.
“The suggestion that we have become a country where those living in poverty fight each other for a handful of crumbs tossed off the tables of the very wealthy is fundamentally wrong. This is about our values, and our values tell us that we don’t build a future by deciding who among us will be left to starve.”
Advance .pdf of the speech, via Matt Yglesias, here. (Except above starts at the bottom of the second page.)
***********
What’s on the agenda for the new day?
Liquid
So you (not YOU) say you’re up by 5 a.m. and are mocking me in a passive-agressive fashion i.e. “getting shit done.”
I can argue that I went to bed at precisely the same time which means I was getting shit done long before you decided to wake up and drink whatever comes out’a those animal nipples when you squeeze them.
But I’m 60km off the coast of Lisbon and those PBYs are vicious.
Mustang Bobby
There are some really strange ads on cable TV at 3:30 a.m. Boner pills followed by prostate pills followed by special pillows to assist in falling asleep.
Which means if you can’t get it up or pee, you can at least sleep through it.
Cygil
I will be flamed for firebaggery ,but I simply cannot imagine Obama ever trying to change the conversation the way Warren is. Obama is an elitist technocrat, Warren is a populist firebrand.
raven
My bride has an MRI and nerve test Thursday for her continuing back a nerve pain and a colonoscopy Friday for another “issue” that has popped up. We leave for the beach for a week Saturday so we’re hoping for the best.
AT
@Cygil: Obama got healthcare passed, warren has given an exciting speach.
NotMax
Trickle-down hunger games.
David Koch
@Cygil:
So that’s why Obama spent years as a community organizer in Chicago slums while Warren, the former Republican who voted for Nixon and Reagan twice, was a corporate bankruptcy attorney against victims of asbestos exposure?
You really want to go there?
Maybe you want to bring up Iraq. Elitist Obama opposed it when 80% of the country supported it and at a time when opponents were denounced as traitors. Where was Warren? Maybe she was with populist firebrand John Edwards who co-wrote the war resolution giving Shrub a blank check.
Liquid
I’m sick of voting for the lesser evil; that kind of strategy only goes so far. So it’s going to be food shortages/water riots/overpopulation/Climatic devastation/etc. I’m glad I’m 31, humanity won’t deal with the problem until it’s too late and that won’t be for another three or four decades.
TriassicSands
That “suggestion” may be wrong, but it’s the basic operating philosophy of the Republican Party, with occasional and partial assistance from the Democrats (from bottom to top).
@AT:
Yeah, but someone has to say those things and the more people who do, the better; otherwise it’s just Grampa Simpson and the GOP Noise Machine round the clock. The only thing stopping the president from signing a bill cutting Social Security is a Congress full of people who don’t want to go into mid-term elections with that on their CVs.
Warren is not alone in the Senate. Others like Bernie Sanders and Sherrod Brown seem to be categorically opposed to cuts in Social Security. Unfortunately, that’s not a commitment the president shares with them.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Actually it’s that Obama won’t accept those cuts without tax increases, and Boehner et al refuse to budge on that. I think it’s bad politics and bad policy, but I suspect a “Grand Bargain” with chained CPI would get a majority of Dem votes in the House and the Senate.
Joey Maloney
Screwed up a customer migration this morning, but I seem to’ve unscrewed it to within acceptable limits, knock wood.
geg6
It is fucking cold and I have an 8am to 8pm work day ahead of me. The next person who tells me that working in higher ed is a cushy job gets punched in the neck.
Randy P
@Joey Maloney: Well, no matter what happened, I’m sure they’ll find their way back to their nesting grounds when they migrate back in the spring.
Or is it not that kind of migration?
(I was getting an amusing image of huge flocks of customers winging south in V formation)
David Koch
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: it’s more than that. the exchange is for higher revenue, but also removing the sequester, and increasing current spending on infrastructure and basic research and funding universal pre-K with a cigarette tax.
