Elizabeth Warren is More Anti-McConnell Than Grimes Is

And sorry, Liz, but I wouldn't count on Alison's vote for any Democratic bill. If by some bizarre fluke she actually wins in November without the tens of thousands of Democratic votes she's already pissed away, she'll spend her time in the Senate making DINOs like Mary Landrieu look like Bernie Sanders.

Sam Youngman at the Herald:

But Warren's surprise wasn't rooted in Red State versus Blue State dogma. Instead, Warren said she was surprised to be standing in Kentucky as a United States senator, given her hard-scrabble upbringing in Oklahoma.

"I'm a little surprised because this is sure not where I started," Warren told a crowd of Grimes' supporters at the University of Louisville. She added: "I am the daughter of a janitor, and I ended up in the United States Senate." 

 Calling Grimes "the next senator from the Commonwealth of Kentucky," Warren blasted McConnell's leadership of Republicans in the Senate, specifically targeting his effort to block her proposal to allow refinancing of older student loans and temporarily lower the interest rate on federal Stafford loans.  

SNIP  

Warren and Grimes accused McConnell of standing for "millionaires and billionaires" instead of siding with Kentuckians on a number of populist issues, such as increasing the minimum wage, education funding, infrastructure spending and fair-pay legislation.

"Today we have a separation, and that's what frames what this election is about," Warren said. "This election is about what direction our country will take."

Without going into specifics, Grimes and Warren said in their remarks that they were not on the same page on every issue. 

 "Alison and I don't agree on everything," Warren said. "We don't. But we agree that there is a lot on the line here. Our economy, our country, our values."

When I Say "Democratic Values," This Is What I Mean

This is what disappointed Democratic voters want to hear. This is what will get disappointed Democratic voters off their asses and into the voting booth. This is what can beat repugs in any blood-red district in the land.

And this is what you will never, ever hear from repug-lite not-dems like Alison Lundergan Grimes.



Digby:

Lux writes:

The kind of politics Elizabeth Warren represents is at its heart a moral kind of politics. She doesn’t worry about party politics, as she has always taken on the powers-that-be of both political parties. She doesn’t shy away from a tough fight, instead she has always been willing to push for what is right no matter how powerful the lobbyists on the other side are. And it was fitting that the event we did with her was in a church, because the politics she preaches are deeply moral - the politics not of right and left, but of right and wrong.

She has become an icon for an important new kind of politics, a political movement focused less on the size of government than on, as she talks about in her speech, which side is our government on, everyday people or the rich and powerful. Her willingness to hold both big business and government officials accountable when the playing field is tilted in favor of wealthy special interests is something that has been all too rare in modern American politics, and it is the reason so many people are responding to her the way the crowd in that New York City church was.

And it isn’t just activists who are responding: she is remarkably effective, especially for a first year Senator. It is clear that her calls for tougher Wall Street prosecution drove the bigger, tougher settlements JP Morgan and other bankers have had to agree to in the last year. Larry Summers would be the Fed Chair if it wasn’t for her. Her speech on Social Security was a major factor in taking discussion of Social Security cuts off the table for the time being. And her passionate pursuit of a higher minimum wage have helped create the atmosphere that led to President Obama’s executive order and focus on the issue in his SOTU.

What AFV is seeking to build is a broad national movement around this brand of politics. We want to help Elizabeth Warren and other progressive allies take on the powers that be and fight the good fight for the American people no matter who is on the other side. When she said that “our time has come”, I believe she was right, but only if we join her in the battle. When she said “we have found our voice”, she wasn’t talking about her being the voice of progressives, she was saying we all have to find our voice and join this movement. Join is in that fight by signing up on our website, and enjoy watching Elizabeth Warren at her best.

I post these stories and videos featuring Senator Warren and always feel as if there's nothing left to say. She says it all. And she says it perfectly. All I can do is say, "what she said."

Warren is one of the very few elected officials who is explicitly aligning herself with the progressive movement and is totally unafraid to make that known. That takes guts. She will not be rewarded by the Party apparatus for doing this. But then, she has us.

"We Have Real Work to Do"

Via PZ Myers:

THIS is a Democratic Candidate

I'll call Ted Cruz' 100 Jesse Helms for the Senate and raise him Rich Trumka's 60 or 70 Liz Warrens.

