I didn’t write the loopholes you exploit, @amazon – your armies of lawyers and lobbyists did. But you bet I’ll fight to make you pay your fair share. And fight your union-busting. And fight to break up Big Tech so you’re not powerful enough to heckle senators with snotty tweets. https://t.co/3vCAI93MST
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) March 26, 2021
How much do powerful people enjoy their power? Ah! I have crushed my enemies!! How much of that sort of thing goes on in their head?
I feel rather certain that they must get emotional thrills, because — unless they came into their power by birth — they have to go through so much struggle to get their power. I would never do it, and I know I don't get pleasure from exerting power. I have a distaste for it. I know these people who pursue it are emotionally different from me, and I wonder how does it feel? I'm saying this on the occasion of Elizabeth Warren's tweet because I'm certain that if I were a U.S. Senator — if somehow that awful role were foisted on me — and I thought of that wisecrack, I would never write it out and publish.
But Warren thought it was good — openly triumphing at power. I think of this:
Posts
175 comments:
If I had a Twitter account, I know what I'd be doing ...
Excuse me...
Wasn’t President Trump’s impeachment partly over the use of the word “fight?”
@Althouse, what makes you think the crazy woman was making a joke? She’s an arrogant piece of snot who invented a “family legend” so that she could abuse affirmative action to accomplish for her career what her crappy scholarship would not. There’s solidarity with your former female law professor colleague, and then there’s being a hairy fox turd.
And, for the record, Amazon’s tweet that inspired her to claim she was being heckled is perfectly correct: they didn’t write the tax laws, she and other senators did. They have a fiduciary duty to their stockholders to pay no more tax than they are legally obligated to.
Also for the record, senators are not, and should never be, exempt from criticism. Not even the female ones.
McCain also believed that people shouldn't be able to criticize Senators. He got McCain Finegold passed so this attitude isn't new, especially in the Senate.
I wonder how she felt when she started making early money by buying foreclosures back home in Oklahoma, dumping unfortunates on the street, and flipping their houses?
I know it’s not illegal etc but it’s distasteful and she’s a piece of shit for pretending she gives one hair on one rat’s ass about poor people and others are so so so stupid for believing her bullshit.
"Wasn’t President Trump’s impeachment partly over the use of the word “fight?”"
And in her case, it comes after characterizing her opponents as "armies."
All the snotty tweets I've written over the years and I didn't realize how much power was surging through me ...
"@Althouse, what makes you think the crazy woman was making a joke?"
The form of the expression is enough to reflect that she believes it is funny. That doesn't make it an untrue statement. She is revealing something — what? — about her own emotions and intentions.
All the “oooh Amazon you’re gonna be sorry for messing with Lizzie!!!!” replies on Twitter made me want to barf.
"All the snotty tweets I've written over the years and I didn't realize how much power was surging through me ..."
But did you ever tweet about your own efforts to restrict the capacity of other people to snottily tweet? That would be the parallel.
"All the “oooh Amazon you’re gonna be sorry for messing with Lizzie!!!!” replies on Twitter made me want to barf."
Emotive power-wielders have their fans.
Speaking of people I don't identify with, I feel no affinity for people in crowds who are all excited about a power-seeking person on the stage. I've been in crowds like that, and nothing makes me feel more coolly detached.
What's so snotty about the Amazon tweet? It's reasonable push-back.
Imagine talking about loopholes and blaming people for using them when you're the one/s who've made the tax system so convoluted as to require armies of accountants and lawyers just to figure out what your taxes are, how to pay them, and what even is taxable.
This is like making the weather while making people stand out in the rain and saying "shit! It's raining!"
Princess spreading bull should stick to the fake Indian shit. It's funnier.
The power of cool detachment.
Just to be clear,
She's reminding us, that laws aren't written by Senators ... but by lobbyists and Their lawyers...
Right?
"I didn't write the loopholes."
Of course, "loopholes" is always ass-covering BS, but the writing is the least of it: it is Congress approving. And how many tanks does Amazon have?
"I wonder how does it feel?"
Yes, because in the many prog emanations that show how Warren et al. mean to take the country down, and in the prog shakedown of big tech now taking shape, Lizzy's feelings are most interesting.
Amazon is a convenient punching bag because they are "big" and successful. A giant Strawman
If Warren thinks that Amazon is getting rich because of tax laws...then gee whiz! who has the ability to FIX the tax laws. Hmm...maybe someone in the Legislature who makes the laws. I wonder who that could be Senator Warren???
What people don't realize is that many MANY small and medium businesses are able to use the Amazon platform to reach markets that before they could never dream of. Amazon has been a BOON and a BLESSING to small/medium businesses all across the country. Also a boon and blessing to people living in far flung parts of the country. AKA not in a giganto metroplex.
Don't believe me? Buy some Hill Country Balsamic Vinegar, and other products, Made in a local company by a family business,(thousands of miles from me), and totally unavailable locally. That's just one example. Amazon BOOKS. Used specialty books from across the country.
Does Amazon make a buck off of the multitudes of INDEPENDENT business who are making sales across the country....across the world even? Hell yes. Amazon is providing the platform and the means to enable this...and for that they deserve a piece of the action.
Is Amazon doing this out of an altruistic motive. EFF no! They can be just as wily in using the laws as any other big business. That's how they get big.
I'll shop Amazon any day for the convenience and to get items that are not available to me. And those are a lot because of where I live. If Amazon gets something out of that...good!
Amazon vs. Warren. It's the Iran-Iraq war, replayed with tweets. Amazon is a censorship machine; Warren would like that same power for herself. I wish they were fighting with real bullets. I wish they could annihilate each other.
I did my taxes the other day, and it took only a couple of hours, thanks to turbotax, which keeps track of impossible to figure out stuff like tax loss carry-forward and deductable IRA and 401k distributions.
