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Credit: Elizabeth Warren for Senate

Elizabeth Warren live-chatting earlier today with Crooks and Liars. Blue America and C&L are very proud to be supporting her Senate race, and there's still time to contribute any amount to her day-long money bomb. Thanks for supporting a real progressive voice for US Senate!

Open Thread below....

That viral Youtube may be the most famous American cri de coeur of the new century --- a shot heard round the political world announcing that Elizabeth Warren was not just running for the Senate in Massachusetts, but that she was going to do it by redefining the political framework that's governed this nation for the past 30 years. Warren's message put fear in the hearts of the big money boyz and the political establishment and they reacted. Strongly. This is not a person they want in the Senate and they are going to do whatever they can to ensure she isn't elected.

As someone who has been fighting for the middle class for many years as a researcher and advocate, Warren is a rare politician who has knowledge of the way Washington works while not being of Washington. As her recent battles setting up the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau showed, the wall of resistance to her ideas is formidable and a lesser person would have done her work and gone back to her secure and happy life as a professor and lecturer. But those battles only made her more determined.

She's going to be the next Senator from Massachusetts if we have anything to do with it --- and if her track record is any indication that ossified institution isn't going to know what hit it.

Elizabeth Warren is staking her race on a commitment to resist the lures of big money and special interests. Wall Street, for obvious reasons, has her in their crosshairs and will pour unlimited amounts of cash into the race to defeat her and the GOP establishment is desperate that they do so --- after all, her win could keep the Senate in the hands of the Democrats.

But despite all that, it's not impossible for her to win this, not by a long shot. There's a limit to what money can buy and Elizabeth's message is resonating strongly as she crosses the state meeting people. She's consistently running ahead of her opponent Scott Brown in the polls, but she needs our help to stay competitive.

This week her campaign is running a money bomb collecting donations from like-minded individuals all over the country who understand that Elizabeth Warren doesn't just represent the people of Massachusetts, although she does. She represents all of us who want to see the American dream restored and the middle class strong and thriving again in this country.

Howie, John and I were thrilled to have Blue America be among the very first to endorse her campaign and we couldn't be more excited that she's found a few minutes to join us here today.

Please give as generously as you can--- and please welcome her to Crooks and Liars!

Karl Rove is spending a lot of money trying to help his close friend Sen. Scott Brown, but his ads just aren’t passing the laugh test. Just last week, an ad from Rove’s Crossroads GPS was saying Elizabeth Warren was too radical because she was so close to the Occupy movement, but that didn’t work: her numbers actually went up, and she is now leading Brown by 7 points in the latest polling. So now Rove, — who, according to sources of mine in the banking industry, has taken millions of dollars from the big banks for his secret slush fund, American Crossroads — is saying Warren presided over big bank bailouts.

It’s hard to decide whether this blatantly dishonest ad is more pathetic or funny. It does once again show that Rove and the Wall Street boys giving him money have absolutely no shame. To take Wall Street millions to run an ad tying Warren to the TARP bailouts because she was an independent watchdog of the fund is theater of the absurd — especially given that the reason she became so well-known was because she took both Hank Paulson and Tim Geithner to task for being too easy on the big banks. It’s classic Rove: attack your opponent’s greatest strength. And the fact that Rove’s group just one week before had run an ad trying to tie Warren to Occupy Wall Street because it was so “radical” makes this funny on a grand scale.

Here is the ad in case you haven’t seen it:

OK, go ahead and pick your jaw up off the floor. I know what you are probably saying: “I know this is Karl Rove, but I didn’t think even he could be this brazen and ridiculous.” Well, he can — on behalf of his close friend Scott Brown. These guys will say anything, do anything, and go to any lengths to try to stop Warren from winning, simply because they know what an incredible voice she would in the Senate in speaking up for the 99% and taking on the Wall Street bigwigs. It is richly ironic that because they are finding out their anti-Occupy messaging didn’t work, they are now taking our message to attack Warren because they know it works better. We will see a lot more of this before we are through — in this race and others.

Here’s the fundraising page where you can go help Warren’s campaign directly.

Here’s a petition on Wall Street accountability her campaign is doing.

Pass these around and sound the alarm: Karl Rove is blatantly lying again to help out his dear friend Scott Brown. Do whatever you can to help.

Further demonstrating how concerned Wall Street is about the possibility of U.S. Senate Candidate Elizabeth Warren being elected, Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS is blasting the consumer advocate in a bizarre new ad.

The ad, a $560,000 buy, ties Warren to the oh-so-“radical” Occupy Wall Street protests. The selectively edited ad isn’t the first time Wall Street has gone after Warren, the former head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and it certainly won’t be the last.

Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown has been quite a friend to the big banks (as I wrote about), and the 1 percent would continue to thrive if he remained in office.

