I caught most of the president’s press conference today, and what I saw was outstanding. Maybe even better than outstanding. But I got distracted by little Finny and missed the answer to the following question. I wanted to know how he answered, so I tracked down the transcript in my email.
Q Thank you, Mr. President. (Inaudible) — I’ll ask my real question. It’s now been more than two months since the financial reg reform bill has passed. A centerpiece of that was what you talked about as a consumer financial protection bureau. And yet you haven’t named a head. Is Elizabeth Warren still a leading candidate? And if not, are you worried about some sort of Senate hurdle for her confirmation? Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: This is a great opportunity to talk to the American people about what I do think is going to be hugely helpful to middle-class families in the years and decades to come, and that is an agency that has been set up, an independent agency, whose sole job is to protect families in their financial transactions. So if you are getting a credit card, we are going to have an agency that makes sure that that credit card company can’t jack up your rates without any reason — including on old balances. And that could save American consumers tens of billions of dollars just in the first couple of years.
If you are out there looking for a mortgage — and we all know that part of the problem with the financial crisis was that folks were peddling mortgages that were unstable, that had these huge balloon payments that people didn’t fully understand well. Now there’s going to be some oversight in terms of how mortgages are shaped, and people are going to actually have to know what they’re getting and what they’re buying into. That’s going to protect the economy, as well as individual consumers.
So this agency I think has the capacity to really provide middle-class families the kind of protection that’s been lacking for too long.
Now, the idea for this agency was Elizabeth Warren’s. She’s a dear friend of mine. She’s somebody I’ve known since I was in law school. And I have been in conversations with her. She is a tremendous advocate for this idea. It’s only been a couple of months, and this is a big task standing up this entire agency, so I’ll have an announcement soon about how we’re going to move forward. And I think what’s fair to say is, is that I have had conversations with Elizabeth over the course of these — over these last couple of months. But I’m not going to make an official announcement until it’s ready.
Q Are you unofficially concerned about a Senate confirmation?
THE PRESIDENT: I’m concerned about all Senate confirmations these days. I mean, if I nominate somebody for dog catcher —
Q But with respect to Elizabeth Warren, are you —
THE PRESIDENT: Hans, I wasn’t trying to be funny. I am concerned about all Senate nominations these days. I’ve got people who have been waiting for six months to get confirmed who nobody has an official objection to and who were voted out of committee unanimously, and I can’t get a vote on them.
We’ve got judges who are pending. We’ve got people who are waiting to help us on critical issues like homeland security. And it’s very hard when you’ve got a determined minority in the Senate that insists on a 60-vote filibuster on every single person that we’re trying to confirm, even if after we break the filibuster, it turns out that they get 90 votes. They’re just playing games. And as I think Senator Voinovich said very well, it’s time to stop playing games.
All right. Chuck Todd.
What can I say? He nailed this answer just like he nailed the question about the so-called Ground Zero Burlington Coat Factory. It sounds to me like the president has every intention of nominating Elizabeth Warren. And he’s ready to fight against this 60-vote nonsense. I wish Obama had been this forceful and tough all year long. But I’m sure glad to see him relaxed and ready to go for the fall campaign.
I’ve seen people at FDL complaining that he shouldn’t nominate her because “she’s too good for a watered down agency delved inside the Fed.”
My first reaction was “lolwut?” And then I realized where I was, where nothing is ever good enough.
Not to mention that Liz Warren, the person who pushed for the idea, said originally that it should be housed where? Oh, right, the Fed.
imo, this bodes well for warrens’ chances. if memory serves, he was being touted as the go to guy for the post by a number of folks.
her appointment would go a long way towards closing the deal w/ the, so called, angry left.
Nothing short of President Clinton would really do that now, it’s too late for less, I’m afraid. They’ve created this monster ‘Obama’ with no real connection to the actual skinny black guy, and having raised him up to Godzilla proportions can’t do anything that looks like backing down.
It’ll have to burn itself out, via a 2012 primary challenge that gets shot down.
ya know davis, l’m really tired of hearing this clinton bullshit. SHE LOST, and for good reason. if you weren’t paying attention go to the way-back machine and google a clue…. get over it.
yeah, obama’s not been the president a lot of people expected…l’ve got a lot of problems with him myself… and the democRATs in congress suck, but they’re all we’ve got. this isn’t about 2012, it’s about now. if you think the difficulties he’s faced with the existing congress has been less than satisfactory, pause for a minute and ponder what it’s going to be like if the rat insurgency takes control of one or both houses. are you ready for that?
we’re facing a republican insurgency that’s, for all intents and purposes, weaponized the stupid…those lacking any sense of identity or purpose, possessing the very bigoted, racist, xenophobic, and violent… unfortunately, it’sa very large and vocal portion of the population of this country. and if you haven’t yet noticed, these fuckers are very likely to vote and you’re definitely not going to like the consequences.
if that prospect is not an obvious threat to whatever personal freedoms and choices you may cherish, and have left, and you’re still here spouting some mindless drivel about how some kind of epiphany or panacea is going to come from hillary clinton in 2012 and constitutes an answer to the problem we’re now facing, you’re daft.
turn off the wishful puma pony ‘carping and self-expression’ bs and get with the program or get the fuck out of the way.
l’m outta here for the evening, l’ve got better things to do than read this kind of garbage, that’s what fdl’s for…g’day.
