Wednesday Warren Warning - Out of left field

Pardon the "left field" pun, but how does this happen?

Populist groups cheering "Run Warren Run," today released 2016 election polls from Iowa and New Hampshire showing Sen. Elizabeth Warren ahead of dominant Democrat Hillary Clinton.

The YouGov poll of likely Democratic voters for MoveOn.org and Democracy for America also found that 79 percent want Warren and majorities support her anti-Wall Street positions.

Warren has said she doesn't plan to challenge Clinton, though several others have indicated that they are looking at a bid, including Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

I'd dropped the frequency on the Wednesday Warren Warnings because it looked like she wasn't in the race. This may change her mind. If anyone on the Democratic side can beat Hillary Clinton, it's her.

Yes, the poll was conducted by friendlies, but it may be enough to get her to reconsider., especially with Hillary playing it safe right now.

Wednesday Warren Warning - A triple decker day.

Decoy?

It's been about a month since I've updated some of the Elizabeth Warren news in the regular weekly feature as a result of the focus on the midterms. I thought I'd have some catch-up to do, but there's enough this week to actually bring three recent items to your attention. These three disparate items come together as a thread that is cause for concern, not because of Warren, but rather because of Hillary Clinton.

First item: Liz goes to Israel.

Elizabeth Warren’s trip to Israel and other Middle East countries is likely more an indication of the senator’s fast rise within the Democratic Party than a sign that she is rethinking her political future, longtime Democratic observers of the Massachusetts senator said Monday.

Warren is the lone lawmaker on the trip organized by the State Department and the Senate Banking Committee, of which she is a member.

This is a profile building trip pure and simple and it means at least some powerfully placed Democrats want her to be more visible either as the nominee or as the token opposition to Hillary Clinton.

Second item: Warren Wages War on Wall Street

Getting her grassroots bona fides in place she tears into the Federal Reserve's William Dudley. Libertarian viewers might support Warren on this one, but consider the source. Warren is a purveyor of class warfare pure and simple. If you don't like the Federal Reserve, you still don't need an ally like Warren. She sees a more effective Fed as a more powerful tool to control the big banks. For her, a more effective Fed is a more powerful instrument.

If video does not load, click link here: Elizabeth Warren Hammers New York Fed Head

Third item: This one really scares me.

Look how far left she is on Obama's nominee for Treasury nominee. This is particularly revealing on her far left progressivism, and it may explain why she's being set up as the alternative to Hillary Clinton - she'll be really easy to tear down come the primaries. It will allow Hillary to consume vast swaths of the supposed center and give her gleaming coverage in juxtaposition to this:

Less than 48 hours after President Obama nominated Antonio F. Weiss, a longtime adviser on mergers at the investment bank Lazard and a Democratic supporter, to become the under secretary of Treasury for domestic finance, Senator Elizabeth Warren denounced the appointment and said that she would vote against his confirmation.

“Enough is enough,” Senator Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, declared.

She said she was furious that the president would nominate someone from Wall Street. “It’s time for the Obama administration to loosen the hold that Wall Street banks have over economic policy-making,” she wrote on The Huffington Post .

Specifically, she took Mr. Weiss to task for working as an adviser on Burger King’s merger with Tim Hortons, which will result in a combined company based in Canada, which she suggested should disqualify him....

let’s start with Mr. Weiss. He is hardly the prototypical banker...

He has been a staunch supporter — and campaign donation bundler — for President Obama and is considered relatively progressive, especially by Wall Street standards.

Oddly enough, Mr. Weiss is one of the few people within financial circles who might have been friends with Ms. Warren.

Warren's outrage on this issue is a disqualifier for president, even the NYT defend the Tim Horton's Burger King deal as not particularly a tax inversion deal. This is simply anti-business. Her anti-business stance makes her un-electable, and Hillary Clinton that much more electable by comparison. That's really the scary part.

Thursday Hillary Bash is a Wednesday Warren Warning?

It looks like the Democratic party might be grooming an alternative to Hillary Clinton. Harry Reid is tapping her as a liaison to liberal groups for Senate Democrats.

It may sound like a token effort (in the absence of having president Obama, and any of his policies on any more ballots) to keep liberals engaged, but it sure helps Warren's political profile. It's visible and it also gives her a platform in the senate minority to proselytize and to monologue her way to liberal media darling status. She might be the next Obama.

To top it off, Warren seems to be getting in doors that Hillary Clinton is being excluded from getting in.

How does Hillary feel about that? She's probably not feeling a tingle up her leg. But she's likely to revert to her anti-media form. She may feel insulated from the threat.

