Obama defies Republican obstruction-Uses Recess Appointment To Name Cordray-Head Of Consumer Bureau

[kpete]

WHITE HOUSE
Obama to Appoint Cordray as Head of Consumer Bureau
By Julia Edwards
Updated: January 4, 2012 | 10:17 a.m.
January 4, 2012 | 9:50 a.m.

President Obama will announce today that he will appoint Richard Cordray as head of the controversial Consumer Financial Protection Bureau during the Senate’s recess, the White House said.

The appointment comes to the dismay of Senate Republicans, who blocked Cordray’s nomination in order to weaken the bureau.

Speaking in a news conference after Cordray’s block Dec. 8, President Obama said he wouldn’t take any option off the table, but a recess appointment was not an option he favored.

"My hope and expectation is that the Republicans who block this nomination come to their senses," Obama said at the news conference. "And I know that some of them have made an argument, we just want to sort of make modifications in the law. Well, they are free to introduce a bill and get that passed."

........

http://www.nationaljournal.com/obama-to-appoint-cordray-as-head-of-consumer-bureau-20120104

[Richardo]

1. Sweet.

[Scuba]

2. Hip, hip, hooooraaaayyyyy!!!! Go get 'em Richard Cordray!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Historic NY]

3. Right at them......POTUS on the offensive.

[RC]

4. Three years in and Obama still has not learned.

"...President Obama said he wouldn’t take any option off the table, but a recess appointment was not an option he favored."

At least he is defying the repugs here and appointing Cordray against their wishes.

[banned from Kos]

5. Obama was correct. Ideally the GOP would allow a vote that they would lose.

He stated the obvious.

[Inuca]

12. Has not learned WHAT exactly? n/t

[RC]

21. That he cannot work with the Republicans

He is still trying! Why?

Oh, and BTY
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002117646

[Renew Deal]

14. Your post doesn't make sense.

You're saying he didn't learn something that he seemed to have learned? I don't get it.

[Pab Sungenis]

6. Wait...is that?

Do we see a hint of a SPINE?

Good job, Mr. President, more like this, please.

[Whisp]

17. there is no doubt that Obama has strength

he's had to hold up under extreme pressure from all the assholes around him, 24/7. and he holds up well.
I would say he has plenty of spine.

[Pab Sungenis]

38. It's just that until recently he was so eager to bend over backwards

that I could have sworn he'd had it removed.

If he can keep this up, it's going to be an interesting five years to come.

[one_voice]

7. Good for him! I only wish...

he could flip them the bird too.

[_ed_]

8. If he was going to do a recess appointment anyway

why didn't he just appoint Elizabeth Warren years ago? Why did he wait 3/4 of his Presidency to do this?

[phleshdef]

11. Because the Bureau wasn't even ready for operation until July of this 2011, THIS PAST YEAR.

This kind of bullshit, like you just said, is exactly why I've run out of patience for the kneejerk, thoughtless, anti-Obama nonsense that gets vomited all over these boards.

You people don't even bother to fact check your bullshit assumptions. A simple glance at wikipedia would have spared you from asking such an embarassing, fact defying question.

[Pisces]

15. Fact checking is for smart, reasonable people. Knee jerk has the word JERK in it for a reason.

[_ed_]

23. Fact check this:

http://www.acslaw.org/acsblog/can-president-obama-recess-appoint-elizabeth-warren

By the way, JERK is a much more powerful insult when you use all caps like a thirteen year old kid. Congrats.

[Whisp]

18. +1billion.

any opportunity to jump in and insult the president is okay for those who took the Oath to do so - even if it embarrasses them. Thanks for straightening that one out. good smack'em

[_ed_]

24. "good smack'em"

Thanks for adding this rhetorical gem to the discussion. If you care to learn something:

http://www.acslaw.org/acsblog/can-president-obama-recess-appoint-elizabeth-warren

[Whisp]

31. here's some learnin' for you

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/07/18/995872/-Elizabeth-Warren-I-never-wanted-the-chairmanship

Warren didn't want the job.

'''I want to hear all those folks who claimed that Obama simply wouldn't appoint her apologize.

She didn't want the job. She didn't ever want the job. Rep Barney Frank told us that. People provided links to her comment, saying that she didn't want the full-time, 5 year commitment. She simply wanted to set up the commission. She was named "special adviser" because that's what she wanted.

