Patrick McHenry has the gall to call Elizabeth Warren a liar???

Want to see Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), a creature who may never in his life have knowingly spoken a word of truth, call Elizabeth Warren a liar?

by Ken

Patrick McHenry, of course is an old DWT fave, and not just as one of the most virulently homophobic of the officeholding Republican closet cases. His whole public career has established that for the protection of all other living things, and probably himself, he should be locked in a high-security cage designed for other dangerous animals who pose an immediate danger. Instead, he acts as if he's chairman of the House Oversight Committee's subcommittee on TARP. Oh wait, he is. (In case you thought there was no one in the House, or possibly on earth, scummier than committee chairman Darrell Issa.)

When we look at the life forms occupying positions of power in the New House, you have to remember that when the American people turned control of the House of Representatives over to the Republicans last year, they were demanding that all House committees be chaired by criminal sociopaths, leaving subcommittee chairmanships to the panoply of Republican registered psychopaths.

We know, of course, that one of the crucial goals of House Republicans -- in thrall to corporate interests -- is to do everything in their power to make sure that if they can't keep the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from getting up and running, that it is hobbled into ineffectuality. After all, any attempt to nudge American businesses toward having to deal fairly with American consumers would spell the doom of American business, wouldn't it?

This evening HuffPost's Michael McAuliff posted a scathing report on the subcommittee hearing today at which consultant Elizabeth Warren testified, or tried to -- it's not easy to testify when you have congressmen who literally don't know what they're talking about, and don't let that stop them from engaging in massive fact-free belligerence.

Here's the start of Michael's report:

Elizabeth Warren Called Liar At CFPB Hearing By Republicans Who Botched Facts On Agency (VIDEO)

WASHINGTON -- Republicans attempting to grill Elizabeth Warren on the creation of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau had to be schooled repeatedly by the former Harvard professor Tuesday for botching basic facts and accusing her of lying.

Warren, appointed by President Obama to implement the consumer watchdog mandated by last years' Dodd-Frank financial reform law, testified at a House Oversight subcommittee hearing dubbed "Who's Watching the Watchmen?"

But those overseers seemed to lack the basic facts about the new agency they were trying to oversee, with the hearing dissolving at the end in a remarkable dispute over how long Warren was supposed to testify.

Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle (R-N.Y.) betrayed the first misunderstanding, quizzing Warren on why people getting hired at the CFPB earned better salaries than the average government employee. Warren eventually noted federal financial regulators are usually paid better (but not very well compared to the people they regulate).

Rep. Frank Guinta (R-N.H.) mistakenly thought the CFPB was unique among financial regulators in having a leader with a five-year term and in not being subject to annual Congressional appropriations -- neither of which is true.

"I don't believe anyone else in history has had that period of time as an appointment," Guinta contended of the five-year term.

"Congressman, I think many terms are five-year terms," Warren answered, pointing out that the head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency had just finished such a term.

Guinta then suggested that the agencies Warren compared to the CFPB actually had more oversight from Congress through annual approriations.

"Those entities I think are at the discretion of Congress," Guinta argued. "There's an oversight process through appropriations -- you're excluded from that."

"No, Congressman, I'm sorry," Warren answered. "There is no banking regulator who is subject to the political process or to appropriations." Regulators such as the FDIC and others take fees from financial institutions for their budgets.

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) grilled Warren to find out whether the bureau would make public the complaints it gets. She answered that the complaint issue was a work in progress, but that at the very least there was progress in a system for large credit card companies.

"Are any of the complaints public?" Gowdy demanded.

"Congressman, we don't have any complaints yet," Warren said of the still-being-born agency. "What we're trying to do is build the system."

Gowdy also seemed to think that Warren had written the Dodd-Frank law, and was determined to know what Warren meant by defining "abusive" practices as something that "materially interferes" with the ability of a consumer to understand a term or a condition.

"That suggests to me that some interferences are immaterial. Is that what you meant by that?" he asked a momentarily perplexed-looking Warren.

"Congressman, I believe the language you are quoting is out of the Dodd-Frank act," she said. "This is the language that Congress has adopted."

Still, Gowdy insisted on her answer, although the definitions and regulations required by the law are still being written. . . .

And on and on . . . and on.

Are we even capable of shock any more? Shouldn't the American people be storming the Capitol demanding the removal of these buttclowns? In a better world, this stuff would be plastered all over the media, to the point where these people couldn't go anywhere without being laughed at or spat on, and would be tossed out of office and be unable to find work. (Except with the financial masters whose interests they champion so faithfully, if imbecilically.)

But that's not going to happen, because the American people don't care about reality, now that we've officially gone off the reality standard. And since it's not a sex scandal, the chances of the Infotainment Noozers giving a darn aren't good.

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