According to the Boston Globe, Warren has clearly stated that she has urged Occupy Wall Street protestors to stay within the law, but she does support their mission. The most threatening thing about Warren for Karl Rove and the big bankers though is that Warren has not merely stated her support; she has acted on behalf of the 99 percent. This is exactly why we need her in office.

These big money, Wall Street slush funds are going to launch one ridiculous attack after another on Warren. Progressives need to be ready to help her fight back every single time. Here is where you can send her some money, so please do.

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Kiss your mother with that mouth, jerk?

Moments into a speech before volunteers here Wednesday evening, Elizabeth Warren was interrupted by a Tea Party supporter who hurled a gender-based epithet at the Senate candidate. The man, who said he'd been unemployed since February 2010, objected to Warren's expressed affiliation with the frustrations of Occupy Wall Street, and argued that the Tea Party has been protesting Wall Street excess for longer than the nascent global movement.

The crowd tried to shout the man down, but Warren told her supporters to let him speak. "No, no, it's alright. Let me say two things," she said. "I'm very sorry that you've been out of work. I'm also very sorry that the recent jobs bill that would've brought 22,000 jobs to Massachusetts did not pass in the Senate."

Speaking in a packed VFW hall, Warren went on to address his question about her association with Occupy Wall Street. "I've been protesting what's been going on on Wall Street for a very long time," she said, but added that the movement has its own independent agenda and will proceed along its own course.

"Yeah, so has the Tea Party," the man said, before losing his cool.

"Well, if you're the intellectual creator of that so-called party," he said, "you're a socialist whore. I don't want anything to do with you." The crowd shouted him down as he added that Warren's "boss," presumably referring to the president, was "foreign-born." He then attempted to storm out through a side door. Finding it locked, he retreated out the back of the VFW hall instead.

Let that be a lesson: *ALWAYS* have your exit route planned before you go medieval on a candidate.

Elizabeth Warren is an incredible candidate, always fighting for the benefit of the people, not the corporations and top 1%. She's going to have a tougher slog against the big money funneling into Scott Brown's campaign. If you can show your support with a little scratch, we'd really appreciate it.

The Massachusetts State GOP released its first attack ad against consumer advocate and U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren Wednesday. The Web ad comically attempts to use selective quoting and distorting camera effects to make Warren look anti-business, or violent, or like an inarticulate speaker, or… something. They are clearly trying to make her seem like a very scary class warrior. Republicans don’t like the fact that she has pointed out that wealthy businesspeople did not make it on their own, and that the entire society played a role in their success by building roads and educating workers and paying cops and firefighters they rely on. These points seem pretty obvious to me, but to Scott Brown and the Republican Party this is frightening, violent rhetoric.

This video makes a few other things clear. Brown and the Republicans are obviously going to try to tie Warren to Harvard at every chance, even though polling suggests voters couldn’t care less about where Warren teaches. And other than sexism and empty and tired claims of “class warfare,” Brown really doesn’t have much to work with in his fight for reelection.

Having done some polling on the class warfare stuff, and knowing it doesn’t work for the Republicans, my guess is that this ad isn’t really aimed at voters at all, but at their corporate donors. The campaign clearly wants to scare the wealthy corporate special interests that support Brown, so they will drop even more money in his lap.

Check the ad out, and contrast it with the actual remarks in full Warren made on this topic:

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And so the Conservative assault on Elizabeth Warren begins.

Limbaugh: You know who the real parasite here is. It's Elizabeth Warren.

I'm familiar with being called a parasite by the likes of Glenn Beck. I wear as badge of honor.

Beck: Most Democrats still love America, they love the founders and they love the Constitution and believe in this country. But then there's another group and they have infiltrated not just the Democratic party, but the Republican party...

Speak softly and carry a big stick. blah, blah, blah...We got this from an insider. Wait until you hear this story. The co-chair of the CPC...

How many times have I said they are like a virus feeding on the host of republic.

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Need some good news today? Here you go. Elizabeth Warren has jumped into the lead in the Massachusetts Senate race over Scott Brown. Granted, it's very early in the race, but initial polls had her down 9 points over Brown, and now she leads 46-44.

Via PPP:

Warren's gone from 38% name recognition to 62% over the last three months and she's made a good first impression on pretty much everyone who's developed an opinion about her during that period of time. What was a 21/17 favorability rating in June is now 40/22- in other words she's increased the voters with a positive opinion of her by 19% while her negatives have risen only 5%.

The surprising movement toward Warren has a lot to do with her but it also has a lot to do with Scott Brown. We now find a slight plurality of voters in the state disapproving of him- 45%, compared to only 44% approving. We have seen a steady decline in Brown's numbers over the last 9 months. In early December his approval was a +24 spread at 53/29. By June it had declined to a +12 spread at a 48/36. And now it's continued that fall to its current place.

