Rebranding the Democrats: Ditch Obama and get behind Elizabeth Warren.

Late last week Times Picayune pundit Stephanie Grace wrote a column on the call to rebrand the Louisiana democrats who are now on life support giving a local flavor to trend toward the southern states once again chipping in solely with one political party.  I thought of it when I saw the name Elizabeth Warren pop up in the news cycle in the aftermath of President Obama’s online conversation at LinkedIn yesterday.

Anyone that has paid attention to the oversight accorded to George Bush’s last major official act in the financial bailout known as TARP well knows the name Elizabeth Warren.  She was born a southern girl to a middle class family in Oklahoma before making good, landing more recently as the chairwoman of the Congressional Oversight Committee for the bailout.  She simply took no prisoners and tackled her job in a nonpartisan way that made her a folks hero of sorts to the ordinary people who paid attention to her work. Following is an exchange with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner that illustrates that point:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pz7ruJw6byQ

I say this because Ms Warren was the logical choice to head the new consumer protection bureau at the Department of Treasury but President Obama was sold out before he arrived in the oval office so that job went to someone else.  I’ve often joked the voters are electing republicans to Congress to send President Obama some much-needed help because he acts mostly like a republican and to a certain extent it is true. Obama had the Bush-era tax cuts expire on his watch and he renewed them almost as a matter of routine before he began to clamor to raise tax rates on the wealthy.  To me it comes across as the height of duplicity. Continue reading “Rebranding the Democrats: Ditch Obama and get behind Elizabeth Warren.”

Welcome to the party George. Did you make sure Phil Bryant got a copy of your letter?

For some time now, devious undercurrents of hate and anger have been festering in our country.

In recent months, as rhetoric grew red-hot over healthcare reform and immigration, the wounded Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords had been the target of numerous death threats. Her local office in Tucson had been vandalized and the corner across the street had become a central location for protests. Most recently, a Sarah Palin graphic depicted her district in the crosshairs of a gun.

Politicians in Arizona used the immigration debate to spread falsehoods about mass killings in the desert near the border, sparking hysteria in the streets, portraying a state under siege by immigrants.

The discourse quickly turned venomous. The dangerous rumors were being perpetuated on Internet blogs and by the noisy back-and-forth bickering on cable news networks that covered the congressional campaigns.

As we see now, this practice of feeding on fear and spreading hate is dangerously irresponsible and potentially deadly, and yet, in today’s America it seems there is no escaping it.

To the extent politicians, generally in the GOP these days,  fan the flames of hate to further their own personal goals, it seems to me the political class has brought this upon themselves. While I applaud Mayor Schloegel for penning this letter, I’d also be remiss if I did not remind him Continue reading “Welcome to the party George. Did you make sure Phil Bryant got a copy of your letter?”

Useful Idiots: Another take on the Sheeple phenomenon.

Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge put up a great guest post today from Giordano Bruno at the Neithercorp Press. I do not recommend clicking the link to Neithercorp Press due to the ad trap which awaits the reader on the other end but the post itself is fantastic. Here is an excerpt:

…..the most “successful” are those that follow the establishment guidelines and play on them as if they might dare break the barrier of lies, but they never do. In Medieval times, even the most blood thirsty king would allow the court jester to make jokes at his expense. Why? Because the jester was an inconsequential figure, a powerless and non-threatening being. A jester can verbally thrash a tyrant, but nothing ever really changes, because deep down, though they make us laugh, nobody really cares what clowns have to say. Now imagine a whole subsection of our country emulating this dynamic. Imagine all these people deluding themselves into thinking that being a slave isn’t all that bad, as long as you’re the funny slave.

I swear I think a certain lawyer that comments here on occasion may have a pen name. 😉

Point of disclosure: Zero Hedge has been generally very critical of Team Obama’s handling of the economy and rightfully so IMHO.

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