Elizabeth Warren Is Our 2014 Legislative Badass Of The Year

[RiverLover]

Elizabeth Warren Is Our 2014 Legislative Badass Of The Year, Obviously, duh
12/31/14


How much do we heart the senator and perfessor of Massachusetts, the greatest and bestest Elizabeth Warren who ever Elizabeth Warrened? Pretty much all. Sure, there are a few — a very few — non-Elizabeth Warrens in the Senate who aren’t too bad for being non-Elizabeth Warrens. Bernie Sanders, the socialist senator from Vermont, isn’t too bad at badassing and makes a mighty fine runner-up for 2014 Legislative Badass.

But when it comes to schoolmarming America with a smile and words so small almost any idiot in America — we said almost; obviously not oh all of ‘em, Katie — can understand her, there is none so great for yelling at the banks, busting corporate heads, ‘splaining why Republicans ruined America, and being generally epic and awesome in all the ways.

We never tire of watching her on the Senate floor, yelling about Wall Street, even at her fellow senators, when it is called for (as it too often is):

Even when Elizabeth Warren does have to chastise her fellow Democrats, she does so in a nice and polite and gentle way because she is a for-real good soldier Democrat. Like that time she had to tell President Obama that some of his judicial nominees, um, suck.
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...“It matters that someone has represented people other than corporate clients,” she said. “That they’ve had real experience with people who can’t afford lawyers. That they’ve had real experience trying to fight for the public interest.”

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But Warren never hesitates to help out her party however she can. When she wasn’t yelling at Wall Street throughout the year, she was on the campaign trail, saying nice words and raising hell (and money) for her fellow Dems...

...No wonder Republicans are so terrified of her. Bill O’Reilly thinks she’s such an anti-capitalist America-hater, who is so extreme in her hatred of America (read: the big banks what crashed our economy, THANKS WALL STREET), she makes Karl Marx look like, well, like Bill O’Reilly.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, who is not and will never make the top 100 list of possible legislative badasses, thinks Warren is dumb and immature and just doesn’t Get It like he Gets It, and yeah, we can’t stop laughing about that either.

Then there’s the lowest form of conservative scum, like (sadly, former) Stupidest Man On The Internet Jim Hoft, who is convinced Elizabeth Warren is basically just like Hitler because she wants to save Social Security and maybe make it so students don’t go broke for life just for getting an education, and also she stands up for Nazi socialist stuff like the Postal Service and thinks scammy payday lenders should suck it...

Read more at http://wonkette.com/570654/elizabeth-warren-is-our-2014-legislative-badass-of-the-year-obviously-duh#jvDiMq83MBfJv9Ll.99

*also posted in DU's Elizabeth Warren Group

[L0oniX]

1. K & R

[ucrdem]

2. Yes, let's bring back Reaganomics.

"I was a Republican because I thought that those were the people who best supported markets."

[RiverLover]

3. Better she's a real Democrat now & for the past 20 years

than faking it except for social issues for the past 40 years.

And she hasn't pimped corporate power, ever.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-01-10/hillary-clintons-business-legacy-at-the-state-department

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cycle=Career&cid=N00000019

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/10/hillary-clinton-fracking_n_5796786.html

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/07/03/hillary-clinton-goes-bat-gmos-biotech-conference

http://www.thenation.com/article/191457/how-many-ways-can-goldman-give

http://www.whiteoutpress.com/articles/2014/q1/hillary-clinton-aligns-with-wall-street-for-2016/

[ucrdem]

4. So far I've seen little evidence of that.

A real libertarian perhaps, but a real Dem she is not. How she expects Dems to elect her to national office when she pulls stunts like the Warren-VITTER amendment which was dangerous demagoguery I honestly don't know.

[RiverLover]

5. They were trying to stop the Citi rider in Cromnibus. They were trying to stop the TAKEDOWN

of the Dodd-Frank bill which is meant to protect us from another financial collapse.

But they failed. The Democrats Obama called to convince to vote in favor of the Crominibus caved, 57 democrats let it pass against what is best for our country. We're more vulnerable now, but Warren tried to stop it at least.

