Elizabeth Warren: "...That's not the American dream. That's the American nightmare."

[kentuck]

http://www.latimes.com/local/political/la-me-pc-elizabeth-warren-convention-20150516-story.html

<snip>
In her speech, Warren also sketched the historical narrative that has helped fuel her rise in public life, portraying the U.S. as a country whose middle class, after close to a century of prosperity, has been hollowed by conservative policies from the 1980s on.

She said the governorship of former President Ronald Reagan in the Golden State was "the epicenter of the earthquake that shook the middle class to its core."

"Trickle-down economics was nothing more than political cover for helping the rich and powerful get richer and more powerful," she said.

Today, Warren said, "This country isn't working for working people. It's working only for people at the top. That's not the American dream. That's the American nightmare."

....more at link

[Jackpine Radical]

1. She's a national treasure. (nt)

[Enthusiast]

18. She sure is.

[URL=.html][IMG][/IMG][/URL]

[Jackpine Radical]

35. Anybody happen to see what I attracted there before it got vanished?

Inquiring minds and all that.

[Enthusiast]

38. I didn't catch a glimpse.

[Segami]

2. BAM!

I wish she was running!!

[cantbeserious]

3. Speaking Truth To Power - Always Effective - Always Welcomed

eom

[CharlotteVale]

4. K&R

[SoapBox]

5. Bets?

Whether the impotent mass media, will quote her on "trickle down"?

Potential...zero.

[maddiemom]

6. Oh, yes! Past time to deconstruct (as in a recent book) Ronnie.

Anyone who has lived (as did I) through Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and the wrongly maligned Jimmy Carter (hell, even Nixon) can trace the national downward spiral to the Reagan administration. Whether it was he, or his puppet masters. the fact remains that he turned this country around. Just not in a good way.

[Rolando]

8. Add a couple of presidents for me:

FDR and Harry Truman. I blame Truman and Eisenhower for a lot of our troubles.

[StevieM]

9. Why? What problem do you have with FDR and Truman? I think they were good liberal Democrats.

I wish that our presidents today were more like them.

[George II]

11. He said Truman and Eisenhower (not FDR) but I agree, Truman was VERY progressive...

....and even Eisenhower would be considered liberal these days.

[StevieM]

15. He said Truman, Eisenhower and also FDR.

I agree that Eisenhower is liberal when compared to Reagan and Company.

1980 was definitely a turning point in our country's history, and not for the better.

[George II]

25. Missed that ("couple" threw me off!), skipped right over to Truman and Eisenhower, sorry!

[bvar22]

32. Eisenhower was a Liberal compared to most of today's Democrats.

[Brewinblue]

10. Seriously?

FDR, Truman, and Eisenhower are to blame for "a lot of our troubles?"

[JDPriestly]

27. Truman and Eisenhower started our obsession with intelligence because it was so helpful

in winning WWII.

We do need intelligence services, but under Eisenhower they got irresponsible, began to take risks that are incompatible with our values and moved out of bounds. They have harbored an irrational fringe ever since and we have had problems with their activities ever since.

[Enthusiast]

39. They are deeply misinformed. Must watch a lot of Lying Fox News.

[maddiemom]

12. I'm puzzled. Harry and Ike were not at all perfect, but...?

[daleanime]

13. Really?

[jwirr]

33. Why?

[joanbarnes]

7. And we have lived it for 35 years and continue to live it.....

[nationalize the fed]

14. +300 million

In 2009, the Boston Globe named her the Bostonian of the Year,[20] and the Women's Bar Association of Massachusetts honored her with the Lelia J. Robinson Award.[95] She was named one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2009, 2010, and 2015. The National Law Journal repeatedly has named Warren as one of the Fifty Most Influential Women Attorneys in America, and in 2010 it honored her as one of the 40 most influential attorneys of the decade. In 2011, Elizabeth Warren was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame.

In January 2012, Warren was named a "Top-20 U.S. Progressive" by the New Statesman, a magazine based in the United Kingdom. In 2009, Warren became the first professor in Harvard's history to win the law school's The Sacks–Freund Teaching Award for a second time. She delivered the commencement address at the Rutgers School of Law–Newark in May 2011, where she was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree and was conferred membership into the Order of the Coif.

Imagine Washington DC Filled with Elizabeth Warrens.

[JDPriestly]

26. Sigh! I like your Sanders/Warrne signature line.

[WillyT]

16. Huge K & R !!! - Thank You !!!

[appalachiablue]

17. K & R. Tell it Sister Elizabeth! She is a righteous force God knows. Thanks for the post-

35 Years of Reaganomics, Trickle Up, Free Trade and Neoliberal Friedmanomics has Decimated the Middle Class. The American Dream IS the American Nightmare now, she's right!

[Enthusiast]

19. Kicked and recommended to the Max!

[boston bean]

20. Wasn't she voting for conservatives into the nineties?

This is nice to hear and all, and glad she has finally come around. But this has been obvious to Democrats for a long time now... Including, when Reagan was in office and the policies were being put into law.

[stonecutter357]

21. she still chose to vote for and with con's after Reagan?

[JDPriestly]

23. How do you know who she voted for?

[JDPriestly]

24. Who cares? If she did, she learned. If she didn't, she had already learned.

What I am concerned about is not how Elizabeth Warren voted in the 1990s, but what bills Bill Clinton signed in the 1990s.

