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Senate Republicans are renewing their vow to block any nominee to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) unless major changes are made to its structure. In a letter sent to President Obama on Friday, 43 Republican senators committed to refusing approval of any nominee to head the consumer watchdog until the bureau underwent significant reform. Lawmakers signing on to the letter included Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee. "The CFPB as created by the deeply flawed Dodd-Frank Act is one of the least accountable in Washington,"...

**SNIP** Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the No. 2 Senate Democrat, said the administration was forced to use recess appointments because of Republican intransigence. “In its frustration, this administration said ‘we were elected to govern,’” Durbin said. “And whether it’s the National Labor Relations Board or whatever they wanted to put people in place to govern.”

The Federal Reserve wants to avoid runaway inflation (or hyperinflation) while generating increased economic growth. So what is the cure for inflation? Slow down bank lending. But the cure might be worse than the problem itself. The Federal government has been commandeering private lending for a couple of decades and now has a virtual monopoly of certain types of lending. Examples include the mortgage market where (depending on the source) the government (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the FHA) control 86-90% of the market. Student loans is another example where the government stepped in to guarantee loans at taxpayer expense....

President Obama violated the Constitution when he bypassed the Senate to fill vacancies on a labor relations panel, a federal appeals court panel ruled Friday. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said that Obama did not have the power to make three recess appointments last year to the National Labor Relations Board. The unanimous decision is an embarrassing setback for the president, who made the appointments after Senate Republicans spent months blocking his choices for an agency they contended was biased in favor of unions. The ruling also throws into question Obama's recess...

There can be unseemly exposure of the mind as well as of the body, as the progressive mind is exposed in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a creature of the labyrinthine Dodd-Frank legislation. Judicial dismantling of the CFPB would affirm the rule of law and CongressÂ’s constitutional role. The CFPBÂ’s director, Richard Cordray, was installed by one of Barack ObamaÂ’s spurious recess appointmentswhen the Senate was not in recess. Vitiating the SenateÂ’s power to advise and consent to presidential appointments is congruent with the CFPBÂ’s general lawlessness. The CFPB nullifies CongressÂ’s power to use the power of the purse...

(CNSNews.com) – The Obama administration named Holly Petraeus--wife of retired Gen. David Patraeus, who resigned last week as CIA director after revealing he had had an extramarital affair--to a $187,605-per-yer job in the newly formed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The CFPB, created by the Dodd-Frank law, was placed by that law under the umbrella of the Federal Reserve. The funding of the CFBP, which comes from the Federal Reserve, is not subject to congressional oversight. Mrs. Petraeus became a member of the CFPB Implementation Team on Jan. 12, 2011. She is now the assistant director for the Office of...

This isn't the first time I have written about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau or waste and abuse in the federal government. I have opined on more than one occasion that the powers given to the CFPB were suspect. This is especially true since their funding doesn't even have to go through Congress. With a funding setup like that, one can't help but wonder who will watch the CFPB, while they are supposedly watching out for the American taxpayer. This is, however, the first time the CFPB and waste and abuse have been tied together. They are getting off to...

The companies that determine Americans' credit scores are about to come under government oversight for the first time. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said Monday that it will start supervising the 30 largest firms that make up 94 percent of the industry. That includes the three big credit reporting firms: Equifax Inc., Experian and TransUnion. In remarks prepared for a speech Monday, Richard Cordray, the government agency's director, said that scorekeeping by credit bureaus plays such a large role in Americans' financial lives, it requires scrutiny.

A Texas community bank and two advocacy groups are filing suit in U.S. District Court to challenge the constitutionality of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. In particular, the suit will contend that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), created by the law, lacks sufficient checks and balances and, in the words of the CEO of State National Bank, is "simply unconstitutional." “No other federal agency or commission operates in such a way that one person can essentially determine who gets a home loan, who can get a credit card and who can get a loan for college,” said bank head...

This is truly Orwellian: the latest and greatest Executive Branch/Federal Reserve power grab is labeled "consumer protection." I am indebted to correspondent Jim S. who seems to be one of the few Americans to have actually sorted through this monstrosity and gleaned its true nature: an unprecedented extension of Executive (i.e. Imperial Presidency) and Federal Reserve power.

