Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

I got into just one fight while in elementary school. A bully was hitting my younger brother, Mitchell, who suffered from epilepsy. The attacker was considerably larger than my brother, who was cowering on the ground trying to block the punches with his arms. I was skinny and bookish and would cry if you looked at me hard. But I got between that boy and my brother and just started swinging. I fought so hard on behalf of my brother. The bully never bothered him again. That's how I see the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: as a protector of consumers from the punches­ of bullying financial companies.

Newly installed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director Richard Cordray laid out his agenda Thursday, vowing to press ahead despite political objections and legal questions about his status as a recess appointee. "It's a valid appointment. I'm now the director of the bureau. . . . We now have our full authority to move forward," Cordray said in his first public speech as the agency's director, a day after President Obama used a recess appointment to bypass Republicans who had blocked Cordray's confirmation in the Senate.

President Obama has done what he should have done months ago. On Wednesday, he appointed Richard Cordray as the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Without missing a beat, Republicans, who have been holding up Cordray's nomination to head this important consumer agency, criticized the president's move, reports The Washington Post's David Nakamura and Felicia Sonmez. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in a statement that Obama "has arrogantly circumvented the American people" by using his executive power to make a recess appointment.

CLEVELAND — In a bold act of political defiance, President Obama installed Richard Cordray as head of a new consumer watchdog agency Wednesday, bypassing Republican opposition in the Senate that derailed his nomination last month. Obama cast the move as an effort to protect the interests of middle-class Americans who have suffered as a result of the Great Recession, which stemmed in part from abuses in the financial system. "I will not stand by while a minority in the Senate puts party ideology ahead of the people they were elected to serve," Obama told an enthusiastic crowd at Shaker Heights High School here.

I sympathize with Carlton S. Courtney [ letters , Dec. 16] regarding his difficult experience with mortgage modification. It is certainly true that a strong Consumer Financial Protection Bureau could have helped prevent some of our recent economic problems. But I think the complaint that "our federal government has demonstrated an inability to regulate the mortgage industry, with its failure to appoint a head of the newly established ... bureau" does not place the blame where it belongs.

An agitated President Obama accused congressional Republicans on Thursday of not standing up for ordinary Americans after the Senate derailed his nominee to head a new federal consumer protection agency. At a brief news conference, the president charged that his Republican adversaries were not acting "on the level" after they blocked, by filibuster, his appointment of former Ohio attorney general Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau . "This makes no sense," Obama declared.

MF Global , the commodities brokerage that plunged into bankruptcy while headed by a prominent Democrat , has become a point of attack for Republicans in the battle over financial regulation. "Unfortunately for the American people, more powers and more tools cannot help when regulators fail to do their jobs," Sen. Richard C. Shelby (Ala.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, said at a hearing Tuesday. Shelby accused a top regulator and Obama appointee of dodging questions, and he needled the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for not being able to track down more than $1 billion of customer funds that he said remained missing 37 days after MF Global's bankruptcy filing.

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. What was that about a Democratic "enthusiasm gap" ? Whichever pollster coined that phrase neglected to consult with the citizens converging last week on the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union hall here. They filled the parking lot, then the one next door, then the one across the street. "I couldn't contain myself when I heard she'd be here," said Matt Szafranski, a blogger at the event. "I've already donated twice, and I'm looking to go to a rally," said Fran Miffitt, a retired nurse.

The White House has enlisted a bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general to help break a blockade by Senate Republicans of President Obama's nominee to lead the controversial new federal consumer watchdog agency. The National Association of Attorneys General on Tuesday sent a letter to Senate leaders calling nominee Richard Cord­ray "brilliant and balanced. " Cordray was an attorney general in Ohio known for his aggressive pursuit of foreclosure fraud before joining the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)

In a largely symbolic vote along party lines, the Senate banking committee on Thursday approved former Ohio attorney general Richard Cordray to lead the new federal consumer watchdog agency even as Republicans reiterated their pledge to block him on the floor. Cordray's nomination has become a flash point in the larger political battle over how the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau should be structured. The agency was the centerpiece of President Obama's plan to overhaul the nation's financial system, but it cannot employ many of its powers until a director is named.