Barney Frank Speaks About Bernie Sanders

[ericson00]

When it comes to Sanders, there are three reasons why things will get harder for him, not easier, even after a strong performance February 9. The first, which has drawn some attention, is that the rest of the electoral map is much less favorable to him, geographically, ideologically and demographically. But two other equally important factors have gone largely unremarked—and indeed, the fact that we haven’t noticed them is a big part of why he’s gotten as far as he has.
Story Continued Below

Until recently, Sanders has experienced the great benefit of not being taken seriously. Between the focus on the unexpectedly entertaining Republican race, and the intense scrutiny on Clinton as the overwhelming Democratic favorite, the only aspect of Sanders’ record to have drawn any attention from outside his own campaign is his ambivalence on gun regulation. What this has meant is that he has been enjoying one of the greatest gifts any politician can ask for: the ability to define himself as he wishes, without any inconvenient rebuttals.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/02/three-reasons-why-things-will-get-harder-for-bernie-sanders-213591

[Bjornsdotter]

1. I fully expect it

...to become more intense for all candidates. I think they all expect it too.

[cali]

2. Frank is not someone I respect. Haven't for years.

[MineralMan]

3. Hmm...I'm not sure he cares very much

about your respect or lack of respect. Like everyone, he has strong points and weak ones. Personally, I believe he did an excellent job in office and championed many causes that eventually became part of our society's standards.

Your unexplained lack of respect notwithstanding, many people do have a great deal of respect for him, including myself.

It's easy enough to find plenty of reasons that he deserves respect:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barney_Frank

[Bluenorthwest]

7. In the LGBT community he's considered to be more loyal to himself than to the community in

particular the transgender community. This is in part because Frank was supportive of the non inclusive ENDA which would not have protected transgender people from discrimination and which would have divide our community and give more status to some of us than to others. He is also very prone to fiscal dealings which are more favorable to the existing powers than to rising powers.

What is your great deal of respect for him based on? You leave that fully unexplained. Can you share your point of view?

[MineralMan]

11. I'll just refer you to that wikipedia link.

There's a section there on his political positions and votes.

[Bluenorthwest]

21. So you have no actual personal experience with Barney, nor actual reasons to state your admiration

for him. The fact that you think I do not know all about Barney when I just shared some specifics with you seems very odd. I'm sure I have given him more money, spoken more often on his behalf and that I know far more about him than you do if you are citing wiki to me.

I asked you about you, not about Barney. Do you have a wiki that explains your admiration for Barney? Because that is what I asked of you. Not for a lecture about a person I already know about.

You are also free to take issue with my cited reasons, which you did not even acknowledge or respond to.

But Wikipedia? Seriously?

[m-lekktor]

31. Yes I am NOT a fan. I suspect my trans friends aren't either.

He's a "Human Rights Campaign" type of guy.

[Hekate]

47. Are you recommending we stop supporting the HRC? Are they using our donations....

....to purchase gold plated fixtures? Should we peel their stickers off our bumpers? When did this perfidy start?

I swear I can't keep up.

[sabrina 1]

40. And that's precisely why Frank lost the respect of many Democrats, he DOESN'T care what

the people think, he does care what Corp American thinks. Not sure why you said that, but thanks anyhow, it underscores why Hillary is losing this race. She is now dead even with Sanders NATIONALLY since people got to know Sanders in Iowa, a jump in the latest National Poll in double digits.

Frank sold out long ago. Most Dems know this, probably why he retired, with the awakening of the people to the influences of money on our politics, Corp Dems were being thrown out, see the last two mid terms.

[jham123]

4. Another...

Another Establishment DINO repays a Clinton debt

[Cali_Democrat]

5. Under the bus with Barney Frank

If he's not already there of course.

[ericson00]

6. of course

where else? The gulag?

[MineralMan]

8. Eventually, the route that bus runs on

will be lined by people thrown under it, many of whom have done great things in the name of progressivism.

It's a very sad commentary on US politics, I think. Very sad, indeed.

Barney Frank championed many policies we'd all agree were progressive. It's a shame that his support for Hillary Clinton means all that work was for naught, in the minds of some Sanders supporters. A shame.

[1StrongBlackMan]

53. It will not be his support for HRC ...

that will put him under the bus; rather, it is his rather mild questioning of Bernie.

[riversedge]

10. Then it is time for a backover

[uponit7771]

14. He asks some REALLY cogent questions about Sanders... brings up things we haven't

... brought up here on DU.