Down with Tyranny:

Although Obama canceled his appearance at the AFL-CIO convention in L.A. (last) week so he could work on strategy for persuading America that war against Syria is the right move, the convention rocked without him-- by what many pray is a future president, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren. She urged union activists that they need to strengthen their movement to beat back the enemies of working families. Here's the body of her address:

I love being here with labor. It reminds me of a family reunion. Lots of roughhousing. Occasional arguments. Plenty of food. But ultimately, in a family we know we've got each other's back.

But there's another reason I love being here with labor. When I'm here, I know I'm with people who stand up for working families all across this country.

When important decisions are made in Washington, too often, working families are ignored. From tax policy to retirement security, the voices of hard-working people get drowned out by powerful industries and well-financed front groups. Those with power fight to take care of themselves and to feed at the trough for themselves, even when it comes at the expense of working families getting a fair shot at a better future.

This isn't new. Throughout our history, powerful interests have tried to capture Washington and rig the system in their favor. But we didn't roll over. At every turn, in every time of challenge, organized labor has been there, fighting on behalf of the American people.

At the beginning of the 20th Century, when factories were deathtraps, when owners exploited workers and children, and when robber barons amassed the kind of power and influence that made them think they were modern day kings, the American people came together under the leadership of progressives to bring our nation back from the brink. And labor was there, leading the way.

Labor was on the front lines to take children out of factories and put them in schools. Labor was there to give meaning to the words "consumer protection" by making our food and medicine safe. Labor was there to fight for minimum wages in states across this country.

Powerful interests did everything they could to block reform. But our agenda was America's agenda, and we prevailed.

A generation later, when our country was mired in the Great Depression, when people were on bread lines and looking for work, we fought back. We created jobs by investing in infrastructure and public works. We brought light and power to our poorest and most remote areas. We established federal laws on wages and hours. We enshrined into law the right to organize. We made banking boring and put real cops on the beat on Wall Street. And because we believed those in old age should not be mired in poverty, we created Social Security. And all along that journey, labor was there, leading the way.

Once again, the powerful interests did everything they could to stop it. But our agenda was America's agenda, and we prevailed.

When political injustice threatened to break our democracy, members of the labor movement were there, working for jobs and freedom, marching right alongside the Reverend Dr. King, fighting together for the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.

When hard working families were getting squeezed, labor was there, fighting alongside our beloved Ted Kennedy, and now we have the Family and Medical Leave Act, we have the Lilly Ledbetter Act, and we have continued to protect Medicare.

And in 2008, when the economy crashed and it was time to reign in financial predators and Wall Street banks, labor was there-you were there-standing shoulder to shoulder with me, standing with President Obama, and fighting for consumer protection. And thanks to those efforts, we now have a strong Consumer Financial Protection Bureau-- with a confirmed Director to lead it. And just so everyone knows, that little agency has already returned half a billion dollars to families who were cheated by big financial institutions and helped tens of thousands of consumers solve their problems with big banks.

In every fight to build opportunity in this country, in every fight to level the playing field, in every fight for working families, we have been on the front lines because our agenda is America's agenda.

But let's be clear, we have always had to run uphill. We have had to fight for what we've achieved. Powerful interests have done everything they can to block reform. They attacked Social Security and Medicare. They attacked pensions and public employees. They attacked bank regulation and consumer protection.

The powerful interests have attacked so many of the basic foundations that built a strong middle class-- and too many times, they have prevailed.

Even today, our work is uphill. The powerful interests fight us on every battlefield they can.

Look at the increasing corporate capture of the federal courts.

According to a recent study, the five conservative justices currently sitting on the Supreme Court are in the top ten most pro-corporate justices in a half century-- and Justices Alito and Roberts are numbers one and two-- the most anti-consumer in this entire time. The Chamber of Commerce is now a major player in the Supreme Court, and its win rate has risen to 70% of all cases it supports.  Follow this pro-corporate trend to its logical conclusion, and sooner or later you'll end up with a Supreme Court that functions as a wholly owned subsidiary of big business.

Look at where we are on the "Too Big to Fail" problem.

Five years ago, experts said the banks had to be bailed out because there was too much concentration in banking and one failure would bring down the entire economy. Now the four biggest banks are 30% larger than they were five years ago. The five largest banks now hold more than half of all banking assets in the country. Because investors know they are too big to fail, those big banks get cheaper borrowing, which, according to one study, adds up to an annual $83 billion subsidy from taxpayers-another benefit of being Too Big to Fail.