One one hand I don’t want to see CPI touched one cent, One the other hand I feel for the people who are out of work. They need jobs which are stimulated by government projects. And once unemployment goes down we could finally see wage growth that would benefit everyone. More tax receipts means more aid and assistance to those in need, including seniors.
I don’t know which is the preferable course. I can see the pain from each angle. But it’s moot. They’ll never deal, first because they don’t want to give up revenue, but more importantly they know the plan would improve the economy and they can’t have that.
raven
Why does anyone care about this jackass in Toronto?
Fred
@Anne Laurie: I love your senator too. I love Dems who would rather punch banksters than punch hippies. When’s the last time a hippy crashed the economy or started a war?
El Caganer
@raven: Especially when we’ve got one of our own right here outside Philadelphia.
http://articles.philly.com/2013-11-18/news/44165808_1_schiliro-marcus-hook-mayor-drunken-encounter
NotMax
@raven
Amen.
raven
@Fred: Duck Soup?
qwerty42
@Joey Maloney: Screwed up a customer migration this morning…
What was being migrated? We have been going through a series of upgrades/migrations with the occasional odd consequences.
Mustang Bobby
Oh yip yah, the two journal vouchers I’ve been fretting about went through the preliminary upload. Now all they need is approval on five levels and they’re home and dry.
I’ve thought about getting a life, but I’m going to rent one first and see if I like it.
qwerty42
@geg6: …The next person who tells me that working in higher ed is a cushy job gets punched in the neck.
It isn’t? Cripes, why didn’t somebody tell me?
raven
@Mustang Bobby: You’ll be shocked to know I had to look up what that is.
NotMax
Anne Laurie or Betty Cracker:
If stuck for a video, this might be right up the ol’ alley.
Keith G
@geg6:
.
It’s a shame they make you work outside as you stay on your feet all day moving those heavy items.
I will be thinking of you.
@raven: It is never fun waiting for test results/procedure outcomes. Hang in there.
Re: TriassicSands – As a whole, the leadership of the Democratic Party lost it’s populist nerve back in the DLC days. Brown and Warren are among the few who seem to instinctively know that there are important issues that need to be vigorously contested and that a vacuum of information will always be filled by the other side.
NotMax
@Keith G
Lost? More like deliberately abandoned after kicking it out into the gutter.
David Koch
@Fred: well, Hitler once lived a bohemian lifestyle.
Keith G
@NotMax:
RightCorrect you are.Chyron HR
@TriassicSands:
Much like invading Libya and bombing Syria, Obama has cut Social Security in his heart, which is much more relevant than picking nits about what “actually” happened in the “real” world.
Schlemizel
from yesterday
@burnspbesq:
Thanks for the link it was hilarious. Work has been a beastie of late and I have had no time during the day and precious little at night so I didn’t get to the video until late figured I’d wait until the AM to increase the odds you’d see this.
There was one black family in my neighborhood when I was growing up & I was friends with the girl who was in my class. I learned a heck of a lot about what being black meant (for better and for worse) from listening to her and seeing her family. When her folks were working nights we would sneak out the Foxx and Mabley albums and laugh at the jokes we got or pretended we did. When my wife and I saw Pryor it was the 70’s and the whole world was a different place but I really thought he hit social issues they didn’t (probably couldn’t) maybe it was just that I was now an adult. But I see your point about making it possible.
David Koch
@Chyron HR: where do you want the internets delivered to?
I could hear a bass sitar and smell the aroma of incenses as my wall melted into a rainbow as I read your groovy comment, daddy-o
Cygil
@David Koch: How many times has Obama tried to cut social security now? Three times? Four times? The only reason it hasn’t happened is that stupid Boehner wouldn’t take the deal every time Obama put it on the table.
That health care plan? You mean the one written by the heritage foundation, only slightly to the left of McCainCare?
There are no true populists in the Democratic party and Warren might only be trying to curry favour, but she’s making the right noises and Obama isn’t. As far as the Iraq war goes, Obama opposed it only on narrow pragmatic grounds and only because he had the luxury at the time of being a political outsider at the time. He’s so anti-war that he supported and extended the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and started at least one new drone war, without the authorisation of congress of course.
