December 16, 2014

David Axelrod: ELIZABETH WARREN Trying To ‘LEVERAGE’ Clinton

Former Obama adviser David Axelrod said Tuesday that he believes Sen. Elizabeth Warren is keeping a high profile to try to exert “maximum leverage” on Hillary Clinton’s positions for the 2016 presidential contest.



When asked if there was a possibility for an opening for Warren to run, Axelrod responded,



Axelrod added that Clinton runs the risk of facing similar pitfalls in 2008 by being overly cautious to define herself and her platform.






http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/david-axelrod-elizabeth-warren-113600.html

December 16, 2014

WHY ISN'T Elizabeth Warren Running for President?

It is early afternoon on Tuesday, February 2, 2016, and this piece of news analysis has just hit the wires:






~snip~

Is this scenario (or something resembling it) a fanciful one? Sure. Is it demented? After what we’ve seen in Washington this past week, not quite. Right now, the Democratic Party has three leaders: President Obama, who is term-limited; Clinton, the establishment successor-in-waiting; and Warren, whose role is difficult to define, but also increasingly difficult to ignore. Of the three, there’s no doubt who is conveying the most consistent message and generating the most enthusiasm among liberal activists: it’s Warren, with her populist crusade against Wall Street and moneyed interests.


~snip~

On Saturday, Politico’s Katie Glueck posted a story with the headline “Elizabeth Warren Is Catching Fire,” which detailed the excitement about a possible Warren candidacy among attendees at last week’s RootsCamp, a gathering of more than two thousand progressive activists, in Washington, that coincided with the showdown over the spending bill. “This is Elizabeth Warren’s moment,” Ben Wikler, the Washington director for MoveOn, said at a “Draft Warren” panel. As she has done for months, Warren insists that she isn’t a candidate. “I am not running for President,” she said repeatedly on Monday, in an interview with National Public Radio’s Steve Inskeep, adding at one point: “You want me to put an exclamation point at the end?” But when Inskeep pressed her to change tenses and say that she would never enter the race, she declined.


~snip~

To Warren’s supporters, her careful language is a source of encouragement. Even if she were entertaining the possibility of entering the race at some point, then biding her time and leaving the door slightly ajar would be a wise strategy. If she jumped in now, or anytime soon, she would immediately be subjected to enormous scrutiny. With a Clinton-versus-Warren primary contest in the offing, surrogates for the Clinton campaign would suggest that Warren is too inexperienced, too narrowly focussed, and too hostile to business to become President. Questions about her Native American family lineage would be exhumed. In short, all hell would break loose. In saying that she’s not running, Warren can continue to use her prominent position in the Senate to promote the causes she believes in. She can also wait to see if Clinton falters. If that doesn’t happen, Warren can eventually fall in line with the party establishment and help elect the first female President. But if Clinton does stumble badly, in Iowa or before, Warren would still have an opportunity to step in. With her name recognition and army of supporters nationwide, many of them young and tech-savvy, she could quickly raise money and put together an improvised campaign operation.


In the spring of 1968, that’s what Robert Kennedy did. In the New Hampshire Democratic primary, on March 12th, Eugene McCarthy, the liberal, anti-war senator from Minnesota, stunned Lyndon B. Johnson, taking forty-two per cent of the vote to the President’s forty-nine per cent. This shocking result prompted Kennedy to enter the race and Johnson to drop out. By early June, when Kennedy won the California primary, he seemed to be on his way to the nomination. (He was assassinated the day after that primary.)




cont'


http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/why-isnt-elizabeth-warren-running-president

December 15, 2014

Elizabeth Warren REFUSES TO SAY That She Will NEVER RUN For President

During an interview on NPR, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) emphatically stated that she is not running for president now, but wouldn’t rule out a future White House bid.




