The Elizabeth Warren campaign sent me an email reminding me of what Scott Brown did to me to day.

Do you think that this effort will work?

http://www.nationofchange.org/mayday – Worldwide, May 1st is traditionally a ‘Workers’ day — a day of Labor Solidarity, and a public holiday. It’s a day to celebrate and march in support of im/migrant rights. In protest against the corruption of the worldwide marketplace, which has led to illegal foreclosures, mass unemployment, low wages, high taxes and a penalization of all those who do not own the ‘99%’ of the world’s resources, and in solidarity with the im/migrant movements of May 1st, we along with Occupations across the country decided to declare May 1st, 2012 a People’s General Strike.

The New York Times article In Senate, Republicans Block Debate on ‘Buffett Rule’, is exactly what we had expected.

The National Republican Congressional Committee said vulnerable House Democrats could “either focus on growing small businesses by providing them tax relief to create jobs or help his party leaders raise taxes to fuel their spending addictions.”

The same old tired baloney.  With all the tax cuts that have already been given out,  the economy ought to be booming.  Major corporations are sitting on tons of cash. Their profits have never been better.  So why aren’t they spending this money to create jobs?  No freaking customers is the answer.  Or at least not enough customers to require them to open up their mothballed factories and put people to work.

If the corporations and the wealthy paid more taxes to take the strain off the middle-class, they would have the customers they need.  They would have to spend their hordes of cash gearing up to satisfy the new demand.  Instead, this cash they sit on has been sucked right out of the economy and is sitting idle in inflated “investments”.

For the so-called party of business, the Republicans sure do pretend not to know how the economy really works.  Of course they really know full well, but it is more important for their constituents to be able to brag about what a large part of the economic pie that they have than it is to grow that pie for everyone to share.

We really do need to have Elizabeth Warren to replace Scott Brown.  With Scott Brown’s deer in the headlights appearance, perhaps he really does not know how this economy really works.  On the other hand, Elizabeth Warren is an expert.

This is from the Warren campaign team leadership roles packets.

America’s middle class has been hammered for a generation now. If you are the oil industry and getting billions of subsidies, you better believe Washington is working for you. If you run a hedge fund and you manage to get paid in stock, Washington is really working well for you. But, if you’re trying to raise a family, if you’re trying yo get through college or send a kid through college, if you’re a senior trying to live on a fixed income, then Washington isn’t working so much for you. So for me, that’s what this race is all about. It’s about what kind of people we are and what kind of country we are going to build.

– Elizabeth Warren

Why are we asking students to take on more debt to get an education and seniors to live on less, while major corporations pay nothing in federal income taxes? It didn’t used to be that way. Coming out of World War II we made two remarkable decisions as a country. First, in a boom-and-bust world, we created a basic set of fair rules that ended the financial panics and provided almost a half-century of economic stability and growth. Second, we invested in ourselves and our children, creating the basic building blocks for a strong middle class and a strong economy: education, roads and bridges, mass transit and rail, water and sewage, research, and energy. It worked. America’s middle class prospered. We celebrated success, but also looked ahead, making sure that the basic ingredients would be in place so the next generation could do even better.

Then, about a generation ago, Washington turned in a different direction and the rules changed.

Financial cops were taken off the beat, and government regulators began to work for those they were supposed to regulate. We fought wars we couldn’t pay for, recklessly piling on debt. Powerful companies got subsidies, while ordinary families and small businesses became increasingly burdened. We didn’t repair our roads and bridges, and we cut back on research. We stopped investing in our future.

This did not happen by accident. Washington spent their time looking out for the billion dollar corporations and for Wall Street – and it all finally came crashing down in the economic crisis of 2008 and all that has followed.

In the midst of all this turmoil, there was one voice that spoke clearly, loudly, and courageously – not only describing what had happened, but naming those responsible, in order to both hold them accountable, and to make sure this never happened again. That person is Elizabeth Warren.

And now she’s running for the Senate here in MA.

But…

This election is not only about who will be the next Senator from Massachusetts. It’s really about what kind of people we are and what kind of country we are going to build.

Are we going to be a country that continues to subsidize already profitable industries like big oil? Or are we going to be a country that invests in the future, like education and clean energy?

