US Senate silences Senator Elizabeth Warren for telling the truth

The US Senate, or rather the Republican Senate, for the Republicans have taken over the Senate to use as their own toy, voted to stop Elizabeth Warren from speaking about Trump's nominee for Attorney General, Senator Jeff Sessions. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell claimed that Warren was "impugning the motives" of Sessions. The impugning amounted to reading letters from Coretta Scott King and Edward Kennedy. King, Martin Luther King's wife said Sessions as U.S. Attorney

had used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens.

Warren quoted Edward Kennedy, who

 referred to Sessions as a “throwback to a shameful era” and a “disgrace” to the Justice Department. 

These words from the grave must have struck a nerve with the Republican Senators, who are trying hard to pretend that racism no longer exists in the Senate or the South. Like their leader, President Trump, they are lying about the truth and then lying about their lies.

Can such brazen indifference to truth win out over honesty? Will the Republicans succeed in rewriting history and making their party appear to reject racism while its members embrace it wholeheartedly? Phoniness and subterfuge are the hallmarks of the party, but they are not the hallmarks of the American people, at least not the people I care about.

Elizabeth Warren is For Real

I went down to the AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington, DC, yesterday, to get a look at Elizabeth Warren. She appeared as part of a national book tour for her new book, A Fighting Chance. The book is primarily a history of her adult life. It is eerily reminiscent of a book called Dreams From My Father that appeared before Barack Obama, its author, had run for his first political office.

In Dreams, Obama gave an intriguing account of his early life, ending just before he entered Harvard Law School. He included the story of his indigent mother and her husbands, one (Barack's father) Kenyan, the other, married after a divorce, Indonesian. The writing style is plain and inspirational at the same time. Obama was running for his first political office, a virtual unknown. 

Dreams contains some details that his political opponents later used to attack him: His father was Kenyan, he lived for a short while in Indonesia, a Muslim country, and he was born in Hawaii, which many Americans do not consider a "real" state, but rather a place on the other side of an ocean, inhabited by a handful of mixed-race people who have no connection to the "real" America. When Hawaii became a state in 1959, it was probably admitted because of Peal Harbor, when its importance as a military base was recognized for the first time.

Warren's book, like Obama's, tells about her growing up in reduced circumstances, about the family who loved her, and about her adventures as an adult. Warren has had many more adventures than Obama, because he was only 34 when Dreams was published and she is now 64. The book contains some information that has already been used by her political opponents to attack her. In particular, she relates that her father's family did not approve of her mother because her mother was part American Indian. Scott Brown, Warren's opponent in her Senate race, mocked her claims of Cherokee Indian relationship, but the book makes it clear that this was a liability, not an advantage in Oklahoma before WWII.

Warren likes to connect with people by telling folksy stories and using straightforward language. Asked her opinion of Republican refusal to raise the minimum wage, she said, "It stinks". Asked her opinion of Janet Yellen's appointment as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, she said "woo-oo!" in a high, clear soprano yelp. Warren's speaking voice in person is no better than it is on tv. She has a weak, reedy delivery that sometimes becomes unintelligible, as when she tried to say "Buffett Rule" the first time. She later clarified what she meant by Buffett Rule: A millionaire (or billionaire, like Warren Buffett) should pay at least as high a percentage of his income in taxes as his secretary. Warren likes that rule.

The suspicion that Warren may be using her book to kick-start a presidential run is not idle. Warren indicated that once before, during the fight for a consumer review board, she was willing to fight because she didn't want a job in the capital. Additionally, she was introduced by Richard Trumka, President of the AFL-CIO. Warren told a story about how she had met Trumka at the White House. She backed a chair into his shins, at which point he remarked, "I've got your back." Now he adds, in a larger, more forceful voice--the kind that Warren lacks--"And I always will have your back". Hillary Clinton, take note.

