in gridlock when the Senators from progressive states refuse to
compromise with these who represent minority viewpoints.
Warren Buffett and other billionaires who are socially committed should endorse Senator
Warren's proposal and her candidacy. Let Trump call her names; she knows what she's doing and
is truly on our side.
The national debt as a % of GDP was higher after WWII than it is now. Then we had three
decades of prosperity along with a steady decline in the debt. How? High marginal tax rates.
Since Reagan's election the debt has steadily increased, so that now it's almost as high as
it was in 1945. We solved this problem before, we can solve it again. Warren and AOC are
right on.
There is a very simple logic to focus on; The corruption of Republicans from campaign
donations to legislation as directed by wealthy's lobbyists enriching their wealthy
benefactors, to gross wealth inequality as a result, is overwhelming justification to get
that wealth back to the nation through progressive taxation. Tax the wealthy before they
export America's wealth. It isn't trickling down as much as trickling Up and Out of the
country.
The idea that a couple of extra percentage points of taxes on fifty million dollars could
be considered to be outrageous shows how radical the right-wing has become in this
country.
Someone who has that much income- I was going to say "earned", but it's the lower-class
working people who earn it for them- would not even miss that money. And how much money can
you actually spend in a way that makes you happy, or happier, anyway?
In real life, Obama already increased taxes for the extreme rich, and Hillary's campaign
agenda included additional tax increases. So this is merely a logical continuation of what
Democrats have always stood for.
I've noticed two things that have happened in my lifetime. Many Billionaires and near
billionaires have proliferated while at the same time social security has become more
precarious and homelessness has exploded.
And of course our overall national debt has dramatically increased. Nobody needs a billion
dollars or even ten percent of it for that matter. Not sure if Warren's plan is the best but
it would generate a ton of money to improve the collective good and it still wouldn't dent
the billionaires much.
The downside to this proposal is that my newest Bugatti Veyron I was planning to
gold-plate may have to be silver-plated instead. Worse, my tenth beach house estate I was
planning on building on the island I purchased off Fiji may have to be scaled back to a
bungalow occasionally rented out to cover the utilities. Oh, the pain. And forget about me
trying a hostile takeover of a major media outlet I will not name.
Prof. Krugman, why do you give credit to Elizabeth Warren's party rather than to Elizabeth
Warren herself? Her party will deserve credit if they can get beyond the corporatists and
nominate her. Otherwise, no. Last night on Lawrence O'Donnell, Sen. Warren explained how the
wealthy have manipulated the system for years to accumulate more and more wealth.
Their lobbyists persistently ask Congress for small, subtle changes in the law that
benefit them. Because the individual changes seem minor, Congress often goes along, but, over
the years, they add up to major benefits allowing the wealthiest to accumulate more and more
assets.
Billionaire Howard Schultz's ability to self-fund a presidential campaign and the Koch
political network's efforts to make its own preferred policies exemplify another reason for
taxing the wealthiest. They can and do use their vast resources to cause significant harm to
the country.
Watched Sen. Warren on MSNBC last night and she did well to explain her plan to us
"regular folks," rare for a politician. Just ask Paul Ryan.
This plan can work if we don't let Republicans lie about its benefits. Nail the Fox crew
to the wall in siding with their uber rich boss Murdoch, who loathes the plan (I wonder why).
This plan can work if it still contains tax break goodies for the 90%---all levels. We all
have to join together and we all have different economic concerns. That's a fact.
This plan can work if the public realizes it prevents tapping into Social Security or
Medicare or cutting benefits. This plan can work if we can hear over and over again how the
money will be spent on climate change, healthcare, college tuition, infrastructure, cyber
security, and poverty, to name a few. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. This plan will work if they
point to the Republican tax debacle giveaway of 2018 did NOTHING to help any of those
problems but was a major giveaway to the rich who did not reinvest into the economy but
cashed in instead.
The ripple effects of more fair, adequate, progressive tax rates are huge throughout the
society. Low tax rates and tax havens for the rich and corporations lets mega donors keep
increasing their donations (investments) in our politicians and elections, thus their
dominance over lawmaking.
This effectively subverts our professed ideals of equality and citizen influence. It
subverts our constitution, bill of rights, and the safeguards of our 3 equal branches. Big
money values infect our executive, legislative and judicial branches. The S. Court legalized
unlimited donor money (investments) in our elections, pretending that any limits would
subvert the 1st Amendment's Free Speech. We see the effects on tax laws and weak regulations
giving huge advantage to the donor elites. In effect they are regulating our govt.
You are wrong in every argument you make. You don't live in isolation, you live in an
organized society that makes your wealth possible. There would be no wealth in the US if we
didn't have a functioning society, and there would be no functioning society without taxation
and government functions. And "the rich" didn't go anywhere in the fifties and sixties when
the taxation was much higher than today. Also these 0.1 to 0.01% that Warren is proposing to
tax don't pay vast majority of the taxes, it's the upper 10% that pays the majority.
I agree that the tax rates from the 1950's were economically, fiscally and socially sound.
Were it not a violation of the constitutional ban on bills of attainder, I would propose a
more rigorous tax be applied to the Kochs and the Adelsons. When it comes to spending more on
Medicare (which I interpret to mean more than the current 17-18% of GDP), however, we should
not. I recently had a health problem while traveling in Germany. I spent 4 days in a teaching
hospital (University Clinic of Bonn--UKB). Not only did I receive excellent care, which my
American doctor told me was as good as any care available here, but the bill came to around
$4300 (€3700). That included three diagnostic procedures. The Medicare-approved payments
for the same care would have been about $28,000. Throwing more money down the bottomless pit
of U.S. medical practice is futile. The proceeds of such a capital levy as that proposed by
Ms.Warren would be better spent on addressing hunger, on infrastructure and on retiring some
of the national debt
A tax on significant accumulated wealth is past due. The same for inherited wealth.
Apparently the hated "Death Tax" doesn't go far enough. Many self-made millionaires promote
the benefits of pulling one's self up by one's boot straps. Why are they so adamant about
denying the opportunity to their children?
When Warren Buffett turned over much of his wealth to charity through Bill Gates, he was
asked if he wasn't giving away his children's inheritance. Buffett responded, (paraphrase,)
"My children have enough to do whatever they want. They do not have enough to do nothing." In
my perfect world, it would be difficult to be very rich or very poor, and no one would ever
go without.
Nice headline---Eliz Warren does Teddy Roosevelt--- who broke up the trusts in the
progressive era. And Bernie Sanders aimed to do Franklin Roosevelt. Sanders had the quixotic
idea to restore the New Deal. But he was soundly bashed and trashed by Krugman and most NYT
columnists/reporters.
Even if he wasn't their ideal candidate, his proposals should have been given the respect
of serious discussion, like we now are getting for Ocasio and Warren. Do a compare and
contrast on policy---Warren and Sanders. Interesting to see what we can learn.
Speaking of billionaires, I just heard Howard Schultz on NPR trashing Warren's wealth tax
plan. So what does this say? Even a so-called progress wealthy person really doesn't want to
give up a scintilla of coin. I think the counter-argument, that increasing the income of the
0.1% with tax breaks, does not lead to significant increases in prosperity for everybody -
the "lifts all boats" ruse. A recent article in the NY Times shows that this is the case.
That is, yachts are being lifted, dinghies are getting shredded by their propellers.
Ignoring the irrelevance of the Teddy Roosevelt comparison (hardly has anything to do with
the rest of his article anyway), this is pretty good from a guy who did all he could to kill
Bernie against Hillary. Bernie would have said pretty much the same as Warren then and
probably would agree with the proposals now. So Dr K, good to have you back in the midst of
the progressives and assume you had a lapse of reason for the past 3 or 4 years. Saez,
Piketty and Zucman are fantastic. I am delighted the first two are helping Warren. Ps. All
three deserve the Nobel Prize. At least as much as you did.
I was disappointed that she didn't run in 16. She knows that large swaths of our
population are under-educated, superstitious, and under the impression that their little
arsenals will make a dent should their conspiracy theories that heroically place them behind
bushes at Lexington and Concord at odds with the US government somehow come to pass. As
someone who has taught school, she appears to understand that trying to engage the back row
not only fails to produce positive results but also annoys and appalls those who showed up in
good faith. Similarly, she appears to know that the best way to enlighten is to lay out the
facts as accessibly as possible and trust that those viewing the facts can come to logical
conclusions. Note that if her theory is fatally flawed, so is the Republic. Adlai Stevenson,
when told that every thinking American would vote for him, reportedly was chagrined and noted
that to win he needed a majority. That was in the 1950's, when sensible tax policies had not
been hijacked by dark messaging funded by those who had so much to gain if American safety
nets such as Social Security and, in the 1960's, Medicare, could be misconstrued as the
insidious tentacles of the Red Menace. The messengers of deceit, thanks to Citizens United,
no longer have to whisper doom from the shadows. Rest assured that if EW moves toward the
nomination we will be frightened by slick ads that equate gross wealth not with a cancerous
concentration but with American lifeblood.
@JW Not sure why anyone on the left sneers at Sanders. Did you know that Sanders has an
approval rating of something like 80% in Vermont, a state that used to be full of Republicans
and still has plenty of conservatives? People who pay serious attention to Sanders like and
respect him. We'll actually be very lucky if we get someone with Sanders' magnetism. If you
listen closely, his anger is at injustice, not at other people. He cares about everyone.
Why do we have college football coaches making $6million per year ? Because slightly
lesser coaches make $5million per year. They could all get by very nicely on a quarter
million per year. It's the same with the 1% : they need their fortune only in comparative
terms. In the meantime 80% of us live in an economy comprising about 20% of our country's
wealth, a very poor country in itself indeed.
Liz has always been ahead of the curve. She knows well that it's time for Democrats to
right the ship of state by reducing income and wealth inequality before it sinks our
democracy. Go Liz! Go Dems! Go big .. before it's too late!
"...public opinion surveys show overwhelming support for raising taxes on the rich." Yet,
congress refuses to support such tax reform. I guess that tells us that most politicians are
serving and protecting their wealthy political donors rather than our country.
One summer in Sigourney, Iowa, when I was a small boy, my grandfather took me into the
library Carnegie built and talked about it with great pride. By the way, he served in both
world wars and was a prominent Republican. Oh, how times have changed.
This is going to be a tough choice for average voters. Work till the day you die, live in
squalor and penury in old age as the social safety net is cut, and condemn your family to
ever decreasing living standards -- or in the alternative, tax the accumulated wealth of
billionaires. Decisions, decisions, decisions...
RICH- THE ANSWER IS NOT CLASS WARFARE VS THE RICH...I'm not rejecting this proposal out of
hand but Warren/Picketty have been putting the cart before the horse-she needs to identify
and focus on a fiscal need, THEN assemble tax policy to pay for it in an earmarked way...and
it has to be gradual, ideally phased in over 10 plus years. Suggestions ? What do we need to
establish Medicare for all ? Or address infrastructure problems over next 10-20 years ? Or
make SS solvent ? Determine the revenue you need, not the "revenge" you might want vs the
"rentiers" - and I think a very good place to start would be top tax advantages accounts very
heavily at high rates.Its absurd Mitt Romney has like what $200 million in his IRA and hes
only taking the RMD ?? Tax any income to an IRA with a balance over say $10 million....nobody
needs a tax break at that level.
But billionaires are the job creators, the noble stewards of finance and cap... and I'm
laughing. Tax the rats. If they complain, tax them more. Let them move to Singapore and share
their crocodile tears with crocodiles (does Singapore have crocodiles?)
America's oligarchs have given the working class 40 years of wage slavery and we've given
them a life in the clouds. Time to renegotiate.
It's I thought was about taxing the rich more, not only on high incomes but on high net
worth also. Rajiv said about how the rich donate to causes that reduce their taxes, by say,
electing more tax-cutting Republicans. The Koch brothers are good examples. I didn't quite
get your criticism of Rajiv.
This column " Elizabeth Warren does Teddy Roosevelt " says a lot about Professor Warren
but very little about Teddy. I read a column yesterday by Charlie Pierce where he goes into
detail about TR`s New Nationalism speech.
There are parts of this speech that are real eye openers such as - The true friend of
property, the true conservative, is he who insists that property shall be the servant and not
the master of the commonwealth; who insists that the creature of man's making shall be the
servant and not the master of the man who made it. The citizens of the United States must
effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have called into being.
Or- We must have complete and effective publicity of corporate affairs, so that the people
may know beyond peradventure whether the corporations obey the law and whether their
management entitles them to the confidence of the public. It is necessary that laws should be
passed to prohibit the use of corporate funds directly or indirectly for political purposes;
it is still more necessary that such laws should be thoroughly enforced. Corporate
expenditures for political purposes, and especially such expenditures by public-service
corporations, have supplied one of the principal sources of corruption in our political
affairs. This speech spends a lot of time praising the Saviors of our Country, The Civil War
Veterans. And it also says a lot about the proper place for Capital and Corporations,
servants not masters.
I might agree with you if this was a momentary phenomenon, but it's not. The imbalance
that is finally plain to all began with subtle changes in the balance between capital and
labor in the early 1970s. The truly rich understood what they were doing. They found a
fulcrum that allowed them to pry money and power from the increasingly vulnerable middle and
lower classes, so they did. To correct this by less drastic means will take at least that
long again. I doubt we can wait another 45 years, so yes. We need to use the taxation
authority as the fulcrum to pry back the people's fair share. There is no other option as far
as I can see.
Your characterization of the argument as suggesting that "we should just take all the
money from individuals because we can" is as complacent as your reference to Lenin and Mao.
Did you miss the part where Krugman points out that we have already used progressive taxation
in this country to advance the collective economic good? U.S. economic policy from the Great
Depression to Reagan unleashed a rising tide that truly floated all boats in the U.S.
economy.
It was the gratuitous tax giveaways to the wealthy advocated by Milton Friedman, among
others, that gave our wealth distribution its present hourglass configuration.
Let's add another thing: scrap the cap on the amount of wages subject to the 6.2%
Social Security tax, currently set at $128,400. Why should someone making $20 million a year
only pay the SS tax on the first $128,400? Scraping the cap would make SS solvent forever,
and could even reduce the percentage we're taxed.
@Robert Elizabeth Warren is a good explainer, and when she starts banging on a point she's
convincing. Importantly, she doesn't do it just once, she makes it a theme to be
hammered.
A great lesson of the Vietnam War was that it is *repetition* that drives change -- in
that case, TV news repeatedly showing flag-draped coffins coming home, covering marching
protesters, exposing atrocities, etc.
Whether through timidity or laziness or slavishness to big money donors, Democrats have
failed to create a momentum on the idea of wealth inequality that would persuade the public.
This will change with Elizabeth Warren and, if he chooses to run, Bernie Sanders. In this
regard, a prediction: At some point before November 2020, we will hear the phrase "I welcome
their hatred."
Far from radical, the ideas of Warren, Sanders, and AOC are sensible, logical, and fair.
Bring on any politician who means business such as these proposals and can articulate them,
isn't a billionaire already, and doesn't have a tawdry history of being entangled with Wall
Street, and watch him/her win.
Progressive taxation isn't all that progressive anymore. Capital gains and even earned
income of incredible amounts of money as well as stock options are taxed at low rates. In
case no one has noticed, the AMT is a bust. It doesn't work and when it does, it harms the
upper middle class rather than the super-rich.
The "high-end earners" pay a lot (but not enough) because they are the only ones who have
so much income that taxing them does not adversely affect the economy. We have rich folks who
can afford giant yachts and not so rich folks who can't survive an unexpected $400 bill. That
is not the way the economy should work. Eventually, income inequality will even weaken
corporate profits and destroy the economy. Even large corporations need customers who can buy
their products.
FDR 2.0 must address the social class the Great Recession created. Those are the now 50-60
year olds and millennials who lost jobs, pensions, and are still underemployed and in the gig
economy.
Starting in ten years, if nothing is done,very will have 95 million or so homeless.
Leaving it to states to construct affordable housing won't do. We need Universal Basic
Income. This is needed regardless of whether the GOP and Trump's scams cause a depression.
Bernie and Elizabeth would easily demand Congress act on these ideas. Bloomberg and Schultz?
Not on your life. A decent future is progressive. We need FDR 2.0. we need to be done with
triangulation.
The GOP is an untrustworthy partner. --- Things Trump Did While You Weren't Looking [2019]
https://wp.me/p2KJ3H-3h2
Let's hope Warren succeeds, whether she becomes President or not. I recall that under
Eisenhower-era rates of taxation, the middle class and the working class had a lot better
deal than we have today. Heck, we even had a better deal under Nixon-era rates of taxation.
It's weird to be nostalgic for Nixon, but look at what's in the White House now.
Thanks for a great column again, and yes, Ms. Warren in on the right track. Now if we
could only get the corporate media to stop trivializising her policies as "nerdy" we might
get somewhere.
While Warren's proposal and ACO's marginal tax ideas both have merit, let's be honest-
ideas such as these have no chance until campaign finance reform occurs. Given the current
composition of the SOCTUS that seems impossible for several decades, as the obscenely rich
simply buy the government they want.
I suggest that you rethink your position. I appreciate the frustration with the current
system but the public school system is habitually underfunded. The $40k is not a direct
benefit to each child. Look into that. And maybe look at Finland where schooling is
considered one of the most important benefits to a country. As a result you see the best
university graduates going into teaching because they make a very good salary and they are
supported by an administration that supports their efforts, efforts that come with passion
for helping kids.
A 2% tax on wealth is not much more than what many of us pay the financial industry to
'manage' our savings. The investment funds take their percentage, and the companies managing
the portfolio take theirs. Small investors tend to pay a higher percentage in fees than
larger investors. When all is taken into account, people living paycheck to paycheck pay the
highest percentage, of what ends up being zero wealth. This 'wealth tax' would help rectify
the imbalance.
I'm very impressed with Elizabeth Warren,not just for her tax proposals, but because she
is so intelligent - and genuine. Some say that she is too heady to win but she certainly has
more charisma than Adlai Stevenson, who lost in the 1950s because he was too intellectual.
And he didn't have a catchy slogan such as "I Like Ike." Unfortunately, it's all about how
politicians are perceived. I would like to see Warren more poised and not afraid to express
her sense of humor.
If talent and drive - particularly talent - were the deciding factor in wealth
accumulation, the descendants of Fred Trump would be living on the street.
We have a Carnegie library in our small town of 2400 in rural Indiana. It is still in use
as a community resource center and town history museum. It is a beautiful sturdy brick
building and I assume it will be around for 100 more years. We just outgrew it and had to
build a new one. Carnegie will be remembered for this, not his great wealth. Same with Gates
and Buffett.
I've generally been impressed with Warren's economic analyses, going back a couple of
years before she ran for Senate. A close version of this plan deserves support. If it seems
"radical," it's probably because the USA drifted so far to the right. I blame disco and
"Grand Theft Auto."
Her tax proposal would be a nightmare to implement. How do you value thinly traded assets
(real estate, art, antiques, etc.)? Hire a valuation expert? Have the IRS contesting it every
year? Litigate? Please, tax all dividends as ordinary income, eliminate/change the duration
for long term cap gains treatment, make inherited assets have a zero cost basis, etc. Simple
to implement, enforce, ideas.
In 1906, Representatives and Senators did not spend 4.5 days a week, every in a cubicle,
begging for money, calling rich people all day. We have elected telemarketers. (no insult
intended to telemarketers.)
It's not surprising that "the usual suspects" are already trying to disarm Elizabeth
Warren's well thought out tax plan. Many American billionaires are nouveau riche, and don't
have the sense of responsibility that the very wealthy used to feel towards the less
fortunate. And the Republican party is right there egging them on to resist fair
taxation--like Elizabeth Warren's proposal.
I'm all for her. Warren is by far the smartest presidential candidate in the Democratic
pack and I'm all for supertaxing the superrich -- as well as making mega-corporations pay the
proper taxes they've been evading for so long.
The confiscation of excessive wealth is exactly the point and that point is a practical
one -- to mitigate the tendency of unregulated large scale economies to form parasitic
aristocracies that lead to resource deprivation in vast portions of the society's population.
And this is not a scapegoating of the wealthy, it is refusing to worship them, it is to call
them back to Earth and ask of them what is asked of each of us.
"Malefactors of great wealth," Theodore Roosevelt called them. Prosperity that delivers
unbelievable amounts of wealth to a very few while the other 99% struggle is not
sustainable.
TR was no wild-eyed Socialist: he was a man of wealth and property and wished to remain
so. He and FDR were both blue-blooded aristocrats. Both were saving capitalism by restraining
its excesses.
Whether you realize it or not, the good old USA takes away the wealth of individuals and
hands it over to the government to allocate. The rest of your statement, about tyrants, is
just wrong. You are equating communism with taxation, a silly thing to do. Educate
yourself.
I agree with you 1000%. I'm tired of people arguing that certain persons would not be good
candidates because they sound too smart. That's the dumbest argument I've heard so far. If
someone sounds smart, then GOOD. I hope they ARE smart.
Right now we are a laughing stock of the world because our leaders are actually proud
to sound stupid and boorish. Out with charisma and in with intellect and expertise, please. I
wouldn't want Tom Hanks performing brain surgery on me, nor do I want him in the White House
(much as I enjoy seeing him on the big screen
This isn't about taxing wealth. It's about taxing power, privilege and greed. This
isn't about punishing oligarchy. This is about saving democracy. The concentration of wealth
parallels the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere: it is economic climate change
with consequences equally as dire as global warming on all lifeforms.
The challenge will be no less difficult, replete with a powerful lobby of deniers and
greed-mongers ready for war against all threats to their power and position. Their battle cry
is apres moi, le deluge -- as if taxing wealth and privilege is barbarians at the gate and
the demise of civilization rather than curbing cannibals driven not by hunger but voracious
greed. Everywhere climate change deniers are being drowned out by a rational majority who now
see the signs of global warming in every weather report and understand what this means for
their children if we continue to emulate ostriches.
Likewise, the same majority now sees the rising tide of inequality and social
dysfunction and what that means for the future as a global caste system condemns nearly all
of us -- but mainly our progeny -- to slavery in servitude to our one percent
masters.
Elizabeth Warren is no nerd. She's our Joan of Arc. And it's up to us to make sure she
isn't burned alive by the dark lords as she rallies us to win back our country and our
future.
the two issues, inequality of wealth and global warming, are related. The vast wealth of
the Koch Brothers enables them to drown out rational debate with propaganda. Propaganda must
be abolished.
@FunkyIrishman I think Trump intentionally or inadvertently has destroyed anything
resembling the status quo. It's the political equivalent of Newton's Third Law of Motion:
that for every action in nature there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Trump is the ugly face of unbridled power and privilege, leavened only by vainglory
ignorance.
He's the equivalent of melting icecaps and stranded polar bears when it comes to the
concentration of wealth and economic climate change. His utter failure will be the rational
majority's success in plowing a better and more equitable path forward. There's been nothing
more radical than Trump. He's made radical solutions compelling and necessary. And
inevitable.
@Yuri Asian: "This isn't about taxing wealth. It's about taxing power, privilege and
greed." Their is plenty of power, privilege and "greed" in our nation's capital, and it is
practiced daily by individuals who are elected and un-elected.
@Jim Thanks for your reply and appreciation. I'm lucky to be an Editor's Pick as there are
so many great comments by thoughtful and articulate NYT readers, particularly those who
follow Krugman's columns. I agree with your sense of wealth as a social disease that's highly
contagious. We need a vaccine and I hope Sen. Warren is it and she inoculates a strong
majority by 2020.
November 2018 has Come; 2020 is Coming Vallejo Jan. 28
@Anne-Marie
Hislop
I agree, Anne - Marie. There was a time when being rich carried a responsibility to
contribute more to the world than those with less; a responsibility to serve society overall,
and one's country and community in particular. Also the rich were expected to have better
manners and more discerning taste than those who worked because they had the free time to
study and model grace and refinement.
In addition, the wealthy were expected to be patrons of the arts, the sciences, and
religion by contributing money and time to support practioners, research, and experimentation
in these areas.
Finally, the wealthy were expected to raise children who were role models, leaders, and
volunteers who contributed emotionally and spiritually to their schools and communities.
Compare Franklin D. and Eleanor Roosevelt to Paris Hilton or the tRump family.
Amen and hallelujah, and I'm an atheist. For those asleep or oblivious, we're in the new
gilded age. But faux gold, as evidenced by the occupant sitting in the Oval Office.
These " Job Creators " are creating Jobs only for shady attorneys and accountants
specializing in creative mathematics, sham Corporations, Trusts and TAX avoidance. See: the
Trump Family.
What's the average, law abiding citizen to do ??? Absent actually eating the Rich, WE must
overhaul the entire system.
Warren is very nerdy, and very necessary. Unfortunately, the great majority of Men will
not vote for any Woman, not yet. See: Trump. She would be a most excellent choice for VP, the
back-up with a genius IQ and unstoppable work ethic. President ??? A modern day, working
man's Teddy OR Franklin Roosevelt, and His name is Senator Sherrod Brown, Of the very great
state of Ohio. MY native state. Think about it, it's the perfect pair.
I particularly like Elizabeth Warren's ability to talk policy. But as a career academic
I also realize that she sounds to most like a law professor giving a lecture. Unfortunately,
I don't think this is a winning formula but I'd be happy to be proven wrong.
Yesterday a billionaire threatened the Democratic Party with certain defeat in the 2020
Presidential election if the Party chose a candidate not to his liking. Increasing
concentration of wealth in the hands of a few will ultimately spell the end of our
democracy.
If there were ever a politician for our time, the second and more egregious gilded age,
it should be Elizabeth Warren. She INVENTED the Consumer Financial Protection Burueau! She
has studied the big banks and Wall Street for decades! She knows how they operate better than
anyone on the planet. She is the Teddy Roosevelt of our time, but are we smart enough to
elect her?
My wife and I find Warren to be the most impressive candidate we've seen in a long time.
She has the mastery of detail that can actually move our country to where it should be. No
lazy demagoguery, either -- and she communicates well.
The primary purpose of taxes should be to raise necessary revenues, not the confiscation
of "excessive" wealth. Making the case for the moral and practical necessity to contribute
more would be more effective than the tiresome scapegoating of the wealthy.
@RR I happen to live in one of those Scandinavian paradises. I, nor my family, have ever
had a problem with ''care''. We also have higher education paid for through a moderately
higher tax structure. (perhaps 10% average higher than the U.S.) I sleep like a baby and all
is taken care of. (as well as 5 weeks vacation per year) You are welcome to visit
anytime.
@Shiv, the wealthiest 20% of Americans also have about 90% of the wealth (as of 2013,
probably higher now). According to the Wall Street Journal, the top 20% in income paid about
87% of individual federal income taxes in 2018. But income tax is just a portion of tax.
Personal income taxes were about 48% of federal revenues in 2017, payroll tax was 35%.
Since payroll taxes are regressive, the top 20% of income tax payers pay a considerably
lower percentage of total taxes than the percentage of the nation's wealth they control.
Saying those paying more in taxes than they receive in direct benefits and services are
'paying all the taxes' is simplistic and deceptive. It isn't even accurate to say that they
are completely funding the transfers and services to the bottom 50%, since the federal
government operates at a deficit.
The deficit is covered in large part by debt owed to the social security fund, which is
funded through payroll taxes. When you include state and local taxes, it looks like the
percentage of total taxes paid by each income quintile is not far off from the percentage of
total income that they bring in.
We probably all remember the scene where Chinatown's detective, J. J. Gittes, asks the bad
guy, Noah Cross, "How much are you worth?" And Cross says, "I've no idea."
There are two take-aways from this. One is the low marginal utility of wealth at Mr.
Cross's level. This is what makes the optimal progressivity of a wealth tax positive. But the
second is the literal take-away: he really doesn't know. Nobody knows.
So, as Prof. Piketty points out (pp. 518ff of his book), the value of even a nominal
wealth tax in terms of transparency -- forcing the system to determine what the distribution
of wealth actually is -- is substantial, aside from revenue generation. If we're going to
give wealth a vote, via Citizens United etc., then wealth should at least have to
register.
As this op-ed shows, even a majority of Republicans ALREADY supports this idea. So the
problem is not so much getting rid of the GOP's fake news, but having a voter turnout where
the demographics of those who vote reflect the demographics of the entire population. In
2016, a whopping 50% of citizens eligible to vote, didn't vote. And the lack of political
literacy among many progressives has certainly been a factor here. So what is needed is for
ordinary citizens to start engaging in real, respectful debates with their family, friends,
neighbors, colleagues etc. again, to make sure that everybody votes. Only then will we have
more impact on what happens in DC than Big Money.
This is a superb insight you are providing....the 'critique' of Late Capitalism from the
perspective of 'Systems Stability'. I work in the field of Distributed Systems Management
though Cloud for Living. The way with Distributed Decision Making is, in a number of
situations it is a lot more resilient and powerful. There are advantages of Command &
Control decision making (war for example). But in Late Capitalism that concentration of
Decision Making in hand of few has gone too far.
To understand all this, to figure out the relevance of Distributed Decision Making, to
articulate all this to masses and then to formulate sane policy proposals out of all that -
that is not a simple task. So Sen. Warren, please continue the 'nerding'. I am Kamala Harris
constituency, but the intellectual heft Warren is bringing to this campaign; I love that. She
needs to bring her such big guns for a couple of marquee social issues as well as about
America's Foreign Policy. Obviously, it cannot degenerate into 63 details policy papers like
HRC.
