I truly {heart} my senior Senator, Elizabeth Warren. She has once again disappointed the political horse-race touts by refusing to be distracted, per The Hill:
… Warren has long denied that she is running for president, but the liberal groups urging her to run have focused on her present tense phrasing of “I am not running for president,” as possibly leaving the door open to deciding to run later on.
But in an interview in Fortune published Tuesday, Warren is asked, “Are you going to run for president?”
Her response is one word: “No.”…
And that Fortune interview is really good — Warren talks with an old friend who’s had her own disagreements with the Wall Street vampire squids, former FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair:
Congress just effectively repealed a Dodd-Frank prohibition on big banks using FDIC-insured deposits to fund high-risk derivatives, notwithstanding bipartisan opposition led by you and GOP Senator David Vitter. What’s going to happen to financial reform over the next few years? Is this a precursor of things to come?
Warren: I’m not sure what’s going to happen in the next Congress, but I will tell you that I’m madder than hops about repealing the section of Dodd-Frank that is designed to lower risks in exactly the area where the big banks got into trouble. And now we are putting taxpayers back on the hook. They want to take all the profits, but tag the taxpayer with the losses.
And not everyone in the financial industry thinks this is a good idea.
Right. If I were running a competing investment bank that was doing business without deposit insurance, I’d be even madder. These big banks don’t have to compete on a level playing field. I have talked to a lot of nonbank financial players – investment banks, hedge funds –they have to compete for capital on their own. They have to convince their investors to be willing to accept the risks. They have to provide a rate of return to their investors that compensates for those risks. They don’t like competing with a half dozen large financial institutions who enjoy the benefits of deposit insurance and too-big-to-fail status…
… I started thinking about how non-financial businesses are also disadvantaged by this. The last I heard, most Fortune 500 companies are not big financial firms — they don’t have too-big-to-fail government guarantees. That’s worth real money to the big banks. If they had to purchase that kind of insurance against their failure- they would have to pay a lot. Everyone else in the system has to compete for capital against a sector that has a special deal from the government.
Yes. But no one wants to say that publicly.That’s true. Some business people will say these things to me, but they won’t say them publicly. This gets to the revolving door problem. When too-big-to-fail institutions can place their employees in government positions, it extends their power and intimidates others who don’t have their connections…
And right on cue, come the plaintive whinges that “Queen Elizabeth” just doesn’t understand how hard it is for the poor banksters… Joshua Green, at Bloomberg Politics:
Elizabeth Warren’s latest victory over Wall Street arrived in the form of a letter. Over the weekend, Antonio Weiss, a top investment banker at Lazard, sent President Obama a note withdrawing from consideration to be under secretary of domestic finance, the third-ranking position in the Treasury. Weiss was nominated late last year and drew vehement criticism from Warren and other liberals for his Wall Street ties—quite to his surprise, say his friends…
The news, which caught even Warren’s staff by surprise, is a big deal. It’s evidence that while Democrats’ fortunes have suffered amid Republican advances, Warren’s own power keeps growing…
Indeed, interviews last week with Wall Street-affiliated Democrats and Republicans yielded a common concern: Weiss’s nomination was a critical fight for the White House, not just because a loss would further empower Warren, their nemesis, but because Weiss had spent years (and plenty of money) positioning himself for the job, and had made himself a near-perfect candidate in traditional terms. With no glaring flaws, he was expected to be a lock for confirmation—and might well have been, until Warren decided to go after him…Friends and allies of Weiss and Warren say the Lazard banker began eyeing a high-level government job several years ago and deftly positioned himself to land one. The firm’s long lineage of senior partners who have served in top government positions (Felix Rohatyn, Steven Rattner) gave him no shortage of patrons and advisers. Weiss donated money to the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, which enabled him to burnish his policy credentials by appearing alongside Democratic luminaries such as Robert Rubin and Larry Summers as a co-author of a 2012 white paper on tax reform. He became a major donor and fundraising bundler for Obama…
Toward the end, when the battle came into the open and Warren’s intentions were clear, Weiss was able to summon a small army of Wall Street heavyweights to make private calls to lawmakers on his behalf. They included Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, and politically connected bankers of both parties from Goldman Sachs, Lazard, and elsewhere. The appeal to Republicans was based on the idea that Warren’s holding effective veto power over nominations hurt their interests, too…
Rohatyn, Rattner, Rubin, Summers, Goldman Sachs — who could ask for a more representative roster of Wall Street enablers? How, asks Wall Street, can this Warren woman resist their omnipotent invulnerabilty? It’s almost as if this were still a… democracy!
