U.S. Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-Cherryville) lived up to his reputation as the pit bull for ultra-conservatives during a Congressional hearing yesterday. He went after Elizabeth Warren, acting head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, ending up basically calling her a liar, which set her back in her chair, aghast. McHenry’s animosity to consumer finance protection is rooted in his ideological commitment to wealth-holders’ rights over human rights. He’s happy to protect banks from what he sees as excessive public accountability, and the banks are happy to protect him from election defeat by providing generous campaign contributions. Bank of America and the American Bankers Association are among McHenry’s top 5 career donors, and Wachovia is number 9. Bank of American and Wachovia are also tied for first place as the top donors to McHenry’s 2008 leadership PAC called More Conservatives PAC. By raising and dispensing money for GOP colleagues, McHenry’s leadership PAC helps increase his clout inside the Republican Caucus, which helps when he seeks positions like his chairmanship of the House Subcommittee on TARP, Financial Services and Bailouts. After McHenry’s performance at the subcommittee yesterday, a contributing editor of Fortune magazine wondered if he “may have just lost his next election for so obviously being in the pocket of someone other than the people he is supposed to represents.”
Amid the powerful daily barrage of distracting sarcasm and tendentiously empty assertions from the corporate-controlled visual media, Mr. McHenry’s panting, schoolboy efforts to serve his rich contributors by trying to bully Elizabeth Warren really call out to be put before the public in some visual, memorable way . Why? Because, unfortunately, only a minority of, say, FOX viewers bother to read the sort of writing (writing!) that combines numbers, facts and evidence with logic and reason to produce persuasive argument. They might read it, though, if their interest is piqued by a visual image. The media reported what McHenry said, but not the reason he behaved so badly — the ring through his nose put there by the interests who bankroll him. I’d love to see a Route 40 billboard with that ring and that nose on it for people to see as they drive down to the beach this summer through the pig factory counties. Oink.
Unfortunately, it’s doubtful this dire spectacle will impact McHenry’s election since the average Joe on the street cannot identify Elizabeth Warren. Equally chilling, President Obama’s major presidential campaign backers were investment bankers back in 2008. He started attending private coffee parties in D.C. as early as 2006, and he has never to this day truly confronted the bankers’ destruction of our economy. It’s time the people raise their awareness, and form a third party that represents them. It’s simply delusional to think either Democrats or Republicans care for the masses. The DemoPubs are ruling from the exclusive top and it will remain so unless people wake up.
Good point Joan. I wonder who is the puppet master for Obama? I’m betting on George Soros.
Either Soros or, perhaps, John Kerry–the Heinz Kerry dynasty has lots to offer him.
Or perhaps he was upset with her regal attitude as if going in front of Congress was a waste of her time.