Elizabeth Warren Vows To Break Up Big Banks With Major New Legislative Push

By Kumar Ramanathan/Think Progress

A bipartisan group of Senators are proposing the “21st Century Glass-Steagall Act” in an effort to curb the power of big banks by reinstating a Depression-era rule that separated commercial and investment banking. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), John McCain (R-AZ), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), and Angus King (I-ME) proposed the bill on Thursday.

Enacted during the Great Depression, the Glass-Steagall Act prevented commercial deposit banks, which are insured by taxpayer money through the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC), from engaging in insurance and risky investment activities. These restrictions were repealed in 1999. The new bill would reinstate and update the separation between commercial and investment banking, giving financial conglomerates a five-year transitional period to split up their businesses to come into adherence with the firewall.

“Banks should be boring,” Warren argued in her initial public push for the bill, her first major banking measure in the Senate. The bill is more than a mere a reinstatement of the original 1933 Glass-Steagall Act, however. It would also bar commercial banks from some of the newer, more complex practices that they became infamous for in the wake of the recession, including trading complex derivatives and swaps or engaging in hedge fund and private equity activities. Warren explained in a conference call with reporters on Thursday that the new bill also seeks to close loopholes created by regulators’ interpretation of the original bill in the 1980s and 90s preceding its repeal.

The repeal of Glass-Steagall allowed banks to expand rapidly in size, to a stage where the top 0.2 percent of banks control nearly 70 percent of all banking assets. Even after the 2008 financial crisis, the biggest banks continued to grow. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have criticized these banks for being not only too big to fail, but also too big for jail or for trial.

Support for restoring the banking firewalll has come from various corners since the 2008 financial crisis. Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz argued at the height of the recession, that the repeal created a “high-risk gambling mentality.” Two former chairman of Citigroup, Richard Parsons and Sanford Weill — who once had a portrait of himself in his office called “The Shatterer of Glass-Steagall,” have endorsed restoring the firewall. Citigroup, which was bailed out during in 2008, was the first big beneficiary of the firewall’s repeal. Even Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) has said that he agrees with reinstating the Glass-Steagall Act.

“Americans want safe banks,” Warren said when asked how she would respond to opponents of Glass-Steagall. “The banks that handle their checking and savings accounts should be rock-solid secure, and they should not be juicing their profits by taking those insured deposits and insuring them in wild financial schemes.” McCain echoed those comments in a statement, adding, “If enacted, the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act would not end Too-Big-to-Fail. But, it would rebuild the wall between commercial and investment banking that was in place for over 60 years, restore confidence in the system, and reduce risk for the American taxpayer.”

McCain voted for the bill that repealed Glass-Steagall in 1999, and one if its primary authors was a close economic advisor to his 2008 presidential campaign. But he changed his tune in 2009, when he and Cantwell began a similar effort to reinstate Glass-Steagall. The bill never made it out of committee. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) introduced a basic Glass-Steagall reinstatement bill in May on the 80th anniversary of the original bill, but it was overshadowed by other banking measures being considered at the time. Restoring Glass-Steagall has also historically not enjoyed White House support.

Warren said that she believed this bill would succeed where others failed because a bipartisan group of senators are willing to fight for it publicly. “People said we could never get the consumer protection bureau. But we fought for it, and now we have an agency protecting consumers from credit card and mortgage scams,” she said on the press call. “I’ve lived in this world where people say to me ‘You can’t do this,’ and when they say that, I just say to them, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. We have done it.”

“I’ll be out there fighting, and here’ll be the fun part,” she added. “I’ll be fighting right next to John McCain.”

Elizabeth Warren Slams Republicans For Trying To Weaken Consumer Finance Protections

By Aviva Shen/Think Progress

At a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Thursday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) rebuked Republicans for blocking Richard Cordray’s confirmation as director of her brainchild, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. After a bitter confirmation fight in 2011, President Obama bypassed the Senate using a recess appointment to grant Cordray a temporary term until the end of 2013. Republicans are threatening to filibuster him this time around unless the CFPB is drastically restructured.

Warren declined to question Cordray, who has testified a dozen times. She then directed scrutiny to her Republican colleagues, calling them out for using her former lieutenant’s confirmation as an excuse to undermine the Bureau:

What I want to know is why every banking regulator since the Civil War has been funded outside the appropriations process — but unlike the consumer agency, no one in the U.S. Senate has held up confirmation of their directors demanding that that agency or those agencies be redesigned…I see nothing here but a filibuster threat against Director Cordray as an attempt to weaken the consumer agency. I think the delay in getting him confirmed is bad for consumers, it’s bad for small banks, bad for credit unions, for anyone trying to offer an honest product in an honest market. The American people deserve a Congress that worries less about helping big banks and more about helping regular people who have been cheated on mortgages, on credit cards, on student loans and on credit reports. I hope you get confirmed. You have earned it, Director Cordray.

