Elizabeth Warren For Veep

There are some very good reasons why Elizabeth Warren would not be an ideal choice for Hillary Clinton's running mate.  Democrats would be giving up a key Senate seat at a time when they need to pick up at least four seats to regain a majority. (A Republican Governor would appoint an interim Senator until a special election could be held.)  Warren, especially assuming the Democrats do take back the Senate, would be giving up a position of enormous influence (e.g., chairperson of the Banking Committee) for a more ambiguous role.  She would be ceding her place (along with Bernie Sanders) as the leading progressive voice in Congress and would undoubtedly have to subordinate some of her views to the leader on the ticket.  

But if you put aside those pragmatic -- and very legitimate concerns -- think about how exciting it would be to have Elizabeth Warren as a candidate for national office.  For Democrats and left-leaning Independents, there isn't a more universally admired politician.  There isn't a more forceful voice for the working and middle classes.  There isn't anyone more suited to reach out to the many voters who are chafing against the status quo.  There isn't anyone better at shaming the Republicans for their coziness with Wall Street, attacks on reproductive rights, disdain for consumers, and intransigence on the Supreme Court.  There isn't anyone who is more skilled at exposing the idiocy, the hypocrisy and the danger of Donald J. Trump. 

For those of us who support Clinton but have some concerns that she will start hewing towards the center once she disposes of Bernie Sanders, it would be reassuring to have Warren as her running mate.  For those who have bought the narrative about Clinton's dishonesty and unsuitability for office, Warren's presence on the ticket would soothe the Bern.

(And Warren doesn't have the baggage that would make Sanders such a tricky choice for VP.  The right wing attack machine has yet to 'swift boat' Sanders for, e.g., his honeymoon in the Soviet Union, his conscientious objector status during the Vietnam War, his call for eliminating the CIA, his role as an elector for the Socialist Workers Party at a time when it supported abolishing the military budget and seeking solidarity with revolutionary regimes in Iran and Cuba.)

And think about what it would be like to have two powerful, brilliant, fearless women running against an arrogant, misogynistic man-baby.  Such a combination, unlike any other, would electrify the non-Neanderthal electorate.  It would most likely bolster candidates down the ballot and actually make it easier for Democrats to take back the Senate and make inroads into the House.

And once elected, Warren could craft a role as a Vice President that would give her far-ranging influence on the issues she and we care about most.

Clinton-Warren 2016. 

Wall Street, Romney, And Obama

By Mike Lux, cross-posted from Crooks and Liars

The most critical battle in this election year is the battle over Wall Street. Candidates all over the place, from the high profile candidates like Elizabeth Warren to a slew of others all over the country, are battling over who is on Wall Street’s side, who wants to keep bailing them out, and who is pushing them to go to jail. But nowhere is this battle being played out more prominently than in the race for the White House.

The Obama campaign is doing a major push in the coming weeks on Mitt Romney’s sordid history at the helm of Bain Capital. His fellow Republicans called it vulture capitalism, and they were right. Mitt bought companies (many of them doing just fine at the time he bought them), loaded them up with massive amounts of debt that Bain could write off on their taxes, in many cases destroyed and outsourced jobs and cut pay and benefits, and then frequently carved them up and sold off the pieces to maximize short-term profits. A few of these companies ended up surviving this brutal process and becoming more profitable, and we will hear a lot from Mitt about those examples. But way too many times, Mitt and Bain left these companies, and especially their workers, far worse for the wear, leaving behind a lot of shattered lives in the process, while Mitt and his fun-loving pals stuffed money in their pockets and walked away. High School wasn’t the only place Mitt brutalized those weaker than him, and he enjoyed doing it.

Bain Capital was Wall Street at its worst. But the cutthroat, anything-goes-in-the-pursuit-of-one-more-dollar culture at Bain has infected our entire banking system. The Obama campaign is right to attack on Bain and on the culture of Wall Street; it is in my view their single most powerful attack line. However, that attack will be undercut unless they buttress their own credibility on taking on Wall Street. Republicans aren’t going to hesitate coming after Obama hard on his ties to Wall Street (ironically with a lot of Wall Street money) in order to weaken the campaign’s credibility when they attack Bain, and we are seeing signs of that right now.

You Really Want To Have A Culture War?