The trick is to make the campaign about few core issues and then there to 'have the house
cleaned' - completely worked out theory, understanding, explanation and policy proposals.
Hope E. Warren does that, she is capable no doubt. (Predictable election cycles - such a good
thing with American System....for a while just to think and discuss things apart from the
Orange Head in White House - it is so refreshing...)
J suspect that the notion that proposals to raise taxes sharply on the wealthy are too
left-wing for American voters is wishful thinking or propaganda by the wealthy, on whom many
pundits and analysts rely, one way or another, for their jobs. "It's difficult to get a man
to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." I don't know
whether I agree with Warren on enough things to support her, but I hope this idea influences
the Democratic platform and becomes reality.
@Tom The current Republican Party is toxic – to democracy, truth, ethics, human
health, human survival, equality, education, nature, love... most anything a decent person
values. We can get rid of it and still have a two-party system of reasonable people who
disagree on the best way to solve problems.
I read somewhere that the Davos crowd was intent on speeding up the development of robots
to do those jobs so they wouldn't have to deal with pesky humans who want an occasional
break.
As a person who has done fairly well, there is no end to your "needs" once your start
getting wealthy. Let's take flying. First, you are happy to get a deal every now and then on
a flight to Hawaii. After a while, you earn status, so now you want to be first in line, have
baggage privileges and get into premium economy with an extra 5 inches of leg space. Then,
it's enough status to "earn" business class upgrades. Next you have to have business class on
every flight, so you pay up. There's first class, but now you can afford NetJets where you
get fractional ownership of a jet to fly almost anytime you like. If you get even wealthier,
you get your own jet with an on demand staff. It's "worth it" as your time is valuable. It
goes on and on. Every time you get more, you can't live without it. You feel like you deserve
it because you've worked so hard for that money. Knowing some of those super rich, they will
complain about those fascist attacking their success. They "donate" a lot to candidates whose
job it is to protect their wealth. While Warren's ideas via Piketty are really interesting,
maybe we need to work on our culture and values so people understand what they are doing when
they expect that jet with a staff that waits in them like royalty. Then let's invest in the
IRS to stop the cheating that deprives our citizens of at least $200 billion/year. After
that, let's look at closing loopholes and increasing taxes.
Until we get the money out of elections, the moneyed will control those elected. I'm not
sure what our elected officials are more afraid of - meeting with their electorate and facing
our anger, or voting against Grover Norquist et al.
During the primaries and the subsequent campaign, Democratic candidates should run
explicitly and continually as new Teddy Roosevelts, using his words and images of him --
presenting the Democratic Party as the Roosevelt Republican alternative when it comes to
taxation policy. It would reduce right-wing attempts to cast them as Maduros-in-waiting to
pure late-night comic fodder: which is what they properly are. In fact, they should identify
past Republican champions of as many of their policy proposals as possible and run as
"Democrats: the Real Republicans."
Warren, Ocasio-Cortez, and Bernie have blown open up a discussion that had been locked
down since Reagan -- tax the rich. Krugman is too timid.
Time to radically redistribute wealth from the capitalist class to the people in the form
of jobs and social benefits.
Tax the banks and corporation to 40+% and end all tax incentives -- corporate welfare.
Apple used its tax break to buy back stock to enrich investors. Facebook bought up
competitors like Instagram and suppresses start-ups. A hedge fund bought Toys R Us, loaded it
with debt, then bankrupted it.
The right-wing turn of rural white Americans is largely due to economic anxiety resulting
from the industrialization of agriculture and global commodification of grain -- all the
profits leave farm communities for mega-corporations based in cities and Wall Street, as well
as global capitalist de-industrialization.
Americans on both the right and left believe the system is rigged, because it is. Warren's
tax on personal assets is the first baby step. To win 2020, Democrats have to secure the vote
of minorities, women, and Millennials, and peel off some white working-class voters. They
have to fight for working people against the capitalists.
And we have to keep educating people, in large part at taxpayers expense, so they can
continue to speak up as you have. The idea that everything, education, healthcare,
prescriptions, housing, food, etc has to be on a max-out-profit basis is not sustainable for
a decent society. If you look into the history of successful billionaire families who might
profess that government should not be used to create equal financial opportunity, you may
find that they have benefited from U.S. government policies themselves to get to where they
are. So why prevent others from having the opportunity to join them ?
@Bill A small transaction tax on sales of stocks would not raise that much money. What it
would do is much more useful -- put program trading and the arbitraging of tiny, tiny price
differences on huge, huge trades out of business. The sort of liquidity they provide is not
needed by the market and is not worth the price we pay for it.
Absolutely agree with R. Law--the carried interest loophole has got to go. That's probably
contributed more to the aggrandizement of oligarchical fortunes than just about anything
else. But I'd also add two more modest suggestions: --Eliminate the cap on individual Social
Security contributions. There's no reason it should fade to black at $132,900 gross annual
income. It should be applicable to ALL earned (and unearned) income. --Institute a small
stock trade/financial transactions tax; even a 0.1% rate here would raise significant
revenue, and it also might curb a lot of wild equities speculation. But, of course, none of
this is likely until we can get big money out of politics; it's impossible to get
representatives to represent their actual constituents, rather than their oligarchic campaign
funders, if the latter are the prime source of campaign money. So, as the risk of repeating
myself: --Publicly funded elections, with low three digit limits on individual campaign
contributions and NO corporate, organizational, church, or (yes, even) union contributions.
No PAC's, 501's, or any other letter/number combinations. --Reinstatement of the Fairness
Doctrine. --Legislative repeal of the Citizens United decision.
@Tom "Wealthy people reinvest their money in economic ventures that grow their wealth,
which generates greater productivity while creating jobs and wealth for the society." Like,
for example, the investments that caused the 2008 Republican Great Recession for example?
That plan hasn't worked since Reagan. And taxing 2%-3% of enormous wealth is hardly taking
away "all the wealth of individuals!" We also need to roll back estate tax to pre-Reagan
policies.
So businessmen and financiers need checks and balances, and these checks and balances
include high taxation and occasionally breaking a business into pieces because it is too big
and powerful. We broke up Rockefeller's company. We should be thinking about Amazon, Google,
Facebook, and even Microsoft. We are using Word and Excel because Microsoft owned the
operating system they run under, not because they were better products. Now we are stuck with
their strengths, weaknesses, and odd habits.
Boy do I wish I could share Dr, Krugman's hopefulness. But after the Supreme Court
decision equating money with speech and one of the two major political parties literally a
"wholly owned subsidiary" of those very 0.01%, as the ancestral Scot in laments, "I hae me
doots."
@Blair A Miller....Rewarded for hard work and talent? Well that is the myth. There is a
case to be made that capitalism rewards greedy and unethical people who have a talent for
working the system. There is also no question that it rewards monopolists and the
fortunate.
@Kurt Heck It doesn't. That's precisely why we have to stop the GOP strategy to pass tax
cut after tax cut for the wealthiest all while making life even more difficult for the other,
very hard-working 99%. And if you believe that in order to be a billionaire today you must
work hard, it's time to update your info. Most of them inherited a fortune already, together
with the knowledge needed to engage in financial speculation, which in the 21st century is
totally disconnected from the real economy - or rather, they PAY experts to engage in
financial speculation, and that's it.
It's time for the most industrious to at least be able to pay the bills, get the education
and healthcare they want, and become represented in Congress again. THAT is why we need a tax
increase for the extreme rich, all while increasing the minimum wage, and expanding Medicaid
and Medicare. THAT is how we'll finally become an entirely civilized country too. Not by
adding trillions and trillions to the debt just to make the extreme wealthy even wealthier,
as the GOP just did again.
The NYTimes reported in October, "Over the past decade, Jared Kushner's net worth has
quintupled to almost $324 million. And yet, for several years running, Mr. Kushner paid
almost no federal income taxes." Let's not get lost in the details of how we do it:
taxing wealth, making income taxes more progressive, restoring the estate tax, or something
else. Let's remember that Jared Kushner is the poster boy for our current (extremely unfair)
tax system.
I care about taxes and wealth inequality, so I like that Warren is talking about them. I'm
also a bit of a policy wonk, so I like the fact that Warren focuses on policy issues. As a
classically trained economist, though, I know how quickly others' eyes glaze over when I get
too excited about anything related to finance or economics. The vast majority of people lack
the patience for it. Too many think they understand far more than they really do because they
read a handful of articles and watched CNBC a couple times. And when people believe they
already know something, they're unlikely to greet new ideas with an open mind. A wealth tax
makes sense to me on a lot of levels. I just hope Senator Warren keeps the explanation as
simple as possible. For every wonk she wins over, she risks pushing two rubes away if she
makes it any more complicated. It's unfortunate that we live in the Twitter era of gadfly
attention spans, but we do. Dems need to do a better job of distilling their platform to
bumper stickers. If they do that, the polity might actually remember some of their talking
points.
Win or lose, Elizabeth Warren will bring the lion's share of ideas to this presidential
season. It's one to say that you support a trendy concept, but it's quite another to have
thought through the implications of your proposals - and be prepared to first defend, and
then implement them. Warren is, and will be - from Day 1. We shouldn't settle for "hope and
change" this time; we need a President in 2021 capable of thinking her way through a maze of
societal problems, and unafraid to passionately, untiringly champion her preferred
option.
Paul, as an aside, do you think that we would have lost the House of Representatives in
2010 if someone had opted for that much larger stimulus package that you, Joe Stiglitz and
Robert Reich were recommending (thus causing the economy to more quickly and fully rebound in
time for the midterms)?
@Tom A 2% tax on wealth from $50 million to $1000 million, will have minimal impact on the
mega rich, with hopefully maximum benefit going to those who need government assistance.
The primary purpose of Citizens United was to allow the wealthy a back door into
stealing our public institutions and public contracts along with reducing the taxes on
passive income for their own personal expansion of wealth. While I agree this is a form of
class warfare, the rich have won the war. Instead of thinking of this as confiscation,
consider it insurance for keeping your head up.
As Yascha Mounk has been saying for years, democracy isn't about a firm belief in the
power of the people, or a belief in personal liberty - above all, its support is determined
by one thing: whether it is delivering results for the majority of the population. If it
doesn't, it loses support; and unfortunately, for decades now, it hasn't been delivering
results. Even Obama, the great liberal hope, stacked his cabinet and advisors with the likes
of Geithner, Bernanke, and Sommers, appointing people to the FTC who were too soft to
trust-bust or aggressively tackle mergers. I am of the belief that Trump was a warning. We
got him because ordinary people have been losing faith that the government is working for
them. If we want to regain that faith, we need a government (meaning both an Executive and a
Legislature) that is prepared to go full FDR in 2021. Trust bust corporations that have
decreased power of workers by consolidating labor market, and the power of consumers by
monopolizing goods and services. Expand social security. Cut the red tape to build millions
of desperately-needed housing units. Take away the excess wealth of the plutocrats, and their
political power. Expand voting rights. Make unionization easier, and healthcare more
affordable by socializing it. Without this, we run the risk of losing our democracy. 2020 is
do or die. Warren has a record of fighting for this. She has my vote.
If the people who make their fortunes in America because of Americans don't want to
support the country that helped them perhaps they should consider this: our sweat, our hard
work, and our tears were a vital part of their success. It doesn't matter how brilliant the
idea is or smart the inventor is or how cleverly the product is marketed. If the public isn't
ready for it, it won't sell and money won't be made. There is a lot of luck involved in
making a fortune. Part of that luck depends upon us and our willingness to buy into what is
being sold. Yes, the inventor or the creator has to have the drive to succeed. S/he has to
accept failure, work very hard, and have faith that s/he will succeed.
It's nonsense to claim that Bill Gates would not have created Windows if he knew he'd be
taxed at very high rates. He didn't know if it would succeed as well as it did. The purpose
of taxes is to support the country. It's to have a government that can fund basic research to
help us, create nationwide rules to ensure that milk in New York is milk in North Dakota, and
to regulate those little things like roads, bridges, water safety, and keep the country safe.
Any exceedingly rich corporation or person who doesn't want to support that is not patriotic
in the least. They are greedy.
The American Revolution was a revolt of American born property holders, not of the
peasants or the slaves. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are both very strong on
property rights. The rights of an individual to own property free from seizure by the
government is at the heart of Liberalism. We live in a two party state. If we truly
eliminated the Republican party we'd be no different than China. America only gets better if
the Republican party gets better. The Democratic party could use some improvement too. I
support Warren's tax plan. It's a reasonable and sensible move, not just a bunch of poorly
thought out hot air.
This is but one in a long line of cogent reasonable suggestions to tax mega rich a little
more. Unfortunately while the economics makes sense, these schemes fail politically because
enough of the vast majority of much poorer people in the middle class can be convinced that
there is something unfair by singling out the successful.
The Steve Jobs story, whereby a poor boy with a great idea should be able to make tons of
money. The only way a change will come is if the middle class' eyes can be opened to the fact
that for every Steve Jobs there are thousands of Jay Gatsbys who inherited their wealth and
privilege and who now spend much of their time and money ensuring that the laws are written
so that they can keep their wealth.
The inequity of the present laws, via tax loopholes and corporate subsidies to favour the
very rich should be highlighted, showing the middle class how they are constantly being
ripped off in order to fund the rich.
There are polls and then there is reality. In Alabama in 2003, a newly-elected
conservative Republican governor proposed a constitutional amendment to raise taxes on the
wealthiest Alabamans. The measure was defeated 67.5%-32.5% with low-income voters opposing it
by a significant margin. In Washington in 2010, voters defeated a referendum to impose a
modest income tax on the state's wealthiest residents. (There is no income tax in
Washington.)
It seems unlikely that in the state with the country's most regressive tax system that 65%
of the voters are wealthy. Despite language in the referendum that guaranteed it could never
be applied to lower incomes without a vote of the people and a provision to lower property
taxes by 20%, paranoia, not reason, ruled the day. It lost 65%-35%.
Polling is easy. But when concrete proposals go to the voters, the wealthy interests
overwhelm voters with fear and lies, and the voters, complacent and ill-informed, can be
easily manipulated. Conservative Alabama and liberal Washington State both defeated measures
that would have helped their state finances significantly.
The money raised was to be spent on education, health care for the elderly and other
radical things some of which would have helped the poor, but lower income voters cast their
votes as though, despite their current conditions, they'd be subject to the taxes tomorrow or
next month or next year.
@Acajohn "Why isn't there one billionaire or multi billion dollar company that actually
takes pride in paying their fair share?" Like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, the two richest
men in America, who have pledged to follow Carnegie's example, and taken actions to do
so?
The notion that Sanders has no deep understanding of the policies that he champions is a
stroke of common wisdom that is not very wise, as anyone who ever bothered going to he web
site would find. In 2016, at least, it was chalk full of issues and positions with a long
section on how it could be paid for.
Krugman seemed to shun him for reasons that were never clear to me, but Sanders' proposals
had the ear of quite a few economists.
Even Krugman's crush, Thomas Piketty was intrigued. I'm thrilled that both Warren and
Sanders are in this, and if the primary were today I could probably toss a coin. But I find
this constant picking at Bernie Sanders and his "flailing arms" to be grating and uninformed.
It's akin to asking him to just smile more.
Not just Roosevelt. "The consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery
to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing
property... Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all
from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in
geometrical progression as they rise." - Thomas Jefferson, October 28, 1785.
"An enormous proportion of property vested in a few individuals is dangerous to the
rights, and destructive of the common happiness, of mankind; and therefore every free state
hath a right by its laws to discourage the possession of such property." - Benjamin Franklin,
July 29, 1776.
"All property ... seems to me to be the creature of public convention. Hence the public
has the right of regulating descents and all other conveyances of property, and even of
limiting the quantity and the uses of it." - Benjamin Franklin, December 25, 1783.
Senator Warren should consider a few adjustments to her plan. First, tax capital gains
income at the same rate as earned income. Eliminate the carried interest deduction and close
some other egregious loopholes (including the new "pass through" income loophole). Finally,
give the wealth tax a nine year period after which it would have to be renewed. Call it a
"Patriotism Tax". Pledge to use it for infrastructure improvements and debt reduction. I
think that could be very popular.
That is a radical plan, one tried many times before. It fails because humans are not
perfect, and not perfectible. They try to accumulate wealth and power, are jealous of each
other's possessions and mates, and try to create circumstances that favor their offspring
over others of the next generation.
The fields of human evolutionary biology and psychology tell us that your plan can not and
will not work. Not only that, countless Utopians have tried this in the past. Most fail
within months, even with a small group of people who all supposedly love one another. All
societies founded on the belief that humans are perfectible have failed. Societies founded on
the belief that humans will be venal, corrupt, and power-hungry tend to have the safeguards
that allow them to survive. That's why the constitution is full of "checks and balances".
Don't think you can replace them with a society of peace and love where we will all live in
quiet harmony. You can only replace them with better checks and balances if you hope to
succeed. John Lennon's "Imagine" is a lovely song. But it's just a wish list, not a
manifesto.
Yes, what kind of person, especially one with obscene wealth, prefers to keep every penny
rather than pay taxes that make our country function? Why isn't there one billionaire or
multi billion dollar company that actually takes pride in paying their fair share?
Sanders said little about taxation. In his debates with Clinton, he advocated scrapping
the ACA and starting de novo, whereas Clinton suggested legislation to improve it. Thanks in
part to Sanders' attacks on Clinton, both personally and on policy, Trump got elected and the
Republicans have tried in every possible way to destroy it. On this issue, will Pelosi and
Warren follow the so-called progressivism of Sanders?
I don't get your criticism of Rajiv either. Rajiv know what he is talking about. The rich
can never have enough; more is not enough. We see it all the time. We need to eliminate the
dynasties and equalize the democracy.
Existing wealth and annual income are two very different things. Both are now problems.
Existing wealth disparity is the accumulation of all the last 40 years of income disparity,
plus the "work the money did" to pile itself up higher. Our laws magnified the wealth
disparity. That was deliberate and calculated. Our laws allow it to pile up without the
former taxation at death to trim it back. We charge only half the tax rate on the "work" of
the money itself, the special "capital gains" rate. It is specially privileged from taxes,
which is entirely new over these last few Presidential Administrations. It was said that
would encourage job growth. It never did. Nobody who knew anything about the subject ever
really believed it would. What is now proposed by Warren is to fix what they so deliberately
broke. This would not come up if they had not done that first. And if we hadn't done this,
we'd have had the job growth this stifled, from the consumer purchasing power it took to pile
up as wealth, much of it speculative and overseas.
Conservative voters are against taxes because *if* they get rich they don't want to pay
them. As a liberal I, on the other hand, would be *delighted* to have to pay this tax!
By all means let's tax the rich. But what I find most alarming is Kamala Harris's call for
yet ANOTHER tax cut for the middle class. Every since the days of Saint Ronnie, Americans
have been misled into believing they deserve tax cut after tax cut. And the result for the
commons (those goods and services that we share) has been disastrous. Americans already pay
lower taxes than most of the developed world. Yet the candidates are also calling for more
benefits: Medicare for All and free college. The defense establishment continues to clamor
for more resources. What we need is to increase taxes on the rich along with a robust tax
enforcement system, so that Americans see that EVERYONE is pulling their weight, according to
their means.
Redistribution of wealth through progressive taxation is as American as apple pie. In
addition to taxing wealth, there should be a significant estate tax on the top 1%. Getting
rich is for many the American Dream, but that does not entitle the rich to endless wealth
forever. Others should have an opportunity to take their shot.
A couple of points: at the turn of the 20th Century (about the time that Teddy
Roosevelt was railing against the rich), John D Rockefeller had more lawyers on staff than
the United States Government. Rockefeller's net worth at that point (they had not yet broken
up Standard Oil at that point), was $1 billion, at a time when the total receipts of the US
Government were $700 billion.
Krugman also mentions Piketty and his book. A central theme in Piketty's book, not
mentioned here, was that there is no countervailing force that naturally takes us back to a
more equitable distribution of wealth.
That only occurred because the world suffered through two world wars, and a depression,
out of which came a determination by FDR to use government as a countervailing force. And so
it is not an accident that the Republican Party is trying to kill government because that is
the only large, countervailing force known to be effective. Do we really want a world where a
Jeff Bezos has more lawyers on staff than the US Government? Don't laugh; something similar
has happened in the past.
@dajoebabe For the last 40 years, we have had the GOP tell us that government is the
problem and lower tax rates will supercharge economic growth. Now we have a nation with a
superpower's army, third rate infrastructure, a porous social safety net and a mediocre
education system. Granted that government cannot solve all problems (nor should it try!), but
the evidence is clear that the effects of our disinvestment in ourselves is now coming to the
fore. If we are truly at the point where raising the marginal tax rate on a very small number
of households will cause economic collapse, then our capitalist system has failed and should
be replaced.
Interesting ideas, but to get Americans (read Republicans) to swallow this whole is
doubtful. Perhaps some marketing is in order. Let's not call this a tax. Let's call it a
gift. High value households would give to the government agency of their choice (Social
Security, Veteran's Affairs, EPA etc..), garner a modest tax credit as in charity donations,
and as a plus receive a full accounting of how their money was spent by an independent
auditor. Their gifts could be publicized on social media, thus generating the kind of
attention that could generate higher and higher donations. Just a thought.
We could also use Teddy Roosevelt's anti-corruption and environmental values as well. I
think he is one Republican completely disowned by the current Republican Party. While I
do not believe Elizabeth Warren has any chance to be President, her candidacy will certainly
force intelligent debate on the Democratic Platform for 2020. She will make a tremendous
Treasury Secretary and break the Goldman Sachs stranglehold on that position.
Let's not stop with progressive taxes on the income and wealth of corporations and
individuals. We need to ban monopolies outright, and limit the market share of oligopolies to
something like 20%. And we should even limit the fraction of a corporations' shares (e.g.
10%) that can be owned by any one entity (corporal or corporate), and make privately-held
corporations go public once they reach a certain size.
There's a lesson we can learn from Mother Nature: "Too big to fail" really means "Too
big to exist"!
Maybe Piketty instead of Teddy Roosevelt -- but the rates for the wealthy should be
higher, especially for passive income, to force the rich if for no other to avoid taxation to
invest their money in the economy.
@Linda: Your comment is just wonderful, and gets to the crux of what is right, fair,
decent, moral. Some super wealthy people will always be superficial and greedy, and others
will always be generous, and have profound character and depth.
People who are remembered with the greatest respect, fondness, reverence, and joy, are not
those who have amassed fortunes, but those who have done what they could with their fortunes,
for those who would never have fortunes. Or people who sacrificed for others, if not with
their fortunes, then by other means. It is not desirable to be remembered for being selfish,
greedy, and financially predatory like trump and his ilk.
Aside from the fact that a a massive concentration of wealth is inimical to a functioning
democracy because it inevitably leads to a concentration of power, if the tax code is meant
to give incentives to productive behavior, what is less of an incentive to being productive
than inheriting hundreds of millions of dollars?
I personally knew an heiress from one of the most famous wealthy families of the 20th
century; the name would be familiar. She was a good person, but a drug addict. So was her
brother. No one needs to start life with a hundred million dollars. It's not healthy.
tax and spend is what a government is for. Spending it on infrastructure as opposed to
increasing the already bloated pentagon budget and not on a wall, would be preferable.
And reallocation, so that for instance teaching becomes a viable career choice again, would
be a very useful government task. I don't know whether mr. Coctosin ever worked in the
private industry but if he did he must have seen a lot of waste. Though willful blindness is
of course "so expected from" the right.
"Conficatory taxes on excessive wealth" is a sin tax-a tax on greed. There is only so
much money on person can use in a lifetime if it is to be more than a competitive status and
power symbol and is not given back as an investment to build society and the future.
The numbers-$50 million are HUGE. Anyone, with that kind of money who could resent paying
1% toward the future and toward society is simply, selfishly and sinfully, GREEDY! It's about
time the excessively wealthy, who do not allow their wealth to trickle down as wages, or even
trickle through the economy as investments for the benefit of society, are taxed because it
has become apparent that only taxes will force them to let go of their wealth.
Trump making his tax returns public has nothing to do with IRS staffing. And yes, a better
staffed IRS does a better job of catching tax cheats. (No idea why they never nailed Trump's
father, though.)
We will only have a government for the people if it's a government BY the people. That
means politicians who REALLY are just like you and me, not always very charismatic, not
always your ideal best friend, or a "savior", or common sense spiritual leader such as
Michelle Obama, but instead people who flaws, all while being decent citizens, with a very
clear moral compass, AND the skills and intellectual capacity to know how to design new,
science-based law projects and how to obtain political agreements in DC without even THINKING
of starting to stop implementing already existing law (= shutting down the Executive branch
of government).
Warren would be an excellent Cabinet member. But people vote for President on an emotional
level, and I don't think Warren has that emotional charisma. It's excellent that she is
running and running early, because that way she can set some of the parameters of discussion,
which is what she's doing now.
Just how much money does somebody really need? The Bezos divorce is going to result in two
people having "only" 70 billion dollars each. 1 billion, 10 billion, 70 billion; at some
point, how can you tell? At some point, doesn't it just become a number?
@Yuri Asian Best comment I have read on this subject, Thank you. It should be understood
that the wealthy just don't care and are very un- American. Wealth in our society will equal
slavery for everyone else and it has already begun. See the republican tax plan if you have
any doubts.
Two points: If you add the compound interest forgone on the amount paid in SS taxes I
wonder if the calculation changes. The wealth of the over 65 group is very differentially
distributed, just like wealth in general. Think what the Koch Brothers, Sheldon Adelson, the
Walmart heirs and Warren Buffet do to that distribution.
Just because Ellen is 70 does not mean she is participating in the relative wealth growth
of the over 65 cohort you note. I imagine with few exceptions most very wealthy people are
over 65, but that does not mean the reverse is true, that most over 65 are wealthy or even
comfortable. For a large number SS is their main source of support, and rampant ageism makes
it very difficult for even healthy over 65 years to find a job to supplement it.
Taxing SS is a form of double taxation. People with high incomes could still be taxed on
their income after excluding SS. Or, since you are so concerned about the people collecting
more in SS than they paid in, taxation could start on all benefits exceeding that figure.
(And you seem totally unconcerned with all the people who collect nothing or much less than
they paid in. If you are worried about one group not being in balance you should be equally
worried about the other group not being in balance.
I am ok with both because I consider SS to be an insurance program. I don't pay income
taxes on my insurance proceeds paid for by premiums on which I did pay taxes.
The shutdown taught a clear lesson: people squarely located in the middle class (in this
case, federal workers) cannot afford to miss a single paycheck.
Add that awareness to the cluelessness of the wealthy who, with the attention brought to
them by their position in the trump administration, put that cluelessness on full display --
and add the awareness that the trump tax break benefitted the wealthy only while saddling the
nation with debt -- put those together, and we will find positive support for what amounts to
a relative pinprick of sacrifice from the ultra wealthy, as proposed by Warren and likeminded
Congresswomen.
American public policy is designed to concentrate wealth at the top and impoverish the
bottom. Progressive taxation is but one measure to correct the economic structure that
results in death and destitution, even among fully employed workers. Health care for all and
living wages are additional measures.
Extreme poverty in America is a result of public policy which further enriches the
wealthy. Course correction is a moral imperative.
It's a giant leap to say that a 2% tax or a higher marginal rate is the confiscation of
wealth. It's also a giant leap imply that only the very wealthy reinvest their money. Where
do you think the dividends and gains in your 401K account go? They are reinvested! The key
point is that many of the very wealthy have used their wealth and influence to change the tax
code and other laws to their benefit. There is zero evidence that a lower marginal tax rate
on the wealthy has any correlation to job creation, but there is a very strong correlation
between lower tax rates and income disparity.
Taxes are the necessary fact of a thriving civilization. When confronted by the trained
mindset of anti-tax rhetoric issuing from a clone of selfish leadership, I simply say; if it
were not for taxes, we'd all be driving on rutted dirt roads and dying young. Tax the rich so
they survive the slings and arrows of discontent they created. They will thank us for it
later.
You already pay a wealth tax, if you own a home. It's called "property tax". Why should
the very wealthy not pay a property tax, too? But in the present condition, they do not, and
can easily hide their wealth from view, and pass it to their heirs without paying any tax.
Which just adds and adds to the concentration of wealth among the few.
Of course it makes perfect sense. Which is why those uber-rich people will not allow this
to happen. They'll do everything they can to shut down Ms. Warren. It's what they do
If I were doing tax policy from scratch, I'd include both the Warren wealth tax, a
progressive income tax culminating with the AOC 70% marginal rate, treat capital gains as
regular income, eliminate the carried interest loophole, and investigate the taxing of all
"non-profits" including religious and political organizations. I would replace the standard
deduction and personal exemption with a universal basic income. I would reduce the military
budget and provide at least a buy-in to medicare.
Anything less that than, I don't consider "radical."
If the Democratic party continues to do nothing to address the problem of the top .1
percemt owning 90 percent of American wealth, we are destined to sit idly by as the
heartbreaking inequities and divisions of this country deepen.... and this means, too, that
we will be doing very little to address the deeper causes of a certain kind of American
desperation and violence.
It's time to address the radically warped system with sensible countermeasures. This is,
in my view, a moderate position that moderate, sensible politicians will promote. Doing
nothing to address this enormous problem is the most radical position of all.
