>G'Mornin' Anons… Another Day at the Office.
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>Elizabeth Warren might be the one behind the autopen…..
Fox News
April 22 ·
'STUMPED' SPEECH: U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren freezes, appears to hold back from laughing when pushed about former President Joe Biden's mental acuity on the 'Talk Easy Podcast.' The Democrat senator claimed last year that Biden was "sharp" before his infamous presidential debate against Donald J. Trump.
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> https://www.facebook.com/FoxNews/videos/warren-struggles-on-questions-about-her-defense-of-bidens-mental-sharpness/1210146860505342/
PB
>>23090207 David Sacks just said Elizabeth Warren was in control of the Autopen
https://archive.ph/LMKNC
Elizabeth Warren
@ewarren
Joe Biden’s presidency has been transformational. He accomplished more in the past four years — to bring back jobs, stand up to big corporations, and build an economy that works for all of us — than we have been able to get done in the last forty. He deserves full credit for beating Donald Trump in 2020, and his selfless decision today gives us our best shot at doing it again in 2024. While Donald Trump tried to tear down our democracy to maintain his grip on power, Joe Biden willingly stepped aside in order to protect our democracy. President Biden’s selfless action is a profound gift to the people of the United States — and it’s on all of us not to waste it.
I endorse Kamala Harris for President. She is a proven fighter who has been a national leader in safeguarding consumers and protecting access to abortion. As a former prosecutor, she can press a forceful case against allowing Donald Trump to regain the White House. We have many talented people in our party, but Vice President Harris is the person who was chosen by the voters to succeed Joe Biden if needed. She can unite our party, take on Donald Trump, and win in November.
7:21 PM · Jul 21, 2024
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>https://archive.ph/LMKNC
https://archive.ph/vp6DD#selection-817.0-817.23
‘Most influential voice’: Warren’s network spreads throughout Biden administration
The growing roster of Warren protégés in the government illustrates the leftward shift underway in the Democratic Party’s approach to policymaking.
There is a growing list of people in President Joe Biden's administration who are backed by Elizabeth Warren and other progressives. | Alex Wong/Getty Images
By ZACHARY WARMBRODT
0__3/15/2021 04:__30 AM EDT
Wall Street was relieved when Sen. Elizabeth Warren was passed over for the leadership of the Treasury Department. But now the financial industry faces another threat: President Joe Biden is enlisting a small army of her former aides and allies to run his government.
Warren's expanding network in the upper echelons of the administration includes protégés who helped execute her aggressive oversight of big banks and other corporations as well as friends who share her views of the risks looming on Wall Street. But it goes beyond finance, covering pivotal posts at the Department of Education and even the National Security Council.
The Warren recruits mark a victory for the progressive movement, which has supported her yearslong "personnel is policy" campaign to chip away at the dominance of corporate insiders in setting policy for Democrats. Those who took on the fight with Warren say they're pleasantly surprised it has produced so many results under Biden, reflecting a new emphasis on inequality and challenging corporate power. Industry lobbyists, in turn, warn that banks, private equity firms and consumer lenders should pay close attention.
The appointments "confirm that Sen. Warren will be the most influential voice in the financial policy debate under the new administration," said Karolina Arias, a former Democratic Senate aide who is now a partner at Federal Hall Policy Advisors.
The growing list of Biden personnel backed by Warren and other progressives illustrates the leftward shift underway in the Democratic Party's approach to policymaking, which was also seen in the $1.9 trillion aid package that Biden signed into law Thursday.
"No one should be surprised Sen. Warren has virtually hand-picked the financial and other regulatory nominations she cares deeply about," said Consumer Bankers Association President Richard Hunt, who represents banks that have faced withering criticism from Warren and her allies.
The Warren alumni at senior levels of the executive branch include banking and economic policy staffers who spent years leading her office's oversight of Wall Street. Bharat Ramamurti is now deputy director of the White House National Economic Council and Julie Siegel is Treasury deputy chief of staff.
Other former Warren aides in the administration include Julie Morgan, a senior adviser at the Education Department; Anne Reid, deputy chief of staff at the Department of Health and Human Services; and Sasha Baker, senior director of strategic planning at the National Security Council.
"Getting the right people in those slots is really important," Warren said in a December interview. "And it's not only the top slots, it's also the deputies and assistants. The people who do the hard work day in and day out to develop policies and then to execute them."
