Steve Weissman | Reader Supported News | September 18, 2013
In New York City, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio won the Democratic primary to replace billionaire Michael Bloomberg as mayor. De Blasio ran against Wall Street and the 1%, calling for a tax on those making over $500,000 a year to pay for universal childcare. He still has a nasty struggle ahead against Republican candidate Joe Lhota, who enjoys solid business backing and has already started attacking De Blasio as a dangerous radical. No doubt, de Blasio will now tack toward the center, but those of us in the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party or further to the Left can all enjoy an Occupy moment.
Hoping to chair the Federal Reserve, Larry Summers – a former Treasury Secretary and top economic adviser to both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama – was forced to withdraw his candidacy after Elizabeth Warren and other Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee refused to back him. With or without Summers, the Fed will remain one of America’s least democratic institutions. But, as I tried to convey in “Stop Larry Summers Before He Kills Again, ” he could not live down the leading role he played in the Clinton-era deregulation of Wall Street. Score another Occupy moment.
In public opinion polls and public statements of judges and intelligence officials, whistleblower Edward Snowden is receiving unexpected credit for his service to democracy in leaking so much information about the universal snooping of the National Security Agency. I can almost see a Democratic presidential candidate in 2016 – not Hillary Clinton – hinting at an official pardon. Well, almost.
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