Blocking Elizabeth Warren
By JOE NOCERA
NYT
It’s official: Elizabeth Warren will return to the torture chamber known as the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on July 14. Earlier this week, Darrell Issa, the California Republican who is chairman of the committee, tweeted the news. Apparently, Democrats aren’t the only ones who use Twitter to harass women.
The last time Warren appeared before the committee, on May 24, she was mauled by the Republicans in a brutal hearing during which a North Carolina freshman named Patrick McHenry twice accused her of lying, while conducting a Perry Mason-style interrogation (“Yes or no, Ms. Warren”) that was at once ludicrous and shameful. Afterward, Issa expressed outrage because she had dared to defend herself and demanded that she return for another round of browbeating. Hence, July 14.
Ostensibly, the House Republicans are outraged that Warren, in her capacity as a special adviser to the White House, offered “secret” counsel to the states’ attorneys general, who have been investigating the big foreclosure robo-signing scandal. Never mind that she has repeatedly acknowledged that she offered her advice, which they had asked for — and that there is nothing wrong with a federal official advising state officials.
No, the real reason Warren has become a piñata is that, as a Harvard law professor, she dreamed up the idea of a federal agency that could help prevent consumers of financial products — like, oh, predatory subprime mortgages — from being taken advantage of. Then she lobbied to turn it into reality, as part of the Dodd-Frank reform law. And now, working for the administration, she is busy setting up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which will “go live” in less than six weeks.
(More here.)
NYT
It’s official: Elizabeth Warren will return to the torture chamber known as the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on July 14. Earlier this week, Darrell Issa, the California Republican who is chairman of the committee, tweeted the news. Apparently, Democrats aren’t the only ones who use Twitter to harass women.
The last time Warren appeared before the committee, on May 24, she was mauled by the Republicans in a brutal hearing during which a North Carolina freshman named Patrick McHenry twice accused her of lying, while conducting a Perry Mason-style interrogation (“Yes or no, Ms. Warren”) that was at once ludicrous and shameful. Afterward, Issa expressed outrage because she had dared to defend herself and demanded that she return for another round of browbeating. Hence, July 14.
Ostensibly, the House Republicans are outraged that Warren, in her capacity as a special adviser to the White House, offered “secret” counsel to the states’ attorneys general, who have been investigating the big foreclosure robo-signing scandal. Never mind that she has repeatedly acknowledged that she offered her advice, which they had asked for — and that there is nothing wrong with a federal official advising state officials.
No, the real reason Warren has become a piñata is that, as a Harvard law professor, she dreamed up the idea of a federal agency that could help prevent consumers of financial products — like, oh, predatory subprime mortgages — from being taken advantage of. Then she lobbied to turn it into reality, as part of the Dodd-Frank reform law. And now, working for the administration, she is busy setting up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which will “go live” in less than six weeks.
(More here.)
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