And she just completed an interview with Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC, talking about how thrilled she is that she gets to go home, away from Washington, back to her regular life.

Consumer groups and many here at DK wanted her to have the role. She clearly didn't.

But somehow, people who want to think the worst about Obama seemingly couldn't believe that this is the way it could possibly be.'''

[_ed_]

36. Are you seriously saying

that the banks and Tim Geithner had nothing to do with this? "She didn't want the job" is political spin, after the fact.

[Whisp]

37. are you seriously saying that Warren

was lieing or that she was somehow threatened in some way to say what she did.

what nonsense.
you should stop while you are only as far behind as you are

[_ed_]

22. Are you serious?

Since you wanted me to use wikipedia, here is a direct quote:

"While liberal groups and consumer advocacy groups pushed for Obama to nominate Warren as the agency's permanent director, Warren was strongly opposed by financial institutions. which had criticized Warren as overly aggressive in pursuing regulations. and by the Republican members of Congress. While liberal groups and consumer advocacy groups pushed for Obama to nominate Warren as the agency's permanent director, Warren was strongly opposed by financial institutions. which had criticized Warren as overly aggressive in pursuing regulations. and by the Republican members of Congress. Furthermore, she did not have the strong support of the Obama administration, particularly Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. In July 2011, Obama instead announced the nomination of former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray as the bureau's director, subject to Congressional approval In July 2011, Obama instead announced the nomination of former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray as the bureau's director, subject to Congressional approval"

"Fact-defying?"

http://www.acslaw.org/acsblog/can-president-obama-recess-appoint-elizabeth-warren

Was your whole little petulant diatribe over my use of "years" instead of "a year?" Maybe you should switch to decaf and read over the link above.

[phleshdef]

25. Please. No one is buying that. You meant to say "years".

If you wanted to say "a year ago", not only would that still not have been accurate, as the bureau still wasn't ready for an official appointment until 6 months ago, but you would have put an "a" in your sentence, before the words years. It wasn't a typo. I don't pick at people over grammar or typos.

Now you can take issue with Elizabeth Warren not being the nominee, thats fine. You still ignore the fact that Warren agreed that her nomination would have led to a bunch of controversial nothing. And you ignore the fact that he appointed Cordray, who has plenty of progressive credentials and was strongly endorsed by Elizabeth Warren. And if you want to ignore all that so you can have something negative to say, then thats fine as well.

But don't act like Obama has had years to get this done and is just now taking some real action. That was your insinuation and thats a fact deficient insinuation. Its bullshit. He signed the damn thing into law to begin with. He put Elizabeth Warren in charge of getting it built. He appointed a bonified progressive to head the damn thing, 6 months ago, the first moment it was ready for someone to officially head it. And he gave Republicans 6 months to stop being dicks, then he just told them to go screw themselves, and has used his Presidential power to put a bonified progressive in charge of protecting the middle class from bad consumer practices. This is what actually has happened.

[_ed_]

27. "But don't act like Obama has had years to get this done and is just now taking some real action."

Please don't pretend that he's been on top of banking reform all this time and I'm just making this shit up. Seriously. It's goddamn 2012 and we're just getting this Bureau up and running. There's been no meaningful financial reform in three years.

[Dewey Finn]

29. Nice deflection

but unconvincing. You got schooled, or at least you would have been had you shown any interest in becoming better informed.

[sabrina 1]

34. Really? Are derivatives illegal yet?

Has anyone responsible for the collapse of the World's economy even been investigated yet? What happened to the Senate Committee's findings that was referred to the DOJ to look at what they believed were 'possible illegal activities'?

I am very happy the President has taken this step. But on the Banking Industry he has been appalling. His administration, rather than going after the Bankers, has attempted to put pressure on US Attorneys NOT TO. So please, stick to the facts. This OP is good news, but on the Banking Industry we are all still waiting.

[Dewey Finn]

44. See post #25

and don't complain to me if what's there displeases you.

[sabrina 1]

52. What have those posts got to do with my questions?

The reform bill was so weak that it left the door open for all that happened already to happen again. Added to that, there have been no prosecutions, despite the Senate Committee's findings.

