Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, hear the lamentation of Wall Street.
That is good!
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has won her push to stop banker Antonio Weiss from becoming the under secretary for domestic policy at the Treasury Department.
Weiss asked President Barack Obama not to resend his nomination for the job, Politico reported on Monday and the White House confirmed to TPM.
Weiss, a Democrat and banker at Lazard, had been in the crosshairs of Warren over the last few weeks as she railed against the unnecessary influence of Wall Street in the halls of Congress.
Warren had maintained that Weiss’s background as a banker who was involved in a merger between Tim Horton’s and Burger King disqualified him from the Treasury post.
“I am writing to request that the administration not re-submit my nomination,” Weiss wrote in the letter to Obama, according to Politico. “I do not believe the Treasury Department would be well served by the lengthy confirmation process my renomination would likely entail.”
Weiss will instead take a job as an adviser to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, which does not require congressional approval.
Yes! This is a big win for the middle class and those families struggling to get up to middle class. Now the President can find someone to work in Treasury who is not all cozy with Wall Street.
on the Weiss nomination here.
is a victory but not end game. The incremental repeal of Dodd-Frank by delaying the Volker Rule and the reduction in the need for fully capitalizing investment banks are the big fights. The Wall Street crowd got a delay of Volker on Collateral Loan Obligations (CLOs) until 2017 and then came back for a further delay until 2019. This is a war of attrition against consumers and taxpayers who will be on the hook for the next meltdown, waged by the Wall Street crowd including Chuck Schumer and many other Democrats.
Schumer is doing his best to hide his dirty deeds, even giving up his coveted opportunity to be the ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee so that he doe not have to make tough choices in public, whether to side with Main Street and real Democrats, or Wall Street. Instead the ranking seat will go to Sherrod Brown who is a lot closer in ideology to E Warren. Schumer must be terrified that Warren is in leadership now and breathing down his neck.
F*** the Washington Post’s war against Warren. She is the most important person in DC trying to keep the financial system honest.
http://baselinescenario.com/2015/01/07/the-republican-strategy-to-repeal-dodd-frank/
Including from self-described conservatives and independents, some of whom voted for Romney and Cory Gardner. From an informative Times piece.
I am not saying she should run, I am saying it is her voice, not Hillary’s that has to define what our party presents to the public. Not just for the sake of grassroots activists or the liberal base, but because it is the most compelling message that will generate with the voting public.
It would be a cruel and unusual punishment to try and con this magnificent woman into a debilitating gauntlet run at a chance to be the National Pinata.
And, in a way, projecting fantasies on her is just a rehash of the behavior that feeds Barry Bamz disillusionment. It’s another mania phase of no real value to anyone.
She is a potential embodiment of a Taoist ideal “In the best forms of leadership, it seems as if the people did it themselves”
The usual vacillating and scheming churls who run the shows in both parties are fishing around for some new reason to exist. She’s it.
If they start cribbing notes and trying to even seem vaguely like her, it’ll be a huge improvement over what we have now. That’s what I’ll be watching for.
If they genuinely want to embrace her outlook, so much the better.
But trying to bum rush her toward the electoral tar pit that presidential elections have become diminishes everyone and I’m pretty confident she knows that.
Evidently His Mittinship is liking Senator Warrens numbers and is now working on his latest protective coloration as Warren Lite.
Interesting info re: that Colorado focus group. I especially like the reference to Jeb Bush as a “bad seed” LMAO!
Senator Warren’s message has indeed broken through if folks like this in Colorado see her as someone they could support enthusiastically. And this is despite all the name calling of her as a flaming liberal by the mainstream media!
I don’t want her to run for President (because I think she can do much more for all of us in the Senate) and I seriously doubt she will, based on her actions — but she’s already had and will continue to have a really profound impact on the current Congressional session and the 2016 race — which is all to the good imo.
It really is astonishing to see how much political capital she’s amassed in such a short period of time despite not having much seniority at all — and to see her using it so strategically on behalf of working folks. My hat is off to her and her team.
I hit submit too fast — meant to add this link to an interview done by Sheila Bair as it might interest folks — if for no other reason than the endearing Oklahomaism “mad as hops” 🙂
http://fortune.com/2015/01/13/elizabeth-warren-sheila-bair/
Some really good stuff here re: Warren’s POV re: regulation, her favorite POTUS, and a lot about how she views business, as well as the standard 2016 “no I’m not running”.
Reading that Warren finally took the next step and said that not only is she not running for president, she is not going to run for president. I get that Obama and Romney said similar things before and ran anyway, but this hurts me deep. I will vote for HIllary, I woulda gone through hell for Warren.
There’s still hope for a progressive candidate.
She has already lived in the White House for 8 years.
there is a great and detailed article about Wall Street’s assault on Dodd-Frank, including the CLO issue I wrote about a few days ago.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/14/business/economy/in-new-congress-wall-st-pushes-to-undermine-dodd-frank-reform.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news