If you want to defend Obama’s anti-war stance, you need to explain precisely how anything is different than if McCain had won office. The truth is that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are petering out pretty much on McCain’s schedule which is the same as the Pentagon’s schedule and the punditocracy’s schedule. Obama is anti-war in rhetoric, and has been pro-war in practice.
Baud
It’s too bad Democrats can’t seem to learn how to praise good Democrats without feeling the need to attack other good Democrats. It’s as if the Democratic mindset was designed by the GOP.
Aimai
@David Koch: that is incorrect. She represented the victims.
Schlemizel
@raven:
We will be thinking of you guys. I guess I have had the experience so many times that waiting for results has become routine even though I know it is not. Pretty quick you’ll be laying on the beach forgetting that you were ever worried.
Keith G
@Baud:
No pearl clutching is necessary. This is how politics has worked for, what, 10,000 years. And…in vibrant democracies, this type of discussion is even more important.
A leader/leadership’s mistakes (both real and alleged) need to be called out. Folks get a chance to vent and alternative attitudes might even get examined.
Schlemizel
@Mustang Bobby:
I think some smart sociology student could put together a pretty decent paper based of advertisements vs time of day. Between your 3:30am sample and a 1:00pm sample that would include tech school ads, truck driver school ads and lawyers fishing for personal injury cases it says a lot about who is watching!
Mustang Bobby
@raven: Best wishes to you and yours.
fka AWS
I see the firebaggers are out early today.
Baud
@Keith G:
No pearl clutching. Just lamenting the self-destructive nature of certain aspects of Democratic politics. You seem to think the rhetoric we use to engage in Democratic and democratic debate can never be damaging. I disagree.
David Koch
@Aimai:
OzarkHillbilly
@geg6: Not saying you don’t work hard, and certainly not saying you don’t earn your money, but is it heated where you work? AC’ed in the summer?
Perspective my friend, perspective.
Baud
@David Koch:
That’s a misleading excerpt.
According to the article, she intended to help the victims, but was essentially outfoxed in the litigation strategy.
Matt McIrvin
@Cygil:
While we can never know what happens in some alternate history, McCain seemed keen on starting another war with Iran, something that shows no signs of happening at the moment (and the old neocons are pissed about it).
For that matter, while I was bothered by Obama and Kerry’s early belligerence on Syria, they seem to have gotten to a non-military way forward, and I have little confidence that a McCain administration wouldn’t have sent in the bombers long ago.
McCain wanted to greatly expand the war of US vs. Everybody; that was what he was running on. He even tried to gin up a conflict with Russia at one point.
amk
@Cygil: Now obama is mccain? Really? Firebagger maroon.
Valdivia
In the meantime, while we argue about theoretical cuts, the media is busy trying to destroy Obama’s presidency. See please the WaPo poll this am in which they ask the most loaded of questions and then at the end ask if they would want Romney for president instead. They really are at war with Obama at this point.
I am not big on bully pulpit bs but at this point he has to do something big to break through this bs.
Betty Cracker
McCain is a war-mongering neo-con prick. Obama is an interventionist Democrat who has had the good sense to avoid directly engaging every crackpot in the Middle East. I don’t agree 100% with Obama’s foreign policy, but we knew what it was before we elected him, and it’s miles saner than anything on offer from the GOP.
David Koch
@Baud: My original line was she worked for Travelers and against asbestos victims. Aimai then said, that was not true, she represented the victims.
She was hired by Travelers, and not the victims.
Travelers wanted to open a $500 million trust in return for immunity from future claims and to settle current claims. While most, but not all, of the current claimants agreed to a deal. That in no way means she was representing the victims, just because both parties liked the outcome. After all, it wasn’t the victims who paid her.
In the end, through no fault of Warren, who by then had left the case, the victims got screwed.
