Much as I would enjoy voting for Elizabeth Warren against Scott Brown, I really hope that she’ll be too busy running the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to consider Massachusetts politics. Today’s fraudulent GOP display of bad faith and worse behavior confirms that an empowered CFPB is the Kochsuckers’ worst nightmare.
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From Ari Berman at the Nation (via), “House GOP Escalates Attack on Elizabeth Warren, Consumer Bureau“:
Congressional Republicans have frequently attacked Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren and the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) she’s setting up, which officially launches on July 21. The House GOP escalated its anti-Warren, anti-CFPB campaign at a hearing of the House Oversight Committee today, chaired by Representative Patrick McHenry (R-NC).
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McHenry was once known as Tom DeLay’s “attack-dog-in-training,” a title he more than earned today. Before the hearing had even begun, McHenry went on CNBC and brazenly accused Warren of lying to Congress. He claimed that Warren had misrepresented her role in advising state attorneys general who are seeking a multibillion-dollar settlement with the country’s largest mortgage service providers, who stand accused of massive and widespread foreclosure fraud. As evidence, McHenry pointed to a leaked internal document prepared by the CFPB that laid out different settlement options for the state AGs. McHenry claimed this went beyond the scope of the “advice,” that Warren had already admitted to providing, at the behest of the Treasury Department, in earlier testimony to Congress in March. “We’ve given advice when asked for advice,” she reiterated this afternoon…
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Despite his thin paper trail, McHenry was intent on making Warren look bad. The Western North Carolina Congressman frequently interrupted her answers and accused the CFPB of possessing “virtually unchecked” power. Near the end of the hearing, Representative John Yarmouth (D-KY) apologized to Warren for the “rude and disrespectful behavior of the chair.” Incidentally, McHenry has accepted generous campaign donations this year from big banks and industry trade associations opposed to bureau, including $1,000-plus checks from the American Bankers Association, Mortgage Bankers Association, American Express, American Financial Services Organization, Cash America International, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.
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The hearing was titled “Who’s Watching the Watchmen? Oversight of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,” but Representative Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) argued that it should be dubbed “Let’s Pretend the Financial Crisis Never Happened.” Indeed, Congressional Republicans spent no time on the lax oversight and corporate deception that led to the financial crisis—and how a consumer agency dedicated to policing the murky financial services sector might have prevented or mitigated a prolonged recession. “Too often consumer protection was the second thought, third thought, or not even thought of at all,” Maloney said. That’s why Congressional Democrats and the Obama administration created the CFPB as part of the Dodd-Frank financial reform act.
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“I’m begging you to keep the fire,” Representative Elijah Cummings (D-MD) told Warren. “I’ve had constituents who’ve lost so much they don’t even know why…. We need your passion and concern. Thank you for syncing your conduct and conscience.”
As a sidebar, I’d be glad to donate to any candidate attempting to unseat McHenry — can anyone from North Carolina provide information about that?
Cacti
An electable replacement would only be better by degrees.
Heath Shuler is a western North Carolina democrat.
Spaghetti Lee
As a sidebar, I’d be glad to donate to any candidate attempting to unseat McHenry—can anyone from North Carolina provide information about that?
His district-exurbs of Charlotte and Greensboro, basically-has been in Republican hands for 50 years. God’s grace to whoever challenges him, but some congressmen out there just aren’t going to get unseated.
mr. whipple
She better stay there as it was said she was the only person in the world cabable of running the CFPB before she was selected. Kind of odd the same people are now talking about drafting her to run for senate.
Spaghetti Lee
I know it would be 5 threads in like 10 minutes, but anyone up for an NY-26 thread?
dmsilev
@Spaghetti Lee: TPM is live-blogging it. The latest:
That’s with 45% reporting.
Zandar
Ahh yes, The Odious Patrick McHenry, my hometown Rethuglican. TOPM took over after Cass Ballenger retired after running the place for decades in NC-10. Good luck getting rid of that carbuncle. Republicans have run this district for 40 years.
