Unca Joe Biden has Gotta Go…

Unca Joe Biden has Gotta Go… 

"I will always speak truth to power, and watching the crime bills of the '80s and the '90s all of the things that he (Biden) put into place, this is something that should be talked about," Booker told NBC News on Friday. 

-       Booker fires back at Biden: 'I found his attacks on me ridiculous' – The Hill

By JM Hamilton (7-26-2019)

Jackson Hole, Wyoming – 

The sparks are beginning to fly.  If it’s not Senator Kamala Harris tearing into Unca Joe… now, it’s Senator Cory Booker.  Which Dem candidate will pile onto the brittle and frail Mr. Biden next?  

Hopefully, the entire field.

And not a moment too soon.  The sooner yesterday’s failure, Unca Joe (aka Hillary II), is removed from the race, or knocked off his frontrunner perch, the better it will be for the Democratic party and its future.

Unca Joe is the establishment’s safe play.  Sure, we all know Unca Joe will pander to every Democratic special interest group; say semi-correct things on the environment; ring all the right ACA bells (despite its failure to contain medical costs); distract from his – decades long – GOP voting record; commit that he no longer supports the mass (for profit) incarceration state, he played a key role in installing; and attempt to ignore his campaign’s lead in corporate donations. But once he gets the nomination – if Joe gets the nomination – former VP Biden will pivot hard right in attempt to attract Trump’s: angry – white – male – base. 

This in turn, Joe’s nomination, could result in yet another Trump victory. 

If Unca Joe pivots right, upon receiving the Dem nomination (as he almost certainly will do), he’ll anger and upset progressives, black voters (who didn’t turn out for Hillary in 2016, but rather, stayed home), LGBTQ voters, the youth vote, and possibly, women voters …  basically, every Dem constituency with energy.  That is to say, a Biden nomination has the tremendous potential to alienate the party’s future, and result in low voter turnout.  

See the recent Bloomberg article on Mr. Biden’s enthusiasm gap.  

The elements of the Democratic party Unca Joe won’t turn off by pivoting right against Trump are: the Dem establishment; the limousine liberals; and the corporate plutocracy (who often give to the establishment wings of both parties, so as to best hedge their political bet & ensure the gravy train from government - & privatization - continues unchecked).  

By the time the Democratic field of POTUS candidates gets done filling in the blanks, and educating the public, on Unca Joe’s right-wing voting record, Biden will be left with a core constituency, consisting of a dying demographic of white voters: the unenergetic - status quo – Dem establishment; and establishment Republicans who have fled their party, since Trump’s hostile takeover. 

In brief, once we blast through the name recognition, Biden's core base is the past.  A demographic, if we are honest w/ ourselves, with one foot in the grave. People, who are couple of years away from retirement, or are retired, who are deathly afraid of change.  (Unfortunately, there are many young or younger voters, too, that are afraid of change; twenty and thirty-somethings, who have made careers in industries that are ripe for both change, disruption, and outright elimination.  Hence, the reason why a UBI is so critical… so as to ease the transition for American workers away from industries that serve nobody but themselves.  For example, Big Oil and fossil fuels, immediately come to mind.)

In short, Unca Joe – and the Dem establishment -  is betting that America is so fed up w/ POTUS Trump...  that w/ Biden, they’ll swallow hard & vote for Trump-Lite policies: four more years of economic failure, courtesy of the monopoly/PE economy (while the rich grow richer, at the 99%’ expense); four more years of failed ACA (while the healthcare industry grows wealthier, at consumer & taxpayer expense); and little discussed this campaign season, so far, four more years of endless war (while the MIC sells death and mayhem around the globe... business is booming).  This is what Mr. Biden has to offer: four more years of failed neolib/neocon policies, a la Clinton/Obama.

That’s the Biden/Dem establishment/Pelosi gamble.  None of them have learned a thing from Hillary’s 2016 loss & her radical centrism campaign, nor do they want to.  The plutocracy that owns both establishment political parties doesn’t care who is in power, as long as the political duopoly remembers who runs the show: the donor class.

