DOWNLOADS: (104)

PLAYS: (291)

Embed

Good for Sen. Bernie Sanders for standing up for what's right if President Obama tries to offer Republicans cuts to our social safety nets as part of some "grand bargain": Bernie Sanders says give people what they want: Safe Medicare and Social Security:

Sen. Bernie Sanders is leading the charge in the Senate to block any grand bargain that would cut Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security benefits, and he's got a pretty smart strategy. He explained his efforts in an interview with Greg Sargent. Getting a budget deal is not about offering up the trophy of entitlement cuts to lure in Republicans, Sanders says.

"It's a question of making Republicans an offer they can't refuse," Sanders tells me. "Their position is no more revenues. You and I know that is not the position of the American people. One in four corporations doesn't pay any taxes. What Democrats and progressives should say is, 'Sorry, we're not going to balance the budget on the backs of the vulnerable.'" Sanders described the idea of cutting education, Social Security, Medicare and veterans' benefits as an "obscenity." [...]

"The alternative is not to go into a back room and negotiate with Boehner; it's to make our case to the American people," Sanders said. "I don't believe there's a red state in America where people believe you should cut Medicare, Social Security and veterans' benefits rather than doing away with corporate tax loopholes."

Now that's a pretty smart and pragmatic reading of the American electorate as well as a smart and pragmatic strategy for getting the Republicans to relent on revenue. Wooing them sure as hell isn't going to get the job done. But standing up as Democrats, with the people, could.

And as Greg Sargent noted, he may have some help some of his fellow Democrats in the Senate:

I asked Sanders if he would filibuster any grand bargain that cuts entitlement benefits. “It’s more than just the filibuster,” he said. “That’s a one day tactic. This is about rallying the American people and winning.” He predicted liberals in the Senate (Jeff Merkley, Sherrod Brown, and Elizabeth Warren come to mind) would likely band together to adopt a range of tactics to block such a grand bargain. “Filibustering may be part of it,” he said.

It’s still unclear to me what the endgame would look like if liberals stick with such a strategy. Republicans could simply continue to support indefinite sequestration rather than agree to anything at all, let alone a deal that includes new revenues but no entitlement cuts. Or if the White House does strike a grand bargain, liberal Dems may ultimately cave and support it. Or if a deal is reached in the Senate, it could pass without liberals. However unclear the way foward remains, it’s undeniably good for progressive Senators to be out there defining the liberal position in the debate in as high-profile a way as possible.

And from the Kos diary as well: Send an email to the White House telling President Obama to immediately stop proposing any cuts to Social Security.

DOWNLOADS: (94)

PLAYS: (421)

Embed

MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell declared former Sen. Scott Brown's political career officially deceased during his Rewrite segment that Monday evening now that Brown had decided to give it the kiss of death and take a job as a lobbyist:

Scott Brown officially ended his political career on Monday. Instead of choosing to serve in public office, Scott Brown has decided to take a job at a Boston law firm, Nixon Peabody, according to The Boston Globe’s report. The law firms states that Brown “will focus his practice on business and governmental affairs.” But as MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell states, “That is the lobbying world’s euphemism for lobbying ‘government affairs.’ So today, Scott Brown became a lobbyist. That is death for a politician every hoping to run for office again, and even Scott Brown is smart enough to know that.” [...]

Last month, Scott Brown signed on as a Fox News contributor. When Sarah Palin quit the Alaska governorship and left state affairs to Alaska Lieutenant Governor Parnell, she signed a contract with Fox News. So today, “[Brown] competed a full Palin by quitting politics completely and simply chasing the money that his political celebrity has earned him.”

O’Donnell continued to compare the two politicians’ trajectories. “Scott Brown is smart enough to know that he cannot go off and become a lobbyist and then take that dreaded occupation on to a debate stage as a candidate for anything ever again. This is Scott Brown’s full Palin—take FOX News’s money and then go for the money anywhere else he can. Like Sarah Palin, Scott Brown is all about the money, now.”