David Axelrod warned her recently.

David Axelrod, the chief strategist who guided President Obama into the White House, offered a blunt assessment Thursday of Hillary Rodham Clinton's likely 2016 presidential campaign, saying she needs to "get out of the cocoon of inevitability."...

"Tactics have to follow strategy," Axelrod said. "I think the danger for Secretary Clinton is that, as was the case in 2007, her candidacy is out in front of the rationale for it."

From there he naturally goes of the rails and suggests she move to the same space as Warren (i.e. the Obama-leftosphere).

Well, good luck with that. But Hillary Clinton shouldn't be taking this lightly. Conservatives however might look upon it as her star fading a bit in Democratic eyes, and the vanishing of her air of inevitability and take heart from it.

Thursday Hillary Bash - Month long haitus for elections

As with the Wednesday Warren Warning, yesterday's scheduled Thursday Hillary Bash as well as upcoming ones have been put on hold for the next several weeks to concentrate on the upcoming midterm elections.  Both features will resume in November.

If you are curious as to what either potential Democratic candidate for president has stepped in, or tracking their strategic maneuvering, these are the two pieces to watch.  They'll be returning the week following the midterm elections.

For now, it's more important to focus on the fierce urgency of winning back the Senate from Democratic malfeasance and neglect.  That said, the Friday Musical Interlude will continue as planned, because those are fun and easy. 

Wednesday Warren Warning on hold

Since this is the last month before the midterms it seems prudent to focus on the Senate opportunities for the GOP.  Somebody should focus on it since the GOP and the big donors seem a bit aloof about the whole thing.  In any case, barring any important Elizabeth Warren news, the regular Wednesday feature will be  on hold until November.

Wednesday Warren Warning - It's TOO quiet

Not a lot of exciting noise out of the Warren for president 2016 folder of late.  But there is this from the Boston Herald:

Local Democratic party boosters of U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren told a frenzied group of progressives to ditch their bid to draft her as a 2016 presidential nominee, saying the push undercuts her vow to stay put as a Massachusetts lawmaker...

The email thread — which ordered members not to share its contents with the press — makes it clear that Warren’s emergence was a happy accident and that the collaborators were searching for a progressive to run against the presumed front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton...

Johnston said while the progressives are a distraction for Warren, he believes they are doing a good job keeping Clinton on her toes and potentially influencing her campaign policies.

Wednesday Warren Warning - Torched by Levin on Israel

Not everything progressive darling Elizabeth Warren goes unchallenged.  Via The Right Scoop, Mark Levin challenged her on her statements on Israel. Go take a listen.  As The Right Scoop points out, it's short and it's fantastic.

Meanwhile Bill Maher who somehow fashions himself as a Libertarian rather than just an obnoxious know-it-all snot, wants Warren to run against Hillary Clinton.  News flash for Maher - anyone who thinks Warren should run is a progressive, not a Libertarian.

Wednesday Warren Warning - Hypocrisy

Elizabeth Warren, hypocritically playing to her base today, criticized the former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor for accepting a multi-million dollar investment bank job.  While she was at it, she threw Hillary Clinton under the bus.

"This is wrong," Warren said in regard to Cantor's new role as vice chairman and managing director at Moelis & Co. "People work in Washington and, man, they hit that revolving door with a speed that would blind you." She went on to claim that banks hire politicians like Cantor "not because they bring great expertise and insight, but because they’re selling access back into their former colleagues who are still writing policy."

Asked whether Hillary Clinton is also too cozy with Wall Street, Warren didn't exactly give the 2016 Democratic presidential front-runner a pass. "I worry a lot about the relationship between all of our regulators, government, Wall Street," she said. "I worry across the board."

Let's get one thing straight, it's not wrong. It's the free market. In a backhanded way she intimates that Cantor has no value to add aside from his political connections. But aside from the tackiness of speaking ill of someone departing, how about the hypocrisy involved?

Elizabeth Warren has accepted jobs based on a phony heritage. Elizabeth Warren is worth millions (but only about a dozen or so). And make no mistake, she played it softer with Hillary Clinton, but there was still a jab. Warren is going to run for president or perhaps hopes to be a VP on a Clinton ticket.

Wednesday Warren Warning - What's she on about now?

Elizabeth Warren would clearly make a meddlesome president.  Where Obama sticks his nose into local matters like Ferguson and having a beer summit instead of looking at national and international matters that he's supposed to be focused, expect Warren to follow.

She's stuck her nose into a local(ish) labor dispute.