Other close allies have also been nominated for key posts.
Adewale "Wally" Adeyemo, who helped Warren launch the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is Biden's pick to be deputy Treasury secretary. FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra, another former CFPB official, is awaiting confirmation to lead the consumer bureau. Leandra English, also a CFPB alum, is chief of staff of the NEC.
Wally
Adewale "Wally" Adeyemo, a Nigerian-born attorney and former senior international economic adviser during the Obama administration, is President Joe Biden's pick to be deputy Treasury secretary. | Alex Wong/Getty Images
Gary Gensler, known for cracking down on big banks as a post-financial crisis regulator, is the nominee for Securities and Exchange Commission chair, a position that in the past Warren and her staff have invested significant effort trying to influence. Even Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen worked closely with Warren when Yellen was Federal Reserve chair, a position the economist attained thanks in part to political pressure that Warren and other progressives applied on then-President Barack Obama.
A person familiar with Warren and Yellen’s relationship said it’s one “based on deep mutual respect and shared values” and that they have spoken often since Yellen’s confirmation.
>03/15/2021 04:30 AM EDT
The growing list has prompted comparisons to other powerful — and longer-serving — Senate leaders who were able to place large numbers of former aides across government, including six-term Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), whose "Shelby mafia" held several key financial regulatory roles in the Trump administration.
The records and views of many of the picks reflect a marked shift from the more centrist- and business-aligned economic policy leadership of the Clinton and Obama administrations. For Warren and other progressives, that could give them a clear advantage in campaigns on student loan cancellation, child-care financing and climate change, as well as potential tax hikes on the wealthy and giant corporations.
There is regular contact at "all levels" between Biden's world and Warren's, two people familiar with the interaction said. Warren and White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain talk regularly, they said.
Those familiar with Warren's thinking said she is also focusing on unfilled administration positions dealing with antitrust and higher education as well those at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs and Treasury.
Not long after Warren joined the Senate in 2013, she led a strategic push to try to rebalance the party's policymaking apparatus. She openly criticized Democrats for recruiting so many Wall Street veterans to administration posts in what she dubbed the "Citigroup clique." She derailed Obama's nomination of investment banker Antonio Weiss to the Treasury Department. And she hounded then-SEC Chair Mary Jo White for not doing enough to protect investors. Warren was poised to play a similar role if Hillary Clinton had won the presidency in 2016.
"[T]here is danger anytime the key economic positions in our government fall under the control of a single tight-knit group," Warren wrote in POLITICO in 2014. "Old ideas can stay around long after they’re useful, and new ideas don’t get a fair hearing."
Biden's 2020 presidential primary victory over Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) gave some on Wall Street reason to cheer, as did his decision to pass over Warren for the Treasury Department. Finance executives are betting that Biden will reject some of the more dramatic proposals to rein in the industry as he focuses on stabilizing the economy in the wake of the pandemic.
But progressive policy advocates say financial firms shouldn't get comfortable, even with a moderate in the presidency.
Jeff Hauser, executive director of the watchdog group the Revolving Door Project, said, "Warren has become the center of gravity for people who think the economy has gotten out of whack and that better governance could set things right." Top Biden aides responsible for staffing his administration are more traditional Democrats, Hauser said, but "it makes sense that when trying to staff an executive branch that can produce real results for people and a legacy for their boss, they looked to people associated with Warren."
While Biden isn't calling for a major crackdown on Wall Street, regulators who have close connections to Warren and other progressives will be able to rewrite rules for finance and pursue tougher enforcement actions. The dynamic could manifest the next time another financial firm stumbles after taking big risks or hurting customers.
"There isn't going to be any time wasted trying to get up to speed when faced with the next incident," said Compass Point director of policy research Isaac Boltansky, who served on the bank bailout oversight panel that Warren chaired after the 2008 financial crisis. "We're talking about people who have been steeped in policy nuance for years, have a fervent belief in the role of government and policing bad actors, and who know what policy levers to pull in order to accomplish that goal."