The flipside to the Dem establishment’s bet is that a new generation of Dems may become so turned off on the Democratic party that they form an alternative party, or as was done in Germany – when Angela Merkel’s left of center party failed (the CDU) – German voters turned hard Green.  What’s that?  Don’t think America’s youth, minorities, gays, and women won’t turn their backs on a Dem Party that doubles down on a failed - radical centrist - agenda?  Think again.  Maybe not this campaign cycle, but a very real probability in the future. Americans – particularly Dems – are hungry for real change.

Ditto today’s Republican party… where’ the Republican establishment today? They are all kowtowing to POTUS Trump, who remade the GOP in his bigoted, homophobic, misogynist, and racist image.  That’s basically, POTUS Trump’s key feature… he sure hasn’t delivered for his base, economically (as wages remain stagnant, healthcare costs continue to soar, the cost of medicine remains outrageous, economic/social mobility - all but dead, student debt skyrockets, and America remains mired in endless warfare).  

All Trump’s campaign promises?  Out the window.  Except he did stack SCOTUS with right-wing politicians to appease evangelicals; he did pass extraordinary tax cuts for the kleptocracy; and Orange Julius has doubled-down on the aforementioned bigotry & intolerance (pleasing the Nazis w/in the party to no end, and recommitting to Nixon's racist Southern strategy). 

In short, Republican party voters didn’t have to migrate to a third party, because Trump remade the GOP for them.  And now, Trump, the GOP, and his base are glued to each other: politically radioactive, and yet, possibly headed for another victory, if Unca Joe receives the nomination.

The Dem party, at times, appears to have a death wish: pander to the base to get elected; promise that the government will deliver for the people (instead of providing paradoxical socialism for robber barons); only to sell out to the donor class, again & again (see slick Willie Clinton, Obama, Hillary, and now, Biden).  Repeat.  The Dem Party establishment appears incapable - or unwilling - to remake itself for the benefit of the American people (as proposed by Gabbard, Sanders, & Warren).

Nominate Job Biden, and the Dem establishment may finally achieve their death wish, and drag down America with it, into four more years of fascism and worse.

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2019

Better than a Moonshot or Landing on Mars: The Spread of Democracy

 

“We must be staunch in our conviction that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a lucky few, but the inalienable and universal right of all human beings.”

—Ronald Reagan, Address to the British Parliament, June 8, 1982

By JM Hamilton 7-14-2019

 

Not exactly sure where I encountered the above Reagan quote.  But the words quickly brought to mind the following: 1) how far off the rails has the GOP gone, under POTUS Trump, in upholding America’s values (Trump, a great friend to authoritarians & totalitarians around the globe, while often showing near absolute contempt for our longtime democratic allies); 2) perhaps no establishment Dem or GOP POTUS has spoken as passionately about democracy & freedom, and the spread of same– globally, as Ronald Reagan since his time in office (and why is that?); and 3) what does it say that America, & Americans, appear to care so little about their fellow man that democracy appears to be in retreat around the globe, and threatened – here in the US - not only by outside forces, but equally insidious, from w/in?

Some may recall that Trump’s incoming Secretary of State, Mr. Rex Tillerson (of nefarious Exxon Mobil fame), said right out of the gate: “Our values around freedom, human dignity, the way people are treated – those are our values. Those are not our policies.”  Instead of an America First policy, it appears Mr. Tillerson laid down the marker, the Trump administration would be adopting a Profits First policy, or a Plutocrats First policy.  Hence, Mr. Trump’s first official foreign visit was to the terror state, Saudi Arabia (CEOs and C-Suite sycophants in tow), to ink hundreds of billions in contracts and MOAs.  Mr. Tillerson’s words, and Mr. Trump’s actions, are a far cry from POTUS Reagan’s comments, and an even greater distance from Mr. Kennedy’s inaugural remarks:

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty.

Mr. Tillerson, instead, seemed to say America would oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of multinational profits.

So, I had to find Reagan’s 1982 London speech, before a full house of parliament, and read it in full.  Here are some of the highlights, w/ JMH annotations.

Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root. 

(Authoritarian and totalitarian dictatorships are inherently unstable.)

Now I am aware that among us here and throughout Europe there is legitimate disagreement over the extent to which the public sector should play a role in a nation's economy and life. But on one point all of us are united: our abhorrence of dictatorship in all its forms but most particularly totalitarianism and the terrible inhumanities it has caused in our time: the great purge, Auschwitz and Dachau, the Gulag and Cambodia.