Here's more from Think Progress on Brown's new job: After Watering Down Financial Reform, Ex-Senator Scott Brown Joins Goldman Sachs’ Lobbying Firm:

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (181)

PLAYS: (2100)

Embed

As Susie already noted here, Elizabeth Warren's first chance to ask questions as a member of the Senate Banking Committee and to take some of these SEC chairs to task for not prosecuting anyone on Wall Street for their behavior, apparently hurt some of the bankers' feelings. MSNBC's Chuck Todd used the occasion to play the Villagers' favorite false equivalency game and compare wingnut McCarthyite Sen. Ted Cruz to Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Funny, how he sounds an awful lot like that anonymous Wall Street executive who was complaining about her.

And as Susie also pointed out, Warren telling the truth is not the same as Cruz' sorry display. What's really pathetic about Todd and and his cheap shot at Warren here is that even his colleague Chris Matthews went after Cruz and his attacks on Hagel for being the "new McCarthyism" in one of his segments on Hardball this Friday.

What I found humorous about the segment above is that even though Todd and his guests, Ruth Marcus and Michael Steele, did their best to be dismissive of Warren by even mentioning her in the same sentence as Cruz, you could also tell something else: They're scared to death of her.

Marcus admitted that maybe it was alright because Warren "was in her wheelhouse" (which I'd say is the understatement of the year), and they all had to admit that she'd be formidable if she decided to run for president -- -- although I find putting her in the same category as Marco Rubio is insulting as well.

There is no "Marco Rubio of the left," because the left doesn't need to prop up the few members of their party who are minorities to try to cover for their racist policies.

DOWNLOADS: (82)

PLAYS: (3058)

Embed

This unforced error should prove fatal for Scott Brown in his quest for re-election. Already trailing in the polls by as much as 9 points, he just can't afford any more stupid mistakes. Brown has played fast and loose with the facts before in his attacks on Elizabeth Warren, and some have been downright offensive towards her, but here he's going after real victims of tragedy and loss. A blunder he likely won't recover from.

Add in Brown's other blunders by always voting against jobs bills that would have helped teachers, firefighters, and police avoid mass layoffs and there's simply no love lost for the likes of Scott Brown.

Text by the Boston Globe. Video is from the local Fox affiliate in Boston, WFXT.

Senator Scott Brown issued an apology Wednesday night for telling reporters earlier in the day that his opponent, Democrat Elizabeth Warren, had paid actors to appear as victims of asbestos-related illnesses in television advertisements defending her role in a lawsuit that has become a key issue in the campaign.

Three of the people in the ads said in statements provided by the Warren campaign that they were neither paid nor ­actors. They said they had lost loved ones to asbestos-related illness and that Brown’s accusations were offensive.

John F. English said in a statement that he moved in with his father during the final stages of his life, before he died of mesothelioma. “Let Scott Brown tell me to my face that I am nothing but a ‘paid actor,’ and I’ll set him straight on what it was like to watch my father suffocate to death,” English said.

Brown issued his apology ­after the story was reported in the Taunton Gazette Wednesday evening. “It was wrong for me to have jumped to those conclusions and I apologize to those I ­offended,” Brown said in a statement issued Wednesday night.

According to the Gazette, Brown made his comments while visiting the Taunton Fire Department’s central station Wednesday morning, when a firefighter asked Brown why victims’ family members were appearing in her commercials.

“A lot of them are paid,” Brown said. “We hear that maybe they pay actors. Listen, you can get surrogates and go out and say your thing. We have regular people in our commercials. No one is paid. They are regular folks that reach out to us and say she is full of it.”

Warren called it a “new low” in a post on Twitter Wednesday night. Her campaign also ­issued a statement on her behalf. “For Scott Brown to attack family members of people who died from asbestos poisoning is shameful,” she said.

This is how it's done.

Elizabeth Warren was having none of Scott Brown's "independent" crapola tonight in their debate in Springfield. He's an enabler for Republicans, plain and simple.

Transcript:

I have no doubt Sen Brown is a good husband and a good father to his daughters, but this is an issue that affects ALL of our daughters and our granddaughters. And what matters here is how Sen. Brown votes.

