Free Republic

As college graduates have their commencement celebrations, they certainly hope their hard work will pay off. After all, in the booming Trump economy and with record low unemployment, there are countless opportunities for entrepreneurship and success. Sadly, there is one reason why those dreams may never get off the ground: crushing school debt. As too many students and parents are painfully aware, there are more than 44 million borrowers in America who collectively owe $1.5 trillion. Because of these obligations, young adults are putting off essential milestones in life — such as buying a home and getting married — while...

McCaskill, Cordray 'freed from constraints' of not being able to say what they really think. Losing Democratic politicians say they can finally tell the truth now that they are "freed from the constraints" of needing the support of their constituents. "It occurred to me that I am now freed from the constraints of running for or holding public office," said Richard Cordray, failed coup-leader and losing candidate in the Ohio governor's race. Cordray says now that he does not have to be accountable to voters, he can "speak more naturally" about what he really thinks about issues.

There were times during a Thursday rally Barack Obama couldn’t help but talk about himself, even though he was supposed to be talking about other people. There were other times he could barely talk at all. During the Cleveland rally for Rich Cordray and Betty Sutton, Obama repeatedly talked about himself, despite the candidates sitting behind him. Several times, he stuttered as he attempted to attack President Trump and the success of recent Republican initiatives.

President Trump went after Ohio Democratic gubernatorial candidate Richard Cordray at a dinner for the state’s Republican Party on Friday evening, linking him to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Trump's comments came while he backed Republican Mike DeWine, a former U.S. senator and currently Ohio’s attorney general, who is running against Cordray in a race that the nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates as a “toss up.” “So Mike [DeWine]’s running against a far-left candidate, and you know he was groomed by Pocahontas. The legendary Pocahontas…He was groomed by Elizabeth Warren. His name is Cordray, and he’s trouble,” Trump said in Columbus,...

The Democratic candidate for governor of Ohio, Richard Cordray, has called for state and local TV stations to pull an ad he claims presents false information, according to the Associated Press. The ad focuses on Cordray’s time as the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under both former President Barack Obama and President Donald Trump. “The advertisement contains statements for which [Republican Governors Association Right Direction PAC] publicly concedes there is no factual backup; and it makes other false assertions that are contradicted by evidence in the public record,” read a cease and desist letter written by Cordray’s lawyers....

A former consumer watchdog under President Barack Obama pushed into the final days of an unexpectedly close Democratic gubernatorial primary in Ohio against an ex-congressman with a catchy populist slogan. In final ads headed into Tuesday’s primary, Democrat Richard Cordray used his wife, Peggy, to lovingly push back against the perception that he’s a bore. The spots emphasized the 59-year-old Cordray’s intellect and work for everyday Americans as head of the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Ohio attorney general. Former U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, 71, has challenged Cordray for supporting gun rights and campaigned to his left on such...

Richard Cordray speaks softly and carries a big stack: lime-green index cards, pressed into his shirt pocket, near enough for any sudden onset of note-taking. A former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, he has been endorsed in his bid for Ohio governor by Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has told him he needs to learn how to brag more. “I am pretty good at getting back people’s money,” Mr. Cordray managed before an outdoor crowd of dozens here recently. Polite applause followed. He is trying. Dennis Kucinich speaks until someone interrupts him — and even this is often insufficient...

Left-wing websites led former director's attempt to subvert WH authority Newly released emails reveal the machinations of former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Richard Cordray to appoint his own successor. The failed attempt to install Leandra English as acting director of the CFPB last year began after Cordray found the idea in two left-wing websites, which argued it was "illegal" for the president to appoint the director of an executive branch agency. Cause of Action Institute, a nonprofit oversight group, obtained internal emails through a Freedom of Information Act request between Cordray, English, and other CFPB officials during...

Replay Mute Loaded: 0%Progress: 0% -0:00 Share Fullscreen The deputy director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) on Sunday night sued President Trump in order to block Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney from taking over as acting director of the agency. Leandra English, who was tapped by former Director Richard Cordray to be the acting director, filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia against Trump and Mulvaney, whom the president nominated to be CFPB's interim leader. The office of the CFPB’s head council is expected to challenge her suit,...

President Trump has slammed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as a "total disaster" and rightly objects to a second leftist taking the place of outgoing leftwing director Richard Cordray. The battle is just the tip of the iceberg surrounding this federal agency that shouldn't even be there in the first place. What Trump is battling is an unaccountable agency run by the Democrats and for the Democrats with the aim of funding more Democrats. It's a shakedown racket targeting banks and other moneybags businesses based solely on the size of their assets to harvest from fines. It was never about...