(Some of the most repugnant atrocities of the 20^th Century were committed by authoritarian & totalitarian dictatorships, w/ body counts numbering in the tens of millions.)

And one of the simple but overwhelming facts of our time is this: of all the millions of refugees we have seen in the modern world, their flight is always away from, not toward, the Communist world. 

(Reagan could have included authoritarian – right wing regimes, along w/ totalitarian – left wing regimes, just as easily.  Reagan’s truism, however, stands to this very day.  See the mass migration of immigrants attempting to pour into Western Europe and North America for decades, fleeing dictatorships and failed states for warmer democratic climes.)

No, democracy is not a fragile flower; still it needs cultivating. If the rest of this century is to witness the gradual growth of freedom and democratic ideals, we must take actions to assist the campaign for democracy. 

(Mr. Reagan, possibly/probably, knew that a failure to spread democracy, freedom, and liberty – the rights of man – would lead to great global instability, wars, famine, and highly precarious dictatorships, if we failed in our endeavor.  Mr. Reagan was prescient, and his sense of secular morality – in this regard – was iconic.)

We cannot ignore the fact that even without our encouragement, there have been and will continue to be repeated explosions against repression in dictatorships. The Soviet Union itself is not immune to this reality. Any system is inherently unstable that has no peaceful means to legitimize its leaders. In such cases, the very repressiveness of the state ultimately drives people to resist it - if necessary, by force. 

(Humans, inherently, seek civil-liberties, democracy, freedom; anything less, ultimately, leads to rebellion and revolution.  History demonstrates this to be true, repeatedly.)

While we must be cautious about forcing the pace of change, we must not hesitate to clear our ultimate objectives and to take concrete actions to move towards them. We must be staunch in our conviction that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a lucky few but the inalienable and universal right of all human beings. So states the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights -which, among other things, guarantees free elections.

(Hmmm.  Profits aren’t an inalienable and universal right of monopolists and robber barons, but freedom is an inalienable and universal right of all human beings.)

The objective I propose is quite simple to state: To foster the infrastructure of democracy - the system of a free press, unions, political parties, universities - which allows a people to choose their own way, to develop their own culture, to reconcile their own differences through peaceful means. Who Will Welcome It? 

(The West and the US, together, should seek to foster the infrastructure for the spread of democracy throughout the world, not the other way around, where dictatorships buy their way into US universities.  Note: Nothing here about overthrowing democracies to better ensure multinational profits – an act the US government is all too well practiced in - nor that a neoliberal economy must accompany democracy, in order for democracy to be successful).

None of this can be taken out of context, and here, history is very important.  POTUS Reagan’s words, before parliament, came at the height of the Cold War, when the threat of nuclear Armageddon hung over the West’s collective head like the sword of Damocles. And this is instructional, there appears to be nothing like an existential threat to quicken and sharpen the mind, and make a leader call out to, and for, the very ideals that make democracy great: freedom, human rights, and liberty.  Post–collapse of the Berlin Wall & the Soviet Union, it seems like all the guardrails of good democratic government, and a semi-moral capitalist economy have been removed.  Decay, incompetent governance (from both establishment political parties), and the rejection of the West’s values – all for the sake of making a buck & keeping our multinational puppet masters happy – appears to have taken over.

Democracy and the rights of man – drafted by Abbe Sieyes & Lafayette, w/ the assistance of Jefferson – seem to be falling into a perfidious cycle of entropy, replaced by the crony – economy/government.  In short, our democracy is owned by a kleptocracy and a plutocracy and subverted by the wealthy for their own ends. 

Therefore, Mr. Reagan’s words hold even deeper meaning today.  For not only must the West attempt to save the world, by introducing democracy and freedom - universally, and make it a better place for all citizens, but we must save ourselves.  JMH is not advocating wars and proxy wars, but the use of diplomacy, soft power, and the leverage of yes, gasp, tariffs...  all, and more, can be deployed to bring about peaceful regime change, in democracy's favor.

How important is democracy, freedom, and liberty to global stability?  It’s priceless. Authoritarianism & corporate rule aren't the wave of the future, freedom is.