And btw, those 57 democrats who voted for the bill and against removing the Citi rider that Citigroup wrote for itself happen to be recipients of more than double the amount of wall street contributions to their campaigns.
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2014/12/wall-streets-omnibus-triumph-and-others/

You seem to embrace bankers, you might benefit from reading this~

Populists Press Democrats to Ease Clinton-Era Embrace of Bankers
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-12-19/populists-press-democrats-to-ease-clinton-era-embrace-of-bankers

[ucrdem]

6. Oh baloney. Jim Moran got it right:

"She's demagoguing an issue she knows the public doesn't understand."

Here's what he's talking about: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025948311

Warren is being astroturfed to beat the band but a zebra doesn't change its stripes. JMHO.

[RiverLover]

8. Wow, JIM MORAN. You can't be serious.

He was one of the 57 wall street dems who voted for it. jeesh.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/12/11/1351196/-Welcome-to-the-Next-2-Years-57-Dems-Vote-to-Give-Wall-Street-a-Cromnibus-Christmas-Present

Also see~

Moran Denies Any Responsibility for Recession, Wall Street Mess

In October 2008, during a debate with 2008 GOP candidate Mark Ellmore at an Indian-American forum, Jim Moran “freaked out” at the notion that both parties are to blame for the Wall Street mess that contributed to the recession and caused the bailouts.

A lady at the forum asked Moran, “Wouldn’t you agree that both parties along with Wall Street [got] us in this mess? All three together?”

Moran, outraged, rudely screams, “Absolutely not! That’s nonsense! Ha! No! No! It didn’t! Because we didn’t have this situation before the Republican Party came in.”

He later said the lady “doesn’t know what [she's] talking about.”

[Scuba]

12. Lame attempt at a smear. What are you afraid of?

[Faryn Balyncd]

13. Markets require regulation for support.

Is it preferable to learn from the past, or to repeat it?

[former9thward]

7. Badass?

What did she get passed?

[RiverLover]

9. She sponsored a "21st century Glass-Steagall" bill, killed by Wall Street dems & Rethugs

but did get a few bills passed and some are still in committee~

S. 2117: Smart Savings Act
Sponsor: Sen. Elizabeth Warren [D-MA]
Introduced: Mar 12, 2014
Passed Senate: Sep 16, 2014


https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/browse?sponsor=412542

[former9thward]

10. A legislative 'badass' gets things they believe in passed and made law.

That is my standard anyway. By that standard I am unaware of any badass in Congress.

[RiverLover]

11. You gotta start somewhere

Elizabeth Warren Attacks Beltway Powerhouse Third Way as Fronting for Wall Street
Dec 2013

Wow, the gloves are finally coming off. Elizabeth Warren has been making good use of her Senate bully pulpit in terms of keeping the excessive power of the big banks and the haplessness of regulators in the headlines. But as readers know, we’ve had our doubts as to how much in the way of tangible outcomes she could achieve from the Senate. For instance, she’s dutifully sent pointed follow up questions as part of Congressional hearings to various regulators. The replies have been at best evasive, in the faux polite form of bureaucratic obfuscation and misdirection to (from the Fed) borderline dismissive.

More important in her use of her Senate microphone is Warren’s ongoing campaign to move the Overton window to the left on basic economic issues for what remains of the US middle class. It’s vital to note that positions that are regularly depicted in the media as “liberal” or “progressive,” such as strengthening Social Security and Medicare (even if it means raising taxes) and cutting defense spending in fact poll with significant majorities, so they are in fact both popular and centrist for those outside the elites.

But because, as political scientist has documented, American politics are driven not by voters but by powerful monied interests. And perversely, those groups on the whole seem to believe that bleeding ordinary Americans dry is a winning strategy for them. Short term, of course, it sure looks that way, but we look to be at the end of an economic paradigm, so how long they can keep that sort of thing up remains to be seen.

Two operatives from the Washington think tank Third Way put Warren in their crosshairs for daring to suggest that Social Security be strengthened and the rich be taxed more in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Monday.

It’s critical to understand that Third Way presents itself as “centrist” which is code for “oligarchy promoters pretending to be reasonable” and has consistently advocated gutting Social Security and Medicare. As Dave Dayen wrote in 2010:..

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/12/elizabeth-warren-attacks-beltway-powerhouse-third-way-as-fronting-for-wall-street.html

Corporations & Banks have taken over our govt "representatives", the fight has to start somewhere. She stepped up.