According to Establishment Zombie, Bernie Is Trying to "Hillarize" Elizabeth Warren

Circle the wagons, boys! Bernie Sanders and his rabble have sharpened their pitchforks and set fire to their torches! It's time to remind them who they are.

I was rage-browsing stories about Elizabeth Warren, specifically to see if she slimed her way out of the race yet. No. But guess who slimed his way out from under a rock? Former Vermont governor Peter Shumlin! His important self spoke to Politico, because of course he did. Incidentally: Shumlin has endorsed Joe Biden, was Vermont’s governor from 2011 to 2017, and chaired the Democratic Governors Association. Just so that we're clear here.

So what did non-biased and totally-relevant-in-today's-politics Shumlin just happen to feel like saying on this random day?

"What I’ve seen in Bernie’s politics is he and his team feel they’re holier than the rest. In the end, they will play dirty because they think that they pass a purity test that Republicans and most Democrats don’t pass. What you’re seeing now is, in the end, even if he considers you a friend, like Elizabeth Warren, Bernie will come first. That’s the pattern we’ve seen over the years in Vermont, and that’s what we are seeing now nationally.”

Peter, have you been making sure to wash the fruit before you eat it? Or did you just get dusted off and handed a memo? Because I'm looking for the playing dirty part and all I see is you equating playing dirty with running against another candidate. Maybe Two Faces Warren can step aside, out of friendship for Bernie, in the name of unity, especially since she ripped his platform off... wait a minute...

The article continues:

Shumlin accused Sanders of trying to “Hillarize” Warren, saying the senator had cast Hillary Clinton, too, as an elitist, contributing to divisions in the Democratic electorate.

“We should be weakening Donald Trump, not each other,” Shumlin said. “I’m concerned that we’re seeing a replay of the kind of dynamics that didn’t allow Hillary to win.”

So no running a campaign during a primary, and definitely no facts about Warren during a primary campaign because they are true. Dammit, and stop with the elite-shaming! Say NO to Hillarizing!!1!

And "dynamics" "didn't allow Hillary to win." Today I learned voters = dynamics; shittily run campaigns = dynamics; a non-starter candidate in the human form of a curse = dynamics.

Tell us more about how Bernie fucked over Democrats - er, Vermonters:

“Don’t forget, the first office he won was beating the Democratic mayor of Burlington. He never endorsed most Democrats until his Senate career. The only way he could win the Senate seat and avoid a Democrat winning the nomination and splitting the vote in the general election has been to run for the Democratic nomination, win it and immediately turn it down.”

*sad trombone noise*

My jimmies were already sent into orbit due to the use of "purity test" and the way this guy went to bat off-topic-but-not for Omnishambles Clinton, but they just rocketed up into the stratosphere thanks to the asinine statement that Bernie should step aside for Two Faces Warren out of friendship, which is so much more important than people dying due to lack of healthcare coverage or climate change fires/flood. Those wimps should shut their mouths, right, Peter? Because Warren has plans for these things? Alrighty then!

However, a tip of the hat to the author, Natasha Korecki, for this wonderful tidbit toward the end:

Shumlin said his critique of Sanders is not sour grapes, noting that Sanders endorsed him and campaigned for him in Vermont. Shumlin also had attempted to enact a single-payer health care system in the state, an effort that ultimately failed.

So Bernie did nothing for Vermont Democrats while having the temerity to win elections against them... except endorse them... and stump for them... BUT SINGLE-PAYER FAILED IN VERMONT WHILE BERNIE EXISTED, Y'ALL.

Peter and I disagree on the definition of Hillarize; he is confusing pointing out facts with bowing down on command. In the spirit of the same unity with which Peter came forward, I propose a new definition: to hillarize someone is to attack and malign someone's character with unrelenting vindictiveness for not kowtowing. Example: "Two Faces Warren and CNN hillarized Bernie Sanders on national television at the last debate."

Full sleaze here (having trouble embedding while on my phone):

www.politico.com/news/2020/01/16/bernie-sanders-elizabeth-warren-feud-10...

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Comments

If being for healthcare for everyone (not just “access to”) is a purity test, then I’m all for them.
If being against endless wars is a purity test, then I’m all for them.
If insisting the 1% pay their share is a purity test, then I’m all for them.
If demanding action on climate change is a purity test, then I’m all for them.
If actually standing for something rather than virtue signaling is a purity test...