Franks is no doubt under the bus

Franks says Sanders is basically throwing everyone else under the "establishment" bus no matter how hard they've worked for progressive causes and has an anti Obama tone along with it that turns off the rest of the coalition.

[dogman]

30. Glad to see him join the people.

We have been under the bus forever. These people are finally being dragged under by the people grabbing on to anything to pull ourselves out from under that bus.

[Jamaal510]

55. It's a party under there! nt

[uponit7771]

9. "Why has he met with a complete lack of success in at least starting the revolution until now?"

Cause he wasn't trying to start a revolution, he was never the leader he has chided others for not being

[Armstead]

33. Why? Because too many Democratic leaders are corrupt and/or ideologically timid

[appalachiablue]

12. Former Congressman Barney Frank now works in the private financial sector on

the Board of Directors of New York based Signature Bank. The Revolving Door, meet Barney, Howard and many others.
-------
http://fortune.com/2015/06/18/barney-frank-bank-board/

*This champion of financial reform just joined a bank’s board*

by Stephen Gandel , June 18, 2015, 11:41 AM EST

He co-authored the Dodd-Frank financial reform law.

Barney Frank has gone from being bankers’ enemy No. 1 to a well-compensated, trusted adviser in a little over two years.

On Wednesday, Frank, the co-author of the financial reform law Dodd-Frank that reshaped the financial industry after the financial crisis, was appointed to the board of directors of New York-based Signature Bank. Frank said that he was glad to be joining a bank that mostly caters to small businesses. “Signature Bank knows firsthand the importance small business plays in the health and vibrancy of our nation’s economy,” Frank said in a statement.

Indeed, Signature is not the type of bank that the Dodd-Frank bill was aimed at. It has a small investment bank that is mostly focused on wealth management. On it’s most recent report to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp it listed no tradable assets or a tiny amount of derivatives.

But Signature is still a relatively big bank with nearly $29 billion in assets. It is not among the group of 31 big banks that have to pass the Fed’s main stress test. But Signature is still large enough to be in the group that the Fed mandates run their own stress testing each year to see how they would do in a financial downturn. The results of those tests are not made public. Like many other banks, Signature got money from the government following the financial crisis, but it was one of the first to repay the so-called TARP funds in early 2009.

Signature has not said how much Frank would be paid as a board member. On Wednesday, the bank, according to a filing, awarded Frank 1,913 shares of the bank’s stock, which at a recent $146, is worth nearly $280,000. But Frank was restricted from selling the shares until next March. According to the bank’s most recent proxy filing, the bank’s directors had an average compensation of around $375,000 paid in cash and stock last year.

Center: Retired U.S. Congressman Barney Frank known for introducing the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform act in 2009.
Photograph by Jonathan Ernst — Reuters

[uponit7771]

15. Yeap, Sanders fails his own purity test but his camp keeps applying it to everyone else.

[dreamnightwind]

17. +1

[appalachiablue]

23. Former Sen. Chris Dodd of CT, Co-Author of the Dodd-Frank Bill left the

Senate in 2011 to become Chairman and Chief Lobbyist for the Motion Picture Assn. of America despite 'repeatedly and categorically insisting that he would not work as a lobbyist.'
Dodd also received VIP mortgage loan deals from Countrywide Financial through Angelo Mozilo who became entangled in the subprime mortgage fraud crisis.
Happens to the best of them. The Dodd-Frank banking legislation is toothless in the view of many prominent economists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Dodd

[dreamnightwind]

27. Yes. This is why I have long held a very unpopular view

which is that we should pay our elected politicians about 10 times (I mean this literally) what we pay them now, they are very important jobs. As part of the massive pay raise, we should include language that forbids them to profit from their connections.

How to do this? The actual language and details would be critical, and I'm not smart enough to know. One possibility is a huge endless retiirement annuity, but forbidding them to make money from anyone else.

People scream that they aren't worth it, or that it would be too expensive. I say it is far more expensive to have them working for corporate interests, they need to do our business and nobody else's business. And if we get corporate money out of them, they will magically be worth the money we give them.

The money we pay them, even multiplied 10-fold, is a pittance compared to the huge sums of money their funders are making from sponsoring them, and their funders largely make that money at our expense.

[appalachiablue]

28. Just what I've been thinking the last several years! and haven't heard anyone

else bring this up. Must run now, will try to reply a bit more later.

[Hekate]

48. Put alongside your other post, this is just weird. Short answer: no

[dreamnightwind]

49. No it makes total sense

it just goes against the reflexive hatred people have for politicians, they hate them so they don't want to pay them well. The truth is, we hate many of them simply because they're working for non-governmental entities that pay them very well to work against our interests.