What Sen. Warren’s answer most likely means is that if Hillary Clinton runs for the Democratic nomination, she will not run. If Hillary Clinton doesn’t run in 2016, or loses, then Elizabeth Warren could run for president. Sen. Warren’s answer sounds like she is keeping an open mind for the future, but that future is not 2016. Warren has been an early backer of Clinton’s candidacy, and she has been a tireless campaigner for Democratic candidates around the country. Sen. Warren’s elevation to Senate leadership opens the door to the possibility that she could be in a position to be the future Majority Leader of the Senate. In other words, it is more likely that she someday takes Harry Reid’s job if Hillary Clinton wins the presidency.

There are a lot of doors opening for Elizabeth Warren, so it would be foolish for her to rule out any possibility. The Massachusetts Senator has no campaign organization, and she isn’t hiring staff or raising money for a White House bid. All of the other serious candidates on both sides are further into the process.




cont'

http://www.politicususa.com/2014/12/15/elizabeth-warren-refuses-run-president.html

December 15, 2014

BOOM! Dick Cheney: George W. Bush ‘KNEW About Torture and ‘APPROVED IT’

Take that Georgie for not pardoning my bud Scooter.............



Former Vice President Dick Cheney appeared on Meet the Press Sunday to discuss the report on the CIA torture program and the role of the Bush administration in authorizing the torture of detainees. Almost as though he is too prideful to just shut up and nod at the Senate Intelligence Committee’s assertion that George W. Bush was kept in the dark about the horrific program until 2006.

The report claimed:



Cheney, however, says that both he and the President were briefed directly on the torture program:



Cheney clarified that Bush was indeed directly briefed on the program, which features waterboarding, forced anal feeding, and sexual assaults at the hands of interrogators, instead of kept in the dark as claimed by the Senate report:




Does this mean that George W. Bush will finally be charged with war crimes? Probably not — but shouldn’t he be?




http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/12/14/dick-cheney-george-w-bush-knew-about-torture-and-approved-it-video/

December 15, 2014

Democrats TRIED TO SHUT Elizabeth Warren Up So She FOUGHT Them Even Harder

The talking point that Elizabeth Warren is the new Ted Cruz came from Democrats. Warren responded to this attempt to shut her up by fighting the Wall Street Dems twice as hard. A senior House Democratic aide told MSNBC that Sen. Warren is the new Ted Cruz, “She is the Ted Cruz of the Democratic Party,” one senior House Democratic aide complained, comparing Senator Warren to Senator Ted Cruz’s hard line tactics last year when he led a caucus of House Republicans to shut down the government in an effort to defund Obamacare. “Sen. Warren is the purist who may stand on principle, but refuses to be part of the governing majority,” the aide added.

The comparison of Warren to Cruz was an attempt to marginalize her with fellow Democrats. While Ted Cruz appears to be only motivated by self-interest, Elizabeth Warren isn’t being driven by a run for the White House. Warren cares deeply about how Wall Street wrecked the economy. She fights every single day to make sure that it doesn’t happen again. Sen. Warren isn’t some liberal ideologue. She is a Democrat who has serious policy differences with some members of her own party. After Democrats had tried to turn her into the new Ted Cruz, Warren didn’t go sit in the corner with her mouth closed. The senator from Massachusetts didn’t go along to get along. She responded by fighting even harder for what she believes in. Warren took to the Senate floor and called out Democrats, Republicans, and Citigroup,



The big winner in the government funding deal wasn’t President Obama or the Republicans. It was Elizabeth Warren. Sen. Warren who fought for what she believed in, and liberals in the House and Senate stood with her. As has been mentioned before, members of the Hell No caucus like Warren and Bernie Sanders are gaining in power, and the one thing that these liberal leaders all have in common is that when anyone tries to silence them, they push back harder and louder.





cont'


http://www.politicususa.com/2014/12/14/democrats-shut-elizabeth-warren-fought-harder.html

December 14, 2014

Watch This Democrat DISPARAGE Obamacare. THIS IS WHY THEY LOSE!

Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA) illustrates perfectly why Democrats lose. He demonstrates why they rarely win the moral argument. The provisions many unions are against is the Cadillac Tax within the Affordable Care Act.
Though not said explicitly, the Cadillac Tax was designed to reduce cost by preventing employers from shifting wages to health insurance as a sort of tax shelter. It taxes ultra-high premiums over $10,200 per individual and $27,500 per family. After reviewing this year's rates in Texas, good insurance can be had at less than a third of that price. Cigna has a pretty easy to understand document that explains the Cadillac Tax.


Rep. Lynch first proudly declared that he voted against the Affordable Care Act because he read it. Really? What plausible alternative did he have for the millions whose finances, health, and lives were saved because there were responsible politicians who saw the big picture? Politicians that deferred from his demagoguery. Rep. Lynch is correct that this tax could put companies that shifted wages to overpriced "healthcare" benefits as a tax saving loophole, at a competitive disadvantage. That is because it was a trick in the first place used as a tax shelter for both the union employee and the employer.


Rep. Lynch should have been a more honest and a better negotiator as a union president and not attempt to use the tax system in lieu of the wages the employees of his union and all unions deserve and earned. Democrats lose because they play on the playing field of the plutocrats without realizing that without the players the playing field is irrelevant. Without the workers there is no successful business. Instead of attempting to find ways to help employers use the tax system, and the healthcare system to defer the costs of better wages to EVERY tax paying American, he should be fighting to solve the real problem. Health care should be decoupled from the employer.


Whether we have solely exchanges with private insurers or a single-payer system, decoupling health care from the employer would allow them all to compete on an even playing field. Obamacare is not responsible for a rather outdated and dysfunctional system the union is partially responsible for. After all, it is the union that is partially responsible for employer-based healthcare.





http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/12/10/1350834/-Watch-this-Democrat-disparage-Obamacare-This-is-why-they-lose

December 14, 2014

Americans Will Pay For REPUBLICAN-LITE DEMOCRATS’ Compromise “At All Costs”

The idiom, “at all costs” means that no matter what expense, dangers, or damage is involved, a task or goal will be accomplished regardless of the price. For the second time within a year, in order to keep the government running for a little over nine months, Congress is forcing the American people to pay a heavy price because like Republicans, about 50 Democrats, are doing the bidding of special interests to satisfy the greed of a band of oligarchs. It is really unclear if it is more important for many Democrats, including the President, to say they reached a compromise to show Washington is not completely dysfunctional, or to keep the government funded by giving the Koch brothers and Wall Street the means to satiate their greed and take complete control of the government. Whatever the reason, the so-called compromise appropriations bill is an affront to the American people, and revealed that many Democrats are what Howard Dean labeled “Republican-lite.” The budget itself may indeed be a compromise in that the Affordable Care Act is funded for another year, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security still exists, and food stamps were not abolished, but that is about the only good news in a horrible budget. A budget that saw well over half the $1.1 trillion going to the military, including extra money for “overseas operations” to enrich foreign economies with American military bases in peace-time. There are also ‘additional’ billions to re-fight George W. Bush’s progeny ISIS in Iraq and Syria. It is a sad state of affairs when this country’s infrastructure lags the rest of the developed world, and many developing nations, and a quarter of the nation’s children live in poverty, and yet over half-a-trillion dollars is available to enrich the military industrial complex and the oil industry under the guise of “national security.”



Within the so-called compromise, Republicans and about 50 Democrats slashed the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget to neuter its ability to enforce clean air and water regulations, but apparently the ability to breathe and have safe drinking water is just the price Americans have to pay so politicians can say they compromised. Also in the compromise, the Internal Revenue Service budget was slashed in a counterintuitive attempt to prevent the agency from collecting revenue to keep the government running. To add insult to injury, Republicans inserted a “rider” that has nothing to do with funding that prohibited the IRS from investigating or regulating lobbyists and political campaign organizations posing as 501(c) social welfare charities as a gift to Karl Rove, the Koch brothers, Wall Street, and special interest groups. What makes this “appropriations bill” an affront and insult to the American people, and an abomination of epic proportions, are the riders that have nothing whatsoever to do with keeping the government running. That many Democrats voted for it is telling about their willingness to just say they compromised; including President Obama. To his credit, and it is tepid credit at best, he did say, “There are a bunch of provisions in this bill that I really do not like. Had I been able to draft my own legislation and get it passed without any Republican votes I suspect it would be slightly different. That is not the circumstance we find ourselves in. And I think what the American people very much are looking for is some practical governance and the willingness to compromise, and that’s what this really reflects. So I’m glad it passed the House and am hopeful that it will pass the Senate.” However, part of the reason it passed the House, and will pass the Senate, is the President and Wall Street’s lobbying effort.