***********
Apart from cheering for the ones who are on our side, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
Patricia Kayden
I wish America was ready for Senator Warren to be the next President but will settle for Secretary Clinton. Good for Warren for consistently going after Wall Street hucksters.
Yatsuno
This is why I want her to stay exactly where she is. And I think she’s well aware of the change she can effect staying in the Senate. Plus it does allow her to focus on the matters she is an expert on, which she would not have the luxury of as President. I love Liz and all, but Senator Warren is best role for her. Now if we can get someone like her…
the Conster
My Masshole heart loves loves loves Elizabeth Warren. She and Bernie Sanders are keeping the light on for Democrats, and I want her to stay in the Senate to be the obstructionist that we need now. I want her to be the rusty chainsaw sideways up Mitch McConnell’s backside, and I don’t think we’ve seen anything yet.
Tenar Darell
Took Dad to bank and dinner. Now deciding now whether to watch Agent Carter here or at home.
Sherparick
Hip, Hip, Hurrah! As FDR said in his 1936 Acceptance Speech
“….. We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace–business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.
They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.
Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me–and I welcome their hatred…” http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/od2ndst.html
They are united in their hatred of Elizabeth Warren, and like FDR, she welcomes their hatred. (Read FDR’s speech, it is as relevant today as was in 1936, sadly.)
Steeplejack
@Tenar Darell:
Thanks for reminding me. Gotta set the DVR or arrange my viewing schedule.
Steeplejack
@Yatsuno:
Agreed. She can accomplish much more in (hopefully) 20 years or so in the Senate than she could in four or eight as (an embattled) president.
Villago Delenda Est
I’m becoming more and more convinced that the only way to solve the Mammon disease is firing squads.
Pogonip
I am doing nothing constructive.
Aren’t you envious?
Hildebrand
@Yatsuno: I concur. I was also thinking that having Senator Warren firmly ensconced in her digs on the Hill will allow her to hopefully reign in a potential President Hillary Clinton’s more financially ‘centrist-friendly’ tendencies. If liberals think Obama is Wall Street friendly, yeesh, that particular bit is not going to get better under the next Democratic administration, and having Warren keeping an eye on things is a good thing.
Pogonip
@Hildebrand: Considering that Mr. Clinton signed NAFTA, I am not optimistic about a President Mrs. Clinton.
Baud
Warren and the administration disagree on things, but use of the term “nemesis” needed stronger support.
Baud
Agree with those who like Warren in the Senate.
Mike J
@Patricia Kayden:
Other than their genitals, I don’t really know how Clinton and Warren are similar.
rikyrah
I like Senator Warren….only wish she’d run to actually force Hillary to discuss the relevant economic issues.
Baud
@Mike J:
So you think there is absolutely nothing they agree on?
Karen in GA
Season 3 of House of Cards next month, and lo and behold, fresh from Sherlock, there’s Lars Mikkelsen again. One of my favorite obscure (’round these parts) Danish actors, less obscure by the day.
On an unrelated note, Iggy’s kind of harsh.
Cervantes
@Baud:
Same thought struck me but then I re-read the passage in question:
See what I mean?
(Not the way I’d have written it, either.)
David Koch
but, but…. our Progressive-Betters tell me she’s in bed with Wall Street
Woodrowfan
@Villago Delenda Est:
oh nonsense. guillotines would work just as well!
Woodrowfan
@David Koch: Hamsher is an idiot.
catclub
@Villago Delenda Est:
It has certainly solved it in China and Russia (USSR).
Roger Moore
@Mike J:
They’re members of the same party, and people have talked about both of them running for President in 2016. That makes it fairly natural to compare how we think they’d do as candidates.
Baud
@Cervantes:
Worse English, but it makes more sense.
David Koch
@Baud: they’re obvious “nemesis”.
it couldn’t be clearer.
Hildebrand
@David Koch: Shorter Hamsher – Clinton good, every Democrat who might challenge her bad.
catclub
@David Koch: There is a Miss Marple episode when she is nemesis. So Grandmotherly and nemesis do mix. (Yes, since she is miss, probably not a grandmother, whatever.)