Perhaps the outcome wouldn’t have been so once sided had she worked for the victims from beginning to end, instead of the asbestos polluter.
JPL
@Matt McIrvin: this. Interference in the Georgian/Ossetia dispute could have caused a major conflict, imo. McCain’s foreign policy was nothing like the current President’s views. It boggles my mind that someone could think that. Maybe McCain was really a pacifist in sheep’s clothing but that’s not what he campaigned on.
debbie
Nice to see this on the same day JPMorgan’s $13B fine is finally announced. Next: criminal charges.
Betty Cracker
@debbie: Here’s what I wonder about that: Who gets the money? I think $4B is set aside for relief for homeowners. How is that going to work? No one seems to know for sure.
Ramalama
@Cygil: Dude. If McCain didn’t start that quick war in Georgia against RUSSIA while he was on the campaign trail, then he encouraged it, lengthened it, tied it up into a ponytail and slicked it down with bobby pins.
It’s not a stretch to say that with McCain we’d have More War.
Not dismissing Obama’s record. Just that McCain is a disaster.
Baud
@David Koch:
That’s a fairer description. I thought the one paragraph you initially quoted by itself didn’t bring that out. She was paid by Travelers but, based on the story, it sounds like she advocated for a position that she believed (mistakenly perhaps) would be pro-victim.
Keith G
@Baud:
I am sure that it can be, but I have seen no indication of harmful rhetoric in this era.
I will add that “circling the wagons” can also be damaging. It seems that usually it’s better if opposing views within a political group are vigorously aired.
Ramalama
@Anne Laurie: I love her too, and made a 7 hour trek down just to vote for her (US citizen with MA residency that will probably change someday soonish). On my way from Quebec, I picked up a rider (I used to be famous in rideshare circles) in Vermont who also was making the trip down just to cast his vote for Warren.
I remember the day Scott Brown was elected. It was a shitty slushy day and I always drove in to Boston on Tuesdays. Another rider from MA was in my car – rode with me from Montreal – and assumed ‘the Democrat’ would win. I yelled at him to please go vote. I guess he didn’t.
Baud
@Keith G:
No one is circling the wagons. AL posted a good thread about Warren, and it veered off into another useless obot/firebagger type thread because talking about Warren and the issues she raises isn’t good enough.
Really? I guess we see the state of U.S. politics differently.
gene108
@NotMax:
I think it is more likely due to getting the crap kicked out of the Democratic Presidential candidate in 1980, 1984 and 1988.
Jamey
@Baud: This.
aimai
@Keith G: We haven’t had democracy for 10,000 years–there were democracies 2500 years ago but then they went pretty much into abeyance until fairly recently.
At any rate this is all by the by–the question is what is the significance of slanging and counterslanging people on your own side, including the leader of the only party currently holding the presidency and the Senate? In what context does it occur, and with what effect? I completely support Senator Warren, who is in fact my Senator, but you notice that she is not attacking the President or other Democrats who may have a different notion than she does about what is necessary at this point in order to blast the Republicans off their “no new revenue stance.” Until we recapture the House we must resign ourselves to either no new revenue or stasis. Some people may believe we can afford that, others may not.
If Warren were in the White House right now it is hard to see how she would be doing a better job than Obama on any single issue. And I think we can assume that Obama, if he were in Warren’s seat, would be doing what she is doing. Different power positions mean different strategies at different times because you have different levers and different capabilities.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Meh. The pompous contrari-troll sees politics however he needs to so he can condescendingly drone at someone. I’d rather fight with Corner Stone, at least he has a bit of a sense of humor.
@amk: I don’t recognize the ‘nym, but it’s a familiar pattern: They start out at about a half-Hamsher, and within a few posts they’re screaming that Obama is the Goldwater-Manchurian candidate “WHY DO YOU THINK HIS MOTHER CALLED HIM BARRY!”
gene108
@JPL:
Are there any Republican foreign policy “experts”, who were not 100% on board or helped mastermind the invasion of Iraq?
