Senator Elizabeth Warren Explains It All ~ Updated

Elizabeth Warren has had a great week!

Harry Reid broke the filibuster deadlock with Mitch McConnell so that Obama's nominees for various posts can finally be confirmed. One of those is Richard Cordray who will direct that Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a brainchild of Warren's . She has tirelessly pushed for this vacancy to be filled and at last it is!








Next, Warren has banded together with Republican Sen. John McCain and Independent Sen. Angus King to come up with a new-improved version of the Glass-Steagall Bill which kept our banks from failing for 50 years after the Great Depression. Here she is on Morning Joe:



And last but not least, here is Senator Warren on CNBC, telling off some of the smarmy talking heads on a network famous as a mouthpiece for big business. When they ask with a cynical sneer "Why Try?" to resurrect Glass-Steagall what they are really expressing is fear that someone like Senator Warren has the guts to stand up to both them and the unfair top-heavy financial system. And she doesn't take any prisoners!

Give 'em Hell, Senator Warren!

UPDATE: MSNBC asked YouTube to remove the CNBC smackdown due to copyright - or was it? Many thought they were going after the viral video because it made the anchors of CNBC appear stupid or at least stubbornly ignorant. Jim Cramer of CNBC also tweeted about it, pointing out that clip is still available on their website, and I have replaced it below.

But the fact remains that Elizabeth Warren isn't going to play pattycake with CNBC when they try to shrug her off or say she will never get anything done. Heck, CNBC pretty much cheered when Warren dropped out of the running for Consumer Protection. They thought they had seen the last of her. Ha! Then they didn't believe she would run for Senate - wrong. And horrors! She certainly wouldn't win against Scott Brown . . . oh wait . . .

There is some weird strain of thought that CNBC got beaten by Senator Warren. I like the senator but she had NO impact. Sorry..

— Jim Cramer (@jimcramer) July 17, 2013

More from Policy Mic

In the video clip removed by CNBC, Warren effectively defends the merits of reviving the Glass-Steagall Act and taking steps to prevent something like the Great Recession of 2008 from happening again. Her main point was that banking regulation does in fact keep the financial system "steady and secure" and was crucial in eradicating the banking boom-and-bust cycle from 1933 to 1980s. She even went as far to professorially correct the anchors' knowledge of banking regulations since the Great Depression. In response to anchor Brian Sullivan's comment that "We should tell the American consumer that no matter what we do, there will be bank boom and bust cycles" Warren said "no, that is just wrong … look at the history."

Even though CNBC claimed to take down the video for copyright infringements, they did not take down other YouTube videos that use CNBC footage. It seems like CNBC got embarrassed because this specific video went viral and showed its anchors being schooled by Warren. And bad news for CNBC, there is a phenomenon called the Streisand effect whereby attempts to hide or remove information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely, especially on the internet. Just like Beyoncé and her Super Bowl pictures, CNBC should expect even more people see Warren educate its anchors on banking regulation history.

Senator Warren: The Minimum Wage Should be $22/hour

When I first started seeing this headline the other day, I thought whoa, that's not possible. Doesn't Elizabeth Warren know that many people work for 20 years and never make $22 per hour? There are people who have never made more than $10 per hour in their entire lives!

Yes - yes, she knows. And she is making the case that asking Congress to raise the minimum wage to $10 and hour is perfectly reasonable, given inflation and the fact that it should actually be double that much if we lived in a fair society.

Will it happen? Maybe or maybe not, but at least Warren is there raising the right questions and using the right data.

Huffington Post:

"If we started in 1960 and we said that as productivity goes up, that is as workers are producing more, then the minimum wage is going to go up the same. And if that were the case then the minimum wage today would be about $22 an hour," she said, speaking to Dr. Arindrajit Dube, a University of Massachusetts Amherst professor who has studied the economic impacts of minimum wage. "So my question is Mr. Dube, with a minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, what happened to the other $14.75? It sure didn't go to the worker."

And here she grills a restaurant owner who objects to any raise in the minimum wage, saying it would hurt sales. She points out that he would only have to raise prices on his menu 4-8 cents to make up the difference.

Warren and Feinstein on Fire Against Guns

We may never get the comprehensive gun reform that Progressives want in this country, but it's not due to lack of trying on the part of Senators Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, and Dianne Feinstein, D-California.