DonkeyHotey

What is going on with the Republican Party?  Sure, the House is filled with Tea Party extremists, the base has supported (and continues to support) some pretty wacky presidential hopefuls, and its leaders are far more concerned with toppling Obama than governing.  But they used to be more politically astute in their choice of wedge issues.  Now it seems they've completely lost their moorings with their aggressive and quite unpopular assault on contraceptive coverage.

As I wrote about earlier (see Occupy the Bedroom), Republicans are pushing for an amendment to the Affordable Care Act that would allow employers to deny coverage not just for contraception but for any treatment or any condition they claimed was contrary to their religious beliefs.

They are enthusiastically, if transparently, framing their attack on women's health, the right to privacy and health care reform as an issue of religious freedom.  Hence, the hearing today before a House Committee on the following question:  “Has the Obama Administration Trampled on Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Conscience?”   The hearing, consisting of a panel of eight men, is skewed so that only those who agree with the Republican position will be heard from. But are they really fooling anyone?

It is one thing for the far right to be agitating for this kind of culture war, but purportedly moderate Republicans are being drawn in too.  Maybe, there just aren't any more moderates in the Republican Party.

As this piece in the New York Times suggests, it is all about firing up the base, which has been somewhat lackluster in the wake of their uninspiring presidential candidates, and once again going after Obamacare:

Major evangelical groups that openly opposed Mr. Obama and his health care plan in the past see this as a new affront and a new opportunity for attack.
The National Association of Evangelicals, which represents thousands of churches in 40 denominations, “will be working vigorously” against the mandate, said Galen Carey, the association’s vice president for government relations — lending substance to the statement last week by Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and a Baptist minister, that “we are all Catholics now.”
Evangelical leaders say they would be outraged by the mandate in any case, but many also believe that it will bring them political gains. [Ralph] Reed, the conservative strategist, said that even if a majority of Americans expressed general support for requiring contraceptive coverage — and even if, as he believes, the economy remained the primary issue — getting conservative and religious voters more fired up could make a difference.

Democrats, as always, should follow Elizabeth Warren's lead and take on the Republicans.  She unapologetically attacked her Senate opponent, Scott Brown, for supporting the proposed amendment which she framed as "an extreme attack on every one of us”:

It opens the door to outright discrimination. It would let insurance companies and corporations cut off pregnant women, overweight guys, older Americans, or anyone — because some executive claims it’s part of his moral code. Maybe that wouldn’t happen, but I don’t want to take the chance.

Warren, quite correctly, argues that this issue must be viewed through the prism of economics:

This election is about whose side you stand on.  Here’s an example of giving power to insurance companies and corporations to undercut basic health care coverage. I’m going to fight for families to keep that coverage. The economics around health care are huge for families.

It has long been conventional wisdom that the culture wars help Republicans and drive a wedge between so-called Independents and Democratic "elites."  If the Democrats fight back, it won't work this time.

The Forgotten Leading Actor In The American Dream Story: Labor Unions

By Robert L. Borosage, cross-posted from Campaign for America's Future

When Newt Gingrich maligned our "truly stupid" child labor laws and suggested that children 14 and under be put to work cleaning their schools, he sparked the outrage the former House speaker relishes. Less attention was paid to the other casualty of his proposition: "get rid of the unionized janitors."

This is the slur turned to high art: a little race bait posturing at "poor kids" who, Gingrich tells us, don't work like middle class kids do, and a shot at "unionized janitors"—almost by definition overpaid and lazy, whose work could be done by a grade-schooler.

Newt's blistering of child labor protections expresses his own perversity, but his scorn for union workers is a conservative staple. It's been a basic theme for the right since President Reagan broke the PATCO strike in 1981, and declared open season on unions for corporate employers.

That assault has been stunningly successful. Globalization gave manufacturers a large club in negotiations—concessions or jobs get shipped abroad. And often the reality was concessions AND jobs got shipped abroad. Corporations perfected techniques, often against the law, to crush organizing drives, and stymie new contracts for the few that succeeded. The National Labor Relations Board, stacked with corporate lobbyists under Republican presidents, turned a blind eye to systematic violations of the law.

So now union workers are down to about 7 percent of the private workforce. Virtually the only growing unions are public employees— teachers, nurses, cops. Not surprisingly, conservative Republican governors, led by Wisconsin's Scott Walker and Ohio's John Kasich, used the budget squeeze caused by the Great Recession to go after these unions, combining layoffs with efforts to eviscerate the right of public employees to organize and negotiate.