That really needs to be brought up in 2016, because who ever the Republican nominee is he’ll be advised on foreign policy by the guys, who cut their teeth on figuring out how to invade Iraq in 2003.
HeartlandLiberal
The agenda should be to elect Elizabeth Warren to the Presidency.
Sooner. Better.
Southern Beale
Meet today’s Second Amendment Hero: Christopher Strube of Iowa, concealed-carry permit holder who accidentally discharged his gun inside a Walmart Superstore, kept shopping, paid for his stuff and left, as if nothing had happened.
Hey, these things happen. And you know you WANT people like Chris Strube packing a .45 in his pocket because there’s NO telling how many crimes he could have stopped! So what if his gun accidentally went off?
NotMax
@HeartlandLiberal
No and no again, please. She is in a near-ideal position to build seniority and use her skills and ability in her area of expertise to work from within the Senate.
lol
@aimai:
this this this.
It’s nice to see that the left is hitching their Progressive Purity Pony to an actual liberal this time and not a DLC con-artist who was electable because he was a white southern man. That said, Warren is not running, she’s written a letter asking Hillary to run and will be one of the first people to endorse her. Even if Hillary weren’t running, I don’t see anything to indicate she’s interested in being an executive. She of all people knows how difficult it is to legislate when you have to cater to the most conservative member of your 60 member coalition.
Why can’t people just leave her on the Senate banking committee to live out the rest of her life giving bankstas hell? Electing her President isn’t going to magically make the Senate less broken.
A Humble Lurker
@TriassicSands:
If I shoot this in the head will it stay dead THIS time?
lol
Nice to see Firebaggers are planning to sit out the mid-terms again because anonymous source report Obama’s thinking about maybe selling us out possibly and is definitely going to announce as much at the State of the Union…. just as he supposedly was going to do so for every single past SOTU and major policy speech.
aimai
@David Koch: I remember the original article, which I can’t read right now because its behind a paywall, somewhat differently. I believe (though I could be wrong) that she was paid by Travellers in the sense that they hired a number of outside mediator types to try to negotiate a settlement–she was not hired by them against the plaintiffs she was hired to help reach a settlement. It was an entirely different kind of position, not a hired gun but a mediator and one she took qua Harvard Professor with a background in Bankruptcy law.
At any rate this kind of slanging match is exactly as bad as the one going the other way–why do you feel the need to attack one idiot (who is falsley idolizing her) by attempting to pull her down. Do you feel that she has done anything in her capacity as originator of the Consumer Bureau or as a Senator that backs the implication of your contention that she is some kind of horrible, pro corporate shill? If not, why make the accusation? You are simply contributing to a climate of disgust and anxiety among voters in which they come to believe that you can’t trust or support anyone since they are all liars.
I absolutely think the fetishization of Warren, or anyone, as a perfect paladin for the true left in this country is absurd–it has nothing to do with the person or real politics and is just a fantasy concocted to keep purists pure and prevent any real work from being done. The last thing President Obama or Warren would want. But the reverse is just as bad–slinging around Scott Brown’s accusations against Warren just to gain a little immoral high ground in an argument with an internet troll is just stupid. Scott Brown was and always will have been the only corporate shill in that election.
Cacti
@Baud:
Um, yeah. No way could an attorney foresee that a large corporate litigant might not want to pay out a large settlement claim.
Was it a hard landing when you fell off the back of the turnip truck?
Baud
@Cacti:
Don’t be dense. All I know about this issue is what I’ve read in the article. If you have a better understanding of the legal principles involved, I’d love to hear it.
Emma
@Baud: Bingo. Say what you like about Republicans (and I say a lot) they stick up for their own, no matter how rancid. Democrats like to kick their own, specially if they show any weakness.
