Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Elizabeth Warren - Betrayal, and Future, Brown Bag Day

Hi.  Probably like many getting this, I saw Monday night’s interview by Rachel Maddow.  Warren enthusiastically endorsed Obama’s selection to head the CFPB, saying he was a great choice and that she didn’t stand a chance of being approved for the position.  I wasn’t sure whether the statement in the 2nd essay below was made as a serious resolution or just a way of changing the subject.  It certainly would be a wonderful response to the Visigoths, a terrific campaign and national highlight of the 2012 election.  -Ed

 

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/sorry_elizabeth_wall_street_said_no_20110719/

 

Sorry Elizabeth, Wall Street Said No

Robert Scheer

Truthdig: July 20, 2011

So much for the meritocracy. Despite an elite education, effusive charm and brilliant wit, Barack Obama, like Bill Clinton before him, has ended up betraying his humble origins by abjectly serving the most rapacious variant of Wall Street greed. They both talk a good progressive game, but when push comes to shove—meaning when the banking lobby weighs in—big money talks and the best and the brightest fold.

The defining moment of Clinton’s capitulation was his destruction of Brooksley Born, the one member of his administration with the courage and prescience to warn him about the unregulated derivatives trading that ultimately led to the housing collapse. For Obama, it is his decision not to nominate Elizabeth Warren to run the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which she fought so hard to create.

Obama’s refusal to take the fight to Senate Republicans by nominating Warren should be taken as the vital measure of the man. This gutless decision comes after the president populated his administration with the very people who created the financial meltdown.

The Harvard credential worked for the likes of economist Lawrence Summers, who carried water for Wall Street under both Clinton and Obama, but not for that university’s distinguished law professor Warren, an outspoken defender of consumer rights who dared represent the interests of the victims of the banking scams. It is a painful reminder that for Democrats as well as Republicans, governance is still all about serving the rich.

Both Democratic presidents had no difficulty appointing top bankers and their acolytes to all of the key economic positions in their administrations but drew the line at fully backing the rare member of their team who had a proven record of defending the public interest when it was being savaged. Consider the fawning treatment of former Goldman Sachs partner Gary Gensler by both Clinton and Obama. In the Clinton Treasury Department, it was Gensler working under both Robert Rubin and Summers who forcefully pushed for the radical deregulation of the financial industry that led to the biggest economic implosion since the Great Depression. 

As Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., put it in opposing Obama’s nomination of Gensler to be head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the position once held by Born: “Mr. Gensler worked with Sen. Phil Gramm and Alan Greenspan to exempt credit default swaps from regulation, which led to the collapse of AIG and has resulted in the largest taxpayer bailout in U.S. history.” This bailout was engineered in cooperation with the Bush administration by Timothy Geithner, then head of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, who was rewarded for his catering to Wall Street avarice by being named Obama’s treasury secretary.

With Geithner and Gensler now in charge of reregulating Wall Street as ordered by the Dodd-Frank law, it is no wonder that the lobbyists have been able to stall any significant progress in controlling the ever-threatening time bomb of the still unregulated $600 trillion over-the-counter derivatives market. It was after all Gensler who assured Congress back during the Clinton years that Brooksley Born was an alarmist and that the “OTC derivatives directly and indirectly support higher investment and growth in living standards in the United States and around the world.”

No wonder Gensler had no difficulty being confirmed by Senate Republicans and Democrats, who are basically united in giving Wall Street lobbyists the governance they paid for. Of course, the main culpability is with congressional Republicans, who are dead set against any meaningful consumer protection.

For that reason, they are likely to oppose the person Obama nominated instead of Warren, former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray, who has acted forcefully to defend consumer interests. As David Lazarus, the knowledgeable business columnist for the Los Angeles Times, wrote, “President Obama shouldn’t have backed down” in the face of GOP opposition to Warren, because Republicans will probably also find Cordray unacceptable. The reason being that they don’t want a strong director for the consumer protection agency, or even the agency itself.