Elizabeth Warren's votes in the 1990s didn't affect my life. Republicans lost the White House, and her single vote was not decisive in placing a Republican candidate for Congress.

What affects my life is NAFTA, the welfare reform (not my life so much as that of my neighbors0, the Telecommunications Act, and the repeal of Glass-Steagall to name just a few bad bills passed during Clinton's terms in the White House in the 1990s.

So I am not concerned about how Elizabeth Warren voted in the past. Her present convictions are very clear. And I like them.

[R B Garr]

29. Then your position is at odds with Warren herself, who states that Reagan's

trickle down economics were the death-knell for the middle class. From the article:

"She said the governorship of former President Ronald Reagan in the Golden State was "the epicenter of the earthquake that shook the middle class to its core."

"Trickle-down economics was nothing more than political cover for helping the rich and powerful get richer and more powerful," she said."

But anything for a good Clinton bash, I guess.

[JDPriestly]

22. Wonderful! Wonderful! Wonderful!

[Buzz Clik]

28. I am damned glad Warren decided not to run.

I have no idea what the hell she is up to, but I could not vote for someone who uses these tactics.

[LiberalLovinLug]

40. If you "have no idea what the hell she is up to"

I'd suggest you get yourself informed there Buzz

But then it sounds like a speech talking truth to power is a "tactic" you have no use for. So ...

[Buzz Clik]

42. Looks like you need an education in rhetorical comments. You won't be getting it from me.

Let's just say I know exactly what Warren has been up to, and I'm mighty unimpressed with her and those who support her.

...speech talking truth to power...

Yes, yes, I'm well aware that socialist claptrap is all the rage at DU these days; another case of American liberals embracing a failed cause.

[LiberalLovinLug]

43. "rhetorical" is not used as a comment but a question FYI

"I have no idea what the hell she is up to"

"Let's just say I know exactly what Warren has been up to"

There is nothing "rhetorical" in that, just confused and contradictory statements.


http://classroom.synonym.com/origin-phrase-speaking-truth-power-11676.html

"Talking truth to power" origins are either from a Quaker's book in 1955 on arguing for pacifism or some say it was first coined by "African-American civil rights leader Bayard Rustin's personal correspondence, Rustin states in a 1942 letter that the role of a religious group is to "speak the truth to power"

Nothing exclusionary about the phrase as "socialist". And if you really think the act of speaking up against those who hold greater power is "claptrap" then do you even support he idea of a free speech democracy?

[Buzz Clik]

44. As I said, your education is incomplete, and it is not my responsibility to correct it.

[rurallib]

30. here is a video someone posted from yesterday's speech

[hifiguy]

31. She is the Real Deal.

[proverbialwisdom]

36. Signal, wardrobe blunder, or neither? CA parents wear red and black at all protests against #SB277.

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/warren-662044-sanchez-harris.html

Sen. Elizabeth Warren rouses Democrats in Orange County
May 16, 2015 Updated May 17, 2015 8:24 a.m.



Senator Elizabeth Warren gave a speech during the general session of the California Democratic Party's annual convention at the Anaheim Convention Center on Saturday.
BILL ALKOFER , STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

BY MARTIN WISCKOL / STAFF WRITER

Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s scathing attacks on corporate control of Washington, D.C. won repeated ovations from the nearly 3,000 delegates gathered at the Anaheim Convention Center on Saturday for the annual California Democratic Party’s statewide gathering.

“Washington works great if you’re a millionaire or a billionaire or giant corporation,” said the former Harvard Law School professor. “It works great if you can afford to hire an army of lobbyists and lawyers. But it’s not working for California families. It’s not working for American families. We’re here to change that.”

Warren, a 65-year-old first-term senator from Massachusetts, has become perhaps the most charismatic voice of progressive Democrats. Although she has said repeatedly that she is not running for president, there was a scattering of white boater hats in the crowd festooned with stickers saying “Warren for President” and “Run Warren Run.”

In her 22-minute speech keynote speech, Warren pointed to statistics on the shift in the country’s income growth over the last 80 years.

From 1935 to 1980, the lower 90 percent of American earners received 70 percent of all income growth, Warren said. From 1980 to 2012, the top 10 percent received all the nation’s growth in income.

<>

“I know Washington is a tough place,” she said. “But we don’t win what we don’t fight for. We need people who believe that we can build a future. Not a future for some of our children but a future for all of our children. You are the heart and the soul and the living spirit of the Democratic Party. If we fight for our values will win. Are you ready to win?”

<>

[proverbialwisdom]

41. Ditto, Loretta Sanchez, 2 hours ago.

http://mynewsla.com/government/2015/05/17/sanchez-apologizes-for-war-whoops-in-native-american-meeting/


Loretta Sanchez at the Democratic Party Convention in Anaheim. Photo courtesy of the California Democratic Party

POSTED BY ALEXANDER NGUYEN ON MAY 17, 2015
2 hours ago

Yesterday outside the convention hall (SOURCE: Twitter):

[proverbialwisdom]

46. Pictorial uppdate.

http://www.vaccinatecalifornia.org/california_democrats_pass_resolution_supporting_removing_pbes

[Octafish]

37. My hand kept clicking this over and over...

Thanks for the heads-up, kentuck! Great quotes from a REAL DEMOCRAT.

[blackspade]

45. Awesome!

[woo me with science]

47. K&R