What about reform? The Dodd-Frank Act was an incredibly important achievement, but since it passed, the big banks and their army of lobbyists have fought every step of the way to delay, water down, block, or strike down regulations. When a new approach is proposed-- like my bill with John McCain, Angus King, and Maria Cantwell to bring back Glass-Steagall-- you know what happens-- they throw everything they've got against it.

One more: take a look at what's happening with trade deals.

For big corporations, trade agreement time is like Christmas morning. They can get special gifts they could never pass through Congress out in public. Because it's a trade deal, the negotiations are secret and the big corporations can do their work behind closed doors. We've seen what happens here at home when our trading partners around the world are allowed to ignore workers rights, wages, and environmental rules. From what I hear, Wall Street, pharmaceuticals, telecom, big polluters, and outsourcers are all salivating at the chance to rig the upcoming trade deals in their favor.

Why are trade deals secret? I've heard people actually say that they have to be secret because if the American people knew what was going on, they would be opposed. Think about that. I believe that if people would be opposed to a particular trade agreement, then that trade agreement should not happen.

Finally, look what is happening in our states. Republican governors in Indiana and Michigan push for so-called right to work laws, and in Wisconsin Scott Walker and the legislature he controls have declared war on working families by ripping the guts out of collective bargaining agreements.

The fight continues to rage, and the powerful interests continue to be guided by their age-old principle: "I've got mine, the rest of you are on your own."

But we're guided by principle too. It's a simple idea, and all of you know it as an old labor idea-- we all do better when we work together and invest in our future.

We know that the economy grows when hard working families can improve their lives. We know that the country gets stronger when we invest in helping people succeed. We know that our lives improve when we care for our neighbors.

And we know that even though pundits and big corporate lobbyists in Washington might need to be dragged kicking and screaming-- we know that America agrees with us.

On almost every issue of economic concern, our values are America's values, and our agenda is America's agenda.

We believe that Wall Street needs stronger rules and tougher enforcement-- and you know what? So do more than 80% of people. Wall Street will fight us, but the American people are on our side.

We believe in raising the minimum wage-- and so do 71% of people. The Republicans will fight us, but the American people are on our side.

We believe in preventing cuts to Social Security benefits-- and so do 87% of Americans. The Washington insiders will fight us, but the American people are on our side.

We believe in rebuilding our infrastructure and in passing legislation to create jobs-- and so do 75% of Americans. The Tea Party will fight us, but the American people are on our side.

And we believe that the sequester is stupid. And, you know what? A majority of Americans-including a majority of Republicans agree with us too. We ought to be making smart choices about where to cut and where to invest. Washington will fight us but the American people are on our side.

It was less than a year ago that the American people overwhelmingly re-elected President Obama and gave us a mandate to fight for middle class families.

We have a mandate-a mandate to build a fair tax code, one that isn't rigged to give breaks to big oil and billionaires while it crushes working families. We have a mandate to invest in the future - in infrastructure, in research and innovation, and in education. And we have a mandate to create jobs-- jobs right here in America, jobs for hard working people!

So here's my message: Our agenda is America's agenda. The American people know that the system is rigged against them and they want us to level the playing field. That's our mandate!

I've already fought and lost my share of battles in Washington, and I've been around long enough to know that Washington is a tough place. Real reform isn't easy. But I also know this: If we don't fight, we can't win.

But if we fight, we win. The Budget. Immigration. Minimum wage.

Uphill battles? You bet.

But however tough the challenge, however steep our climb, I am proud to stand with you, to march with you, and to fight side-by-side with you.

Our agenda is America's agenda and if we fight for it, we win.

The Wall Street Journal reported that "Mr. Trumka knows that not all Democrats-- and even fewer Republicans-- are so firmly aligned with labor’s agenda as Ms. Warren is. When she exited the stage after standing hand-in-hand with Mr. Trumka, he turned to the crowd and said: “If we could only clone her and we had another 60 or 70 like her.”

Here's here full speech:

Kentucky Bankers Association Hates Sen. Elizabeth Warren, As Well They Should

Because she's on to the motherfuckers and she's going to put a stop to their criminal enterprise.

Digby:

Here is an excellent profile of Elizabeth Warren in today's LA Times. Seems she's causing quite a bit of agitation among the financial elites. I couldn't be more delighted:

The attention Warren is drawing — video clips of her first Banking Committee hearing went viral on YouTube — could catapult her even further. Some liberals have begun touting her as a potential 2016 presidential candidate.