I work and pay taxes and have done so for 40 years. I'm happy to pay taxes, not because
I'm dependent on them, but because I realize a few things that make you uncomfortable:
1. No one does it by themselves; we all rely on others at work, at home and in life; we're
part of society; we are not solo warriors on some mystical heroic island
2. Not everyone is as fortunate as I; I'm glad the poor, the disabled, the unlucky, the
elderly, the uneducated and the unskilled can get a modicum of government assistance when
their chips are own
3. Canadians and Europeans and the Japanese do not suffer from 'dependency' syndrome;
they're hardworking people with healthy market economies who have decent government that
regulate healthcare extortion and corporate extortion to a minimum; it's a pretty humane
arrangement
4. Corporations and CEO's have been redistributing upward for about fifty years; 20:1
CEO:worker pay was the 1960's norm....now a 350:1 ration is common.
5. Tax rates for the rich and corporations have collapsed from the 1950's to 2019; the
right-wing pretends they're high, but they're not. 6. America has the greatest health-care
rip-off in the world at 17% of GDP; it's an international 'free-market' disgrace that no
foreign country would touch a 300-foot pole because it would bankrupt them, just as it
bankrupts Americans.
Keep living in a 1787 time tunnel and see where it gets you. Or buy a calendar...and
evolve.
[Drive toward] Equality is the basis of society; it has always been close to my heart.
Thank you, Paul Krugman, for standing clearly for economic equality.
The purpose of taxes is not only to fund public necessities, but also to encourage society
to behave in a manner which is good for all of society.
Thus, in World War 2 income tax was set quite high, to discourage consumption of scarce
resources.
It is not scapegoating the wealthy to have them pay a proportional share of their wealth
to fund the public good, and to, in a small way, discourage inherited wealth. It is through
our society that they are able to accumulate their wealth, it follows that they should have
incentive to preserve and further that society.
I agree completely with a progressive tax on net wealth. Piketty proposed this in "Capital
in the Twenty-first Century" back in 2014. I'm happy to hear that Elizabeth Warren has picked
up the idea.
The elegance of it is that it does not prevent the wealth-motivated from seeking high
incomes and accumulating a lot of wealth in their lifetime. But it reduces the incentive to
earn an ever-higher income, and it prevents the wealthy from creating wealth dynasties.
And consider this: even a 90% tax on inherited wealth would mean, for someone who
accumulated a $10 billion estate, that their heirs would receive a $1 billion inheritance as
a grubstake. Not a bad start in life, if I say so myself.
Almost any tax measure to re-distribute wealth is appropriate in a nation that values
economic justice. However, answering the question of just how people accumulate billions,
while so many others struggle so hard to remain in place. First, it is necessary to dispense
with the fiction that the wealthy earned it so let them keep it.
No one person or one family EARNS billions. The hard work necessary to create wealth
belongs to many hard working and creative people and to numerous public institutions that
make its creation possible.
Both are entitled to a fair share of the wealth they help to create. It is the laws and
even traditions that allow one individual to CAPTURE and keep so much wealth. And those laws
and traditions need to be changed.
Start with a Living Wage plus full benefits for all workers and salary scales that are
reasonable, not the 1:300 that some CEO's currently enjoy. End golden parachutes for retiring
or even fired executives and tax unearned income at the same rate as earned income. Equal
opportunity cannot stand without economic justice.
No, part of the purpose of taxes should be to counteract the normal power of capital
that causes the formation of massive personal fortunes which distort the economy relied on by
all. It's not scapegoating to try to put our economy back in balance, to curtail its division
into the Main St. economy, currently starved by that wealth division so heavily favoring the
fabulously wealthy, and the shadow economy of Wall St. gambling, commodity market
manipulation, and asset ownership.
I like the idea, although it may be very difficult to value certain kinds of assets and
how they may have appreciated. For example, if the Republican Congressman you bought as a
freshman goes on to win a Senate seat, how much would his value have increased?
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Sunday said that President Donald Trump "may not even be
a free person" by 2020, suggesting the president might become ensnared by the special counsel's
investigation before she has a chance to face him in a general election.
"Every day there is a racist tweet, a hateful tweet -- something really dark and ugly,"
Warren said during a campaign event in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. "What are we as candidates, as
activists, as the press going to do about it? We're going to chase after those every day?"
She added: "Here's what bothers me. By the time we get to 2020, Donald Trump may not even be
president. In fact, he may not even be a free person."
The jab marks Warren's first foray into campaign-trail skirmishing with Trump since entering
the Democratic presidential fray with a Saturday announcement event in Lawrence, Mass.
During her kickoff speech, Warren, a consumer protection advocate and former Harvard Law
School professor, attacked Trump as being part of a "rigged system that props up the rich and
the powerful and kicks dirt on everyone else."
Earlier Saturday, Trump mocked Warren's rollout and took aim at the controversies
surrounding her past claims of Native American heritage, which intensified Wednesday after The
Washington Post revealed that she had identified herself as American Indian on her Texas State
Bar registration card.
"Today Elizabeth Warren, sometimes referred to by me as Pocahontas, joined the race for
President," Trump tweeted. "Will she run as our first Native American presidential candidate,
or has she decided that after 32 years, this is not playing so well anymore?"
"See you on the campaign TRAIL, Liz!" the president added, in what many Democrats judged to
be a reference to the forced relocation of several Native American tribes in the Southeast U.S.
in the 1830s known as the Trail of Tears.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) announced Monday her campaign will shun fundraising through
some of the old-fashioned means: dinners, donor calls and cocktail parties.
In an email to supporters Monday, Warren also said she won't sell access to big-name donors
as candidates often do to raise money for a presidential bid.
Warren has demonstrated as much in organizing events where she poses for photos with anyone
who stands in line and requests it. Typically, candidates put a premium on such access,
sometimes charging thousands of dollars for a personal photograph.
"My presidential primary campaign will be run on the principle of equal access for anybody
who joins it," Warren said in a message to supporters.
"That means no fancy receptions or big money fundraisers only with people who can write the
big checks. And when I thank the people giving to my campaign, it will not be based on the size
of their donation. It means that wealthy donors won't be able to purchase better seats or
one-on-one time with me at our events. And it means I won't be doing 'call time,' which is when
candidates take hours to call wealthy donors to ask for their support."
The self-imposed restrictions allow Warren to distinguish herself from the field at a time
when candidates are in a mad race for donations from small donors.
The Democrat, who launched a full-fledged campaign earlier this month, has already vowed not
to take money from lobbyists or super PACs.
She has rejected all PAC money and challenged others in the sprawling field of candidates to
reject PAC money. A group of competitors have said they wouldn't take corporate PAC money --
including Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Amy
Klobuchar (D-Minn.). Former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke, a prospective candidate, shattered
records in the 2018 midterms after rejecting PACs and relying on small-dollar donors.
Warren's move, though, takes that promise a step further, saying she won't spend time making
donor calls or that she will host private fundraising dinners or receptions.
While Warren did hold fundraisers in her years as a senator, she hasn't held any since she
first launched her exploratory bid Dec. 31, according to her campaign.
Warren has a proven network of small dollar donors, but she's also seemed to lag others in
the primary field in early fundraising, including Harris and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), whose
one-day $6 million haul swamped all his competitors in the field.
America invented progressive taxation. And there was a time when leading American politicians were proud to proclaim their willingness
to tax the wealthy, not just to raise revenue, but to limit excessive concentration of economic power.
"It is important," said Theodore
Roosevelt in 1906, "to grapple with the problems connected with the amassing of enormous fortunes" -- some of them, he declared,
"swollen beyond all healthy limits."
Today we are once again living in an era of extraordinary wealth concentrated in the hands of a few people, with the net worth
of the wealthiest 0.1 percent of Americans almost equal to that of the bottom 90 percent combined. And this concentration of wealth
is growing; as Thomas Piketty famously argued in his book "Capital in the 21st Century," we seem to be heading toward a society dominated
by vast, often inherited fortunes.
So can today's politicians rise to the challenge? Well, Elizabeth Warren has released an
impressive proposal for taxing extreme wealth. And whether or not she herself becomes the Democratic nominee for president, it
says good things about her party that something this smart and daring is even part of the discussion.
The Warren proposal would impose a 2 percent annual tax on an individual household's net worth in excess of $50 million, and an
additional 1 percent on wealth in excess of $1 billion. The proposal was released along with an analysis by
Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman of Berkeley,
two of the world's leading experts on inequality.
Saez and Zucman found that this tax would affect only a small number of very wealthy people -- around 75,000 households. But because
these households are so wealthy, it would raise a lot of revenue, around $2.75 trillion over the next decade.
Make no mistake: This is a pretty radical plan.
I asked Saez how much it would raise the share of income (as opposed to wealth) that the economic elite pays in taxes. His estimate
was that it would raise the average tax rate on the top 0.1 percent to 48 percent from 36 percent, and bring the average tax on the
top 0.01 percent up to 57 percent. Those are high numbers, although they're roughly comparable to average tax rates in the 1950s.
Would such a plan be feasible? Wouldn't the rich just find ways around it? Saez and Zucman argue, based on evidence from Denmark
and Sweden, both of which used to have significant wealth taxes, that it wouldn't lead to large-scale evasion if the tax applied
to all assets and was adequately enforced.
Wouldn't it hurt incentives? Probably not much. Think about it: How much would entrepreneurs be deterred by the prospect that,
if their big ideas pan out, they'd have to pay additional taxes on their second $50 million?
It's true that the Warren plan would limit the ability of the already incredibly wealthy to make their fortunes even bigger, and
pass them on to their heirs. But slowing or reversing our drift toward a society ruled by oligarchic dynasties is a feature, not
a bug.
And I've been struck by the reactions of tax experts like
Lily Batchelder and
David Kamin ; while they don't necessarily
endorse the Warren plan, they clearly see it as serious and worthy of consideration. It is, writes Kamin, "addressed at a real problem"
and "goes big as it should." Warren, says The Times, has been "
nerding
out "; well, the nerds are impressed.
But do ideas this bold stand a chance in 21st-century American politics? The usual suspects are, of course, already comparing
Warren to Nicolás Maduro or even Joseph Stalin, despite her actually being more like Teddy Roosevelt or, for that matter, Dwight
Eisenhower. More important, my sense is that a lot of conventional political wisdom still assumes that proposals to sharply raise
taxes on the wealthy are too left-wing for American voters.
By the way, polls also show overwhelming public support for increasing, not cutting, spending on
Medicare and Social Security . Strange to say, however, we rarely hear politicians who demand "entitlement reform" dismissed
as too right-wing to be taken seriously.
And it's not just polls suggesting that a bold assault on economic inequality might be politically viable. Political scientists
studying the behavior of billionaires
find that while many of them push for lower taxes, they do so more or less in secret, presumably because they realize just how
unpopular their position really is. This "stealth politics" is, by the way, one reason billionaires can seem much more liberal than
they actually are -- only the handful of liberals among them speak out in public.
The bottom line is that there may be far more scope for a bold progressive agenda than is dreamed of in most political punditry.
And Elizabeth Warren has just taken an important step on that agenda, pushing her party to go big. Let's hope her rivals -- some
of whom are also quite impressive -- follow her lead.
This isn't about taxing wealth. It's about taxing power, privilege and greed. This isn't about punishing oligarchy. This is
about saving democracy. The concentration of wealth parallels the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere: it is economic
climate change with consequences equally as dire as global warming on all lifeforms. The challenge will be no less difficult,
replete with a powerful lobby of deniers and greed-mongers ready for war against all threats to their power and position. Their
battle cry is apres moi, le deluge -- as if taxing wealth and privilege is barbarians at the gate and the demise of civilization
rather than curbing cannibals driven not by hunger but voracious greed. Everywhere climate change deniers are being drowned out
by a rational majority who now see the signs of global warming in every weather report and understand what this means for their
children if we continue to emulate ostriches. Likewise, the same majority now sees the rising tide of inequality and social dysfunction
and what that means for the future as a global caste system condemns nearly all of us -- but mainly our progeny -- to slavery
in servitude to our one percent masters. Elizabeth Warren is no nerd. She's our Joan of Arc. And it's up to us to make sure she
isn't burned alive by the dark lords as she rallies us to win back our country and our future.
Warren's proposal- and her desire to try to actually explain these basic economic realities without dumbing them down- has
put her at the top of my list for the Dems so far. I was/am a big Bernie fan, and Bernie is great with the big picture (it's Yuge).
But Warren really knows the details and how to craft an economic policy. Trump will call her names (that's his specialty), and
she will explain reality (her specialty).
@George, It's not scapegoating the wealthy. When I was born, the top marginal tax rate was 91%. This has shriveled, along with
inheritance and cap gains taxes. This was not due to an act of nature: it was a series of conscious policy decisions and SCOTUS
decisions that created the situation we face today. Great societal damage derives from wealth inequality -- think public schools,
access to college, housing costs, and more recently, political influence. Those who have far more money than they need distort
the economic and political landscape, to the detriment of the majority. Class warfare against the poor and middle classes must
end. Reversing the policies that changed the US from having a growing middle-class of my childhood to the shrinking one my kid
faces is simply correcting bad policy. It can't come soon enough.
I recently listened to a TED talk where Yuval Harari observed that capitalism beat out communism in the 20th century in large
part due to the distributed decision making platform it provided that far out-performed what was available to the limited number
of central planners in communist systems. It occurs to me that this same limiting dynamic of a restricted number of decision makers
can occur in capitalist systems if wealth (and power) become concentrated. When just 2200 billionaires meet in Davos to choose
the path forward for the rest of the 7.53 billion inhabitants of this planet (without their input) we can be assured that a series
of sub-optimal decisions will have been made.
Elizabeth Warren is impressive. She has the passion of Bernie Sanders. Unlike Sanders, she has a deep understanding of
the policy and mechanisms that can achieve that result. A plan to tax extreme wealth is brilliant and, at about $275 billion per
year, will ease the budget deficit.
As the Times noted, Warren also can talk expertly about subjects as diverse as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to
net power metering. The political punditry is probably wrong about voters rejecting a too-intellectual candidate. (They seem to
be wrong a lot lately.) Especially in contrast to Trump, voters hunger for someone who is passionate, smart, has their interests
at heart, and is very well informed.
If amassing billions of dollars isn't a hoarding disease, nothing is. Who needs more than a few hundred millions dollars, anyway?
Perhaps it would be less of a problem if the uber-wealthy didn't secretly try to get their taxes lowered. They also, like the
Koch brothers, like to buy policy positions and elect politicians that hurt most of the rest of us. The Bill of Rights isn't meant
to be a list of suggestions. A democratic republic isn't meant to be ruled by the wealthiest 0.01 percent of all Americans. When
those with the money get to establish opinions as to what is and isn't too radical for this nation, all of the marching and demonstrating
the rest of us do doesn't amount to much. Vote the Republicans out of office in the next election and keep voting them out until
their number fit in the bathtub they would have liked to drown the government in. That's two or three, tops.
A small transaction tax on the sale of stocks and bonds that was proposed as a way to sure-up and expand social security and
Medicare should be added to the list of higher taxes on earned income. Furthermore, the tax rates on salaries and wages should
no longer be penalized with high rates so that the privileged who make their money from transactions can pay a favored tax rate
that is much much lower than the rates paid by people who work. Please, Paul, write a column on what Teddy Roosevelt and FDR advocated.
They were nearly a hundred years ahead of where Americans want us to be. Minimum wage, from the Roosevelts' perspective meant
a wage that could support a family. It meant making enough for a family to take a vacation and put some money away to retire.
They weren't contemplating a wage for teenagers when they talked about minimum wage. The Roosevelts wanted to see retirement security.
They were advocates of legislation that prevented employers from ripping off the wages of their workers. Liz Warren isn't radical;
neither is OCA, or Bernie Sanders. They are merely informed about our history and the trends around the world.
We should use some (a pittance) of the $300 billion a year this proposal would raise on giving the IRS the resources it needs
to actually enforce the laws already on the books, and to the prisons, to house tax-cheats like our "president".
''Make no mistake: This is a pretty radical plan.'' - Uhm No. A radical plan is not allowing any single person or family to
even HAVE a billion dollars, let alone tax them @ a paltry 3%. A radical plan would be to do way with money altogether, and have
all of us contribute proportionally and progressive into one single community, instead of having 26 people have the SAME wealth
as HALF of the world's population. A radical plan would be to actually work together so that our species could actually survive,
instead of destroying our planet, and us as an extension. I am really tired of people and pundit alike trying to box in people
and ideas before they even get off the ground, because all it does is continue the status quo. Perhaps the point, I suppose...
I'm reading Susan Orlean's book, The Library Book. It's not just about the fire in Los Angeles but covers much of the history
of libraries. If you love libraries, you probably know who Andrew Carnegie was. At one time, he was the richest person in the
world. In middle-age, he decided to give his money away. He built 1,700 libraries for towns that couldn't afford them. I'm sure
he had his problems and wasn't perfect. But, Carnegie realized you really can't take it with you and you can do much good while
on earth. When I see rich people who only seem to care about showing up at premiers, jetting around the world, wearing different
outfits every time they're photographed, and not seeming to care about all the pain on earth, it hurts. A certain billionaire
bragged that not paying taxes made him smart. That means he's not paying to help the poor, the sick, the elderly, not paying for
safe roads or safe water systems, not paying for the soldiers he claims to be so proud of. If these rich people were true Americans,
they'd be proud to pay their fair share, proud to support the country that gave them so much. Happy to give away their money because
they have more than they'll ever use. They won't be remembered for being rich. But look when you drive through small towns. More
than 100 years after he gave his money away, you still see the name Carnegie on libraries across America.
Let's be honest: there's a limit to how much wealth one person or even one clan can reasonably use, and it's way below
$1 billion. The super-rich are not motivated by money. Many of them are motivated by power, and money is an important surrogate
for power, but by no means the only We need to think about all the ways that the super-wealthy exercise power -- not just about
money -- about which ones are harmful to society, and how they can be restrained or redirected.
It's only a matter of time before the uber rich pay more in taxes. And when all the tired right-wing arguments about "penalizing
people for being successful." and "socialism" get trotted out by the right-wing media echo chamber, there's a quick and decisive
answer. The additional taxes (that have been there before and always should have been preserved) are the price of admission to
a system that is the only one in the world where such vast sums can be accumulated with so little being required in return. Taxes
pay for the roads, bridges, sewer systems, public protection, airports, seaports, armies, navies, court systems, research, health
assistance, disaster relief, and future employee training and education of the society, to name just a few things. Having the
middle class and poor pay for this disproportionately is absurd. And is unsustainable. People have to buy things, money has to
circulate, or capitalism falls apart. Period.
Warren's approach could work, but persuading the public is another story. Every time Democrats want to raise taxes on the wealthy,
Republicans claim Democrats are raising taxes on everybody. This has gone on for decades! Why can't Democrats get this point across
without having it perennially hijacked?
These potential changes in the tax law are important and, if enacted, will actually replicate what happened at the turn of
the 20th century, when marginal tax rates started to rise dramatically, eventually landing in the 90% range in mid-century. That's
when the middle class was truly allowed to come into existence. Accumulated wealth, it was learned more than 100 years ago, is
not healthy for society in general. Personally, I would like to see a complete overhaul of the tax structure so that the earnings
on the first 10K to 20K are not taxed at all. This would put much more money into the hands of people who, in the immortal words
of Molly Ivins, would use it to go out and buy shoes for their babies.
Raising taxes on the super wealthy won't really hurt them. How about eliminating taxes on Social Security? That would be very
popular with most senior citizens.
"And there was a time when leading American politicians were proud to proclaim their willingness to tax the wealthy, not just
to raise revenue, but to limit excessive concentration of economic power." I believe it's only since the 1980s that taxing wealth
became akin to killing one's newborn. That's when voo-doo economics started the mess we we're in, where every Republican administration
then and since delivered tax cuts for the folks who needed it least. The latest abomination, the Trump tax heist, was, really
the coup de grace. That the net worth of the 0.1% equal the bottom 90% of the entire nation is not only obscene, it bodes ill
for our society. Of course, it's gotten even worse since Citizens United, because, greed feeds on itself, now that every wealthy
family can buy some politicians. The fact that so many, even Republicans, aren't screaming their heads off makes me think that--like
Medicare for All--a new wealth tax is not the anathema it once was. Maybe ordinary Americans are sick and tired of hearing corrupt
cabinet members tell unpaid federal workers to just apply for a loan.
Elizabeth Warren is my personal pick. Flashy she ain't. But experience, knowledge of government, the details of policy
changes, and , most of all - integrity, she's got it in spades. Remember the kick back on Nancy Pelosi and how that proved
totally unjustified? Same with Warren. This kind of experience, savy, and integrity is just what we need right now.
Coming from Senator Warren, I find this is THE MOST EXCITING 2020 campaign proposal on the table. Senator Warren and her team
of world class economists are serious and credible. It might take two years to understand some of these issues, but we are coming
out of a four year soak in corruption and lies like we never knew. We need some all-American TLC. Senator Warren can help us recover
our national mojo.
@George The practical necessity is that we have crumbling infrastructure and are woefully behind the times in providing affordable
medical care, secure retirements and quality public education. The alternative, is to take funds from the military - the other
elephant in the room that remains strangely out of bounds in this discussion when cuts to "entitlement programs" are discussed.
And further, what is the larger immoral situation: excessive wealth concentrated in the hands of a few or the inability of the
richest country on the planet to provide a healthy, safe, well-functioning society for its citizens? And don't try the philanthropy
non-starter - this reflects the priorities of the ultra rich, not the nation as a whole.
@Peter Wolf We have all these Democrats approaching the same issue from different directions, at different levels of sophistication,
which is good. So long as they, with the kind cooperation of the media, are able to flesh out their case, the more people from
varied backgrounds they will reach. It's great that we're already talking about such things relatively early in our interminable
election cycle. In fact, any candidate who is not talking about tax policy, but instead is focused on "working across the aisle"
should be immediately scratched off everyone's list. We've had enough of such pablum, where "bipartisan" is just a euphemism for
being a good corporate stooge.
We can all thank Ronald Reagan for taxes on social security benefits. Taxing social security benefits was necessary to
narrow the deficit he created with Trickle Down I. Trickle Down II (The Job Creators), and Trickle Down III (Ryan's Private Objectives)
have followed with their own form of penalizing the little people.
Warren has excellent ideas that must be carefully explained to various groups of Americans who a very susceptible to Fox and
other right wing pundits. She must stay on the offensive to be sure her ideas are not twisted by those who will be very upset
with her message getting out. She will constantly need to inform and "teach" the underlying math to win over the group that will
take the right wing click bait and Kool aid. It will be tough reaching this group but then again Warren is tough!
Billy The woods are lovely, dark and deep. Jan. 28
Fixing the consequences of ultra-concentrated wealth and power is going to take whatever it takes. It has to be done. When
a cop arrests a person for resisting arrest, the person resisting doesn't really get much chance to plead that the world would
be a better place for all if he were not in jail.
It should not be left to the wealthiest among us to decide what tax they themselves pay. A tiny minority calls the shots as
to the fundamental frameworks that underlie our problems. This has to change. Taxpayers bailed out the rich ten years ago. None
of them went to jail. It's time to pay the taxpayers back.
What's wrong with Tulsi's fundraisers? They are not PAC money and $125/plate is not that
expensive. Tulsi has a huge disadvantage, because she isn't getting any coverage. Tulsi's
dinners are not sponsored by Corporate money.
Warren said to Cenk Uygur(in a NEW interview!) that her refusal of corporate donations
only extends to the primaries. She said [we] need corporate donations- or as she calls them-
"everything in our arsenal to beat Trump". Still want to lump her in with Bernie?
Never Completely Trust anyone, so thoroughly research everyone before supporting anyone on
anything to be fully aware of who benefits and how, since you may or may not benefit at all
11:16
hours Pacific Standard Time on Tuesday, 26 February 2019
Liz Warren is talking about what Bernie talked about in '16. I'm concerned that she has
progressive rhetoric but centrist instincts. Her voting record isn't as progressive as I
believe is necessary. She needs to be able to withstand scrutiny if she hopes to attract
progressive voters. Rhetoric and platitudes aren't enough... #LeadersNeedToLeadByExample
I don't think I'm alone in finding a big difference that was not mentioned in the video.
While I greatly appreciate Elizabeth Warren, and those clips you showed from earlier today
were very encouraging, there is just a quality Bernie and Tulsi share that is very rare among
politicians. Something about the way they speak, their past actions, and ways they don't
speak, just hit home really hard a believability that they are extremely genuine and from the
heart. I see some of this from EW, but, Bernie and Tulsi are just incredibly impressive in
regard to this quality... it doesn't feel like supporting a politician, it feels like
supporting a kind of way of being and appreciation for what we all are so many of us try to
make our way of life. fwiw, I think it's also a big part of AOC's appeal.
Elizabeth Warren is a cautious, cowardish (her behaviour during 2016 was disgusting), but pretty energetic careerist. Her views will
quickly change under pressure, so good talking points will never translated into real policies.
The fact the wealthy control the USA is not news. This is the fact of life and always be. the
question is how to reach optimal middle point when interest of the bottom 80% standard of living
do not deteriorate.
Probably close to Barack Obama who also utters all right things during election complain and then blatantly betrayed his
voters.
She clearly is the top anti-corruption candidate and will expose the level of corruption in
Washington. So she is preferable to Kamala Harris and other establishment candidates.
The fight between organized and rich few and unorganized and poor many became hotter right
now. But what is the power base of anti-neoliberal movement. That can be only trade unions, which
were decimated. So the first step might be to restore the power of unions.
Notable quotes:
"... Elizabeth Warren is a progressive with no backbone who supports the military industrial complex ..."
"... Warren missed her moment when she failed us in 2016. She'd be VP today, and thinking about running in 2024. She shied away and instead, we have Trump ..."
Elizabeth Warren is weak. She did not have the courage to stand up to the Clinton machine
in 2016 when she could have made a difference by standing up against corruption. Now she is
waffling on what it means when she says she supports Medicare for All, as now she is open to
tweaking the Republican "Affordable" Care Act. She won't fight for us. We need real fighters.
We need Bernie and Tulsi.
I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for Elizabeth Warren but in the last few years
she's shown that she's not as reliable as i thought she was. She's way to soft when it comes
to calling out the corruption in the dem party. She's also shown she's more willing to bend
to the will of the Dem establishment and that is not the kind of President we need right now.
I'll be posting a video on her campaign soon & unfortunately I'll have to tear into her a
lot more than you did in this video
Elizabeth Warren is a progressive with no backbone who supports the military industrial
complex. She will lose to Trump if she gets the nominee. Tulsi is a real progressive with
balls. #Tulsi2020
Warren missed her moment when she failed us in 2016. She'd be VP today, and thinking about
running in 2024. She shied away and instead, we have Trump.
I don't think she has the ability
to motivate she could have had back then. I don't think she has the savvy to beat Trump. We
need Tulsi or Bernie, the rest would lose in the general.
tomjulio2002, 1 week ago
Sorry but there is no comparison between Warren and Sanders.
Warren is either at best a coward (see primary 2016) or at worst a con (at lot of words but no action when it matters). So
not much will change with her, except that Trump would be gone. Then we will get a worse than Trump next time around when
people get even more disappointed and desperate.
For Sanders, you know for sure that he means what he says and that he intends to try.
The question is whether he will have the courage to go for it when the going gets tough. Or will he buckle like he did at
the 2016 convention thinking best to get half a loaf than risking to get nothing.
With Sanders, there is at least a chance (albeit a slim one in my opinion) of big changes happening on the issues like
Medicare for all, Green New Deal, Free public college...
For me, Warren is a no go.
Also Gabbard is clearly a fighter but I am still hazy on some of her positions. But I will take her before I even take
another look at Warren (if somehow Warren becomes the nominee).
Tulsi Gabbard is courageous and stands up against her own party regardless of the
political cost. Elizabeth Warren is a coward; she never stands up against her party; she only
fights the easy fights (GOP,Trump). Elizabeth Warren was a college professor she knows the
words the young kids want to listen and she says them often. Mark my words 'Elizabeth Warren
in 2020 will be the Walter Mondale of 1984'
Tulsi Gabbard. She supports Medicare for all and Elizabeth Warren does not. She's also
really pushing the fake Russia story all over MSNBC. Tulsi was the only one who didn't
endorse Hillary.
Liz voted to get rid of Habeas Corpus and we're going to put her up for president now?
Bernie and Liz will certainly maintain the Democratic Party line on the Middle East.
Mike don't be naive. The Democratic Party has learned NOTHING! They'd definitely cheat a
true progressive in 2020. Have you seen ANY changes? Do you hear what their lawyers say about
cheating Sanders on the record?
I'd take Tulsi Gabbard over Elizabeth Warren. Warren showed her true colors. Always too
little too late and she doesn't do it by mistake. Gabbard just does the right thing because
it's right. I don't think Warren could beat Trump. He can poke way too many holes in her.
"... "The absence of effective state, and, especially, national, restraint upon unfair money-getting has tended to create a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power," he explained. "The prime need to is to change the conditions which enable these men to accumulate power which it is not for the general welfare that they should hold or exercise." ..."
"... Roosevelt was, however, conscious of the threats posed to the American experiment by the rapid consolidation wealth and power. And he knew that progressive taxation could be used to address those threats. ..."
"... The Democrats who seek to dislodge Donald Trump in 2020 will all need to make tax policy a priority. Republicans have for so long practiced reverse Robin Hood politics -- take from the poor and give to the rich -- that the promised Democrats make will be unobtainable without the infusion of revenues that comes from taxing the wealthy. Changing tax policy also infuses governing with democracy, as it dials down the influence of specially interested billionaires (such as the Koch brothers) and their corporations. ..."