Warren gave a speech to the Consumer Federation of America in which she slammed the NRA for not allowing basic research on Gun violence so we can study just how far-reaching an epidemic it is.

Via Alternet:

“If as many people were dying of a mysterious disease as innocent bystanders are dying from firearms, a cure would be our top priority,” Warren said. “But we don’t even have good data on gun violence. Why? Because the NRA and the gun industry lobby made it their goal to prevent any serious effort to document the violence."

Feinstein had it out with Texas Tea Partier and NRA proponent Ted Cruz this week when he began lecturing her about the Second Amendment of the Constitution.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX) The question that I would pose to the senior Senator from California is would she deem it consistent with the Bill of Rights for Congress to engage in the same endeavor that we are contemplating doing with the Second Amendment in the context of the First or Fourth Amendment, namely, would she consider it constitutional for Congress to specify that the First Amendment shall apply only to the following books and shall not apply to the books that Congress has deemed outside the protection of the Bill of Rights?

Likewise, would she think that the Fourth Amendment's protection against searches and seizures could properly apply only to the following specified individuals and not to the individuals that Congress has deemed outside the protection of the Bill of Rights?

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D-CA): Let me just make a couple of points in response. One, I'm not a sixth grader. Senator, I've been on this committee for 20 years. I was a mayor for nine years. I walked in, I saw people shot. I've looked at bodies that have been shot with these weapons. I've seen the bullets that implode. In Sandy Hook, youngsters were dismembered.

Look, there are other weapons. I'm not a lawyer, but after 20 years I've been up close and personal to the Constitution. I have great respect for it. This doesn't mean that weapons of war and the Heller decision clearly points out three exceptions, two of which are pertinent here.

You know, it's fine you want to lecture me on the Constitution. I appreciate it. Just know I've been here for a long time. I've passed on a number of bills. I've studied the Constitution myself. I am reasonably well educated, and I thank you for the lecture.

Incidentally, this does not prohibit — you use the word prohibit — it exempts 2,271 weapons. Isn’t that enough for the people in the United States? Do they need a bazooka?

Do they need other high-powered weapons that military people use to kill in close combat? I don’t think so. So I come from a different place then you do. I respect your views. I ask you to respect my views

Dianne Feinstein to CNN's Wolf Blitzer

FEINSTEIN: I just felt patronized. I felt he was somewhat arrogant about it. And, you know, when you've come from where I've come from and what you've seen, and when you found a dead body and you put your finger in bullet holes, you really realize the impact of weapons. And then as you go up the technical ladder with these weapons, and they become more sophisticated, and more the product of a battlefield, and you've got these huge clips or drums of 100 bullets out there that people can buy.

When you see these weapons becoming attractive to grievance killers, people who take them into schools, into theaters, into malls, you wonder, does America really need these weapons? My answer to that is no. And so it's based on my experience. And I think -- well, the bottom line is, we passed the bill out of committee by a vote of 10-8. The president has issued a very strong statement in support of it.

. . . BLITZER: Did you have a chance to speak to Senator Cruz after that public exchange?

FEINSTEIN: No, I needed to cool down.

BLITZER: Have you cooled down yet?

FEINSTEIN: I've cooled down.

BLITZER: So when you see him the next time, what will you say?

FEINSTEIN: Yes. Yes. Well, I did say, look, I'm sorry. But, you know, this is one thing that I feel very passionately about. And I appreciate the lecture, but -- that's all I'm going to say.

Elizabeth Warren Pushes Back on Bank Prosecution

Ah, Elizabeth Warren - a true hero for the Left! Remember that during a hearing recently she said she worried that "too big to fail had become too big for trial."

See Previous Post:
Snark Lane: Elizabeth Warren Shames Bank Regulators

Then last week, Att. General Eric Holder basically confirmed her worst fear by making one of his usual matter-of-fact milquetoast statement that in actuality was a bit scary, explaining why he just couldn't let prosecutors go after Banks that had destroyed our economy and ripped people off for millions of dollars. Well, if he can't do it, who can?

From Huff Post

...Eric Holder made this rather startling confession in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, The Hill reports. It could be a key moment in the debate over whether to do something about the size and complexity of our biggest banks, which have only gotten bigger and more systemically important since the financial crisis.

