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Franklin Delano Roosevelt Defines Core Difference Between Democrats & Republicans

December 14, 2014, 11:31 am
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Elizabeth Warren: Ah! To Be A Fly On The Wall Of The Unfolded Cortex!

December 14, 2014, 11:35 am
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"Plutocracy Triumphant"
Cartoon Compendium

"Taibbi: The $9 Billion Whistle Blower At JPMorgan-Chase. Financial Thuggery At The Top"

"The Rich Aren't Just Grabbing A Bigger Slice Of The Pie. They're Taking It All"

"Politics And Economics: The 101 Courses You Wish You Had"

"Let's Just Say It. The Republicans Are The Problem"
Conservative Norm Ornstein and Liberal Thomas Mann

"Just How Far Out Is The Republican Fringe?" Norm Ornstein (And Is It The Fringe?)

"It's Even Worse Than It Looks"
Conservaive Norm Ornstein and Liberal Thomas Mann

"When Extremism Goes Mainstream"
Conservative Norm Ornstein

"The Real Death Panels," Conservative Norm Ornstein

"American Conservatives And Oppositional-Defiant Disorder"

"Are Republicans Insane?"

"The Republican Party Is A Satanic Cult"

Jindal Criticizes The Stupid Party: "Simply protects the rich so they get to keep their toys"

"The Reign of Morons Is Here," Charles P. Pierce, The Atlantic

"A Southerner Explains Tea Party Radicalism: The Civil War Is Not Over"

"People Who Watch Only Fox News 
Know Less Than People Who Watch No News"

Bill Maher: The Zombie Life Cycle Of Republican Lies. They Never - Ever - Die

"Bank On It: The South Is Always Wrong"

"Why The Bible Belt Is Its Own Worst Enemy"
  1. http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/10/why-bible-belt-is-christianitys-enemy.html

"The Guardian: John Oliver's Viral Video Is The Best Climate Debate You'll Ever See"

  1. http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-guardian-john-olivers-viral-video.html

"Republicans For Revolution," A Study In Anarchic Apocalypticism

George McGovern: "The Case For Liberalism, A Defense Of The Future Against The Past"



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Bill Maher: Christians And The Bible

December 14, 2014, 11:41 am
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Elizabeth Warren Promised To Leave "Plenty Of Blood And Teeth On The Senate Floor"

December 14, 2014, 11:43 am
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"Politics And Economics: The 101 Courses You Wish You Had"

"Plutocracy Triumphant"
Cartoon Compendium

"Taibbi: The $9 Billion Whistle Blower At JPMorgan-Chase. Financial Thuggery At The Top"

Elizabeth Warren: Remarks On Citigroup And Its Bailout Provision In The "Chromnibus" Budget Bill