The closest we got to getting rid of him was 2008 when Iraq War vet Daniel Johnson ran and only lost by 15 points. Howie over at DWT has been tracking this closet case douchebag for a while now, but having grown up in NC-10 I can tell you there’s no way this guy will get booted out of Congress short of a John Ensign level scandal, and people will vote for him just because he’s not a Democrat.
Dems have been throwing people at NC-10 for years now and Daniel Johnson was the closest we got. Any Democrat who could win would make Heath Shuler look like Alan Grayson by comparison.
NobodySpecial
@mr. whipple: No no no.
First it was only she could run it.
Then when President Nelson et. al. decided that she was too scary, then it was not a priority.
Then when she was appointed, we were told that as long as she set it up, that it would run just the way she wanted it to forever.
That frees her up to run for the Senate in a district that’s normally safely D, that any reasonable candidate will carry in 2012.
Spaghetti Lee
@Cacti:
A Democrat is always better than a Republican. Shuler replaced the awful Charles Taylor as I recall.
rob!
Back during the whole Mark Foley mess, the toad-like McHenry was on CNN saying the Dems had something to do with it, i.e., they set him up.
When the moderator asked McHenry is he had any proof of that, he said, “Well, we have no proof they weren’t.”
...now I try to be amused
Yeah, the best we can do with guys like that is elect enough Democrats in other districts to take his chairmanship away.
Anya
What a douchebag. Absolutely without honor. People who elected this asshole should die of shame.
It’s absolutely heartbreaking that angry old people put these douchebags in power, and even those old people are not safe from these heartless bastards’ evil machinations.
gf120581
I’d forgotten about Patrick McHenry, given all the other GOP loudmouth crazies running around, but yeah, he is a piece of work. I never take him seriously because he’s such a comical figure. I mean, look at the little pipsqueak. He looks like a high school kid dressed up for the big debate. If I met him and he started yelling at me, I’d be tempted to give him a wedgie and find a locker to stuff him into.
Best thing to do to him is to make sure the Dems regain the House next year. He’s hilarious when he’s impotent and in the minority. I remember in early 2007 watching Barney Frank smack him down on the House floor because he was whining about the mean old Dems being so harsh to the poor persecuted Republicans.
Fred
He looks like he was that kid who always got picked on. Voted most likely to be a total douche bag….or go postal. So far 1 for 2.
Zandar
@Spaghetti Lee:
This. Hickory, Morganton, Mooresville, Lenoir, Shelby, folks this is literally NASCAR country. No way a Democrat wins here short of by being to the right of McHenry.
superluminR droid
#3
Why isn’t she running for Prez.? She’d do a much better job, but I guess balloonbaggers would dismiss such a conclusion as they’re motivated mostly by reverse racism.
.
.
Fred
@superluminR droid: Hey look, a FDL troll. Isn’t that sweet. Didn’t know they wandered so far from the nest.
Omnes Omnibus
@superluminR droid: Let me see… Generally, it is not considered a good idea to run against the incumbent president from our own party. Not everyone wants to be president. Isn’t it quite possible the the very things that make her so appealing to people, would make it hard for her to run and win? What makes you think that she thinks Obama is doing a bad job and should be replaced? Why do you think she would do a much better job?
Ruckus
@superluminR droid:
Because that would split the dems in 12 and that is the worst thing to do.
So if she’s so good what about 2016? Do we have anyone else on the horizon? Someone that isn’t going to be old and feeble buy the end of their first term?
jane from hell
I had a friend who said she slept with McHenry, and that he had a small pen!s. I didn’t believe it either; she slept with Patrick McHenry??
Brian R.
@superluminR droid:
I know you’re trying to troll, but I can’t even understand what the hell you’re trying to say.
Can someone translate that from dipshit to English for me?
Nikita
MSNBC just called NY26 for Hochul
Brian R.
MSNBC is calling it for Hochul. Wow.
dmsilev
@Nikita: Let the highly amusing spin on “why we lost” from the GOP begin!
jwb
If the numbers hold in NY-26, the Goopers are going to be shitting bricks, and we’ll be able to measure how deep the panic runs by how crazy they spin it.
