Who Is Financing the SMEARS AGAINST Elizabeth Warren?

[Segami]

~snip~

White and Haberman closed by saying: "The worry on Wall Street is about how far to the left Clinton might have to drift to appease what's been proclaimed the [Elizabeth] 'Warren wing of the Democratic Party' -- the vocal populists buoyed by Elizabeth Warren's tough critiques of Wall Street greed, as well as by the recent election of liberal Mayor Bill de Blasio on their New York home turf. ... And if the banking class is delighted with Clinton lately, the feeling appears mutual. In Manhattan last week, Clinton sat down with the Carlyle Group's David Rubenstein for their second question-and-answer session in the last two months."



Wall Street's counter-attack against Senator Elizabeth Warren (here being mentioned yet again along with mayor-elect Bill de Blasio) came in Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal , on December 2nd, when two Republican-Democratic proponents of cutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, Jon Cowan and Jim Kessler, both heads of the long-time Clinton-backing Third Way organization (a think tank), headlined "Opinion: Cowan and Kessler: Economic Populism Is a Dead End for Democrats : The de Blasio-Warren Agenda Won't Travel." These Hillary-supporters linked NYC's new anti-megabank mayor-elect with U.S. Senator Warren, and even listed his name before hers, probably so as to blur their real intention and sole actual target here, which was Elizabeth Warren, whose appeal to core Democratic voters presents the only substantial threat to Hillary Clinton's Presidential train, which is now leaving the station.



Cowan-Kessler opened: "If you talk to leading progressives these days, you'll be sure to hear this message: The Democratic Party should embrace the economic populism of New York Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio and Massachusetts [U.S.] Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Such economic populism, they argue, should be the guiding star for Democrats heading into 2016." Amazingly, these Wall Street fronts (Cowan and Kessler) let slip there that though they mentioned first the mere "Mayor-elect," their real focus was actually on the 2016 Presidential race: Hillary's expected Presidential-nomination contest against not "Massachusetts Sen.," but Massachusetts' U.S. Sen., Warren. They continued: "Nothing could be more disastrous for Democrats."



Who, then, are these two conservative "Democratic" front-men, Cowan and Kessler? They are the two top officials, and co-founders, of the think tank, Third Way, which is associated with the Democratic Leadership Council, which had been built up by Bill Clinton in order to provide Wall Street a way to control things even when Republicans are not in power. If the electorate, for whatever reason, fail to vote for Wall Street's preferred candidate (almost always the Republican), then the Government can still be bought by them, so long as they pay the price: donating to Third Way, DLC "Democrats," who eschew "economic populism," and who are more deferential to the big-money men than real Democrats would tolerate being. In other words: these Third Way, DLC, people represent the "Democratic" Establishment, not the Democratic voters who lack the wealth to buy "their" Government.




cont'


http://www.opednews.com/articles/Who-Is-Financing-the-Smear-by-Eric-Zuesse-Elizabeth-Warren_Hillary-Clinton_Occupy-Wall-Street_Wall-Street-131216-50.html

[intaglio]

1. Get a list of the USA's wealthiest corps

put it on the wall and throw darts.

Every one a winner ...

[2naSalit]

2. Didn't a number of RW hacks

send out a memo proposing the idea of switching to (D) in order to infiltrate and destroy from within? It's what they did to Congress and state legislative bodies so why not the opposing party? All funded by our favorite RW industrialists, of course.

[reformist2]

3. The real question is, who isn't?

[cheyanne]

4. Where were Cowan-Kessler for the last year?

Do they realize how fast progressive ideas have moved . . .and how they have left the politicians behind?

No one predicting the success of the marijuana and the gay marriage laws.

But by the constant efforts of many progressives, these ideals have become reality.

It's too early to count out Warren's populism for 2016.

We need to keep the discussion ongoing on progressive issues. Cowan-Kessler might be surprised to find that they are left behind.

[Segami]

5. "..Between now and Election Day 2016, one should reasonably expect..

...that Hillary Clinton's campaign against Elizabeth Warren will be so well-funded, that Warren won't be able to get past the primaries without all the mud that Wall Street can throw against her being thrown, and we should therefore expect that, if Senator Warren runs, then the campaign that Wall Street financed in 2012 for the then-incumbent Massachusetts U.S. Senator Scott Brown, whom she was running against, will be amplified to a deafening roar, even in the Democratic primaries, before there is any contest at all against the ultimate Republican U.S. Presidential nominee in 2016...."