Posted on December 14, 2014 


By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Go here to see Warren's 9 minute speech.
Speech Transcript (via WaPo):
Mr. President, I’m back on the floor to talk about a dangerous provision that was slipped into a must-pass spending bill at the last minute to benefit Wall Street. This provision would repeal a rule called, and I’m quoting the title of the rule, “PROHIBITION AGAINST FEDERAL GOVERNMENT BAILOUTS OF SWAPS ENTITIES.” 
On Wednesday, I came to the floor to talk to Democrats, asking them to strip this provision out of the omnibus bill and protect taxpayers. 
On Thursday, I came to the floor to talk to Republicans. Republicans say they don’t like bailouts either. So I asked them to vote the way they talk. If they don’t like bailouts, then they could take out this provision that puts taxpayers right back on the hook for bailing out big banks. 
Today, I’m coming to the floor not to talk about Democrats or Republicans, but about a third group that also wields tremendous power in Washington: Citigroup. 
Mr. President, in recent years, many Wall Street institutions have exerted extraordinary influence in Washington’s corridors of power, but Citigroup has risen above the others. Its grip over economic policymaking in the executive branch is unprecedented. Consider a few examples: 
  • Three of the last four Treasury Secretaries under Democratic presidents have had close Citigroup ties. The fourth was offered the CEO position at Citigroup, but turned it down. 
  •  The Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve system is a Citigroup alum. 
  • The Undersecretary for International Affairs at Treasury is a Citigroup alum. 
  • The U.S. Trade Representative and the person nominated to be his deputy – who is currently an assistant secretary at Treasury – are Citigroup alums. 
  • A recent chairman of the National Economic Council at the White House was a Citigroup alum. 
  • Another recent Chairman of the Office of Management and Budget went to Citigroup immediately after leaving the White House. 
  •  Another recent Chairman of the Office of Management of Budget and Management is also a Citi alum — but I’m double counting here because now he’s the Secretary of the Treasury.
That’s a lot of powerful people, all from one bank. But they aren’t Citigroup’s only source of power. Over the years, the company has spent millions of dollars on lobbying Congress and funding the political campaigns of its friends in the House and the Senate. 
Citigroup has also spent millions trying to influence the political process in ways that are far more subtle—and hidden from public view. Last year, I wrote Citigroup and other big banks a letter asking them to disclose the amount of shareholder money they have been diverting to think tanks to influence public policy. Citigroup’s response to my letter? Stonewalling. A year has gone by, and Citigroup didn’t even acknowledge receiving the letter. 
Citigroup has a lot of money, it spends a lot of money, and it uses that money to grow and consolidate a lot of power. And it pays off. Consider a couple facts.
Fact one: During the financial crisis, when all the support through TARP and from the FDIC and the Fed is added up, Citi received nearly half a trillion dollars in bailouts. That’s half a trillion with a “t.” That’s almost $140 billion more than the next biggest bank got. 
Fact two: During Dodd-Frank, there was an amendment introduced by my colleague Senator Brown and Senator Kaufman that would have broken up Citigroup and the nation’s other largest banks. That amendment had bipartisan support, and it might have passed, but it ran into powerful opposition from an alliance between Wall Streeters on Wall Street and Wall Streeters who held powerful government jobs. They teamed up and blocked the move to break up the banks—and now Citi is bigger than ever. 
The role that senior officials working in the Treasury department played in killing the amendment was not subtle: A senior Treasury official acknowledged it at the time in a background interview with New York Magazine. The official from Treasury said, and I’m quoting here, “If we’d been for it, it probably would have happened. But we weren’t, so it didn’t.” That’s power. 
Mr. President, Democrats don’t like Wall Street bailouts. Republicans don’t like Wall Street bailouts. The American people are disgusted by Wall Street bailouts. 
And yet here we are — five years after Dodd-Frank – with Congress on the verge of ramming through a provision that would do nothing for middle class, do nothing for community banks – do nothing but raise the risk that taxpayers will have to bail out the biggest banks once again. 
There’s a lot of talk lately about how the Dodd-Frank Act isn’t perfect. There’s a lot of talk coming from Citigroup about how the Dodd-Frank Act isn’t perfect.
So let me say this to anyone who is listening at Citi: I agree with you. Dodd-Frank isn’t perfect. 
It should have broken you into pieces. 
If this Congress is going to open up Dodd-Frank in the months ahead, let’s open it up to get tougher—not to create more bailout opportunities . 
If we are going to open up Dodd-Frank, let’s open it up so that, once and for all, we end Too Big to Fail. And I mean let’s really end it – not just say we did. 
Instead of passing laws that create new bailout opportunities for Too-Big-To-Fail banks, let’s pass Brown-Kaufman. Let’s pass the bipartisan 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act – a bill I’ve sponsored with John McCain, Angus King, and Maria Cantwell. Let’s pass something – anything – that would help break up these giant banks. 
A century ago, Teddy Roosevelt was America’s trustbuster. He went after the giant trusts and monopolies in this country, and a lot of people talk about how those trusts deserved to be broken up because they had too much economic power. But Teddy Roosevelt said we should break them up because they had too much political power. Teddy Roosevelt said break them up because all that concentrated power threatened the very foundations of our democratic system. 
And now we’re watching as Congress passes yet another provision that was written by lobbyists for the biggest recipient of bailout money in the history of the country. And it’s attached to a bill that needs to pass or else the entire federal government will grind to a halt. 
Think about this kind of power. A financial institution has become so big and so powerful that it can hold the entire country hostage. That alone is a reason enough for us break them up. Enough is enough. 
Enough is enough with Wall Street insiders getting key position after key position and the kind of cronyism we have seen in the executive branch. Enough is enough with Citigroup passing 11th hour deregulatory provisions that nobody takes ownership over but that everybody comes to regret. Enough is enough. 
Washington already works really well for the billionaires and big corporations and the lawyers and lobbyists. But what about the families who lost their homes or their jobs or their retirement savings the last time Citi bet big on derivatives and lost?  
What about the families who are living paycheck to paycheck and saw their tax dollars go to bail Citi out just six years ago? We were sent here to fight for those families, and it’s time – it’s past time – for Washington to start working for them.
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As we now know, Warren’s speech was for naught, at least in terms of legislative impact. The Boston Globe, from Warren’s home state, had this reaction:
WASHINGTON — Before she became a senator, Elizabeth Warren came to Capitol Hill and promised “plenty of blood and teeth left on the floor” if she did not get meaningful reforms of Wall Street. This week, she showed what she meant. 
The Massachusetts Democrat brought Congress to the brink of yet another government shutdown in her effort to kill a provision that she said would have once again put taxpayers at risk of bailing out big banks. The provision was inserted by Republicans in a huge spending bill. 
She appears to have lost the policy fight, but won a political battle.
By Friday morning, more than 300 former Obama aides had signed a letter urging her to run for president, joining overtures made by an increasing number of liberal groups, some of which are unhappy with front-runner Hillary Clinton. Warren said again Friday that she will not run. 
“It’s not about rifts. It’s not politics,” Warren said in an interview, as she reiterated her now familiar argument that middle-class families are losing out to the billionaire class. “It’s about putting the issues forward.”
Frankly, I’m not certain that the support of 300 Obama aides is a good thing, given their track record. That said, is Warren “catching fire”? Will we look back on the Citigroup bailout provision fight — which might as well never have happened, from a legislative standpoint — as the spark that flamed into a Warren candidacy?

