The Case for Elizabeth Warren

I just ran across this excellent article about Elizabeth Warren. The writer does a good job of making the case of why she is the most important person running for president. It is long form writing so it will take a while to read , but well worth it whether you are a supporter, detractor or ambivalent. While it starts with Joe Biden in reality it is a case for why the American left should embrace her brand of Teddy Roosevelt style liberalism than Bernie Sanders’ path which has it’s roots in Henry Wallace socialism.

Go here to read it all

The contrast between Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden is stark: Biden is comfort food; Warren is food for thought with, to some tastes, a dollop of spinach.

Warren stands virtually alone in the field by offering comprehensive, and specific, proposals for reanimating American democracy by reforming capitalism to reconcile its long-term interests with the needs of Americans writ large. She is, in substantive terms, by far the most important Democrat seeking the presidency.

Whether one tends right or left, Warren’s importance to the political dialogue transcends the eventual fate of her campaign. That’s because she is asking an essential question: Can we repair our deepening economic and social fissures by making large corporations more responsive participants in a revitalized democracy which expands economic opportunity, reinvigorates competition, and redefines corporate citizenship. Her candidacy is an attempt to rescue contemporary capitalism from its potentially fatal excesses.

 Richard North Patterson
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patd
5 years ago

one of the many photos from business insider story yesterday:

Warren had three older brothers, all of whom later served in the military.

Warren had three older brothers, all of whom later served in the military.

patd
5 years ago

their headline of that Business Insider article is sort of misleading.   the “how” shouldn’t be there — should read “Elizabeth Warren as she”

Photos capture how Elizabeth Warren became an academic, a US Senator, and a leading Democratic presidential contender

patd
5 years ago

patd
5 years ago

Ivanka:  today Osaka tomorrow the world?

wapo:  ‘Surreal’: Ivanka Trump plays a prominent role in her father’s historic Korea trip

 

 

the guardian:  

 

#Unwantedivanka: awkward moment at G20 prompts slew of Trump parodies

Photoshopped images show president’s daughter as interloper at historic moments

RebelliousRenee
5 years ago

That was an excellent article… yeah… a bit long…  but worth it.  It gave a fair assessment of the pros and cons in her proposals…  something that is rare in today’s journalism.   I love Warren…  methinks she is the smartest Democratic candidate running.  I think she could run circles around Biden.  But could she do the same of Trump…  that is the $1 million question.  The best part is that at the very least she will go back to the Senate if another candidate wins the nomination.

craigcrawford
5 years ago

luv the Teddy Roosevelt comparison, she does remind me of his energy and his agenda. and the contrast with Bernie right on. Looking at primary voter math she and Bernie could hold each other back, drawing from the same pool, despite their different approaches. 

Pogo
5 years ago

We’ll get a chance to see what she can do when she and Joe end up on the same debate stage.  While I do think plans are important – and god knows the current plan-less, clueless occupant of the oval office reminds us that the old saying  “If you don’t know where you’re going it doesn’t matter how you try to get there” is manifestly true – I don’t think we often elect a president based upon their plans for this or that issue.  I don’t disagree with Warren’s plans, but they need to under gird, not be the lead lines of her candidacy if she has any hope of winning the nomination.

Jamie44
5 years ago

Just finished binge watching the Netflix production of Tales of the City that takes place 20+ years after the original series ended.  If you loved the original Maupin novels or the original PBS versions from ’94, ’98, ’01, this brings everything up to date and ties a nice bow on all the characters.  Great series. 

patd
5 years ago

pogo, yeah she needs better short bites for the attention deficits in the electorate, but I agree with david brooks:

“I might agree or disagree with some of Elizabeth Warren’s zillions of policy proposals, but at least they’re proposals. At least they are attempts to ground our politics in real situations with actual plans, not just overwrought bellowing about the monster in the closet.”

really really like her way of putting things when she puts it to 1%

There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. . . . You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you are safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything your factory. . . . Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific. . . . God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid comes along.

craigcrawford
5 years ago

yes Jamie, I’m about halfway through Tales. Was anxious it wouldn’t deliver, and the first episode concerned me but 2d episode on has done the job

patd
5 years ago

newsweek via msn:  Trump 2020 Campaign Uses Stock Photo Models in New Political Ads

It has emerged that a stock image agency is being used to portray supporters of  President Donald Trump in his 2020 campaign bid. Trump’s re-election campaign is in full swing, and features one television advertisement citing a blonde woman who, at first glance, appears to be one of his supporters.

