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Elizabeth Warren: Hostage Taker
They’re showing reruns on Capitol Hill. The Democrat-led Senate is scrambling to approve yet another spending bill. Congress, at the very least, needs to send a continuing resolution to the White House for a signature or the federal government will shut down.
As the Beltway media has long told us, a government shutdown is the worst calamity that can befall humanity. The last one occurred way back in 2013, and America devolved into a Mad Max-style hellscape with neo-primitive warlords roaming the countryside, imposing their cruel will through violence and the threat of further anarchy. Or maybe a few national parks were temporarily closed; my memory’s a bit fuzzy.
Despite the grave stakes to civil order, crazed ideologues are again threatening to vote against a new spending bill for partisan reasons. But this time it isn’t Sen. Ted Cruz or “wacko birds” flying among House Republicans. Instead it’s the Democrats.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) is rallying progressive lawmakers to sink the bill due to a few mild compromises with the GOP. Liberals’ sudden turnabout on the issue of government shutdowns is quite extraordinary, especially considering the heated rhetoric Warren, et al., used just last year.
Sen. Warren blasted a threatened GOP shutdown in a floor speech on Sept. 30, 2013:
In effect, the Republicans are trying to take the government and the economy hostage, threatening serious damage to both unless the President agrees to gut the Affordable Care Act…
Now, we are just hours from the government running out of money. We haven’t fixed the sequester because of all the obstruction. We haven’t finished a budget because of all the obstruction. We haven’t even passed a single appropriations bill because of all that obstruction.
The least we can do — the bare minimum that we can do — would be to pass a continuing resolution to keep the doors open and the lights on. We could ensure that over a million federal workers aren’t simply sent home for no reason. We could avoid a government shutdown.
But the Republicans have refused to do even that. They have continued to threaten to shutter the government unless the President agrees to gut the Affordable Care Act. The Senate rejected that position — twice — yet the Republican response has been to continue to threaten to shut the government down.
These threats may continue, but they are not working. And they will never work. Because this is democracy. And in a democracy, hostage tactics are the last resort for those who can’t otherwise win their fights through elections, can’t win their fights in Congress, can’t win their fights for the Presidency, and can’t win their fights in the courts. For this right-wing minority, hostage-taking is all they have left — a last grasp of those who cannot cope with the realities of our democracy.
On Oct. 3, 2013, she again took to the Senate floor angrier than before:
The government shutdown is throwing a major wrench into a fragile economic recovery. Nearly a million federal employees are sitting at home for no reason, and other public servants are working but not earning a paycheck. Cancer patients are being turned away from clinical trials at the NIH. Veterans’ benefits are at risk. Basic nutrition services for pregnant women and new moms will be disrupted. Small businesses won’t be able to get federal loan guarantees…
The anarchy gang in the House can dump on their make-believe version of government all they want, but when the real government fails to live up to the high expectations we have all set for it, politicians in both parties rush to outrage. Why? Because the American people know that government can work and believe government should work…
The attacks on government are abstract, but the consequences of this shutdown are real: less accountability for cheaters and rule-breakers, less opportunity for our children, cracks in the foundations that businesses need to succeed, and a tilted playing field that limits opportunities for all of our people…
Right now, right at this moment, if we look closely, we will see that we are reaffirming it once again. It is not an accident that the desire to shut down government is confined to one extremist faction of one political party of one chamber of Congress of one branch of government. It is not an accident that this extremist faction must resort to absurd hostage tactics–threats to turn off the government, threats to default on our debt, threats to tank the economy–to force their views on everyone else. It is not an accident that this faction is doing everything in its power to make government appear dysfunctional.
Once the shutdown was resolved, Sen. Warren still fumed at the GOP’s dangerous tactics in an email to supporters:
Yes, we prevented an economic catastrophe that would have put a huge hole in our fragile economic recovery. But the reason we were in this mess in the first place is that a reckless faction in Congress took the government and the economy hostage for no good purpose and to no productive end.
According to the S&P index, the government shutdown had delivered a powerful blow to the U.S. economy. By their estimates, $24 billion has been flushed down the drain for a completely unnecessary political stunt.
$24 billion dollars. How many children could have been back in Head Start classes? How many seniors could have had a hot lunch through Meals on Wheels? How many scientists could have gotten their research funded? How many bridges could have been repaired and trains upgraded?
…It’s time for the hostage taking to end. It’s time for every one of us to say, “No more.”
No more, Sen. Warren. No more.
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She can just make it all better with a rain dance and some wampum.
SHUT ‘ER DOWN!!!
Funny that Warren is not on record opposing Harry Reid’s unilateral shutdown of the budget process, even going so far as to direct Budget Chairman Kent Conrad to stop trying to hold hearings and begin the process. Warren is a partisan hack, a pseudo-populist elitist. American politics will never heal so long as poseurs like Warren aren’t mocked loudly daily until they’re gone.
Can we please have a moratorium on photos of ghastly people on Ricochet? I see enough of these turkeys when I walk past the TV in the break room, frozen on CNN.
I’ve seen the look before …
Shut downs for me, but not for thee.
If only they could pass a budget to pay DOD and service personnel I would be all for shutting down the rest for a couple of months. Due to the COC I am not allowed to state my opinion of all the other departments.
That Warren photo has the look of someone who has just been goosed…
Her rhetoric sounds harsher with her nearly-impenetrable Cherokee dialect.
It’s a deal. No more photos of ghastly people.
That’s enough.
Time for a moratorium.
.
.
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Nick – that Warren photo always makes me chuckle. I have considered printing it out on a standard 8×11 and posting it at the 7 yd line. (Heh, heh!)
And in the longest running rerun on Capital Hill Boehner and the GOP leadership just buried the knife in the back of Conservatives and the base with the Cromnibus, giving Democrats absolutely everything they wanted. Can’t wait to see the ads by Democrats savaging the GOP for voting to cut Military pay and housing and add copays for meds all in time for Christmas. The Stupid Party is back.
It’s all about motivation. Elizabeth Warren wants to protect the poor, because the changes in the bill are put in there by Republicans to steal money and give it to their rich banker friends. On the other hand, when Republicans shut down the government, it is to prevent minorities from getting medical treatment so they will die and Republicans can have a good laugh. Is it that hard to understand?
My eyes. It burns us.
These threats may continue, but they are not working. And they will never work. Because this is democracy. And in a democracy, hostage tactics are the last resort for those who can’t otherwise win their fights through elections, can’t win their fights in Congress, can’t win their fights for the Presidency, and can’t win their fights in the courts. For this right-wing minority, hostage-taking is all they have left — a last grasp of those who cannot cope with the realities of our democracy.
Oh, it’s a Democracy we have? Then we don’t need elected representatives in Congress, Liz, and you can go home now. To whatever place carrion-feeders call home.
Warren’s tribal name must be Big White Two-Face.
Does a Cromnibus have anything to do with Conan, the Cimmerian? Is he getting like a subsidy?
I saw some of her demagoguery on TV and was surprised at how effectively it was delivered. I think she has been taking lessons. Watch out Hillary…
At this point I would rather we run against Clinton than Warren.
I want to win against whatever amounts to their “A” team, not the embittered clownshow.
Oh, wait. That’s both of them.
I thought government shutdowns were a feature, not a bug. Or is this bill just an example of the Congressional “making sausage” the details of which we don’t need/want to know?