Or is it all kayfabe, with the Democrats faking left — and not that much to the left, either — because all their Blue Dog Republicans lost to real Republicans, and they “have no place to go”? And could it be that some players — perhaps Warren — are breaking kayfabe? These are, after all, interesting times. Readers?

NOTE Warren’s reference to “corridors of power” is interesting. Corridors of Power is the title of one novel in C.P. Snow’s series Strangers and Brothers which, among other things, chronicles Britain’s inexorable post-World War I imperial collapse, as seen through the eyes of a young man from the provinces in London, as he climbs the career ladder as a lawyer, then at Oxbridge, and finally in Whitehall.

In Corridors of Power, the hero is an advisor to a Conservative, Roger Quaife, who hopes to parlay a brilliant speech on why Britain should divest itself of nuclear weapons — Suez had convinced him of the inanity of Britain’s strategic position — into party leadership, and thence to the Prime Ministership. Quaife is undone by pressure from the right in America, resistance from his own back bench, and finally by a sex scandal — though taking strength from that relationship he throws the dice one last time in the hopes that the humane nuclear policy he has come to believe in might win through, despite the whip count.

In the end, Quaife’s failure is worse than predicted, and he resigns and leaves politics. On to Maggie Thatcher! There are many resonances, as you see, with contemporary American politics, and one wonders which — if any — Warren and/or her speechwriter had in mind using the phrase (and not for the first time).
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"Dick Cheney to Lead Torture-Pride March," The Borowitz Report

December 14, 2014, 6:02 pm
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"Citigroup to Move Headquarters to U.S. Capitol Building," The Borowitz Report

December 14, 2014, 6:04 pm
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E.J. Dionne: Obama Saves Boehner's Bacon

December 15, 2014, 6:12 am
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Meanwhile, Republicans are furious with Cruz. "I don't see what we're achieving here. I just don't," said Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.). The Senate eventually passed the spending bill late Saturday. The inability of the Republican caucus in the Senate to unite on parliamentary strategy raises questions about how effective the G.O.P. majority will be next year. Frank Thorp V for NBC.

DRUM: What Cruz was trying to achieve was completely symbolic. His resolution never would have passed, and wouldn't have changed anything even if it had. But it had the effect of helping Obama. Mother Jones.