And the very threat to democracy is a threat to the CEOs and the robber barons, all too many of which would gladly kneel and kiss the ring of any dictator in return for a contract (whether the plutocracy wants to believe this or not).  For the tyrant’s aim is to destroy democracy, freedom, and liberty… the very existence of which is an existential threat to authoritarian and totalitarian dictatorships around the globe.  For as long as freedom’s heart remains beating – no matter how much US oligarchs throw sand in the gears of democracy & liberty – there is hope for all the world’s citizens (especially the disenfranchised and those found underneath a dictator's boot heal). 

Doubt my words:

See the millions of Hong Kong residents piling into the city center, out of abject fear of China’s present and pending totalitarian rule.  

See the US Chamber, perennially on the wrong side of history, endorse the Communist administration of Hong Kong.  Myopic thinking at its very worst, and again, the epitome of the profits before US values ethos.  Mr. Tillerson would be proud.

As mentioned, see the flood of immigrants – fleeing tyranny and the war on drugs – arrive from South of the US border.  Despite Trump’s demagoguery & vilification, these immigrants seek nothing more than a better life, economically, as well as, freedom, security, and democracy.  Perhaps, in many respects, these immigrants are more American, than multigenerational blue bloods, alive today, who can trace their patrimony to the Mayflower?

Ditto, the flood of migrants headed into Europe, out of the Middle East and Africa.   What could cause these people to flee.  It couldn’t be America’s support for Middle East tyrants?  Nor could it be America’s endless wars in the region, in support of: Big Oil commercial interests, the Royal House of Saud, and the State of Israel?  And, per the Trump administration, mass migration couldn’t be caused by the burning of fossil fuels, and the resulting climate change.  Perish the thought.

The ultimate Cold Warrior understood the importance of universal suffrage & freedom. 

So not only must the US spread democracy and freedom – it’s in our economic and national security interests – but America must also hold in check those pernicious commercial forces who would tear our government apart at the seams (by purchasing politicians & elections).  JMH, of course, writes of the military industrial complex, Big Tech, Big Oil, Wall Street, and cartels & monopolies.  In short, any commercial interests that would place their quarterly returns before the national interests and stability surrounding the sanctity of democracy and liberty needs not only to be cut down to size but reminded – frequently – of their duties & obligations to this country. So many corporations – offshoring US labor, using monopsony power to crush same, and dodging tax payment – have lost their way and are morally bankrupt.

Some of these very same commercial enterprises, or business sectors, facilitate & prop up dictatorships around the globe, and then turnaround and use this same totalitarian technology & tools on Americans. Why these same multinationals are likely running highly sanitized/saccharin commercials on your favorite Sunday morning news program this AM.

We the People can’t have it.  The United States has been under corporate/multinational rule for too long (thank you not, Establishment Dems & GOP); and the results are clear for all the world to see: the election of Trump, and ultimately, possibly, someone far worse than Trump down the road.

Reagan, ultimately, has a great deal to answer for economically & on social issues.  Despite his many contradictions, between his words and deeds, he ushered in an era of disdain for government, rang in the Ayn Rand fairytale & neoliberalism, and despite being one of the most protectionist presidents of the 20^th Century, talked up free trade and globalism. Reagan gave credence to Voodoo economics, Mr. Laffer's supply-side fantasy, while passing no fewer than eleven tax increases to rightsize his budget deficits.  The reactionaries and the C-Suite brass don’t recall Reagan’s many tax increases, or that he brought the Soviet Union down w/out firing a shot… but many still remember his words & exploit them for their own ends, or simply make up Reagan’s words to suit their own ends.

In short, no one believes the business of America is business anymore; multinationals & private equity have shown Americans their true colors.  But rather, the business of America should, and must be, to standup for the disenfranchised, the unloved, and the unwanted… and particularly, for American & foreign-born children who cry out for want of bread in the middle of the night.

Where Reagan didn’t fail was in his unyielding belief in the rights of all women and men to enjoy self-determination and that rarest of commodities, even on our shores, the rule of law.

Such irony then, that the world’s leader in taking on the greatest terror threat on the globe, the Saudi government, is not the United States, but our northern neighbor, Canada.

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2019

The Fed’s Great Lie?

The Fed’s Great Lie?

“We are a strictly nonpolitical agency,” he said in response to a question about Mr. Trump’s continuing attacks. “We’re human, we’ll make mistakes,” he added, but “we won’t make mistakes of integrity or character.”