I could go on, but you all know the words. I’m sick to death of acting like the people we elect should actually be accountable for doing something to help the 99% is a bad thing. Purity test always sounds to me like “don’t you dare go expecting things.” Funny how the only people clutching their pearls over purity tests are the people with an interest in things staying just the way they are.

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35 users have voted.

Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

@Dr. John Carpenter either Bernie and his bro army are allegedly administering purity tests on everyone and failing based on policy (like Dr. John just did. Yeah, I see you bro!), but Bernie and his bro army are failing purity tests for not being loyal to the Clinton monarchy - I mean, not being Democrat enough (see: Clinton monarchy).

Sanders raises the bar quite high when it comes to vision and integrity. It's frankly been spectacular to watch (another great moment was Tulsi Gabbard laying the smackdown on Faillary Clinton. Simply *chef's kiss*). It's not his fault that Elizabeth Warren would get vertigo in a sewer while standing on Joe Biden's shoulders. Why people would rather win with a scumbag awarded Most Democrat than win with a true coalition-builder is beyond me. Bernie Sanders could be a single cell amoebus for all I care. He'd be an American president I wouldn't be as afraid of, and that alone is a very big deal to me.

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Cassiodorus's picture

@Le Frog This kind of gossip is par for the course for Democrats, who had long since run out of policy arguments when Bernie Sanders put himself in the race in 2015.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender.

The perpetrator or offender will Deny their behavior, Attack their victim, then obfuscate by Reversing the roles of Victim and Offender with the perpetrator in the victim role and turns the true victim/truth-teller into an alleged offender and swipes at the true victim's credibility and honesty. Faillary Clinton is the Queen of DARVO, and Two Faces Warren is emerging as the heir apparent.

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ludwig ii's picture

that's not in Liz' wheelhouse. She votes for his cabinet picks (remember Ben Carson?), for a blank check for his military adventurism, and now most recently giving him a big win w/ the nu-TPP deal. Which, considering she vocally opposed Obama's TPP, probably means she's a racist (confirmed reported out by CNN per eleventy people familiar with the situation).

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@ludwig ii they need all of us behind them!

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Raggedy Ann's picture

A few days ago, I commented that tptb were getting so afraid of Bernie they would start coming at him with everything they had. Well, they haven't gotten down to throwing the kitchen sink at him, but they are into the silverware (forks, mostly)!

Get ready - they are only getting started. Iowa is 2.5 weeks away! Pleasantry

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

@Raggedy Ann it's not scraping the bottom of the barrel, it's digging under it until they hit China.

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snoopydawg's picture

Holier than thou. Jfc if that's how people see Bernie then it's them that has the problem!

Oh look here's Bernie being holier than thou because he understands why people voted for Trump.

Gawd I'm sick of the blue checks lecturing people to put this Warren Bernie thing behind them because there are children in cages. Like locking kids in cages didn't happen during Obama's tenure. Don't lecture me on something that I have no way to change. Not one democrat has spoken out recently about the kids being separated from their parents and being locked up. If this bothered democrats as much as they pretended it did a year ago then they could have added it to their articles of impeachment. That they didn't tells me that they really don't give a damn.

And F this meme.

“We should be weakening Donald Trump, not each other,” Shumlin said. “I’m concerned that we’re seeing a replay of the kind of dynamics that didn’t allow Hillary to win.”

As Hillbots love to tell everyone Hillary got 3 million more votes than Trump did so I don't see how sexism played any role in her loss. Nor Russians or Jill Stein.

But you know who is to blame for Trump being president? Hillary and the DNC because they rigged the primary and polls showed that Bernie would have beat him. This is on them. Period!

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@snoopydawg and I guess now we know they are back to blaming Bernie Bro Sexism for Clinton's loss and not the Russians. Louder for the people in the back, Shumlin!

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Bob In Portland's picture

@Le Frog Bernie is WITH the Russians.

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@Bob In Portland I'm a Russian super-asset but I don't like to brag.

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Hawkfish's picture

@snoopydawg

And she didn’t even get a plurality of the remaining states. CA voters are people to, but they are not the only people.

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We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg

but when Vermont passed a single payer bill Shumlin threw up his hands, cried that he couldn't figure out a way to fund it, and killed it. At the time I thought that he had the obvious problem any state - especially a small state - would have. Many Vermonters work in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, thus they would have employer provided insurance. They would have to pay (or at least have to accept lower pay for) insurance and pay for Vermont's single payer as well. Also, since IT professionals working in Boston would have to pay taxes to insure grocery baggers in Burlington class resentment would exacerbate. Politically the winner is to deny rather than provide. Pander to the 70 - 90th percentile rather than provide for the bottom 70%
Health care has to be nationwide. Vermont (and I think Colorado) proved it. Or they proved that we had to overcome corruption first.

