Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

You know what would REALLY ‘annoy’ the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau?

Having their top leadership dragged before the Senate every day to answer questions. Maybe even having some of them spend some time exploring the possible permutations of the phrase ‘held in contempt of Congress.’ Because being beholden to the law is not the most onerous thing that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will ever have to do:

A federal judge forced the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to obey the same rules of discovery in civil litigation that apply to everybody else even if government officials are annoyed by them.

Judge John E. McDermott rejected a motion by CFPB. As a result, the bureau’s officials were required to submit to depositions — cross-examinations of witnesses conducted under oath but outside the courtroom — in a case filed by the bureau.

Via Instapundit. It’s always cute when a fresh, new waste of taxpayer dollars wakes up one morning to discover that it is no longer being protected by an indulgent Congress. Nobody in the GOP likes the CFPB: it was created largely so that Democrats could tell themselves brave stories about how they were the most populist populists who ever popped a list*. Scheduling the CFPB for a good kicking at regular intervals next year should prove entertaining.

Moe Lane

*Wow. That almost made sense. Also, spoiler warning: Democrats are not populists.

Barack Obama throws Elizabeth Warren under the bus.

Or, as Jake Tapper/Jake Tapper’s editor* put it, “President Obama Picks Former Ohio Attorney General to Run Consumer Bureau, Bypassing Woman Who First Came Up With the Idea.” I agree with Ed Morrissey: that’s not really the headline that you want to see in this kind of awkward situation. I mocked the elevated importance that the Online Left has given both Warren and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau yesterday, but let me do it again: if you want to understand just how little that Democrats who actually, you know, matter cared about either, look no further than Obama’s lackadaisical response to Warren’s nomination being blocked.

Not that any of this is stopping some on the Online Left, who are apparently currently – wait for it, wait for it! – pushing for her to run against Scott Brown** for MA-SEN. The Wall Street Journal wants her to go for it; it is no doubt merely my imagination that they’re doing that while quietly chuckling and adjusting the scope on their metaphorical sniper rifle…

Moe Lane (crosspost) Continue reading Barack Obama throws Elizabeth Warren under the bus.

#rsrh Elizabeth Warren nomination FINALLY scuppered? #p2

Such a tragedy, if true.

President Barack Obama has chosen a candidate other than Elizabeth Warren as director of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, according to a person briefed on the matter.

The president’s choice is a person who already works at the consumer agency, the person said yesterday. Obama may make the nomination as soon as next week, another person briefed on the administration’s plans said.

Not least because Elizabeth Warren’s ascension to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was seriously touted as being a game changer in the 2010 election; seeing her nomination first get questioned, then get nibbled to death by ducks, was no doubt traumatic, to some. Her final rejection by a Democratic-controlled Senate that’s unwilling to fight for her should cause some entertaining meltdowns, no?

Via Hot Air, which notes that this isn’t confirmed yet. Mind you, after one of Rep. Issa’s patented on-the-griddle sessions it’s not really all that surprising that she might be ready to cut and run herself…

Moe Lane

THE RETURN OF ELIZABETH WARREN!!!!!

Five exclamation points, so that you know that it’s important.

Yes, yes, I know: who? I invite the reader to go back to an understated post of mine from September 2010 entitled “Elizabeth Warren will rise from the sea to destroy us all!“: essentially, it was being argued by the Left that appointing this woman to be the first head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) would save the House of Representatives for the Democratic party. Apparently, putting her in charge of yet another new regulatory agency (this one mandated by Dodd-Frank) would be the killer app, the silver bullet, the Secret Sauce that would get progressives out of their seats and simply flood all those Blue-in-Red polling stations in a cerulean tide of majority-retention. Really. Elizabeth Warren would save the House.

And lo, the mocking stretched to the heavens. Even in what was turning out to be an excellent campaign season for stupid political brainstorming by the Democrats, this one was pretty prime*. Continue reading THE RETURN OF ELIZABETH WARREN!!!!!

Elizabeth Warren will rise from the sea to destroy us all!

Who?

Last month I implied that one of the signs of DOOM in November would be an increased number of convoluted theories about how to ensure Democratic dominance. Ben Domenech over at The New Ledger has links to the latest one, which is apparently resting on the core assumption that two years of Democratic disillusionment with an administration that is excellent at betrayal, yet incompetent at actual policy- and agenda-setting can be instantly set aside by the appointment of Elizabeth Warren to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Continue reading Elizabeth Warren will rise from the sea to destroy us all!