But if unions remain a prime target of corporate and conservative assaults, they are often slighted in progressive and Democratic narratives.

Warren Shows Her Occupy Wall Street Cred

With so many timid Democrats unsure of how to discuss the Occupy Movement, Elizabeth Warren shows them how it's done.

Warren initially drew fire from Republicans after stating she not only supports the movement, but that she, in fact, "created much of the intellectual foundation for what they do.”

And when attacked by the GOP for these remarks, did she walk them back or say she was only joking?  Hardly.  At most, she clarified that she did not mean to imply that she created the movement itself, which she recognized as an organic -- and perfectly appropriate -- grassroots response to the unaccountability and recklessness of Wall Street.

A spokesperson for the campaign followed up with this statement:

Elizabeth was making the point that she has been protesting Wall Street’s practices and policies for years – and working to change them.  Wall Street’s tricks brought our economy to the edge of collapse, and there hasn’t been any real accountability. She understands why people are so angry and why they are taking their fight to the street. She has said repeatedly everyone has to abide by the law. Elizabeth is working for change in a different way, to take this fight to the United States Senate.

Elizabeth, herself, remains unequivocal: 

I've been protesting Wall Street for a very long time. And that I understand the frustration, I share their frustration, with what's going, that right now Washington is wired to work well for those on Wall Street who can hire lobbyists and lawyers and it doesn't work very well for the rest of us. That's what I'm talking about, that's why I'm running for office . . . Occupy Wall Street is an organic movement, it expresses enormous frustration and gives a great faith all across the country for people to talk about what's broken. So I am glad that that conversation is going forward and that it's going forward in an organic way.

Listen and learn fellow Democrats.

We Need Both: Angry Protesters and Progressive Candidates

I have previously argued that we must elect more progressives to Congress, people like Elizabeth Warren and Norman Solomon.  Of course, as David Atkins argues, this is a necessary but not sufficient condition "for creating real change in this country."

In order for change to take place, good Democrats do need to be in power. But only an angry and motivated populace angry with both Parties and strongly intent on holding Democrats accountable will scare and motivate Democrats enough to do what they were elected to do.

Occupy Wall Street seems to have galvanized that anger.  Protests are catching on all over the country.  Not surprisingly, attention is paid to some of the outliers (like the guy who wants Andrew Jackson removed from the $20 bill) and the burgeoning movement has been criticized for failing to articulate concrete goals.

But as Betsy Reed wrote in The Nation:

[S]ometimes, you also need a spark. “Occupy Wall Street,” as an idea and an action, is a stroke of brilliance. It’s not poll-tested or focus-grouped, but it expresses perfectly the outrage that is the appropriate response to the maddening political situation we find ourselves in today. It succeeds as symbolic politics: taking back the square is just what we need to do.

And when protesters do provide a clear and coherent message, like Jesse LaGreca does below, it ends up on the cutting room floor because it doesn't fit the media narrative (especially the Fox News narrative).



Chris Bowers has started a resource page for information about Occupy solidarity events around the country.   And Act Blue (click the badge on the right side of this blog) is the place to go to support progressive candidates for Congress.

We Need More Elizabeth Warrens

I hear all this, you know, “Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever.” No! There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there—good for you! But I want to be clear. 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.  -- Elizabeth Warren

Elizabeth Warren is a national treasure.  As a brilliant Harvard law professor, she argued for a new agency to protect consumers before the financial crisis hit.  She chaired the Congressional Oversight Panel tasked with investigating the bank bailout, where she took on the financial giants as well as the government.  After she essentially created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, President Obama failed to nominate her to run the agency because she was perceived as too much of a lightening rod (and was opposed by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who feared her aggressiveness in pushing for financial reform.)

Elizabeth Warren is running for the Senate in Massachusetts and is ahead of Republican Senator Scott Brown in the latest poll.  As can be seen from the video below, Warren can explain in plain but passionate terms what must be done -- and what must not be done -- to turn the country around.  It is baffling that the skittish leadership in the Democratic Party still hasn't figured out that this is how you talk to voters.

Our only hope for change is to elect Elizabeth Warren and other progressive voices to Congress.  Click here to join or contribute to Elizabeth Warren's campaign.

