Sheelah Kolhatkar's 10,000 word New Yorker profile of Elizabeth Warren is mostly a "color piece," giving a sense of where Warren is coming from, personally and politically; as such, it's a good read, but mostly redundant if you've already read Warren's (very good) 2018 book This Fight Is Our Fight: The Battle to Save America's Middle Class; that said there's a couple of key political insights that are very timely for anyone trying to figure out whom to support in the Democratic presidential primary (I am a donor to both Warren's and Sanders's primary campaigns).
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From June 9-12, Fox News commissioned pollsters Beacon Research (D) and Shaw & Company (R) to survey 1,001 representative Americans; the poll concluded that if the election were called today, Sanders would beat Trump by 9 points, 49%-40%, as would Biden; Warren would beat him 43%-41%; Harris would beat him 42%-41%; and Buttigieg would beat him 41%-40% -- Sanders has acknowledged that "polls go up and polls go down." (via Naked Capitalism)
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When Elizabeth Warren proposed a Thomas Piketty-style wealth tax (2% annually on family fortunes over $50m, 1% more on fortunes over $1b), she ballparked the returns at $1.9-2.75t over the first ten years.
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Maybe if a few more of our leaders READ THE REPORT. Read the rest
Bloomberg's Ben Steverman offers a long and exciting profile of Gabriel Zucman (previously), a protege of Thomas Piketty (Zucman was one of the researchers on Piketty's blockbuster Capital in the 21st Century) who has gone on to a career at UC Berkeley, where he's done incredibly innovative blockbuster work of his own, particularly on estimating the true scale of the wealth gap in the USA and worldwide.
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After a blizzard of state-level Republican attacks on the right of women to choose whether to carry a fetus to term, Elizabeth Warren has added another plank to her campaign platform: Congressional Action to Protect Choice, a four-point plan to rescue reproductive rights from religious extremists and misogynists.
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In her latest detailed policy proposal, would-be 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Elizabeth Warren sets out a Green New Deal for the US military, whose own policy analysts have identified climate change and energy independence as serious risks to US security.
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African-American women suffer a much higher level of maternal mortality than the national average, and Elizabeth Warren has proposed a bold -- but high-risk -- plan to incentivize hospitals to root out the institutional, systemic racism that produces these terrible outcomes.
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Elizabeth Warren wants to break up Big Tech, a thoroughly excellent idea with many devils in the details: AOC backs her play: "Facebook as a basic communications platform while also selling ads and also being a surveillance platform. Those functions should be broken up, but how that gets levied and how that gets approached is what we need to take a fine-tooth comb at."
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One thing that immediately struck me in Lauren Gambino's excellent analysis of the Democratic nomination campaigns in The Guardian: a quote from GOP never-Trump political consultant Rick Wilson, who counseled Democrats not to select Bernie Sanders and make the election about actual policies, "Democrats have two choices: make this a referendum on Donald Trump or lose. That’s it. There are no other options."
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Elizabeth Warren has proposed a $1.25 trillion plan to forgive student debts and make all public college and university undergraduate education free, as well as earmarking $50B for historically Black colleges, and expanding federal grants to help pay for all students' non-tuition expenses.
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In a piece for The Cut, Senator Elizabeth Warren (presidential candidate and HBO fan) shares her love for Game of Thrones. It's loaded with spoilers and political metaphors, so proceed with caution if you're not caught up or allergic to allegory.
Dany believes fiercely in her right to rule, but she despises what ruling means in the world she’s grown up in. She doesn’t want to be a slave owner or a dictator — and she definitely doesn’t want to become her murderous father. She tells Ser Jorah: “Slavery is real. I can end it. I will end it. And I will end those behind it.” Before sailing across the sea to Westeros, she frees the enslaved people of Meereen and creates an army that fights because they want to, not because they have to. (Also, she has dragons.)
Senator Warren isn't the only 2020 candidate making Thrones noise. The current occupier of the White House tweeted a GoT meme after the release of the redacted Mueller Report. HBO was less than thrilled. Read the rest
Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren is the first 2020 presidential candidate to call for Donald Trump's impeachment as a result of the findings in the redacted Mueller Report released yesterday.
Warren going on the record means every candidate will be put on the spot this weekend regarding impeachment. Things are about to get interesting.
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In 2009, the IRS created a Global High Wealth Industry Group to audit the super-wealthy, staffing it with skilled lawyers and accountants who could unravel the webs of "trusts, foundations, limited liability companies, complex partnerships and overseas operations" that were used to hide the income of the super-rich from the tax-collector.
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A new bill from Senator Elizabeth Warren proposes personal, criminal liability for top executives of companies turning over more than $1B/year when those companies experience data breaches and scams due to negligence (many of the recent high-profile breaches would qualify, including the Equifax giga-breach, as well as many of Wells Fargo's string of scams and scandals).
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Senator Elizabeth Warren is hoping to be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2020; she distinguishes herself from other left-wing Democrats like Bernie Sanders in her belief that capitalism is a force for good, but must be reformed and subjected to democratic control, while Sanders and the DSA are skeptical of capitalism and its long-term future (Disclosure: I donated to both the Sanders and Warren 2020 campaigns).
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