"... Horsemen of the Trumpocalypse: A Field Guide to the Most Dangerous People in America ..."
"... People Get Ready: The Fight Against a Jobless Economy and a Citizenless Democracy ..."
What a Midwestern Presidential Candidate Learned From Marxist Intellectuals | The Nation
The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size, acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well
as in degree from what is possessed by men of relatively small means. Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes."
That's what Teddy Roosevelt proposed in his agenda-setting
"New Nationalism" speech from
1910 , when he prodded the United States toward a fuller embrace of progressive reform. As a former president who was preparing
to again bid for the position, Roosevelt opened a conversation about tax policy in order to frame a broader debate about at least
some of the values that should guide American progress.
At the heart of Roosevelt's agenda was a specific form of taxation. While progressive taxation in a general sense was desirable
and necessary, Roosevelt was particularly enthusiastic about "another tax which is far more easily collected and far more effective
-- a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion, and increasing rapidly in amount with the size
of the estate."
Teddy Roosevelt, it should be noted, was a Republican who possessed considerable wealth of his own. He was a flawed figure who
let down the progressive cause at many turns and never matched the courageous domestic and foreign policy vision advanced by his
rival for leadership of the progressive movement, Wisconsin Senator Robert M. La Follette. But Roosevelt recognized that taxing inherited
wealth not merely to collect revenues but to preserve and extend democracy.
"One of the chief factors in progress is the destruction of special privilege." -- Teddy Roosevelt, 1910
"The absence of effective state, and, especially, national, restraint upon unfair money-getting has tended to create a small
class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power," he explained.
"The prime need to is to change the conditions which enable these men to accumulate power which it is not for the general welfare
that they should hold or exercise."
Roosevelt's critics may have characterized him as a radical, but he was never as radical (or as right) as La Follette. Roosevelt
was, however, conscious of the threats posed to the American experiment by the rapid consolidation wealth and power. And he knew
that progressive taxation could be used to address those threats.
Bernie Sanders knows this, as well. That's why Sanders is proposing a progressive estate tax on the fortunes of the top 0.2 percent
of Americans. The senator from Vermont's newly introduced "For the 99.8% Act" would collect $2.2 trillion from 588 billionaires.
"At a time of massive wealth and income inequality, when the three richest Americans own more wealth than 160 million Americans,
it is literally beyond belief that the Republican leadership wants to provide hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to
the top 0.2 percent," argues Sanders. "Our bill does what the American people want by substantially increasing the estate tax
on the wealthiest families in this country and dramatically reducing wealth inequality. From a moral, economic, and political
perspective our nation will not thrive when so few have so much and so many have so little."
Sanders is widely expected to bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020. If he does so, Sanders will not be the only
contender with a bold plan to tax the rich.
Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren , for instance, has a plan to levy a 2 percent tax on the assets of wealthy Americans
with more than $50 million. From those with over $1 billion, she'd demand an additional 1 percent.
The Democrats who seek to dislodge Donald Trump in 2020 will all need to make tax policy a priority. Republicans have for so long
practiced reverse Robin Hood politics -- take from the poor and give to the rich -- that the promised Democrats make will be unobtainable
without the infusion of revenues that comes from taxing the wealthy. Changing tax policy also infuses governing with democracy, as
it dials down the influence of specially interested billionaires (such as the Koch brothers) and their corporations.
What is notable about the Sanders plan is that, with his proposal to establish a 77 percent tax on the value of an estate above
$1 billion, the senator is merely seeking "a return to the top rate from 1941 through 1976."
Sanders is proposing an approach that renews American values, as notes University of California–Berkeley economics professor Emmanuel
Saez. "The estate tax was a key pillar of the progressive tax revolution that the United States ushered one century ago. It prevented
self-made wealth from turning into inherited wealth and helped make America more equal," explains Saez. "However, the estate tax
is dying of neglect, as tax avoidance schemes are multiplying and left unchallenged. As wealth concentration is surging in the United
States, it is high time to revive the estate tax, plug the loopholes, and make it more progressive. Senator Sanders' bill is a bold
and welcome leap forward in this direction."
Teddy Roosevelt understood this economic calculus, and this democratic imperative.
"In every wise struggle for human betterment one of the main objects, and often the only object, has been to achieve in large
measure equality of opportunity. In the struggle for this great end, nations rise from barbarism to civilization, and through it
people press forward from one stage of enlightenment to the next," the Republican president
explained in 1910. "One
of the chief factors in progress is the destruction of special privilege. The essence of any struggle for healthy liberty has always
been, and must always be, to take from some one man or class of men the right to enjoy power, or wealth, or position, or immunity,
which has not been earned by service to his or their fellows. That is what you fought for in the Civil War, and that is what we strive
for now."
"... To that end, the senator from Florida on Tuesday unveiled a proposal to limit corporate buybacks. Unlike a plan pitched by Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer earlier this month, Rubio's plan would seek to end preferential tax treatment of share buybacks, by decreeing that any money spent on buybacks would be considered - for tax purposes - a dividend paid to shareholders, even if individual investors didn't actually part with any stock. ..."
"... Any tax revenue generated by these changes could then be used to encourage more capital investment, Rubio said. As part of the proposal, Rubio would make a provision in the tax law that allows companies to deduct capital investment permanent (that provision is currently set to expire in 2022). ..."
"... But before lawmakers take their next steps toward regulating how and when companies should return excess capital to shareholders, they might want to take a look at a column recently published by WSJ's "Intelligent Investor" that expounds a concept called "the bladder theory." ..."
"... But the law most likely to govern here is the Law of Unintended Consequences. ..."
"... That companies bought back a record $1 trillion worth of stock last year while employers like GM slashed jobs and closed factories has stoked criticisms of the Trump tax cuts, but as the gulf between the rich and the poor grows ever more wide (a phenomenon for which we can thank the Federal Reserve and other large global central banks) it's worth wondering: facing a simmering backlash to one of the most persistent marginal bids in the market place, have investors already become too complacent about proposals like Rubio's? ..."
"... Worse, since they're largely funded by increased corporate debt (!) they amount to corporate strip-mining by senior management. This is disgraceful and dangerous. The debt will bust some corporations when the inevitable next downturn comes. ..."
"... This buyback cancer, which has grown rapidly because of corrupt SEC thinking and perverse tax incentives, requires urgent treatment. ..."
For better or worse, Republican Senator and one-time presidential candidate Marco Rubio
isn't about to let
the Democrats own the fight to curtail one of the most flagrant examples of post-crisis
corporate excess. And if he can carve out a niche for himself that might one day help him
credibly pitch himself as a populist firebrand, much like the man who went on to claim the
presidency after defeating him in the Republican primary, well, that sounds to us like a
win-win.
To that end, the senator from Florida on Tuesday unveiled a proposal to limit corporate
buybacks. Unlike a plan pitched by Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer earlier this month, Rubio's
plan would seek to end preferential tax treatment of share buybacks, by decreeing that any
money spent on buybacks would be considered - for tax purposes - a dividend paid to
shareholders, even if individual investors didn't actually part with any stock.
According to CNBC
, the plan calls for every shareholder to receive an imputed portion of the funds equivalent to
the percentage of company stock they own, which, of course, isn't the same thing as directly
handing capital to shareholders (it simply changes the tax rate that the company buying back
the shares would pay).
Ultimately, Rubio hopes that these changes would discourage companies from buying back
stock. Those companies that continued to buy back shares would help contribute to higher
revenues by increasing the funds that can be taxed, while also raising the rate at which this
money can be taxed. Any tax revenue generated by these changes could then be used to encourage
more capital investment, Rubio said. As part of the proposal, Rubio would make a provision in
the tax law that allows companies to deduct capital investment permanent (that provision is
currently set to expire in 2022).
But before lawmakers take their next steps toward regulating how and when companies should
return excess capital to shareholders, they might want to take a look at a column recently
published by WSJ's
"Intelligent Investor" that expounds a concept called "the bladder theory."
Overall, however, buybacks (and dividends) return excess capital to investors who are free
to spend or reinvest it wherever it is most needed. By requiring companies to hang onto their capital instead of paying it out, Congress might
- perhaps - encourage them to invest more in workers and communities.
But the law most likely to govern here is the Law of Unintended Consequences. The history of investment by corporate managers with oodles of cash on their hands isn't
encouraging. Hugh Liedtke, the late chief executive of Pennzoil, reportedly liked to quip
that he believed in "the bladder theory:" Companies should pay out as much cash as possible,
so managers couldn't piss all the money away.
That companies bought back a record $1 trillion worth of stock last year while employers
like GM slashed jobs and closed factories has stoked criticisms of the Trump tax cuts, but as
the gulf between the rich and the poor grows ever more wide (a phenomenon for which we can
thank the Federal Reserve and other large global central banks) it's worth wondering: facing a
simmering backlash to one of the most persistent marginal bids in the market place, have
investors already become too complacent about proposals like Rubio's?
We ask only because
the Dow soared more than 350 points on Tuesday, suggesting that, even as Rubio added a
bipartisan flavor to the nascent movement to curb buybacks, investors aren't taking these
proposals too seriously - at least not yet.
Celotex
This still doesn't address the insider trading aspect of stock buybacks, with insiders front-running the buyback.
vladiki
No one's arguing that if a company's groaning with cash then buybacks make sense. But it's the other 95% of of them that
are the problem. Compare the 20 year graphs of buybacks with corporate profits, corporate debt, corporate tax paid, corporate
dividends paid.
They tell you what everyone in higher management knows - that they're a tax-free dividend mechanism pretending to be
"capital rationalisation".
Worse, since they're largely funded by increased corporate debt (!) they amount to corporate strip-mining by senior
management. This is disgraceful and dangerous. The debt will bust some corporations when the inevitable next downturn comes.
This buyback cancer, which has grown rapidly because of corrupt SEC thinking and perverse tax incentives, requires
urgent treatment.
james diamond squid
Everyone is in on this ponzi. I'm expecting tax deductions for buying stocks/homes.
"... Under Warren's proposal, households with over $50 million in assets would pay a 2 percent tax on their net worth every year. The rate would rise to 3 percent on assets over $1 billion. Warren's plan would affect just 75,000 households total. ..."
"... Taxes on wealth in Switzerland are not fixed, but set by 26 regional governments with rates that varied from 0.13 percent to 1 percent per year in 2016, according to the OECD report. They also are much broader, affecting not just millionaires, but many middle-class households as well ..."
"... A study of the country's tax system by Jonathan Gruber and several other economists found that for every 0.1 percent taxes on wealth went up in an area, the wealth taxpayers reported to the government dropped by 3.5 percent ..."
"... "When you tax people's wealth, they manage to somehow reduce their taxable wealth," Gruber told NBC News. "We don't know if it's by saving less or by hiding it. ..."
"... "It's really difficult to enforce," said Alan Cole, a former adviser to House Republicans on tax policy. "That's why almost everyone goes the capital gains tax route and very few go the wealth tax route." ..."
"... The OECD's report found that countries with wealth taxes have tended to collect relatively similar amounts of revenue over time even as the overall wealth in their countries increased at much faster rates. This suggests taxpayers either found new ways to get around them or that legislators and tax collectors weren't keeping pace with annual growth. ..."
"... While they expect the rich to succeed in shielding some of their assets, Warren advisers Saez and Zucman peg the number at 15 percent total based on a survey of existing research. In a letter to Warren, they wrote that Gruber's study was an "outlier" and that studies of wealth taxes in other countries like Sweden and Denmark showed less tax avoidance ..."
"... Lily Batchelder, a professor at New York University and former economic adviser under President Barack Obama, pointed to The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, a 2010 U.S. law in coordination with other governments around the world that requires banks to report activity by American citizens. ..."
"... The fear that the ultra-rich will not just lowball their fortunes, but pack up and take them to a rival country, is a significant reason the wealth tax has declined. In France, President Emmanuel Macron replaced the country's decades-old wealth tax with a narrower tax on real estate partly in response to data suggesting 60,000 millionaires had left the country since 2000. ..."
"... In one prominent case, famed actor Gérard Depardieu moved across the border to less-taxed Belgium while criticizing France's policies. It wasn't just the wealth tax -- the previous government also imposed a 75 percent tax rate on income for millionaires, a policy that bears similarities to a proposal by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. ..."
"... Warren's plan would apply to Americans based on citizenship, not where they live or where their money is earned, so the ultra-rich couldn't easily move to avoid it. If they renounced their citizenship, they'd have to pay a one-time 40 percent "exit tax" on their net worth. ..."
Versions of a
"wealth tax" proposed by the 2020 hopeful have been put in place in a number of countries. Most have
gotten rid of them.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has made a splash with her plan for a
"wealth tax" on the super-rich, a major break from typical Democratic proposals that target income,
investment gains and inheritances.
While wealth taxes aren't a new invention and a handful of
developed nations currently have them in place, they are on the decline: The number nations that are
members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development with a wealth tax dropped from 12
to four from 1990 to 2017, according
to a report
by the organization last year.
With inequality hitting new heights, though, Democrats running for president have made finding new
ways to tax the rich and distribute the benefits downward a key part of their economic message. Wealth
taxes are making a comeback in policy discussions abroad as well, led by French economist Thomas
Piketty's call for a global tax on the rich.
Now economists are debating what other countries can tell us about the Warren Ultra-Millionaires
Tax and whether it's useful to tie their experiences to the United States.
One prominent case study is Switzerland, where a longstanding series of wealth taxes account for
about 1 percent of GDP each year. That's a much higher share than in other countries with a wealth tax
and it's similar to what Warren's advisers predict her own tax would raise.
"The comparison everyone is thinking of is Switzerland, because it's probably the best precedent
for a reasonably effective wealth tax," Ari Glogower, a professor at Ohio State University who
researches wealth taxes, told NBC News.
The country's wealth tax may offer some insight into one looming question over Warren's wealth tax,
which is whether its targets would find ways to avoid paying it. It's an important debate, because
Warren's counting on her tax to raise a lot of money for social programs: $2.75 trillion over 10
years, according to an estimate by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, two economists advising her
campaign.
Under Warren's proposal, households with over $50 million in assets would pay a 2 percent tax
on their net worth every year. The rate would rise to 3 percent on assets over $1 billion. Warren's
plan would affect just 75,000 households total.
Taxes on wealth in Switzerland are not fixed, but set by 26 regional governments with rates
that varied from 0.13 percent to 1 percent per year in 2016, according to the OECD report. They also
are much broader, affecting not just millionaires, but many middle-class households as well
.
A
study
of the country's tax
system by Jonathan Gruber and several other economists found that for every 0.1 percent taxes on
wealth went up in an area, the wealth taxpayers reported to the government dropped by 3.5 percent
.
"When you tax people's wealth, they manage to somehow reduce their taxable wealth," Gruber told
NBC News. "We don't know if it's by saving less or by hiding it.
"
Critics point to these shifts as evidence that a wealth tax is an inefficient way to collect taxes.
While the IRS can easily check the price of a publicly traded stock, it may be hard to value a
privately held company or a rare art collection until it's sold, which is often a source of legal
battles in calculating estate taxes. But unlike an estate, which is taxed once at death, the
government would have to figure out the value every year.
"It's really difficult to enforce," said Alan Cole, a former adviser to House Republicans on
tax policy. "That's why almost everyone goes the capital gains tax route and very few go the wealth
tax route."
The OECD's report found that countries with wealth taxes have tended to collect relatively
similar amounts of revenue over time even as the overall wealth in their countries increased at much
faster rates. This suggests taxpayers either found new ways to get around them or that legislators and
tax collectors weren't keeping pace with annual growth.
Anticipating this concern, Warren's plan includes a pledge to bolster the IRS, require a minimum
number of audits, and use a variety of techniques to indirectly value more difficult to price assets.
While they expect the rich to succeed in shielding some of their assets, Warren advisers Saez
and Zucman peg the number at 15 percent total based on a survey of existing research. In a letter to
Warren, they wrote that Gruber's study was an "outlier" and that studies of wealth taxes in other
countries like Sweden and Denmark showed less tax avoidance
.
As Gruber noted, Switzerland's broad tax base makes it a less than exact comparison. But the tax
rate in Warren's plan would also be much higher, giving its targets more motive to avoid it. They
would also be more likely to have skilled accountants and lawyers to help them out.
"It doesn't mean it's a bad idea or it won't raise money," Gruber said. "Elizabeth Warren's tax
would raise money, it's a question of how much."
At the same time, some argue recent changes in finance make it harder for the rich to hide assets
from tax collectors.
Lily Batchelder, a professor at New York University and former economic adviser under President
Barack Obama, pointed to The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, a 2010 U.S. law in coordination with
other governments around the world that requires banks to report activity by American citizens.
"It's certainly not perfect and there's more work to be done, but compared to even five years ago,
the landscape has really changed," she said. "So people who are looking at this from five or 10 or 20
years ago are missing that."
Gruber's study does cut against another top concern raised by critics of a wealth tax -- that it
will cause taxpayers to pack up and move. Even with lower-tax options inside the same country, their
research found little sign of people moving to avoid higher rates.
The fear that the ultra-rich will not just lowball their fortunes, but pack up and take them to
a rival country, is a significant reason the wealth tax has declined. In France, President Emmanuel
Macron
replaced the
country's decades-old wealth tax with a narrower tax on real estate
partly in response to data
suggesting 60,000 millionaires had left the country since 2000.
In one prominent case, famed actor Gérard Depardieu
moved across the border
to less-taxed Belgium while criticizing France's policies. It wasn't just
the wealth tax -- the previous government also imposed a 75 percent tax rate on income for
millionaires, a policy that bears similarities to a proposal by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.
Warren's plan would apply to Americans based on citizenship, not where
they live or where their money is earned, so the ultra-rich couldn't easily move to avoid it. If they
renounced their citizenship, they'd have to pay a one-time 40 percent "exit tax" on their net worth.
"We can have extreme wealth concentrated in the hands of the few; or, we can have democracy, we can't have both." Judge
Brandies was right
Notable quotes:
"... "We can have extreme wealth concentrated in the hands of the few; or, we can have democracy, we can't have both." Judge Brandies was right. The Republicans have chosen extreme wealth concentrated in the hands of the few, the few who happen to donate to their campaigns specifically, rather than democracy. The Republicans have sold out the American people. ..."
"... It's all thanks to the Roberts' SCOTUS's Citizens United decision, the McCutcheon decision, and egregious GOP'er gerrymandering of 2010. Vulture Capitalism and democracy cannot co-exist. ..."
I don't think it's that complicated. Donald Trump is the Republican party. He has solidified
his power in three basic ways. The first is that he gave a huge tax cut to corporate America.
This greatly boosted profits and the stock market reacted in sync. This is all Wall Street and
big business cares about. Nothing else matters to them and consequently they ignore everything
else that Trump does, no matter how awful, how incompetent and how damaging it is to our
republic.
@R. Law "We can have extreme wealth concentrated in the hands of the few; or, we can have
democracy, we can't have both." Judge Brandies was right. The Republicans have chosen extreme
wealth concentrated in the hands of the few, the few who happen to donate to their campaigns
specifically, rather than democracy. The Republicans have sold out the American people.
We agree with Dr. K.: " But maybe the gravitational attraction of big money -- which has
completely captured the G.O.P., and has arguably kept Democrats from moving as far left as
the electorate really wants -- is too great. " defines the issue, since 'voters' are not the
actual consumers of politics being sold by the pols - those consumers are the pols' donors:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/15/government-wealthy-study_n_5154879.html
It's all thanks to the Roberts' SCOTUS's Citizens United decision, the McCutcheon decision,
and egregious GOP'er gerrymandering of 2010. Vulture Capitalism and democracy cannot
co-exist.
Elizabeth is super rich when compared to the average American citizen (who's worth is around
$100,000), but keep in mind that Congress is virtually made up of some of the richest people in
the country.
While a whole lot of Elizabeth's net worth is based around the investments she's
made, she also has a huge house that's worth almost $2 million which isn't bad at all. The
house is reportedly in Massachusetts.
CNN reported that Warren is worth between $3.7
million and $10 million dollars because of her combined net worth with her husband and ranked
her the 76th wealthiest out of 541 senators and representatives.
It's quite interesting to know
that Warren didn't start off rich – she was born to a middle-class family and rose to the
top based on pure merit.
She earned a degree in bankruptcy law and began teaching in
universities just like her husband. They were soon able to amass a huge amount together.
For decades we have heard about the loss of industrial production throughout what is called the "Rust Belt". It's presented,
even as recent as the prior presidential election as a relative regional problem that only began post-Reagan.
With all due respect, it looks like you forgot that at some point quantity turns into quality, so making simple extrapolations
might well result in an oversimplification of the current situation.
You essentially ignore the current reality of rising popular anger, and the fact of breaking of the social contract by neoliberal
(and first of all financial) oligarchy, which is as detached from "deplorable" as French aristocracy ("let them eat cakes" mentality.)
While less dangerous for the oligarchy then when the USSR used to exist, the level of social anger comes into play as never
before. In 2016 became a material factor that decided the elections. I do not see that 2020 will be different.
The most detrimental effects from outsourcing and offshoring will come to the forefront probably in 10 years or so when the
oil price might be well over $100 per barrel. But even now this huge social experiment on live people in redistribution of wealth
up turn out to be detrimental for the unity of the country (and not only to the unity).
The current squabble between globalist, Clinton wing of Democratic Party allied with the corporatists with the Republican Party
(with supporting intelligence agencies) and rag-tag forces of the opposition is a good indication of the power of this resentment.
Spearheaded by intelligence agencies (with material support from British government ) attack on Trump (aka Russiagate) is the
attack on the idea of an alternative for neoliberal globalization, not so much on the personality or real or perceived Trump actions;
the brutal, Soviet-style attack on the deviation from neoliberal status quo directed on the political elimination of the opposition
by elimination of Trump from the political scene. Much like Show Trials were in the USSR (in this case people were charged to
be British spies ;-)
There are two countries now co-existing within the USA borders. Which often speak different languages. One is the country of
professionals, managers, and capital owners (let's say top 10%). The other is the country of common people (aka "deplorable",
or those who are below median wage -- ~$30K in 2017; ratio of average and median wage is now around 65% ).
With the large part of the latter living as if they live in a third world country. That's definitely true for McDonald, Wall-mart
(and all retail) employees (say, all less than $15 per hour employees, or around half of US workers).
I think the level of anger of "deplorable" will play the major role in 2020 elections and might propel Warren candidacy. That's
why now some MSM are trying to derail her by exploiting the fact that she listed her heritage incorrectly on several applications.
But when the anger of "deplorable" is in play, then, as Donald Trump aptly quipped, one could stand in the middle of Fifth
Avenue, shoot somebody and do not lose any voters. I think this is now true for Warren too.
-- The United States has lost approximately 42,400 factories since 2001
-- The United States has lost a total of about 5.5 million manufacturing jobs since October 2000
-- From 1999 to 2008, employment at the foreign affiliates of US parent companies increased an astounding 30 percent to 10.1 million
-- In 1959, manufacturing represented 28 percent of U.S. economic output. In 2008, it represented 11.5 percent
-- As of the end of 2009, less than 12 million Americans worked in manufacturing. The last time less than 12 million Americans
were employed in manufacturing was in 1941. The United States has lost a whopping 32 percent of its manufacturing jobs since the
year 2000
-- As of 2010 consumption accounts for 70 percent of GDP. Of this 70 percent, over half is spent on services
-- In 2001, the United States ranked fourth in the world in per capita broadband Internet use. Today it ranks 15th
-- Asia produces 84% of printed circuit boards used worldwide.
-- In September 2011, the Census Bureau said 46.2 million Americans are now living in poverty, which is the highest number of
poor Americans in the 52 years that records have been kept
President Bill Clinton
claimed
at a forum in 1998 that his grandmother was "one-quarter Cherokee." The assertion, from a politician
with a not-always-sterling reputation for truthfulness, went unheralded.
Clinton's mother had earlier been described, in a 1992
article
, as a "descendant of Irish farmers and Cherokee Indians." The genealogical receipts were never in
evidence. But families have their stories; few seemed to care one way or another.
They do now.
Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren is one of the most talented politicians in the nation and one of the most
important policy leaders in her party. She has superb communication skills, including the ability to distill
complex class and economic dynamics into compelling,
comprehensible rhetoric
. She is extremely smart. She might make a fine nominee, even president.
She also can't seem to shake a political problem that posed no noticeable discomfort to Clinton.
The latest
installment
-- it seems there may be more -- was the unearthing of an apparently not-so-confidential Texas state
bar form that Warren filled out three decades ago when she was a law professor at the University of Texas. On the
form she wrote her race as "American Indian."
The discovery follows her recent release of a report she commissioned on her DNA that was occasioned by
previous controversy about her claims to American Indian ancestry.
Many people find the storm over Warren ridiculous. And they have reason. At a time when the president of the
United States makes regular and open appeals to bigotry, harping on Warren's minor identity foibles seems absurd.
Warren is not calling Mexicans rapists. She's not
caricaturing
black neighborhoods as savage war zones where you can't walk down the street without being shot.
She has sexually assaulted no one.
Nor did Warren dress in blackface at a time when anyone mindful of history, or even mildly conscious of
contemporary American society outside the confines of a creepy college fraternity, understood it to be an act of
social barbarism.
The Boston Globe
reported
that Warren gained no career benefit from her self-designation. "At every step of her remarkable rise
in the legal profession, the people responsible for hiring her saw her as a white woman," the Globe reported.
Regarding the Texas bar form, Brian Beutler
tweeted
, "The fact that she made the claim on a form that was meant to be unlogged and confidential actually
underscores her point that she identified as she did out of sincere belief."
Warren is 69. Over the years, she has surely mentioned her Indian affinity many times -- contributing recipes in
the 1980s, for example, to "Pow Wow Chow: A Collection of Recipes from Families of the Five Civilized Tribes" --
without social awkwardness or professional consequence.
Warren also grew up in Oklahoma, a state created from Indian Territory. "I think what Warren has done in
identifying as American Indian -- and particularly as a Cherokee -- is very Oklahoman," said Circe Sturm, author of
"
Becoming
Indian: The Struggle over Cherokee Identity in the 21st Century.
"
Blue-eyed Indians are too common to be political fodder in Oklahoma. "In Oklahoma, you have plenty of native
people who look white but have native ancestry or tribal citizenship," Sturm said in a telephone interview.
There was a time when Elvis Presley could grab a piece of "race music" and exploit it for fame and fortune in
the white mainstream. Three decades ago, Warren perhaps thought she was respectfully identifying with a brutalized
minority, or just imagining herself as the person she thought she was, or wanted to be. You didn't need malicious
intent, or a desire to game racial classifications, to want to stretch the bounds of whiteness.
But as nonwhite Americans have gained more political power, cultural appropriation, conscious or otherwise, has
become increasingly fraught. Complicating matters, tribal identity is a political designation, and Cherokees are
wary
of granting inclusion to any Bill or Elizabeth who purports to have an ancestor somewhere.
Historically, whites generally had greater freedom to try on new identities, and explore new social
arrangements. Racial minorities had their identities assigned, and "passing" beyond rigid definitions was a
perilous exercise.
Now the rules are evolving. A once-free, or at least freer, range of white identity is gradually being fenced
by consequences, just as consequences have bound racial minorities to identities for centuries. A white frontier
is closing.
One of the chief institutions grappling with this transformation, and driving it, is the Democratic Party. As a
woman, Warren has benefited from the party's new openness to female power. But she's being buffeted by crosswinds
on race.
Republicans and much of the GOP-allied media, active or silent partners in the Trumpist campaign to sustain
white political, social and economic power, are rarely as gleeful as when attacking liberals who struggle to
conform to the emerging norms that conservatives subvert. (The
case
of GOP House leader Kevin McCarthy's family, which has cashed in on dubious claims of Indian heritage, is
curiously less scrutinized than Warren's predicament.)
The mainstream news media, always eager to posit a Democratic counterpoint to the criminality and corruption
swirling around Trump, may conclude that Warren's Indian issue is an offense so grave that it rivals substandard
email protocol. The Democratic Party itself, testing its surroundings with multiracial sensors, may conclude that
it has enough high-quality alternatives to Warren that it can afford to leave a star player on the bench.
That would be a shame. Warren is well worth hearing from. But it may also be the high price of progress.
Democrats, after all, are the only game in town. Republicans, seated in the whites-only section of the bleachers,
hurling insults
at the players on the field, won't join in making social justice and empowerment a cause.
Being first movers into a multiracial, female-empowered century has given Democrats a strategic advantage and
moral high ground. But the new terrain is often
tough to navigate
, as another quality politician, Senator Al Franken,
discovered
. The march forward can be unforgiving, leaving even good people behind.
"The march forward can be unforgiving, leaving even good people behind."
Concerning Warren, this
silliness has gone on far too long. Everyone not firmly ensconced in the Trumpist base should just
ignore it from this point forward. I'm originally from Oklahoma and can confirm that pretty much
every family claimed some Native American heritage, usually in hushed, tittering tones. Certainly
my family did, and I've told anyone who asked that I believe there's such DNA in my own ancestry.
Is there? I don't know, and really don't care one way or the other. It's a family story, no more
than that. Media - just let this story die, please. You've milked it long enough.