For example, what in dog’s name is a provision gutting the financial reform law’s (Dodd-Frank) restriction on derivative trading doing in a government funding bill? Did any of the 50-plus House Democrats not remember it was Wall Street’s derivative scheme that caused the financial meltdown the entire world suffered? The bill passed in the House by one vote, and if even a tenth of those 50-plus Republican-lite Democrats had a memory they would have forced Republicans to either shutdown the government or remove that Wall Street license to rape and pillage the economy. That rider, like giving Wall Street authority to cut Americans’ retirement benefits at their pleasure, will not reduce the debt and deficit, increase revenue, create one stinking job, or repair the decrepit infrastructure any more than a provision for long-haul truck drivers to drive for longer shifts with less time for rest in between will. And, what were the 50 Democrats thinking by voting for an appropriations bill with a rider that allows wealthy oligarchs to increase their campaign donations by tenfold? One wonders, seriously, how many Democrats would still have voted for the “compromise” if it included riders criminalizing liberals, Islam, birth control, minority voting, women in the workplace, secular education, or walking while Black?






cont'


http://www.politicususa.com/2014/12/13/americans-pay-republican-lite-democrats-compromise-at-costs.html

December 13, 2014

Jim Moran ACCUSES Elizabeth Warren Of Demagoguery FOR PROTECTING DODD-FRANK

Another fuggin WallStreet 'TurdWay' waterboy...............................





The CRomnibus bill (Continuing Resolution Omnibus) which is designed to prevent another government shutdown includes provisions that would enable another economic meltdown like 2008. There are some pretty solid reasons that the more progressive and financially intelligent Democrats in Congress oppose this bill.





Virginia Democrat Jim Moran (VA) thinks that a provision that would utterly destroy the protections formed by the 2010 Dodd-Frank bill aren't all that bad. Appearing on Up With Steve Kornacki, he says,





Kornacki asks,

Do you feel she intimidated your (Democratic) colleagues?

The Virginia Democrat claims this bill is not devoted to placating Wall Street, he feels it is entirely motivated by the benefits it bestows upon folks in the manufacturing and agricultural sectors. He denies that this is a giveawaywhich will, once again, endanger the fragile financial sector which has been known to gamble taxpayers' money irresponsibly.



Moran believes a Democratic Party, led by the likes of Warren, causes Democrats to make choices that are too ideologically pure at the expense of practicality.




Kornacki asks Moran what he thinks of Nancy Pelosi's objection to the bill. Moran was very reluctant to disparage the Minority Leader, but she has made her feelings very clear. Pelosi has said,





cont'

http://crooksandliars.com/2014/12/moran-accuses-warren-demagoguery-kornackis

December 13, 2014

We NEVER Learn: Republicans DEALT A QUIET BLOW To ObamaCare In The CRomnibus

The government funding bill colloquially called the CRomnibus that the House passed on Thursday night included a GOP-proposed change to an Obamacare program long loathed by Republicans. A House aide confirmed to TPM that Republican staffers requested the change to the so-called risk corridor program, which is designed to keep premiums stable by making payments to insurers if they lose more money than expected in the law's first few years. Some health policy wonks picked up on the language, but it received negligible attention compared to the campaign finance and Dodd-Frank provisions that nearly derailed the spending bill in the House on Thursday night. The way the risk corridor program works: Insurers estimate in advance how their insurance pools will look and if in the end they're significantly better than estimated, they pay money into the program; if they're significantly worse than estimated, they are paid money by the program.