I didn't notice any loopholes though.
Break up Google(D) first.
They won't. the censorship works nicely for the mob party.
I was kind of on board with the idea of tax reform and keeping big businesses in check, even if I doubt Warren and I would agree on the best way to do this. Then I realized that Warren wanted to do it to further consolidate power and silence dissent. I mean, I assumed that was why, but that she'd be smart enough to not say the quiet part out loud, so we could try and find some level of agreement.
Unfortunately, no one should work with her on any initiative dealing with business. She's openly admitted to being an authoritarian tyrant.
I am all for breaking up Amazon, but not so that Democrats can silence their critics.
Yeah - ST - Warren used the word "FIGHT"
She must be impeached.
It's all theater, anyway. The left want to tax small and medium businesses. The left tax to punish, first and foremost.
"That doesn't make it an untrue statement. She is revealing something — what? — about her own emotions and intentions."
-- "Humor is what happens when we're told the truth quicker and more directly than we're used to." -- George Saunders. There's a Romanian proverb that says "Truth is told in jokes." I again reach the point though where I just don't think she's making a joke. I think she really, truly doesn't understand why people are not respecting her authority.
Also: Don't you think it is weird when the Senator who writes the laws and wields the power to crush businesses with regulations, and whose party runs the Executive and Legislative branches... is playing herself as the underdog against a company that is so hated that they had to run commercials assuring people that their employees could take bathroom breaks?
Maybe Warren doesn't quite get the power disparity is in her favor here. Amazon can write all the legislation it wants *if her didn't keep voting for it.*
I thought Twitter was democratizing voices.
So why is Warren focusing on the powerful using Twitter to express their power? She doesn’t defend free speech for the little people: this is about one incredibly powerful person threatening to use her power to prevent another incredibly powerful person from criticizing her. In a tweet.
Even if she was trying to be funny, it’s more disturbing than funny.
She is revealing something — what? — about her emotions and intentions.
That's she's a Democrat? Just kiddimg, but the Dems sure seem to have a lot more of them than the Repubs. Take Pelosi for example...
The party of Johnson.
And all the little piggies and puppies on the farm think she loves them. She is fighting for them. The piggies and puppies. We are so lucky to have her as our caretaker.
I didn’t read it as a joke but then I am not nclined to like anything about her. I doubt she has a sense of humor. Never observed.
In this case, Elizabeth Warren reveals herself dropping chocolate balls all over the floor of her Senate office.
Oh the lese-majeste. How ever does she bear it.
DBQ. Agree Re Amazon. Hating on them is stupid.
If senators don’t make the laws, but lobbyists and lawyers do, why do we need senators?
Ann writes "I feel rather certain that they must get emotional thrills, because — unless they came into their power by birth — they have to go through so much struggle to get their power."
My God, did someone hit you with the obvious stick? The entire point of the US Constitution is to curtail the 98% of politicians who are motivated by power. The entire Covid panic was a power grab by these despicable people. And Ann cheered it on while being a "Karen" on a regular basis!
And who did Ann want gone? Trump, the man who slashed thousands of pages of government regulations. Trump who didn't grab the power to shut down our lives. Trump, the first president in my life who didn't start a war. Trump, who pulled our troops from the Middle East.
I'll stop now as there is no point in trying to reach the Inga's of the world!
"I would never do it, and I know I don't get pleasure from exercising power. I have a distaste for it."
Exactly why people like you should be the ones running for office. Not the power hungry ones. Lizzy forgets that she works for us. She (supposedly) reports to us. And there are 350,000,000 of us that have the right to heckle Senators with snotty tweets. Especially those who are overseeing nationalizing fraud in elections, open borders, and the corruption of our banking system.
There will come a time when she'll long for the days of just snotty tweets.
Liz, be more like Bernie, drop the personal stuff and get down to brass tacks.
“Amazon's CEO, Jeff Bezos, is the wealthiest person in the world and the company has tens of thousands of workers in fulfillment centers all across the country who are working at a breakneck pace to fill and ship orders.
In 2020, Amazon made $14 billion in profits during the COVID pandemic, but decided to stop paying hazard pay to workers. During that same time, Jeff Bezos saw his wealth grow by around $70 billion. One report found that Jeff Bezos's net worth had grown so much from March to September 2020 that he could have given every single Amazon employee a bonus of $105,000 and he'd still be as wealthy as he was before the pandemic. When I get to Alabama today to speak with the Amazon workers there, my message to Jeff Bezos will be pretty simple. "Jeff, you're worth $182 billion. That's a lot of money. What is your problem with allowing workers in your plant in Alabama to organize for better wages and better working conditions?"
The time is long overdue for us to address the crisis of income and wealth inequality in our country.”
Bernie Sanders
senators with snotty tweets
Which senators would that be?
As it stands right now, the Democrats are fully in power - or have the upper hand in government. Why don’t they put forward these ‘reasonable and common sense laws’ that the ‘overwhelming vast majority of people want’, and get them passed quite easily?
Ah, those pesky lawyers and lobbyists...I can see them all now, in the rotunda, horns and all.
Temujin said...
"I would never do it, and I know I don't get pleasure from exercising power. I have a distaste for it."
Exactly why people like you should be the ones running for office....
Reminds me of Brewsters Millions ‘vote for “none of the above”’.
It's a private business. Break it up and then what - who gets to own the pieces?
let us guess... anyone who needs a good bribe? Drudge? Manchin's wife?
Lizzie Warren wouldn't know a joke if she tripped over it in broad daylight.
What I find so obnoxious about Warren is her blatant, casual in your face hypocrisy.
Shameless really. She has her price. She and Amazon are just negotiating her price.
Amazon News vs. Wash Post....