"I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy," Holder said, according to The Hill. "And I think that is a function of the fact that some of these institutions have become too large."

Holder's comments don't come as a total surprise. His underlings had already made similar confessions to The New York Times last year, after they declined to prosecute HSBC for flagrant, years-long violations of money-laundering laws, out of fear that doing so would hurt the global economy. Lanny Breuer, formerly in charge of doling out the Justice Department's wrist slaps to banks, told Frontline as much in the documentary "The Untouchables," which aired in January.

Which made Elizabeth Warren came back swinging:

From Talking Points Memo

Warren demanded answers from a panel of federal regulators as to why the multinational bank HSBC got off with a fine for money laundering for Mexican drug cartels — along with violating international sanctions against several countries, including Iran and Libya — when people caught with drugs go to jail for life.

“No one individual went to trial, no individual was banned from banking and there was no hearing to consider shutting down HSBC’s activities here in the United States,” Warren said. “So … what does it take? How many billions of dollars do you have to launder for drug lords and how many economic sanctions do you have to violate before someone will consider shutting down a financial institution like this?”

When her questions were repeatedly dodged by Treasury’s overseer of financial crimes David Cohen and Federal Reserve governor Jerome Powell, it set her off.

“If you’re caught with an ounce of cocaine, the chances are good you’re going to go to jail. If it happens repeatedly, you may go to jail for the rest of your life,” Warren said. “But evidently, if you launder nearly a billion dollars for drug cartels and violate international sanctions, your company pays a fine and you go home and sleep in your own bed at night — every single individual associated with this. I just — I think that’s fundamentally wrong.”

Oh yeah!!!!!!!!! More of this, please, thanks! <3

Elizabeth Warren Shames Bank Regulators

Senator Elizabeth Warren hit the ground running in her first Banking Committee Hearing. She wasted no time lambasting the spineless regulators who are letting off the big banks with fines and slaps on the wrist instead of taking them to trial. Her goal was to expose the weakness of regulators who see fines as enough penalty for the crimes committed, and she pointed out that when these cases aren't taken to trial then no testimony of wrongdoing is ever put down on the record. So in effect, the bankers get off scott-free without any new information that congress could use to improve the banking system.

Marketwatch

“I want to note that there are district attorneys and U.S. attorneys who are out there everyday squeezing ordinary citizens on sometimes very thin grounds and taking them to trial to ‘make an example,’ as they put it,” she told bank regulators testifying at a Senate Banking Committee hearing. “I am really concerned that too-big-to-fail has become too-big-for-trial.”

. . . Warren acknowledged that trials are expensive but she insisted that if an agency is unwilling to go to trial it is because they are “too timid” or lack resources. She said that the consequence is that if large financial institutions can break the law and “drag in billions” in profits and settle, then they don’t have much incentive to follow the law.

“Every time there is a settlement and not a trial, it means we didn’t have the days and days and days of testimony about what those financial institutions were up to,” Warren said.

Senator Elizabeth Warren at the Feb. 14, 2013 Banking Committee Hearing titled "Wall Street Reform: Oversight of Financial Stability and Consumer and Investor Protections." The witnesses were: The Honorable Mary Miller, Under Secretary for Domestic Finance, U.S. Department of the Treasury; The Honorable Daniel Tarullo, Governor, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System; The Honorable Martin Gruenberg, Chairman, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; The Honorable Tom Curry, Comptroller, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency; The Honorable Richard Cordray, Director, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; The Honorable Elisse Walter, Chairman, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission; and The Honorable Gary Gensler, Chairman, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Historic 113th Congress Convenes

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi with
Democratic Women of the House
What a day of firsts for our country! And it gives everyone a feeling of optimism that this Congress might be different because it is more diverse, in spite of the obstinate Tea Partiers.

Women, Women Everywhere!




20 Women of the Senate


Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts is Sworn In


Deb Fisher ~ First Woman Senator EVER from Nebraska


New Hampshire's All Women Delegation

Elizabeth Warren Will Serve on Banking Committee

Sources told Huffington Post today that Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, has been tapped to serve on the Banking Committee. This is happy news and a coup for Democrats since Warren, a consumer advocate and economics expert, was blocked by Republicans from serving as head of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau during Obama's first term.

