Will the movement that Bernie Sanders helped to inspire survive beyond his campaign? Quite possibly.

Courtesy of MSNBC:

Key allies of Bernie Sanders are planning to meet in Chicago after the final votes have been cast in the Democratic presidential primary to plot the future of the movement galvanized by Sanders’ presidential campaign. 

Sanders’ loss in New York’s primary this week has put the Democratic nomination almost certainly out of reach, leading many to wonder what will become of the millions of people who donated, volunteered, and supported his campaign, including many who seem unready to settle for likely nominee Hillary Clinton. 

The two-day People’s Summit is timed for mid-June in order to fall between the final set of primaries in California and elsewhere on June 7, and the Democratic National Convention in late July. It aims to continue building the “political revolution” Sanders often invokes and to develop a “People’s Platform” of issues important to the movement. 

“There’s a vibrant conversation going on about what happens to the movement after the primaries are over,” said Charles Lenchner, who co-founded the group People for Bernie, which is helping to organize the summit. “This is a collection of groups that share a lot in common and want to work together in the future and who represent a significant portion of the coalition that has come together around Bernie Sanders.”

Personally I think a movement like this is essential to the future of politics in this country and 100% support it moving forward.

I actually see this an offshoot of the Occupy Wall Street movement and think that if it can formulate a strong message, and find the right messengers, that it will have an important and dramatic impact on how politics is done in this country.

And as much as I might support Hillary Clinton right now, I would like to see an organization like this exerting some influence on her future policy decisions.

And do you know who would be the perfect VP to act as a liaison between Hillary and this group?

Elizabeth Warren.

(Sorry, coudn't resist.)

Cartoon of the day.

Yep, there's definitely a new sheriff in town.

And about damn time too!

Elizabeth Warren takes no prisoners during her first Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing.

Courtesy of the Huffington Post:  

At her first Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing, Warren questioned top regulators from the alphabet soup that is the nation's financial regulatory structure: the FDIC, SEC, OCC, CFPB, CFTC, Fed and Treasury. 

The Democratic senator from Massachusetts had a straightforward question for them: When was the last time you took a Wall Street bank to trial? It was a harder question than it seemed. 

"We do not have to bring people to trial," Thomas Curry, head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, assured Warren, declaring that his agency had secured a large number of "consent orders," or settlements. 

"I appreciate that you say you don't have to bring them to trial. My question is, when did you bring them to trial?" she responded. 

"We have not had to do it as a practical matter to achieve our supervisory goals," Curry offered. 

Warner turned to Elisse Walter, chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, who said that the agency weighs how much it can extract from a bank without taking it to court against the cost of going to trial. 

"I appreciate that. That's what everybody does," said Warren, a former Harvard law professor. "Can you identify the last time when you took the Wall Street banks to trial?" 

"I will have to get back to you with specific information," Walter said as the audience tittered. 

"There are district attorneys and United States attorneys out there every day squeezing ordinary citizens on sometimes very thin grounds and taking them to trial in order to make an example, as they put it. I'm really concerned that 'too big to fail' has become 'too big for trial,'" Warren said.

Damn, this woman is fierce!

I have to say that if for some reason Hillary cannot run in 2016, that I am ALL IN for Elizabeth Warrens to run. She would be amazing.

And can you imagine the amount of money that the financial institutes would donate to her opponents to keep her out of the White House? It would make 2012 look like chump change.

Hey maybe we can have an ALL female ticket for 2012?

Clinton/Warren 2016!

What do you think?

Elizabeth Warren appointed to Senate Banking Committee!

"Oh it's on now!"

Courtesy of TPM:  

Consumer advocate and Sen.-elect Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) will serve on the Senate Banking Committee once the 113th Congress convenes in January, Majority Leader Harry Reid announced on Wednesday. 

“I am excited to work with the members of our expanded majority," Reid said in a statement. "Our caucus is more diverse than ever, with a record sixteen female Democratic senators serving in the next Congress. These committee assignments will allow all members of our caucus to bring their unique talents and expertise to bear as we work together to advance the interests of the middle class.”

There was so much happening yesterday that his bit of wonderful news slipped right past me.

Senator Warren is going to do an incredible job, and I have to imagine that their are some sleepless nights ahead for certain fat cats on Wall Street coming up soon.

Damn is it good to see the country moving in this direction or what?

The name that strikes fear in hearts all over Wall Street, Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Courtesy of New York Magazine:

Elizabeth Warren is already giving Wall Street executives serious agita. In their mind, the spunky senator-elect from Massachusetts is heading to Washington for one reason only: to destroy them and everything they stand for. 

"Looking at her rhetoric on the campaign trail, she seems to take an exception to wealth creation and what banks do," said one bank executive. "It’s not really Wall Street she’s against — it’s banks, full stop," added another. 

