Al Franken joins Elizabeth Warren in the Obama opposition

[RiverLover]

Al Franken joins Elizabeth Warren in the Obama opposition
12/30/14

....The Minnesota Democrat restated his opposition on Sunday, sending supporters an email with a link to a petition asking Obama to withdraw Weiss’s nomination. “More than six years after the crash, the American economy is still recovering,” Franken wrote. “We got into that mess because we were willing to let Wall Street police itself. Foxes make poor guards of henhouses. We know that through bitter experience, and I’m not willing to let it happen again.”

Franken joins Massachusetts Democrat Elizabeth Warren in opposing Weiss. A Warren adviser said in mid-November that Warren “is a no on Weiss.” Like Franken, Warren considers Weiss’s work on corporate inversions a disqualification, as is his insider status on Wall Street...

Read more at http://www.commdiginews.com/politics-2/al-franken-joins-elizabeth-warren-in-the-obama-opposition-32599/#goeJLFRWTBXVs5w8.99

[DrDan]

1. K and a big R

[bigwillq]

2. K and R (nt)

[tk2kewl]

3. bbbut...

I heard here a week or two ago that Al had already endored Hillary for president

[RiverLover]

5. He's working with Warren on this opposition, not endorsing her for 2016

But I'm guessing when/"if" she announces, Franken will go with Warren.

[davidpdx]

7. No, he's already been kissing Hillary's ass

Most of the party is going to sell out and fall behind her. I hope I am wrong, but I think it is a given.

[RiverLover]

8. I can see why you'd believe that given the media spin, however

...Today’s Democrats are also not the same voters who backed Clintonian centrism. In 1994, based on the Pew Research Center’s political values index, 30 percent of Democrats held liberal views. Today, 56 percent of Democrats have a liberal outlook on issues ranging from the role of government to cultural politics. Yet, in the electorate writ large, few voters are critical of President Obama for being too conservative. For example, according to a CNN poll, only 17 percent of the public opposes the health care law because they believe it is “not liberal enough.”

Populism has gone mainstream, however, and to a degree unseen in more than a half century....

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/web_exclusive/could_elizabeth_warren_threate051548.php?page=all

[davidpdx]

10. I think it's mostly just a very negative feeling I have

Actually I'm not exposed to the media much given I'm in South Korea. We have CNN, but I honestly don't watch it often. I get most of my news online. I am sincerely worried the party is going to end up nominating her without any real competition.

[RiverLover]

12. LOL South Korea. How exciting! I'm a cord cutter here, no cable. So the spin I refer to is

mostly online anyways. But yeah, that would be tragic for liberals were that to happen.

[Cha]

31. "Al Franken endorses Hillary Clinton".. ".. I'm ready for Hillary"..

Some progressives may be seeking to draft Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren into the 2016 presidential race, but liberal Democratic Sen. Al Franken is ready for Hillary.

The Minnesotan will back Hillary Clinton for president in a taped interview scheduled to air at 3 p.m. today on MSNBC’s “The Cycle.”

“I think that Hillary would make a great President,” Franken tells the show’s Ari Melber. “I think that I’m ready for Hillary.”

And what does the former “Saturday Night Live” comedian and liberal activist think of the progressive populist from Massachusetts?

“People have asked me about Elizabeth Warren. She is great, but she’s not running,” Franken says.

http://www.salon.com/2014/12/16/al_franken_endorses_hillary_clinton/

[RiverLover]

4. And there are other progressives against this...GOOD info on Maddow last night

Main Street Dems Say Not Another Wall Streeter

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/main-street-dems--not-another-wall-streeter-378515011652

[Puglover]

6. That's my Senator!

[WillyT]

9. K & R !!!

[Helen Borg]

11. What is Obama thinking?....

[RunInCircles]

13. One word MONEY

[progressoid]

20. Same thing he was thinking with Lawrence Summers and Geithner and Pritzker etc.

Gotta keep the 1% happy.

[Helen Borg]

27. I was at Harvard when Larry was Prez there. Such an embarrassment.

[appalachiablue]

32. He was something else, going after Cornel West for trivial issues and the bizarre comment about

women and math and science. The entire banker group is connected and goes back to Rubin, Greenspan and Bill C. and earlier unfortunately. This appointee is not a good choice.

[geardaddy]

14. K and R for our junior senator!

[JohnnyRingo]

15. Very misleading headline from a right wing website.

I know you just copied and pasted it, but by the site you scrounged this from is attacking Obama, Warren, and Franken alike. If you read the article, it focuses only on their opposition to Weiss, not particularly the president or his policies, and goes on to label them all as idealist simpletons. It compares Warren and Franken as polar opposites to the Tea Party morons. Good thing few people here actually read articles and only respond to titles that politically move them.

Your omission of this excerpt is telling indeed and makes me wonder why you'd promote a site that is so obviously right wing:

In fact, it appears that Warren’s opposition to Weiss is part of a general distrust of anyone with practical financial expertise. Her background is law, and it appears that during her stint at Treasury, she never developed an appreciation or understanding for finance and economics.