Belafon
A question for everyone: Do you think blogs like this, Daily Kos, LGF, Wonkette, and those others in the left column here make it so that liberals are less likely to run for office? Does it make it so easy to whine and feel like you’ve done something from the comfort of your house that you don’t want to put in the effort to run for an office?
jl
I will spend some time admiring the way Mr. Arsalan Iftikhar handles the horrible US corporate news media. Lemon asked a Muslim human rights lawyer if he supported ISIS during a CNN interview. This was a day or so after the human rights lawyer had written another column strongly condemning ISIS.
Lawyer Thanks Don Lemon: Your ‘Racist Dumb-Ass Question’ Made Me Famous
TPM
“So from the bottom of my heart,” he added, “I want to publicly thank Don Lemon for making me famous with his patently offensive racist dumb-ass question.”
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/muslim-lawyer-tells-don-lemon-isis-question-dumb-ass-racist
I have defended the doofus CNN anchors here a little bit, including Lemon, so I will dig that hole a little deeper. My recent forced exposure to hours of CNN at a time make me think that doofus CNN producers very heavily script the anchors. I heard the same ignorant and pandering editorializing from different anchors all day, and i had to ask myself why these anchors all had the exact same doofus editorial thoughts rattling around in their heads that they just had to emit, rather than report out some actual news, though in very slightly different ways? And were they all so dense?
Of course, if my speculation is true, then it just goes to show what some people will do in front of the whole country if you pay them enough.
Anyway, the way Lemon asked the question made me think, when I first saw it, that maybe he knew it was stupid and offensive, but it was part of the script. But I don’t know. I guess I just have a soft spot for CNN anchors that say weird things all the time.
mdblanche
That could mean anything.
Kay
See, I just can’t accept that. They have to recognize that there was a huge and profound economic upheaval in this country that impacted hundreds of millions of people and there’s been a loss of trust. It isn’t personal as to this individual, but it’s real. That should be recognized and respected. People have a right not to have to immediately feel that the fix is in, that it’s business as usual, and we’re headed blithely back down the same road. That trumps his career plans, it really does.
David Koch
@Belafon: Blogs are irrelevant. Just ask President Edwards
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/01/02/429058/-2008-straw-poll-Iowa-Eve-edition
lamh36
Open thread, great, so I’ve been at work all day, so I’m just now seeing this…
I’ll be damn, did Archie really marry Valerie (Black chick from Josie and the Pussycats)!!! When did that happen?
https://twitter.com/femmeminem/status/555078831950659584/photo/1
mdblanche
@catclub: I don’t think I’ve ever seen a tongue implanted so firmly in a cheek ever before.
Gin & Tonic
@jl: You’re pining for a CNN that hasn’t existed for over a decade.
lamh36
Open thread, great, so I’ve been at work all day, so I’m just now seeing this…
I’ll be damn, did Archie really marry Valerie (Black chick from Josie and the …cats)!!! When did that happen?
https://twitter.com/femmeminem/status/555078831950659584/photo/1
Gin & Tonic
@efgoldman: I think Sheldon, whom I met a couple of times in very small group settings before he first ran (and was not terribly impressed, frankly) is maturing into an effective and articulate advocate. He’ll never be a bomb-thrower, but when I hear him speak now I’m generally quite impressed.
Violet
@Belafon:
“Doing something” does not have to equal running for an office. It can be volunteering during a campaign or calling or writing representatives to make your voice heard. Participating on blogs like this has made me more inclined to do the latter.
I think to combat the gloom that seems to have taken hold at B-J post-midterm that we might benefit from having an “action thread” once a week or so, like we have mostly weekly garden threads and recipe threads. Have a “call your representative” task and get people to do it. Make our voices heard.
rikyrah
Elections have consequences
……………..
Tom Price hopes to reform Social Security in House budget
January 12, 2015 | Filed in: Tom Price.
WASHINGTON — Roswell Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Price intends to tackle big-ticket entitlement programs as the new chairman of the House Budget Committee — including Social Security.
In a speech at the Heritage Action for America “Conservative Policy Summit” on Monday, Price said he was excited to work with a GOP-led Senate to end the “muddled mess” of the last few years.