Obama’s Boehner Bailout

E.J. Dionne Jr.
How often will President Obama come to House Speaker John Boehner’s rescue even when Republican leaders aren’t willing to give much in return? And does the president want to preside over a split in his party?
These are among the questions raised by the dramatic budget battle that came close to breaching the deadline for a government shutdown.
But along the way, something quite unexpected happened: Progressive Democrats nearly derailed the bill themselves to block two provisions sneaked into it that had nothing to do with taxing and spending. One undercut the financial reforms of the Dodd-Frank law by loosening its restrictions on banks’ ability to use taxpayer-insured funds from depositors for some potentially risky transactions involving derivatives.The budget bill won final passage in the Senate Saturday night amid genuine rage inside the Republican Party over the usual theatrics organized by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.).
Former representative Barney Frank warned that tossing such a provision into a must-pass bill would provide “a road map for the stealth unwinding of financial reform.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who once again took the lead for the party’s populists, called it “the worst of government for the rich and powerful.”
The other provision further tore apart campaign finance laws by allowingbig donors to contribute up to $1,555,200 to a political party committee over a two-year election cycle, and a couple to give up to $3,110,400.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) nicely captured the government-for-sale message sent by the two components. “You’ve got the quid and the quo in one bill,” he said.
Typically, Democrats are more anxious than Republicans to avoid government shutdowns, which has the effect of strengthening those who use shutdown threats as a form of hostage-taking. This time, Boehner was operating from weakness. He desperately wanted to avoid drama but could not pass the bill with Republican votes alone, since his tea party members wanted to pick a fight with the president over his executive order on immigration. On the final House tally late Thursday night, Boehner lost 67 members of his party.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi thought the circumstances gave the progressive holdouts a chance to force the offending provisions out of the bill. But before they had any chance of testing their newfound leverage, the White House issued a statement calling for passage of the bill while criticizing the provisions in question. The administration feared scuttling a deal it saw as far better than anything the new Congress would produce. Obama went to work rounding up Democratic votes for Boehner.
Pelosi, one of Obama’s most loyal allies, wasn’t pleased. “I’m enormously disappointed that the White House feels that the only way they can get a bill is to go along with this,” she said on the House floor.
In the end, enough Democrats, particularly those who negotiated the appropriations — agreed with the president and were able to push the bill through. But Democrats who think their party’s resurgence depends on breaking with classic special-interest logrolling sent a message that they are not to be trifled with — and the fractiousness among Republicans in the House and Senate suggests that Democratic votes may count for something next year.
Moreover, Obama will not always be able to count on the Senate to block Republican bills he objects to. To sustain his vetoes, he will have to depend on House loyalists — some of the very people he disappointed this time around.
Pelosi played down such problems in an interview on Friday, insisting that the differences with the White House this time were primarily over short-term tactics. In trying to get a budget through, she said, the president and his lieutenants understandably wanted to “clear the decks” so the administration and Congress could start fresh next year.
“I am very confident in the White House and how we move forward,” she said, adding that the resistance of so many Democrats sent a signal to Boehner that there are limits on what she and her colleagues will accept, particularly when it comes to undercutting financial reform.
Boehner and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell will no doubt reflect on this close call. Senate Democratic leaders, soon facing minority status, may have learned that they will have to take both their own progressive wing and their House colleagues much more seriously. But this should also be a wake-up call for the president who, in his last two years, needs to be far more attentive to how he deals with Congress, and especially with his allies.
Read more from E.J. Dionne’s archive
Read more about this topic:
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Elizabeth Warren's Latest Wall St. Attack Her Boldest Yet

December 15, 2014, 6:22 am
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The Thinking Housewife: Sleeping With The Enemy

December 15, 2014, 6:33 am
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Krugman: Restoration Of Banks' Ability To Gamble With Fed-Guaranteed Money

December 15, 2014, 6:35 am
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Krugman: There's no reason at all why banks should be able to gamble with money guaranteed by the government. The provision shows how easily and how cheaply the banks have been able to buy off Congress. The New York Times

LUCE: We can't prevent financial crises, but we can be ready for them when they come. That means breaking up the largest banks and changing the culture on Wall Street -- but if Congress can't even maintain minor bans on risky activity, then the chances for real reform are slim. The Financial Times

"Citigroup to Move Headquarters to U.S. Capitol Building," The Borowitz Report





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Torture Report Presents Constitutional Crisis

December 15, 2014, 6:44 am
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simulating fellatio
America The Beautiful

If they weren't terrorists before, they are now.