Concerning other more serious and offensive actions, such as offensive posts, blackface, and
harassment, we need a reasonable balance, not pitchforks. Everyone does something stupid at one
time or another, something offensive, something cruel. After all, we're only human. The
hypocritical faux-outrage from the right should simply be ignored until they're willing to focus
such outrage on their own. The equally passionate outrage on the left, however, needs to accept the
inherent fallibility of human beings.
If Northam wore blackface 35 years ago, dressed up as Michael Jackson, did the moon walk, but
has since acted to promote racial equality, what's the problem? Let the guy apologize and move on.
If, on the other hand, he has a clear history and pattern of such behavior? Don't give him a pass.
It all comes down to allowing people to outgrow their mistakes, to make up for them. If they fail
to do so, then throw them out. But if we fire everyone who has ever made a mistake, we'll quickly
run out of people to hire and fire.
You can claim Indian heritage if you believe that you have Indian heritage. The EOC
Dept can not require a DNA test from you because that would violate your right to
privacy, according to the Supreme Court. Also, transgender self ID is recognized by the
Supreme Court. Transgender, "I am a woman trapped in a man's body). There is also the
transitory transgender.
On campus, we accept any self ID that a person states. It is
all in the mind. If some months who feel Native American and other months Chinese, that
is fine. You will get escorted off campus if you challenge that person's self identity
by the SS(student security).
A British woman was arrested in front of her children and held in police custody for
7 hours after calling a transgender woman a man online.
Did they also use that (fake) heritage to milk affirmative action racial rent seeking?
I think I'll start
checking "black" on the kids college applications as well. They can claim Aunt Lucy from Oldevai Gorge as our
African ancestor. Yes, that famous Lucy. She got around ("she said her name was Lucy, but they all called her
Loose").
"... The job paid minimum wage and exposed Warren firsthand to the topics that would later define her career: the power of corporations and the effects of bankruptcy on the American consumer. ..."
"... Warren, who had been sharply critical of Clinton in part over her ties to Wall Street, ultimately chose not to challenge her for the Democratic party's nomination and endorsed the former secretary of state's campaign. It was also during this time that Warren proved among the few capable of getting under then candidate Donald Trump's skin. ..."
"... At the same time, Warren became a top target of conservatives and Trump himself. The president has repeatedly mocked Warren with the derisive nickname "Pocahontas" – including at an event intended to honor Native Americans. ..."
"... Republicans first tried to push the notion that Warren used her Native American ancestry to further her career in the 2012 Senate race, homing in on a single questionnaire in which she claimed mixed ancestry. ..."
"... But the matter did not end there. The Washington Post published a story revealing Warren listed her race as "American Indian" while seeking a Texas bar registration card in 1986. ..."
"... Warren's platform includes the single-payer healthcare system Medicare for All, debt-free college tuition and anti-corruption legislation designed to restore accountability in government. She is also poised to unveil a proposal that would impose a wealth tax on Americans worth over $50m. ..."
Warren's official entry into the race has differed sharply from when she captured widespread liberal enthusiasm in
her unlikely bid for the Senate seven years ago.
The two-term senator will join a crowded Democratic primary
field with no clear frontrunner – and several contenders jockeying to claim the progressive mantle that she
aspires to grasp. She has also found herself contending with a lingering controversy for previously identifying as
Native American over the course of nearly two decades.
The question now is whether Warren, who moved early to build an expansive field operation in anticipation of
her presidential run, can overcome early setbacks and reclaim her role as the Democratic party's top foil to
Donald Trump.
Born to middle-class parents in Norman, Oklahoma
, Warren has spoken
candidly about how her family's livelihood was upended when her father's heart attack forced him out of work.
Addressing crowds across the country, Warren often recalls how her late mother – determined not to lose the
family's home – "pulled on her best dress" and got her first paying job at the department store Sears.
The job paid minimum wage and exposed Warren firsthand to the topics that would later define her career:
the power of corporations and the effects of bankruptcy on the American consumer.
Her research in bankruptcy law – and the impact on the average person's medical bills, mortgage payments and
other installments – led Warren to become a leading expert on the subject and rise in the academia world.
"These are the issues she still cares about," said Charles Fried, a professor at Harvard Law School who helped
recruit Warren to its faculty.
"I think she is extraordinary for this reason, that she got into politics because she cared about some issues.
She didn't get into politics because she wanted to be in office and then tried to figure out what issues she cared
about."
Warren cultivated a profile as a populist firebrand against the backdrop of the Great Recession, earning the
ire of Wall Street by spearheading the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – an agency
established under the Obama administration as part of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill of 2010.
Upon being passed over to head the agency she helped create, Warren decided to continue the fight from within
the government, embarking on a campaign to win back the late senator and liberal icon Ted Kennedy's seat from the
Republican incumbent, Scott Brown, in the high-profile 2012 Massachusetts Senate race.
Roughly $70m was spent on the bitterly waged contest, which catapulted Warren to the national stage.
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Elizabeth Warren speaks during day two of the Democratic national convention in Charlotte, North Carolina,
on 5 September 2012. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
The race also saw Warren cement herself as a leader of the burgeoning progressive movement within the
Democratic party; branding the choice before voters as "Wall Street versus you", Warren viewed the election as an
opportunity to hand a major defeat to what she once
dubbed
as "the largest lobbying force ever assembled on the face of the earth".
Following her victory, Warren's profile grew so rapidly that speculation swiftly emerged over a potential White
House run in 2016, despite the inevitability of Hillary Clinton's candidacy. A group of progressives even mounted
a #DraftWarren campaign.
Warren, who had been sharply critical of Clinton in part over her ties to Wall Street, ultimately chose not to
challenge her for the Democratic party's nomination and endorsed the former secretary of state's campaign. It was
also during this time that Warren proved among the few capable of getting under then candidate Donald Trump's
skin.
After Trump derided Clinton as a "nasty woman", Warren famously riffed: "Get this, Donald. Nasty women are
tough, nasty women are smart and nasty women vote, and on November 8, we nasty women are going to march our nasty
feet to cast our nasty votes to get you out of our lives forever."
The 2016 presidential election did not, however, produce the groundswell of unified opposition to Trump that
Democrats
had hoped for. Instead, it left the party in search of a clear leader to fill the void left by
Obama's departure from the White House.
For Warren, it looked as though her moment had arrived.
In the early days of the Trump administration, Warren quickly emerged as the face of the Democratic opposition,
matching the president's tweets with sharp ripostes of her own and holding his cabinet nominees to account when
they appeared for consideration before congressional committees.
During the confirmation process for the former attorney general Jeff Sessions, Warren famously read a letter
written 30 years prior by Coretta Scott King, in which the widow of Dr Martin Luther King Jr warned of Sessions'
civil rights record from the time of his nomination for a federal judgeship.
Silenced by Republicans mid-speech
on the Senate floor, Warren read the letter on Facebook Live. The hashtag
#LetLizSpeak trended on Twitter and the phrase "Nevertheless, she persisted" was coined.
At the same time, Warren became a top target of conservatives and Trump himself. The president has repeatedly
mocked Warren with the derisive nickname "Pocahontas" – including at an event intended to honor Native Americans.
Although Warren long ignored the president's taunts, she took the unusual step of addressing the issue head on
in October by making public the results of a DNA test revealing that she did, in fact, have some Native American
ancestry.
Rather than putting the topic to rest, Warren's move was rebuked by some tribal leaders, who felt it
politicized their identity, and reignited the story.
Republicans first tried to push the notion
that Warren used her
Native American ancestry to further her career in the 2012 Senate race, homing in on a single questionnaire in
which she claimed mixed ancestry.
An exhaustive investigation by the Boston Globe found no evidence that Warren benefited from doing so, and
nearly every living Harvard law professor involved in her hiring
has said
it was not a factor in their votes to offer her a tenured position.
"When we brought her to Harvard, no one had a clue that she thought of herself as Native American," said
Laurence Tribe, the school's professor of constitutional law.
"I think she's had an unfair rap," he added. "I don't think it's the case that she ever exploited her family's
background or ancestry in a way that some people seem to think she did."
The Cherokee nation, one of the groups that was critical of Warren, said she privately apologized to to tribal
leaders.
But the matter did not end there. The Washington Post published a story revealing Warren
listed her race
as "American Indian" while seeking a Texas bar registration card in 1986. Warren apologized once more, telling reporters: "I'm not a tribal citizen.
"My apology is an apology for not having been more sensitive about tribal citizenship and tribal sovereignty. I
really want to underline the point, tribes and only tribes determine tribal citizenship."
Warren remains a popular figure in the Democratic party
and was
easily re-elected to a second Senate term in the 2018 midterm elections.
Even so, she received fewer votes in her home state than Charlie Baker, the Republican governor of
Massachusetts, prompting Warren's hometown paper to urge the senator to reconsider a presidential bid.
"While Warren won re-election, her margin of victory in November suggests there's a ceiling on her popularity,"
the
Boston Globe editorial board
wrote. "Baker garnered more votes than she did in a state that is supposed to be
a Democratic haven."
She's hard-edged, not personally, but ideologically. She takes very sharp and
controversial positions
Barney Frank
"While Warren is an effective and impactful senator with an important voice nationally, she has become a
divisive figure," the board added. "A unifying voice is what the country needs now after the polarizing politics
of Donald Trump." Those close to Warren dismissed the editorial as having more to do with the personal biographies and
inclinations of those who sit on the board. "She's hard-edged, not personally, but ideologically," said Frank. "She takes very sharp and controversial
positions."
"So, yeah, they're going to be people who are unhappy with her."
More challenging for Warren, friends and former colleagues said, would be the task of distinguishing herself
within a diverse field of Democratic candidates that includes at least three of her Senate colleagues and a record
number of women seeking the party's nomination.
Warren's platform includes the single-payer healthcare system Medicare for All, debt-free college tuition and
anti-corruption legislation designed to restore accountability in government. She is also poised to unveil a
proposal that would impose a wealth tax on Americans worth over $50m.
Fried, who served as solicitor general under Ronald Reagan, said he disagreed with some of the more expansive
economic policies touted by Warren. But her greatest asset as a candidate, he acknowledged, would be to approach the campaign with the same steely
resolve to elevate the middle class that endeared her to voters seven years ago.
Although he is only occasionally in touch with Warren as she embarks on what will undoubtedly be a grueling
campaign for America's highest office, Fried recalled recently sending Warren a lengthy article about capitalism
and income inequality.
To his surprise, he received a response from Warren 10 days later. She had not only taken the time to read the
article, but highlighted a portion that stood out to her. "How many presidential candidates would do that?" Fried asked.
In her email, Warren also recounted to her old colleague how not very long ago they sat together on a flight
discussing the prospects of a Clinton presidency.
That day never came to fruition, Warren noted.
"I don't know what lies ahead," she added. "But I know what I'm fighting for."
While controversy around her heritage lingers, voters call the Democrat's fight against economic
injustice 'inspiring'
On a cold, blustery January day in 1912, immigrant women walked out of the Everett Mill in the
->
Massachusetts
factory town of Lawrence demanding higher wages and better working conditions. Mill owners and
city government responded in a swift and heavy-handed manner; local militias and police forces were called to the
streets. Protesters died. Many more were arrested.
On a cold, blustery February day 117 years later, the
Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren stood in front of Everett Mill
->
to announce her candidacy for president of the United States
, channeling the spirit of those women as she told
her supporters that they were in a fight for their lives against a rigged system that favors the rich and
powerful.
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Why women 2020 candidates face 'likability' question even as they make
history
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"These workers – led by women – didn't have much. Not even a common language. Nevertheless, they persisted,"
she said. "The story of Lawrence is about how real change happens in America. It's a story about power – our power
– when we fight together."
For Warren, who grew up in an economically struggling Oklahoma household and who first rose to mainstream
prominence by handing out practical financial advice to American families, the word "fight" is central to her
platform and political ethos – it was a word peppered throughout her speech.
But on Saturday, she made clear that hers was not just a fight against president Donald Trump, but against a
system she described as one where the rich, privileged and powerful oppress the rest of the country.
"The man in the White House is not the cause of what is broken, he is just the latest – and most extreme –
symptom of what's gone wrong in America, a product of a rigged system that props up the rich and the powerful and
kicks dirt on everyone else," she said. "So once he's gone, we can't pretend that all of this never happened."
The backdrop of the mill, where the so-called Bread and Roses strikes originated, was symbolic. But so too was
the choice of the modern day city of Lawrence, which is one of those places in America that has felt left behind
in recent times. To many in New England, Lawrence is synonymous with crime, drugs and poverty. The Republican
governors of Maine and New Hampshire have invoked the city's name when laying blame for the opioid crises in their
states. As was the case at the time of the strikes, Lawrence is a working class city of immigrants, with a
population that is about 80% Latino. It is a city where wealth is nearby, but out of reach for many.
Sebastian Brown, 31, moved to Lawrence five years ago. While he had yet to choose a candidate to support, he
was excited by Warren's message and was happy Warren chose the town as the site of her announcement.
ass="inline-garnett-quote inline-icon ">
I think we need a woman president and I think it will be the fight of our lives
Vicki Ward, rally attendee
"This is a working class city. And I think her – and Bernie [Sanders] – are running on platforms that speak to
the working class and how they're being screwed over by the rich and powerful," he said. "And I think she's a
great messenger for it."
While there was optimism about Warren's candidacy at her rally, she enters an already crowded Democratic field
amid
->
r
enewed controversy over her past identification as Native American.
For years now – since even before he was president –
->
Trump has needled Warren on the issue
, calling her "Pocahontas". He and others accuse Warren of falsely
presenting herself as Native American to gain unfair advantages in life.
The controversy was re-ignited last week when the Washington Post
->
published Warren's 1986 registration card
for the Texas State Bar. In it, she listed "American Indian" as her
race.
Warren has now apologised repeatedly for identifying as Native American, saying in recent days that she "should
have been more mindful of the distinction with tribal citizenship and tribal sovereignty". She still maintains
that Native American ancestry was part of her family's story passed down to her.
->
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Elizabeth Warren called Donald Trump the 'most extreme' symptom of a broken system. Photograph: Cj Gunther/EPA
How damaging the controversy will be remains to be see. Warren enters a diverse Democratic field where other
candidates belong to minority groups: New Jersey senator
->
Cory Booker is African American
;
->
California senator Kamala Harris
was born to an Indian mother and a Jamaican father.
->
Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard
is both the first Hindu and first Samoan-American member of Congress, and
the former San Antonio mayor
->
Julián Castro is Latino
. When the Democratic race gets heated, Warren's portrayal of race could prove to be a
point of attack.
Peter Devlin, a 56-year-old dentist from the nearby town of North Andover, said he was at the rally to hear
what Warren had to say but said that the Native American controversy "is going to be a problem" for her campaign.
"I voted for her as senator, but I'm concerned about her electability," he said. "It's going to be a tough run.
She's got a bit of baggage and she's so sort of cliche progressive liberal that I think there's a lot of America
that's not up for that. But I want to hear what she's up to."
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Stacey Abrams on the ticket? Democrat's star turn fuels talk for 2020
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However, other attendees, like 64-year-old Vicki Ward, who drove two hours to the event from Vermont, were
ready to throw their support behind Warren on the first day of the senator's presidential campaign.
"I think she's got the qualities that we need," she said. "I think we need a woman president and I think it
will be the fight of our lives."
Maryann Johnson, who came to Warren's announcement from New Hampshire, also said she was already sold on
Warren.
"I basically agreed with everything she said. We need to have more equality, there needs to be less corruption
in government," she said. "She's inspiring."
"Fauxcahontas " is never going to live this one down.
In a report published Tuesday night, just before President Trump started his State of the
Union,
the Washington Post revealed that it had discovered a document where 2020 Democratic
presidential contender Elizabeth Warren, who was exposed by a DNA test that backfired late last
year for having a negligible amount of Native American heritage, listed her race as "American
Indian" on a registration card for the Texas State Bar in the mid-1980s.
The card lists Warren's name, gender and the address for the University of Texas law school
in Austin, where she was working at the time. On the line for "race," Warren wrote: "American
Indian." Meanwhile, lines for "National Origin" and "Physical handicap" were left blank.
As
WaPo explains, "the card is significant" because, for the first time, it shows that Warren
"directly claimed the identity."
One spokeswoman said Warren was sorry for "not more mindful of this" (presumably referring
to the risks that this would all blow up in her face later in life), when she was younger, and
for falsely identifying as a Native American for more than two decades.
"I can't go back," Warren told WaPo.
According to WaPo, the card, dated April 1986, is the first document to surface showing
Warren claiming Native American heritage in her own handwriting. Her office didn't deny the
authenticity of the document.
WaPo explained that it found the card through an open-records request.
Using an open records request during a general inquiry, for example, The Post obtained
Warren's registration card for the State Bar of Texas, providing a previously undisclosed
example of Warren identifying as an "American Indian."
The card was filled out by Warren after she was admitted to the Texas bar. Her reasons for
joining the bar are unclear: Though, at the time, she was doing legal work on the side, the
work wasn't anything that required her to be admitted to the bar. The date on the card
coincided with her fist self-identified listing as a "minority" by the Association of American
Law Schools, where she reported herself as a minority in the directory every year beginning in
1986 (the year the Association started listing minority law professors). Her name dropped off
that list in 1995.
Warren also famously had her ethnicity changed to Native American from "White" in December,
1989 while working at UPenn, two years after she was hired. She also listed her ethnicity as
Native American when she started working at Harvard Law School in 1995.
In a sign that Warren's listing herself as Native American may have been more an act of
self-delusion than an attempt to give herself a leg up in the world of academia, the card
explicitly states that "the following information is for statistical purposes only and will not
be disclosed to any person or organization without the express written consent of the
attorney."
Back in October, Warren's decision to release her DNA test results revealed that she had a
negligible level of Native American heritage (possibly as little as 1/1,024 Native) while the
stunt - which backfired spectacularly - angered leaders of the Cherokee nation, who, as WaPo
explained, typically exercise tight control over the process of connecting individuals with the
tribe. Warren's apology for that incident hasn't been uniformly accepted, and there are still
some who want to see a more thorough apology from Warren.
Whether this is enough to sink her primary bid remains to be seen. But one thing is for
sure: We imagine President Trump will be weighing in with some more prospective campaign
materials.
When you overemphasize and exaggerate identity politics beyond all reason, you're bound to
get plenty of people playing these angles. She's already benefited from it, so too *******
bad.
Obama graduated from Columbia University in 1983 with a degree in political science and
graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1991.
Trump graduated from the undergraduate school of finance and commerce at Penn
(Wharton school), but he did not graduate at the top of his class or with honors. He did NOT
graduate at the top of his class at Wharton undergrad or grad, as the Liar in Chief has
frequently quipped. It is believed he was in the bottom third of the undergraduate class.
It is illegal under federal law to release any former student's records to
reporters or members of the public without that person's specific, written permission. Obama
hasn't released them, but neither have other presidential candidates released their college
records.
Trump has not released his records from Penn either. But of course he is your Orange
Geezus, so this is an inconvenient truth for you
Is anyone else tired of the longest, least productive waste of war in American history ? What
have we achieved, where are we going with this ? More war.
We are being fed a fairy tale of war about what men, long dead, did. And the reason they did
it. America is being strangled by the burden of belief that now is like then.
By the patrician men and women administrators, posturing as soldiers like the WW2 army, lie
for self profit. Why does anyone believe them ? Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, each an economic
decision, rather than a security issue.
Capitalists need their options regulated and their markets ripped from their control by the
state. Profits must be subject to use it to a social purpose or heavily taxed. Dividends
executive comp and interest payments included
Well done! Much clearer than your usual. There are several distinct motivations for taxes. We
have been far enough from fairness to workers, for so long, that we need to use the tax
system to redistribute the accumulated wealth of the plutocrats.
So I would say high marginal rates are a priority, which matches both objectives. Wealth
tax is needed until we reverse the massive inequality supported by the policies of the last
40 years.
Carbon tax and the like are a different thing, use of the tax code to promote a particular
policy and reduce damage to the commons.
"...we need to use the tax system to redistribute the accumulated wealth of the plutocrats.
So I would say high marginal rates are a priority..."
Forgive me, but high marginal rates (which I hugely favor) don't "redistribute the
accumulated wealth" of the plutocrats. If such high marginal rates are ever enacted, they'll
apply only to the current income of such plutocrats.
You merged paragraphs, and elided the next one. The way I see it, high rates are a
prerequisite to prevent the reaccumulation of obscene wealth, and its diversion into
financial gambling.
But yes that would be a very slow way to redistribute what has already accumulated.
Didn't mean to misinterpret what you were saying, sorry. High rates are not only "a
prerequisite to prevent the reaccumulation of obscene wealth," they are also a reimposition
of fair taxation on current income (if it ever happens, of course).
Wealth tax is needed until we reverse the massive inequality supported by the policies of the
last 40 years. Carbon tax and the like are a different thing, use of the tax code to promote
a particular policy and reduce damage to the commons.
"
more wisdom as usual!
Although wealth tax will be unlikely, it could be a stopgap; could also be a guideline to
other taxes as well. for example, Elizabeth points out that billionaires pay about 3% of
their net worth into their annual tax bill whereas workers pay about 7% of their net worth
into their annual tax bill. Do you see how that works?
it doesn't? this Warren argument gives us a guideline. it shows us where other taxes
should be adjusted to even out this percentage of net worth that people are taxed for. Ceu,
during the last meltdown 10 years or so ago, We were collecting more tax from the payroll
than we were from the income tax. this phenomenon was a heavy burden on those of low net
worth. All this needs be resorted. we've got to sort this out.
and the carbon tax? may never be; but it indicates to us what needs to be done to make
this country more efficient. for example some folks, are spending half a million dollars on
the Maybach automobile, about the same amount on a Ferrari or a Alfa Romeo Julia
quadrifoglio, but the roads are built for a mere 40 miles an hour, full of potholes.
What good is it to own a fast car like that when you can't drive but 40 -- 50 miles an
hour? and full of traffic jams. something is wrong with taxation incentives. we need to get a
better grid-work of roads that will get people there faster.
Meanwhile most of those sports cars just sitting in the garage. we need a comprehensive
integrated grid-work of one way streets, roads, highways, and interstates with no traffic
lights, no stop signs; merely freeflow ramp-off overpass interchanges.
Jesus Christ said, in so many words, that a man's worth will be judged by his generosity and
his avarice.
" 24And the disciples were amazed at His words. But Jesus said to them again, "Children,
how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25It is easier for a camel to pass through the
eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." 26They were even more
astonished and said to one another, "Who then can be saved?"
He called
Warren's wealth tax proposal "ridiculous" and Harris'
single-payer health care plan "not American," while also saying "we can't afford" debt-free
college, a plank likely to end up in many candidates' platforms.
"What's 'ridiculous' is billionaires who think they can buy the presidency to keep the
system rigged for themselves while opportunity slips away for everyone else," Warren fired back on
Twitter.
Bill Burton, a former deputy press secretary in the Obama White House who is now working for
Schultz, told NBC News that his boss anticipated there would be "immediate vigorous debate
about whether this is a good idea."
"... Uber passengers were paying only 41% of the actual cost of their trips; Uber was using these massive subsidies to undercut the fares and provide more capacity than the competitors who had to cover 100% of their costs out of passenger fares. ..."
"... Warren Supports Medicare for All Only Nominally ..."
"... Never mind that Warren can say, virtually in the same breath, that insurance companies "still make plenty of money" and "we have plenty of work to do to bring down health care spending." RomneyCare was the beta version of ObamaCare. We tried it, as a nation, starting in 2009, and here we are.[5] Is that's what Warren wants, fine, but why not simply advocate for it? ..."
"... Except, perhaps, one distinctly slanted toward insiders. " Work hard and play by the rules " is a Clintonite trope ..."
"... but only through the institutional framework of unions ..."
"... Warren's emphasis on the economic market for health "care?" (insurance companies making plenty of money ..."
"... I've long ago disabused myself of the notion that E. Warren is more than "lipstick" on the usual "pig", but it was good to have written support for that thesis and I will save it for my reference. ..."
"... Non-profit health insurance Company – https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/money/business/2014/04/25/former-excellus-ceo-package-total-m/8155853/ The final retirement package for former Excellus BlueCross BlueShield CEO David Klein likely will exceed -- by millions -- the $12.9 million the company reported to the state in March. $29.8 Million in retirement. Non-profit for who? It's a complete misnomer and a huge problem in the discourse of healthcare. Hospitals are usually non-profits too. They non-profitly charge you $80,000 for a few stitches and some aspirin. ..."
"... The transcript could easily have been a speech by Hillary (and even delivered to Goldman Sachs if Hillary had had the foresight to realize that every speech would become known to everybody in the Internet age -- before Russiagate was leveraged into Social media banning of anti-establishment speech). ..."
"... The Eric Schmidt who took Google down the primrose part of spying on everybody. Warren is centrist. ..."
"... Warren 2020 campaign is DOA. If you want Trump for another four years go with Warren 2020. Bernie would have won. ..."
"... " Elizabeth Warren is Hillary Clinton reborn, and they're both unlikable, because they're both inauthentic scolds who suffer from hall monitor syndrome. They spent their entire lives breaking every rule they could find while awkwardly fantasizing about running every tiny detail of everyone else's lives . ..."
Posted on January
20, 2019 by Lambert Strether
New America (board chair emeritus Eric Schmidt
, President the aptronymic Anne-Marie
Slaughter ), a
nominally center-left
Beltway think tank ( funding ) "
took up the mission of designing a new social contract
in 2007 and was the first organization [anywhere?] to frame its vision in these terms." On May 19, 2016, New America sponsored an
annual conference (there was no 2017 iteration) entitled "The Next Social Contract." Elizabeth Warren, presidential contender, was
invited to give the opening keynote (
transcript , whicn includes
video). Warren shared a number of interesting ideas. I will quote portions of her speech, followed by brief commentary, much of it
already familiar to NC readers, in an effort to situate her
more firmly
in the political landscape. But first, let me quote Warren's opening paragraph:
It is so good to be here with all of you. And yes I will be calling on people. Mostly those of you standing in the back. I
always know why people are standing in the back. That's what teachers do.
Professional-class dominance games aside, it's evident that Warren is comfortable here. These are her people. And I would urge
that, no matter what policy position she might take on the trail, these policies and this program are her "center of gravity," as
it were. Push her left (or, to be fair, right) and, like a
bobo doll , she will return to this upright position
. So, to the text (all quotes from Warren from the
transcript ). I'll start
with two blunders, and then move on to more subtle material.
Warren Does Not Understand Uber's Business Model
Or, in strong form, Warren fell for Uber's propaganda.[1] Warren says:
Thank you to the New America Foundation for inviting me here today to talk about the gig economy You know, across the country,
new companies are using the Internet to transform the way that Americans work, shop, socialize, vacation, look for love, talk
to the doctor, get around, and track down ten foot feather boas, which is actually my latest search on Amazon .
These innovations have helped improve our lives in countless ways, reducing inefficiencies and leveraging network effects to
help grow our economy. And this is real growth . The most famous example of this is probably the ride-sharing platforms in our
cities. The taxi cab industry was riddled with monopolies, rents, inefficiencies. Cities limited the number of taxi licenses
Uber and Lyft, two ride-sharing platforms came onto the scene about five years ago, radically altered this model, enabling
anyone with a smartphone and a car to deliver rides . The result was more rides, cheaper rides, and shorter wait times.
The ride-sharing story illustrates the promise of these new businesses. And the dangers. Uber and Lyft fought against local
taxi cab rules that kept prices high and limited access to services .
And while their businesses provide workers with greater flexibility, companies like Lyft and Uber have often resisted efforts
of those very same workers to try to access a greater share of the wealth that is generated from the work that they
do. Their business model is, in part , dependent on extremely low wages for their drivers.
"In part" is doing rather a lot of work, there, even more than "the wealth that is generated," because NC readers know, Uber's
business model is critically dependent on massive subsidies from investors, without which is would not exist as a firm.
Hubert Horan (November 30, 2016):
Published financial data shows that Uber is losing more money than any startup in history and that its ability to capture customers
and drivers from incumbent operators is entirely due to $2 billion in annual investor subsidies. The vast majority of media coverage
presumes Uber is following the path of prominent digitally-based startups whose large initial losses transformed into strong profits
within a few years.
This presumption is contradicted by Uber's actual financial results, which show no meaningful margin improvement through
2015 while the limited margin improvements achieved in 2016 can be entirely explained by Uber-imposed cutbacks to driver
compensation. It is also contradicted by the fact that Uber lacks the major scale and network economies that allowed digitally-based
startups to achieve rapid margin improvement.
As a private company, Uber is not required to publish financial statements, and financial statements disseminated privately
are not required to be audited in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) or satisfy the SEC's reporting
standards for public companies.
The financial tables below are based on private financial statements that Uber shared with investors that were published in
the financial press on three separate occasions. The first set included data for 2012, 2013 and the first half of 2014
The second set included tables of GAAP profit data for full year 2014 and the first half of 2015 ; the third set included
summary EBITAR contribution data for the first half of 2016. .
[F]or the year ending September 2015, Uber had GAAP losses of $2 billion on revenue of $1.4 billion, a negative 143% profit
margin. Thus Uber's current operations depend on $2 billion in subsidies, funded out of the $13 billion in cash its investors
have provided.
Uber passengers were paying only 41% of the actual cost of their trips; Uber was using these massive subsidies to undercut
the fares and provide more capacity than the competitors who had to cover 100% of their costs out of passenger fares.