Under his predecessor, Paul Ryan, the House Budget included controversial changes to Medicare and Medicaid, but did not touch Social Security. Price hopes to change that this year:
“On the issue of Social Security, it has indeed been the third rail as Tim [Chapman, COO for Heritage Action] mentioned, and what I’m hopeful is what the Budget Committee will be able do is to is begin to normalize the discussion and debate about Social Security. This is a program that right now on its current course will not be able to provide 75 or 80 percent of the benefits that individuals have paid into in a relatively short period of time. That’s not a responsible position to say, ‘You don’t need to do anything to do it.’
“So all the kinds of things you know about – whether it’s means testing, whether it’s increasing the age of eligibility. The kind of choices — whether it’s providing much greater choices for individuals to voluntarily select the kind of manner in which they believe they ought to be able to invest their working dollars as they go through their lifetime. All those things ought to be on the table and discussed.”
http://politics.blog.ajc.com/2015/01/12/tom-price-hopes-to-reform-social-security-in-house-budget/
jayboat
I love this woman.
Belafon
@Violet:
Granted, and I’ll put you in the do-something column. I’m in part wondering why liberals aren’t running for the low level offices even though we talk about it just about everywhere.
Mandalay
@Villago Delenda Est:
Of course you are.
You constantly fantasize about pain and suffering death being inflicted on those you don’t like. Violence is always your solution to any problem.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mandalay: It’s the solution to intractable problems that cannot be resolved by conventional means.
Hell, we can’t even send these thieving assholes to prison for the crimes they committ. Because things that are utterly immoral and unethical are LEGAL in this country.
They’ve been setting the stage for a violent reaction for 34 years now.
Baud
@Belafon:
I would not run for office because I couldn’t win and couldn’t be successful if I did win. In that sense, blogs are irrelevant. I do think, however, that blogs reflect a problem with liberals generally in that we overly emphasize criticism over accomplishments.
Baud
@Villago Delenda Est:
Means such as consistently voting in mid-term elections?
srv
Good god, lock up all the drunken liberals:
Major Major Major Major
Job interview at a, ah, adult entertainment company tomorrow and then drinks with a recruiter afterwards. It’s just raining jobs for info scientists right now apparently.
And <3 warren!
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
You should order a money shot.
Mandalay
@Villago Delenda Est:
Do you honestly that believe firing squads are the solution for the problems of Wall Street?
I’m not sure what is worse: that you think it is OK to constantly joke about inflicting violence, or that you truly believe it is a solution.
Peale
Rowdy Roddie Piper vs cthulhu. I think I’d pay to see that movie.
Keith G
@Belafon: I do not thinks that these blogs make hardly any measurable difference in the actual world.
We are basically kids at a school lunch table who are deeply enthralled at our own wit and wisdom.
raven
Place is full of analysts!
Peale
@Major Major Major Major: I’m not even going to try to top Baud.
Anne Laurie
@David Koch: Once again, I ask: Why is it you only show up when you can find a way to denigrate a Democrat?
(Which may, of course, be relevant to Belafon’s point as well.)
raven
I posted this picture of the sewer construction on my FB. It’s a shot from our house toward our rental house next door. Not only is our tenant being really good about it, she “liked” it on FB!
Peale
@efgoldman: if it works, it works.
It is amazing to think we once were a able to put a man on the moon and defeat fascism in Spain. Or maybe none of that happened and we’ve always been fools.
Baud
@Peale:
Coincidentally, “Topping Baud” is the film Major^4 is interviewing for.
Major Major Major Major
@Peale: it’s a company known for bareb*cking (no idea if that’s on the filter) so I wouldn’t recommend topping *anybody*.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: ah. Great minds and all.
raven
@efgoldman: It’s been more the shower. I’ve had to rent a 150 ft power snake every 6 months or so because it back up. Soon those days will be a faded memory. I am thinking about kickin her back a few bucks on her rent next month. I also want to throw some kind of chowdown for the pipeline dudes. And then there is the rest of the block that this has totally disrupted.
mainmati
@Sherparick: Still the best right-on, in your face Democratic Presidential political speech ever in my opinion. We need more of that good medicine.
Cervantes
@Peale:
Well, half of it happened.