Interesting. The post would kiss her ass.
Tax the rich
feed the poor
Till there are no
rich no more
Lizzie is clearly expressing her thirst for power. The difference between someone like Lizzie and Jeff Bezos is that Bezos actually produced something of value. The Left is all about using the power of the State to take down the power of individual enterprise. Including small family owned businesses, not just behemoths like Amazon.
Of course Althouse props up Warren. A woman who faked her heritage for professional gain. She’s a joke. Corrupt. Made $700k for teaching some bullshit classes at Harvard. And she’s a champion of the poor. Let them eat Pow Wow Chow.
But...birds of a University feminist....
Wasn't it Kissinger who said, "It's a pity they can't both lose".
Lizzie is a stuck up prig who has delusions of grandeur. If she's so powerful, why does she let the lobbyists write the tax laws? And Lizzie, you work for us and for our corporations. Corporations are just groups of citizens in business together and owned by other citizens. So shut up and sit down.
Blogger Inga said...
Liz, be more like Bernie, drop the personal stuff and get down to brass tacks.
“Amazon's CEO, Jeff Bezos, is the wealthiest person in the world and the company has tens of thousands of workers in fulfillment centers all across the country who are working at a breakneck pace to fill and ship orders.
In 2020, Amazon made $14 billion in profits during the COVID pandemic, but decided to stop paying hazard pay to workers. During that same time, Jeff Bezos saw his wealth grow by around $70 billion. One report found that Jeff Bezos's net worth had grown so much from March to September 2020 that he could have given every single Amazon employee a bonus of $105,000 and he'd still be as wealthy as he was before the pandemic. When I get to Alabama today to speak with the Amazon workers there, my message to Jeff Bezos will be pretty simple. "Jeff, you're worth $182 billion. That's a lot of money. What is your problem with allowing workers in your plant in Alabama to organize for better wages and better working conditions?"
The time is long overdue for us to address the crisis of income and wealth inequality in our country.”
Bernie Sanders"
Bernie Sanders used to rail against millionaires and billionaires but since he is a millionaire he only rails against billionaires. I don't like Bezos. I dislike his pseudo Left positions and his wrecking brick and mortar businesses. All the same he provides a service that millions of people use and are satisfied with. No one has to work for Amazon and it's not like they are the only employer in town. As for equity, be worth more and you will get more. People's career choices are their choices, not society's choices. Even in Communist countries there is inequality in wages and wealth. All that you and Sanders are espousing is theft. "I want. I need. You have. I take".
Break up the WaPO - force it to stop being a mouth piece for The Party. fat chance.
"The time is long overdue for us to address the crisis of income and wealth inequality in our country.”
Inga, honest question: do you see Amazon's success as a crisis? One that requires government to address it?
Jokes are supposed to be funny. She's reminding you that she has the power to destroy you. That isn't humor. That's ominous.
Only someone else on the left would find that funny. The left believes with all their black little hearts that the other is evil and deserve whatever the left can deliver to them.
If you have to explain the joke then it's not a good joke. I don't think it was a joke either, more like a threat. Citizens and taxpayers can and should criticize, heckle even, our elected officials; snottily or not.
This is the same person who, in a video campaign event said, "I think I'll have me a beer". Now, that was funny.
Foot, shot, some assembly DONE!
One report found that Jeff Bezos's net worth had grown so much from March to September 2020 that he could have given every single Amazon employee a bonus of $105,000 and he'd still be as wealthy as he was before the pandemic.
The small business owners I know and talk to point to the policies of the government in response to the Covid pandemic as the reason their businesses were damaged, maybe irreparably, and those like Amazon profited hugely. Maybe Bernie and Warren can do something about that.
The difference is that Bezos began by selling books. Warren began by faking her family history.
Serious Questions paragraph F Jeff piso's was to give a $105000 to each employee, where would he have got that money from?
He has very little, Money
He has LOTS of Amazon stock
IF he Sold enough Amazon stock for these bonuses...
What would have happened to the stock price?
How many BILLIONS in property worth would he have lost?
As Barbie said, math is hard
Stupid aautocorrect
JEFF BEZOS, or what ever his name is
Jorgenson a cubano adopted him
She’ll crush it with as much genuine authoritay as she can drink a beer.
Bezos will just give Warren's husband a job at $5 million/year.
I've been in crowds like that, and nothing makes me feel more coolly detached.
Yes, but is there any cruel neutrality involved?
Who then let Amazon lobbyists write those laws? Who abdicated their responsibilities? The senate voted on each one.
That, by the way, is real power.
Truly an unexamined life. Such a tyranny, those snotty tweets, for those elected snotty twits.
Come on, Althouse, admit it- you and Meade get a thrill out of deleting Chuck. I get a thrill watching it happen.
This side of Warren has always been on display and is precisely why the progressives love her. Remember her ads showing the home of a named private citizen, and how awful it was that he owned it? She was going to fix him!
As Elizabeth Warren would say: "That's not funny.".....I get the sense that humor is not the Senator's strong suit. If I were casting a screwball comedy, she would not be my first choice. Rather, she's more like the sultry Sharon Stone type whose gorgeous exterior hides the heart of a killer. Well, no-- that's my snotty little joke.....I do, however, think Elizabeth Warren could carry off and improve on the wounded propriety role that Margaret Dumont handled so well.
Rather, she's more like the sultry Sharon Stone type
She's more like that particular part of Sharon Stone that was so famously flashed in Basic Instinct.
Lizzy looking for another scalp.
someone had to say it
“To crush your enemies. See them driven before you and to hear the lamentation of the women.”
Many people know this (even Althouse's excerpt from it) as a motto declared by (then-future California governor) Arnold Schwarzenegger playing in the (first) Conan the Barbarian movie (which came out in 1982). Schwarzenegger also reportedly mentioned it occasionally during his terms as governor — to wit, in full: [quoting…]
[Ruler:] … This is good! But what is best in life?