From Wall Street Journal

Ms. Warren, who beat Republican Sen. Scott Brown for the Senate seat in November, emerged as a high-profile Wall Street critic after the financial crisis and hit on many of the same populist themes during her campaign. "Wall Street CEOs, the same ones who wrecked our economy...still strut around Congress...demanding favors," she said in her speech at the Democratic National Convention in September.

She embraced several policy positions that bankers dislike, including calling for a return to Glass-Steagall, the Depression-era law that separated commercial and investment banks.

. . . Several financial industry officials admit they're concerned about Ms. Warren being on the panel, given her policy positions and industry criticisms, but they said they don't know of any banks or lobbyists working against her selection.

With Ms. Warren on the banking panel, it may be harder for Republican critics of that agency and the banking industry to win any changes, such as replacing its director with a bipartisan commission structure.

2012 ~ A Great Election for Women

This was a great election, not just because Barack Obama was re-elected in a near landslide, but because women found the power to fight back against an oppressive Republican Party that seemed hell-bent on attacking our decisions, our basic human rights and our bodies. Most of the time, they simply attacked our intelligence, thinking a return to 1950s values is what women want for ourselves and our daughters. This is why I've written 26 Posts on the War on Women going back to Rick Santorum in the Primaries, as well as 21 posts on Snark Amendment collecting quotes and video from these guys. I want all of it to stay on the internet forever if possible, so that four years from now we won't have complacency and forget just how bad it was.


Well, today is a much better world for my daughter as well as my sons, and everyone else in society. Obama will protect the Supreme Court, health care, and Pell Grants. While the Tea Party may still control the House, and unfortunately Ryan and some others are still there, we have the political capital and some new voices to help in the fight, Obama will surely be able to pressure Speaker Boehner in ways we never did before. The conservative message failed and their party is in shambles. For all Romney's talk of family values and his love of his wife and kids, he couldn't put himself in the place of one female American who wasn't either a wealthy Stepford Wife or some glorified secretary in a binder.


The Gender Gap was real, and that should prove that the War on Women was real for us. We shouldn't have to explain it. We don't need anymore lectures and threats of probing and rape and forced pregnancy from nutjobs and religious fanatics. We don't need anymore insults from loser misogynists like Rush Limbaugh either, and he needs to realize his day is DONE.


But if that is the only message you have, just keep on keepin' on. It can only help the Democrats in the future. I know I will stay fired up even after this election and I think all women feel this way. History books will be written on the failure of the white-male oriented GOP to connect with half the country. If they don't understand it by now, just read the book.

And look at some of the great women who were elected yesterday!!!

Claire McCaskill Beat Todd "Legitimate Rape" Akin in Missouri



Tammy Baldwin beat Tommy Thompson in Wisconsin
And Becomes the First Openly Gay Senator



Tammy Duckworth Beat Joe "Misogynist Shouter" Walsh in Illinois




Elizabeth Warren defeated Scott Brown in Massachusetts

Scott Brown's Cherokee Mistake

The Massachusetts Senate race is getting lowdown and dirty, and yes, even racist.

WCVB Boston - Scott Brown Staffers Make Indian War Whoops

In a video posted on YouTube, Brown's staffers are seen holding campaign signs near the Erie Pub, chanting and making tomahawk chops, presumably in reference to Elizabeth Warren's claims of Cherokee heritage.

Brown's Deputy Chief of Staff Greg Casey and Constituent Service Counsel Jack Richard, State Director Jerry McDermott, special assistant Jennifer Franks and GOP operative Brad Garrett are pictured in the video, NewsCenter 5's Janet Wu confirmed.

"It is certainly something that I don't condone," said Brown when asked about the video. "The real offense is that (Warren) said she was white and then checked the box saying she is Native American, and then she changed her profile in the law directory once she made her tenure."

The Tomahawk Chop, really? Didn't Jane Fonda get in trouble for that with the Atlanta Braves? Tacky, and again, racist.

Don't you just love it that during every speech of the Republican Convention they could spin about their immigrant families and no one asked anyone for proof of citizenship or family documents or . . . dare I say it . . . a birth certificate?

Then along comes Scott Brown on Purity Patrol.