So again, was there illegal activity and if so, where are the prosecutions? And are derivatives illegal? I think the answer is no, the biggest contributor to the Financial Meltdown remains legal. So to say we got reform, yes, some, but nothing that has brought anyone to justice and nothing that will prevent the exact same crimes to occur again.

And btw, I am happy with the appointment and with Elizabeth Warren in the Senate. But that has zero to do with crimes that destroyed this country's economy and the fact that no one has been held accountable.

[Dewey Finn]

54. Good grief.

You're desperate to completely hijack the discussion.

Why not start your own thread if you'd rather not talk about the Cordray recess appointment and the CFPB? That's the topic at hand. And that's precisely what those posts had to do with, the topic at hand, not the topic(s) you'd obviously prefer to discuss.

[sabrina 1]

55. Why not answer the questions? They ARE related and I did not bring up the topic, merely

responded to it. As for the appointment, maybe if you read the thread you would know I have commented on it, several times.

[Dewey Finn]

56. Do you speak any languages other than English?

I have a smattering of French and a little Spanish, and still remember some Latin. I could maybe try repeating myself in those if what I said in English above is still unclear to you.

[sabrina 1]

57. Why not just use English to say you don't want to answer the questions?

Could have saved all that typing. I got it, in English, loud and clear.

[Dewey Finn]

59. And yet apparently you didn't "get it".

Your questions are not relevant. As I said before, starting your own thread if you want to talk about your questions, rather than insisting on hijacking this thread, might be a better use of your energies. But of course that's your call.

[Dewey Finn]

45. And add post #30.

Good points made there, too.

[Warren DeMontague]

61. There's just no pleasing some people.

"That's just what Jesus said, sir"

[_ed_]

35. Deflection of what?

My initial point was that if he was going to do a recess appointment, he could have appointed Warren. I got the time frame wrong. Big fucking deal. That's irrelevant to the larger point, which is that Tim Geithner and Obama bowed to the banks' will yet again and dumped Warren. But, yeah, you "schooled" me or whatever.

[Dewey Finn]

43. I has nothing to do with schooling you.

Read post #25 again. You were schooled before I even opened the thread.

[phleshdef]

30. Thats absolutely absurd.

He pushed for the banking reform bill until it got enough votes to pass. And there is no federal agency thats ever existed that didn't have a ramp up period to get it going. That had to happen regardless of who got appointed.

Its not even been 3 years since the financial reform bill got through Congress. And big bills typically take awhile to get settled in Congress. Thats NORMAL. And for it to take a year to a year and a half to get a new federal agency rolling is ALSO NORMAL. You've obviously been afflicted by the short attention span/instant gratification mindset that seems to be plaguing this country these days. The fact that you actually think the time it took to get all this in motion was "a long time" is proof of that.

[stopwastingmymoney]

32. +1

[banned from Kos]

16. Warren set up the CFPB and will be a Senator - best of both worlds

Senator Warren far preferable to Bureau Warren.

[Zenlitened]

9. It's a fight worth having. -nt

[MH1]

10. Now, can he make some recess appointments to the NLRB?? Please??

Anyone know what's going on there ... last I heard, NLRB will be completely nofunctional due to combination of attrition and republicans obstructing nominated replacements.

I'm hoping I'm just misinformed, or that this is already covered.

[MH1]

26. HA! He Did! (or will)

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/01/04/397537/breaking-obama-recess-appoints-nlrb/

[Stuart G]

13. I am very happy he did this...k and r..nt

[Scurrilous]

19. Good news. n/t

[librechik]

20. All I can say is thank god and Hooray President Obama!

Bravo!

[Major Hogwash]

28. Oh no, he dinn't!!

Rob Cordray?! That's the comedian from Jon Stewart's Daily Show!!

What's next? Samantha Bee for the new Secretary of State!?!

[sabrina 1]

33. Excellent. I'm very happy he did this. n/t

[MadHound]

39. And thus flushes away a tool we'll need when there is a Republican president

Keeping the Senate in a pro forma session enabled the Dems to keep Bush from nominating some truly heinous people. But now with this questionable end run around the Constitution, we will no longer have that tool at our disposal when a 'Pug is back in the White House.

But hey, why think ahead

[FrenchieCat]

40. He's damned no matter which way to look at it...ain't he?

Far as some are concerned, hey?