Many other tech startups lost money as they pursued growth and market share, but losses of this magnitude are unprecedented;
in its worst-ever four quarters, in 2000, Amazon had a negative 50% margin, losing $1.4 billion on $2.8 billion in revenue, and
the company responded by firing more than 15 percent of its workforce. 2015 was Uber's fifth year of operations; at that point
in its history Facebook was achieving 25% profit margins.
Now, in Warren's defense, it is true that she, on May 19, 2016, could not have had the benefit of Horan's post at Naked Capitalism,
which was published only on November 30, 2016. However, I quoted Horan's post at length to show the dates: The data was out there;
it wasn't a secret; it only needed a staffer with a some critical thinking skills and a mandate to do the research to come to the
same conclusions Horan did, and Uber's lack of profitabilty, easily accessible, is a ginormous red flag for anybody who takes the
idea that Uber "generates wealth" seriously. How is it that the wonkish Warren is recommending policy based on what can only be superfical
research in the trade and technical press? Should not the professor have done the reading?[2]
Warren Does Not Understand How Federal Taxation Works
The second blunder. Warren says:
First, make sure that every worker pays into Social Security, as the law has always intended. Right now, it is a challenge
for someone who doesn't have an employer that automatically deducts payroll taxes to pay into Social Security. This can affect
both a worker's ability to qualify for disability insurance after a major [injury], and it can result in much lower retirement
benefits. If Social Security is to be fully funded for generations to come, and if all workers are to have adequate benefits,
then electronic, automatic, mandatory withholding of payroll taxes must apply to everyone , gig workers, 1099 workers, and
hourly employees.
It is laudable that Warren wants to bring all workers in the retirement system. But as NC readers know, Federal taxes do not "pay
for" Federal spending, and hence Warren's thinking that Social Security will be "fully funded" through "payroll taxes" is a nonsense
(and also reinforces incredibly destructive neoliberal austerity policies). I will not tediously rehearse MMT's approach to taxation,
but will simply quote a recent tweet from Warren Mosler:
Warren is indeed a co-sponsor
of Sanders' (
inadequate
) S1804. But read the following passages, and you will see #MedicareForAll not where her passion lies:
As greater wealth is generated by new technology, how can we ensure that the workers who support the economy can actually share
in the wealth?
(The idea that workers "support" "the" [whose?] "economy," instead of driving or being the economy, is interesting, but
let that pass.)
Warren then proceeds to lay out a number of policies to answer that question. She says:
Well, I believe we start with one simple principle. All workers, no matter where they work, no matter how they work, no matter
when they work, no matter who they work for, whether they pick tomatoes or build rocket ships, all workers should have some basic
protections and be able to build some economic security for themselves and their families. No worker should fall through the cracks.
And here are some ideas about how to rethink and strengthen the worker's bargain.
So, she's not just laying out policy for the gig economy (the occasion of the speech); she's laying out a social contract (the
topic of the speech). Picking through the next sections, here is the material on health care:
We can start by strengthening our safety net so that it catches anyone who has fallen on hard times, whether they have a formal
employer or not. And there are three much-needed changes right off the bat on this.
I hate the very concept of a "safety net." Why should life be like a tightrope walk? Who wants that, except crazypants neoliberal
professors, mostly tenured? She then makes recommendations for three policies, and sums up:
These three, Social Security, catastrophic insurance, and earned leave, create a safety net for income.
Hello? Medical bankruptcy ?[3]
She then moves on from the "safety net" for income to benefits, which is the aegis under which she places health care:
Now, the second area of change to make is on employee benefits, both for healthcare and retirement. To make them fully portable.
They belong to the worker, no matter what company or platform generates the income, they should follow that worker wherever that
worker goes. And the corollary to this is that workers without formal employers should have access to the same kinds of benefits
that some employees already have.
I want to be clear here. The Affordable Care Act is a big step toward addressing this problem for healthcare. Providing access
for workers who don't have employer-sponsored coverage and providing a long term structure for portability. We should improve
on that structure, enhancing its portability, and reducing the managerial involvement of employers.
Remember, this is a Democratic audience, and what do we get? "Portability," "access", and reduced "managerial involvement." That's
about as weak as tea can possibly get, and this is a liberal Democrat audience. ("The same kinds of benefits that some employees
already have." Eeesh.) But wait, you say! This speech iis in 2016, and in 2018, Warren supports #MedicareForAll! For example, "
Health care: Supports the "Medicare for All" bill led by Bernie Sanders " (PBS, January 17, 2019). But notice how equivocal that
support is. Quoting PBS again, Warren "called that approach 'a goal worth fighting for.'" Rather equivocal! And folliowing the link
to that quote, we find it's from a
speech
Warren gave to Families USA's Health Action 2018 Conference :
I endorsed Bernie Sanders' Medicare for All bill because it lays out a way to give every single person in this country a guarantee
of high-quality health care. Everybody is covered. Nobody goes broke because of a medical bill. No more fighting with insurance
companies. This is a goal worth fighting for, and I'm in this fight all the way.
There are other approaches as well I'm glad to see us put different ideas on the table.
So, we have a gesture toward #MedicareForAll. But then, Warren, instead of going into detail about how #MedicareForAll would work,
immediately backtracks and emits a welter of detail about minor fixes improvements, on the order of "portability," "access,"
and reduced "managerial involvement." (Different details, but still details). Then she moves on to Massachusetts. Read this, and
it's clear where Warren's heart is:
Massachusetts has the highest rate of health insurance coverage in the nation. We are the healthiest state in the nation[4].
That didn't just happen because we woke up one morning and discovered that insurance companies had just started offering great
coverage at a price everyone could afford.
We demanded that insurance companies live up to their side of the bargain. Every insurer participating in our exchange is required
to offer plans with standard, easy-to-compare benefits and low up-front costs for families. Last year, we had the second-lowest
premiums in the ACA market of any state in the country. Massachusetts insurers pay out 92% of the dollars they bring in through
premiums to cover costs for beneficiaries – not to line their own pockets.
The rules are tough in Massachusetts, but the insurance companies have shown up and done the hard work of covering families
in a responsible way. We have more than double the number of insurers participating on our exchanges, compared to the average
across the country. They show up, they serve the people of Massachusetts, and they still make plenty of money.
Look, we still have plenty of work to do, particularly when it comes to bring down health spending, but we're proud of the
system we have built in Massachusetts, and I think it shows that good policies can have a real impact on the health and well-being
of hard working people across the country.
Never mind that Warren can say, virtually in the same breath, that insurance companies "still make plenty of money" and "we
have plenty of work to do to bring down health care spending." RomneyCare was the beta version of ObamaCare. We tried it, as a nation,
starting in 2009, and here we are.[5] Is that's what Warren wants, fine, but why not simply advocate for it?
Warren Has No Coherent Theory of Change
Except, perhaps, one distinctly slanted toward insiders. "
Work hard and play by the rules
" is a Clintonite trope, but let's search on "rules" and see what we come up with. More from the transcript:
But it is policy, rules and regulations, that will determine whether workers have a meaningful opportunity to share
in the wealth that is generated.
Here, workers are passive , acted upon by rules, and those who create them. But Warren contradicts herself: "Lyft and
Uber have often resisted efforts of those very same workers." Here, workers are active. But if workers are active in the second context,
they are also active in the first! Where does Warren think change comes from? The generosity of Uber and its investors? More:
Antitrust laws and newly-created public utilities addressed the new technological revolution's tendency toward concentration
and monopoly, and kept our markets competitive. Rules to prevent cheating and fraud were added to make sure that bad actors in
the marketplace couldn't get a leg up over folks who played by the rules.
Note the lack of agency in "were added." Warren erases
the
entire Populist Movement ! She also can't seem to get her head round the idea that workers didn't necessarily play by the existing
ruies in order to create new ones. And:
Workers have a right to expect our government to work for them. To set the basic rules of the game. If this country is to have
a strong middle class, then we need the policies that will make that possible. That's how shared prosperity has been built in
the past, and that is our way forward now. Change won't be easy. But we don't get what we don't fight for. And I believe that
America's workers are worth fighting for.
Now, on the one hand, this is great. I, too, believe that "America's workers are worth fighting for." What Warren seems to lack,
at the visceral level, is the idea that workers should be (self-)empowered to do the fighting (as opposed to having the
professional classes pick their fights for them). Here is Warren on unions:
Every worker should have the right to organize, period. Full-time, part-time, temp workers, gig workers, contract workers,
you bet.
Very good. More:
Those who provide the labor should have the right to bargain as a group with whoever controls the terms of their work .
The idea that workers themselves should control the terms of their work seems to elude Warren. This erases, for example, co-ops.
More:
Government is not the only advocate on behalf of workers.
"Not the only?" Like, there are lots of others? This seems a tendentious, not to say naive, view of the role of government. More:
It was workers [here we go], bargaining through their unions [and the qualification], who helped [helped?] introduce retirement
benefits, sick pay, overtime, the weekend, and a long list of other benefits, for their members and for all workers across this
country. Unions helped build America's middle class, and unions will help rebuild America's middle class.
Here, at least, Warren grants workers (partial) agency, but only through the institutional framework of unions . That
distorts the history. Granted, "helped introduce" is doing a lot of work, and who they were "helping" isn't entirely clear,
but the history is enormously complicated. (Here again, Warren needs to do the reading.) For example,
the history
of the weekend long predates unions . And "bargaining through their unions" isn't the half of it. Take, for example,
the Haymarket Affair . From the Illinois
Labor History Society:
To understand what happened at Haymarket, it is necessary to go back to the summer of 1884 when the Federation of Organized
Trades and Labor Unions, the predecessor of the American Federation of Labor, called for May 1, 1886 to be the beginning of a
nationwide movement for the eight-hour day. This wasn't a particularly radical idea since both Illinois workers and federal employees
were supposed to have been covered by an eight-hour day law since 1867. The problem was that the federal government failed to
enforce its own law, and in Illinois, employers forced workers to sign waivers of the law as condition of employment.
Fine, "rules." Which weren't being obeyed! More from the Illinois Labor History Society:
Monday, May 3, the peaceful scene turned violent when the Chicago police attacked and killed picketing workers at the McCormick
Reaper Plant at Western and Blue Island Avenues. This attack by police provoked a protest meeting which was planned for Haymarket
Square on the evening of Tuesday, May 4. Very few textbooks provide a thorough explanation of the events that led to Haymarket,
nor do they mention that the pro-labor mayor of Chicago, Carter Harrison, gave permission for the meeting . Most speakers failed
to appear . Instead of the expected 20,000 people, fewer than 2,500 attended . The Haymarket meeting was almost over and only
about two hundred people remained when they were attacked by 176 policemen carrying Winchester repeater rifles. Fielden was speaking;
even Lucy and Albert Parsons had left because it was beginning to rain. Then someone, unknown to this day, threw the first dynamite
bomb ever used in peacetime history of the United States. The next day martial law was declared, not just in Chicago but throughout
the nation. Anti-labor governments around the world used the Chicago incident to crush local union movements.
This is how workers "helped introduce" the eight-hour day.
Yes, America's workers are "worth fighting for." But they also fight for themselves , and are fought against! Warren's
theory of change -- which seems to involve people of good will "at the table" -- cannot give an account of events like Haymarket
or why, in the present day, it's Uber's drivers who are also the drivers of change, and not benevolent rulemakers. Warren's views
on the social contract are in great contrast to Sanders'
"Not me, us."
NOTES
[1] Warren is far stronger in areas where she has developed academic expertise than in areas where she has not.
[2] Google is Google, i.e., crapified, but if Warren has retracted or changed her views on Uber, I can't find it. She was receiving
good press for this speech as late as
August 2017 .
[3] Oddly, bankruptcy is where Warren made her academic bones. I'm frankly baffled at her lack of full-throated advocacy on this,
especially before a friendly audience.
[4] Warren, by juxtaposition, suggests that Massachusetts' health insurance coverage causes it to be "the healthiest
state in the nation." This post hoc fallacy ignores, for example,
demographics and
the social determinants of health .
[5] Warren focuses on health insurance, not health care. I'm nothing like an expert in the Massachusetts health insurance system.
However, looking at this
chart , I'm seeing all the usual techniques to deny access to care: Deductibles, co-pays, out-of-network costs, and (naturally)
high-deductible plans. Health care should be free at the point of delivery. Why is that so hard to understand?
I quickly went over the (188 page!) report referenced in Warren's claim that "Massachusetts has the highest rate of health
insurance coverage in the nation. We are the healthiest state in the nation". It should be noted I went in with the expressed
purpose of finding something to be snarky about, and I found it.
One of the metrics under "core measures" of clinical care was Preventable Hospitalizations. As it states in the report itself:
"Preventable hospitalizations reflect the efficiency of a population's use of primary care and the quality of the primary health
care received Preventable hospitalizations are more common among people without health insurance and often occur because of failure
to treat conditions early in an outpatient setting". Wow! With such bang up health insurance in MA, one would figure they would
do great on this metric. Nope! MA ranks 37th in the country. Many more such examples can be found, I'm sure.
I have a real dislike of these "who's best" lists, regardless of topic. Rarely do they (the aggregated ratings) contain insight
beyond that captured by the individual metrics.
Massachusetts is #1 on mortality (though they have issues with opioids). They have median US age, so it's not the enormous
Boston student population. So they're doing something right, I'm just not sold it's health insurance or, more to the point, health
insurers. They do have more physicians (and psychiatrists) per capita.
What is "mortality" in this case? I'm curious about this because people often casually say that US health outcomes are worse
than in other countries by looking at life expectancy (which I guess is not the same as mortality), and that comparison is rarely
done on a state by state basis in the US.
Also amazed just now to see that Asian American and Latino life expectancy are so much higher than for white and black Americans.
Does anyone know anything about that? I'm really stunned.
Usually, lower life expectancy for blacks is given as evidence of inequality, but the white-black gap (about 1-2 years) is
tiny compared with the black-Latino and black-Asian gap, or for that matter, the white-Latino or white-Asian gap, which are more
like 5-10 years. I'm really floored by that.
In general, looking at the numbers just now has shaken my assumptions about poor US life expectancy and also racial disparities
and I'm wondering if I'm misinterpreting them.
So, why Mass. has a relatively high life expectancy could in part be due to it having one of the earliest and most aggressive
anti-smoking movements. I'm guessing historically high smoking rates (up to 50% of adults in the 1950s with huge second-hand exposure)
could also account for poorer health outcomes today.
One of my favorite pictures (the one I have not yet taken) would have been an elevated shot of the intersection at Longwood
and Brookline Avenues (379–385 Brookline Ave) at noon on a clear, sunny spring day to see the murmuration of medical staff running
between appointments, lunch, rounds, etc.
The intersection is surrounded by arguably some of the finest medical institutions in the Western world (Beth Israel Deaconess,
Dana-Farber, Brigham & Women's (where Atul Gawande, author of the book "Better" and the whole entire concept of positive deviance,
once held court), Harvard Medical School itself with its etched-in-granite entrace to the Countway Library that reads "Ars Longa,
Vita Brevis", and the Harvard School of Public Health.
The murmuration of white coats may be at that moment the greatest single concentrated density of medical excellence at one
time. It is easy to scoff. I've been the recipient of bad medicine myself, but also far more high-quality, life-saving medicine.
But the public health movement in Massachusetts has been around for a very long time and is supported by and engrained within
governmental regulations, oversight and policy. Insurance plans covering most of the state ranked, typically and for years, #'s
1, 2, 3 and more. The Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Systems report out results that are painstakingly gathered,
audited to improve performance. It is fair to say that a major part of the intersection between computing and medicine was born
and is overseen across the river in Cambridge. Organizations that collect or audit data for health plans and providers are screened,
trained and certified by NCQA ( https://www.ncqa.org/about-ncqa/
).
In addition, there are national, regional and state associations devoted to quality improvement and toi improvement of access.
The National Association of Community Health Centers (those clinics funded Federally to serve the under-served for free or on
a sliding scale) "works in conjunction with state and regional primary care associations, health center controlled networks and
other public and private sector organizations to expand health care access to all in need." There are CHC's dotted everywhere
around the country (albeit not enough of them), and there is a state association in almost every state. No one can ever be turned
away from a CHC, especially for lack of ability to pay; the Federal government underwrites their care.
govts can call force us to call toilet paper a pound, but i doubt they can make it worth a pound of sterling silver – if they
pretend that they can produce any amount.
Warren's emphasis on the economic market for health "care?" (insurance companies making plenty of money ) and
particularly her whole rant on the superlatives of Massachusetts insurance care (that means, care for insurance companies)
, increasingly neglects health and people care as the primary concern of medicine and the people who practice
it.
As an average Joe, meaning not part of the medical world, I have come across a surprising number of doctors in both social
circumstances as well as health issues of my own and of my extended family, where doctors have complained about the ever worsening
constraints imposed on them by insurance companies. I know at least three doctors who retired early because of it and one of them
talks about it being a significant problem in keeping highly qualified doctors in general practice. From ever more ridiculously
short visits, to constant refusal to cover such and such a drug, to all manner of schemes to improve patients health by overseeing
and controlling what the doctor does to finding ways to monitor what the patient does; what he or she takes as medicine and exactly
when and how often – cutting the doctor out of the loop completely. Improve the patient experience my *ss. It's horrible and it
all comes down to ever new ways to reduce coverage – to make more money.
Perhaps I'm being a little unjust, but Warren seems fine with this "system" where the gate keepers make, "plenty of money,"
as long as people are going in and out of doctors' offices in countable droves as if on run-away conveyer belts. I should at least
allow that many of her superlative claims are accurate (or somewhat accurate) and that there is fairly wide coverage in
this state but nevertheless stress that our excellent medical facilities in Boston proper are due to historical reasons and NOT
to RomneyCare.
Thank you Lambert, for your cogent and discerning analysis as always. I've long ago disabused myself of the notion that
E. Warren is more than "lipstick" on the usual "pig", but it was good to have written support for that thesis and I will save
it for my reference.
What worries me more though is Sanders's bill and why he wouldn't go all the way? Would you do an analysis of that please –
will really appreciate it.
The vast majority of Massachusetts health plan providers are nonprofit HMOs so I'm baffled by the idea that they are making
tons of money since legally they are not supposed to.
The most obvious difference between Mass and the rest of the country is precisely the preponderance of nonprofit health plans
(it's not commonly called health insurance here) and nonprofit hospitals. The idea of for-profit health plans and hospitals freaks
me out.
It's worth noting that Mass health coverage seems to have gotten worse in recent years, though I don't know how much of that
is due to Obamacare. High deductibles, coinsurance, confusing in-network requirements combined with poor documentation and even
poorer customer service to tell you what is in-network and what is not. I just got a surprise $370 bill for a provider that supposedly
was out of network even though I had checked extensively that they were in-network. That is the first time that has ever happened
to me in Mass. Not to mention the confusing and unnerving notices I got the last few months saying I was in danger of losing coverage.
A great big ball of Weberian beaureaucratic stress.
Non-profit health insurance Company –
https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/money/business/2014/04/25/former-excellus-ceo-package-total-m/8155853/ The final
retirement package for former Excellus BlueCross BlueShield CEO David Klein likely will exceed -- by millions -- the $12.9 million
the company reported to the state in March. $29.8 Million in retirement. Non-profit for who? It's a complete misnomer and a huge
problem in the discourse of healthcare. Hospitals are usually non-profits too. They non-profitly charge you $80,000 for a few
stitches and some aspirin.
Health Care Economist / Professor Uwe Reinhardt used to comment that in the current system non-profit hospitals (The Sisters
of Mercy, with a token nun on their board, in his telling) were subject to the same forces as for profit hospitals.
He also said Massachusetts has the only adult health care system, and the other states are all adolescents.
Wow, I'd missed that (moved out of state, then came back). Thanks for the update. It looks like the Catholic Church (former
owner of Caritas) has further enhanced its legacy in Massachusetts. However, I believe it is still true that the hospital market
in Mass. is dominated by nonprofits (albeit greedy nonprofits).
And yes, hospitals and hospital chains (e.g., Partners Healthcare, which is nonprofit) pose huge challenges to managing healthcare
costs in Mass. as the numerous Boston Globe investigative series attest, by using their market power to raises prices.
My concern is when the market becomes dominated by for-profit actors, the profit-seeking, which is already bad with nonprofits,
becomes even worse, especially in an ultra-expensive market like Greater Boston.
I should add (if my earlier comment get's posted), it's even more surprising how many doctor's seem just fine with all the
negative changes being brought about by insurance companies' intrusive quest for control and I don't mean just the ones who say
nothing.
That is, some doctors seem to enjoy the vestiges of the glow of community respect and honor that once went with being a doctor
all while doing almost nothing other than sheep herding patients through the office in good file while staff (not the good doctor)
attend to making the visit digital and storing it away in some cloud.
I agree with Warren Mosler that Elizabeth Warren's apparent ignorance of MMT, much less mastery of it, makes here a lame candidate
in my book. She needs to get woke pretty quickly or settle for some cabinet appointment.
You don't even need MMT. When asked how the federal government can pay for something, people can just answer, "the same way
we pay for military and intelligence spending." Any politician who won't say at least this is deeply suspicious.
In The Unwinding , George Packer quotes Elizabeth Warren as describing her political views thusly:
"I was a Republican because I thought that those were the people who best supported markets"
I'm glad that she's out there, I'm glad that she's talking, and we need an open and transparent nomination process, but Bernie
Sanders remains the only (potential) nominee who comes close to representing my views. Good piece.
The transcript could easily have been a speech by Hillary (and even delivered to Goldman Sachs if Hillary had had the foresight
to realize that every speech would become known to everybody in the Internet age -- before Russiagate was leveraged into Social
media banning of anti-establishment speech).
The speech's date (May 19 2016), was two days after Bernie won the Oregon primary by 14%, and two days before Hillary won the
Washington state primary by 5%.
The Eric Schmidt who took Google doen the path of spying on everybody. He has nothing to offer by centrist rhetoric. It would
be very interesting in how much In-Q-Tel invested in Google.
Thanks for this post.
And thanks for the reminder that the 8 hour workday and the 40 hour workweek were not 'given' to workers, they were won by workers.
Giant companies may hate my Affordable Drug Manufacturing bill – but I don't work for them. The American people deserve
competitive markets and fair prices. By fixing the broken generic drug market, we can bring the cost of prescriptions down.
Sanders:
If the pharmaceutical industry will not end its greed, which is literally killing Americans, then we will end it for them.
Tell me what about Warren not understanding how federal taxes work, which is fundamental to formulating sound fiscal policy
and spending plans, not being serious about fixing our health care system, or praising the predatory gig economy, is "good".
On a side note: self-employed workers pay more out-of-pocket into Social Security than W-2 employees. W-2 employees only pay
half the Social Security tax – employers pay the other half via a "payroll tax."
The self-employed pay both the employee's half of Social Security, and also pay a "Self-Employment tax" (the employer's half
of Social Security). The logic is that if you are both employee and employer, you should pay both halves.
This is thread jacking, plus an economist would point out that the employer clearly is paying a net wage that reflects his
awareness that he is paying the employer side of the FICA taxes.
Or lesser of two evils? There really needs to be a good discussion again about reform versus structural change without Chait-like
pretensions. The question isn't just whether we'll get there in time, but whether reform even out runs reaction. Once you take
out patriotic myth, it's not obvious whethervthe good in the long term is even worth bothering with.
I can't help but think that if you are talking about the "Next Social Contract", them you should put something in there that
if you have children going hungry then something has gone wrong with your society. Not being snarky here as I believe that a fundamental
purpose of society is to protect those in need. An earlier society talked about 'women and children first' and they were not too
far off the mark here.
She was invited to talk about the gig economy but in reading her speech I was under the impression that she wants the Federal
government to underwrite the costs of workers for corporations to ensure that maybe these workers have food to eat while working
for these very same corporations. I suspect that this is the thinking behind letting Amazon workers go for Federal assistance
for the sheer basics of life while Amazon makes off like bandits.
No. The way to go is to enforce corporations like this pay a living wage and not to have them count on the country to make
up the difference. If they start to protest, then start to talk about looking over their accounts for any discrepancies to make
them back off. That's how they got Al Capone you know. Not for being a gangster but for not paying his taxes while doing so. And
do the same for mobs like Uber and Lyft and all the other corporations.
" Elizabeth Warren is Hillary Clinton reborn, and they're both unlikable, because they're both inauthentic scolds who suffer
from hall monitor syndrome. They spent their entire lives breaking every rule they could find while awkwardly fantasizing about
running every tiny detail of everyone else's lives ."
Sigh. Nail hit squarely on head. The one thing I will say to Warren's credit is that she has learned in some specific ways
that the world isn't invariably the pure meritocracy that is so instinctively part of her world view. That said, it seems clear
there will always be plenty that she is simply not capable of seeing, so she will always say and support things that are just
wrong. She will not be leading the revolution.
"... Even voters too ignorant to see Trump for what he really was - voters that are misinformed to the point that they unwittingly and continually vote against their own best interests - realized how much the Dems have sold out to Wall Street. ..."
"... That's why they anointed Obama who then proceeded to squander eight years of opportunity to remove big money from politics and enact progressive reforms to health care, the environment, etc. ..."
"... Bernie is a bit long in the tooth, so I am all in for Liz Warren. She's the only one with both the courage and the intelligence to take on the big money that controls our politics. ..."
"... Sanders or Warren would mean a change from neoliberal war mongering of the Clinton/W model. If the Democrats offer up another Clintonite they will lose. They need to offer something positive to the 90% who have lost the last 40 years of class war. ..."
The neoliberalism of the Democratic Party elite (and most of the rank and file) is one big
factor in our 2016 loss. Even voters too ignorant to see Trump for what he really was -
voters that are misinformed to the point that they unwittingly and continually vote against
their own best interests - realized how much the Dems have sold out to Wall Street.
HRC would have been nominated in '08 if she had kissed more Wall Street you-know-what.
That's why they anointed Obama who then proceeded to squander eight years of opportunity
to remove big money from politics and enact progressive reforms to health care, the
environment, etc.
Bernie is a bit long in the tooth, so I am all in for Liz Warren. She's the only one
with both the courage and the intelligence to take on the big money that controls our
politics.
Therefore, you can expect the Russian trolls to be coming for her in force. If you read
anything negative about Warren in the coming months, check the source and don't trust the
accuracy.
Sanders or Warren would mean a change from neoliberal war mongering of the Clinton/W
model. If the Democrats offer up another Clintonite they will lose. They need to offer
something positive to the 90% who have lost the last 40 years of class war.
"... The inquiry follows a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau report said that Wells Fargo charged students the highest fees of 573 banks examined. ..."
"... "When granted the privilege of providing financial services to students through colleges, Wells Fargo used this access to charge struggling college students exorbitant fees," Warren said in a statement. "These high fees, which are an outlier within the industry, demonstrate conclusively that Wells Fargo does not belong on college campuses." ..."
Elizabeth Warren is demanding that Wells Fargo & Co. be kicked off college campuses, a market the bank has said is among its fastest-growing.
The Democratic senator from Massachusetts and likely presidential candidate said Thursday that she requested more information
from Wells Fargo Chief Executive Officer Tim Sloan and from 31 colleges where the bank does business. The inquiry follows a Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau report said that Wells Fargo charged students the highest fees of 573 banks examined.
"When granted the privilege of providing financial services to students through colleges, Wells Fargo used this access to charge
struggling college students exorbitant fees," Warren said in a statement. "These high fees, which are an outlier within the industry,
demonstrate conclusively that Wells Fargo does not belong on college campuses."
Warren has been a vocal critic of Wells Fargo -- including repeatedly calling for Sloan's ouster -- since a series of consumer
issues at the company erupted more than two years ago with a phony-accounts scandal.
Wells Fargo is "continually working to improve how we serve our customers," a bank spokesman said in an emailed statement Thursday.
"Before and since the CFPB's review on this topic, we have been pursuing customer-friendly actions that support students," including
waiving service fees on some checking accounts offered to them.
A reputation for overcharging students could further harm Wells Fargo's consumer-banking strategy. The San Francisco-based bank
has identified college-age consumers as a growth opportunity, and John Rasmussen, head of personal lending, said last year that Wells
Fargo
may expand into the refinancing of federal student loans.
Looks like Warren is a variation of the theme of Hillary Clinton: a ruthless female careerist, a closet Republican
who is quote jingoistic in foreign policy.
On home front Warren is probably more hostile to financial oligarchy then Hillary Clinton, but like Hillary she can be bought.
Currently the US citizens are "... Prisoners of the American Dream ...": the evolution of neoliberalism in the USA (and most Western countries)
undermined society because it treated land and labor as commodities. The impact of the neoliberalism on communities and families is
disruptive and that generates a strong backlash against financial oligarchy.
Which started in full force in 2016 which led to election of Trump.
Notable quotes:
"... By Thomas Neuburger Originally published at DownWithTryanny! ..."
"... I get the feeling that the Democrats are now more ruthless and heartless than the Republicans. ..."
"... In fact, I read the other day that Nixon had sought to introduce universal Medicare, and that the AFL-CIO, with Watergate in
development, convinced Teddy Kennedy to back away from his long dream of moving similar legislation through Congress, so as not to give
Nixon a victory. ..."
"... I'm feeling extra cynical today, if that can be believed, and am wondering if Warren is being encouraged to run, but not told
that she is intended to be a spoiler to Sanders. ..."
