Republican Sleaze Bag of the Week Sen. Richard Shelby(R-GA) - Shelby Rushes to Protect Thieves and Screw Over Average Americans
Last spring, Sen. Richard Shelby(R-GA) promised, along with 43 GOP Senate colleagues, to block any nominee to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau unless the agency was essentially gutted.
Now that there is a nominee, former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray, Shelby isn't backing down. What's worse, he made the filibuster threat in his opening statement at Cordray's confirmation hearing. Why even bother having nomination hearings?
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) reiterated his plan to block former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray from leading the agency, unless it is restructured as a commission and placed under greater congressional control.
"One of our nation's founding principles is that the government should be accountable to the people," Shelby said in his opening statement. "All of the bureau's power is concentrated in the hands of its director. The director determines which rules are enacted and which enforcement actions are brought. The director makes all hiring decisions and decides how the agency spends its resources."
Noble sentiment, except for the fact that the CFPB is charged with doing nothing other than protecting the interests of "the people." And that's the problem for those whose water Shelby (and the rest of the GOP) is carrying.
The financial sector has a colossal stake in the hearings, since Cordray could dramatically reshape how mortgages, loans and credit cards are offered to the public.
"This is akin to a Supreme Court nominee for us," said Richard Hunt, president of the Consumer Bankers Association. "I believe this director has more power at any agency since J. Edgar Hoover."
Yep, because making sure that the paperwork you sign for a mortgage is understandable and that you can actually read your credit card agreement is exactly the same as Hoover targeting Martin Luther King, Jr. in politically motivated investigations.
Who is Shelby looking out for? It sure isn't the average American household, its people like this - Banks Took $6B in Reinsurance Kickbacks
Many of the country's largest banks received $6 billion in kickbacks from mortgage insurers over the course of a decade, according to a previously undisclosed investigation by the Inspector General of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The allegations, since referred to the Department of Justice, stem from lenders' demand that insurers cut them in on the lucrative business of insuring the mortgages they produced during the housing boom.
In exchange for the their business, companies such as Citigroup Inc, Wells Fargo & Co, SunTrust Banks Inc. and Countrywide allegedly required reinsurance partnerships on generous terms that violated the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, a 1974 law prohibiting abusive home sales practices.
During a two-day presentation in the summer of 2009, HUD's team presented DOJ attorneys with a thick binder of evidence that major banks had engineered a decade-long kickback scheme, people familiar with the investigation say.
Shelby is bought and paid for. he is not a representative of the people and the common good. Though it is the ignorance of the general public that allows Shelby to be reelected election cycle after election cycle. Those who wonder how and why government does not work need look no further than corrupt sleaze bags like Shelby wraps himself in the flag, mentions God and swears he is a patriot. Unbelievable that so many people fall for this stinking pile of BS.