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On to Biden since 1973

WaterLily's picture

@doh1304 Shumlin's 'lead airplane'

I endured this sleaze -- and Le Frog is correct, he's a sleaze -- as "my" governor. Same guy who endorsed HRC over his fellow Vermonter when not a single Vermont delegate went for Her.

Hey, Peter, crawl back under your rock. No one misses you.

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VT pol, but that state has produced a very mixed bag of Dem pols. Bernie on one side, then Shumlin, formerly progressive Howard Dean now turned neolibcon, and the mumbling profile in political timidity Sen Pat Leahy.

My two cents. A lib-leaning state like VT should be producing better progressive pols, even though it has only 800k residents and has to occasionally import a good pol from NY.

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WaterLily's picture

@wokkamile Chittenden County is lib-leaning, but as the joke goes, "The best thing about Burlington is that it's so close to Vermont."

Rural Vermonters tend to lean libertarian/conservative. Bernie is the only pol who has consistently reached across that split-rail pasture fence and won their support. Why? Because he leaves his office and visits them, and proves that he's listening.

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Mark from Queens's picture

@WaterLily
used by the powers that be to ultimately divide us?

I mean, we're so immersed in this political punditry circus, at its apex in this social media/internet age, that it's becoming increasingly clear to me that it is used as a cudgel with which to both limit substantive conversation and keep the pack divided and conquered into teams.

Bernie paradoxically wears his affiliation proudly on his sleeve. But then explains in very clear, easy to understand common language to express what socialism is.

Fact of the matter is we all have a little bit of both competing philosophies in us, if we were honest. For example, I don't like wasting food or water, and conserve energy by opting to ride a bicycle when I can and not buy plastic water bottles while instead carry my own. That would appear to be someone who thinks conservation, conserving or even frugality are real "conservative" values. But that all gets lost in the frothing barking partisan charade riled up by partisan media.

What it really comes down to is people do want many of the same things, as Bernie correctly says. Which is why many of the policies he advocates get wildly popular approval ratings across the board, lib and con included.

The labels are there, and this whole dopey media concocted paradigm of Red/Blue state division, to keep us from talking about the things we really do agree on, instead of focusing on the disagreements, which in truth are many times manufactured by the corporate interests of the political parties and the people who own them and the media.

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"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

Lily O Lady's picture

@Mark from Queens

Golden Rule: those with the gold make the rules. I’d like to throw a wooden shoe in the gears of that machine. We need to focus on issues which is what got Bernie where he is now. I’m glad we have commenters like you to keep reminding us of that.

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"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"

with the actual voters and see what they're thinking. A voter in Iowa for instance

Good that I don't keep a gun in the house, and am not a naturally violent and self-destructive person.

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@wokkamile Then again, modern politics is all about getting people to vote for candidates who don’t support their issues so maybe that voter is just ahead of the curve.

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Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

Wally's picture

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earthling1's picture

@Wally
Sanders, Warren, and Klobachar opens the skies for Bydone.
The Billionaires Boys Club is busy trying to out bid each other.
The Republicans will probably streeeeach this out to guarantee a Bydone candidacy, a sure loser to Trump.
Stupid Pelosi.

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

@earthling1
Pelosi has her whole palm and is leaning. Prefers a Neolib but will take a Neocon, a real Liberal is not to be borne.

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Hawkfish's picture

@earthling1

As seen from inside the B-hive is pretty impressive. I don’t think Joes word salads at poorly attended rallies will be a match for all the energized folks that are being bussed in from Chicago and other areas to talk 1:1 to 500,000 people over the next few weeks.

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We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg

of Warren that I find unsettling. I have narrowed it down a bit. She reminds me of the acquaintance who disappears at the smallest hint of trouble. Like someone who witnesses another driver backing into your car in a parking lot. But when the cops show up and ask her what she saw she clams up into a standing coma and hangs you out to dry.