Spaghetti Lee
@dmsilev:
ACORN unions, duh.
Comrade Mary
I knew I had a good reason to buy some wine tonight. WAAAAAAAAA-hoooooooo!
Brian R.
Back to McHenry — he also called Warren a liar by saying that he’d never agreed to a time limit for her testimony today.
Judging by her shocked reaction, he or his staff most certainly did. Here’s hoping there’s some sort of hard evidence of the agreement — a letter, preferably — because it’d be nice to have this ass shown to be as clueless as he is rude.
Omnes Omnibus
@dmsilev: They will blame Murphy and the Beast messing with their phone banking efforts.
Brian R.
Flipped over to Fox News.
Greta Van Facelift is interviewing Governor Goodhair of Texas from his Border Command Center to talk about illegal immigration.
NY-26? What’s that?
Nikita
@dmsilev: I can’t wait for that. I’m almost tempted to switch to Fox News for the reactions. I switched the ’08 returns to Fox once Ohio reported. I still remember Karl Rove and Brit Hume reluctantly calling Ohio for Obama. Wingnut tears are delicious…
Spaghetti Lee
@Omnes Omnibus:
The guy who received about 300 votes? That’s a good target as any, I guess.
Murphy’s a good guy, but I’m glad he didn’t get enough votes to dent Hochul’s total.
Omnes Omnibus
@Spaghetti Lee: Not for the votes he received, but for this.
beltane
I wonder when Reality Check will appear to discuss the results in NY-26.
mr. whipple
@Brian R.:
Thanks, teatards! Well played!
Onward to 2012. Keep your magic alive!
cleek
can’t see a single mention of it on FoxNews.com. MSNBC.com had a big bright red headline bar, now a top-line article.
ijits.
Omnes Omnibus
@beltane: How about never? Will that work for you?
Brian R.
@Nikita:
Again, they’re just ignoring it.
The screen has a Mexican flag with the words “UNDER ATTACK” written over it in case some of their viewers were too stupid to know they were supposed to be scared of the brown menace.
Frankensteinbeck (The ex-Uloborus)
@beltane: and @mr. whipple:
Let’s win first. Networks love to jump the gun. If nothing goes wrong and we DO win, I suggest we party like it’s 1999, we’re all 12 years younger and have the stamina to consume that much more alcohol.
Omnes Omnibus
@cleek: Why would Fox mention it? It was just a special election is some tiny little district in upstate NY. It isn’t like the results mean anything.
SIA
This almost makes up for the loss in that WI judicial election. Hope no twits emerge with a bag o’ votes for Corwin tomorrow.
WOOHOO!
cleek
maybe the GOP will redistrict it away, in a fit of pique.
SIA
@Brian R.: OMG. I had no idea how bad Greta is. We’re all to “stay tuned to find out what Obama said about Trump”!
Corner Stone
@superluminR droid: Awesome. I enjoyed.
SIA
Wildly off topic, but doesn’t our First Lady look beautiful?
Valdivia
@SIA:
she looked amazing. love love that dress.
Poopyman
Tornado warning for Joplin just went up.
Jenny
Why I hate the Beltway Media, reason #568,862: right on cue, an analyst for the “Cook Political Report” is already spinning that losing a seat that has been GOP terriotry since 1857 is seat is no big deal.
Beltway media corruption knows no bounds.
SIA
@Valdivia: The Obamas look like benevolent, beautiful giants next to the Queen & Prince Phillip.
El Cid
Here’s the wayback machine with one particular other instance of a Republican fuckstick accusing a very prestigious high level former government official of lying and corrupt motives.
This time, though, things didn’t go quite as planned.
Mnemosyne
@SIA:
I rarely say this about the First Lady’s clothes but … meh. I didn’t really like the weird criss-cross top of the dress. Otherwise, she looked great!
SIA
@Mnemosyne: The dress and the gloves show off those well-toned arms that were discussed earlier though! :)
Poopyman
@Poopyman: Aaaaand it’s cancelled as the cell misses to the north.
