My dream candidate exists - and her name is Elizabeth Warren by Rebecca Solnit

She’s overcome misogyny, billionaires’ wrath, and media smears to get to the front of the race, and she brings a special brand of Big Structural Mom Energy



Tue 31 Dec 2019 06.15 EST
Last modified on Tue 31 Dec 2019 06.24 EST

If I was going to invent a dream candidate, she would be grounded in small-town, rural or heartland America but able to hold her own in the citadels of power on the coasts. She would comfort the afflicted with the same passion with which she afflicts the comfortable, and she would understand the causes of those afflictions and have good ideas about how to remedy them. She would be moved by compassion but wouldn’t ask us to rely on compassion; she would have tangible strategies for widening our distribution of income, healthcare, education and opportunity, and she would be smart about the intersections of race, gender, class and the rest.

She would have been around long enough to remember that since the 1980s the government has dismantled a lot of systems that made us more safe and more equal, and she’d be fresh enough to imagine new ways out of the consequences of that catastrophic dismantling. Also she would have to be funny and have big plans to address climate change. OK, she already exists, and I’m talking about Elizabeth Warren. She is, to me, a better candidate for president than I ever expected we’d have.

My dream candidate would’ve been a woman of color with all these qualities, and my dreamiest dream candidate would be a woman of color with Medusa hair who could turn the entire Republican Senate to stone with a glance, but Warren is who’s left in the race, and she is magnificent, and superheroes from Megan Rapinoe to Roxane Gay agree. Also, she pretty much turned Wells Fargo’s CEO into stone in a 2016 Senate banking committee hearing, more than a decade after she became one of the most outspoken experts telling Wall Street why it’s vicious and half a decade after she endorsed Occupy Wall Street. The strength of her candidacy is shown by how she’s made it to the front of the race despite misogyny from across the political spectrum, the wrath of the billionaires pouring money – and themselves – into the race, and the smears and distortions of the mainstream media.

Really I see her as a combination of three superpowers: wonkiness, radicalness and what for lack of a better term I would call Big Structural Mom Energy. The wonkiness is how she set new standards in primary campaigns with those famous plans – far more detailed, with the costs accounted for, than was usual before she arrived. The depth with which she understands the economic system – taxes, banks, bankruptcies, credit cards, home and student loans, redlining – is the depth with which she can change it.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/31/2020-dream-candidate-elizabeth-warren-democrats?CMP=share_btn_tw

Warren 2020!!!

PolitiFact: Warren's argument that millions can't afford their Rx drugs holds up

The Democratic presidential candidate made the claim in a December debate.

By Shefali Luthra, Kaiser Health News Correspondent
Published Yesterday

During a heated exchange over health reform during the December Democratic presidential primary debate, Sen. Elizabeth Warren turned to the topic of high prescription drug prices.

"Last year, 36 million Americans didn’t have a prescription filled because they couldn’t afford it," the Massachusetts senator said.

Drug prices are a persistent hot-button issue, and one of the health issues voters say they most want Washington to take on. So we decided to take a closer look.

https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2019/12/30/politifact-warrens-argument-that-millions-cant-afford-their-rx-drugs-holds-up/


Warren 2020!!!

Happy New Year, Elizabeth!!!

Robert Reich@RBReich Since 1970:

Powerful new op-ed from @ewarren on how she'd kick off the Decade of the #GreenNewDeal

Warren/Blumenthal Investigation Revealing Diabetes Patients' Lack of Access to Lower-Priced Insulin

Despite Promises, Eli Lilly's Less Expensive Authorized Generic "Insulin Lispro" Widely Unavailable in Pharmacies

Oversight
Reports

December 16, 2019

Report (PDF)

Washington, D.C. - United States Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, and Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) today released the findings of a months-long survey of nearly 400 pharmacies nationwide regarding the availability of pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly's authorized generic insulin, "Insulin Lispro." The investigative report, Inaccessible Insulin: The Broken Promise of Eli Lilly's Authorized Generic, concluded that Eli Lilly's lower-priced, authorized generic insulin is widely unavailable in pharmacies across the country, and that the company has not taken meaningful steps to increase insulin accessibility and affordability.

"This report shows that pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly has not lived up to its promise to provide a lower-priced insulin to patients who need it," said Senator Warren. "With rising prescription drug costs squeezing families in every part of the country, Congress must bring drug prices down for consumers, hold drug companies accountable for needless price hikes, and encourage more competition in the prescription drug market."

"Our report shows that Eli Lilly has failed to deliver on its promise to put a more-affordable insulin product on the shelves," said Senator Blumenthal. "Instead of giving patients access to its generic alternative, this pharmaceutical behemoth is still charging astronomical prices for a drug people require daily and cannot live without. Congress needs to step up and take action on skyrocketing drug prices."