I think Davis was engaged in the same criticism you’re making. I don’t think the two of you even disagree.
It’s just quality snark of the highest order.
yes, high quality snark – clue is where he says Obama monster has no relation to the skinny guy
my apologies to davis for my sluggish apprehension. nonetheless, the mini rant felt good.
l’ve been having this very discussion with a couple of acquaintances, ad infinitum, and liberal tho they may be, they just don’t [want to] get it.
Sorry to disagree with you and Booman, but why was this very evasive answer satisfying? He just kept saying Warren is a nice person and he has known her for a long time. Why no recess appointment? Why the two month delay (by Obama himself) on appointing anyone? Ditto with a lot of the judgeships: he has not pushed his nominees. Look at what he did with Dawn Johnsen, letting her nomination “twist in the wind” until it was withdrawn. Too many people here center in on what a politician promises and not what he does. I want to see action.
I wish I had the confidence of some that this will “fire up” the left. I don’t believe it, particularly after reading stuff like this from one Mr Peter Daou’s twitter
Obama’s damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t.
Screw Peter Daou. He’s like King PUMA.
It seems to me that if you bitch about Obama, you’d have hated FDR. Using Cenk’s reasoning FDR should be despised by progressives. People forget that FDR had majorities we can’t even fathom today, didn’t face a right a wing noise machine or reflexive Republican filibusters on everything, and had liberal Republicans to reach out to and with all that look at the original Social Security he passed.
Social Security at its inception had benefits that were negligible, and the program excluded agricultural workers, domestic workers (meaning blacks and Hispanics got nothing), the self-employed, railroad employees, government employees, clergy, and those who worked for non-profits. The original Social Security bill offered no benefits for dependents or survivors, and included no cost-of-living increases. It was garbage. It only improved later.
If Obama had passed such a waterd down piece of shit the left would have gone insane.
People also forget the second thing FDR did once in office. The second act to become law under the New Deal, after the Emergency Banking Act, which was a progressive piece of legislation, was a conservative bill, the Economy Act. It cut salaries of government employees and benefits to veterans, the latter by 15 percent. Arthur Schlesinger, in The Coming of the New Deal, writes that literally an hour after signing the banking act, Roosevelt outlined this bill to congressional leaders, saying the next day and sounding more than a little like some Robert Rubin progenitor had been whispering in his ear: “For three long years, the federal government has been on the road toward bankruptcy.” (And maybe one had: Schlesinger notes that Roosevelt’s budget director, Lewis Douglas, was certainly no Keynesian.)
Let’s also not forget FDR cutting back on spending and throwing the economy back into recession, stacking the board of his National Industry Recovery Act with center right people including a Reynolds Tobacco executive as it’ head.
Oh yeah, he also threw Americans in internment camps.
Oh, and he also did nothing for Universal health care.
Oh, and that watered down piece of shit he passed called Social Security didn’t pass until his 3rd year in office.
Oh, and the minimun wage didn’t get passed until his 6th year in office.
With all that, he was the best. Thank goodness for him. My point is FDR wasn’t the FDR everyone makes him out to be. For every supposed non liberal thing Obama has done you can pretty much find something equivalent with FDR.
Same thing with LBJ. Imagine if Obama had done the following. Instead of going for some kind of universal healthl care he created a program just for the poor (Medicaid). Oh, and it only covers poor kids and their care givers. No adults. He created a health care program for the poor that originally didn’t friggin cover adults.
Then when average life span was something like 70 he creates a plan that doesn’t kick in till you have one foot in the grave (Medicare at 65).
Oh and this program also has no prescription drug benefit, doesn’t cover home health services, and also does nothing for the disabled. This was the original Medicare and Medicaid LBJ created.
There isn’t one person in the left blogosphere that wouldn’t be screaming for his head.
So you’ll have to excuse for not sharing in Mr. Uygur’s phony indignation.
I can’t stop lmao-ing at all the “true progressives” who count this as more zomgobamahasbetrayedus! shit.
many of them are trolls, however, and paid for trolling I assume, so they’re now treading water while quickly trying to change gears w. the talking points (how’s that for a nice mixed metaphor?)
The vast majority aren’t. They just hate Obama passionately (and have since supertuesday). They’re all over firedoglake and kos.
Those that aren’t trolls are pissed at Obama because he kicked their guy’s/gal’s ass in the primaries. Except for the Biden supporters, they got see their guy picked as VP. But yes, I thought I was the only one who noticed all the “”WWHD” (What Would Hillary Do?) blog posts from people like Susie Mad(as a hat)rak.
True, but Hillary’s doing a great job as sos imo, and gets world recognition; seems to me a significant % of the the Hillary-supporters-in-the-street would be generally pleased; I conclude much of the demagoguery “on Hillary’s behalf” is troll generated
There were Biden supporters?
disagree, I read lots of those over at the orange place as trolls – fake- progressive-concern trolls, and they’ve pretty much paralyzed the threads over there except for the BP threads; of course there’s always fdl and cenk, self-centered narcissists, start getting anxious if their names aren’t frontpaged
This is positive news, however if this is a nomination and not combined with an appointment it is essentially useless for consumers. She probably won’t be confirmed. The law allows for the appointment of a placeholder ( who could stay on until a new president replaces ) to get the agency started and running. That person has not been named as of yet and the organizing of the agency hasn’t begun.
So the point is without appointment she may never take the reigns.