Banks have disliked Warren since her Harvard days, when she agitated against predatory lending, credit card fees, and other bank practices. And as her national profile grew through her work with TARP oversight and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the watchdog agency she helped create, their arm's-length opposition became a full-on war. Banks lobbied to keep her from being nominated to head the CFPB, then poured big donations into the campaign of Scott Brown, her Senate race opponent. 

After her convincing victory in November, her appointment to the powerful Senate Banking Committee, where she would have actual oversight of the financial sector, is seen by many on Wall Street as a fait accompli. 

"It’s all but certain she’ll be on the banking committee. If she isn’t, we’ll be among the most surprised people on earth," said one bank executive. 

What scares Wall Street most is that, unlike many industry detractors, Warren can stand toe-to-toe with industry lobbyists on the nuances of regulation and the nature of complex financial products. She is also skilled at boiling esoteric points about Wall Street's excesses down to a pure, potent narrative of intentional malpractice. In her speech at the Democratic National Convention, Warren took on banks using the kind of brusque language you don't hear all that often on Capitol Hill. 

"People feel like the system is rigged against them," she said. "And here's the painful part: they're right. The system is rigged. Look around. Oil companies guzzle down billions in subsidies. Billionaires pay lower tax rates than their secretaries. Wall Street CEOs — the same ones who wrecked our economy and destroyed millions of jobs — still strut around Congress, no shame, demanding favors, and acting like we should thank them." 

The speech was booed by Republicans and mocked by Wall Street, but it was a hit everywhere else, even among legislators not traditionally known for their anti-bank rhetoric.

Wall Street threw just about every extra dollar they had at Scott Brown to help him defeat Warren and it simply was not enough.  And they knew full well what they were in for if she won that race too.

Once Warren is named to the Senate Banking Committee, like everybody assumes she will be, she can immediately start working on financial reform, a task she clearly takes very seriously.

But being a junior Senator is there really THAT much she can accomplish?

Well according to Professor Simon Johnson, yes there is:

How much can a new senator accomplish? Within hours of her victory, some commentators from the financial sector suggested that no freshman senator could achieve much. This is wishful thinking on their part. 

A newly elected senator can have a great deal of impact if she is well informed on relevant details, plugged into the policy community and focused on a few key issues. It also helps if such a senator can bring effective outside pressure to bear – and Ms. Warren is a most effective communicator, including on television. She has an unusual ability to cut through technical details and to explain the issues in a way that everyone can relate to.

Oh yeah, this is going to be a very important career to keep an eye on.  Personally I was ALMOST as excited about this victory as I was President Obama's.

Welcome to the biggest banking corruption scandal in history. And then ask yourself, why am I not hearing more about this?

Yeah, I know what you are thinking, "Holy crap!"

Essentially this is what the Occupy Wall Street protestors have been trying to say, except it has never been reported exactly HOW corrupt the banking system has become. Until now.

If you want to know how we got here, then take some time and read this. (Here is a hint: The majority of the blame falls firmly on the shoulders of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Yeah, go figure.)

And if you are wondering if President Obama is trying to do anything about this, the answer is yes he is, in the form of the Dodd-Frank bill. However the facts are that the bill really only addresses the problems "around the edges" and due to significant push-back from lobbyists and their Republican attack dogs, the bill was watered down to the point where it will do little to address the metastasizing corruption within the banks themselves.

By the way Robert Diamond, who quit this week as chief executive officer of Barclays, and was mentioned in the video above, has now had a change of heart and is now telling British lawmakers that they DO need to look at how the banks are regulated (Or essentially NOT regulated) more closely.

Ordered to testify to British lawmakers after Barclays agreed to pay a record 290-million-pound ($455 million) fine for rigging the London interbank offered rate, Diamond said yesterday he was “disappointed” regulators failed to act on repeated warnings from Barclays that competitors had lowballed their submissions. Legislators challenged him on why he took so long to uncover his own firm’s attempts to manipulate the rate.

You might have thought that my headline was hyperbolic, but I think once you really understand the ramifications of this scandal you will feel I was not being evocative enough.

Update: Here is Matt Taibbi's Rolling Stone article, which lays out the scandal quite clearly. Damn!                       

While everybody was complaining that Obama failed to bring the change that he promised, it was happening all around us.

President Obama lays the Smackdown on Republicans arguing against financial reform.

It is clear that Obama has had enough of the lies and obfuscation coming from the GOP.  He looks and sounds determined to fix this country even if he has to do it while standing on a pile of broken, and barely breathing, Republican bodies.

Now THAT is the guy I voted for!

Somebody needs to get the Teabaggers in a room and make them listen to this so that they understand WHO is really working for them, and WHO is simply using them for their own selfish political ends.