Kay
@Sherparick:
I don’t think they hate her. I just don’t think they understand what she’s tapping into. They want it to be The Left or Liberal Democrat or something wholly ideological and familiar, but I think it’s a little different than that. Broader:
JPL
@raven: The city south of me offered my son 10,000 to run a sewer line through his property and he said no thanks. Now I know why. They were going to insist, but he mentioned an old walnut tree that would be endangered and they backed off.
also.. if he wanted to hook up to the sewer, it would cost about 6,000.
raven
@JPL: I continue to marvel at the job. We are certainly fortunate that this is being done at no cost to us but when they start putting in the trenches for the waste lines between the houses it’s gonna be a mess.
eta, seems to me he could have bargained with them to hook him up.
dirge
So grotesquely unfair for Warren to take away the plum civil service sinecure that he’d bought fair and square, with his hard earned money and diligent influence peddling. Pretty much the same thing as seizure without due process. Tyranny!
Chris T.
@rikyrah: As always with these guys, I wish some national-level reporting type would ask them the question: “so, you say that Social Security will only be able to pay out 70% in 30 years, and your fix is to start paying out only 70% now?”
PIGL
@Mandalay: he can be a little repetitive. but let’s look at it this way. the oligarchs in latin america did not hesitate to unleash the death squads against their populace, in quite recent memory, even now in Guatemala. What makes you think they would hesitate here, were their wealth and power to be seriously threatened? And what would be the appropriate attitude towards them, given that?
Keith G
@Belafon:
Here is just a thought an the above idea:
Local candidates are obviously motivated to try to influence change in their own communities. Because of demographic sorting and some other basic societal trends, liberals just are not as dreadfully opposed to what trends are manifesting in their communities. Therefore they might be less likely to take on the onerous tasks of running for office and winning. Remember the numerical height of liberal candidacies was a historic period when it was the left that was angry in it’s dissatisfactions. Many of those issues fueling those dissatisfactions have been, or are being, addressed in ways supported by liberals.
Also, it seems to me that conservatives do a better job of networking and encouraging at the grass roots. I think liberals are hurt by the degrading of union activism which both spawned and nurtured many liberal candidates. We have not found a replacement for that.
Mike in NC
@efgoldman: Granny-starver and moocher Paul Ryan will not run for president in 2016 because he will once again team up with Mitt the Shit, who definitely is going to make a third attempt at making the White Horse Prophesy come to pass.
They get to save a bundle by recycling the old yard signs and bumper stickers.
David Koch
@Anne Laurie: as usual, you’re wrong, again and again.
I can only post two links per comment without going into moderation or I’d post hundreds of comments proving (at best) your serial errors.
Ruckus
@Belafon:
No.
But I do think that realizing that it takes money to get anywhere in politics(and even much more money after citizens united) keeps a lot of us from doing so. We don’t have the grift circuit that conservatives do, so unless you are able to make a big enough stink it’s very very hard to get any traction. I’ve thought about it but I really just don’t have the energy at my age(along with all my money/life issues of the last 20 yrs, I’m still young enough that if the conservatives have their way and fuck over SS, I’m guessing my address will be under a bridge somewhere at least sometime before my demise).
When I was 12 and trying to decide what to do with my life(pilot/astronaut was my previous obsession) I thought politics or preacher. I considered that neither worked too hard, especially once ensconced but decided that I was too honest to be a politician and not hypocritical enough to be a preacher. I’ve since realized that one doesn’t have to be dishonest to be a politician, maybe it was really the level of bullshit that I didn’t think I could put up with.
burnspbesq
The Weiss thing is a complete fiasco, and Warren is entirely to blame. He is absolutely qualified for the job for which he was nominated, and there is nothing legally, morally, or ethically wrong with complying with the Internal Revenue Code as it is written. Congress chose to write the inversion rules in a way that can be engineered around, and it’s more than a bit rich for a member of Congress to yell at somebody in the private sector for doing exactly what Congress allowed them to do.
If you don’t like the inversion rules as currently written, Senator, amend them. But until you do, don’t try to shift the blame for your fuck-up.
Cervantes
@burnspbesq:
Did Warren vote in favor of these rules?
C.V. Danes
@Patricia Kayden: We need Warren to stay in the Senate so that she can chair a Pecora Commission the next time the banksters tank the economy.