Are we going to be a country that continues to provide giveaways to the big banks that brought down the economy? Or are we going to hold them accountable and help level the playing field so that middle class families can build a future?

Are we going to be a country that says, I got mine, and the rest of you are on your own? Or are we a country that believes in making investments in our future so that our children can be better off than we are?

We need Elizabeth to be our voice in Washington, to strongly demand that this country, once again, invests in our future and places value on creating opportunities for our children. To do this, we must first elect her the next US Senator from Massachusetts.

Oh, yes that nasty spending addiction of the Democrats. They are addicted to funding the promised, bought, and paid for Social Security benefits, health care for all, and investments in the future of the economy. I guess the Republicans don’t think this economy “needs no stinkin’ future”.

The article Geithner: Romney’s statements on women “misleading and ridiculous” is a clear demonstration as to why I do not watch the Sunday Morning noise shows.

Geithner admitted that the second part of the recession saw more female job losses, because of teacher and education layoffs due to state budget cutbacks.

Admitted that the layoffs were forced by the Republicans because they would not allow the federal government to send money to the states to forestall  these women losing these jobs.

“Basically you’re saying that [Romney] is right?” Schieffer asked.

Ever fair minded Bob Schieffer cannot come to believe that the Republican War On Women is real.  And poor Geithner is too flummoxed to point this out.  Let’s just hope that the CBS viewers aren’t as dumb as the Faux Noise viewers.

Schieffer needs to retire and Geithner needs to learn how not to damn the President’s accomplishments with faint praise.

Perhaps Obama needs to show us that he really wants to win this election by not allowing such foolishness to go unrebutted.

Our group in Sturbridge collected around 400 of the signatures that Warren turned in. We will collect some more this weekend.

I have heard a number of issues raised about campaign finances in the U.S. Senate race between Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown. I picked up the following comparison from the Federal Election Commission web site. This ought to answer a lot of your questions.

In the free snippet from The Boston Globe, Anonymity cloaks busy nerve center, they say about Mitt Romney’s headquarters:

There is little sign that this building in the North End is the hub of Mitt Romney’s national campaign.

Perhaps there might be some insights here as to why Elizabeth Warren’s campaign is also housed in a building with no, let alone little, sign that the headquarters is in the building.  Of course, if The Boston Globe web site thinks that you will pay to see the rest of the article, they have another think coming.

I bet you were always wondering where these Supreme Court rulings were coming from. So now you know. Hardly a surprise, though.

Do the grandchildren of some of these justices just roll their eyes when their grandfather appears on the scene? “Really, grandpa – strip searches but no health insurance? What century are you from?”

This web site, Texts From Hillary,  is all the rage now, but I am sure I don’t have to tell my astute readers this.

I have been reading the packet of information that the Warren campaign gives out about what it means to be a Volunteer Team Leader.  One sentence really stands out for me.

It is Elizabeth’s belief that this campaign is not solely about an election in November, but rather a grassroots effort to build a collective voice to bring to Washington in January to overpower the special interests that have become so entrenched in our society.

That is exactly what I believe, too.  That is why a group of us in Sturbridge have banded together to be that collective voice.  Right now we are concentrating our efforts on getting Elizabeth Warren elected to the Senate.  However, we expect to continue our efforts long after the election is over.

I have said it on this blog in many ways – A good politician needs the voters to continue to force that politician to do the right thing after the politician gets elected.  I think the politician’s stand for supporting a policy is greatly enhanced when she can tell her colleagues that her constituents will be outraged if the policy is defeated.  I don’t think anything can get the run-of-the-mill politician’s attention as quickly as an outraged constituency.

Say what you will about either the Tea Party Movement or the Occupy Movement – they have give us recent proof of the power of an outraged constituency.  Of course, the Tea Party’s rage has been harnessed, fomented, and financially supported by exactly the people that do them the most harm.  When the Tea Party figures this out, and starts realizing that the Occupy Movement is fighting the same forces they are without having been captured by those forces, we may have a very powerful coalition.

See my previous post Elizabeth Warren – “I cannot do this alone” which is a nice complement to this one.