Fed Chair Powell Weighs Whether Cut Will Be Needed as Risks Loom, NY Times

By JM Hamilton (6-29-2019)

 

Some lies are so egregious they can’t be passed up. They beg to be challenged.  The Federal Reserve Chairman, Mr. Jerome Powell, told a whopper of a lie this week, when he stated that the bank was “nonpolitical.”  It reminds one of the very same falsehood SCOTUS members spout, when the justices swear they are apolitical. 

If money equals power, and money often translates into political power, Mr. Powell is guilty of either nescience, fatuous thinking, or the Fed Chair is being disingenuous at best.  As we know, Mr. Powell is neither ignorant nor stupid. Therefore, one can only conclude that Jerome is the victim of myopia or has stretched the truth.  Possibly, the Fed Chair is unaware of the infinite possibilities of the Fed’s incredible power, as the banker of the globe’s fiat currency.

 

Since the 2008 crisis, the Federal Reserve has bailed out oligarchs, Wall Street banks, shadow banking, and inflated assets – select asset classes, particularly US stocks – at an exponential rate.  

The Fed has financed tax cuts for the wealthy (these tax cuts were, indeed, financed, as federal deficits predictably soared -contrary to Mr. Laffer’s failed Voodoo ideology), and it has funded credit card wars w/out end. It’s not only the banker of last resort, but the Fed has made trillion-dollar deficits and our $20 plus trillion national debt possible.  Moreover, by bailing out the wealthy, after the 2008 crash, it has directly & indirectly facilitated crony government, that is to say, government capture by a privileged & wealthy aristocracy.

That’s the government side of the equation. As the national debt grows, the Fed has been forced to engage in quantitative easing and interest rate suppression that has helped the rich grow wealthier than Midas. Wage and wealth inequality are at Gilded Age proportions, and the American Dream (aka social mobility) is all but dead. 

The rich grow richer because they are connected to Wall Street banks, and shadow banking (the conduit, and beneficiaries, of the Fed’s trickle-down monetary policies); and therefore, the oligarchs and multinationals are the recipients of highly inexpensive financing.  This inexpensive financing, in turn, is utilized to support get rich quick schemes, such as: the formation of cartels & monopolies, financial engineering, M&A, monopsony power, and the infamous private equity loot & pillage scheme. 

The Fed, and global central banks are at the center of the crony economy, and by the mere tweaking of interest rates, they can bring the whole house of cards tumbling down.  No wonder Jefferson said that banks are more dangerous than standing armies; and no wonder POTUS Andrew Jackson had such a deep aversion to the creation of a US central bank.  And yet, the central bank – and its extraordinary powers – rarely receives mention from the Democratic field of candidates.

The reality is central banks are power defined, and highly political.  They, directly & indirectly, choose winners and losers w/in the macro economy (the current winners are finance, financial services & consolidated industries, and the losers are the American people and the West's working class), and these same banks set the moral compass of capitalism. They can keep governments afloat, as long as the currency providing a life preserver is perceived to retain its value (or the currency is seen as the leper w/ the fewest spots, because other central banks are also engaged in similar financial gymnastics w/ their currencies).  Hence, the weary eye cast upon alternative-pseudo-currencies, such as Facebook’s Libra.

If that isn’t politics – the Fed Chair being the orchestra leader for our rigged economy – than what is?

It’s not all gloomy.  Global debt has grown at an astronomical pace, and w/ the tsunami of debt has grown debt service loads.  Debt service loads, of course, are the interest paid upon the ocean of debt, so that the only way to manage said debt is via interest rate suppression & quantitative easing (QE being shorthand for modern monetary theory or MMT).  In short, central banks have cut interest rates & purchased sovereign debt to maintain governments, and to maintain select asset prices (i.e. stock valuations) for the benefit of an elite few. The result has been a global race to the bottom on government bond yields.  

Per Bloomberg, some $13 trillion in global debt, including premium commercial paper, is now financed at negative-yields. Germany, Japan, and throughout Europe yields have been driven down into negative territory.  So that lenders – buyers of bonds – not only don’t earn interest income, but if the bond or bund is held long enough, the principal – or bond’s value – begins to erode.