The CRomnibus, which funds most of the government through the next year, prohibits the Health and Human Services Department from transferring funds from other sources to fund the program. The practical impact, one policy expert told TPM, is that HHS can therefore only use money brought into the program to make payouts, effectively making it revenue neutral. "As far as anyone can tell, that's what's going on," Timothy Jost, a health law professor at Washington and Lee University who is supportive of the law, told TPM. In theory, if the program doesn't bring in enough money to make its payouts, that could mean insurers will have to -- at the very least -- wait a year before getting their money. In turn, that could have a negative impact on 2016 premiums if insurers have to take a loss in the meantime.



"I think it's important, but I don't think it's the end of the world," Jost said, explaining that major insurers should have the bandwidth to absorb any adverse effects. But smaller insurers might be relying on the risk corridor program, along with the law's reinsurance and risk adjustment programs that are also designed to keep prices stable in the law's early years, to remain solvent. But any negative effects on insurance companies -- and then, by extension, Obamacare -- are a policy win for Republicans, who have derided risk corridors as a taxpayer-funded bailouts. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) proposed a bill last year to repeal the program entirely. America's Health Insurance Plans, the industry's lobbying group, told TPM that they were aware of the change and had concerns about it. An official statement alluded to the potential negative effects on premiums.







cont'


http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/obamacare-cromnibus-risk-corridors

December 13, 2014

Progressives to Dems on Budget Deal: 'WE WILL REMEMBER THIS BETRAYAL'

The $1.1 trillion spending bill which narrowly passed the House of Representative last night is expected to receive a vote—and likely pass—in the U.S. Senate sometime Friday or Saturday despite widespread condemnation of the package that will fund the government through most of next year. While the number of giveaways to the wealthy, the fossil fuel industry, Wall Street bankers, military contractors, and other elite interests have compelled progressive leaders like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to make clear they will vote against the bill—which some critics have dubbed the "Citigroup Budget"—most reporting from capitol hill on Friday suggests the package will likely receive enough votes from Democrats and Republicans to push it through before a self-imposed deadline expires on Saturday. "The last-minute, just-before-shutdown tactic used here is obvious," said Dave Johnson at the Campaign for America's Future in a Friday blog post on the group's website which urged people to call their senators and tell them to vote against the deal. What was done by design, Johnson explained, was that the budget was loaded up "with favors for Wall Street, the biggest corporations and the billionaires" and then rammed through at the last minute so lawmakers appeared to have only two choices: pass the regressive budget or shut down the whole government ahead of the end-of-year holiday season. "This makes the vote about shutting down the government instead of about all the favors that rig the rules for the few," he said. "By waiting until the very last minute they pressure 'pragmatic' Democrats to save us from a shutdown, instead of looking at what Citibank and others were able to buy for themselves. It makes it about the deadline, about “avoiding a shutdown” and not about the substance and the rigging of the system."


As the Washington Post reported mid-afternoon on Friday:



Later in the day, however, Sen. Warren announced her introduction of an amendment to the spending bill, along with Republican Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana, which would strip from the overall package one of its most caustic and controversial measures—a provision written by CitiBank lobbyists which would undo regulations of high-risk derivative trading that were imposed after the financial crash of 2008. "Ever since the new financial regulations went into place, Wall Street has been working behind the scenes to open another loophole so they could gamble with taxpayer money and get bailed out when their risky bets threaten to blow up our financial system," said Sen Warren. "Congress should not put taxpayers on the hook for another bailout, and this giveaway that was drafted by Citigroup lobbyists has no place in a critical government funding bill." As of this writing, it remained unclear whether or not the Warren/Vitter amendment would receive a vote. In a statement released earlier on Friday, Sen. Sanders said his 'No' vote was a definite. Enumerating the various reasons for his opposition, he declared:



Meanwhile, progressive advocacy groups were doing what they could to make sure their members were voicing their disgust with the contents of the budget deal and the way it was pushed forced through Congress on the eve of the holiday recess.







cont'

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/12/12/progressives-dems-budget-deal-we-will-remember-betrayal



A MUST WATCH!