[Beacool]

9. That's nonsense for one reason, Elizabeth Warren is not going to run for president.

She has stated so repeatedly and even her money man has said so too. There's no Democratic conspiracy against her.

[woo me with science]

6. K&R Who is funding ALL the corporate propaganda,

Including the swill that infiltrates DU every day?

[Whisp]

7. That pic tells all...

Warren is to the left of Clinton.

The pic should be farther apart...

[sabrina 1]

8. I think we know now. Apparently when Big Corps want to go after someone they consider

to be a threat to their interests, they hire one of those Security Contractors or Think Tanks who prepare the smear campaigns that are then spread around by the puppets they hire to do so.

People like Elizabeth Warren and Glenn Greenwald, who as a relatively obscure blogger at the time, found himself to have been a target of one of those Security Contractors for such a smear campaign, after Anonymous hacked into the emails of HB Gary. Even a blogger, like Greenwald was at the time, was not too small a threat to them for such a smear campaign, which we've seen, even here on DU.

I have no doubt that Security Contractors like HB Gary and Think Tanks are still bidding on those 'contracts' and that Elizabeth Warren is a prime target for them.

In the case of Glenn Greenwald eg, the bid by Security Contractor HB Gary to smear him, was being proposed to Bank of America about whom he had had been writing at the time.

It would be good to expose who is getting paid to smear Warren. I'm sure it could be done. Sounds like another job for Anonymous.

[Beacool]

10. Well, it won't really matter since Warren is not going to run

and De Blasio ran Hillary's first Senate campaign. Neither of these three people are against each other, quite the contrary, they get along quite well.

I guess that we'll continue to read conjecture and conspiracy theories for the next three years.

[djean111]

27. Smearing Warren is, IMO, an attempt to shut down Progressive ideas.

In fact, the Third Way WSJ bullshit said pretty much exactly that.
Evidently it is too difficult for the Warren smear folks to entertain the idea that it is Warren's IDEAS and POLICIES that are what is important, and that Warren not running for President will not make Progressives shut up and be happy with Hillary.
At this point in time, I don't care what Hillary runs on, she is a corporate creature and would act accordingly. Learned my lesson about campaign blather.

[Beacool]

28. The WSJ is not third way, it's a conservative paper outright.

Of course they are going to smear Warren, they smear all Democrats. As for progressives, they can say whatever they want. Free country and all that..........

[djean111]

29. I will be more specific - two people from the Third Way had an op-ed published in the WSJ,

basically attacking Warren and progressive policies.

(Mr. Cowan is president of the think tank Third Way, where Mr. Kessler is senior vice president for policy.)

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304337404579213923151169790?KEYWORDS=jon+cowan

and then there is this:
http://www.salon.com/2013/12/11/corporate_democrats_freak_out_over_elizabeth_warren_threat/

The Washington establishment’s war on Senator Elizabeth Warren has officially begun.

On Friday, Jim Kessler, vice president of the centrist Democrat think-tank Third Way, took to the airwaves to defend his organization’s recent attack piece on the Senator. That editorial, which was published in the Wall Street Journal last week, blasted Warren for supporting an expansion of Social Security.

Kessler doubled down on Third Way’s anti-Warren messaging during his appearance on Sirius XM radio, telling host Ari Rabin-Havt that she is “starting to get out of hand.”

Of course Progressive can, and will, say whatever they want. Warren's candidacy, and the smears, will not change that, nor will things like this help Hillary out one little bit with progressives.

[bvar22]

11. Righteous DURec for wider exposure!

[font size=3] these Third Way, DLC, people represent the "Democratic" Establishment, not the Democratic voters who lack the wealth to buy "their" Government. [/font]


I will never forget the feelings of deep betrayal when newly elected President Obama revealed his "Team of Rivals".

[font size=5]
The DLC New Team
[/font]
(Screen Capped from the DLC Website)



Champagne Corks popped on Wall Street and in the Corporate Boardrooms that day.