In a perverse Catch-22, US banks and shadow banking thrive off the government debt that was created bailing out these very same financial institution (circa 2008).  However, and this is the good news, when rates turn negative, these same financial institutions no longer have a vested interest in perpetuating an ocean of global debt.  Governments too, may no longer have a vested interest in maintaining an economy rigged by debt, as many of the banks are too big to fail.  

And if the banking or financial system collapses due to a lack of interest income, no politician – or apolitical central banker - wants the responsibility of explaining another financial sector bailout to its citizens.

 

As stated, with negative yields, government debt – and some commercial debt - no longer produces income.  This means some of the most powerful institutions on the planet – banks, shadow banking, and fixed income asset funds (who rely upon public debt for income, or as a safe haven asset) – may come around to thinking that public sector debt needs to be written down, and the Fed and global central banks need to get out the business of setting interest rates (as risk premium on debt – represented by interest rates - becomes distorted).

If public sector debt was written down, slowly over time… this means the debt scolds – politicians & the donor class – that use public debt to withhold government services from the 99% (while hypocritically using central banks to fund socialism for the wealthy, via: bank bailouts, corporate welfare, financial engineering, tax cuts for the wealthy, and credit card wars) could no longer avail themselves to that argument or excuse.

In a world of negative yields, debt may become an albatross for not all, but many of the connected, the powerful, & the exceptionally wealthy (witness how European banks struggle under a negative yield regime). And so with negative yields, the clarion call may finally begin for a public debt haircut (aka write down) or workout. In a world unshackled by public sector debt, the US government would be free, again, to finance: a Green New Deal; rebuild infrastructure; provide Medicare-for-All; and rationally, consider a UBI. 

A public debt haircut combined with the deployment of MMT by central banks, means all things are possible, as long as inflation is held in check.  The argument that MMT would not work, does not hold water when we consider that QE has functioned exceptionally well for the predatory class.

As best as JMH can tell, QE is MMT directed at the wealthy; whereas MMT is QE redirected at the 99%.  So that a public sector debt haircut does occur then, and so that MMT can succeed on behalf of all citizens, let's hope & pray for negative yields.  Debt piled upon more debt, in the service of an elite few, is a proven recipe for disaster & political instability.  And this same catastrophic debt level should no longer be used as justification to deny government services, & economic freedom from a rigged economy, for the vast majority of Americans or the globe’s citizens. 

Who knew the Federal Reserve was so political?

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2019

Candidate on Fire

Candidate on Fire

Ms. Warren would seek big tax increases on the wealthiest individuals and corporations, creating a new tax on household assets that exceed $50 million as well as a new tax on corporate profits. From those two steps alone, she says she would raise at least $3.8 trillion over a decade — money that would go toward her plans on student debt cancellation, free college, child care, the opioid crisis and green manufacturing.

-       Elizabeth Warren Has Lots of Plans.  Together, They Would Remake the Economy, NY Times

By JM Hamilton (6-15-2019)

Rivers of ink were spilled this week on Candidate Warren, who appears to be surging in Iowa, and polling well – no surprise – against Orange Julius.

Candidate Warren is the real deal, attracting large and growing crowds.  Moreover, her campaign is generating policy proposals – by the multitude - that not only could save capitalism from itself, but, actually, if implemented, pivot the free market economy to work for the American people (aka the long forgotten 90%).

We don’t need to repeat what the smart set have already written about Warren’s fountain of positive & coherent, progressive, policy statements, especially when you can read about them: here, here, and here. Or that Warren’s policy proposals were methodically, & strategically, issued at campaign stops where they most resonate.

Let’s just say that initiating a tax on wealth to retire catastrophic student debt and provide a free college education for Americans is a great start.  Attacks on Big Tech utilities win immediate kudos & accolades. Her adoption of aspects of the Green New Deal, and the expected creation of hundreds of thousands of jobs, should be perfectly timed, after the Trump - trickle down - economy hits the skids and slides off into the ditch.

The current front runner, Biden, offers nothing, but failed neolib/neocon policies, and that great Obama retread: HOPE.  Biden still believes the fairy tale - if he’s elected - the GOP and the Dems will reunite, be bros & sisters again, cherubim will descend from the heavens, despite his eight-year tenure w/in the Obama administration (best characterized by near Civil War between the Dems & GOP).   