"... Just because the Gang Of Two Mommies hope to exploit Warren as a counter-Sanders spoiler does not mean that she has to run
that way or that Sanders has to take it that way. Sanders and Warren appeal to two some overlapping but still different sets of people.
Their added-together voter-count could be bigger than either nominee-wannabe's voter count total on its own. ..."
"... With Warren wanting to be at the table with the elites, perhaps she took the advice of Larry Summers. In her memoir, "A Fighting
Chance", she mentions a dinner conversation where she was told by him 'I had a choice. I could be an insider or I could be an outsider.
Outsiders can say whatever they want. But people on the inside don't listen to them. Insiders, however, get lots of access and a chance
to push their ideas. People -- powerful people -- listen to what they have to say. But insiders also understand one unbreakable rule:
They don't criticize other insiders.' ..."
"... The elites will, and have been, doing anything to derail rebellion and block any electoral movement towards popular governance,
even of the save-the-system New Deal style of politics. If co-opting fails, then media blackout, vote fraud and silencing follows. ..."
"... They took it all and plan to keep it at any cost. The immiseration of the American people, to paraphrase Madeleine Albright,
is worth it. ..."
"... incumbent elections are always a referendum on the state of the economy, full stop. ..."
"... I also got that Organizing for Bernie email. And I unsubscribed. Bernie, I haven't forgotten about 2016. Especially the part
about taking this fight all the way to the convention. ..."
"... The elite have used leverage thinking to gain control over the mass of humanity and the environment, but now that they reign
supreme, they have run out of ideas as to social evolution. If put to the question- To what purpose are all human labor and effort to
be directed? They seem to not have a clue, other than conjuring up ways to perpetuate the status quo- which is to protect elite interests
at the expense of the weak and poor. ..."
"... I don't intend to be negative on Sanders and Warren, but American politics and life are so out of balance, at times it seems
that being an outsider- or non-participant is the way to sanity. When politicians can blatantly lie their way into office, and the system
allows them to survive and persist, the system is beyond fixing. ..."
"... 'Both are critics of the Democratic establishment. Both are foes of Wall Street. And both are substantive, policy-focused politicians.'
Yes, and this will prevent either of them getting the nomination ..."
"... Sanders is going to get drowned out in 2020. He is too old and it shows. ..."
Posted on
January 11,
2019 by Yves Smith Yves here. I know Warren is
deemed to be progressive by American standards, but I recall clearly when I first say her speak at a Roosevelt Institute conference,
Let Markets Be Markets, which was a title I found to be unhelpful, since it suggested that markets would exist in a state of nature
and just needed to be left alone. In fact, markets depend on rules and enforcement mechanisms to operate regularly and well.
Warren, who was the first speaker, gave a long preamble about how she loved markets and had long taught contract in law school.
I don't recall her giving any reason as to why she loved markets, when you'd expect her to make a case, such as how they were good
for people. Her speech struck me as defensive, as in she felt she had to say she was in favor of commerce so as not to be painted
as a Commie if/when she called for reforms.
By contrast, Karl Polyani, in his classic book The Great Transformation, argued that the evolution of market economies undermined
society because it treated land and labor as commodities. Pressured to slow the development economies were inevitable and Polyani
suggested, desirable, because the impact of the development of the market society on communities and families was often so disruptive
that the changes needed to be mitigated.
I didn't get any sense that Warren had those concerns, and I found that troubling. I didn't see how her profession of enthusiasm
for markets connected with the concerns she has expressed for the welfare of American families.
I've written before comparing Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders as presidential candidates, but only preliminarily. (See "
The Difference Between
Sanders and Warren, or Can Regulated Capitalism Save the Country? ") But there's much more to say -- foreign policy, for example,
is barely touched on there -- and also much is evolving in their positions, especially Warren's.
That earlier piece focused on the differences between these two candidates based on their economic ideologies. As I wrote then,
"Though both would make the next administration, if either were elected, a progressive one by many definitions, the nature of the
progressivism under each would be quite different."
In particular, I asked:
Can the current capitalist system be reformed and retained, or must it be partly nationalized -- taken over by government
-- and reduced in size and capacity, for the country to be saved from its current economic enslavement to the "billionaire
class"? In addition to questions of personal preference, Democratic primary voters will be asked to decide this question as well.
And the question applies quite broadly. The billionaire class also controls our response to climate change. Is it possible
for a "free" market system -- a system in which billionaires and their corporations have control -- to transform the energy economy
enough to mitigate the coming disaster, or must government wrest control of the energy economy in order to have even a hope
of reducing the certain damage?
But there are other contrasts between these two as well, other differences, as Zaid Jilani,
writing in
Jacobin , points out. He begins where we began, with the ideological and philosophical differences:
Why the Differences Between Sanders and Warren Matter
Both are critics of the Democratic establishment. Both are foes of Wall Street. And both are substantive, policy-focused politicians.
But that doesn't mean Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren share the same worldview.
Sanders tends to focus on "post-distribution" remedies, meaning he prefers to use the government's power to tax and spend to
directly meet Americans' needs -- or replace the market altogether. His social-democratic ideas, like free college and single-payer
health care, are now policies most Democrats have to tip their hat to at least for electoral reasons.
Warren wants to empower regulators and rejigger markets to shape "pre-distribution" income, before taxes. Less likely to push
for big-ticket programs, she wants to re-regulate Wall Street and make life easier for consumers.
So far this is familiar ground.
Different Theories of Change
But as Jilani points out, there are differences in style and "theory of change" as well. ("Theory of change" usually encompasses
how a given policy change is to be accomplished, as opposed to what that change should be.) Jilani again:
The two senators also have distinct theories of change. Sanders has long believed in
bottom-up, movement-based
politics. Since
his days as mayor of Burlington, Vermont, he has tried to energize citizens to take part in government. He generally distrusts
elites and decision-making that does not include the public. Warren, on the other hand, generally accepts political reality and
works to push elite decision-makers towards her point of view.
When I worked at PCCC ["the most influential outside PAC supporting Warren" says Jilani], I was once told that Warren decided
to run for the Senate after witnessing the amount of power she had as an oversight chair for the bank bailouts. She believed that
"being in the room" with decision-makers in the Obama administration was essential to creating change.
About this he concludes: "While Warren wants to be at the table with elites, arguing for progressive policies, Sanders wants to
open the doors and let the public make the policy."
"Elizabeth is all about leverage"
These are significant differences, and his observation goes a long way to explaining this item from a
long piece published in Politico Magazine in 2016, an article otherwise about Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Discussing
why Warren refused to endorse Sanders, Glenn Thrush wrote:
Luckily for Clinton, Warren resisted Sanders' entreaties, for months telling the senator and his staff she hadn't made up her
mind about which candidate she would support. For all her credibility on the left, Warren is more interested in influencing the
granular Washington decisions of policymaking and presidential personnel -- and in power politics. Warren's favored modus operandi:
leveraging her outsider popularity to gain influence on the issues she cares about, namely income inequality and financial services
reform.
"Elizabeth is all about leverage, and she used it," a top Warren ally told me. "The main thing, you know, is that she always
thought Hillary was going to be the nominee, so that was where the leverage was."
Warren, several people in her orbit say, never really came close to endorsing the man many progressives consider to be her
ideological soulmate.
For many grassroots supporters of Sanders, who were also strong Warren supporters prior to his entry into the race, these revelations
-- "all about the leverage" and "never came close to endorsing" -- took the bloom off the Warren rose. For whatever reason, that
bloom appears not to have returned, at least not completely.
Jilani's observation in no way diminishes Warren's credibility or core desirability as a candidate. If you care about achieving
your goals through "leverage," joining the Sanders campaign, which may have looked to you like a kind of Children's Crusade, would
seem foreign to your way of operating.
The Bottom Line -- Not Just Method, But Scope
While Jilani notes that many of Warren's past positions, for example,
on charter schools and Medicare
for All, have grown more progressive, she still doesn't seem to prioritize Medicare for All as strongly as Sanders does.
In 2012, Warren was explicitly opposed to Medicare for All (called "single payer" at the time). "Five years later --
after decades of advocacy
by Sanders had helped popularize Medicare for All -- Warren [finally] decided to endorse the policy," writes Jilani. "But unlike
consumer protections or financial regulation, establishing a single-payer health care system doesn't seem to be a top priority for
Warren." He adds, "It's hardly a surprise
that Warren didn't raise single-payer during her first two campaign events in Iowa and when asked about it by a Washington Post
reporter, [she] suggested she didn't bring it up because no one else at the events raised it."
As noted above, if either were president, the odds that America will change for the better would vastly improve. But each would
do that job in a different way. Each has a different philosophy of how government should work, and approach the process of change
from different directions -- though I have to give Warren credit for
picking public fights with
fellow Democrats when others are much more timid.
But to these two differences -- philosophy and approach -- let me add a third, a difference in sweep. The scope of change envisioned
and attempted by a Sanders presidency would likely be far greater than that attempted by Warren.
In these times, with a massive climate tsunami fast approaching and a Depression-style rebellion in full view, can America,
in this Franklin Roosevelt moment , afford just a better manager of the current system, a better rearranger, and survive?
There's not much question that Warren would better fix the status quo, and be a better choice as president, than 95% of the other
candidates on offer. But would a Warren presidency be enough to bring us through this crisis as safely as Washington, Lincoln and
FDR once did?
For many true progressives, I think that's the question she'll be asked to answer, and she has about a year, or less, to answer
it.
Just spitballing here, but I think that Warren has more of a technocrat view of the process of governance than Sanders does.
Warren seems to be an academic at heart.
Sanders has experience dealing with the public in all it's tatterdemalion glory. He was a City Mayor, about as close to the
ground level in politics as one can get. Warren would make an excellent Department Head, a good member of the Cabinet. Sanders
has a reputation of 'getting things done' in the Senate. This suggests that Sanders has the skills of persuasion and, importantly,
coalition building, incorporating strategic concessions. These are a big part of the Art of Politics.
So, Sanders has the Art of Politics in his tool kit while Warren has the bureaucratic skills to work behind the scenes. They
would make a good team, if Warren is to be trusted. And there is the stumbling block.
Sanders has a reputation of 'getting things done' in the Senate.
Really? I wonder how many voters had ever heard of Sanders before he ran for president.
Perhaps the real question is who has the greatest chance of building a movement which is the only way we will really "get things
done" in the face of stiff opposition. Unfortunately–given Sanders' age and Warren's political ham handedness–the answer may be
neither. But at least Sanders seems more willing to upset the apple carts than the go along to get along Warren. It's not about
"persuasion" of elites, who just need to see reason. It's about power, and TPTB are afraid of the voters which is why there's
such a tizzy over Trump.
Yes. Trump did to the Republican Party what Sanders should have done to the Democrat Party. I get the feeling that the
Democrats are now more ruthless and heartless than the Republicans.
Also, when he was in the Senate, Sanders only had to worry about name recognition in his home state. The transition to the
national stage is not instant. It takes time and Sanders seems to have learned that lesson. I'm wondering if even Sanders was
blindsided by his own success in the Democrat primary process the last time around.
I dunno. Lots of us lefties had been following him for years.
Though I am in no way Pollyannaish about his prospects, I tend to see Sanders as our last, best hope. But I confess to being
both baffled and a little bit outraged that all of those liberals who spent several years calling those of us whose policy differences–whose
differences with her record–made Hillary Clinton unacceptable to us "anti-feminist" now won't even give Warren the time of day!
Honestly?
A certain anti-intellectualism obviously informs this view. . . but for me it's also a mark of just what a carefully feminine
(and faux feminist) persona Ms. Clinton carved out for herself along the way, and what a dreadfully long way that women still
have to go–or worse, how much ground has been lost.
In fact, I read the other day that Nixon had sought to introduce universal Medicare, and that the AFL-CIO, with Watergate
in development, convinced Teddy Kennedy to back away from his long dream of moving similar legislation through Congress, so as
not to give Nixon a victory. Crass cynicism has long been in place, as the story demonstrates.
But with "liberals" and the Democratic establishment now telling us that things like universal healthcare are just too ambitious,
and their minions parroting such thinking, we have a stark illustration of just how far right American liberalism has now drifted,
further right–in certain aspects–than centrist Republicanism of the 1970s.
These aren't the 70s. And there is a great deal of political ferment at present. But such analysis does suggest that there
is a great deal of space waiting to be (re)occupied on the left.
That is my take too. Warren has the technical savvy to rewire our regulatory systems, and she appreciates how they are interconnected
(move one and others change). Having drafted a lot of policy myself, it is understanding and minimizing the unintended consequences
of change that creates success. I do not see Bernie as a whiz at technocracy. Where Bernie shines is he nagging attention to the
fact that politics is all about people and making life better for the majority – not just squillionaires – in fact, not even necessarily
squillionaires. As Trump would remark; "They'll make adjustments."
I'm feeling extra cynical today, if that can be believed, and am wondering if Warren is being encouraged to run, but not
told that she is intended to be a spoiler to Sanders.
Out of the wreckage, expect the 'Two Mommies,' Hillary and Michelle to arise promising to heal all wounds and unite the Party.
"Onward to Victory!" (We'll worry about the policy later, after we have slain the Dragon Trump.)
One hopes that Warren and Sanders both have people reading this blog regularly and reporting back with any possibly pertinent
information and theory.
Just because the Gang Of Two Mommies hope to exploit Warren as a counter-Sanders spoiler does not mean that she has to
run that way or that Sanders has to take it that way. Sanders and Warren appeal to two some overlapping but still different sets
of people. Their added-together voter-count could be bigger than either nominee-wannabe's voter count total on its own.
The two seekers and their two groups of supporters might well choose to force-multiply eachother in order to frustrate the
Two Mommies Conspiracy.
What if the two groups of delegates together added up to enough to victorialize One of the Two if all the delegates voted for
One of them? Suppose they all got together and pledged (and meant it) to study very carefully which of the Two got More delegate
votes on the First Ballot? Suppose the Second Votegetter agreed to add their delegates's votes to the votes of the First votegetter,
such that the First votegetter on the first ballot would get ALL the two groups of delegates's votes on the second ballot? Either
Sanders or Warren would win, and the Winner would make the Other One herm's running mate.
We decide who is electable based on responses to debate terms. Electible is not some eternal quality a candidate is born with,
it is a media trope to restrict the field to the corporate friendly candidates. Enough of that
How many of those who actually vote in an election watch debates? Back in horse and buggy days, a debate was the premier way
to reach the 'interested' parties in a district. Debates, and hand shaking, baby kissing and newspaper/handbill politics was the
game before electronic media.
Then there is that indefinable quality known a "charisma." There, the 'art' part of politics comes into play. To get someone
who is marginally cognizant of policies to vote for one, there must be some affinity between candidate and voter. To the extent
that 'charisma' drives the political relationship, 'charisma' is that "eternal quality."
In that regard, 'charisma' is not a media trope, but a personal quality. Thus, villains like Hitler can succeed. If you read
contemporary accounts of Hitler's political style, he was very popular and actually described as "charismatic." An American villain
such as Bill Clinton likewise had charismatic qualities. From further back, an anti-Establishment outsider like Huey Long was
successful through building an almost visceral connection to his electorate. He was killed.
So, don't be in too much of a hurry to dismiss 'alternate' methods of carrying out politics.
Oh, I am not beholden to a techocratic, scoring policy points debate. But electability and charisma are very different. Bernie
was not electable, but was charismatic for most; vice versa for Hillary ? Not sure, I think many found her charismatic, I couldn't
stand her. "Electable" is a terrible, vague concept to be manipulated – at least charismatic provides some basis for definition.
Thanks for the well thought out reply.
I'll agree that "electable" is vague and prone to multiple definitions. However, "electable" is almost the term of art used
by the campaigns themselves. The more technical thinking campaigners can cut the electorate up into an infinitude of 'silos' and
figure how to manipulate each. This strategy naturally falls into an infinite regression state and eventually exhausts itself.
The concept of a "sterile" campaign philosophy comes into it's own in that case. People can usually recognize "inauthentic" political
rhetoric, and react negatively to it. When the campaign splinters into multiple 'silo'd' sub-campaigns, the threat is that each
mini-electorate will eventually spot the inauthenticity and bad faith argumentation of another, related strand of the campaign.
They might fall for the ploy being employed against them, but notice a parallel 'silo' being deceived, due to a detachment inherent
in not being the target audience for that other particular ploy. That way, the seeds of distrust against the entire campaign are
planted. I find this to be the fatal flaw in identitarian politics.
Sorry for the rant.
Well, he was from Tennessee. That whiskey was an early form of "walking around money." Vote Early and Vote Often! Jackson was
the early exemplar of a populist president.
With Warren wanting to be at the table with the elites, perhaps she took the advice of Larry Summers. In her memoir, "A
Fighting Chance", she mentions a dinner conversation where she was told by him 'I had a choice. I could be an insider or I could
be an outsider. Outsiders can say whatever they want. But people on the inside don't listen to them. Insiders, however, get lots
of access and a chance to push their ideas. People -- powerful people -- listen to what they have to say. But insiders also understand
one unbreakable rule: They don't criticize other insiders.'
That interview introduced me to Warren and made me a fan. And, reminds me how much I miss Bill Moyers. Glad he's enjoying some
downtime in his later years but no one could do interviews like he did and nothing compares to the depth of his show for informing
viewers.
kudos to bill moyers, he did several stories that should STILL be seen by more people. Especially since they have come true..
but that interview was the first place I saw warren too. And she sounded good at the time Given the overreach of the credit card
industry and all that. But now not so much.
The elites will, and have been, doing anything to derail rebellion and block any electoral movement towards popular governance,
even of the save-the-system New Deal style of politics. If co-opting fails, then media blackout, vote fraud and silencing follows.
They took it all and plan to keep it at any cost. The immiseration of the American people, to paraphrase Madeleine Albright,
is worth it.
"They took it all and plan to keep it at any cost."
Sadly this is true and they really don't understand what "any cost" means. Eventually the mobs always come and eventually the
mobs are larger and more angry than any amount of money be spent to stave them off. As Mark Blyth said, the Hamptons are not a
defensible position.
Agree. It's notable that one needs oh-so-complex complex (heh!) "theories of change" when proposing anything that has a hint
of benefiting the many.
When it come to the few and already well-to-do, though, the answer is simple: keep shoveling the money this-a-way, always!
"you many proles need to work, so we few don't have to!"
Elizabeth Warren had no comment when asked if she voted for Ronald Reagan. She was still a registered Republican in 1996. Those
are tall hurdles; maybe she can get over them. Yes, she makes some noise that is congenial to ears here, and perhaps in the country.
But she is no more "electable" than Hillary Clinton, the most recent slam-dunk electable candidate for president. You can be one
of the adults in the dining room so that you can be heard. Or you can be heard by figuratively, of course, burning down the decrepit
house that is far beyond rehabilitation.
And that Cherokee thing? It won't go away, especially against the Current Occupant. I am sympathetic to why she did what she
did regarding her tiny admixture of Cherokee DNA, and the subsequent hysterics from the leaders in Tahlequah were just that. But
she responded to the biggest troll of all. Don't feed the trolls! Every white person in Oklahoma seems to claim a Cherokee "ancestor."
This is true also in the broad swath of the Southern states all the way from Texas/Oklahoma to North Carolina. Funny thing, it
is always a Cherokee, never a Chickasaw, Creek, Choctaw, or Seminole among the "Five Civilized Tribes." A Sequoyah thing, maybe?
Anyway, compared to Kamala Harris or Beto, Elizabeth Warren is FDR. So she's got that going for her. Which is nice. But it
isn't enough. Not yet in her telling. Not for the predicament we are in. The "Left Wing of the Possible" had moved so far to the
right in the past 40 years that is has no distinct meaning, certainly not what the late Michael Harrington had in mind from about
1978 through the 1984 election. I've recently re-read his chapter "The Lesser Evil? The Left, the Democrats and 1984" in Prisoners
of the American Dream by Mike Davis (highly recommended). The current revival of the same play, different cast, will end
the same way if it doesn't close. Now.
>And that Cherokee thing? It won't go away, especially against the Current Occupant.
You respectfully have that exactly wrong. Not sure how it will play with the hand-wringers in the Democratic Party, but in
the general against Trump?
1) Things are decent economically, Trump is going to win, it's just a torture skiv he can twist for fun.
2) Things are not going well, Trump is going to be told "shut up with the 4th grade name-calling and tell us how you are going
to fix the economy compared to what she is proposing".
Trump played his card. He can't play it again 4 years later, again if he really needs some sort of hand to play, as
it would emphasize that he's got nothing else.
Maybe Pence can use it, I dunno. But incumbent elections are always a referendum on the state of the economy, full stop.
"Since 2016, our movement has changed what's possible in American politics. We've made Medicare for All a national issue, challenged
conventional wisdom around combating climate change, and pressured corporations to start giving their employees the wages they
deserve -- but there's more to be done and Sen. Bernie Sanders is just the person to do it.
I am excited to announce that this Saturday, January 12, Our Revolution, Organizing for Bernie, the Bernie Delegate Network,
and the Progressive Democrats of America will be hosting hundreds of house parties around the country to talk about how we lay
the foundation for a Bernie 2020 presidential run.
Will you join us at 1 p.m. PT/4 p.m. ET this Saturday? Sign up here to let us know you'll be there.
Grassroots organizing is the key to building an agenda for the working people of this country, not just the 1 percent. Thank
you for joining this fight."
I also got that Organizing for Bernie email. And I unsubscribed. Bernie, I haven't forgotten about 2016. Especially the
part about taking this fight all the way to the convention.
My only comment is that it is better to vote for someone than not to have anyone that you are able to say is at least better
than the other. Last time I didn't have anyone to vote for on that basis.
America needs bold leadership centered on the needs and interests of the people, the citizenry as a whole, not more elitist,
leveraged thinking.
The elite have used leverage thinking to gain control over the mass of humanity and the environment, but now that they
reign supreme, they have run out of ideas as to social evolution. If put to the question- To what purpose are all human labor
and effort to be directed? They seem to not have a clue, other than conjuring up ways to perpetuate the status quo- which is to
protect elite interests at the expense of the weak and poor.
People are looking for bold change and action, but place their faith in the wrong people. In better times, people like Warren
and Sanders would be quietly working in the background ensuring that a bold vision of equality and justice are actually carried
out. However, Sanders is old and Warren is not a bold visionary- she seems a careerist just like everyone else, though less ruthless
and not blatantly imperialistic to her core. However, she is not for fundamental change and I would expect, once in power, she
could be persuaded to moderate any attempts to make such changes a reality- or push them off into some distant future.
The problem lies in the relentless, narrow vision of capitalism itself. Who in public life can afford to say that openly- or
believe it? Who takes the time and effort to say that life is not about having "better" things? The cynicism in American politics
today makes it a meaningless process for those not making their living from it. Better to think up ways of making political statements
and actions outside the official processes.
The enlightenment seems to have brought about false hopes for humanity. Instead of walking in the sunlight of reason, humanity
still seems to be stumbling along in the dark. A new vision is needed.
A meaningful opposition must be based on a resistance to capitalism itself, a desire to restore the power of the state to act
in the interests of the citizenry as a whole or majority, and to instill a sense of frugality and purpose in the citizenry- not
a desire for endless consumption and distraction.
Fundamental change will always be mocked by those in power- or labeled as treason.
I don't intend to be negative on Sanders and Warren, but American politics and life are so out of balance, at times it
seems that being an outsider- or non-participant is the way to sanity. When politicians can blatantly lie their way into office,
and the system allows them to survive and persist, the system is beyond fixing.
Our future is of Capitalist Nations battling for market share. If the insanity of nuclear weapons does not kill us all first,
meeting human needs by the capitalist system surely will- however slowly.
Capitalists will just redefine what it means to be a human being- as they always have and carry on. This cannot be allowed
to happen. Corporate power must be curtailed.
A new vision is needed, and political leaders willing to articulate it.
Authoritarianism is in our future. How else can radical change occur and is that a bad thing? Slow death brought about by radical
capitalism, or authoritarian rule to nationalize key industries in order to bring about social stability and fairness.
@ Norb: Re: "A new vision is needed." Since Yves invoked Polanyi you could start there. Whatever is old is new again. And as
she points out Polanyi's analysis is also an effective method for separating the gold nuggets from the lighter materials.
If and when it comes to the time for pollsters and the press to throw out the "strong leader" card, Sanders will win it hands-down
over Warren. Warren will be embraced much more by the centrist rich owners of the party. The question remains will Sanders actually
lead this time around. I still think he should have put those owners/thieves through a wood-chipper throughout the primary and
especially for all the world to see at the convention .
But hey I am not now nor am I ever likely to vote for that criminally anti-democratic party ever again. You don't join a mafia
in order to reform it.
This time I think Sanders might put the owners/thieves "through a wood-chipper throughout the primary" because this is his
last chance. He doesn't have to play 'nice' to stay in the party for another run.
Who cares what warren says,on the road to the campign. Words are cheap. When I first saw her on bill moyers, I liked that she
sounded good as a voice of opposition to credit card company policies, albeit in a news interview, while still at harvard,i believe.
Then I have liked that at least she comes off as a voice above the low hum of republican low lifes in congress. more of an adult
in the room ,so to speak. I don't really fault her for "not doing anything" in congress yet.. after all it is a body, and as such
lone voices have little sway so that is a net neutral.
But, If she can't get behind single payer. And in my mind, simplistic single payer that says healthcare should not be a for
profit owned institution, of any ones. Everyone who works for, be they doctors, nurses, or janitors, ought to be paid..
The inventors and manufacturers, ought to be fairly compensated. The physical assets, hospitals, factories, distribution, ought
to be more a federal "in-house" operation like the post office.. to keep it honest, and less expensive.
For all the money they can save, they can afford to keep everything in top notch, clean and current condition better than some
places today. Her stance on single payer is a non starter to me.
If her views on the approach to gov't as being "for the people" is the same as her view of healthcare, meaning for the corporation
than forget it.
After all, When Obama wrote his article in foreign affairs in 2006 or 2007, when he was putting his hat in the ring, that is
exactly who he said he was, and it was exactly what he did he said he was for the system as it was, and he was. He never claimed
he was a "radical" and he didn't stand for "change".
He was looking for a job. And if warren is the same. Looking for a job, and a believer in the way things are . Then nevermind.
I say she needs to show some real progressive inclination not just campaign rhetoric.
"I say she needs to show some real progressive inclination not just campaign rhetoric." She's already shown us who she is.
See above re: Larry Summers' insiders' rules.
I do agree. Warren at this point for me is a non-starter. If she was the democratic party "choice", I would feel very comfortable
voting for the green party again. A vote for the green party may mean there is no chance your candidate is going to win, but my
soul is satisfied I made a choice I actually like. Good enough for me.
If bernie gets the nomination, that is the only one talked about who might sway me as a candidate to the left wing of the bird
I so despise. Now If they put someone like ocasio cortez on the ticket . then wowie! I can't imagine anyone doing a worse job
, professionally speaking than trump, so considering her obvious authenticity, I would vote for her in a heartbeat. I would take
my chances with youthful over exuberance,and in-experience.. and go for someone who has the INCLINATION to do the right thing.
In fact I would rather vote for ocasio cortez then bernie. Berni should be her VP, to add the wisdom of age and to keep her on
the tracks. and advise her of the duplicity and treachery she would face.
Bernie's weakness after all is that he is from Vermont. A politician from vermont CAN be on the progressive side, in rhetoric,
and know nothing will come of it, and be re-elected . but before now, he hasn't really had to DO anything. And his stance on Israel,
is a bit too chummy IMO.
I would be curious how he voted on the senates first bill of the year, in that no one is allowed to criticize the isreali gov't
and boycott a product . What a perfect way for a despicable body to start off a new year. Someone ought to tell them what country
they are supposed to be representing. We have a whitehouse lobbying for russia, and a senate lobbying for isreal . WTF! And americans
are supposed to be okay with a gov't shut down, and if americans aren't getting paid so what.
You're right. She's only 29 years old and I read that the US Constitution states that you have to be a minimum of 35 years
of age to be President. So 2024 at a minimum. This talk is kinda like when years ago that some people said that Arnold Schwarzenegger
should run for President, forgetting that to be President that you have to be actually born in the US.
I liked that she sounded good as a voice of opposition to credit card company policies
Perhaps unfairly, the first thing I think of when I think of Elizabeth Warren is
her appearance on PBS
FRONTLINE's 2004 "Secret History of the Credit Card" where she says:
What I'd ask [the credit card companies] to do is just reprogram their computers to put two little lines on every credit
card statement, one that says if you make the minimum monthly payment, this is how long it will take you to pay off, and if
you make the minimum monthly payment, this is how much interest you'll pay over time. They could go a long way towards educating
a lot of consumers that way
Of course, there's nothing wrong with and everything laudable about that type of fix -- in any sort of political system not
bought and sold by the financial industry, that sort of thing would be obvious. But, it seems like, in Warren's world, if we just
make the system a bit fairer , if the parties contracting -- and all we have are "transactional actors," people contracting
or being consumers -- if they just have clearer, more readily-understood terms -- she taught contract law at Harvard, after all
-- well, that's sufficient and maybe the best we can do or all we should do.