BOSTON (CBS) – Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren on Tuesday criticized Market Basket executives saying they needed to realize the impact the company stalemate has had on workers and communities.

“They have shown a real disregard for frankly all that those employees have built up for years and years,” Warren told WBZ NewsRadio 1030. “Until they have the idea that they are part of the community and trying to build something of value going forward, it’s pretty tough to get this one back on track.”

Yes, it has economic impact, but her giving advice to a company in regard to a labor dispute is like Ronald Reagan trying to advise the teamsters how to organize. I take that back - nothing about Warren is anything like Reagan.

Once again she sticks with the "You didn't build that theme". How insulting. Warren, you certainly didn't build it so just shut up and let the two sides work out their differences. You don't think Market Basket wants to preserve their relationship with the community???? Stop trying to dictate things and trying to scold a business that has done far more than you ever have.

Wednesdy Warren Warning - Iraq Pronouncement

Some bonus footage as it were on the Wednesday Warren Warning.  Is this nuance or just another example of pretzel logic? Elizabeth Warren stands behind president Obama's decision to conduct air strikes in Iraq but believes a solution to the problem must be a negotiated settlement and not a military solution. Worse, she wants the U.S. to negotiate with terrorists but not be seen to be doing so.

She believes ISIS is a terrorist organization. Warren also believes that the negotiations are necessary but that the U.S. should not negotiate with terrorists. It seems though, that it's perfectly alright to have the Iraqi government negotiate with terrorists, whom she sees the U.S. having their positions in the matter managed by*;

“The point is there has to be a negotiated solution in Iraq, but we don’t negotiate with terrorists,” Warren said. She said, “This is partially a question of whether the U.S. government negotiates or whether we have the Iraqi government doing these negotiations, and how we help support them as they try to maintain an integrated country, and a country that better represents all of the people who live there.”

The distinction between negotiating with terrorists and not doing so but helping Iraq while they do so is pretty much non-existent. But who cares? Warren gets to say all the right things to all the right constituencies and that's what really matters to voters isn't it?

Wednesday Warren Warning - Self Serving on Tax Policy

Elizabeth Warren casts stones at a rigged tax code. On her website she recently posted a blog piece that started with this:

Huge corporations hire armies of lawyers and lobbyists to create, expand, and protect every last corporate loophole.

That's how we end up with a tax code that makes teachers and bus drivers and small business owners pay, but that allows some huge American corporations to make billions of dollars and not pay a single dime in taxes.

Simply put, the tax code is rigged.

She neglects to mention that the tax code is also rigged in favor of unions and other liberal special interests as well. She neglects to mention that the U.S. tax code is tens of thousands of Byzantine pages.

She is pandering to the liberal base by saying that the tax codes need to be fixed. Unfortunately her solutions involve yet more legislation, not simplification, not standardization - just more special rules for special circumstances. And we'll need more auditors and IRS agents no doubt, to enforce the new rules.

Of course the tax code needs changing. But how about something to simplify it and make it harder to cheat, harder to avoid, and perhaps even welcoming in terms of businesses and consumers. How about a simple national sales tax or Value Added tax of some percentage that replaces income tax for both consumers and corporate taxes? Liberal elites like Warren argue that the notion is unfair to the poor because they pay a higher portion of their net income to necessities which means that the tax will hit them harder. But aside from them therefore having some skin in the game (to paraphrase Michele Bachmann), what about the notion of some sort of sales tax rebates for those hardest hit? Nope - not up for discussion. The reason is simple. A Byzantine tax code requires a volume of additional tax lawyers versus a simpler tax code and therefore keeps that industry intact. That serves the political class like Warren far more than it does the under-served she claims to represent.

Streamlining government reduces costs and puts more money back in the hands of voters of every class. Simplify the tax code simplifies life for every American, including the poor and disadvantaged who benefit from not having to jump through hoops for subsidies or who can't afford expensive tax lawyers like elites can.

So who is really benefitting from your political positions Senator Warren? My guess, it's you and your friends. The tax code is rigged, your ilk rigged it Senator Warren, and you seem quite content to keep it that way by keeping voters in the dark about the true situation and the real solutions.

Wednesday Warren Warning - Imperious

Elizabeth Warren's grasp of U.S. government seems tenuous at a minimum. The alternative, and frankly more plausible, explanation of her most recent pronouncement is that she is simply imperious. If you thought president Obama has had an imperial presidency, could you imagine a president like this:

Democratic senators are calling for President Barack Obama to take executive action that would essentially increase the tax burden on many American companies. The White House isn’t ruling out a unilateral act, invoking the phrase “economic patriotism” to condemn companies that incorporate overseas...