 

 

 

She is in a video, shared on YouTube, which opens with an image of waves crashing against a beach, and the disembodied radio voice of Trump saying, “The national motto, in God we trust.”

In the next frame is a woman walking along a beach, although it is not clear it if is the same one, captioned, “Tracey from Florida.”

A woman’s voice is then heard saying, “President Trump is doing a great job, I could not ask for a better president of the United States of America.”

To a soundtrack of guitar strings, a caption in capital letters asks the viewer, “Do you agree with Tracey? Take the official survey,” before the graphic of Trump’s campaign emerges again, with the slogan “Make America great again!” and calling on people to text “Trump 45” to 8802.

However, as Popular Info reported, Tracey is not an actual Trump supporter and is simply a model from a video purchased on istockphoto.com titled “summer beach beauty walking.”

For a split-second at the far left of the screen in small font is the disclaimer, “Actor portrayal. Actual testimonial.”

Popular Info also reported the Trump campaign is running similar ads featuring stock photo models representing an older Hispanic man and a young hipster.

Judd Legum, from Popular Info tweeted that Trump is spending significant resources on a “highly manipulative online ad campaign designed to make it appear that he has support from key demographic groups and it’s flying completely under the radar.”

“What’s happening online in the 2020 campaign is at least as important as what’s happening elsewhere. Trump is spending millions on Facebook & Google each month. But it receives little scrutiny.”

Two weeks before Trump kicked off his 2020 campaign in Orlando, Florida, his campaign greatly increased its Facebook ad spending and included a number which were related to immigration, NPR reported.

His bid for re-election comes as the economy is doing well and unemployment is at its lowest rate for half a century, although he is a historically unpopular president.

Some 42.5 percent of Americans approve of his performance, while 53.1 percent disapprove, according to data compiled by FiveThirtyEight

Pogo
5 years ago

LOL – that SFB would use fake supporter video in his ads should surprise no one. Fake president, fake supporters – who knew?
 

patd
5 years ago

The first two 2020 Democratic presidential primary debates, featuring Cartoons Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Marianne Williamson, Beto O’Rourke, Cory Booker, Bill de Blasio, Amy Klobuchar, and the rest of them. New episodes of Our Cartoon President premiere Sundays at 8/7c, only on SHOWTIME.

Jamie44
5 years ago

Trump asks for military tanks on the Mall as part of grandiose July Fourth event

The tribute to his monstrous ego at taxpayer expense plus a private, ticketed event at the Lincoln Memorial.  

 

Katherine Graham Cracker
5 years ago

SFB hired actors for his famous campaign announcement rally

Pogo
5 years ago

Speaking of parades, from Slate last year:

It was a beautiful day on June 8, 1991, when President George H. W. Bush, Vice President Dan Quayle, and Cabinet officials peered out through bulletproof glass as legions of camouflaged veterans marched down Constitution Avenue, past the White House, and trekked over Memorial Bridge toward the Pentagon. Some 8,800 enlisted soldiers were deployed for the spectacle, which celebrated the liberation of Kuwait and defeat of Saddam Hussein’s military in Operation Desert Storm, concluded several months earlier. Close to 1 million Americans showed up to take in the event. M1A1 Abrams tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and Patriot missile launchers rumbled through the streets, and formations of fighter jets also buzzed the city in close formation. The fireworks displayed afterward dwarfed anything Washington had seen before.
 
Still, hitches were inevitable with such a logistically taxing event. The city government had enough foresight to remove lampposts along the parade route to make way for the convoys of armored vehicles. Less anticipated was the damage wrought as 67-ton tanks rolled over (and through) the hot asphalt on Constitution Avenue. The treaded vehicles pounded a deeply rutted tattoo into the roadway, which had been designed to carry a gross vehicle weight of just over 30 tons, and was further softened that day by the 85-degree heat.
 