President Trump is picking another fight with the Washington swamp by naming his own man as temporary boss of a federal agency conservatives hate. “The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB, has been a total disaster as run by the previous Administrations pick,” he tweeted Saturday. “Financial Institutions have been devastated and unable to properly serve the public. We will bring it back to life!” the tweet said. Leadership of the bureau — the brainchild of liberal Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren — was put in play Friday by the resignation of director Richard Cordray. Before he left, Cordray named his...

Richard Cordray, an Obama appointee and head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced to staff in an email Wednesday his plans to resign. While he’s yet to confirm his plans, there’s speculation Cordray will return home to run for Ohio’s governorship. The CFPB functions as, “a regulator set up in response to the 2008 financial crisis to police mortgages, credit cards and other financial products,” and was the brainchild of Massachusetts Democrat Senator Elizabeth Warren. Unlike other agencies, due to the unique circumstanced through which the CFPB was created (was part of Dodd-Frank in 2010), Cordray answered to...

A pair of top Obama-appointed bank regulators still serving in the Trump administration could spark another mortgage meltdown by lowering credit standards and encouraging risky lending practices. Democrat Mel Watt, who is serving a special five-year term as head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, is pushing the mortgage-lending giants he regulates — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — to offer home loans to deadbeat borrowers with shaky credit, setting up conditions for another housing-market crash, industry officials warn. Meanwhile, the other Obama holdover — liberal Democrat Richard Cordray, who continues to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau through 2018...

In the private sector and during his short time as president, Donald J. Trump has never been shy about firing subordinates. Yet some powerful Obama holdovers seem to have a puzzling staying power. The recent decision of the Justice Department not to prosecute Lois Lerner for her alleged role in the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative non-profits brought criticism and also highlighted the fact that Obama’s appointee John Koskinen is still at the IRS’s helm. Even more frustrating is that Trump has yet to fire Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director Richard Cordray, despite Cordray’s actions that go directly against...

A despotism in our midst no one can do anything about, evidently. Could Congress create a fourth branch of government? Maybe break off a piece of what the executive branch handles now — commerce, say, or agriculture, or maybe even defense — and create a new office supported by its own dedicated tax stream and the authority to levy penalties? The president could still appoint this officer — I think prince-bishop has a nice ring to it — but wouldn’t be able to remove His Excellency absent extraordinary factual circumstances. Maybe we could expect the prince-bishop to decree exile for...

Here is a list of the top ten holdover Obama loyalist bureaucrats President Trump can either fire immediately or remove from their current positions (civil service). 1) John Koskinen, Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service 2) Richard Cordray, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director 3) John Lansing, CEO of Broadcasting Board of Governors 4) Amanda Bennett, Voice of America Director 5) Kenneth Tota, Acting Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, Department of Health and Human Services (civil service) 6)Anastasia Brown, Acting Deputy Director for Refugee Programs, Office of Refugee Resettlement, Department of Health and Human Services (civil service) . ....

Republicans on the House Financial Services Committee hope to markup legislation to reform Dodd-Frank in April. Democrats will have a month to agree upon a strategy to defend the CFPB and to decide to what to degree they wish to work with Republicans to keep the CFPB alive. Democrats believe they can strike a deal with Republicans to transform the CFPB into a bipartisan commission from a single directorship. Congressman Brad Sherman (D-CA) explained that the alternative would give President Trump sole control over the CFPB when current director Richard Cordray’s term expires next year.

The tyranny of the administrative state. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is one of those things that sounds purely like the government helping out the sainted little guy against threats from the powerful and the predatory. And there’s a lot of danger in that. The CFPB was created by Democrats as part of the passage of Dodd-Frank in 2010, and Obama appointed left-wing stalwart Richard Cordray to wield the agency’s considerable power. Now Trump believes, correctly, that it’s time to rein Cordray and the CFPB in, which the political class sees as a case of evil Republicans undercutting the rights...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a federal agency designed to purposely avoid oversight from Congress, with much fanfare recently introduced a public database cataloging all of the complaints it has received from consumers. “Consumer complaints are the CFPB’s compass and play a central role in everything we do. They help us identify and prioritize problems for potential action,” CFPB Director Richard Cordray said in a press release announcing the new public database. The only problem? The database shows complaints about “payday lenders,” which are currently in Cordray's cross hairs, composed less than one percent of all complaints, far outnumbered...

When a government agency called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is created by Congress, one would expect that a few consumers could actually receive protection, but that hasn’t been the case with this agency’s track record of mismanagement, inefficiency and waste. The CFPB has been operating for four years now and if it were a sports team, its coach, Richard Cordray, would certainly be looking for work. CFPB was created as part of a Washington law known as “Dodd-Frank” – named for sponsors former Sen. Christopher Dodd and former Rep. Barney Frank. When CFPB director Cordray announced the laudable...