[Steppe Warrior:] The open steppe! Fleet horse. Falcons at your wrist — and wind in your hair!
[Ruler:] Wrong!! Conan, what is best in life?
[Conan:] To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the women.
[Ruler:] That is good.
[/unQuote]
But that quote did not originate with (Schwarzenegger's) “Conan” in the Barbarian — or with the scriptwriter, or even the author(s) of the Conan series of (fantasy) books and stories — but rather was actually said (reportedly in almost exactly those very words) by 13th-century real, historic, (near) world-conqueror Genghis Khan.
Historian Harold Lamb tells the tale: [quoting…]
[Genghis Khan:] “What, in all the world, could bring the greatest happiness?”
“The open steppe, a clear day, and a swift horse under you,” responded the officer after a little thought, “and a falcon on your wrist to start up hares.”
“Nay,” responded the Khan, “to crush your enemies, to see them fall at your feet — to take their horses and goods and hear the lamentation of their women. That is best.”
[/unQuote]
Of course, Genghis Khan really did “drive his enemies before him” — oftentimes substituting mountains piled high with the skulls of those who had the temerity to oppose him, in place of their former living breathing cities.
____
(Harold Lamb, Genghis Khan: The Emperor of All Men, Doubleday, 1927, p. 107)
I suppose real power in 2021 is to be on Twitter, whose very purpose is to facilitate heckling, and no one dare heckle you.
Twit:
To vex by bringing to notice, or reminding of, a fault,
defect, misfortune, or the like; to revile; to reproach; to
upbraid; to taunt; as, he twitted his friend of falsehood.
[1913 Webster]
This these scoffers twitted the Christians with.
--Tillotson.
[1913 Webster]
Aesop minds men of their errors, without twitting them
for what is amiss. --L'Estrange.
[1913 Webster]
"I did my taxes the other day, and it took only a couple of hours, thanks to turbotax"
Turbotax destroyed the Main street CPA business. Even in the 80's everyone of some means had an accountant on retainer. Due to Turbo tax and the major retail market funds accounting is now all corporate. Oh well, one door closes, one door opens.
"If senators don’t make the laws, but lobbyists and lawyers do, why do we need senators?"
Senators and Reps are there to dupe the public into thinking that actions are taken on their behalf instead of the lobbyists. When the senator votes against the wishes of her constituents she is there to take the heat and grovel for a moment. She knows that in a few years everyone will forget.
A sad fact of the human condition is that the people who want to be in charge are not usually the ones you want to be in charge.
I love the part about "Your lobbyists wrote the loopholes". So Warren is admitting she and her fellow senators have been bribed and sell legislation for $$$. in case anyone's forgotten, Bezos/Amazon owns the Washington Post and lies about anyone they dislike. They also suppress news they don't like.
Bezos with Zuckerberg and a handful of media barons and Rich donors run the country. The politicians - except for Trump and a few others - are their puppets. Warren will send out a snarky tweet, but will go back to giving Amazon tax breaks. This is all just theater for the dumbass Leftists.
Poor helpless Congress critters. Totally subjugated by those evil corporations. Helpless scribes unable to change a word or punctuation point on what is sent along by the real authors of the tax code (and every other piece of legislation).
That is one of the most pathetic statements I've ever hear from such a "powerful" person.
Sweet baby geebuzz, this helpless (dare I call her frail) female can't even imagine writing her own laws? Isn't that what she's saying?
And that crap about only the powerful dare speak negatively about a Senator. Wow.
I'd rather have an elected senator ruling the country and "excising her power" than an Unelected plutocrat worth $200 billion who runs the country from behind the scenes through owning the Press and bribing his meat puppet Senators and Congressman.
At least we - the average person - can vote out the politicians. We can't do anything about Bezos, Zuckerberg, Bloomberg, Murdoch, gates, etc.
Both the D's and R's lie to their base. the D's constantly promise to do something "The big corporations" and income inequality. The R's are supposedly fighting for "Conservatism". But that never gets done. Instead of ending abortion we get tax cuts. Instead of taxes on the rich, we get transgender rights.
Lizzie Warren took an axe
And gave Jeff Bezos forty whacks
When she saw what she had done
She gave his Amazon forty-one
Is faking your heritge as Princess Liawatha did, any worse than Kamala Harris "kneeling to rise', or Sharon Stone flashing her beaver? I mean it all helped them get ahead.
Rcocean declares: I'd rather have an elected senator ruling the country and "excising her power" than an Unelected plutocrat worth $200 billion who runs the country from behind the scenes through owning the Press and bribing his meat puppet Senators and Congressman.
If you think our 'elected officials' are 'ruling the country' you are pretty naive. And if I had to choose [and I'd rather not], I'd rather have a corporate oligarchy than an all-powerful State.
Many politicians don't write their own tweets. This one has a personal feel, though, so either Warren wrote it herself or a staffer who really identifies with her is going to get fired.
Her other disasters make it likely that it was her: that at home with Liz and Bruce "I'm gonna get me a beer" video and the DNA test that (didn't) prove that she was native American.
Warren did exploit her supposed Indian ancestry to get attention, but what really got her jobs was that the law schools wanted to hire her husband and she was part of the deal.
But I have to wonder if she was always the way she is now. Isn't it a gradual process of corruption?
Why is this powerful politician admitting that the actual legislators don't write our laws? How is that helpful to her and the majority party? In any case, we dodged a bullet by not electing this windbag as President.
"I do, however, think Elizabeth Warren could carry off and improve on the wounded propriety role that Margaret Dumont handled so well."
Thread winner!