Betty Cracker
@aimai: Brava!
aimai
@Betty Cracker: Hey Betty, thanks! The continued slap fest between the true believes and the true believers just really gets my goat. We can’t have a functioning political system, let alone a party, where every person is seen as compromised as soon as they get into power and in which “our only hope” is always some pure soul waiting in the wings who will, as David Koch demonstrated, be pulled down as impure as soon as he/she attempts to negotiate a settlement of any kind within the structures we currently face. The country has to be run. Laws have to be enforced. Judges have to be appointed. Taxes have to be collected. Debts have to be paid. Neither Obama nor Warren nor even Sanders (if he should miraculously be elected) can avoid those duties. Only Republican and Anarchist assholes can run for office and then threaten to destroy the country. Thats not who Warren is for fucking sure so people can just stop pushing their fantasies on her. But by the same token can we stop attacking her in order to make Obama look better. It should be obvious tthat they are on the same side and consider themselves on the same side.
Cacti
@Cygil:
Because making the right noises is what it’s all about.
Look how far it got Dennis Kucinich during 16 years in Congress.
MomSense
I heart Warren as much as anyone. That she is on the national stage is because Barack Obama brought her in to advocate on behalf of the American people in dealing with the a$$holes who crashed our economy.
To accuse this president of being an elitist is BS. He was raised by an unwed teenage mom and didn’t ever have two nickels to rub together until he wrote a bestselling book after graduating from Harvard Law School where he was elected president of the law review by his peers. He was not a legacy student, btw.
If you weren’t paying attention in 2007 and 2008, he was the one talking about how tough it was for the middle class even before the great recession. Every single day he talked about the rising cost of health care, education, transportation, etc and how people were borrowing from their homes because that was the only way they could try and pay for things given that their wages had been stagnant for decades. He was talking about poverty, about kids going into kindergarten and first grade unprepared. He was talking about kids looking around and seeing that their schools were falling apart and what message they were getting about their importance. He talked about it every day. I don’t know how people missed it or forgot about his life story or the fact that after Harvard he was courted by Supreme Court Justices and corporate law firms and decided to go work on voter registration in Chicago instead. If anything Warren has been riffing off the melody the president sang in 2007.
No patience for this BS.
aimai
@Cacti: Dennis Kucinich and Sarah Palin are both good examples of the kind of imaginary “savior” that both far left and far right are looking for–someone who makes the current political actors look bad, someone who makes a fuss, someone who is clearly not particularly attractive to a majority of voters, someone who keeps the pot boiling. In Palin’s case, as I pointed out elsewhere, her fans are enthralled with her without having the slightest intention of voting for her. They prefer her as an outsider and a celebrity because they recognize that she could do nothing “inside” the system. Kucinich? He left congress still basically unknown by the majority of the country.
Warren is not this kind of showboat. She isn’t “making the right noises” she is doing her fucking job.
Keith G
@aimai: Ahh, you (willfully?) misread what I typed.
I did not say democracy has been around 10,000 years, but that political discussions certainly have.
I do not think Warren should be in the White House now or in the foreseeable future. So an honest analysis of the real Obama presidency (which I feel has been pretty good to this point) should not rest on a comparison to a mythological Warren administration.
I am not defending or attacking any politician in these comments as much as I am defending the notion that political discussions within a party need to be vigorous – for the good of the entire society.
aimai
@Keith G: There is an obvious difference between “political arguments” happening pre-democracy and political arguments happening within a democratic context. I tried to do you the honor of assuming you knew that. Political arguments pre-democracy are pretty much nothing more than factionalism and gang signage writ large. They are almost never about policy, or not policy as we would recognize it, and they aren’t worth having in a democratic context. The idea that “people have been having political arguments” for 10,000 years is just absurd. 1) The people, such as slaves, serfs, and peasants, haven’t been involved. 2) It didn’t include women, for the most part. 3) These arguments did not include debates about the economic or civil rights. 4) Arguments such as “my political leader is a timeserving whore while yours is a timeserving pederast” are more like the arguments people have been having for 10,000 years and they don’t have any real use here anymore except, apparently, in Toronto.