Elizabeth Warren's Choice: Politics Or Independence

By Richard (RJ) Eskow, originally published at Huffington Post, July 18, 2011.

Elizabeth Warren's well-heeled opponents have behaved... well, like heels. The Washington/Wall Street axis prevented her from becoming the first director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, but they may regret it someday. Washington has lost the best person for the job, but hopefully the country has gained an independent voice for real financial reform.

She clearly was the best choice. As a forceful and articulate advocate for consumers, Warren was best positioned to give it clout and meaning. The CFPB was her brain child, and the country owes her a debt of thanks for shepherding it this far. Her non-appointment is a loss for the public and a win for the banks.

But she can thank her opponents for a newfound freedom to speak candidly. Among her other laudable qualities, she's clearly a good soldier. That's presumably why she hasn't spoken up on topics like the lack of bank prosecutions, or the proposed mortgage settlement that would let banks escape their financial and moral responsibilities yet again. Hopefully she'll use her newly-won independence and her increased visibility to resume her role as an independent voice for reform, and as a critic of unnecessary compromise wherever it appears.

Washington Microcosm

Senator Warren?

Not only would Elizabeth Warren be the most qualified person to run the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the agency that she essentially created, but fighting for her nomination would provide a perfect opportunity to contrast the anti-regulation, pro-corporate Republicans with support for the unmitigated champion of consumer protection.  Indeed, the fact that she has been so demonized by the GOP should provide a clue as to how effective she would be.  As Paul Krugman said a while back, "by the sheer craziness of their attacks . . . Republicans are offering the administration a perfect opportunity to revive the debate over financial reform, not to mention highlighting exactly who’s really in Wall Street’s pocket these days."

So, of course, President Obama decided that Warren was too much of a lightening rod and nominated former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray instead.  (Perhaps a more significant factor in dooming Warren's nomination was the opposition of Treasury Secretary Geithner, who feared her aggressiveness in pushing for financial reform.)  Cordray, by all accounts, is an excellent second choice and is supported by Warren herself.  But that is not the point.

By failing to nominate Warren, Obama has not only missed a golden political opportunity, he has done nothing to appease the Republicans -- because he can never appease the Republicans.  As the Times reports, already "forty-four Republican senators have signed a letter saying they would refuse to vote on any nominee to lead the bureau," demanding instead changes that would dilute the Dodd-Frank law that created the agency, including replacing the director position with a 5-person board.

So what now?  Obama needs to install Cordray as the agency’s director by using a recess appointment, which he should have done to appoint Warren, and ensure that the agency can finally start doing its important work.

As for Warren, the good news is that she may be persuaded to run for the Massachusetts Senate against Republican Scott Brown.  As Robert Kuttner put it, this is "the bigger stage and more important use of her stunning talents."  And a Steve Benen says, "If Warren runs and beats Brown next year, I wonder how much Senate Republicans will come to regret the decision to block her CFPB prospects?"

Will The President Pass The Warren Test?

By Robert L. Borosage, originally posted at Huffington Post, June 9, 2011.

This is not a high bar.

Will the president name the indisputably best leader -- Elizabeth Warren -- to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the agency that she conceived, championed and constructed?

Senate Republicans, eager to curry favor with the big banks, have vowed to block ANY nominee to the post. So naming Warren will entail a fight. And if the minority succeeds in blocking the nomination with a filibuster, Warren will have to be named in a recess appointment.

This should have been done months ago. But opposition to Warren comes not only from Senate Republicans, but, by all reports, from Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, the last man standing in the president's economic team.

So the White House has dithered. It once more would rather switch than fight. And now the administration is floating the notion that it will name a Warren deputy to head the bureau.

That trial balloon won't fly. Every informed citizen with a whit of sense, every consumer activist, and legions of legislators, bloggers, organizers and opinion leaders will be simply outraged if Elizabeth Warren is not nominated.

The Warren test cannot be ducked. There are no "acceptable alternatives." If the president names someone else, he gets the worst of both worlds. The Republicans will still block the nomination, demanding that the bureau be neutered. And the White House will be savaged across the progressive community for demonstrating once more that it caters far more to bankers than to the customers who are too often their victims.

It really is simple. Do the right thing. Name the best person to the job. Take on the fight. Help Americans see who is on their side and who is not. This is not a hard test, but it can't be postponed much longer.