I think it's perfectly valid to view Warren as a defender of the status quo, lover of markets, and all that, as this post says,
but I feel like, ultimately, something else is going on here. Her response regarding her claimed Cherokee heritage -- a DNA test
-- in the interests of "transparency" and
"put[ting] it out
there" typifies the problem. In Elizabeth Warren's wonkish, Lisa Simpson world, the problem isn't that Trump and the right-wing
wing are bullying her into responding, the problem is that the information isn't out there on the table. If the kid in the neighborhood
taunts you, saying "My dad is stronger than your dad," the Elizabeth Warren solution is to get them both to submit to strength
tests. It misconstrues the issue -- she doesn't get the underlying power dynamic.
For Warren, the problem isn't a private, for-profit health insurance industry -- she "loves" markets, after all -- it's
holding them accountable and strengthening consumer protections. (And, more broadly, holding capitalism
accountable .) It's not just that she's
"capitalist to the bone," it's that she seems pretty oblivious to both the underlying power relations -- imagine FDR saying he
wanted to hold the "economic royalists" "accountable" (what he said was "I should like to have it said that
these forces [of selfishness and of lust] met their master") -- and, more specifically, to the idea that some things, such as
health care, are best not left to an for-profit private sector, even one that is "accountable." That's not an issue of
capitalism and the status quo per se any more than Warren's response regarding her background is about DNA tests -- it's
that her take on systems is wrong. (Hillary Clinton's "never, ever" statement on single payer was more of a systemic
take, in its own cynical way, than Warren's opposition.) Warren might be all about "leverage," according to one of her allies,
but, in her talk of transparency and fairness and accountability, she picks the points of weakest leverage in the system
and doesn't even seem to realize she's doing so.
At some level, I think that the question is whether we want to save capitalism (from itself) or replace it. I don't think that
assuming that the current extreme free-markets uber alles version of capitalism is the only or even inevitable form by ignoring
the post war period when capitalism worked reasonably well for the middle class is particularly useful. It is the mirror image
to those that regard any form of socialism as the first step of an inevitable slide to Venezuelan/Zimbabwean authoritarian market
collapse and ignoring the Nordic countries which seem to manage a high level of government intervention pretty well thank-you-very-much.
Neither system works very well when taken to extremes.
To a real extant, I just think that it is easier to move from where we are now to reasonably well functioning system like that
we had in the 60s than to a Nordic-style economy.
The differences between these two candidates is substantial and important. If Sanders supporters can't articulate why Warren's
stances are unacceptable, then it will be that much easier for the Hillary/Warren/Establishment wing of the DNC to paint us as
misogynists.
The DNC is already "painting" the Sanders 'wing' of American politics as misogynist. It doesn't matter whether it is true or
not. The "Big Lie" method is being used. That method has no relation to objective reality, by design. So, don't defend against
the Big Lies' specific items. Attack the 'Big Lie' itself and it's enablers head on.
For instance, when a Hillbot attacks you because "one of Bernies staffers watches porn," don't whine about "people are all
over the place and the bad apples will be thrown out of our barrel." Instead, tell them that you'd rather have one of your staffers
watching porn than having the candidates husband raping underage girls on the "Lolita Express." This level of savagery is needed.
The Dem apparatchiks have already self selected for "True Believers," who will stop at nothing to get their way. They must be
expunged igneously.
"If Sanders supporters can't articulate why Warren's stances are unacceptable .." That just means that Sanders supporters haven't
done their homework sufficiently. The Sanders campaign needs to put out a source of quick replies to anti-Sanders attacks. A Political
F.A.Q.s sidebar on the campaign website as it were.
The one quibble I would have with this analysis is the idea that Sanders is inherently more "sweeping" than Warren in policy
changes. Despite his label, the actual policy positions that Sanders pushes are more SocDem than DemSoc. Don't get me wrong, the
expanded welfare state he proposes would be a vast improvement, but that's standard issue nordic-style sandbox capitalism; it
doesn't touch on the "worker control of the means of production" part that makes up the socialist part of Democratic Socialism.
Warren's plan, while the optics are "save capitalism," ironically does more in that regard by giving workers in large corporations
co-determination and some effective veto powers on board decisions. I'm not saying the policy is socialism, but it would cause
just as much disruption to the political economy as the Sanders agenda.
Yea she might actually be in some ways more radical.
Although I rather doubt either of them are the revolutionaries the writer seems to be looking for. AOC maybe? We don't have
very much experience to go by there though, so it's really too soon to say.
How often have we heard about working from the inside? How often do you have to do it before realizing it will not work with
these overwhelmingly entrenched powers? Moreover, how much more leverage would a Sanders/Warren (or vice versa) ticket have? Far,
far more than a Senator Warren who is lukewarm on issue vital to the people?
'Both are critics of the Democratic establishment. Both are foes of Wall Street. And both are substantive, policy-focused
politicians.' Yes, and this will prevent either of them getting the nomination
Blame the voters. Most are neo-liberals. It was many a neo-liberal who didn't like Hillary Clinton and wouldn't vote for her.
But a Biden? Sure, he is old, but they like him. Hillary lost 400,000 votes from Ohio just from James Comey's hatch act violations.
Now think about that for a sec.
Elections are popularity contest. Always have been. Its about dopamine release.
Most national economies, including that of the US, are held together by mountains of debt, variously estimated at figures well
over $US 125 trillion. Thanks to a decade of ridiculously low interest rates, so are many large companies. Sooner or later some
black swan or other will cause one of these financial houses of cards to topple, and the leverage and interconnectedness of modern
finance, together with the massive proliferation of more and new derivative markets will cause a massive cascading financial crash,
worldwide.
This is notwithstanding the remarkable levels of creativity displayed by financial and political institutions like the US Fed,
the EU and the IMF to kick the proverbial debt cans down the road still further.
Then and only then will the majority of us working stiffs (i.e. Those other than the top one percent) realise that the hyper
capitalism that we have arrived at over the last decade or so simply does not work for most people.
Then and only then will we see real and meaningful economic, political and necessary environmental policy change. The sooner
the better.
In the mean time the old Roman recipe of "Feed them Bread and Circuses" will continue , to the ever increasing detriment of the
planet.
Can't change the system from the inside except by radical mutation or extinction. Which looks to be our course. Liz is just
another elite sell-out. Would she be able to articulate what the country wants (medicare for all, free education, etc) if it weren't
for Bernie? No, she would not. She's a coward. Her pronouncements are as vacuous but emphatic as Theresa May's. "Leverage" is
her euphemism – she just wants to find cover and suck up. What exactly does she mean by "regulate markets to shape pre-distribution
income before taxes"? For god's sake, this is stuff we should have looked at 50 years ago, now it's too late. She wants to "be
in the room" – I'm pretty sure that would be a circular love-fest as usual. Liz is busy fogging up the mirror. She can't hold
a candle to Bernie.
Sanders is going to get drowned out in 2020. He is too old and it shows. He got lucky in 2016 when Biden's son died
making Hillary the consensus favorite with her large "ethics issues". If Biden's son hadn't died, he would have been the nominee.
Instead he could blather on and be the "protest vote".
There may be 30 candidates this cycle. It will be crazy. He is going to feel the Bern all right.
Maybe, but his age won't help. He is old, very old. He is older than Biden. I think he also comes off as a carpetbagger to
neo-libs where Warren or O'Neoliberal is more frank.
It is just like most who whine about "cultural marxism" don't get marxists also don't support cultural marxism .because it
isn't marxist. It is nothing more than a gimmick sold by "contards" to stimulate the dopamine receptors of their flock.
I don't know, I'm more inclined to keep it simple and call Warren a standard-issue liberal whose brand is Wall Street regulation.
Jay Inslee's brand will be climate change, Biden's will be the Golden Age of Obama and his folksiness, and so on. Sanders, on
the other hand, is fundamentally not a liberal as we usually understand it, though he has compromised with liberals in a great
many ways for practical reasons.
I liked Warren when she first popped into the picture but I have real trouble thinking of her as a candidate for President.
Warren seems far far too willing to focus on details, rhetoric, and then move on to some new 'hot-rock'. She impresses me as most
like Obama. Speaking the 'right' words, but small in her concerns, and solutions, and smaller in impact beyond the 'right' words.
I remain firmly in the Bernie Sanders camp -- barring the entry of some truly radical dark horse. I am concerned about his
age. I might be less concerned if he could give a hint about who he favors as his Vice-President -- maybe he has but I'm just
not aware(?). Even so, completely discounting his age, Bernie is not my ideal candidate. I think he is radical only by comparison
with everyone else who might have a chance to become POTUS.
Without radical reform of our Society and its economic system I fear we approach threat of a time of "luan" as tao99 described
such times in Chinese history in a comment to today's post on China [tao99. January 11, 2019 at 7:29 am]: " in China the biggest
fear amongst the government and the people is "luan" (translated basically meaning chaos). Collective memories are there of the
points in the not so distant past where starvation and chaos did reign – and this puts some additional urgency in trying not to
go over the cliff." How many coincident 'unfortunate' events would it take to make -- food and water -- life-and-death concerns
for those living in some of our great cities?
What if the power went out but there was no replacement transformer and no one coming
to install it?
Sanders is the wrench in the system, Warren the oil.
I was aware of Sanders well before seeing him about ten years ago giving an impassioned speech at a single-payer event and
lobby day in D.C. put on by Progressives, the California Nurses Association (now NNU) and other groups. Unfortunately, but the
nature of policy and those outside the pale of the mainstream media and centrist politics is the hinterlands. They do not get
the platform or visibility. We might also ask who ever heard of HR 676 (the better single-payer bill when compared to Sanders')
and John Conyers back then, who had been the sponsor of a single payer bill (until his reason problems), but the number of those
endorsing it has grown in recent years, much due to the work of single payer groups and people like Sanders who have raised the
profile of it. And now the Progressive Caucus (though now filled with some faux progressives who need to co-opt the brand) was
then and is even much more so now the largest caucus in the House. Sanders had a lot to do with raising the profile of single
payer, and many other issues that got little attention, and his penchant for movement building sits well with a populace that
is disillusioned by both political parties and the years of neoliberalism that have made their prosperity suffer.
Sanders keeps plugging away, year after year, and his expanding base are more politically conscious of the need for systemic
change. Regardless of his shortcomings and the already many attacks by the corporate Dems and their surrogates and the mainstream
media Jake Tapper types, he is the only candidate that will enthuse voters, if or course the establishment mud slinging does not
bring him down once again along with centrist Dem machinations.
His continual emphasis on policy is key for me, particularly since he works to avoid the cult of personality that others rely
on, such as Beto O'Rourke. The manner in which Warren handled the whole "Pocahontas" debacle showed a real weakness on her part
to navigate the political world, even if she is good at navigating well in power centers. At times her speeches appear to self-serving
and lack the genuineness of a Sanders speech, and he after all has remained fairly consistent over decades.
When he runs, which I think he will, it would behoove anyone desiring throwing a wrench into the works to do all they can to
get him elected. I say that as one who eschews any cultist belief in him.
Elizabeth Warren and Her Party of Ideas She's what a serious policy intellectual looks like in 2019. By Paul Krugman
Almost 40 years have passed since Daniel Patrick Moynihan -- a serious intellectual turned influential politician -- made
waves by declaring, "Of a sudden, Republicans have become a party of ideas." He didn't say that they were good ideas; but the
G.O.P. seemed to him to be open to new thinking in a way Democrats weren't.
But that was a long time ago. Today's G.O.P. is a party of closed minds, hostile to expertise, aggressively uninterested in
evidence, whose idea of a policy argument involves loudly repeating the same old debunked doctrines. Paul Ryan's "innovative"
proposals of 2011 (cut taxes and privatize Medicare) were almost indistinguishable from those of Newt Gingrich in 1995.
Meanwhile, Democrats have experienced an intellectual renaissance. They have emerged from their 1990s cringe; they're no longer
afraid to challenge conservative pieties; and there's a lot of serious, well-informed intraparty debate about issues from health
care to climate change.
You don't have to agree with any of the various Medicare for All plans, or proposals for a Green New Deal, to recognize that
these are important ideas receiving serious discussion.
The question is whether our media environment can handle a real party of ideas. Can news organizations tell the difference
between genuine policy wonks and poseurs like Ryan? Are they even willing to discuss policy rather than snark about candidates'
supposed personality flaws?
Which brings me to the case of Elizabeth Warren, who is probably today's closest equivalent to Moynihan in his prime.
Like Moynihan, she's a serious intellectual turned influential politician. Her scholarly work on bankruptcy and its relationship
to rising inequality made her a major player in policy debate long before she entered politics herself. Like many others, I found
one of her key insights -- that rising bankruptcy rates weren't caused by profligate consumerism, that they largely reflected
the desperate attempts of middle-class families to buy homes in good school districts -- revelatory.
She has also proved herself able to translate scholarly insights into practical policy. Full disclosure: I was skeptical about
her brainchild, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. I didn't think it was a bad idea, but I had doubts about how much difference
a federal agency tasked with policing financial fraud would make. But I was wrong: Deceptive financial practices aimed at poorly
informed consumers do a lot of harm, and until President Trump sabotaged it, the bureau was by all accounts having a hugely salutary
effect on families' finances.
And Warren's continuing to throw out unorthodox policy ideas, like her proposal that the federal government be allowed to get
into the business of producing some generic drugs. This is the sort of thing that brings howls of derision from the right, but
that actual policy experts consider a valuable contribution to the discussion.
Is there anyone like Warren on the other side of the aisle? No. Not only aren't there any G.O.P. politicians with comparable
intellectual heft, there aren't even halfway competent intellectuals with any influence in the party. The G.O.P. doesn't want
people who think hard and look at evidence; it wants people like, say, the "economist" Stephen Moore, who slavishly reaffirm the
party's dogma, even if they can't get basic facts straight.
Does all of this mean that Warren should be president? Certainly not -- a lot of things determine whether someone will succeed
in that job, and intellectual gravitas is neither necessary nor sufficient. But Warren's achievements as a scholar/policymaker
are central to her political identity, and clearly should be front and center in any reporting about her presidential bid.
But, of course, they aren't. What I'm seeing are stories about whether she handled questions about her Native American heritage
well, or whether she's "likable."
This kind of journalism is destructively lazy, and also has a terrible track record. I'm old enough to remember the near-universal
portrayal of George W. Bush as a bluff, honest guy, despite the obvious lies underlying his policy proposals; then he took us
to war on false pretenses.
Moreover, trivia-based reporting is, in practice, deeply biased -- not in a conventional partisan sense, but in its implicit
assumption that a politician can't be serious unless he (and I mean he) is a conservative, or at most centrist, white male. That
kind of bias, if it persists, will be a big problem for a Democratic Party that has never been more serious about policy, but
has also never been more progressive and more diverse.
This bias needs to be called out -- and I'm not just talking about Warren. Consider the contrast between the unearned adulation
Ryan received and how long it took conventional wisdom to recognize that Nancy Pelosi was the most effective House speaker of
modern times.
Again, I'm not arguing that Warren should necessarily become president. But she is what a serious policy intellectual looks
and sounds like in 2019. And if our media can't recognize that, we're in big trouble.
Warren's point is: "the generals, 'adults' to the neocons and media, have to express in clear terms what is 'winning', how we
the unwashed know it is winning and what cost and time to 'win'.
No more deferring to neocon pundits and appeal to generals' authority for insanities like Syria and Libya!
Sort of like what the TDS'ers are saying about the border wall only for the immense pentagon waste machine.
Skeptical about the war mongers, Warren may not be an adult any more........
... Afghanistan has long been called the "graveyard of empires" -- for so long that it is unclear who coined that disputable
term.
In truth, no great empires perished solely because of Afghanistan. Perhaps a better way to put it is that Afghanistan is the
battleground of empires. Even without easily accessible resources, the country has still been blessed -- or cursed, more likely
-- with a geopolitical position that has repeatedly put it in someone or other's way. ...
Were they really "going broke"? They could print unlimited amounts of money.
Or was it that no one was bothering to work?
Or was it that the oligarchs realized they could get richer if they could fire people rather than under a system where they
had to employ everyone?
I had a co-worker that grew up in the Soviet Union. From his point of view, one day you had a guaranteed job and the pay was
going to be low no matter how hard you worked, so no one actually worked much. The next day you could be fired if you didn't work.
So people actually started to work. Output increased, their pay didn't go up, but the oligarchs were able to get a lot richer.
"Were they really "going broke"? They could print unlimited amounts of money."
Sounds like you're being argumentative.
The U.S.S.R. couldn't afford the invasion of Afghanistan. It cost a lot so it reduced their ability to spend on other priorities,
like aid to allied states. The Warsaw PACT countries began to fall away and then it snowballed.
If by "argument" we mean using logical statements to support a conclusion, then YES, I'm being argumentative. Not if you mean,
disagreeing just to be a jerk.
On an economics site, even if no where else, we have to view the economy from two sides... supply and demand.
Work produces supply and money supplies demand.
Was the USSR's problem on the supply side or the money side? Saying "went bankrupt" implies the problem was on the money side.
My view of state socialism, or any system where you can't be fired, is that it creates supply side problems. If you can't be
fired, there is no motivation to work hard.
I think it a HIGHLY important distinction, and one that we must use to keep progressive liberalism on the right track. (or
is it tack?)
Margaret Thatcher's quote "The problem with socialism is that you run out of other peoples' money to spend." is ignorant on
its face. As soon as government spends the money, it is someone else's again, ready to be taxed away again.
This "The USSR went bankrupt" reinforces the false view of socialism's flaws.
This feeds into the "We can't afford it" bulldung when we try to talk about things like Medicare for All.
Did the USSR collapse because they ran out of other peoples' money (went bankrupt)? OR, was production really low because people
couldn't be fired, so didn't bother to work hard? Did the oligarchs decided to end socialism and move to capitalism, so that they
could fire people, to motivate them to work harder, to increase production?
It is HUGELY important distinction for creating a successful progressive economy.
Pro-union? I'm all for it if it is about getting a bigger share of revenue for the workers via collective bargaining. BUT,
does that include making it hard to impossible to fire terrible workers? If so, does that hurt total production? If so, then it
has the same fatal flaw of state socialism.
Guaranteed Job: An idea that if you don't have a private sector job, you show up at a government employment office, do whatever
work is assigned, and get a check. However, since you can't be fired from the guaranteed job, there is absolutely no motivation
to actually do the assigned work. Then, there becomes no motivation to get a private sector job where you actually do have to
work.
Universal Basic Income: Until we reach the level of automation seen in Wall-E, stuff is still going to need to be done, by
someone. UBI makes people not want to do it.
+++++
On the flip side...
For Medicare for All, it is work that is already being done. All we're talking about is if we hand the money to the government
to manage the risk-pooling, or we hand the money over to for-profit insurance companies.
The "how can we afford it?" argument is based on the idea that the USSR went bankrupt from spending too much of "other peoples'
money".
However, if properly viewed as a labor issue, then "How can we afford it?" becomes obvious. We just use some of the money people
are already spending on healthcare.
Any apparent agreement between Liz Warren and Trump can be chalked up to coincidence. Liz Warren's opposition to the US always-war
is a feature, not a bug.
The MIC is an unregulated pox on American history.
War would not end if the USA slashed defense spending. All that would change is that other countries would colonize the USA
instead of the USA colonizing other countries.
You can chose to be the predator, or you can chose to be the prey, but you can't chose to not participate.
Thoughts
on Warren and Sanders: How Much Change Is Needed in 2021? Posted on
January 11,
2019 by Yves Smith Yves here. I know Warren is
deemed to be progressive by American standards, but I recall clearly when I first say her speak at a Roosevelt Institute conference,
Let Markets Be Markets, which was a title I found to be unhelpful, since it suggested that markets would exist in a state of nature
and just needed to be left alone. In fact, markets depend on rules and enforcement mechanisms to operate regularly and well.
Warren, who was the first speaker, gave a long preamble about how she loved markets and had long taught contract in law school.
I don't recall her giving any reason as to why she loved markets, when you'd expect her to make a case, such as how they were good
for people. Her speech struck me as defensive, as in she felt she had to say she was in favor of commerce so as not to be painted
as a Commie if/when she called for reforms.
By contrast, Karl Polyani, in his classic book The Great Transformation, argued that the evolution of market economies undermined
society because it treated land and labor as commodities. Pressured to slow the development economies were inevitable and Polyani
suggested, desirable, because the impact of the development of the market society on communities and families was often so disruptive
that the changes needed to be mitigated.
I didn't get any sense that Warren had those concerns, and I found that troubling. I didn't see how her profession of enthusiasm
for markets connected with the concerns she has expressed for the welfare of American families.
I've written before comparing Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders as presidential candidates, but only preliminarily. (See "
The Difference Between
Sanders and Warren, or Can Regulated Capitalism Save the Country? ") But there's much more to say -- foreign policy, for example,
is barely touched on there -- and also much is evolving in their positions, especially Warren's.
That earlier piece focused on the differences between these two candidates based on their economic ideologies. As I wrote then,
"Though both would make the next administration, if either were elected, a progressive one by many definitions, the nature of the
progressivism under each would be quite different."
In particular, I asked:
Can the current capitalist system be reformed and retained, or must it be partly nationalized -- taken over by government --
and reduced in size and capacity, for the country to be saved from its current economic enslavement to the "billionaire class"?
In addition to questions of personal preference, Democratic primary voters will be asked to decide this question as well.
And the question applies quite broadly. The billionaire class also controls our response to climate change. Is it possible
for a "free" market system -- a system in which billionaires and their corporations have control -- to transform the energy economy
enough to mitigate the coming disaster, or must government wrest control of the energy economy in order to have even a hope of
reducing the certain damage?
But there are other contrasts between these two as well, other differences, as Zaid Jilani,
writing in
Jacobin , points out. He begins where we began, with the ideological and philosophical differences:
Why the Differences Between Sanders and Warren Matter
Both are critics of the Democratic establishment. Both are foes of Wall Street. And both are substantive, policy-focused politicians.
But that doesn't mean Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren share the same worldview.
Sanders tends to focus on "post-distribution" remedies, meaning he prefers to use the government's power to tax and spend to
directly meet Americans' needs -- or replace the market altogether. His social-democratic ideas, like free college and single-payer
health care, are now policies most Democrats have to tip their hat to at least for electoral reasons. Warren wants to empower
regulators and rejigger markets to shape "pre-distribution" income, before taxes. Less likely to push for big-ticket programs,
she wants to re-regulate Wall Street and make life easier for consumers.
So far this is familiar ground.
Different Theories of Change
But as Jilani points out, there are differences in style and "theory of change" as well. ("Theory of change" usually encompasses
how a given policy change is to be accomplished, as opposed to what that change should be.) Jilani again:
The two senators also have distinct theories of change. Sanders has long believed in
bottom-up , movement-based
politics. Since
his days as mayor of Burlington, Vermont, he has tried to energize citizens to take part in government. He generally distrusts
elites and decision-making that does not include the public. Warren, on the other hand, generally accepts political reality and
works to push elite decision-makers towards her point of view.
When I worked at PCCC ["the most influential outside PAC supporting Warren" says Jilani], I was once told that Warren decided
to run for the Senate after witnessing the amount of power she had as an oversight chair for the bank bailouts. She believed that
"being in the room" with decision-makers in the Obama administration was essential to creating change.
About this he concludes: "While Warren wants to be at the table with elites, arguing for progressive policies, Sanders wants to
open the doors and let the public make the policy."
"Elizabeth is all about leverage"
These are significant differences, and his observation goes a long way to explaining this item from a
long piece published in Politico Magazine in 2016, an article otherwise about Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Discussing
why Warren refused to endorse Sanders, Glenn Thrush wrote:
Luckily for Clinton, Warren resisted Sanders' entreaties, for months telling the senator and his staff she hadn't made up her
mind about which candidate she would support. For all her credibility on the left, Warren is more interested in influencing the
granular Washington decisions of policymaking and presidential personnel -- and in power politics. Warren's favored modus operandi:
leveraging her outsider popularity to gain influence on the issues she cares about, namely income inequality and financial services
reform.
"Elizabeth is all about leverage, and she used it," a top Warren ally told me. "The main thing, you know, is that she always
thought Hillary was going to be the nominee, so that was where the leverage was."
Warren, several people in her orbit say, never really came close to endorsing the man many progressives consider to be her
ideological soulmate.
For many grassroots supporters of Sanders, who were also strong Warren supporters prior to his entry into the race, these revelations
-- "all about the leverage" and "never came close to endorsing" -- took the bloom off the Warren rose. For whatever reason, that
bloom appears not to have returned, at least not completely.
Jilani's observation in no way diminishes Warren's credibility or core desirability as a candidate. If you care about achieving
your goals through "leverage," joining the Sanders campaign, which may have looked to you like a kind of Children's Crusade, would
seem foreign to your way of operating.
The Bottom Line -- Not Just Method, But Scope
While Jilani notes that many of Warren's past positions, for example,
on charter schools and Medicare
for All, have grown more progressive, she still doesn't seem to prioritize Medicare for All as strongly as Sanders does.
In 2012, Warren was explicitly opposed to Medicare for All (called "single payer" at the time). "Five years later --
after decades of advocacy
by Sanders had helped popularize Medicare for All -- Warren [finally] decided to endorse the policy," writes Jilani. "But unlike
consumer protections or financial regulation, establishing a single-payer health care system doesn't seem to be a top priority for
Warren." He adds, "It's hardly a surprise
that Warren didn't raise single-payer during her first two campaign events in Iowa and when asked about it by a Washington Post
reporter, [she] suggested she didn't bring it up because no one else at the events raised it."
As noted above, if either were president, the odds that America will change for the better would vastly improve. But each would
do that job in a different way. Each has a different philosophy of how government should work, and approach the process of change
from different directions -- though I have to give Warren credit for
picking public fights with
fellow Democrats when others are much more timid.
But to these two differences -- philosophy and approach -- let me add a third, a difference in sweep. The scope of change envisioned
and attempted by a Sanders presidency would likely be far greater than that attempted by Warren.
In these times, with a massive climate tsunami fast approaching and a Depression-style rebellion in full view, can America,
in this Franklin Roosevelt moment , afford just a better manager of the current system, a better rearranger, and survive?
There's not much question that Warren would better fix the status quo, and be a better choice as president, than 95% of the other
candidates on offer. But would a Warren presidency be enough to bring us through this crisis as safely as Washington, Lincoln and
FDR once did?
For many true progressives, I think that's the question she'll be asked to answer, and she has about a year, or less, to answer
it.
Just spitballing here, but I think that Warren has more of a technocrat view of the process of governance than Sanders does.
Warren seems to be an academic at heart. Sanders has experience dealing with the public in all it's tatterdemalion glory. He was
a City Mayor, about as close to the ground level in politics as one can get. Warren would make an excellent Department Head, a
good member of the Cabinet. Sanders has a reputation of 'getting things done' in the Senate. This suggests that Sanders has the
skills of persuasion and, importantly, coalition building, incorporating strategic concessions. These are a big part of the Art
of Politics.
So, Sanders has the Art of Politics in his tool kit while Warren has the bureaucratic skills to work behind the scenes. They would
make a good team, if Warren is to be trusted. And there is the stumbling block.
With Warren wanting to be at the table with the elites, perhaps she took the advice of Larry Summers. In her memoir, "A Fighting
Chance", she mentions a dinner conversation where she was told by him 'I had a choice. I could be an insider or I could be an
outsider. Outsiders can say whatever they want. But people on the inside don't listen to them. Insiders, however, get lots of
access and a chance to push their ideas. People -- powerful people -- listen to what they have to say. But insiders also understand
one unbreakable rule: They don't criticize other insiders.'
The elites will, and have been, doing anything to derail rebellion and block any electoral movement towards popular governance,
even of the save-the-system New Deal style of politics. If co-opting fails, then media blackout, vote fraud and silencing follows.
They took it all and plan to keep it at any cost.
The immiseration of the American people, to paraphrase Madeleine Albright, is worth it.
[Mar 6, 2019] Senator Warren on Twitter "My plan to #EndCorruptionNow would require most @WhiteHouse employees (including
Bill Shine) to recuse themselves from all issues that might financially benefit a former employer or client. Our government should
work for everyone, not just @realDonaldTrump's inner circle."
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
Ph.D
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Daily Caller Jan 07, 2020 Search results
Sarah Abdallah @ sahouraxo 16h 16 hours ago More
<img alt="Faith could bring us together. But too often it divides us" src="//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/191121180252-20191121-fractured-states-religious-leaders-large-169.jpg"> Faith could bring us together. But too often it divides us Younger evangelicals, those under 45, have been slowly but steadily moving away from Trump during the past two years or so, unhappy about his example. A key topic that has driven them away is immigration. Loving your neighbor as yourself has always been a bedrock Christian value. And Trump's stance on immigrants (especially those of color) has upset the younger generation of evangelicals, with two-thirds of them saying in surveys that immigrants strengthen our country, bringing their work ethic and talents with them from Mexico or Central America or Syria. Climate change is another issue that has caught the imagination of younger evangelicals. "I can't love my neighbor if I'm not protecting the earth that sustains them and defending their rights to clean water, clean air, and a stable climate," Kyle Meyaard-Schaap, a national organizer for Young Evangelicals for Climate Action, told Grist . Needless to say, Trump's contempt on this subject grates badly on these young Christians. Perhaps naively, Americans have always looked to the presidency for exemplary moral behavior, and when there are obvious personal or moral failures, as with Nixon and Clinton, there is disappointment, even anger. But if you're a Christian -- and I lay claim to this for myself -- you understand that it's human to fail at perfect behavior. There is always forgiveness. And, as T.S. Eliot wrote, "Humility is endless."
Category: Crony Capitalism , social security , Stealing Social Security Older Posts
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