WaPo: Sanders and Warren captured the enthusiasm within the Democratic Party, not the power

[portlander23]

WaPo: Elizabeth Warren is on the hunt again

Facing the pews, with a large brass cross behind her, Warren blasted the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Federal Housing Finance Agency, both run by Obama appointees, for selling troubled mortgages to hedge fund investors at a discount.

“These Wall Street investors made money by crashing the economy, got bailed out and now they’re back to feed at the trough again,” she said, “scooping up these loans at rock-bottom prices so that they profit off them a second time — and it is up to us to stop that!”

The activists cheered.

“We need to get something straight: These federal agencies don’t work for Wall Street. They work for the American people,” Warren said. “HUD and FHFA could make these changes right now if they just had the courage to stand up for families instead of bowing to Wall Street.”

Hohmann wrote that the Litan episode “underscores just how terrified D.C. elites from both parties are right now about the rise of pitchfork populism.”

Maybe, but I wish they were more terrified. Yes, Republicans are frightened of the populist anger harnessed by Donald Trump — but he’s a billionaire real estate mogul. And Democrats are surprised by the populist insurgency of presidential candidate Bernie Sanders — but few seriously believe he can defeat Hillary Clinton for the nomination.

Sanders and Warren may have captured the energy and the enthusiasm within the Democratic Party, but they still haven’t captured the power. That’s because money wins elections, and Clinton, like President Obama, follows the money. Figures such as Warren have to waste their time fighting members of their own party who probably agree with her views but aren’t about to antagonize their corporate sponsors.

It’s a sign of some clout that Warren has Litan’s hide, and Weiss’s, and Summers’s. But if her party answered to the people rather than its donors, she’d have many more.

I say we help them get more than just the enthusiasm.

[randys1]

1. What wall street is doing to this country is not just a crime, but it is a violent crime.

I know a family which made around one hundred million dollars buying houses after the S&L crisis back in the 80's, the one that should have destroyed McCain.

They made all this money off of people losing their homes and what they did with it was to build a rightwing empire working to destroy the middle class.

Like mini Koch bros.

I consider them terrorists.

[StrongBad]

4. Engaging in legal financial transactions = terrorism?

Quite a definition of terrorism you've got there.

[KansDem]

5. My wife and I survived an attempt to steal our house by our mortgage company

I don't recall what happened--we had medical emergencies at one point and I missed a lot of work--but we got behind on our monthly payments to the point we were making payments on the last day of the grace period by Western Union Quick Collect. We were hoping to catch up and thought we could in a couple of months, but as I said, we were paying on the last day of the grace period per our mortgage contract.

Then one day we received a notice that foreclosure proceedings were commencing. I got on the phone with a mortgage representative at told him I had made the payment within the grace period and had the receipt from Western Union to prove it. He said essentially "tough shit" and said the payment didn't arrive in the office until some two weeks after the grace period. I had the Western Union receipt that proved it arrived in his office on the last day of the grace period but he kept insisting he got it two weeks later.

Fortunately, a family member stepped up and loaned us the money to get clear. I wondered about the millions of other Americans who didn't have such a family member to help them.

Yes, "terrorist" is an apt term for these thieves and liars.

[Phlem]

8. WTF?

"Engaging in legal financial transactions" yeah right.

I'm assuming you're at the wrong website.

[randys1]

10. Bet your ass, when people use the system to harm others, I call that terrorism

[daleanime]

2. Money>voters.....

Definitely a writer that I don't need to take seriously.

[daleanime]

3. Dana Milbank....

I was right.

[restorefreedom]

6. power belongs to the people

the people who vote

and bernie is not an insurgent dammit!,!

wapo going right down the tubes

[Uncle Joe]

7. Yep, Milbank and his ilk have given up on any thought of American Democracy and are now

working to convince the American People to do the same.

[ancianita]

9. We ain't got time for that. We've got a last shot. I'm betting on the majority of voters to take it.

[Armstead]

11. Whenever I see him on TV he strikes me as the smartassed cynic in the back of the classroom

It's all just an amusing joke, and he does not have any passion or independent thought process. Just a machine into which you insert conventional wisdom, and transform it into mildly snarky little asides.

[Uncle Joe]

12. It does seem that he can't or won't connect the dots in his half way analysis.

Peace to you, Armstead.

[sabrina 1]

13. Wapo should stay tuned. First you need leaders to capture the enthusiasm. When they emerge

as they have now, that's when you learn just how angry the people are about that money.

Bernie is showing that you don't need corporate money if you actually speak for the PEOPLE.

Month by month his numbers are rising and so are the donations from ordinary people. As he gains more support, which he does every day, the donations from the PEOPLE will increase.

They've already tripled since the last quarter and for a virtual unknown at the time, they were impressive them.

The people are standing up and deciding they want their power BACK.

Up to now, there was no one who spoke as openly about the fact that money has been buying power as Bernie does.

And now the people are showing that they too can get the power money buys by donating to the only candidate who has rejected the Dark Money from a few power brokers and accepted it from the people he WANTS to be beholden to.