CIA Torture Report: Best Pax Posts

CORN: The torture report presents a constitutional crisis. Without effective civilian control, constitutional government is impossible. And the CIA nearly succeeded in blocking effective congressional oversight. The secrecy on which the agency depends might just be irreconcilable with democratic values. Mother Jones


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Vivek Murthy M.D. Re-Nominated As Physician General

December 15, 2014, 6:58 am
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Vivek Murthy M.D.
Wikipedia

Excerpt: Murthy’s nomination has received broad support from over 100 medical and public health organizations in the U.S., including the American College of Physicians, the American Public Health Association, the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, and the American Diabetes Association.[16] He has also received the endorsements of two former Surgeons General, Dr. David Satcher and Dr. Regina Benjamin.

The National Rifle Association objects to Vivek Murthy M.D., who has said gun violence is a public health matter. Republicans object to Blinken because of his association with Obama's foreign policies, and to Saldaña because they oppose the president's immigration policies. Paul Kane in The Washington Post

"Gun Cartoons and Gun Violence Bibliography"




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Congress Finally Allocates Money To Track Police Shooting

December 15, 2014, 7:05 am
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"Bad Black People." Why Bill O'Reilly Is Wrong Even When He's Right

Congress has allocated money to track police shootings. The federal government does not keep track of the number of people who die during arrests or in police custody, despite maintaining all kinds of other data on crime and law enforcement. New legislation will change that by reauthorizing a law that expired in 2006. Hunter Schwarz in The Washington Post


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Despite Dishonor and Dodd-Frank, Banks Make Comeback. How Did This Happen

December 15, 2014, 7:10 am
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"Politics And Economics: The 101 Courses You Wish You Had"

"Plutocracy Triumphant"
Cartoon Compendium

"Taibbi: The $9 Billion Whistle Blower At JPMorgan-Chase. Financial Thuggery At The Top"



Federal Reserve Bank Investigator Carmen Segarra Fired For Holding Banks Responsible


"The Rich Aren't Just Grabbing A Bigger Slice Of The Pie. They're Taking It All"

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Stanley Fischer talks about the banks' political influence. "I thought that when Dodd-Frank started, that the banks would not succeed in influencing it, having lost all the prestige they lost," the Federal Reserve's vice chairman said after the House passed a bill to allow banks to trade derivatives with federally insured deposits. "Boy, was I wrong." Ryan Tracy in The Wall Street Journal



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U.S. Marine Charged With Murder Of Transgender Woman In The Phillipines

December 15, 2014, 8:32 am
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Protesters in the Philippines hang a rainbow banner from a foot bridge near the U.S. Embassy on Dec. 1 to demand justice for the Oct. 11 killing of Jennifer Laude, a transgender Filipina, at a former U.S. naval base northwest of Manila. (Bullit Marquez/Associated Press)
NC Church Members Face Charges In Abduction-Beating Of Gay Man

Christianity's Bedrock Commitment To Torture: Remaking "The Faithful" In God's Image

Biblical Literalism And The Cultivation Of Hatred

Mistakes In Scripture: When The Bible Gets The Bible Wrong

"Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy," A Glimpse Of True Christianity