What remains to be seen is if Obama will play their game or finally take the gloves off. If we should have learned anything in the last decade of financial malfeasance by the banking industry, it is that consumers are in desperate need of protection. If Obama goes to battle for Cordray and he proves to be a strong director for the new agency, I will stand corrected, but the president’s abandonment of the brilliant and dedicated Warren is hardly an auspicious beginning.

* * *

 

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/07/18-5

Elizabeth Warren to 'Think' About Senate Run Against GOP's Scott Brown

by Peter Schroeder

Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard law professor tapped by President Obama to set up the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), said Monday she would think about running for Sen. Scott Brown's (R-Mass.) seat in 2012.

In response to a question, Warren told MSNBC that she needed to go home and think about whether to run against Brown.

"I’ve been working 14 hours a day on trying to stand this … agency up, really for more than a year now," she said. "When I go home, I’ll do more thinking then. But I need to do that thinking not from Washington."

Warren's comments on Monday mark the clearest indication yet that the liberal hero is at least thinking about running for the Senate. She has been recruited by Democrats in an attempt to reclaim the seat once held by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, and a liberal grassroots group on Monday launched a campaign to convince her to run.

Warren said on MSNBC that she has not decided on her future yet, and was first looking to take some time off after setting up the CFPB.

Democrats have long hoped that Warren would run against Brown. They see Massachusetts as one of their best opportunities to pick off a Senate seat this election, but many are underwhelmed by the current field.

Only philanthropist Alan Khazei has shown any fundraising ability, and he finished a distant third in the primary the first time he ran for this seat in 2009.

Brown, the only Republican in the state's congressional delegation, is considered vulnerable given the political makeup of Massachusetts. The freshmen senator, whose election in January 2010 put approval of the healthcare law in doubt, has sought to maintain his image as a centrist politician, and already has almost $10 million cash on hand for the election.

Warren's comments came after Obama nominated Richard Cordray to be the first director of the CFPB. Warren brought on the former Ohio attorney general to head up the CFPB's enforcement efforts.

While Warren has served as the de facto head of the agency and as its biggest advocate since it was being considered as part of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, she has come under strong criticism from congressional Republicans for her strong critiques of the financial industry. It was widely expected that if she were nominated to head the CFPB, she would face a very difficult confirmation battle.

However, it is not clear Cordray will have a much clearer path, as Senate Republicans are insisting they will block any nominee to head the CFPB unless several major changes are made to the bureau's structure.

The CFPB is set to open its doors on July 21.

© 2011 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp.

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday July 20: Brown Bag Lunch Vigils & National Call-in Day

 

Dear Ed,

Last week we called out President Obama for being wrong on a host of issues progressives hold dear. We always call it like we see it. In his speech last Friday, however, Obama was right when he called for closing the loophole in Medicare Part D to allow the government to use its bulk-purchasing power to negotiate lower drug prices.  

Ending corporate welfare can save taxpayers billions of dollars every year. Please sign our petition to "Save Medicare and Save a Trillion Dollars in Ten Years."

Poll after poll has shown that Americans know that cuts need to be made to reduce the deficit, but social safety nets are not the place to make cuts.

We need to echo that message at the Brown Bag Lunch Vigils (BBLV) and National Call-in Day tomorrow. The message is unmistakable:

Hands off Medicare!
Hands off Medicaid!
Hands off Social Security!
End the Wars!
END CORPORATE WELFARE!

Get the message out by getting on the street, in front of your representative's (or senator's) office. Go here to see if there's a BBLV near you. Our DC team will be visiting the Hill to deliver packets to members of Congress tomorrow. Your call highlights that effort. If you can't find a vigil near you, it's doubly important to make a call. Click here for contact info and talking points. 

There's no time to hesitate and no excuse to stay quiet. Get out there at a BBLV, make your call, and sign and forward the petition!

In solidarity,

Tim Carpenter, national director

BBLV Partners

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