So he's gone to Washington and he's had some good votes. But he's had exactly one chance to vote for equal pay for equal work, and he voted no. He had exactly one chance to vote for insurance coverage for birth control and other preventive services for women. He voted no. And he had exactly one chance to vote for a pro-choice woman -- from Massachusetts -- to the United States Supreme Court, and he voted no.

Those are BAD votes for women.

The women of Massachusetts need a Senator they can count on not SOME of the time, but ALL of the time. I want to go to Washington to BE THERE for ALL of our daughters and ALL of our granddaughters.

This one really matters. There is a LOT at stake here...

... And I want to be blunt. We should not be fighting about equal pay for equal work and access to birth control in 2012. These issues were resolved years ago until the Republicans brought them back.

DOWNLOADS: (120)

PLAYS: (920)

Embed

From Monday night's Massachusetts senate debate between Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren, here's another example of why David Gregory should not be moderating any more debates, ever. He used the debate to push his own agenda and his fetish with the now defunct Simpson-Bowles "plan" that isn't really a plan, since it never made it out of the committee.

Paul Krugman explained again last week why the likes of Gregory and his fellow Villagers pushing for austerity is so destructive if our politicians take their advice:

I ask that question because we already know what Mr. Obama will face if re-elected: a clamor from Beltway insiders demanding that he immediately return to his failed political strategy of 2011, in which he made a Grand Bargain over the budget deficit his overriding priority. Now is the time, he’ll be told, to fix America’s entitlement problem once and for all. There will be calls — as there were at the time of the Democratic National Convention — for him to officially endorse Simpson-Bowles, the budget proposal issued by the co-chairmen of his deficit commission (although never accepted by the commission as a whole).

And Mr. Obama should just say no, for three reasons.

First, despite years of dire warnings from people like, well, Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, we are not facing any kind of fiscal crisis. Indeed, U.S. borrowing costs are at historic lows, with investors actually willing to pay the government for the privilege of owning inflation-protected bonds. So reducing the budget deficit just isn’t the top priority for America at the moment; creating jobs is. For now, the administration’s political capital should be devoted to passing something like last year’s American Jobs Act and providing effective mortgage debt relief. [...]

Finally, despite the bizarre reverence it inspires in Beltway insiders — the same people, by the way, who assured us that Paul Ryan was a brave truth-teller — the fact is that Simpson-Bowles is a really bad plan, one that would undermine some key pieces of our safety net. And if a re-elected president were to endorse it, he would be betraying the trust of the voters who returned him to office.

And here's more from a couple of others who share my disgust with Gregory's pathetic performance as moderator. First from Charles Pierce -- Warren/Brown II — Out of the Ring and into the Classroom of National Ideas, Advantage: Professor:

There was a general consensus on several issues as we all filed out of Tsongas Arena on Monday night. The first was that incumbent U.S. Senator Scott Brown had done a little better than he'd done in his first debate with challenger Elizabeth Warren in that he dialed the essential dickitude of his essential personality back to about a six. The second was that Warren was not quite as good as she had been the first time around, although she finished very strongly. The third, and by far the most solidly held, consensus was that moderator David Gregory should be flogged through the streets for wasting everyone's time.

The Dancin' Master promised that the evening would be held "Meet The Press-style" and, alas, he delivered. (I kept waiting for John McCain to wander onto the stage out of pure reflex.) Gregory made such a terrible dog's breakfast of the his job that his performance can best be summed up by a question he asked late in the proceedings. "We've only got a few minutes left, so I'd like to touch on some other issues. The war in Afghanistan..." [...]

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (291)

PLAYS: (3204)

Embed

I guess Scott Brown was going for some of that 'he-man woman haters club" Todd Akin vote with this remark to his challenger Elizabeth Warren during their second debate this Monday evening -- Brown To Warren: ‘I’m Not A Student In Your Classroom’:

Republican Sen. Scott Brown and Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren met Monday night for their second debate of the top-tier Massachusetts race — in a knock-down, drag-out fight filled with attacks and vitriol.

The bitter exchanges between the two reached a crescendo, as the audience of several thousand at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell booed and applauded.

During an exchange on unemployment benefits and President Obama’s jobs proposals, Warren attempted to interrupt Brown on a key point. Brown retaliated: “Excuse me, I’m not a student in your classroom. Please let me respond.”