Watch it:

Warren herself was ousted from the running for CFPB director in an effort to avoid a confirmation battle with Republicans. Still, Senate Republicans are intent on holding up the confirmation of any director to the Bureau. In a letter to Obama last month, 43 Senate Republicans vowed to filibuster any nominee unless they are allowed to hobble the agency’s authority.

Republicans have tried to weaken the Bureau from its inception, claiming it lacks transparency. Unlike other financial regulatory agencies, which are dependent on Congress for funding, the CFPB is intended to be an independent agency with independent funding. If Republicans get their way, the CFPB will lose this independence, making it vulnerable to the partisan shenanigans and funding shortages that have derailed other regulators.

Cordray’s first term demonstrates the CFPB’s efficacy as an independent agency. In one year, the agency has increased supervision over mortgage lenders, brokers, consumer reporting agencies, and large banks, set up programs to help consumers better understand loan agreements and recoup refunds from deceptive and illegal practices, and wrote new rules toprevent wrongful foreclosures.

Limbaugh: Elizabeth Warren is ‘Heap Big Squaw Indian Giver’

By David Edwards/Raw Story

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh on Thursday referred to Senator-elect Elizabeth Warren as “Heap Big Squaw Indian Giver,” confirming that he would continue to provide ammunition to critics who accuse him of being both racist and sexist.

Speaking on his radio program, Limbaugh noted that a group of Democratic senators had written a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) asking to delay a medical device tax that was passed as part of President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

“Elizabeth Warren, for example, she gave her whole-hearted approval to Obamacare,” Limbaugh explained. “Now, she is one of the senators that wants to take that back.”

“She’s an Indian giver,” he ranted. “Yes! I intended to say that! Elizabeth Warren, Heap Big Squaw Indian Giver!”

During her Senate campaign earlier this year, Warren faced criticism over a claim that her mother was part Cherokee and part Delaware Indian. At one point, Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) staffers mocked her heritage by shouting “war whoops” and doing the “Tomahawk Chop” at a campaign rally.

“It is those types of actions that perpetuate negative stereotypes and continue to minimize and degrade all native peoples,” Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation Bill John Baker said in September. “We need individuals in the United States Senate who respect Native Americans and have an understanding of tribal issues.”

Listen to this audio from The Rush Limbaugh Show, broadcast Dec. 13, 2012.

Elizabeth Warren Explains: ‘No, Governor Romney, Corporations Are Not People’

By Annie-Rose Strasser/Think Progress

Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic senate candidate in Massacusetts, drew roaring cheers, applause, and even tears tonght at the Democratic Convention when she laid out the differences between corporations and people. Knocking Romney for his infamous line “corporations are people, my friend,” Warren illustrated the stark divides — “People have hearts,” she said:

After all, Mitt Romney’s the guy who said corporations are people. No, Governor Romney, corporations are not people. People have hearts. They have kids. They get jobs. They get sick. They thrive. They dance. They live. They love. And they die. And that matters. That matters. That matters because we don’t run this country for corporations, we run it for people.

Watch it:

REPORT: Fox Spends Over 43 Minutes Smearing Elizabeth Warren

THOMAS BISHOP & ANDY NEWBOLD/Media Matters for America

Over three days, Fox News spent at least 17 segments and over 43 minutes of airtime smearing Massachusetts U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren over benign comments she made about infrastructure spending and the success of the wealthy.

On July 30, Democrats announced that Warren will be given a key speaking slot at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina in September.

In response to that announcement, Fox, over the following three days, seized on benign remarks Warren had previously made in an effort to smear her. Warren's opponent is Sen. Scott Brown, whom Fox relentlessly campaigned for in 2010.

One of the comments Fox fixated on came from a recent ad released by Warren's campaign. Fox claimed that in the ad, Warren said she wanted the United States to be "like China" and that she may have "call[ed] for America to go communist." In fact, the Senate candidate said that the U.S. should increase its infrastructure spending in order to compete with countries like China. Warren's comment -- which is supported by studies showing that U.S. infrastructure is deteriorating and needs significant investment -- echoed a similar observation from former Fox contributor Newt Gingrich.

Fox also attacked Warren over a comment she made during a campaign stop in August 2011 that "[t]here is nobody in this country who got rich on his own." But Warren was merely making the unremarkable observation that the private sector success of the wealthy is driven by government investments funded by the public -- an observation Fox itself has made.

Fox Devotes At Least 17 Segments And Over 43 Minutes To Smearing Warren

Fox began their attacks on Warren on July 31, following the announcement that she will be speaking at the Democratic National Convention.