One of the more poetic vignettes took shape as a flock of combat helicopters roared over the Capitol and approached their ceremonial landing zone. Spinning rotor blades kicked up a dust storm along the pathways lining the National Mall. Bits of gravel and dirt sprayed like machine-gun fire, accidentally hosing the adjacent Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden. The most serious casualty of artistic friendly fire was Aristide Maillol’s Nymph (Central Figure for “The Three Graces”). The nude bronze had her back riddled with pockmarks and scratches from the fusillade.
 
After months of bickering between the Hirshhorn and the Department of Defense about who would pay for a restoration, museum staff thought the prospect of future military parades was far-fetched. “This is not something that will happen again. It was a freak accident; a helicopter was coming down on the Mall,” Sidney Lawrence, a museum spokesman told the Washington Postlater that October.
 
Washington’s last military parade left in its wake 1.2 million pounds of garbage, $12 million in bills, and literal scars on the city’s public art and infrastructure. If history is any guide, a march in 2018 will bring its own unanticipated headaches for the District. It also goes without saying that Donald Trump is no George H. W. Bush. A large-scale deployment of government assets under the current administration is sure to be accompanied with a clown car of unforced errors and distasteful performances. Will nuclear weapons be showcased at the event? Will Trump wear epaulets and a sword?
 
More certain is the negative reaction that such a parade will elicit from the capital city. Bush Sr. enjoyed an approval rating of 73 percent at the time of the National Victory Celebration. Donald Trump currently has an approval rating of 40 percent according to the latest Quinnipiac poll. A Gallup survey from last week puts his approval within the District of Columbia at a near-riotous 6 percent approval and 88 percent disapproval.
 
Bush’s extravaganza also came in the afterglow of a stunning military victory that was televised before national audiences. The 1991 parade was a deliberately presented as a celebration for “Our country and for all who wear its uniform. … Not just one individual, or one unit, or one command, or even one service.” By contrast, Trump’s dream event likely has the contours of a jingoistic MAGA rally. Guest of honor: just one.
 
The Nymph statue was long ago repaired (at Pentagon expense) and is no longer on display beside the National Mall. But there are still plenty of potential targets for collateral damage from this unneeded and unwelcome spectacle. 

Can’t imagine it will turn out better this time – with temperatures predicted to be 10 degrees hotter than in 1991, and, of course, with SFB in charge.

patd
5 years ago

Jamie, TANKS!  not only at expense of taxpayer but at expense of capitol roadways and what’s under them.  

patd
5 years ago

since it’s a campaign show, should be a campaign expense… they should pay for everything including the damage, restorations and clean-up.  oh yeah, and reimburse salaries for all gov’t employees required to participate.

patd
5 years ago
patd
5 years ago

Borowitz in the new Yorker last year:

Military Refuses to Participate in Trump’s Parade, Citing Bone Spurs

 

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—The Pentagon has turned down Donald J. Trump’s request for a grand military parade in Washington, D.C., citing a sudden outbreak of bone spurs that would prevent men and women in uniform from participating.

Harland Dorrinson, a Pentagon spokesman, said that, within an hour of Trump’s request, more than a hundred thousand military personnel complained that they were suffering from acute cases of bone spurs that would make marching in such a parade a painful ordeal.

“In the history of the U.S. military, we have never experienced a bone-spur epidemic of this magnitude,” the spokesman said. “Regrettably, however, we have no choice but to issue thousands of deferments.”

A statement from the bone-spur sufferers said that they would continue to valiantly serve their country around the world in a non-marching capacity, and offered an alternative to their participation in Trump’s proposed pageant.

“President Trump is welcome to march in the parade all by himself if he would finally like to enlist,” the statement read.

Pogo
5 years ago

Biden’s support is about where it was 2 months ago. Anyone who thought he’d maintain the peak he hit in May was deluding himself. 
RCP looks at this stuff long term. Biden’s back to about 30, Bernie!’s dropped to half that.Warren’s hot on Bernie!’s heels, and their trend lines are converging and Kamala’s Chasing Lizzie. Mayor Pete is hovering at 7.  It’s becoming a 3 way horse race.  I can’t wait for the next debate.  
 

patd
5 years ago

NEW THREAD