She is going to fight Amazon. That sounds rather extreme. I think she should be censured and removed from the Senate for such violent comments. If any harm comes to Amazon, I blame these unhinged remarks from Sen. Warren.
I don't see Warren in the Margaret Dumont roles at all. Dumont played the proud dowager, concerned with propriety but very conservative. Warren in a lying cheater of a Leftist with no real interest in propriety.
"The time is long overdue for us to address the crisis of income and wealth inequality in our country.”
The wage gap was closing during Trump's administration. His economic and immigration policies were the cause of that. Biden's* policies are doing the exact opposite. Long term neither Trump’s decrease the labor supply or Bernie's redistribution are going to be able to address the inequities that the GNR revolution is going to cause. We're getting pretty close to robots replacing even menial jobs. What happens then? Who owns the robots? Who gets the cybernetic implants and perfect genes? These are going to be the power struggles of the not too distant future.
Concentration of capital is necessary for human progress. It's a balancing act.
Interesting that Amazon, in that Twitter thread, asked Warren to get fed minimum wage increased to $15. That would hurt Amazon competitors I think. So will Warren do Amazon's bidding?
Regardless, Bezos and all the the other technocrats will continue to wave the Progressive banner. They will continue to be kicked around by the Democrat Party but still vote D. Every time. Like Jews.
On Genghis: We say "mountains of skulls," but originally they were mountains (or piles) of heads.
On Power: Is it really a choice between politicians and corporate oligarchs? Don't they work together? Does the real Warren want to break up Amazon? Or does she just want them to pay more taxes? And if unions who support her get cut into the bargain, that's also to her advantage.
Amazon will fight like hell to not pay taxes, but if they have to, the company and the political class will find ways to make up and cooperate. That could be why Bezo's bought the Post: now he has more power in any fight and more leverage in the negotiations afterwards.
P.S. It's getting tiresome to have to italicize the names of newspapers like they are royalty or something. Anyway, this century will be for the papers what the last century was for monarchies.
The truly quiet part she shouted out loud was the fact that senators and congressmen don't write the legislation, it's all written for them by lobbyists and special interest groups and their lawyers. Congress critters have no idea what's in the legislation they vote on besides the headlines. They don't even attempt to read it, let alone debate each clause. "We have to pass it to see what's in it." No truer words have ever been spoken.
Blogger mockturtle said...
Regardless, Bezos and all the the other technocrats will continue to wave the Progressive banner. They will continue to be kicked around by the Democrat Party but still vote D. Every time. Like Jews.
I think this began with Microsoft and Gates. His company was doing great and then Congress discovered it. To be fair, one reason his company was doing great was that IBM, his rival, was being battered around by Congress and the FTC as a monopoly. Anyway, they began to go after Microsoft and he finally opened a lobby office in DC. I forget the year but it was in the 80s when Democrats ran Congress. He learned that you must pay off Congress if you want them to leave you alone. It;'s like a toll gate. Pay the toll and you may proceed to build a company.
It was just one more step to putting Congress on the payroll and the Democrat Party is the party of government. The Republicans are only a little better, or were then.
The best proof that heckling Elizabeth Warren is legitimate is the enraged reaction it engenders in Elizabeth Warren.
I had several minor political appointments during the governorships of Pete Wilson and Arnold Schwarzenegger here in California. One was running a fairly important regulatory agency. I remember sitting in my office one day in my fourth year thinking, "Hmmm. What else should we be regulating?" It took me a few minutes to wake up to the fact that even I, a conservative Republican, had been captured by the seduction of bureaucratic power.
But it also helped me understand the Founders' correct recognition that all humans have tyrannical instincts by nature. The central problem--the still unsolved problem--is that the electorate itself, and not just government officials, has these instincts. And so we elect horrible people like Warren because we expect them to tyrannize the correct people. Too bad we most of us remain ignorant of the lessons of history demonstrating the lunacy of this assumption.
Nothing about that tweet comes off as a joke. It's raw, humorless anger at being challenged by an inferior. Specifics of the tweet aside, does Warren ever joke in public like this? On topics that are supposed to be her Very Serious wheelhouse?
God forbid anyone should “heckle” Ted Cruz or Josh Hawley. Right, Lizzie?
Am I the only one who finds Liz Warren’s voice to be the phoniest sound on the planet?
OK, Kamala’s cackle runs a close second.
Yes, the head of an agency should be looking for things to eliminate from his portfolio- things the agency does a piss poor job doing, things it doesn't actually need to do, and things it shouldn't be doing even if it could do them well. In fact, a competent head won't be looking for additional things to do that are literally not acts passed by the legislature, nor should they lobby for them as a matter of ethics.
That kind of mindset, though, is going to be very rare in a political an appointee, regardless of what party they belong to. It just cuts against human nature.
so now they have jay carney, as executive vice president, you think that doesn't have an impact,
re microsoft I don't know how you carve it up, ma bell was because of geography, whereas microsoft has functional components, it recently acquired discord, kind of like spotify acquiring joe rogan,
to diversify amazon, their retail arm is the largest component, that the bug has enabled them to be a vertically integrated monopoly,
Yancey Ward wrote, "Yes, the head of an agency should be looking for things to eliminate from his portfolio- things the agency does a piss poor job doing, things it doesn't actually need to do, and things it shouldn't be doing even if it could do them well."
Ironically, the department which my agency was part of actually did all these things, shockingly under legislative authorization to do so. We came up with many, many activities we thought could safely be eliminated; further, we developed criteria that could be applied regularly and systematically to prevent mission creep.
You will be amazed to learn that the same legislature that authorized our review rejected ever single recommendation that we submitted. Even the Republicans showed little interest in forcing the issues.
There is no joke in the Warren tweet.