Brown's position has always been a little tenuous as a Republican in a strongly Democratic state, making him very dependent on the support of Obama voters to stay above ground. In June he was at 72/17 with McCain voters and now he's at 74/18, pretty much the same. But with Obama voters he's gone from 35/48 to 27/62, accounting for the entire drop in his overall approval numbers. It's a similar story when you look at the horse race numbers. Last time Brown led Warren 87-6 with McCain voters and now it's 87-9. But with Obama voters Warren's turned what was only a 47-24 lead into a 68-20 one.

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Yesterday I read in The Hill, about how Elizabeth Warren will have a hard time raising enough money because she won't have Wall Street behind her. I was furious!

First, let me just get past the premise: The idea that someone in today's political climate can't get elected without the help of Wall Street is disgusting. The fact that we need such a huge amount of money to get someone elected continues to astound me.

A few months ago I had a friend reviewing my resume. I started out my life in politics as a finance director on campaigns - raising money for candidates. My first race - a Congressional - we raised $1.1million. My friend looked at the line on my resume and replied "awww how cute is it that $1.1 million in 2004 was how much campaigns used to cost?"

There is something very wrong with our country.

Scott Brown has a whopping $10 million in the bank - and the leading contributors - you guessed it - come right out of the banking, financial, hedge fund, mortgage industry. And Elizabeth Warren has the gall and gumption to think that she can stand up for people like me and defend my rights as a consumer - and still get elected to the U.S. Senate. I have to wait to get paid in a few weeks but I'm pulling out my credit card right now.

The question persists is money the only power in politics. I wish it weren't - I wish it didn't matter, but we all know too well the sheer number of people you need to match a million bucks. We saw it in Wisconsin where the Koch brothers as well as every right wing organization in the country was spending millions just to hold on to a few state Senate seats. But they didn't hold them all - they lost two and they almost lost three. And we were so outmatched financially it was ridiculous. We did that. Our blogs, our door knocking, our phone banking from across state lines - we did that. And we can do it again.

Last night on MSNBC's The Last Word the special commentary dealt with these very issues - and posed the question - is there any room left for people power in politics? I don't want to sugar coat anything - I think only time will tell, but it has been what I personally have based my entire professional political career on. We have the power - we have the voices - we have so much that we can do, not just for Warren but for all of our candidates who stand for the basic fundamentals of our democracy. We have the power - we just have to use it.

More on our little former Goldman Sachs VP. Of course, I'm sure he would never have anything to do with trying to set up Elizabeth Warren:

ThinkProgress has now obtained more evidence that suggests that Haller’s employment under Issa is more akin to a bank lobbyist than a public servant entrusted with protecting the public interest. In May, GOP members on the Oversight Committee invited Professor Elizabeth Warren, then a special advisor working on the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to testify about the new agency. The hearing quickly became a media sideshow, with Republican lawmakers trying to trip Warren up and embarrass her.

One congressman, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), became infamous overnight for berating Warren and accusing her of lying about her scheduling with the committee. It turns out that Haller, again carrying water for financial corporations afraid of new regulations, was behind the scheduling controversy at the heart of the McHenry confrontation with Warren.

According to e-mail correspondence obtained from Judicial Watch, Haller oversaw the scheduling of the Warren testimony. According to Flavio Cumpiano, a congressional liaison for the CFPB, Haller reportedly changed the time of the hearing at the last minute, then misled Warren staffers by promising to end the testimony by 2:15 pm that day. In the emails, Haller denies ever agreeing to 2:15. But, Haller had been informed that Warren could not go beyond 2:15:

– Monday May 23 8:43pm: Haller writes to Flavio Cumpiano, a congressional liaison for the CFPB, the night before the hearing to make “an [sic] late change to 1:00.” At 11:00pm, Cumpiano responds to figure out a better time.– Tuesday May 24 morning: After Haller and Cumpiano go back and forth with e-mails about which time would be best, a phone conversation occurs between Haller and Adewale Adeyemo, chief of staff to the CFBP implementation team, and a schedule is set. At 10:11am, Cumpiano e-mails Haller: “Hi Peter. I understand from Wally -copied here- that you both spoke and she’ll [Elizabeth Warren] testify from 1:15pm to 2:15pm. Thanks, Flavio.”– Tuesday May 24 afternoon around 2:15pm: McHenry, with Haller sitting behind him, accuses Warren of trying to evading the committee by trying to leave at the agreed-upon time. When Warren noted that McHenry’s aides had agreed upon the schedule, McHenry elicited audible gasps in the room by declaring Warren a liar: “You’re making this up, Ms. Warren. This is not the case.”– Tuesday May 24 2:32pm: As Warren leaves the hearing room, Haller fires off an e-mail to Cumpiano demanding that he “please confirm” that he did not “confirm the end time.” Later that afternoon, Cumpiano responds by reiterating that Haller had confirmed the 2:15pm end time, and had even told Adeyemo that he would inform McHenry of the schedule during the call.

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