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MsDidi's picture

The hashtag 'LyingLiz' has been trending but I would also suggest 'Lizard Liz' or just 'Liz-ard'.
First she was for Medicare for All -- before she was against it.
Now she loudly proclaims that she supports the Affordable Care Act -- this seems to have become a litmus test within the Dem Establishment. The ACA leaves the private insurance industry intact and has no cost controls -- so it timidly provided access to care that people can't afford. But she supports it now.
Turns out saying, "I'm with Bernie" didn't quite work because ... well, there is Bernie himself to vote for.
Now she has decided to be the "bridge" between the Progressives and the traditional voters supporting Biden. Good luck with that one Liz -- uh, there is Biden.
I found it particularly helpful to listen to Michael Moore's podcast, "The Sad Downfall of Elizabeth Warren." He tearfully explains that he's overlooked too many of her lies - because he thought she was truly a Progressive.
And he reminds this that on her job app to Harvard, she listed her race as "American Indian." Even though she is less than 1/1000th Indian.
Read the Boston Herald article about her lies.
As Michael Moore says, centrism and identity politics will lead to Trump's re-election -- but then the DNC would rather see Trump re-elected than to allow Bernie to defeat him. It's all about class solidarity in the end.
Warren was a Republican, voted for Bush, Reagan and Nixon -- for most of her life. And she's the only girl from Mayberry -- with a real Aunt Bea -- who got hired at Harvard and earned millions as a consultant -- while also realizing that it might not have been popular to be a Republican in her newfound role.
LizardLiz -- the chameleon who can't change her stripes fast enough to conceal her own past.

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snoopydawg's picture

@MsDidi

History is not on Biden's side

Remember the other two times Joe has run he hasn't made it out of Iowa. If he gets the nod then Trump has all the ammunition lined up on the heinous things Byedone has voted for. Not one of them helped the 99%. Only the 1%

We all know how he wrote the bankruptcy bill, but do people know that his son Hunter was working for MNBA at the time he was writing it? And that after it passed he went on to greener pastures?

Then there was the crime bill that he wrote and he called for stricter sentences for people who use drugs. Lo and behold Hunter was using drugs at the time and yet his ass never ended in jail. I am all for people getting treatment over prison sentences, but that has to fair all across the board not just for people who have great connections and can afford to hire lawyers to fight their cases.

Trump was elected to play president because he empathized with those left behind by Obama. A Biden presidency would not help anyone who isn't in the 1%. Period and it is beyond me why people can't admit how bad Biden and MyBoss were.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@MsDidi @MsDidi @MsDidi @MsDidi I'm glad I listened to the whole thing before I shared it on Facebook and still would post it there if I could cut off the last ten or so minutes where it turns into a gushing beatification of Hillary 'War monger/grifter' Clinton. She would've been a "great President"?

At the beginning Moore talks about how he had continually heard things from Warren that he just put out of his mind, 'burying his head in the sand' was the metaphor he chose but with this betrayal he snapped out of it.
But regarding glorious Hillary where was his head parked so often because Hillary makes Warren almost sound like Bernie Sanders, did he miss the destruction of Libya and Hillary's chuckling 'we came we saw he died", maybe he missed the CNN report of slave markets now operating there.

How about the coup in Colombia, the cheating of Bernie Sanders in the Primaries, Hillary using the State dept as a personal 'cash cow' and as a vehicle for spreading fracking around the world?

I've barely touched the list of examples available and it's hard to believe his head was so deep in the sand he missed them all, no one could hold their breath that long. These things were all over social media, but then maybe he has periodic blindness and deafness too.
I think the word for this is 'selective' attention, at best.

One thing I must point out is Michael Moore saying the egregious lie that Wikileaks hacked Hillary's emails which helps feed the attacks on Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning.
Btw does anyone have any handy quotes by Michael Moore regarding Julian Assange and/or Chelsea Manning?

Yes his spots on MSDNC are assured, I think especially when he joined in with the other commentators smearing Tulsi Gabbard, nodding right along with them (Joy Reed, Brian Williams,Clair McCaskill,and some guy that promoted Sarah Palin)

Michael Moore Joins MSNBC’s McCarthy Smears Of Tulsi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwmFRReGUco

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Pluto's Republic's picture

@aliasalias

Early onset dementia, if I had to guess. Or situational awareness. Same effect.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Bob In Portland's picture

I said this elsewhere. I did not know about Warren representing Dow Corning in that massive leaky breast implant case. We have complaints about someone in Bernie's campaign sexually harassing another worker, which I would suspect didn't happen in front of Sanders and Warren defending one of the more egregious fuckovers of women by a corporation.

I didn't know this. I follow politics pretty closely and I didn't know this. Now I feel like I find out a good friend has a history of robbing gas stations and killed the guy pumping his gas. And everyone else knew it. "Yeah, Bob, but you and him were such good friends that we didn't want to share it with you. By the way, how's that bullet wound healing?"