Among the attacks over Warren's proposal to spend more on infrastructure projects like roads and bridges was Fox Business host Stuart Varney calling Warren a "collectivist" and "anti-private enterprise." Among the attacks over Warren's unremarkable observation on private sector success was Fox's Sean Hannity calling Warren and Obama -- who made similar remarks that were distorted by Fox -- "clueless."

Fox's Sarah Palin, commenting on Warren speaking at the convention, said that Warren has "almost confessed to her Marxist views."    

Media Matters monitored Fox's coverage of Warren on July 31, August 1, and August 2 -- the three days following the announcement that she would be speaking at the Democratic National Convention -- and found that Fox News devoted at least 17 segments, including teases, and over 43 minutes to attacking Warren over her comments.

ELIZABETH WARREN SLAMS KARL ROVE’S DISHONEST ATTACK AD AS ‘FACTUALLY WRONG AND MORALLY WRONG’

 By Tanya Somanader 




Feeling the heat of consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren’s lead over Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS unleashed an extremely disingenuous political ad that insinuated Warren was responsible for the 2008 bank bailout — a patently absurd claim given that the bailout was a Republican measure and that Warren was later chosen as the head of a panel providing much-needed oversight to the program. In fact, she has been a consistentadvocate for greater accountability regarding the bailout funds. Warren blasted Rove for the ad, saying, “I can’t find the right words to describe how wrong that is. Factually wrong and morally wrong.” “Karl rove is not telling the truth,” she added. “I think anyone who is not telling the truth shouldn’t be running ads in this race.”

Elizabeth Warren to enter Massachusetts Senate race Wednesday

By Kase Wickman/Raw Story

Harvard professor and consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren will officially announce Wednesday morning that she will challenge Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) in 2012 to reclaim the Senate seat for the Democrats, a senior Massachusetts Democratic Party official confirmed to Raw Story.

Warren’s candidacy has been the subject of speculation for more than a year. Last month, she conducted a listening tour around Massachusetts and formed an exploratory committee to test the waters and begin fundraising.

She will make a number of appearances across the state tomorrow to meet with voters, the official said, starting at an MBTA stop in Boston and working her way through the state’s different regions throughout the day. Like Tammy Baldwin, a Democratic candidate for one of Wisconsin’s Senate seats, she will announce her candidacy via a video posted to her campaign website.

A former economic adviser to President Barack Obama, Warren has taken her licks from Congress while giving anti-Wall Street testimony.

As a candidate, Warren will make sure Washington is working for working-class families, the aide said. On Wednesday’s tour, Warren will focus on meeting and greeting voters.

“The pressures on middle class families are worse than ever, but it is the big corporations that get their way in Washington,” Warren will say in Wednesday’s announcement video, according to a partial script obtained by The Boston Globe. “I want to change that. I will work my heart out to earn the trust of the people of Massachusetts.”

Warren’s entry into the race expands the field to seven Democrats against Brown, who is seeking his first full six-year term in the Senate. He won the seat in January 2010 in an upset over Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, to replace Sen. Ted Kennedy, who died of brain cancer in office in August 2009

Revealed: Former Goldman Sachs VP Turned Issa Staffer Supervised Scheduling Of Elizabeth Warren Incident

By Lee Fang/Think Progress




Last week, ThinkProgress revealed that Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) hired Peter Haller, a former Goldman Sachs vice president, as one of his top aides. Haller, who adopted his mother’s maiden name in 2008 and had escaped public scrutiny until now, coordinated an Oversight Committee letter to regulators demanding that they justify new Dodd-Frank rules impacting investment banks like his old employer, Goldman Sachs. After publication of our story, the Project on Government Oversightdiscovered more of Haller’s Oversight Committee letters, again on issues directly related to Goldman Sachs.

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.

McHenry seemed to have a mission that day. As Crooks and Liars blogger Karoli pointed out, before the hearing started, McHenry appeared on CNBC and accused Warren of lying about the nature of her advice to the consumer protection agency. The scheduling controversy at the hearing appears to be little more than a cover for McHenry to smear Warren as untrustworthy.

Haller, who is visible to the C-SPAN camera in a seat near McHenry, shakes his head at Warren when she said “we had an agreement for the time this hearing” (time stamp 00:55). Watch here:

ThinkProgress reached out to Haller for comment on this story, but the Oversight Committee refused our request.

Goldman Sachs has spent millions this year lobbying on new Dodd-Frank mandates, and has sent its representatives to private meetings about the implementation of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rules.

The Warren incident provides more fodder to critics who say Issa has turned his Oversight Committee over to lobbyists. In comments to the press, Issa’s spokeswoman did not deny that Haller worked previously Goldman Sachs or that he covers financial issues for the committee.