Filed Under: Richard Shelby,Wall Street,Elizabeth Warren,
>he Democrat senator claimed last year that Biden was "sharp" before his infamous presidential debate against Donald J. Trump.
kek
> https://www.akingump.com/a/web/wkdSnZXdawTidmrGBQs16M/biden-administration-cabinet-and-staff.pdf
Senior Director for Strategic Planning
Sasha Baker
National Security Council
As a former senior national security and presidential campaign advisor to Sen. Elizabeth Warren
(D-MA), Sasha Baker will join the Biden-Harris’ National Security Council as its senior director for
strategic planning. During the Obama-Biden administration, she worked under Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and
as a budget analyst in the Office of Management and Budget homeland and national security divisions. Baker began
her government career as a research assistant for the House Armed Services Committee. She is a graduate of
Dartmouth College and received her master’s in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
Chief of Staff for the Office of Domestic Climate Policy
Maggie Thomas
Office of Domestic Climate Policy
Maggie Thomas, a former climate advisor to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Gov. Jay Inslee
(D-WA), will join the Biden-Harris administration as the chief of staff for the Office of Domestic
Climate Policy under Gina McCarthy. She was the political director at Evergreen Action, a nonprofit
working to advance a full government mobilization to defeat the climate crisis, before joining the Biden-Harris
transition team as a policy volunteer. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Trinity College and her master’s of
environmental management from the Yale School of Environment
Opinion
Joe Biden is in the Oval Office. So are Elizabeth Warren’s ideas.
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By Perry Bacon Jr.
Columnist |
December 29, 2022 at 12:24 p.m. EST
Presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden on Nov. 20, 2019 in Atlanta. (Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post)
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From a $1.9 trillion economic stimulus to an attempted mass forgiveness of student loans, the Democrats’ agenda over the past two years has been much more progressive compared with 2009-2010, the last time the party controlled both Congress and the White House. A lot of factors and people drove that leftward shift, the most important being Joe Biden, who won the presidency and made these policies happen. But other than Biden, the politician most responsible for this new and improved Democratic governance is Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.).
Warren created a wide-ranging progressive agenda, built support for it across the party and the country, and helped fill the government and outside groups with allies who are helping her push it forward. That is an impressive trifecta, particularly considering that Warren not only isn’t the president but also isn’t the Democratic leader of either house of Congress or even the chair of a major committee.
Many Biden administration policies are versions of ideas Warren pushed either in her Senate office or her 2020 presidential campaign: a minimum 15 percent tax that higher-earning corporations must pay based on the profits they report to shareholders; the loan cancellation; a crackdown on mergers of big companies in the same industry; an “industrial policy” aimed at producing microchips and other modern economic necessities in the United States rather than abroad; abortions being conducted in veterans hospitals in states where they are otherwise limited; the sale of hearing aids over the counter without a prescription; the appointments of more public interest lawyers and fewer corporate attorneys to federal judgeships.
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This is not the Warren presidency, but it’s certainly a Warren-infused presidency.
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“I am so grateful to President Biden for being willing to listen to ideas. He didn’t adopt every one of them that I advocated for, but he’s been open,” Warren told me in an interview this month over Zoom.
Warren wasn’t alone on these issues. Left-wing organizations, activists and other members of Congress were pushing in the same direction. The role of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) has been particularly important. The Democrats’ newfound progressivism probably doesn’t happen without the Vermont senator’s 2016 presidential campaign, which reignited the party’s left wing.
But Warren’s ideas — whether her own, or ones she has amplified from the broader Democratic left — have been more frequently translated into policy than Sanders’s.
>Joe Biden is in the Oval Office. So are Elizabeth Warren’s ideas.
The Massachusetts senator, an expert in bankruptcy law before entering politics, is most influential and prescient on economic policy. For example, she was warning more than a year ago that the cryptocurrency industry was a potential financial bubble. But on noneconomic issues, too, she has been an early adopter of stances that later became more mainstream in the Democratic Party, such as impeaching then-President Donald Trump, getting rid of the filibuster and creating a federal right to an abortion.
“My team is less about folks who have a lot of political experience and more about people who really know a subject area. So I’ve had microbiologists, sociologists, people with advanced degrees in education, tax specialists. … People who came to it, maybe not knowing a lot about Capitol Hill, but knowing a lot about the problem in the area they’ve studied,” Warren said.