Hillary has reason to be concerned about Warren. Warren negates Clinton's main advantage in the race to become president in 2016: she's also a woman. Additionally, Warren has the "log cabin" childhood that has served presidential candidates so well since Lincoln, which is to say, her family struggled and her mother had to go to work at a minimum wage to support the family. Hillary, on the other hand, graduated from Wellesley and served on the board of directors of Wal-Mart. Hillary makes public appearances perfectly coiffed and dressed in designer duds; Warren buys her clothes at Target and clearly styles her own hair.

When Hillary and Elizabeth appear in debates together and the topic of debate turns to income inequality, Hillary will look like a one-percenter; Elizabeth will look like what she is, a teacher and a member of the working class. Elizabeth will have another advantage: She won a state-wide debate contest in Oklahoma as a high-schooler. As Warren puts it, she wasn't pretty and she didn't have the best grades, but she knew how to fight.

Supporters of Barack Obama often wish that he had a stronger competitive urge. As President, Elizabeth Warren would give us exactly what we have been missing: a born fighter.

Identity Theft and Republican Obstructionism

Recently I had two experiences that brought home to me in a very personal way just how important government regulation is and just how little the Republican Congress cares about ordinary people.

The first experience was an identity theft. Someone got my credit card number and my social security number and tried to make a couple of large purchases. The person failed to gain anything for a curious reason. They gave the credit card company a wrong birth date. The curious part was that they gave the credit card company my actual birth date, but the credit card company had a different, incorrect date. So the credit card company turned them down when they tried to steal some money.

So far, so good, but the credit card company also turned me down when I tried to use my credit card. Of course, I had the actual date of my birth and so they turned down my request. I went to the bank to straighten things out and discovered the only thing I could do was close my bank account and cancel my credit card. The bank then transferred the money from my old account to a new one and sold me identity theft insurance in case the criminals tried again, or someone else got hold of my personal information and tried to defraud the bank again.

This process took me most of an afternoon and scared the life out of me. The perpetrators will never be caught. They didn't take my money but they did take my time and my disturb my peace of mind.

The second experience was even more frightening. I answered the phone and was told by a voice at the other end of the line that I owed the IRS thousands of dollars and a policeman was on his way to arrest me. He offered to help me out if I would send him some money to pay off the debt. Just imagine what you would do if someone told you you were about to be arrested. Even though I knew I owed nothing to the IRS and the whole story was fraudulent, there was still a chance that I might be arrested. I hung up on the con artist and paid him nothing.

I am not an immigrant, and I have a fairly good understanding of the law, but the call upset me. I have a last name that sounds foreign, which may have been why I became a target of this fraud. An undocumented worker, who lives in dread of the police knocking on his or her door, may have been convinced that they had to pay up or be deported.

I decided to report the telephone fraud to the government. I soon discovered that the agency responsible for this type of consumer fraud is the Consumer Protection Agency. I gave them my information and never heard back from them.

The Consumer Protection Agency is a whipping boy for Republicans in congress. They held up approving the President's nomination to head the agency for over a year. They also assured the President that they would never permit Elizabeth Warren to head the agency, even though she was responsible for  getting the agency set up and is one of our foremost experts on consumer fraud.

Consumer fraud is rampant. Identity theft is a very serious issue for the millions of Americans who have been affected by it, sometimes disastrously. If a person gives cash to a con artist, that money is gone. An individual has no way to protect him or herself. None at all. Sure, you can refuse to give money, but you can't prevent someone from stealing your identity. Millions of people recently had their credit accounts hacked when they made a purchase at Target.

The Consumer Protection Agency was created to protect us. The Republicans have tried to make it fail. Their efforts mean that more con artists are making more cons and more consumers are getting fleeced. Much of the money stolen by the con artists is repaid by insurance companies, but we, the consumers, are the ones who end up paying in prices that are increased to pay higher insurance premiums.

There must be some tipping point where the people of this country will get mad enough that the politicians stop playing games and start doing their jobs. I hope it comes soon.