Public Citizen’s Bart Naylor commented on ThinkProgress’ story last Friday, noting “Chairman Issa must take every step to ensure that his investigations are unclouded by any appearance of conflict. The next time Chairman Issa sends a scolding letter to regulators and asks that they contact Peter Haller, he should disclose that Mr. Haller worked at Goldman Sachs.”

Peter Haller FOIA full

View more documents from lee_fang

Scott Brown Taps Wall Street For Cash In Advance Of Possible Elizabeth Warren Challenge

By Amanda Terkel/Huffy Post

WASHINGTON -- As Democrats urge Elizabeth Warren, one of Wall Street's most public foes, to seek a U.S. Senate seat in Massachusetts next year, the financial industry is already throwing its support behind the seat's current occupant, Sen. Scott Brown (R), giving him nearly $315,000 in the most recent fundraising quarter.

The contributions from people and interests associated with the financial industry represented nearly 16 percent of the approximately $2 millionBrown raised in the second quarter, according to his filings with the Federal Elections Commission. $48,000 of the financial contributions came from political action committees.

The donations, which came in between April and the end of June, were just below what Brown took in during the first quarter of 2012. Between January and the end of March, Brown raised $404,206 from the financial industry. During the first quarter, he received the third-highest amount of money from this sector of any senator or senatorial candidate.

This week, President Obama announced that he would not be nominating Warren to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), freeing her up for a possible Senate run. Warren, a law professor at Harvard University, has lived in Massachusetts since the 1990s.

Brown's fundraising obviously came before Obama made his announcement, but Democrats have been floating her as their ideal candidate for months.

On Monday, Massachusetts Democrats said they would be "thrilled" if she were to be on the ticket in 2012. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee launched a petition to draft her and isalready fundraising on her behalf.

Warren's work was the inspiration for the CFPB, and progressives view her as one of their strongest advocates for working families and financial regulations. At the same time, congressional Republicans and many Wall Street entities have fiercely opposed her, with GOP senators saying they would block her nomination to head the CFPB at all costs.

"Scott Brown is Wall Street's favorite -- and for good reason," said Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesman Matt Canter. "He did their bidding behind closed doors during financial reform and he looks out for their interests every day, voting nearly 90 percent of the time with Mitch McConnell."

Brown's office did not return a request for comment, but National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesman Brian Walsh pointed out that in the last election cycle, Democrats were the top recipients of financial industry donations. In 2012, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) is leading in financial donations.

"It really smacks of desperation to watch Senate Democrats attack Scott Brown on a piece of legislation that they themselves also voted for, which President Obama signed into law and which Wall Street opposed," said Walsh. "It's also stunningly hypocritical when you consider that just days ago President Obama was in New York City raising campaign contributions from Wall Street executives and Senate Democrats themselves have received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Wall Street. But this is the type of misleading mudslinging voters in Massachusetts will have to get used to because Democrats in Washington know they can't beat Scott Brown fair and square."

Financial donations to Brown also spiked last summer, as Congress was considering financial regulatory reform. As the Boston Globe reported, between mid-June and early-July 2010, Brown took in $140,000 from banks and investment firms and their executives, which was 400 percent more than the average received by other Republican senators during that same time period.

Brown eventually voted for the legislation, but not before extracting key concessions to benefit the financial industry in his state. As Newsweek wrote at the time, Brown "managed to dramatically weaken the 'Volcker rule' barring banks from speculative proprietary trading, proposing a 2 percent exemption (which conference chair Sen. Chris Dodd then generously raised to 3 percent), and he got the Democrats to quash a planned $19 billion rainy-day tax on banks as well."

In a recent poll conducted for Brown and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Brown leads Warren by a 53-28 percent margin among likely 2012 voters.

Dem apologizes to Elizabeth Warren for GOP attacks: They’re afraid of you

By Kase Wickman

In a House Oversight subcommittee meeting Tuesday, some Republican committee members used their time to attack Elizabeth Warren, who is advising President Barack Obama on the formation of a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) even accused Warren of lying to Congress the last time she had testified.

A Democrat on the committee, however, used his time to apologize for his across-the-aisle colleagues’ behavior. Rep. Joe Yarmuth (D-KY) congratulated Warren, while backhandedly insulting other committee members, implying that they were afraid of Warren’s power and effectiveness.

“The snarky comments about a Senate race, and the questioning of your veracity when there is documented evidence that you are being totally truthful indicates to me that this hearing is all about impugning you because people are afraid of you and your ability to communicate in very clear terms the threats to our consumers and the threats to our constituents and possibly very, very effective ways to combat them,” Yarmuth said. ” I congratulate you for instilling such fear in the committee, on the majority side, and in some aspects, or segments, of the business community because they understand how effective you are in getting the message out to the American people.”

Watch Yarmuth’s comments below, embedded via YouTube.