[Segami]

12. Oh, the Wall Street Whores love their Champagne...

Wall Street Whores Watch The Occupy Wall Street Protests

[Beacool]

13. 55 Wall St. is a cavernous space that is used for parties.

Liza Minelli's wedding reception was held there. I have attended company parties there too. Not everyone who works Downtown is a "Wall Street Whore". Regular folks work there too.

[dreamnightwind]

15. What's your point?

The pictures in the post you are responding to were taken of people at that address, partying and smiling condescendingly down at Occupy protests below. IIRC they also threw down one dollar bills on the protesters.

The post was not an attempt to smear everyone who uses that building, it was about a specific and particularly revealing incident that perfectly contrasted the different realities in this country, and the disdain many of the haves have for the have-nots.

edit to add: by the way, from an upthread post it looks to me like you haven't read the article the OP talks about. I know everyone has limited time, and you're probably not ideologically sympathetic to it anyway, but this is an excellent article that is actually worth the time it takes to read it, and discusses issues of huge importance to our party. Sorry to jump on you here, it would be great though if you would join in a discussion of the real and important issues discussed in the article.

[SomethingFishy]

22. That "party" was a group of Wall Street Thieves

that took bailout money from the working people of this nation and then stood on a balcony throwing dollar bills and laughing at the people they stole from.

Hardly what I would call regular folks.

[Beacool]

23. If that's the case, then they deserve the opprobrium that went their way.

Which company was holding that party?

[NuttyFluffers]

14. Third Way is like DLC in hiding

and they are still pulling the infiltration strings, i see.

i feel we could do with some disinfecting sunlight...

[dreamnightwind]

16. Huge K & R

I recently found this article mentioned in another thread, a great piece of work by the author.

I learned many things I didn't now. One of them:

As for the other three co-founders of Third Way, two of them are likewise Clintonians, and the third is closely related. Matt Bennett was the Deputy Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs throughout Bill Clinton's second term. Nancy Jacobson was an early supporter of Bill Clinton's 1992 Presidential campaign, and when he won, he appointed her as Finance Director of the Democratic National Committee. Her husband is Mark Penn, who served as Hillary's chief strategist during her bungled 2008 Presidential campaign against Obama. The fifth one, Nancy Hale, was a leading fundraiser for nonprofits -- an excellent background for political fund-raising.

Hadn't heard that Mark Penn's wife was a Third Way founder, not surprising but helps fill in the scorecard.

I thought so much of this article I added it to my sig. Hopefully it will get read by as many Democrats as possible, should be required reading.

[7962]

17. Its starting early, isnt it?

[Segami]

18. "....As sourcewatch also notes , the major funders of Third Way include....

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Third_Way_Foundation

....the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation, and the John M. Olin Foundation, three of the top foundations that donate to AEI, Heritage, Cato, and other extremely conservative think tanks. Furthermore: Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Bank One, and numerous defense contractors, are also major donors.

In addition, there is a separate Clinton-supporting Third Way Foundation , created by Bill Clinton's buddy Al From, which likewise is financially backed by the Bradley Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation, and the John M. Olin Foundation, as well as by the Walton Family Foundation (Wal-Mart), and the same Wall Street and military-contracting firms. The current president of this Third Way Foundation is Will Marshall, who was one of the few "Democrats" who passionately advocated for Bush's idea of "regime change in Iraq." In fact, Marshall shared the extremist views of the far-right Project for a New American Century (PNAC), which served as the lead organization outside the Bush White House propagandizing to invade Iraq. Third Way Foundation pays Will Marshall $200,000 per year , apparently to do little but fill out forms.

[Enthusiast]

20. In other words, they are the enemy.

Greedy Neo-Con Fascists.

[antigop]

21. According to dailykos, the Waltons also fund the Third Way Foundation

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/08/02/1228573/-Progressive-THIRD-WAY-FOUNDATION-Funded-by-the-WALTONS



Be sure to see interactive chart...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/woe1/9427021362/

[Enthusiast]

19. Fuck Third Way Republicans posing as Democrats.

[Scuba]

24. This chart gives more than a little insight into who's funding the Third Way ...

[Segami]

25. Makes one ask who's interest is really being served?

[SummerSnow]

26. The Koch brothers of course

[justine93]

30. which company was throwing that party?

who or which was throwing that party at which the bankers where laughing at the protesters?