The letter was signed by Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Jack Reed of Rhode Island...

“However, our efforts should not preclude executive action to prevent corporate inversions. The coming flood of corporate inversions justifies immediate executive action,” the letter said, according to Roll Call...

Corporate inversion is when companies that primarily do business in the United States incorporate in another country to avoid the heavy U.S. corporate tax rates. Put another way, it’s when a U.S. company with a foreign subsidiary becomes a foreign company with a U.S. subsidiary.

There is absolutely zero thought given to the notion that if companies are doing this there must be a real problem with being incorproated in the United States. Tax policy, labor policy, mandates and other government 'oversight' is driving them out. The fact that Democratic senators, including Warren, are blind to this is troubling. But it is less troubling than their solution - a pronouncement that these companies are being unpatriotic and the thinking that another pronouncement will solve the problem. In North Korea the glorious leader has decreed that every man must have his style of haircut.

Thursday Hillary Bash - Wednesday Warren Warning?

Yesterday I posted a Wednesday Warren Warning for the first time.  I still believe Hillary Clinton is the inevitable Democratic nominee for president in 2016, but now I'd say "almost inevitable" rather than inevitable.  The left, at least the progressive left, is having their temper tantrum with Hillary right now.  After an awful stretch of events recently for Hillary, anyone but Hillary seems to be more plausible than it was 6 months go.

But at some point in 2015, Hillary will be the de facto nominee again for Democrats. Almost inevitably.  While Biden won't step aside for her run, he's not a serious challenger.  Warren however, could somehow manage to duplicate Obama's unlikely successful 2008 run.  But Hillary has stumbled before (in 2008).  And while she's likely to stumble yet again in her march towards the White House, she's probably very happy to be getting her latest stumbles out of the way now instead of later on.

Wednesday Warren Warning - inaugural edition

Well...it's not wrong.

A new weekly installment, the Wednesday Warren Warning, as in Elizabeth, the progressive phenom-du-jour.  Given her potential as the most recent flash in the pan for progressives, this may be a short-lived weekly episode post.

In an article on National Review, Jonah Goldberg points out the hypocrisy of Warren regarding the Export Import bank, which subsidizes big business at the expense of taxpayers.

Heritage Action (the activist arm of the conservative Heritage Foundation) invited Senator Elizabeth Warren to speak at an event dedicated to phasing out the Export-Import Bank. The Ex-Im, as it’s known inside the Beltway, has become a favorite target of populist forces on right.

The Ex-Im gives U.S. taxpayer-backed loan guarantees to the foreign customers of giant U.S. corporations that don’t need the help. It socializes the risk while privatizing the profits. Basically, it’s free money for big businesses like GE, Caterpillar, and particularly Boeing (hence the outfit’s nickname, “the Bank of Boeing”). Even Barack Obama, shortly before he became president, derided Ex-Im as “little more than a fund for corporate welfare.”...

Since Warren is the dashboard saint of left-wing populism these days, denouncing big business and Wall Street at every turn, the puckish policy pixies at Heritage Action thought they could enlist her in their cause...

Her spokeswoman told Bloomberg, “Senator Warren believes that the Export-Import Bank helps create American jobs and spur economic growth, but recognizes that there is room for improvement in the bank’s operations.”

Warren’s decision to turn down the invitation sparked numerous charges of hypocrisy from Ex-Im opponents. As one writer for Reason magazine put it, “That’s right: The woman best known for demonizing big businesses nevertheless wants to maintain an outlandishly generous subsidy package for them.”

 The obvious conclusion: Warren as populist as she wants everyone to believe - she wants to keep funding big businesses.  It's a target almost everyone can agree upon, but she won't take action.  She doesn't want to be in bed with her political foes, even when there is common cause.

So there must not be common cause.  As Goldberg points out, the progressive movement,  or its leadership at least, doesn't want to destroy big business, it wants to subjugate it.  They likely figure a few big businesses are more easily brought to heel than a plethora of small businesses.  So progressives like Warren are happy to feed the few, at the expense of taxpayers, in order to keep them on a short leash (to continue with Goldberg's analogy).

The other obvious conclusion:  Warren is certainly no post-partisan.  She's an all or nothing candidate - no compromise with her will be possible.  That's not because she's a progressive and has no ideas the right can tolerate (though there would be very few), but rather because of her intransigence. It will be her way, or no way.  A Warren presidency would leave those of us on the right pining away for Obama as a king of compromise.  

Warren would make Hillary Clinton seem far more palatable by comparison.  And maybe that's the underlying ruse of it all anyway.