Whatever happened to the American dream of going to college, landing a great job and living happily ever after? College is supposed to be about getting off to a great start, but it’s a financial noose that threatens to kill our young and everybody else too. The U.S. has the dubious distinction of now having more than $1 trillion in outstanding student loan debt. The crisis has the full attention of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau which in a recent blog , presented its sobering findings. “Unlike other consumer credit products, student debt keeps growing at a steady clip. Students...

Republican senators announced Friday that they plan to challenge President Obama's recent controversial appointments in court. Thirty-nine GOP senators have signed onto a letter announcing their intention to file a joint amicus brief in a court challenge against Obama's recess appointments to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the National Labor Relations Board last month. "We refuse to stand by as this President arrogantly casts aside our Constitution and defies the will of the American people under the election-year guise of defending them," Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said in a statement. The White House has argued that the recess appointments...

Did President Barack Obama’s appointment of Richard Cordray to be director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau without a Senate confirmation vote violate the Constitution? The answer is plainly yes.Article 2, Section 2 of the Constitution says the president “shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint … Officers of the United States … but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone (and) … The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess...

I called my rep on C-Span this morning, Steve Southerland (FL-2) My question was, "Did President Obama violate the Constitution when he appointed Richard Cordray to head the CFPB without consent of the Senate?" He said Obama crossed the line, yet it was okay because the Senate was in recess. My line went dead. So no, I was not allowed to tell him the Senate was not in recess and therefore any regulations from the CFPB were null and void. I listen to Leftist moonbats get 2-3 minutes to beat up pubbies over social justice, the mean corporations, the one...

Some legal experts, including those who have sided with President Obama on other constitutional issues, think there is a good chance the courts could overturn his recent recess appointments. Legal experts said courts could invalidate Obama’s appointments to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) because there is scant precedent on the issue.  “It’s untested ground. If I were a judge, I could write out an opinion either way. There’s no clear precedent,” said Charles Fried, a constitutional expert at Harvard Law School who served as solicitor general under former President Reagan. The Justice Department...

If Lizzy [Elizabeth] Warden is truly opposed to Wall Street money, then shouldn’t she reject the DSCC’s money? Otherwise she is just using the DSCC to funnel in Wall Street money.

In the midst of the administration’s efforts to drastically reduce the nation’s military personnel and hike pay for government employees comes this gem: the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the new director of which was unconstitutionally appointed by President Obama on Wednesday, is prepared to pay a salary of more than $100,000 for an employee to assist in planning bureau events. According to a job listing on USAJobs.com, the federal government’s official employment classifieds site, the CFPB is seeking an “invitations coordinator” to “support management of CFPB’s participation in external events by developing and maintaining databases and event calendar and providing...

Two days after defying Republicans and appointing Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, President Obama visited the new agency to take a little time to gloat. Making a victory lap of sorts at the independent agency, Obama cracked a joke, telling employees that he came by to help their new director move in. More seriously, a seemingly content Obama called the man he tapped a “great director who is tailor-made to lead this agency.” With Cordray at the helm, after months of delay, the agency will help Americans better digest mortgages, student loans and credit card fees...

Actual title is : Obama violated Senate norms to appoint this guy? New financial protection chief accused of misusing state funds (FR needs more space for title- I always have to alter Aaron's titles to post them) Sparking Republican charges he violated Senate norms, President Obama today used his recess appointment powers to name a head for the controversial Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. KleinOnline first reported last month that consumer groups had been calling on Obama to seize rarely-used powers in to make a recess appointee for Richard Cordray, the nominee for what the government bills as a new consumer...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a man whose political success is largely attributable to the aura of befuddled incompetence he uses to disarm his adversaries, was a failed Watergate baby. In 1974, a slew of often sanctimonious and very liberal Democratic politicians rode the tide of understandable national disgust with Richard Nixon to Congress. Then the lieutenant governor of Nevada, Reid ran for the U.S. Senate, hoping to tie his opponent to the "imperial presidency" that had allegedly sprung up ex nihilo under Nixon. Given Nevada's inherent conservatism (at least back then), Reid cast himself as an incorruptible champion of...