Go read the rest of the TPM post for more of their recap of the debate. I'll just add one quick note on my own feelings after watching this debate and that is, David Gregory just took the cake for one of the worst moderators ever. Why in the hell Warren agreed to allow that hack to control the debate with almost no rules is beyond me. It was a really bad version of Meet the Press, with Gregory deciding to score points and gotcha' moments of his own. And he wasted a whole lot of time right in the beginning on the drummed up controversy by Brown over Warren's claimed Native American heritage.

Note to the presidential debate moderators. Please do not use David Gregory as an example for the upcoming debates over the next few weeks other than a lesson in exactly how you're not supposed to moderate a debate. Here's to hoping he's not chosen to moderate another one any time soon.

DOWNLOADS: (141)

PLAYS: (2350)

Embed

This video, posted by Blue Mass Group this morning, shows the ugliness and depths a campaign can sink to when they're seeing an inevitable loss. Faced with the grim prospect of imminent unemployment, the Brown staffers take matters into their own hands.

via WCVB, Boston:

BOSTON —Staffers for Sen. Scott Brown chanted Indian "war whoops" and made "tomahawk chops" during a rally for the Republican senator this week in Boston.

In a video posted on YouTube, Brown's staffers are seen holding campaign signs near the Erie Pub, chanting and making tomahawk chops, presumably in reference to Elizabeth Warren's claims of Cherokee heritage.

Brown's deputy Chief of Staff Greg Casey and Constituent Service Counsel Jack Richard, and GOP operative Brad Garrett are pictured in the video, NewsCenter 5's Janet Wu confirmed.

Earlier this week, Brown's campaign launched a new television ad featuring clips of news reports on Warren's Native American claims.

Scott Brown has since said he doesn't "condone" such behavior, yet the damage may already have been done to his campaign as such amateur hour tactics have foreseeable consequences at the ballot box.

DOWNLOADS: (147)

PLAYS: (1488)

Embed

YouTube Link

The smell of desperation is strong with this one.

via The Washington Post:

Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) released a TV ad Monday that draws attention to Democrat Elizabeth Warren’s claim to Native American heritage, shining a renewed spotlight on an issue that dominated local coverage of the campaign in the spring.

The ad, titled “Who Knows,” consists entirely of clips of television reports on the subject of Warren facing questions about her claim to Native American heritage. “Elizabeth Warren is trying to put questions about her heritage behind her,” says the newscaster in one of the clips.

This unofficial campaign sign seen in some republican neighborhoods around Boston now looks like it is campaign endorsed.

This seems an appropriate response to all this:

BREAKING: Scott Brown to give Elizabeth Warren blankets covered with small pox.

— LOLGOP (@LOLGOP) September 24, 2012

DOWNLOADS: (150)

PLAYS: (1222)

Embed

Good for Harry Reid for making sure Scott Brown didn't weasel out of his debate with his opponent Elizabeth Warren this Thursday evening -- Harry Reid Calls Off Votes To Prevent Scott Brown From Ditching Debate With Elizabeth Warren:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid interrupted proceedings on the Senate floor to announce there would be no more votes Thursday afternoon, delaying action on pressing issues like funding the government.

Why? Because he thinks Republicans were fixing the schedule to allow Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) to use evening votes as an excuse to get out of a debate with Elizabeth Warren.

“Madam president, I’m so sorry. We have no more votes today,” Reid said. “No more votes today. It’s obvious to me what’s going on. I’ve been to a few of these rodeos. It is obvious there is a big stall taking place. One of the senators who doesn’t want to debate tonight won’t be in a debate. While he can’t use the Senate as an excuse, there will be no more votes today.”

As Rachel Maddow noted, Brown did show up for the debate this evening and proceeded to try to run as far away from being a member of the Republican Party and any association with Mitt Romney as humanly possible. And who can blame him with the latest numbers from who is likely to retain control of the Senate. Here's more from Nate Silver's post which Rachel mentioned in the segment above -- Senate Forecast: What Has Gone Wrong for G.O.P. Candidates?.