Cacti
@aimai:
I agree, and I hope she grows into an effective, Ted Kennedy-esque liberal voice in the Senate, who was on the good side of the issues AND got things done.
Enthusiasm for liberal priorities is a good thing. Building consensus for them is the real work.
Keith G
@aimai:
Okay, Your Lordship…you’ve mounted the high horse of presumed superior intellect (yet another habit that damages political discourse)…so please excuse this poor wage-laboring serf as I go down the street to do my laundry.
Rob in CT
Coupla things here. First, Travelers isn’t an absestos polluter. Travelers insured some of them, which isn’t the same thing. I don’t know anything about this particular case, and I’ve got enough of a conflict of interest that I’ll stop here, with a link to FactCheck:
http://www.factcheck.org/2012/10/warrens-role-in-asbestos-case/
aimai
@Keith G: Look, you are the one who made the argument and then explained to me that I misread you. I didn’t–I just took you seriously. How is that elitist?
aimai
@Rob in CT: Thanks for that link. Here’s the relevant paragraphs in case people don’t bother to click it:
Elsewhere in the article it explains that literally as well as technically at the time that Warren was hired by Travelers Travelers and the asbestos families were working together so the work she did for one was, in effect, done for the other. It was only after this case was settled that the interests of Travellers and the beneficiaries from the trust were severed and came into opposition.
Rob in CT
@aimai:
Apparently so. Now I’m curious and though asbestos isn’t my area, it’s close…
Matt McIrvin
Meanwhile, about Warren… I voted for her, I like her a lot, and if she were to run for President, she might even be worth a primary vote, if only for symbolic reasons. But I see no signs that she’s actually running, and in fact she keeps saying she isn’t. If she stays in the Senate, I’m happy.
Keep in mind, too, the primary thing that distinguishes her from other Democrats is her stance on financial and economic questions. That’s a huge area in which the Democrats have been playing defense for too long, and it’s a large part of the reason why I supported her. But I don’t see any sign of distance between her and either Obama or Hillary Clinton on foreign policy, so attacking them on foreign policy is not a very strong case for Warren as an alternative.
And on the domestic cultural hot-button issues, at this point they’re all good. One of the popular arguments for Hillary Clinton back in ’08 was that she seemed more out in front on LGBT rights than Obama, but Obama really came around.
Rob in CT
Right, right, the actual topic. Good speech. I like her as a senator. I think she should probably stay there and be a strong progressive voice in the Senate. Presidents need powerful congresscritters to help them do stuff.
Betty Cracker
@Keith G:
Agreed, but the devil is in the definition of “vigorous,” how much the debate is informed by reality and how it affects voter behavior.
For years I’ve heard liberals express envy for conservatives’ ability to put aside their differences and unite against the common “enemy,” though that capacity was much diminished during the tea party rebranding. That rebranding illustrates exactly how intra-party infighting can scuttle the larger organization’s objectives.
Does anyone believe the so-called tea party is a grassroots uprising against Big Gubmint and crony capitalism? Of course not: It’s a Koch Industries-funded astroturf enterprise designed to dissipate the GWB loser-stink so plutocrats like the Kochs can retain control of a party that exists primarily to protect their wealth.
But not all of the SoCons in patriot drag got the message, and as a result, the GOP squandered a golden opportunity to take control of the Senate and make inroads with demographics that are gaining influence. So now they’re forced to rely on voter suppression and Democratic missteps to retain viability.
Anyhoo, that’s a tangent, but I think the tea party is useful as a cautionary tale. There’s a fine line between constructive and destructive criticism. We (Democrats) have honest policy disagreements and different assessments of what is and what is not possible, and we should discuss them — even heatedly.
But maybe also carefully? We’ve seen where the “there’s not a dime’s worth of difference” meme leads when it takes hold.
aimai
@Betty Cracker: This! A heated policy debate is what Warren is having when she speaks out against Chained CPI. A heated policy debate is not calling Obama a milquetoast corporatist who would strangle his own grandmother if he had not already thrown her under a bus. (I’m not saying KeithG made that argument, I’m saying that this kind of argument is where this thread began to head).