Carolina Dave
Back to the McHenry conversation; I grew up bordering this district and now most of my family now lives there. The earlier posts are correct, short of a gay sex scandal, no Dem will take this district. The local Dems ran a conservative Iraq vet against McHenry in 2008 when the state went for Obama and McHenry had a disastrous trip to Iraq insulting some of the military people serving there. It didn’t matter.
I made some sales calls in the area in the Spring of last year in the reeling furniture industry. I had to mask my amazement at the generally held opinion that Obama had destroyed the US economy in just a year in office.
This area has suffered some of the worst (15%+) unemployment in NC (or the US) and they blamed the new black guy in charge. Sad but true. I made my peace then; If these folks are truly this ignorant and stupid, then Fuck ’em, they get the representation they deserve. Thankfully (most of) the rest of the state is not nearly as racist, stupid or economically depressed as Hickory NC, though only by matters of degrees in some areas.
Nate
All of NC congressional districts are highly gerrymandered. NC 10 like NC 12 is drawn to group a specific socio-economic and racial set. NC 10 captures the rural mountains, rural foothills, and far exurbs of cities. To compensate, we have NC 12, which includes nearly every major inner city in NC. It was not always this way, and NC 10 once included Gastonia and/or Asheville at various points, which titled the seat blue.
I do not think a dem could ever win in this district as it is currently drawn. Perhaps if I were hypothesizing…It would take a local boy, who was a high school football star, starred at a major college, then joined the army, became a delta, and subsequently a Pediatrician or Baptist Minister whom half of Hickory or Shelby knows because he leads some large local volunteer organization. I actually do not think this individual exists.
Carolina Dave
Great comment Nate,
NC is gerrymandered worse than most, with only 2-3 districts having competitve elections in any cycle. McHenry can be a complete ass because it won’t matter to his electorate and neither will his vote to end Medicare.
fraught
If all it takes to get rid of this little smear of snake’s spit is a gay sex scandal well then let’s give him one. He’s such a wound up closet case it shouldn’t take too much to shake him loose. A tall, really dark skinned, weight lifter should do. Anyone out there ready to take one for the team?
Anya
@SIA: Simply Breathtaking!!! I am so glad she wore Tom Ford, at last. He’s my favorite American designer.
ABL
@Brian R.: her reaction is all the evidence needed to know mchenry was full of shit. she looked appalled.
Comrade Kevin
@SIA: A couple of handsome Americans standing between short English and Greek trolls.
El Cid
@Carolina Dave: One of the problems is that in the South, you are more or less assured — as a North Carolina native and Georgia resident — of an overwhelming likelihood that any other white person, particularly any other white male, shares a conservative to extreme right wing view.
So you’re always in a right wing echo chamber. I run into people all the time who start talking to me about how Obama’s destroying everything and, yes, on occasion how somebody needs to ‘take him out’ or such.
The notion that some white male in front of them who isn’t working at Starbucks or is driving a Subaru with 8 million liberal bumperstickers and, most of all, is actually working a job rather than just being a gubmit byurocrap could in any way not share their outlook.
‘But… but… you look so normal! How can you believe such crazy things?!’ Yes, I have heard that — not so clearly and briefly worded.
trollhattan
And there it is, in a lovely nutshell. Nobody’s listening of course.
harmonicbalance
McHenry is my congress critter and FSM how I can not stand the sniveling repressed twit. There was a hint of a voting fraud/gayish sex scandal involving someone maybe on his campaign staff a couple of years back that didn’t really damage him too much. He gets re-elected because he is Republican so its all good. When he is on tee vee he yaps loudly and annoyingly saying nothing except talking points and when you get him off message he says stupid stuff like Michelle Bachmann
I wanted to smack that asshole for the way he spoke to and about Ms Warren, gawd what a shit. I too hope for some documentation to prove Ms Warren’s side.
They are so afraid of her it is kinda awesome though.
smith
I like Elizabeth Warren as much as the next person and I would love for her to run for the Senate, but in a recent profile (it might have been Rolling Stone) she admitted that she was a registered Republican. So unless she changes political parties or primaries Scott Brown, I doubt she’ll run. Besides, I would much rather have her running the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau anyway – she’s more needed there.