Taunting Elizabeth Warren for her supposed Cherokee background is a big mistake. For one thing, half the people in the Eastern U.S. probably have a family story of someone who was part Cherokee or some other tribe in their genealogy. No one in their right mind is going to think she did this because sometime in the future she wanted to run for office.

I didn't realize the Cherokee vote was so big in Massachusetts! *geesh*

There are several Warrens listed on the Cherokee Rolls.

My own grandmother had relatives in Oklahoma and one of her family names is on the Cherokee Rolls. Does that make me a Cherokee too? Maybe a fraction, but I have no idea, but I'm also not lying about it, and probably neither is Elizabeth Warren. Even if she is mistaken, genealogy is not an exact science anyway. Some names were never included on the official rolls. Some people kept their native heritage a secret to everyone except their families fear of their neighbors as well as the government. Sometimes all you have is marriage record or a name scribbled in a family bible. Sometimes the courthouse burned down with all the records and all you have is a family story. Any genealogist will tell you the same thing.

Scott Brown should take a trip to Cherokee, NC, sometime, and try to figure out who lives on the Reservation there and who doesn't. Good luck with that! While many people have obvious and outward Native American traits, others could be Elizabeth Warren's cousin, LOL. That's because of all the intermarriage in the colonial days and afterward. Many "Cherokees" look Scotch-Irish or German. That doesn't mean they are not Native Americans. Duh.

Get a clue Scott Brown.

Elizabeth Warren For the Middle Class

via facebook (share)
Elizabeth Warren is a Harvard Law Professor who is running for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts. She was especially uplifting to the Occupy Wall Street Movement last year, giving an inspirational speech that inspired millions. She was on track to be Head of Consumer Protection for the Obama Administration, but the Republicans blocked her confirmation so long that President Obama had to choose someone else.

But Warren rose again as a strong Senate candidate in Massachusetts, and just this week the Progressive Change Campaign Committee raised a million dollars for her campaign.


Complete Transcript of Elizabeth Warren's Speech Here

I grew up in an America that invested in its kids and built a strong middle class; that allowed millions of children to rise from poverty and establish secure lives. An America that created Social Security and Medicare so that seniors could live with dignity; an America in which each generation built something solid so that the next generation could build something better.

But for many years now, our middle class has been chipped, squeezed, and hammered. Talk to the construction worker I met from Malden, Massachusetts, who went nine months without finding work. Talk to the head of a manufacturing company in Franklin trying to protect jobs but worried about rising costs. Talk to the student in Worcester who worked hard to finish his college degree, and now he's drowning in debt. Their fight is my fight, and it's Barack Obama's fight too.

~~~~~~~

These folks don't resent that someone else makes more money. We're Americans. We celebrate success. We just don't want the game to be rigged. We've fought to level the playing field before. About a century ago, when corrosive greed threatened our economy and our way of life, the American people came together under the leadership of Teddy Roosevelt and other progressives, to bring our nation back from the brink.

~~~~~~~

Americans are fighters. We are tough, resourceful and creative. If we have the chance to fight on a level playing field—where everyone pays a fair share and everyone has a real shot—then no one can stop us. President Obama gets it because he's spent his life fighting for the middle class. And now he's fighting to level that playing field—because we know that the economy doesn't grow from the top down, but from the middle class out and the bottom up. That's how we create jobs and reduce the debt.

~~~~~~~

The Republican vision is clear: "I've got mine, the rest of you are on your own."

Republicans say they don't believe in government. Sure they do. They believe in government to help themselves and their powerful friends. After all, Mitt Romney's the guy who said corporations are people.

No, Governor Romney, corporations are not people. People have hearts, they have kids, they get jobs, they get sick, they cry, they dance. They live, they love, and they die. And that matters. That matters because we don't run this country for corporations, we run it for people. And that's why we need Barack Obama.

~~~~~~~

He believes in a country where everyone is held accountable. Where no one can steal your purse on Main Street or your pension on Wall Street. President Obama believes in a country where we invest in education, in roads and bridges, in science, and in the future, so we can create new opportunities, so the next kid can make it big, and the kid after that, and the kid after that. That's what president Obama believes.

~~~~~~~

I grew up in the Methodist Church and taught Sunday school. One of my favorite passages of scripture is: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." Matthew 25:40. The passage teaches about God in each of us, that we are bound to each other and called to act. Not to sit, not to wait, but to act—all of us together.