MomSense
@aimai:
In the summer of 2008 Van Jones gave an amazing address saying that the challenge for progressives would be governing. He said that it starts by finding a new story. For years we have seen ourselves as David fighting Goliath and that if we didn’t find a new story we would start aiming our slingshots at each other.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
David Koch is a long-time troll, folks. Before this, he was troll Mike Kay. He’s just here to stir up dissension among putative fellow travelers.
aimai
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: I forgot that, JSFTL. He can appear reasonable at times, though. Are you sure?
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@aimai:
Oh yes. He was even banned once or twice, IIRC.
schrodinger's cat
I am glad that Warren is out there saying things that need to be said.
schrodinger's cat
Thought for the day or what kitteh and tortoise can teach us, hairless apes of all political stripes.
Anybodybuther2016
Hmmm interesting, if someone brings up something that Warren actually did (repug for years, representing big biz) the usual suspects will bend over backwards to explain to us pathetic obots how it doesn’t mean anything yet any negative rumor emanating from the puke funnel that is our corporate msn about PBO gets treated like the gospels around here. I wonder what it is about Warren and Hils that prompts some to always give them the benefit of the doubt and yet for some odd reason that benefit is never extended to PBO. Interesting.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Anybodybuther2016: Do you feel like Obama doesn’t get enough hagiography on Balloon Juice? Maybe they could assign ten Obots to frontpage slots in an effort to rectify this. Oh wait, they already did this. Hmm, maybe they can change the name of the blog to Obama Juice.
chopper
@Cygil:
a million. thank god we have the republicans trying so hard to stop obama from cutting social security.
Jebediah, RBG
TPM says creigh deeds has been stabbed
A Humble Lurker
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:
I’d be for it. If only cause it would annoy the kind of folks who would sarcastically suggest it.
Ben Cisco
Today I celebrate 51 years time in service on this planet.
I am glad I’m still here, and that I’ve lived to see several things I never thought I would.
I can still see some things I thought would’ve been gone by now.
More work to do.
Anybodybuther2016
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:
Obot front pagers? Who? John Greenwald ball polisher Cole? Anne PUMA Laurie? Doug the dumbass who has never read a repugnican talking point he wasn’t willing to spread? Betty go along to get along Cracker? Fuckhead please.
Betty Cracker
@Ben Cisco: Happy birfday!
ruemara
@aimai: No he’s not. He’s been as annoying and abusive as JSF, but he’s not a troll. Troll seems to be a safe way of saying someone who refuses to agree with me.
The whole reason this thread goes to the usual bullshit is you can’t say something nice about Warren without people trying to compare her against Obama. The willful forgetting that they have different stories and views, yet have been allies in support of similar policies, is irritating. The fact that it’s not just a presidency to make a functioning & progressive government-hey, let’s ignore that. The fact that popularity in a vocal minority faction does not translate into votes from all sides-we can ignore that too. Jesus, the fact that you need to find ways to elect people you can get to vote progressive even half the time, does that get into your skulls?
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Anybodybuther2016:
lolz
Yatsuno
@Ben Cisco: Blessings and long life to you Emissary. And may the Prophets guide you ever onward into the future.
Ben Cisco
@Betty Cracker: @Yatsuno: My thanks to you both!
sm*t cl*de
The suggestion that we have become a country where those living in poverty fight each other for a handful of crumbs tossed off the tables of the very wealthy is fundamentally wrong
Obviously the suggestion should be wrong… but factually, is it?
Jebediah, RBG
@sm*t cl*de:
Factually, it sounds pretty fucking accurate.
SarahT
@Betty Cracker: THANK YOU
Paula
@ruemara:
Hey … don’t you know that the reason Warren is in the Senate is b/c Barack Obama refused to support her nomination as the head of consumer protection?
She’s clearly being suffocated in the Senate!! All part of Barack Obama’s evil plan to silence progressives.