[SammyWinstonJack]

52. Follow the money.

[mmonk]

13. Mr. Countrywide speaks.

[pandr32]

16. The points he makes deserve consideration

Too many here immediately reject anything that falls short of adulation.
Are we grownups or not?

[Armstead]

34. They deserve consideration when they are reasonable

Not the biased blathering of surrogates who went from Congress through the revolving door to cushy jobs in the sector they were supposed to regulate.

[NurseJackie]

18. He's correct, you know? But ...

... people are starting to pay attention. Bernie can't coast along indefinitely. The Bernie Train is running out of steam.

[Armstead]

35. From nothing to a close race with Clinton?

If that's running out of steam, we need to harness that kind of energy.

[List left]

36. LOL - If you call what he has been doing as coasting along sounds good to me! nt

If you call what he has been doing as coasting along sounds good to me!

[dreamnightwind]

19. Barney Frank is everything Bernie is running against

As FDR said, we welcome their hatred.

[closeupready]

20. I used to like Barney, but my opinion is changing, in light of

many of these confusing pronouncements he's made over the last few years, pronouncements in favor of heavy-hitting, established, corporate-trained officials, like Hillary.

[GreatGazoo]

22. "not being taken seriously" by whom Mister Frank?

Seems like voters are taking him plenty seriously.

[appalachiablue]

24. Voters are absolutely taking Bernie seriously, and not Barney Frank for sure.

[Nedsdag]

25. I hate to break it you, my friend:

The more you bring out Hillary supporters to bash Sen. Sanders, the more I want to support him.

Nice try!

[mmonk]

26. No housing bubble ...

[Volaris]

29. This is not about one election.

This is about sustained, multi-year, grassroots-up, systemic and unrelenting pressure to return this nation to a state that is answerable to We The PEOPLE.

If we don't get it this time, do they think we the majority will just go away and sulk??? They must have drank their own fucking koolaid if they think that. If President Anybody calls on Congress to pass publicly funded elections, and Congress just says fuck that, the protest in DC will make Occupy Wall Street look like some elementary school kids decided to have a campout in the backyard.

The core of Sanders support is Occupy. It's grown outward like all social change movements do, but that's where this started. They think they solved the problem when occupy sites were dismantled. All THAT did was show us that non-political action won't be allowed to work, so now the Sanders course of action (the within-the-political-system option).

If THIS also isn't allowed to work as we were told it could I'm pretty sure no one will like what comes next.

[Gothmog]

32. Good Article

[DrDan]

37. to the underside of the bus with ye

[Hekate]

38. What I've been saying all along.The moment he gets taken seriously is the moment this honeymoon ends

Barney Frank:
Until recently, Sanders has experienced the great benefit of not being taken seriously. Between the focus on the unexpectedly entertaining Republican race, and the intense scrutiny on Clinton as the overwhelming Democratic favorite, the only aspect of Sanders’ record to have drawn any attention from outside his own campaign is his ambivalence on gun regulation. What this has meant is that he has been enjoying one of the greatest gifts any politician can ask for: the ability to define himself as he wishes, without any inconvenient rebuttals.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

39. "overwhelming Democratic favorite" is now tied with Sanders.

[ladjf]

41. I used to be a Barney Frank fan until he went "over to the dark

side" after the crash.

[jillan]

42. Funny thing about people with a spine of steel....having a lot of crap thrown at them will not break

them.

I have a feeling Bernie knows what's ahead.
Thanks for your concern Barney.

[frylock]

43. Banker Barney speaks.

Nobody gives a shit.

[Paladin]

44. Barney Frank nails Sanders with his comments.

The hysterical reactions on this thread are ample proof of it. Thanks to Mr. Frank for the much-needed dose of reality.

[Hekate]

45. Highly recommend that people read the entire article. It's eye-opening. nt

[DesertRat]

46. Good read

I have a lot of respect for Barney Frank

[SidDithers]

50. DU rec...nt

Sid

[thereismore]

51. "A great benefit of not being taken seriously" come on, Barnie, that is no benefit!!! nt

[Carolina]

54. First, Barney sold out

to the banking industry, and second, he and his sister Ann Lewis were, and are, big Clinton supporters.

Of course, the POTUS race will become more intense... DUH! But as the world turns, more and more people are listening to Bernie. He may appear to be a one issue candidate, that one issue pervades and impacts EVERYTHING. The more people awaken to the fact that it's not 'the gays;' the Mexicans, Syrians, name your foreigner; not abortion, not even guns, etc. that are destroying their way of life, the better.