For many of the more than 30 million Americans living with diabetes, insulin is an essential medicine that helps the body process glucose derived from food. Without glucose (and the insulin necessary to process it), the human body cannot function properly. Three pharmaceutical companies -- Sanofi, Nordisk, and Eli Lilly -- produce over 80% of the global insulin supply and have taken advantage of limited market competition by steadily increasing insulin prices, even though experts estimate drug manufacturers could profitably produce insulin for $7 to $11 per patient per month. Little generic competition exists in the insulin market, further contributing to increased prices.

https://www.warren.senate.gov/oversight/reports/senators-warren-and-blumenthal-release-investigation-revealing-diabetes-patients-lack-of-access-to-lower-priced-insulin

"Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made

ACLU The Supreme Court's refusal to hear our challenge to Kentucky's intrusive abortion law

Anthony D. Romero Ex. Director, ACLU National Board of Directors voted to support the impeachment

Last night, the ACLU National Board of Directors voted to support the impeachment of President Trump, 55-2.

These are extraordinary circumstances, and we don't take the decision lightly. We believe that Trump has indeed committed impeachable offenses and has violated his oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. His violations include:

Abusing the powers of the executive office to further his personal and political interests rather than those of the nation
Improperly invoking executive immunity and instructing government officials and agencies to refuse to testify or produce
Congressionally-subpoenaed witnesses and documents, thereby improperly obstructing a Congressional investigation Obstructing an inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election, including by firing officials and directing others to lie about the investigation

This is the second instance in the ACLU's nearly 100-year history – since President Richard Nixon – that our board of directors has voted to support the impeachment of a president. We believe that Trump's continuation in office poses a grave and imminent threat to civil liberties, and that he will continue to pursue illegal means to influence the 2020 election and to impede lawful efforts to reveal any such wrongdoing.

As impeachment hearings proceed, the ACLU will remain steadfast in our commitment to protect the Constitution and the rights of all people. We're stronger than ever thanks to you and our millions of supporters nationwide who believe, like we do, that nobody is above the law – including the president.

For democracy,

Anthony D. Romero

https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-supports-impeachment-president-trump?initms_aff=nat&initms_chan=eml&utm_medium=eml&initms=191212_impeachment_cultivation_gradead_sel&utm_source=sel&utm_campaign=impeachment&utm_content=191212_civilliberties_cultivation_gradead&ms_aff=nat&ms_chan=eml&ms=191212_impeachment_cultivation_gradead_sel

To Know the Disease

Wendell Potter, a former health care executive, reveals the unified corporate effort against Medicare for All—and how those talking points are echoed by candidates and debate moderators

By Andrew Cockburn

December 10, 2019

For the third time in thirty years, we are in the midst of a debate over the American health care system, this time against the backdrop of the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination race. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders stand alone among the candidates in pledging to introduce Medicare for All while abolishing private health insurance, whereas other leading candidates, notably Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg, vehemently attack that plan.

Given the well-attested fact that we pay more than any other developed nation for a system that offers poor care and bankruptcy for millions of Americans, it may seem surprising that arguments against reform find fertile ground, including among ambitious politicians. So it must be understood that the attacks on reform are part of a carefully crafted campaign deployed by an immensely wealthy corporate coalition determined to preserve its profit flow. Key to this campaign are the public relations professionals, skilled at manipulating opinion on behalf of their clients in ways few outsiders perceive or understand. Wendell Potter was one of them. Rising to head of corporate communications for the $70 billion health insurance giant Cigna, he was a field commander in the battle to protect industry profits, including the crushing of Hillary Clinton’s reform initiative. But there came a day when, as he wrote in his best-selling memoir, Deadly Spin, “it finally dawned on me that, in my own quest for money and prestige, I had sold my soul,” leading him to walk away from his powerful and lucrative position. As a rare high-level defector, he provides illuminating, vital insights into the ways of his former employers and their amen chorus in the current political arena.

Do you find the themes in the current debate over Medicare for All familiar from previous battles over health care reform?

I absolutely find them familiar. I see the hand of my old employer, my old industry, trying to shape the way people think about health care reform, and to shape the debate. They’re using largely the same themes, the same talking points, and the same general strategy. They have new tools, or at least new ways of communicating. One thing that’s a bit different this time is how they’re using social media, which in years past wasn’t available. They’re using Facebook and other platforms to try to persuade people that Medicare for All is not good policy. That’s really the only difference here.

https://harpers.org/blog/2019/12/to-know-the-disease-wendell-potter-interview/

Grassroots Progressive Group Gives Warren Top Marks Among 2020 Democrats

Warren 2020!!


December 11, 20195:00 AM ET

The former law professor in the 2020 field is the only presidential candidate to earn an A in a new scorecard, released on Wednesday by the grassroots progressive group Indivisible.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren earns 95% in a ranking which evaluates candidates' stances on the top progressive issues that Indivisible's hundreds of local chapters prioritize, chief among them "democracy reforms" like ending the Senate filibuster, expanding voting rights and increasing the size of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Former Vice President Joe Biden came in dead last among the eight Democratic candidates Indivisible rated, with less than 50%.

The group shared its scorecard results exclusively with NPR ahead of their publication.

https://www.npr.org/2019/12/11/786856324/grassroots-progressive-group-gives-warren-top-marks-among-2020-democrats