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.

Clinton Scolds GOP Senator For Focusing On Whether Protest Sparked Benghazi Attack

By Ben Armbruster/Think Progress

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton shot back at a Republican senator during today’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the Benghazi terror attacks, arguing that the Republicans’ focus on whether there was a protest against an anti-Muslim video at the time of the attack is irrelevant.

Much of the politicization surrounding the Benghazi affair centered on Republicans attackingthe Obama administration’s initial assessment that the Benghazi attacks may have been sparked by the video protest, a determination that the administration later backed away from.

When Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) asked Clinton why she didn’t make “a simple phone call” to the evacuees to find out, the Secretary of State shot back: “With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans!” she said, “What difference does it make?”:

JOHNSON: Madam Secretary, do you disagree that a simple phone call to those evacuees to determined what happened would have ascertained immediately there was no protest? That was a piece of information that could have been easily, easily obtained. within hours if not days.

CLINTON: Senator, you know, when you’re in these positions, the last thing you want to do is interfere with any other process.

JOHNSON: I realize that. I realize it’s a good excuse.

CLINTON: No it’s a fact. [...]

JOHNSON: Again, we were mislead there was supposedly protests and something spraying out of that, assault spraying out of that. That was easily ascertained that was not the fact and the american people could have known that within days and didn’t know that.

CLINTON: With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans! Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night decided to go kill some Americans?! What difference at this point does it make?! It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again.

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Despite Saying ‘America’s Priorities Should Come First,’ Senate GOP Blocks Emergency Disaster Relief

By Tanya Somanader


The unprecedented number of natural disasters in 2011 have left already struggling states with $36 billion in damages. Hearing calls for aid, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)responded by bringing a $7 billion relief package before the Senate.

His Republicans colleagues, however,responded by obstructing it. Last night, GOP senators successfully blocked Reid from bringing up the bill for consideration. In need of 60 votes, Reid got 53 votes in favor and 33 votes against. Fourteen senators did not vote, but every single senator who voted against relief was Republican.

Even GOP senators representing states that suffered disaster damage — North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr, Texas Sen. John Cornyn, Alabama Sens. Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions, and Mississippi Sens. Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker — voted against aid for their constituents. Taking a page from House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-VA), the Senate GOP refused because the relief was not offset with cuts elsewhere:

– SEN. RAND PAUL (KY): “I plan to insist my fellow senators take a long, hard look at where the funding comes from,” Paul said yesterday before the vote.“Will it be more borrowing on the backs of our children and grandchildren, or will it be from the coffers of our numerous nation-building programs overseas? America’s priorities should come first.”

– SEN. JOHN THUNE (SD): “These are different times. We have got to figure out how to pay for these things,” Thune told reporters last week.

– SEN. JEFF SESSIONS (AL): As ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, Sessions “believes the Senate should not provide the spendingbefore getting expert advice on the precise need.” “We haven’t carefully examined every penny of it,” he added. Noting that he represents “a state that has suffered” from tornado damage, he still asked “how much more do we need” in aid?

Disaster relief — much like funding to rebuild Iraq — is traditionally not subject to offsets. But only Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins seemed to take note of that fact. She, Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-MN), Sen. Dan Coats (R-IN), Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), and Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) were the only five to break with their party and vote in favor of the disaster aid.

They, however, will find support from numerous GOP governors who seek aid without offsets. Cantor’s home state Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA) rebuked this kind of zero sum thinking. GOP favorite Gov. Chris Christie (NJ) characteristically did not mince words: “Our people are suffering now, and they need support now. And they [Congress].. can figure out budget cuts later.” For now, Christie — and the people’s needs — go unheeded.