It is corrupting, degrading, pervasively destructive influence of money, big money, corporate money, and the accompanying business mentality that has undermined our schools, our healthcare system, our foreign policy, our jurisprudence, our politics, our communities, our very democracy... in short, EVERYTHING.

Bernie connects those dots and the 3rd way Dem establishment doesn't want its gravy train wrecked. But we, the people, are sick of this shit. We voted for hope and change only to see Larry Summers, Tim Geither, Rahm Emanuel and other Wall Streeters and CLINTON retreads populate cabinet and advisory roles! The ACA is Heritage Foundation generated Romneycare for all... a bonanza for big insurance while the public option was abandoned early without any protest from the administration. SS and Medicare were put on the chopping block, er bargaining table, yet there was money for WAR.

The Bernie army is sick of this shit, sick and tired of appeasers, sellouts and self-interested, money grubbing political hacks. Our army is growing. Meanwhile, Barney needs to STFU and roll in his banker buddy money like the good corporate whore he has become.

[mhatrw]

56. Barney Banks is a sold out establishment lobbyist. nt

[Gothmog]

57. This part of Frank's article was meaningful to me

From the article cited in the OP

And his condemnation falls equally on Democrats and Republicans alike. When he leads his audience in the chant that Wall Street regulates Congress, he draws no distinction between Democrats who enacted crucial financial regulations like the Volcker rule, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the regulation of derivatives and the Republicans who fought all three and are now working to undermine them.

Nor does President Barack Obama escape. While he does not explicitly attack the president, nowhere in Sanders’ campaign rhetoric is there any positive assessment of his record. His listeners do not hear that the Affordable Care Act was a great advance and must be protected as he and others try to go beyond it. They don’t hear that getting the top tax rate back up to where it was before Bush lowered it meant a real increase in tax fairness.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/02/three-reasons-why-things-will-get-harder-for-bernie-sanders-213591#ixzz3zcHVQSYQ

This hits at one of the main reasons why Sanders is not doing well with African American and other democratic voters There is a vast difference in how Sanders supporters and Sanders view President Obama and how other Democrats view President Obama. I admit that I am impressed with the amount accomplished by President Obama in face of the stiff GOP opposition to every one of his proposals and I personally believe that President Obama has been a great President. It seems that this view colors who I am supporting in the primary http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/clinton-sanders-obama_us_56aa378de4b05e4e3703753a?utm_hp_ref=politics

But lurking behind this argument about the future is a dispute that's really about the past. It’s a debate over what Obama accomplished in office -- in particular, how significant those accomplishments really are. And it's been simmering on the left for most of the last seven years.

On one side of this divide are activists and intellectuals who are ambivalent, disappointed or flat-out frustrated with what Obama has gotten done. They acknowledge what they consider modest achievements -- like helping some of the uninsured and preventing the Great Recession from becoming another Great Depression. But they are convinced that the president could have accomplished much more if only he’d fought harder for his agenda and been less quick to compromise.

They dwell on the opportunities missed, like the lack of a public option in health care reform or the failure to break up the big banks. They want those things now -- and more. In Sanders, they are hearing a candidate who thinks the same way.

On the other side are partisans and thinkers who consider Obama's achievements substantial, even historic. They acknowledge that his victories were partial and his legislation flawed. This group recognizes that there are still millions of people struggling to find good jobs or pay their medical bills, and that the planet is still on a path to catastrophically high temperatures. But they see in the last seven years major advances in the liberal crusade to bolster economic security for the poor and middle class. They think the progress on climate change is real, and likely to beget more in the future.

It seems that many of the Sanders supporters hold a different view of President Obama which is also a leading reason why Sanders is not exciting African American voters. Again, it may be difficult for Sanders to appeal to African American voters when one of the premises of his campaign is that Sanders does not think that President Obama is a progressive or a good POTUS.

Again, I am not ashamed to admit that I like President Obama and think that he has accomplished a great deal which is why I do not mind Hillary Clinton promising to continue President Obama's legacy. There are valid reasons why many non-African American democrats (myself included) and many African American Democrats are not supporting Sanders.

Franks' article also explains why Sanders is not appealing to African Americans and other groups of democratic voters. I believe that President Obama's achievements are meaningful and should not be dismissed

[AtomicKitten]

58. Both Chris Dodd & Barney Frank have joined bank boards.

Their weaksauce bill is being systematically rolled back.

But damn if that revolving door ain't spinning.

[Odin2005]

59. Of course he would say that, he's a Wall Street creature.