(To sign a petition protesting the obstruction of the Warren appointment click here and/or click on the Support Elizabeth Warren badge on the right panel of this blog.)

[Related post:  Macroeconomics]

Macro Economics

The big banks loathe Ms. Warren, who has made a career out of pointing out all the ways they gouge financial consumers — and whose primary goal is to make such gouging more difficult. So, naturally, the Republicans loathe her too. That she might someday run this bureau terrifies the banks. So, naturally, it terrifies the Republicans. -- Joe Nocera, N.Y. Times

Rather than writing the same thing over and over again, I should create a keyboard macro to save time.  An issue invariably arises, usually involving the economy, which provides a golden opportunity for the Democrats to demonstrate that they are the Party that cares about regular, working people while the Republicans are shamelessly in the pocket of Big Business and the ultra-wealthy.  Extending the Bush tax breaks is a perfect example.  The current budget debate in which the Republicans only want to cut domestic programs but nothing else and are threatening to shut down the government is another.  All the Democrats have to do is stay united and stay principled.  But other than a few lonely progressives, the Democrats, including the President, invariably cave and their message remains forever muddled.

Here they go again.  If the Democrats could ever be savvy enough to create a symbol to demonstrate their zeal for protecting the public from the greed, corruption and unaccountability of the financial industry it would be Elizabeth Warren.  She is a brilliant Harvard law professor who argued for a new agency to protect consumers before the financial crisis hit.  She chaired the Congressional Oversight Panel tasked with investigating the bank bailout, where took on the financial giants as well as the government.  She also comes across as warm and earnest, speaking in plain-spoken terms with a southern accent. 

Elizabeth Warren has been tasked by President Obama with setting up the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was a key part of the reforms that were passed in the wake of the financial meltdown.  An independent agency that will be operational in July, it will have the power to regulate credit cards, mortgages and other financial products.  Last week, Warren appeared before Congress and explained the agency's goals: "We firmly believe in the importance of making prices clearer, making risks more obvious, and cutting back on the fine print and legalese that can make it impossible for families to compare a mortgage or credit card with two or three others."

Naturally, the Republicans want to skewer Elizabeth Warren and gut the power of an agency that is being set up to protect ordinary Americans from big financial institutions.  According to news reports, the Republicans are concerned the agency will be "too powerful and are trying to portray Warren as the "unaccountable" head of a bureaucracy immune from oversight.  They want to cut its funding and control what's left by replacing a single director with a 5-member board.

CNN reported that "the hearing was one of the more hostile Warren has yet faced on Capitol Hill."  Joe Nocera in the Times described her as being treated by Republicans like a "pinata."  Paul Krugman wrote that the Republicans "lined up to grill and attack" her even though the accusations made no sense.  According to Krugman, the point was "to ensure that neither she nor anyone with similar views ends up actually protecting consumers."  He explained that for Republicans, "people like Ms. Warren . . . who warned that we were heading for a debt crisis before it happened" threaten their attempts to revise recent history and argue that the financial crisis was caused by too much regulation, not too little. "Such people must therefore be demonized, using whatever tools are at hand." 

One key question remains is who will be appointed to run the agency.  Elizabeth Warren is the obvious choice.  Krugman again: 

Given Ms. Warren’s prescience and her role in shaping financial reform legislation — not to mention her effective performance running the Congressional panel exercising oversight over federal financial bailouts — it was only natural that she be appointed to get the new consumer protection agency up and running. And it’s hard to think of anyone better qualified to head the agency once it goes into action.  The fact that she’s so well qualified is, of course, the reason she’s being attacked so fiercely. Nothing could be worse, from the point of view of bankers and the politicians who serve them, than to have consumers protected by someone who knows what she’s doing and has the personal credibility to stand up to pressure.

And this is where the opportunity comes for the President and his fellow Democrats.  Krugman wonders whether "the Obama administration will see the war on Elizabeth Warren for what it is: a second chance to change public perceptions" about who is truly to blame for the financial crisis.  "By the sheer craziness of their attacks on Ms. Warren, however, Republicans are offering the administration a perfect opportunity to revive the debate over financial reform, not to mention highlighting exactly who’s really in Wall Street’s pocket these days. And that’s an opportunity the White House should welcome."