As for having a distaste for exerting power ... well, OK.
why does she have so much power in a 50/50 senate, mcturtle was sold another bag of majic beans,
As Marty points out @11:32, agencies will never cut their budgets because it means less allocation in the next fiscal year. For the same reason, we the people cannot continue to permit Congress to give themselves raises. Having worked for a large company with similar nest-feathering divisions, I saw that it took a 'hatchet man' to do the necessary cutting.
She is revealing something — what?
Warren has revealed her moral unfitness for power. I used to call her Fauchaontas, but that mockery is far too gentle.
From now on her name is Caliguletta.
Unfortunately, the new 'hatchet men/women' are purging departments of 'racists and extremists' [presumably non-Muslim extremists] rather than striving to make the department efficient and functional. As Tucker pointed out yesterday, our new Defense Secretary is in the process of undermining our military. We may as well learn Mandarin now and bow to Beijing to avoid future bloodshed.
Progressive-ism is rooted in a sense of entitlement and every prog argument boils down to, "Remember your place."
She was a law professor at Harvard???
btw warren still says tank abrams is the governor of georgia, without a trace of irony,
Blogger Charlie Currie said...
The truly quiet part she shouted out loud was the fact that senators and congressmen don't write the legislation, it's all written for them by lobbyists and special interest groups and their lawyers.
Obamacare was written by health insurance lobbyists and 25 year old staff lawyers. Hillary had made the mistake of excluding insurance companies from her task force and they beat her with TV ads. Pelosi and Reid did the opposite. They let insurance companies, who hate health insurance by the way, write the bill in return for the mandate that everyone had to buy it. Then Democrats chickened out and realized that company and union plans would not be taken in at the cost of losing the union vote.
Re. Amazon warehouse worker pay. What is needed is a flood of folks who *will* work at starter jobs for the going wage rate. What can be done to get those workers here?
It's better if you read it aloud in her angry librarian voice.
I don't know which I find more disturbing, the power tripping or that she admitted our laws are written by lawyers and lobbyists instead of by senators. It's not something we didn't already know, I'm just surprised she admitted it.
I also love the way Warren, even while asserting her power to slap down those who would presume to trouble a US Senator with snotty tweets, also manages to evade any responsibility for the tax law. These armies of lawyer/lobbyists now literally write and enact the US tax laws, over the objections of US Senators..
And people wanted her to be President. Why!!??
Democrats denying entry. Pro-Choicers denying life. Also, the epitome of authority: Pelosi wielding a novelty-sized mallet. Kneel. Beg. Good girl.
Conan was a barbarian, uncivilized. Warren and her ilk seek to destroy civilization. Me, I kind of like it.
I heard that Warren was planning on changing her first name to Karen.
So, the legislature does not write laws. That removes several hundred people, and their support personnel, from the American payroll.
Blogger MadisonMan said...
And people wanted her to be President. Why!!??
--
Free shit...as usual.
Cimmerians in the hyborean age, were not that keen on institutions, it was a savage time, of science and super sorcery, (sorry that was thundarr the barbarian, set in the far future)
One of the glories of America is the right to be snotty to your senator in print or other media. You can even make rude gestures at them.
It’s amusing how distractible y’all are. Amazon, the most powerful company on earth, has bought off Democrats and Republicans alike and pays virtually no taxes, which allows it to invest in things like the Washington Post and server farms that the US Government (including its defense and intelligence agencies) rely on, thereby increasing its power exponentially and making it both politically untouchable and virtually untaxable. You’re fine with that because Dopey Paleface Lizzie Warren once stole some fake Indian recipes and a Harvard affirmative action position back before the internet made such maneuvers more difficult.
its a kabuki dance, of course bezos who owns the washington post, whole foods and everything else of note, warren has her own scam, demos, run by her daughter,
Why does she vote for the goddamn laws then?
I hope it's not news to anybody here, but corporate lobbying firms write the laws and politicians just vote for them, after taking bags full of corporate donations, of course.
'you didn't build that' remember that ditty, that means your property, is forfeit to the state, whenever it decides to,
This is from Warren’s prior tweet
“ The Republican who is sitting in Stacey Abrams’ chair just signed a despicable voter suppression bill into law to take Georgia back to Jim Crow.”
Doesn’t that imply she thinks the election was stolen? Isn’t that impeachable?
God forbid anyone should “heckle” Ted Cruz
Someone tweeted a photo of Klobuchar glowering at Cruz and praising her for it. He retweeted it with "I forgot the salad fork again."
Prole is full of shit as ever. If you scroll back on the blog Prole you will find I am to the left of Warren on Big Tech and I explicitly called for nationalizing AWS and breaking up the rest of Amazon.
"She was a law professor at Harvard???"
Yes, and she was being paid heap big wampum too.
Sure, I find Warren's personality grating and her voice like nails on a chalkboard but what matters is her positions regarding taxes, labor, and Big Tech are correct. Warren herself is pretty much a Clintonite phony. Her fanbase is woke white liberals. What Republicans don't seem to get is that Trump won in 2016 by sounding a lot more like Elizabeth Warren than Paul Ryan.
she intends nothing of the kind, she thinks nothing of the average people, who she will subject to carbon taxes, and every other burden she thinks of, tuition has become prohibitively expensive because of the subsidies, that help fund her salary,
Conan was a barbarian, uncivilized. Warren and her ilk seek to destroy civilization. Me, I kind of like it.
Remember that when we meet (Howard's) Conan, he is a king and a patron of the arts. He wasn't exactly against civilization, but he felt it bred men unworthy of it.
Farmer, her position is that companies should not be free to mock senators.
Nice to see you confirm I was correct saying you were no part of the right. Your years of dissimulation here are exposed.
