Elizabeth Warren, Socialist Hero, Threatens Her Critics

Elizabeth Warren sits on the Senate banking committee. This supplies her with the power to harass and harm banks.

A group called Third Way published a paper critical of Warren's views on banking.

Elizabeth Warren responded by demanding that banks -- which she has legislative and investigatory power over -- divulge any donations they may have made to Third Way.

Which is not about answering criticism -- it's about silencing it, scaring it off.

Timothy P. Carney notes the thuggery of Warren.

Warren sits on the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. She's basically telling the entities whose livelihood her committee controls to stop criticizing her. This is bullying — and it's the best argument for allowing companies and individuals to anonymously criticize politicians.

Government big enough to menace and harass its critics is bad enough.

But what makes it worse is that government is increasingly controlled by people convinced with absolute metaphysical certainty of their own intellect and righteousness -- which means that any criticism or opposition is, definitionally, contrary to the public good, and that, in turn, justifies any and all means used to squelch such malevolence.

You know what the criticism leveled at Warren was, by the way? Worries by more moderate leaning Democrats that Warren and the crusading socialists might be leading the Party into dire straits.

So of course you'd implicitly threaten people for arguing this. How dare they.

In a sign of the left’s new aggressiveness, a coalition of liberals is trying to marginalize a centrist Democratic policy group that was responsible for a Wall Street Journal op-ed article this week that said economic populism was “disastrous” for the party.

The coalition, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, and three other liberal advocacy organizations have urged their members to contact a group of congressional Democrats who are honorary leaders of the centrist group, Third Way. It published the op-ed article on Monday contending that the liberalism of Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio of New York City and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts would lead Democrats “over the populist cliff.”

The article — written by Jon Cowan, president of Third Way, and Jim Kessler, its senior vice president for policy — criticizes progressives like Ms. Warren and Mr. de Blasio for opposing measures to cut costs to Social Security and Medicare.

The liberal groups’ campaign has already gotten results, the latest indication that the liberal wing of the Democratic Party is ascendant.

While this story is noted in the media (as in this NYT article), I don't hear quite the frothy, drooley mad barking over a "coming Democratic crack-up" that I heard when the media thought the Republican Party might fracture.

Thanks to DrewM for that.

posted by Ace at 04:27 PM

| Access Comments