U.S. Marine Charged With Murder Of Transgender Woman In The Phillipines
Prosecutors in the Philippines have formally charged a U.S. Marine with the October murder of a transgender woman.
Pfc. Joseph Scott Pemberton is accused of strangling and drowning Jennifer Laude in a toilet bowl, a case that Filipino advocates have called a “hate crime.”
Pemberton, 19, was among 3,500 U.S. troops in the country to participate in joint military exercises. But the murder case has raised new tensions that now threaten the longtime relationship between the United States and the Philippines, a former colony.
Prosecutors said they have “probable cause” to believe that Pemberton is responsible for Laude’s death.
“It’s murder,” prosecutor Emily de los Santos said, according to the Associated Press. “It was aggravated by treachery, abuse of superior strength and cruelty.”
According to the Philippine National Police, Pemberton allegedly met Laude and another transgender woman named Barbie at a disco bar while on shore leave in Olongapo City.
The three checked into a motel, but later that night, Laude told the other woman that they should leave before Pemberton could discover that they were transgender.
Laude was found next to a toilet by the motel clerk, dead by apparent drowning. Pemberton was identified by the motel clerk and by Barbie in a photo lineup. He was held on a U.S. assault ship docked off the Philippine coast. But after anti-American protests, he was moved to a Philippine detention camp on land but remained in U.S. custody, according to the AP.
According to the Marine Corps Times, Pemberton is a Massachusetts native who enlisted in the Marine Corps last year and is an anti-tank missileman. He is stationed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina and is a member of the 2nd Battalion, 9th Marines.
In evidence submitted in court by prosecutors, one of the three Marines who was with Pemberton that night said that the suspect allegedly confessed to attacking the woman he was with, according to the Associated Press.
Marine Lance Corporal Jairn Michael Rose said that later that night when they returned to the ship, Pemberton confided in him that after the woman undressed and he discovered that she was transgender, he choked her with his arm until she stopped moving. He allegedly then dragged her into the bathroom.
“I think I killed a he/she,” Pemberton was quoted as having told Rose, according to the AP.
Suspects charged with murder in the Philippines are not eligible for bail. And according to de los Santos, Pemberton, who has not been seen publicly since being charged, would have to appear in court for an arraignment.
According to Reuters, an arrest warrant is expected to be issued within the next week. Under a longstanding agreement with the United States, suspects can remain in U.S. custody for the duration of criminal proceedings in the Philippines. The Philippines can request that the United States voluntarily turn over custody of a defendant in a criminal case. It is unclear whether the Philippines might make such a request in this case and how the United States would respond.
“We look forward to the full cooperation of the U.S. government in ensuring that justice is secured,” foreign ministry spokesman Charles Jose said in a statement.
The case is reminiscent of another case in which a U.S. military member was charged and convicted with murder in the Philippines, The Washington Post reported in October:
The murder investigation is drawing comparisons with a 2005 case in which another U.S. Marine, Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith, was accused of raping a Filipino woman in a van near Subic Bay while three other Marines watched and cheered.
Smith was convicted in a Philippine court and originally sentenced to life in prison. He was transferred to the custody of the U.S. Embassy in Manila and detained there until 2009, when his accuser recanted and his conviction was overturned. The outcome stirred suspicion among many Filipinos, in part because U.S. officials granted Smith’s accuser a visa to live in the United States after she changed her story.
Craig Whitlock contributed to this report, which has been updated multiple times.
Abby Phillip is a general assignment national reporter for the Washington Post. She can be reached atabby.phillip@washpost.com. On Twitter: @abbydphillip

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Great Shark Photo

December 15, 2014, 8:44 am
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Great White Shark

Or, is it The Republican Party in pursuit of blacks and The Middle Class?

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"Bad Black People." Why Bill O'Reilly Is Wrong Even When He's Right

"Plutocracy Triumphant"
Cartoon Compendium

"Politics And Economics: The 101 Courses You Wish You Had"

"Taibbi: The $9 Billion Whistle Blower At JPMorgan-Chase. Financial Thuggery At The Top"


Federal Reserve Bank Investigator Carmen Segarra Fired For Holding Banks Responsible

"The Rich Aren't Just Grabbing A Bigger Slice Of The Pie. They're Taking It All"
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-rich-arent-just-grabbing-bigger.html




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Norm Ornstein: Government Split Between "The White Party" And "The Minority Party"

December 15, 2014, 9:06 am
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ORNSTEIN: Obama could not resolve America's racial conflicts. Six years after Obama's election, relations between whites and minorities remain tense, and racial antipathy toward the president himself has been not just widespread, but surprisingly mainstream in the opposition party. What's especially concerning is that the parties are increasingly parties of race, with the Republicans representing whites and Democrats minorities. The Atlantic



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The Most Powerful Democrat in America

December 15, 2014, 12:12 pm
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Elizabeth Warren Promised To "Leave Plenty Of Blood And Teeth On The Senate Floor"

The Most Powerful Democrat in America


Michael Tomasky, The Daily Beast
Elizabeth Warren’s weekend heroics have endeared her even more to the Democratic base, and it’s time Hillary started getting worried.