Honestly at this point I totally agree with her position on breaking up Amazon as well as many of the other big tech companies, even though her "not powerful enough" to heckle me is obviously ridiculous and undercuts her argument. But Warren is a clearly ridiculous person who pushes many unrealistic and unworkable policy ideas, like so many other people who have power these days. But all those unrealistic ideas seem to grab and hold most people's attention these days. We've drifted so far away from sanity with our politics and I have little hope that most voters will ever choose sensible notions over emotionally satisfying but destructive ones.
how would you do it, it's retail arm is it's largest component, as long as smaller businesses are crippled by the epidemic, le bon ton roulee,
Prole is full of shit as ever. If you scroll back on the blog Prole you will find I am to the left of Warren on Big Tech and I explicitly called for nationalizing AWS and breaking up the rest of Amazon.
Congratulations for being the squirrel who stumbled on a couple of nuts.
Here is the truth for anyone who wants to acknowledge it- Warren is already bought off by Amazon and all the other tech companies she criticizes. All she is doing is making it look like she isn't bought off without actually taking any other actions to demonstrate it. This twitter war between Amazon and Warren is a sham war.
Blogger Nonapod said...
Honestly at this point I totally agree with her position on breaking up Amazon as well as many of the other big tech companies,
I would focus on Google (Alphabet) and Facebook first. At least Amazon does something useful.
The classic failure of management, in my opinion, is Sears. They closed their catalog division the year Amazon started. Sears had all the infrastructure in place. They should have eaten Amazon's lunch. I think Bezos has even said that.
What Republicans don't seem to get is that Trump won in 2016 by sounding a lot more like Elizabeth Warren than Paul Ryan.
The difference being that he was not a phony. A blowhard, maybe. Exaggerate, yes.
This twitter war between Amazon and Warren is a sham war.
Exactly -- she's already negotiated her payoff price. What's funny is that the playacting fools not only her Progressive base but also Dopey Althouse Commenters who instinctively side with Amazon.
Ken B.,
"I explicitly called for nationalizing AWS"
Why do you hate me? And more importantly, my clients?
@Earnie, go back and reread my comment at 8:05, particularly the last paragraph. With comprehension this time.
Althouse at 8:12 tries the old “can’t you take a joke?” defense.
Big Mike ain’t falling for it.
I'm waiting for Elizabeth Warren, tribune of the people, to challenge Amazon's censoring free speech! They have removed Ryan Anderson's book casting doubt on the transgender movement, and particularly on the wisdom of providing opposite-sex hormones and 'reassignment' surgery to confused children. In its place, they invite us to buy "Let Harry Become Sally: Responding to the Anti-Transgender Moment" by one Kelly Novak-- a refutation, but you're not permitted to read the book she claims to be refuting!
From what I know of Senator Warren's views, though, I don't expect her to criticize Jeff Bezos for doing that.
warren -> "And fight to break up Big Tech so you’re not powerful enough to heckle senators with snotty tweets."
Big tech hid the Hunter laptop story - which is real. OK by Warren. But big tech better never utter a critical word towards any D. Democrats WILL DESTROY YOU! No wonder big tech falls in line.
What's not OK is making a film critical of Hillary Clinton. Citizens Untied! are not allowed to make a film critical of Hitlery Clinton. Why? Again - same reason. You shall not be allowed to mock or criticize The Party.
That's why the collective left from corrupt Obama on down - papered Citizens United over with the big lie that it was all 'evil' corporate money. no. LIE. It is about the freedom to criticize a holy and precious democrat. that's it. The left want to make that illegal. how to do it? lie and say "dark corporate money!" or "corporations are not people!"
that's how.
and the idiots fall in line.
The left love corporate money - as long as they can control it.
The best way to break up monopolies is by competition, not by government mandate but I agree that there have been examples of necessary services, e.g., railroads, telephones and now the internet that people rely on that probably need protections of some kind. The problem is that, today, the government's guidelines are all about mock social justice issues, which they will merrily inject into any and all legislation from now on.
warren -> "And fight to break up Big Tech so you’re not powerful enough to heckle senators with snotty tweets."
LET THAT SINK IN.
So Elizabeth, you just admitted most of the political class is on the take
Breaking up Google, Facebook or Twitter would defeat their basic purpose. The answer isn't to break them up, it is to turn them into public utilities, and then regulate them. The first regulation would be to enforce the First Amendment.
I believe that there is a First Amendment argument to be made, via the original meaning and intent of the phrase "freedom of the press", that making them public utilities would be legal and Constitutional.
Obamacares. Green Blight. Sociopolitical complex. [Catastrophic] [Anthropogenic] Immigration reform. Climate change. Redistributive change. Academic frivolity and shared prices. Excess regulatory burdens, not that "burden". Diversity racket. Fascism. Political congruence. Social justice. Sexism. Planned Parent/hood. We didn't start the fire...
ok so a distribution company as public utility, like the post office, that doesn't make any sense,
Warren is such a fucking phoney. I'm glad someone is calling her out on her shit. As long as you pay her danegeld she will keep her trap shut and stay in her teepee.
Kirk Parker
I want your clients to have first amendment protection. It’s too late for anti trust. Perhaps common carrier designation might work but I doubt it. They can afford big fines.
A loophole is an unintended consequence of a law that mistakenly allows the entity to legally avoid a tax. It's what happens when snotty Senators don't understand tax law.
ok so a distribution company as public utility, like the post office, that doesn't make any sense,
Not like the post office... like the electric company, gas company, water company, trash company. These are all services provided by private companies regulated as utilities. Think public access television provided by the cable companies.
When the Constitution was written, "press" meant the machinery for printing, not a self identified group of people. Freedom of the press meant the ability to use a printing press to publish your ideas. Today, the internet is the printing press, and Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube are the public square.
"This twitter war between Amazon and Warren is a sham war."