...now I try to be amused
Mexico is under attack?
burnspbesq
@Zandar:
Maybe we could get Jay Bilas to primary the little fuck. That would be comedy gold for the ages.
burnspbesq
@Ruckus:
Gillibrand.
Spaghetti Lee
@Ruckus:
I don’t know what your definition of “old and feeble” is. Our last 3 presidents have been under age 55, but that’s not necessarily the norm. There’ve been plenty of 60/65 year olds elected president.
SectarianSofa
Wow. What an incredible prick. I’ll have to remember him, so I can applaud when he inevitably goes down in flames.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@El Cid: Oy, I’d forgotten how awesome that was. Boxer’s not my most bestest fave ever, but every time I hear some Berkeley idiot start yapping about getting rid of her for a “real progressive” I have to go all Hulk on him (and for some reason it’s always a him). Elections do have consequences, and in the actual world we live in, as opposed to the fantasylands occupied by the conservatives on the one hand and the nuclear-free ganja eaters on the other, she’s as good as we’re going to get for a while.
beergoggles
@Carolina Dave:
The guy is such a closet case that pings my gaydar that this can’t be too hard to dig up.
El Cid
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: Hey, man, did you know you can make soup from hemp? The Founding Fathers smoked the Declaration of Independence…
Yankee Devil
Have to agree with Zandar here. I’ve lived in Hickory since 1995 and if Daniel Johnson can’t beat that idiot, nobody is going to do it, at least not a Democrat. Johnson even had some signs up in some seriously old-money blue blood neighborhoods and 15 points was as close as he could get.
Sidebar: I was working at a restaurant and overheard a conversation McHenry was having. He was speaking with great enthusiasm about name recognition like a frosh Poli Sci student. Appalingly ignorant.
Paul in KY
@Nikita: I turned on Fox election night in 2008 to savor it. I NEVER watch Faux News, but it sure was sweet that night :-)
Paul in KY
@fraught: He has that look about him. Like Satanum & Ralph Reed, etc.
God bless any gay brother who would be with the vile POS. Just make sure the video & audio are for sure working, cause you know you don’t want to have to do it again (ick).
Paul in KY
@smith: After this go round, I’m thinking she’ll be changing her registration.
Sinister eyebrow
McHenry is a reliable embarassment to us NC residents, along with Virginia Foxx–the other blistering nitwit from Western NC who stumbles through the halls of congress yelling “MUSLIM SOCIALISTS! AAAAAAAAH!” any time she sees someone with a tan or wearing a hat. I think she actually spent most of her last term in the House parking garage because she rolled up the window of her car on her ear and couldn’t figure out how to escape.
Believe me, if we could have figured out a way to get these dipshits out of congress it would have happened long ago.
Bulworth
Great to hear Democrats fighting back on this.
Hedges Ahead
You know, NC is in a bit of a furor just now over the redistricting being drawn by the newly minted 2010 batch of Republican controlled state Assembly and Senate. Basically, my congresscritter who represents much of Wake County & Raleigh is having his district pulled out from under him, Kucinich-style. The solution offered by the redistricters is that he just run for the seat in the as-to-yet be created district (wherever it ends up); NC does not require residence in the district you represent. So instead of getting all bent out of shape as to why a growing metropolitan area is losing its representative, we can just send Brad Miller out west to unseat Mr. McHenry. Or Virginia Foxx. Or Renee Ellmers. Really, there are any number of candidates for seat-poaching in this state. And losing Brad means losing a key voice on the Science & Technology committee, and one of the few concerned by the depletion of our Helium-3 isotope supply.
John 2.0
@Hedges, I’m a fan of Miller, as he represents me as well, but he did draw his own district (which isn’t exactly compact, as he represents me, and my parents who live 100 miles away) when he was the chair of the redistricting committee in 2001.
However, I think the next elections will use the current maps, since NC is still a voting rights act state, and the guys over at the Civitas Institute (the NC version of the Heritage Foundation) who are drawing the maps aren’t bothering to pre-clear them with the Dept. of Justice.