"She has maximized the influence and attention that a freshman senator can get," said Jaret Seiberg, a senior policy analyst with financial services firm Guggenheim Partners. "Now, when we look at issues of too-big-to-fail and of consumer protection, people want to know what Elizabeth Warren has to say."

The fast start by Warren, one of the few politicians to embrace the Occupy Wall Street movement, has confirmed the fears of some in the financial industry that she wouldn't hesitate to criticize them from her new, higher-profile position.

Warren's sharp rhetoric is "certainly harmful to our industry," said Ballard Cassady, president of the Kentucky Bankers Assn.

Oh, boo fucking hoo. The poor put-upon bankers and master of the universe just cannot get a break. Well, except for their ill-gotten billions, but other than that it's been just hell.

I am hearing lots of "questions" from establishment liberals about Warren's aggressive style being unhelpful because it's ginning up populist resentment (and lord knows, we can't have that!) My answer to that is, "yeah, whatever." The centrist Democrat experiment in "market liberalism" and appeasement politics has been shown to be an epic failure. We are on the verge of losing the American middle class and have succeeded in growing poverty. Well done, all around.

It's time to change direction and Warren is one of the few who both personally understands the issues and the politics of this new era. If that doesn't go down well among many of those who have invested their lives in the idea that left populism is dirty (or even that straight-up liberalism is a big fat political loser) well, too bad. As far as I'm concerned, she is the future. Get on board or get out of the way.

Democratic Candidates Who Run On Democratic Values Win

Yes, Massachusetts is a blue state. But Kentucky's deplorable tendency to elect repugs to national office hides this salient fact:

The five of Kentucky's six congressional districts that are represented by repugs are still technically Democratic districts by registration. For the nth time: IT'S THE TURNOUT, STUPID.


Digby:

So Elizabeth Warren is pleasing Democrats and independents through her outspoken economic populism, while marginalizing herself among Republicans. The end result is that her approval rating is double her disapproval.

Other Democrats can pull off the same trick. Other states are often more conservative than Massachusetts, of course, but it's not independents in Montana are any friendlier to hedge fund manager and other Wall St. types than independents on the eastern seaboard.

Elizabeth Warren is not just supporting good policy. She's channeling what Americans really feel. That's not just good policy; it's good politics. Unless you're a Democrat representing a majority Republican district, there's no reason not to do likewise. Any Democrat in a blue state or district falling short of the Elizabeth Warren standard is doing so because they want to, not because they have to.

Don't bother trying to explain this to Kentucky's repug "Democratic" Party. Talk to your neighbors. Go to your city council and fiscal court meetings and community events. That's where you'll find real Democratic voters who can be real Democratic candidates. Or maybe you'll find one staring back at you from the mirror.

Run on Democratic values and win.

Elizabeth Warren FTW

If this speech doesn't get her elected, nothing will.

Elizabeth Warren Does Something Incredibly Stupid

Think Progress:

The 2012 elections will undoubtedly see an unprecedented injection of third-party influence, thanks to the Citizens United ruling and the subsequent advent of super PACs, and now, “super super PACS” — groups that “not only raise mega cash to promote candidates, but give money to candidates’ campaigns” directly. Attempting to stem the tide of undue influence, Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren (D) and her opponent Sen. Scott Brown (R) signed a ban on third-party ads. Brown had sent Warren two previous proposals but Warren objected to “some of the loopholes” that remained. Warren sent back a signed proposals with “clarifications to make it stronger.” The ad ban is “designed to control what is already prodigious outside spending on the race. By some projections, the campaign could cost at least $60 million” with at least “$20 million being spent by special interest groups with an interest in the outcome.”

Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie.

What - in the name of every repug motherfucker who publicly attacked you, sabotaged you, stabbed you in the back, tried everything under the sun to literally destroy you as a public servant, as a lawyer, as a person - are you thinking?

The Super Pacs trying to prevent you from restoring Ted Kennedy's senate seat to the party that earned it are laughing their asses off and buying up commercial time as I write this.

The Super Pacs that support you will probably respect your request, even though they know Brown's Super Pacs will not. If they don't know that, then they're even more stupid than whatever insane urge possessed you to do this.

Admit it, Elizabeth: you are too naive to run for the U.S. Senate. You're going to get crushed, and you're going to deserve it.

Credit Card Agreements That Don't Need a "For Dummies" Book to Understand

Government agencies - and private companies and nonprofits - benefit greatly from the leadership of dedicated, inspiring executives. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will be less than it could have been had Senate repugs not refused to allow even debate about Richard Cordray, the person President Obama nominated to head the bureau.

