Obama Spouts Populism As His Party Tacks Left

[ProSense]

Obama Spouts Populism As His Party Tacks Left

By JOSH BOAK, ERIC PIANIN, The Fiscal Times August 1, 2013

Democrats are going back to their liberal populist roots, ensuring that the clash against laissez faire Republicans will only get louder and fiercer in the months ahead.

Hardcore progressives appear to be gaining momentum inside Democratic circles, while the centrist movement sparked by Bill Clinton’s ascension to the White House in 1992 seems to be fading. It’s a natural outgrowth of a sluggish economy recovery, decades of flat wages, and the ideological hardening of a GOP base unwilling to compromise on its ideals – even if it might mean another government shutdown.

Freshman Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), a former Harvard Law professor and champion of consumer rights, has led the charge on making banks that are “too big to fail” extinct. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) recently circulated a letter calling on President Obama to elevate Federal Reserve vice chairwoman Janet Yellen to the central bank’s top post, instead of West Wing favorite Larry Summers, a former Clinton-era Treasury secretary with ties to Wall Street.

<...>

His top agenda item is now fixing income inequality.

“Even before the financial crisis hit, we were going through a decade where a few at the top were doing better and better, but most families were working harder and harder just to get by,” Obama said Tuesday in Chattanooga. “And reversing that trend should be Washington’s highest priority. It’s my highest priority.”

Many Senate Democrats applauded the shift in focus, saying that the inequality issue is what unites the party. “He’s focusing on what he’s going to do on everything from tax reform to jobs and job creation,” Brown told The Fiscal Times Wednesday, after the president met with Democrats on Capitol Hill. “He’s saying the right things, and I’m excited about it. It’s a message the country wants to hear.”

- more -

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2013/08/01/Obama-Spouts-Populism-As-His-Party-Tacks-Left.aspx?p=1

Obama Says Income Gap Is Fraying U.S. Social Fabric
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023358509

"The day the right lost the economic argument...President Obama's speech clinched the case..."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023344918

[liberal N proud]

1. Spouts

Some of the things that come to mind when you say "Spouts"









http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/622258/622258,1296489454,1/stock-photo-singapore-jan-the-merlion-fountain-spouts-water-infront-of-singapore-skyline-jan-in-it-s-70166518.jpg

[winterpark]

5. Ok. Nice, but my mind went where it wasn't supposed to go at first glance at that

last pic. LOL. You prob should take it off so dirty minds like mine wont get nasty thoughts. LOLOLOL

[geek tragedy]

6. leave anthony weiner out of this nt

[Scuba]

2. Please, please, please let this be more than rhetoric.

We'll see when the new head of the Fed is appointed.

[democrank]

3. Oh, my.

His handlers must have heard from a new focus group.

[ProSense]

4. Yeah, that's likely n/t

[Safetykitten]

16. "So, we value your opinions. Who here is unemployed? How do you FEEL about that? You are here for...

the food? That's great! Now on a scale from one to ten, with ten being the best..."

[Wednesdays]

18. What, the old focus group was no good?

[geek tragedy]

7. This is the biggest reason to suspect Summers won't get the fed nomination.

He'd be flushing all of this increaesd populist rhetoric down the toilet

[uponit7771]

8. But has Obama walked on water yet?! No?! There it is then /sarcasm <- Cause

....that's needed around here these days

[Fumesucker]

9. Unpossible, the Democratic party is already the mostest leftistest in the entire universe

If they were tack any further left they would fall off the edge of the world.

Did I get that about right correct?

One more point, the word "tack" is nautical and it describes one leg of a zigzag course, tacking port is always temporary and inevitably means tacking starboard at some juncture.

[ProSense]

11. Seriously

"Unpossible, the Democratic party is already the mostest leftistest in the entire universe"

...doubt that. Still, one has to deal with reality.

Bernie Sanders Exposes The Republican Goal of Abolishing The Minimum Wage
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023413272

[Fumesucker]

13. ProSense, I'm surrounded by wingnuts, you really don't have to tell me what they think

I got a good dose of wingnut thinking up close and personal this morning at my sometime kaffeeklatsch. If I try to take a moderate centrist position I get walked all over and laughed at and deluged with a Niagara of talking points. On the other hand if I hit them with a hard leftist position very often I get much less argument and I always get fewer talking points because they've never actually heard a leftist argument before and don't have anything pre lined up to say against it.

I actually make them think from time to time, yes the odor is appalling when that long unused gray matter starts wheezing to undead status but it's worth it.

[ProSense]

14. Yeah, they've taken over in some states. n/t

[NCTraveler]

10. "President Obama's speech clinched the case"

"Obama Spouts Populism"
"Obama Says"

[SaveOurDemocracy]

12. He's got the TALK part down ... It's the WALK part he can't seem to get. n/t

[ProSense]

17. He has had some successes. n/t

[Scurrilous]

15. K & R