Tuesday, December 21, 2010

What Does Elizabeth Warren Do When She Isn't Being Interviewed by the Press

She attends parties thrown by union front groups that honor her.

We know this because as part of another Warren profile, which is featured in the January issue of Vogue,  the reporter writing the Warren piece tells us:
Last fall, I accompanied Warren to a party given in her honor by Americans for Financial Reform, an umbrella group of progressive organizations that worked to pass the Dodd-Frank bill. Looking around the room, I felt as if I’d been transported from Washington, D.C., to some left-leaning village where the men all wear tweed jackets and the women favor Merrells over Manolos.
So what is Americans for Financial Reform?

It is an organization that includes as part of its 5 member executive board, 3 who have top level union connetcions:

Lisa Donner. who is executive director of AFR, pereviously worked for ACORN for 11 years (Yes, that ACORN) and she also worked as an organizer for the SEIU (Service Employees International Union)

Stephen Abrecht, who is Executive Director of Benefit Funds SEIU Master Trust

Daniel Pedrotty who is a member of  the AFL-CIO Office of Investment, where is work focuses on providing corporate governance strategies for pension funds and trustees.

The board also includes Nancy Zirkin, who is identified in an AFR photo as "AFR Lobbying dean". She  is also a deputy director/director of public policy for the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. And prior to that was a lobbyist.



Nancy Zirkin and Elizabeth Warren
Nancy Zirkin and Elizabeth Warren in August 
 
I'm begining to understand how David Silberman the former Deputy General Counsel of the AFL-CIO was named as one of Warren's top lieutenants.

What you have to understand is that unions have been trying to shutdown the short-term  private-sector loan industry becasue it has been strong competition for the unions own short-term loan business. Now, they have one of their own, in Silberman, guarding the chicken coop and drawing up new rules, and they are honoring Warren for putting him in that position

Here's what another  group, that directs web-site traffic to AFR, had to say about Elizabeth Warren's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and payday loans, back in August:
Now, the CFPB will have jurisdiction over payday lenders – hooray!  Payday lenders are “nonbank” lenders, so the CFPB will be able to write and enforce regulations over all of them, no matter what size.  It will be the first federal regulator able to tackle these ultra-predatory lenders.  
Oh yeah, Elizaberh Warren really fighting for us all.

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