But it’s not just that Warren has lots of ideas. What goes less noticed is how shrewd she is at the politics of advancing her agenda. From the moment she entered the Senate in 2013, she has been fixated on presidential appointments, popularizing the mantra that “personnel is policy.” When Barack Obama was in office, Warren successfully organized opposition to potential appointees who she felt were insufficiently progressive, most notably former treasury secretary (and current Post contributing columnist) Lawrence H. Summers’s bid to become chair of the Federal Reserve. Looking to avoid such fights, Biden has generally avoided nominating people for key posts whom Warren and other progressives would object to.
Her work on student loan cancellation is another illustration of her political savvy. (Even if the Supreme Court invalidates the broad forgiveness program, the Biden administration has already forgiven billions of dollars through smaller loan cancellations that were done because of prodding from Warren and the party’s left wing.) She has consistently emphasized that Black Americans who have attended college on average have higher debt burdens and lower incomes compared with college-going White Americans. Casting debt cancellation as a racial inequality issue was smart, because the Democratic Party is dominated by a center-left wing skeptical of progressives like Warren but eager to show its support for Black causes. Once Biden was elected, Warren joined forces with powerful Black figures in the party, most notably Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (Ga.), to push the issue.
Warren also emphasized that loan forgiveness was popular with the public, particularly with younger voters whom Democrats needed in the midterms. That was typical Warren. While she is often cast by the party’s centrists as proposing overly liberal ideas that will annoy moderate voters, Warren in fact tends to fixate on issues where she is aligned with popular opinion. For example, drastically increasing taxes on the wealthy, as Warren has repeatedly called for, is very popular with voters but not with major party donors.
Tact is also part of her broader strategy. In pushing for loan cancellation, Warren was relentless, constantly doing interviews and tweets calling for Biden to take action. But she never criticized the president directly. She has sharply attacked some of Biden’s appointees, most notably more centrist figures such as Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. But she keeps strong ties with Biden in part by rarely publicly rebuking the president.
“Even where there are areas of disagreement, she has been generously supportive of what the president is trying to get done — which has been critical to the president’s success,” White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain told me in an email message. He added, “She is a true thought leader in our party, and combines that with a relentless determination to turn those policy thoughts into action.”
The third key to Warren’s success is her network building. She hires ambitious staffers, gives them a platform to be creative and encourages them to depart for bigger roles. She endorses progressive candidates in local, state and federal races, looking to build allies at all levels of government. And Warren is regularly doing interviews with left-wing journalists, giving speeches at progressive think tanks and personally calling activists on the issues that she is working on.
So when the senator is trying to get one of her ideas adopted, she can call people in government but also create public pressure that forces them to act. “The inside and the outside, you’ve got to do them both,” she says.
You might be thinking that Warren can’t be that great at politics — after all, she ran for president in 2020 and finished well behind Biden and Sanders. There were certainly some bad moments in her presidential campaign, particularly Warren’s struggles to define a clear position on Medicare-for-all.
Even so, her campaign was a great success in highlighting national problems, such as corporations not paying taxes, and thereby effectively forcing the next Democratic president to address them. Yes, she was trying to win the primary. But she also wanted to come up with ideas that resonated with Democratic voters and changed the party’s policy trajectory even if she wasn’t the nominee. And that’s exactly what she did.
With Republicans soon to be in control of the House, Democrats in Washington won’t be able to pass big legislation as they did in 2021-2022. But even with that limitation, Warren has tons of ideas that could be implemented through the executive branch, the Democratic-controlled Senate or at the local and state level — and she has the relationships and savvy to get them adopted.
Warren didn’t become the president. But she has shaped a presidency.
https://web.archive.org/web/20230101005218/https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/29/elizabeth-warren-ideas-biden-presidency/
Perry Bacon Jr.
Editorial Fellow
Photo of Perry Bacon Jr.
As a New America Editorial Fellow, Perry Bacon, Jr. explores the implementation of the Affordable Care Act in the American South. He is currently a political editor for NBC’s theGrio.com and an on-air political analyst for MSNBC. Previously, Bacon was a White House and congressional correspondent for The Washington Post. He has also been a national political correspondent at TIME Magazine. He is a graduate of Yale University.
Programs:
better-life-lab fellows political-reform
Expertise:
affordable-care-act affordable-care-act-2 elections health-care health-care-2 social-policy social-policy-2 us-government-politics us-government-politics-2 us-public-opinion us-public-opinion-2