Biden, along w/ the Dem establishment, fails to realize that it is their very centrism, and sucking up to US multinationals, that got them expelled from: state house after state house; governors’ mansions; and the Congress and the White House.  Sadly, Biden is so far behind the times that even in the one area where establishment Dems have kept up w/ the public – social policy – the candidate has already stumbled badly (on women’s reproductive rights).  And so, perhaps his slow & inexorable descent begins, from front runner to footnote in history.

As for the other Dems w/ name recognition?  Harris, Beto, Booker, Gillibrand… they all talk a great game, and they have some good & novel ideas, many of which I support. Except, they all bear the mark.  Harris has a problem w/ the mass incarceration state, during her time as a prosecutor.  Beto is in the pocket of Big Oil, as all Texas politicians are.  Big Biz has the goods on Booker, and Gillibrand – possibly, the most progressive of this group – has too many Wall Street ties.  (Mr. Yang definitely has my attention w/ a UBI, but not sure he will gain the attention or traction, in an extraordinarily crowded field.)

And that’s exactly where Warren has them beat.   Warren brings three critical things to the table, that could allow her to be our first woman POTUS.

The Senator has credibility in spades:  She was onto the Wall Street banking scam, a long time before most Americans had their legs kicked out from under them by the 2008 crash.  Warren, an Okie, came from nothing, and during an era when social mobility (aka The American Dream), for the fearless and tough, was still a real possibility. From humble beginnings, Warren became a lawyer, taught at Harvard, crashed the Obama White House, kicked off the CFPB, got kicked out of the Obama White House (because she didn’t play nice w/ Wall Street banks), and became US Senator Warren. 

Doubt her ability, smarts, and stamina at your peril.

Nobody owns Elizabeth Warren:  When Warren dined w/ Larry – Benedict - Summers, he gave our hero a Faustian choice: she could play ball w/ the connected, the dealmakers, & insiders, or she could be an outsider, looking in from the outside.  Warren passed on the Devil’s proposal and has never looked back.  Summers' name is now synonymous w/ mud… he will forever be linked to the Clinton White House's cataclysmic financial deregulation.  Summers will always be associated with the very events & policies that brought America to her knees, during the 2008 Wall Street banking crisis.  And outsider Warren?  Today, she is a major candidate/contender for the highest office in the land; and she’s a US Senator.  And nobody owns Warren.  Perhaps Senator Sanders is the only other leading candidate about whom that could be said. This means, upon entering the White House, POTUS Warren won’t pivot away from the positions that placed her into the top job, like every other scam artist that comes along.

Timing is everything: Warren is precisely at the right place at the right time in history, and she’s the correct gender, ethical, and deeply intelligent.  Say what we will about POTUS Trump… the blowback from his presidency, his actions & lies, drove exceptional voter turnout in 2018, and elected a record number of women to Congress.  Women voters played a key role in the ascent of women politicians (Would POTUS HRC have had the same impact during the 2018 midterms?  Doubtful).  Warren is uniquely positioned, at the right moment and time, to clinch the nomination and become POTUS.  Allow me to put it this way, if the Senator from Massachusetts obtains the brass ring, the Dem nomination, Trump is toast.  Gone w/ the wind.  An egomaniac, pathological liar, born w/ a silver spoon in his mouth, and w/ the US economy, possibly, trending down… against an honest woman, who rose from nothing to become prospective leader of the free world, based upon sheer guts and determination.  

The match up, if it does occur, doesn't even require thought, as to its outcome.

In fact (barring the public buying into Captain Status Quo's – Joe Biden's - rancid & unimaginative message), the only other real challenger to Warren’s ascension, ultimately, is the only other honest candidate running today.  That would be Senator Sanders (who, truth be told, JMH is exceptionally fond of as well).  

All this is still highly speculative, but barring the unforeseen, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns… the race for the White House has already been narrowed down to two candidates:  Sanders and Warren.  The complete opposite of what the billionaire/multinational owned MSM will tell you: that a Sanders/Warren nomination equals Trump being reelected. 

Don’t believe the fear and the lies.

As the Warren campaign builds up steam… in the distance, destiny calls.  Is she calling for Warren or Sanders?

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2019