Are future historians going to look back on the past weekend as the one in which Elizabeth Warren took over the Democratic Party? She didn’t win the fight she led over the weekend to have the provision weakening the Dodd-Frank law stripped out of the spending bill, but she was never going to win that vote. What she did win, though, was the ever-more intense ardor of her growing number of liberal fans. They’d march with her over hot coals. There’s no other Democrat in the country with that kind of following.
So it’s hardly impossible that Warren could come to be the leader of the Democratic Party. Hillary Clinton, who hasn’t been cutting an inspiring figure across the landscape of late, makes a few more “dead broke” missteps. Warren decides to run after all. The two go head to head through the primaries, but somehow Warren taps into Democrats’ emotional nerve-endings in a way Clinton simply can’t, and she becomes the nominee. And then...
As I said, that’s hardly an insane scenario, and it’s one Clinton should heed, and heed pretty quickly. The general assumption has been that Warren won’t challenge Clinton, and that’s probably correct. But Warren is well aware of how adoring and numerous her followers are and how much leverage that gives her in the party, and what she wants is to push the party to embrace her economic views. I doubt she really expects that she can be elected president, and I wonder if she even would really want the gig (she’s shown practically no interest in foreign policy, and that is destined to be by far the hardest and most hair-graying part of the job). But if she becomes convinced that challenging Clinton is the best—or only—way for her to maximize her leverage, then she might just do it.
Surely, after this last week, she can’t be blamed if she’s feeling a bit more intoxicated. After watching her astounding call to break up Citigroup, her admirers have been rushing forth with pleas and petitions for her to run.Referring to Citi’s role in the lobbying effort to get that anti Dodd-Frank provision put in the spending bill Congress just passed, Warren said on the Senate floor last Friday: “If a financial institution has become so big and so powerful that it can hold the entire country hostage, that alone is reason enough to break them up. Enough is enough. Enough is enough, with Wall Street insiders getting key position after key position, and the kind of cronyism that we have seen in the executive branch. Enough is enough, with Citigroup passing eleventh-hour deregulatory provisions that nobody takes ownership over but everybody will come to regret.”
I can’t remember the last time a prominent senator issued such a direct challenge to one of America’s leading corporations. That kind of talk went out of style long ago, in favor of the corporate leg-spreading so much more typical of our campaign-cash-obsessed era. Warren doesn’t need their money and represents a state where, barring a weird scandal, she can get reelected as long as she wants, so she can do what depressingly few senators can—speak her mind on money issues.
But she does have this problem: The media will always peg her as “left,” a word that in modern American media usage is clearly a pejorative. And if she just gets stuck there, her influence, however great among the Democratic base, will never grow outside of it. More centrist Democrats will make a few gestures in the Warren direction, but nothing more.
No one expects her tobe Elizabeth Warren, but everyone expects Clinton to hear and respect Warren.
So Warren’s great challenge is to counter that dismissal by showing that her ideas do indeed have appeal outside the hard-shell Democratic Party base. They do, potentially—a number of polls have shown that Americans, including many in the center and even some on the right, have negative views of Wall Street and would back tighter regulation. She can speak to goo-goo eyed crowds in Boston and New York and San Francisco and Los Angeles, and while she’ll wow the already converted and rake in the money, she won’t be changing anything. But if she can take her message to Des Moines and Louisville and Columbus and Jacksonville and demonstrate that audiences are receptive there, then she’ll break out of the box the media wants to assign her. And if she can do that, she’ll become a figure of un-ignorable influence, and she’ll start making the likes of Clinton really pay attention.
But Clinton should be paying attention anyway. The feeling I sense right now about Clinton is: not very much real excitement, and just the slightest bit of resentment at her inevitability. She seems a little remote. She comments, sometimes, on issues that arise, but it always seems to take her a little longer than it ought to. She has a Twitter feed, but she tweets about once a week, and it’s always a total snooze. Why shouldn’t she—who needs to find ways to make people forget she’s nearly 70—use Twitter to comment on the news, and say some interesting and edgy things?
Those come under symbolism. Substantively, Clinton needs to see that what Warren represents is real and, once she starts taking positions, take some that demonstrate that she hears what these exasperated millions are trying to say about inequality and the rigged system. No one expects her to be Elizabeth Warren, but everyone expects Clinton to hear and respect Warren. If she doesn’t send convincing signals that she does, then Warren may well feel that she needs to run after all. The choice is Clinton’s.



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Weird Enuf Fer Ya? News From Barbaria #164

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Do the math.


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Ephesians 6:5. The Immutable Word Of God?

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