But the absence of a director has not and will not kill the CFPB, which is moving fast to fulfill its mandate as conceived by consumer protection guru - and now Senate candidate - Elizabeth Warren.

From the White House:

Despite not having a director, the CFPB is doing everything they can to fight for consumers. In fact, this week, they kicked off a pilot program to simplify credit card agreements, and we wanted to make sure you saw it. Read their email below.

Millions of times every year, financial institutions issue a new credit card agreement to their customers. And every year, millions of consumers receive new agreements and do not read them.

We have an idea that we think can make things better: a simplified credit card agreement.

Check it out, and tell us what you think.

http://www.consumerfinance.gov/credit-cards/knowbeforeyouowe/

Credit cards are simple to use, but consumers have a lot of choice in exactly how they use them. Differences between cards provide even more choices to consumers.

Credit card agreements describe the terms and features of a particular card. They spell out the rights and obligations of both parties, and provide legal protections for the issuer.

This can result in a dense and complicated document that can be difficult for consumers to understand.

The thought-starter we’ve developed reduces this complexity. We’ve separated the key terms from the legalese, leaving a clear, readable document.

We think it makes sense to give consumers a short, understandable document with the key terms they need to know. And we think it makes sense to give issuers the option to use our definitions, freely available on our website. We think this could reduce the costs of compliance and printing.

But as credit card users and issuers, you’re the people who need these agreements to work for you, so we want to know what you think. Would consumers be more likely to read this? Could issuers use this approach for their own products?

Take a look at what we’ve come up with. Weigh in with your thoughts to help us make credit card agreements better.

http://www.consumerfinance.gov/credit-cards/knowbeforeyouowe/

Thank you,

Marla Blow
Acting Assistant Director, Card Markets
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Banks deliberately compose those insane, undreadable "agreements" to prevent anyone from understand what you are really getting into by accepting the bank's terms.

Banks know an understandable credit card agreement is going to cut deeply into their profits, and they will do their best to quash it.

Stop them. Read the new agreement, and tell Maria Blow how you think it can be improved. Thank her, too, for CFPB's work protecting you from the banksters.

Wow

Not many political candidates leave me speechless, but upon reading this today, all I could say was Wow. I kept saying Wow for several minutes thereafter.

Wall Street's long knives are out for this woman. My guess is she's got the Blue Dogs and DINOs who run the Democratic National Committee shitting their pants, too. I really wish she had not immediately rocketed up the polls to lead Brown. That gives the motherfuckers way too much time to stop her.

Rumproast:

"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 maurauding 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."

David Atkins "thereisnospoon" at Hullabaloo:

Changing the system won't come from dropping out and voting third party, nor will it come from blindly defending the Administration and hoping a Republican never holds the White House again in our lifetime. Changing the system will come from voting people like Elizabeth Warren into office all across the country, proving that they can win using this sort of rhetoric, and then holding them accountable to their campaign promises.

And here's the little secret the Democratic consultant class either doesn't understand or willfully refuses to understand: this sort of rhetoric won't just win in Massachusetts. It will win in Omaha, too. It will win the day from Annapolis to Anchorage, from Kalamazoo to Kailua-Kona.

Will there be places this message won't win, and voters whose heartstrings it won't touch? Yes, of course. Most of those places will be heavily rural or bastions of the Bible Belt and the Deep South. But those places were unwinnable and those people unreachable anyway without destroying everything the Democratic Party is supposed to stand for.

The amount of contortion necessary for Democrats to win in places Warren's message won't work means those places aren't worth winning in the first place.

The Democratic Party would be far, far better off maximizing voter turnout in places where this message does work, than in weakening its message so much that its support becomes a mile wide but an inch deep.

Most importantly, if the Democratic Party were to elect a bevy of candidates who talked this talk and then walked the walk while in office, the Party would actually succeed in moving economic policy significantly to the left while in power, and in stopping the Rightist juggernaut when eventually forced into the minority. It would actually do the job not just of getting elected, but of actually doing the things they were elected to do, which is the whole point of politics. Yes, it might lose some Wall St. cash in the process. But if that's the overriding concern, it's only a matter of time before violent revolution or totalitarian takeover anyway. So there's not much to lose, anyway.

I heard Elizabeth Warren speak on campus a few months ago, and I worried about her candidacy because in that speech she was a little too wonkish even for an academic audience.

I'm not worried anymore.