And the closing paragraph that indicates that the author thinks Warren and Franken are both full of shit:

Warren was able to scare Obama into diffidence on Summers, but her opposition might help Weiss, a man who appears clearly qualified to serve as Treasury Undersecretary for Domestic Finance.

I know your goal is to rah rah for a Warren candidacy, but this is nothing but a hit piece from the right wing media, and when you lie down with dogs....

[RiverLover]

17. I got Franken's email & did a search in google news. The front page talked about Cheney's war crimes

in a headline, so I figured it was ok.

Just did new search & found another that says the same thing, only better~

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) on Sunday called on supporters to reject one of President Obama's nominees to the Treasury Department.

Franken criticized nominee Antonio Weiss in no uncertain terms, arguing Obama had nominated the wrong person for the job of Treasury undersecretary for domestic finance.

He argued Weiss would not put the middle class first and that he was too close to Wall Street.

"Join me in asking the President to withdraw Antonio Weiss’s nomination," Franken wrote in an email to supporters on Sunday, with a link to the petition. "We need a nominee who will put the middle class first."

Franken wrote that Weiss has worked on manuevers called "inversions," which are mergers that seek to lower a company's tax burden in the United States by moving its headquarters overseas.

"More than six years after the crash, the American economy is still recovering," Franken writes. "We got into that mess because we were willing to let Wall Street police itself. Foxes make poor guards of henhouses. We know that through bitter experience, and I’m not willing to let it happen again."

Franken is joining Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and other liberals in opposing Weiss, setting up an internal Democratic Party fight with Obama. Weiss is an executive at the investment banking firm Lazard.

The White House has defended Weiss — and his values....

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/228141-franken-touts-petition-denouncing-obama-treasury-nominee

Thanks for the headsup!

[JohnnyRingo]

23. You're right, that's better.

I'm neither a Warren detractor nor a diehard Clinton supporter, but I've seen a lot of posts lately that throws everyone from Obama to Howard Dean under the bus to force Ms Warren to the ballot at gunpoint if necessary.

Needless to say, I'll throw 100% of my resources behind whatever candidate the party nominates, but I'm not going to slime any other dems in the process leading up to that day. I'm of a vintage that I've learned that the final candidate is always impossible to predict at this early date. No one really expected Obama to win the nomination until mid-2008. Personally, I was something of a Deaniac, but I didn't beat Clinton or Obama over the head in my zeal.

[RiverLover]

26. That's what I say re: no one expected Obama to get the nom until late in the game.

And he ran as a progressive populist.

(Point noted regarding bashing. I hear you. Btw, I like Howard Dean too!!)

[d_legendary1]

18. I was gonna point out the same thing

T.A.R.P. was a gift to the banks and Larry Summers believes in supply side economics. Warren may not be an economics master, but she knows law and its implications on business.

[RiverLover]

22. Who is 'Amy'?

[aspirant]

19. Speaking of unwanted nominees

Why is Debbie Wasserman Schultz still DNC chair?

Any of our progressives speaking out on that?

[RiverLover]

21. I haven't heard anything, sadly.

Don’t get your hopes up for DNC’s “autopsy”: Operatives, not policy people, dominate new task force
12/5/14

The DNC is going to figure out what's wrong with Dems -- by enlisting "digital gurus" and a tech billionaire?

http://www.salon.com/2014/12/05/dont_get_your_hopes_up_for_dncs_autopsy_operatives_not_policy_people_dominate_new_task_force/

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

24. While endorsing Hillary Goldman Sachs Clinton?

[Enthusiast]

28. Kicked and recommended a whole bunch!

Way to go, Al!

[JDPriestly]

29. K&R.

The article tries to be a hit piece on Warren, but only endears her to me and other thinking Americans.

Law and financial firms are full of retreads from positions in the government. They use their knowledge of the fine print, convoluted language and tedious contradictions in our law to "help" their clients and screw the American people. (And I never use the word "screw" in polite or even impolite conversation so you know I am trying to express myself in the strongest language possible here.)

Why can't the administration hire a lawyer who specializes in defending or prosecuting on behalf of ordinary people say in civil courts for a change? Why do they always have to choose people for these top jobs who have never fought a bank, never challenged a corporation, never pursued a tax cheat? Why can't s certain share of these appointments be made to lawyers or other talented people who are fighters for a fair deal for all Americans?

Why do they always choose those who get rich defending, advising and supporting the tax cheats, the polluters, the poisoners and all the other numb defenders of the corrupt status quo? How about a little creativity in these appointments. Why not work toward a balance and a meeting of minds and interests between those who represent the very wealthy and those who represent the rest of the country -- the majority of citizens?

Why is our government, no matter who is in power, so utterly unresourceful, so utterly lacking in creativity and originality and research when making these awful, singularly unimaginative and unsatisfactory appointments? What is with these people? What is wrong with the Obama advisers who are making the same mistakes that presidents have made since FDR? Taking the easy comfortable route instead of including people who come from different backgrounds?

Shouldn't be all social reformers or people who looked into Wall Street and the banks and corporations from the outside. But shouldn't be such a corporate, Wall Street, banker heavy bunch either. How about some balance?

[supercats]

30. Good....

Now we need to call out every Democrat that supports Weiss, and get them thrown out of congress.