Exactly. warren is in Amazon's and Bezos's pocket. She makes noises of fighting the "Big bad corporations" but its all for show. She's attacked the Wall Street mega-corporations too, but when some internet guys got together and cost a Hedge fund $billions, she wanted the SEC to investigate. How dare small investors make money in the stock market!
She's such a fake and so stupid, Warren is sure to get at least 80 million Democrat votes if she runs in 2024. If they'll vote for a senile Biden, they'll vote for anyone with (D) after their name.
To me it read just like a quick, short email from a teacher to a student, chastising the latter for being snotty. How dare she think that the American people, including the ones that make up Amazon, can't tell her verbally, or in print, to fuck off.
THEOLDMAN
Bezos took huge capital risks with Amazon in the beginning, when it was books online. He kept pouring money into it until it actually starting to make a profit (and higher stock prices) -- which is the American success story. Yes, he is an ass and is imposing his political beliefs on his customers. I don't like it, but power tends to corrupt. Most of you dumping on him fail to see his success with his investment, ideas and business plans -- it's simply envy on your part. You don't love the poor, though you profess to, you hate the rich. I bet dollars to donuts that when The Home Depot opened in your community, you stopped patronizing the local hardware store that was around for generations. Same with Walmart. As another commenter has posted, Amazon provides a service that consumers value in so many different ways. As a man, I hate to shop, so a few clicks on Amazon and some third-party reviews read, and I'm good to go. Saves me money in price, free shipping (Prime gives me value in that alone and I have Prime video on my televisions), not having to drive and time. And at my age, that's the most valuable thing for me.
Ann Althouse - "I've been in crowds like that, and nothing makes me feel more coolly detached."
Iman - Same.
Hercules - Same.
Read this entire thread. Dust in the Wind.
@Ken B:
Farmer, her position is that companies should not be free to mock senators.
Nice to see you confirm I was correct saying you were no part of the right. Your years of dissimulation here are exposed.
Oh give me a break. Who thinks that's being advocated? Where is it being advocated? How is it being advocated? Let's concern ourselves with what the Senate is actually doing rather than some dumb tweet. Frankly, Ken, I don't have the faintest fucking clue why people like you are so obsessed with personality. You seem to have a lame obsession with playing "gotcha" with me or "exposing" me for what I "really" am. Who really gives a fuck? Nothing I say is made right or wrong, vaTwlid or invalid, logical or illogical because of what I am. Two plus two equals four even if a Nazi says so.
I love buying from Amazon. I hate Bezos and making him richer. Give me an alternative and I'd jump at it like a baby shark doo doo doo doot doo doot. I've looked. I have not found that alternative. I'll keep looking.
So is the proposition that "so you’re not powerful enough to heckle senators with snotty tweets" is a joke?. I can think of some comics who might have gotten a laugh out of that line, but Elisabeth Warren is not one of them. I've seen NO EVIDENCE that she has a sense of humor. In fact, the best evidence that she's a Native American is her lack of a sense of humor. (Ba-da-bing!) That's a joke; you can tell by the Ba-da-bing!
My apologies to all my Native American friends.
Enjoy yourselves, try the turkey. It's great.
I'll be here all week.
And folks, now do you understand why the House of Representatives shitted in their pants when protesters invaded the House of Reps chambers?? Why they freaked?
They think their D.C. shell is inviolate and thus shocked when hoards of pissed off 'unwashed masses' invade. Hence they erect barbed wire.. National Guard.. and make bogus charges of 'insurrection'.
These people think they are all powerful and it scared them to realize WE THE PEOPLE just might come with pitchforks, tar, and feathers!!
No wonder they want guns banned...
@Paul:
These people think they are all powerful and it scared them to realize WE THE PEOPLE just might come with pitchforks, tar, and feathers!!
What is it you want to do that the federal government is stopping you from doing? Which federal laws are you objecting to? How much interaction do you have with federal authority versus state and local authority?
We the People didn't come with pitchforks.
There was a proposal in the Senate to delay the counting of the Electoral Votes, until an investigation into the massive fraud could be completed. It was a last ditch effort for 'We the People' to be heard. Our Judiciary failed. Not one Court in all the land would look at the evidence.
Half a million marginalized voices gathered to make their voices heard.
They are now being hunted down by the FBI.
America finally broke. It's all smoke and mirrors now, despite the Marble Columns of a termite invested Capitol City.
Can't even move to a Mountain Ridge to be left alone.
80 million vote getter droolin' Joe Biden is our man. It's all legit.
It ain't over. (sorry Miss Partridge for the 'ain't. These are the times that try men's souls)
"What is it you want to do that the federal government is stopping you from doing?"
"...petition the government for redress of grievances."
I would like to vote and know it will not be disenfranchised with bogus impeachments, and illegal election activities they are permitting and encouraging.
I would like them to stop selectively prosecuting citizens.
I would like them to stop wasting the nation's resources at a suicidal rate.
In short, I would like them to stop violating the Bill of Rights. If they can't respect that, then they have no right to rule.
America finally broke.
You sound just like a Democrat at the end of March 2016 when it was clear Russia had hacked our election.
Prole - '...when it was clear Russia had hacked our election.'
I think we are both thrilled that the Muellar and Andrew Weissman Spec Counsel investigation spent 2 years getting to the bottom of that.
Prole. This is the Althouse blog. Peddle your fantasies over at Teen Vogue.
One of the bigger loopholes was gaming nexus rules for sales tax collection.
According to the NYT overnight, Warren and the Democrats will soon get their wish:
Under Biden, Democrats Are Poised to Raise Taxes on Business and the Rich
The president’s infrastructure proposals are likely to require trillions of dollars in new tax revenue. They also give liberals a chance to address what they call the failures of Republican tax cuts.
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