I'll ask here. Who knew this?

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@Bob In Portland it was not a story that has been prominent or well-known.

Regarding the sexual harassment... I mean, sexual harassment of women exists pretty much wherever men also exist. It's not some huge shock to me that large campaigns have sexual harassment complaints; what makes the difference is how it's responded to - or not. Sanders, Biden, Warren, Trump, doesn't matter whose campaign it is, but the one that gets the greatest amplification will be Sanders because the sexism narrative is important to maintain.

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Fionnsboy's picture

@Bob In Portland I did, which is one of the reasons why I too called her 'Fauxahontas' and 'Liawatha' (I'm 1/4 NA) to the outrage of my (fellow) white friends. She's a fraud-- but it's worse than this-- she now actually claims that she was HELPING the women she worked to cheat out of their compensation money! This is from an October article in Current Affairs- in this section, the author, Nathan Robinson, is at first quoting from a WaPo article (oddly enough!): The Washington Post homed in on one particular case, in which Warren worked on behalf of Dow Chemical:

One of her most controversial clients was Dow Chemical, which she advised in the mid-1990s. A subsidiary that manufactured silicone-gel breast implants faced hundreds of thousands of claims from women who said their implants caused health problems. Dow Chemical denied that it played a role in designing or making the implants and sought to avoid liability as its subsidiary, Dow Corning, declared bankruptcy.

Here is how Warren’s campaign explained her work for the company:

“In this case, Elizabeth served as a consultant to ensure adequate compensation for women who claimed injury from silicone breast implants who otherwise might not have received anything when Dow Corning filed for bankruptcy… Thanks in part to Elizabeth’s efforts, Dow Corning created a $2.35 billion fund to compensate women claiming injury from Dow Corning’s silicone breast implants.”

According to the Post reporters, though, this is simply a misrepresentation of her work:

But participants on both sides of the matter say that description mischaracterizes Warren’s work, in which she advised a company intent on limiting payments to the women.

“She was on the wrong side of the table,” said Sybil Goldrich, who co-founded a support group for women with implants and battled the companies for years. Goldrich said Dow Corning and its parent “used every trick in the book” to limit the size of payouts to women. The companies, she added, “were not easy to deal with at all.”

A person familiar with Warren’s role who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe litigation strategy said the future senator was part of a Dow defense team that had containing the company’s liability as a goal.

[…] The company has been resistant to making those payments, even though there is money remaining in the fund, said Ernest Hornsby, an Alabama-based attorney for plaintiffs.

He and others on both sides of the case said Warren’s expertise was used by a company fighting in court to limit its liability and payments to the women. “There weren’t any voices on Dow Corning’s side saying we should pay these woman as much as possible,” Hornsby said. “Nobody ever said, ‘Well, we have a law professor out of Massachusetts who says we ought to pay women more.’ ” Payments were estimated at $2,000 to $20,000 for women with ruptured implants, according to news reports at the time.

If the Post’s report is accurate, what Warren has done is quite outrageous. Not only did she accept giant fees ($600+ an hour) to represent a giant chemical company accused of making women sick (Warren later disputed evidence that the product made the women sick), but she then had the gall to pretend that she was actually the one fighting on behalf of the women instead of the company. One of the advocates for the women said the company used “every trick in the book” to avoid paying the women, and yet Warren said it was her efforts that got them a payout. This isn’t the only case in which Warren appears to have misrepresented what she did for the companies. (See this one involving sick asbestos workers, and these involving the liquidation of an electric cooperative and the jobs of workers at the aircraft manufacturer.) We might forgive someone who said that while they used to be a mercenary for corporations, they saw the light and changed side. It’s hard to forgive someone who still wants to pretend they were doing something other than what they were actually doing. (This is quite common among corporate lawyers, though. You’ll often see lawyers who claim to work on “civil rights and labor cases,” or who brag that they were “involved in an anti-discrimination settlement,” when actually they defend companies against discrimination claims and help them with union-busting. Warren pretending that because she was involved in a settlement in a product liability case, she was helping the victims, is a classic example.)

I'm not very good at quoting things correctly-- hope that's okay! But yes, this (and many other things) should be permanently damning. SHE IS NO PROGRESSIVE. THERE IS NO 'MAKING UP' BECAUSE IT'S NOT A QUARREL (that implies a party of two or more) IT'S A SMEAR!!!! We cannot say this enough!!!

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Semper ubi sub ubi