[sabrina 1]

41. That doesn't make sense. The tool has not been removed. This time the President used a different

tool. Did the fact that Bush used this very tool over one hundred times, stop the Republicans from keeping the Senate in session when it was to their advantage?

You said this was an end run around the Constitution. How so?

[onenote]

46. It does remove a tool that the Democrats used

But I think that is a price that had to paid in order to break the logjam. To elaborate, when the Democrats took over the Senate in 2007, they instituted a tactic of using pro forma sessions to avoid going into an extended recess, arguing that this would prevent bush from making recess appointments. And it worked. Bush made no recess appointments his last two years in office.

The repubs have been using a comparable strategy since they captured the House in 2010. While the Democrats still control the Senate, the Constitution provides that the Senate can't adjourn for more than three days without the House's consent (and vice versa). The repubs in the House have been employing a pro forma recess strategy to avoid an extended adjournment and, by doing so, have blocked Reid from adjourning the Senate.

So how can Obama do it if bush couldn't? The answer is that bush never tried to call the Senate Democrats' bluff in 2007 and 2008. If he had, he might well have succeeded in making additional recess appointments. The WH has pointed out that bush administration lawyers have publicly argued that the pro forma session strategy is not a valid approach to blocking recess appointments from being made, implying that the repubs have no grounds to complain that they never tried to challenge it.

[sabrina 1]

49. Okay, thank you for your response.

I don't know why Bush stopped doing it, but I don't see where it is illegal or against the Constitution? He had made so many appointments by then, maybe he didn't want to take on that fight at that time. He pretty much got everything he wanted by then. 'Bush never tried'. So there is no precedent at least regarding Bush that states it is unconstitutional. Maybe I am not understanding, but hasn't it been done before by other presidents? Even in this short window of time? It will be interesting to see what Republicans say about it now.

[onenote]

51. the particular question of the validity of the pro forma session tactic

has never been litigated to the best of my knowledge. Chimpy made a lot of recess appointments, but they were all made during periods where there was no question that the Senate was in a recess lasting more than three days (in fact, all of chimpy's appointments were made during recesses lasting at least 10 days). There are a couple of instances in history of recess appointments during shorter recesses, but the courts have never said whether there is or isn't a period of time too short for a recess appointment and, as noted, they've never confronted the pro forma session tactic.

That said, it wouldn't surprise me if the repubs let this go without a challenge. The odds of winning aren't that great -- what case law there is seems to give a lot of deference to the president in the exercise of the recess appointment power -- and fighting it will only highlight the obstructionism that the president was trying to overcome and the gimmickyness of the pro forma session tactic. Basically, the president has correctly (imo) figured that a president trying to get something done over the obstructionism of a congress with approval ratings in the single digits is in a pretty strong position.

The risk for the Democrats (and the other reason that the repubs may not challenge this) is that one day the tables could be turned and it would be the Democrats that would want to impede the use of this power by a repub president. Plus, if the repubs get control of the Senate in 2012, and the Democrats use filibusters to block repub-sponsored legislation, there is a pretty good chance that the repubs will cite the president's actions as a justification for "breaking the impasse" by changing the filibuster rule.

[sabrina 1]

53. I see what you are saying now.

But even with the risk of Republicans using in the future, I do think it was worth taking that chance as this is a very important appointment, and I think the chances of Republicans ever giving in were pretty much zero. They have been fighting this for so long.

Otoh, it could be also that they don't want to be seen fighting against Wall St Oversight at this point in time but did not want to anger their constituents who already are so angry at all of them, and the President taking this step lets them off the hook.

Maybe some adults have finally taken over the Republican Party and they will simply accept this for now. Anyhow, thanks for the responses. I think it's a good thing so we agree on that

[phleshdef]

58. Right because Presidents haven't been working around recess appointments for decades now.

Spare us all the disingenious BS. You aren't concerned about this tactic. You just want to say something negative.

[Warren DeMontague]

60. There's no shortage of tools in Washington

never you fear.

[JackRiddler]

42. Well congratulations Obama. Let us welcome all good moves.

[WillyT]

47. Hear, Hear !!! - K & R !!!

[yurbud]

48. he needs to do more of this: working within the law and rules but working AROUND GOP...

in every way imaginable.

It also wouldn't hurt if he told his AG to get off his dead ass give some Wall St. execs the perp walk.

Jesus, even Ken Lay got arrested during the Bush admin.