Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Friday, December 09, 2011

Elizabeth Warren Blasts Karl Rove-Linked Crossroads GPS Ad As 'Factually Wrong And Morally Wrong'

Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren struck back at former Bush White House senior adviser Karl Rove Thursday, after an ad by the Rove-linked group Crossroads GPS attacked her for overseeing "bailouts that helped pay big bonuses for bank executives while middle-class Americans lost out."

"Congress had Warren oversee how your tax dollars were spent, bailing out the same banks that helped cause the financial meltdown, bailouts that helped pay big bonuses to bank executives while middle-class Americans lost out" says the narrator in the ad, referring to her position as chair of the congressional oversight panel on the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Crossroads GPS attacked Warren, a professor at Harvard Law School who has long advocated for financial reforms, last month for being too close to the Occupy Wall Street movement, directly contradicting the group's most recent ad suggesting that she is too close to Wall Street.

"I can't find the right words to describe how wrong that is. Factually wrong and morally wrong," said Warren of the ad to the Boston Herald. "Karl Rove is not telling the truth, and I think anyone who is not telling the truth shouldn't be running ads in this race," she continued.

"Karl Rove was part of the inner circle when President Bush pushed for TARP bailouts," she added. "Now he's using Wall Street money to attack me for being too cozy with Wall Street? I was calling out Wall Street over the TARP bill from the beginning."

Warren also appeared on MSNBC's "The Last Word" Thursday night and was asked about the ad. "I knew that Wall Street was going to come after me with everything they had. They want to make sure I'm not the next senator from Massachusetts. But it seems like the strategy now is the kitchen sink strategy. You know, throw anything you can at her and let's see what happens," she said.

Warren's panel wrote scathing reports about how the Treasury Department implemented the program. One report hit the Treasury Department for taking "no steps to use any of [the $700 billion rescue package] to alleviate the foreclosure crisis," and that "raises questions about whether Treasury has complied with Congress' intent that Treasury develop a 'plan that seeks to maximize assistance for homeowners,'" according to ABC News.

She criticized bank bonuses in March 2010: "I do not understand how it is that financial institutions could think that they could take taxpayer money and then turn around and act like it's business as usual," she said. "I don't understand how they can't see that the world has changed in a fundamental way, that it is not business as usual when you take taxpayer dollars."

A poll released Wednesday by UMass Lowell and the Herald found Warren leading Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) by a 49-42 margin. The survey suggested that early advertising both by Crossroads and the Warren campaign has mostly helped her -- her name identification has gone up, while Brown's approval rating fell from 53 to 45 percent.

Origin
Source: Huff 

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