Elizabeth Warren... The Best Political Leader In America?

Scott Brown and the Republicans are desperate to find a way to stop Elizabeth Warren, someone who has never been elected to any office but who is already being talked about as a contender for president. She connects with people, something the far right fears. If they can't smear her effectively enough to shut her down, there's no telling what they'll do. Most Americans have been confused by Brown's nasty caterwauling about something to do with her American Indian heritage. It's not a real issue, just something for dittoheads to feign righteous indignation over. The kinds of low-info racists who support Brown and the Republican Party have always hated American Indians, just as much as they hate everyone other than their own tribe; sick people. But Wall Street doesn't have enough votes in Massachusetts for Brown to win their by only appealing to that (his one natural constituency). I think the new ad she just put out (above), shuts it down and turns the issue around nicely on Brown.

Meanwhile Americans are getting refunds from financial predators like credit card companies that over-charged them and many of them know that's because of the work Elizabeth Warren did-- work Scott Brown tried to derail on behalf of his Wall Street financiers. She's proud of how the organization she conceived of and set up is working. ‘‘They didn’t start with easy pickings," she told A.P., "they went straight to the heart of the problem. It’s a sober agency. It’s a careful agency. But it’s not timid.’’

The new federal agency charged with enforcing consumer finance laws is emerging as an ambitious sheriff, taking on companies for deceptive fees and marketing and unmoved by protests that its tactics go too far.

In the 14 months it has existed, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has launched dozens of enforcement probes and issued more than 100 subpoenas demanding data, testimony and marketing materials-- sometimes amounting to millions of pages-- from companies that include credit card lenders, for-profit colleges and mortgage servicers.

More than two dozen interviews with agency officials and industry executives offered sweeping insight into the new agency’s behind-the-scenes efforts, which have taken the financial industry off guard and have been far more aggressive than previously known.

...For regular Americans, the bureau is the most visible result of the shake-up in financial oversight. Its decisions are changing the mortgage application and foreclosure process, the way people lodge complaints against financial companies and, in some cases, what fees they can be charged.

‘‘The CFPB is a new animal, and they have to establish their turf and a way of doing business,’’ says Jack Conway, the attorney general of Kentucky and an outspoken critic of for-profit colleges. ‘‘If that breaks from standard practice of other regulators, I don’t have a huge problem with it.’’

...So far, the bureau’s aggressive approach has netted one high-profile win: an agreement by Capital One Financial, the fifth-biggest U.S. credit card issuer, to refund $150 million in fees directly to the accounts of 2.5 million customers-- without the complicated paperwork often associated with class-action settlements on behalf of consumers.

In July, the bureau accused Capital One’s sales team of tricking customers into buying add-on services like credit protection and identity theft protection. Phone agents told people the services were free or mandatory or offered more benefits than they did, the government said.

Capital One also agreed to pay fines of $25 million to the CFPB and $35 million to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a separate federal agency that oversees its banking operations. The company did not admit any wrongdoing.

As part of the same probe, officials are scrutinizing at least three other companies, according to public filings: card issuers American Express and Discover Financial Services; and Intersections Inc., which provides the add-on services sold by banks.

American Express and Discover have said in public filings that they expect similar enforcement actions and have overhauled their marketing of add-on products.

 Intersections, whose biggest bank customers are Bank of America and Citigroup, is cooperating with regulators. All three declined to comment on the probe.

...Among the other cases occupying the 100-odd lawyers, analysts and accountants working for the consumer bureau’s enforcement division:

• Mortgage-insurance companies transferred billions of dollars to banks that offered mortgage loans. The money came from hefty premiums charged to borrowers who couldn’t afford big down payments. Critics say the deals amounted to insurers paying the banks kickbacks in exchange for a slice of their customers’ business. Mortgage insurers say the deals were permitted by their previous regulator, the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Radian Group Inc., Genworth Financial Inc., American International Group Inc. and MGIC Investment Corp. all received subpoenas, according to their public filings.

• High-cost loans made by auto dealers and resold to banks or investors. Loans to borrowers with spotty credit histories can carry additional fees and interest rates many times the rates on mainstream loans. The consumer bureau issued a subpoena to DriveTime Automotive Group Inc., which bills itself as the nation’s largest car dealer targeting people with bad credit. The company says it is cooperating.

• In July, the bureau won a temporary restraining order against two California businessmen who it says preyed on at-risk homeowners in more than 25 states. The businessmen, Chance Gordon and Abraham Michael Pessar, promised people that their companies could prevent foreclosures and charged thousands in illegal, upfront fees-- sometimes encouraging people to skip mortgage payments to cover them, the bureau said in court papers. Pessar says he is in talks with authorities to settle the case. Gary Kurtz, a lawyer for Gordon, says his client’s actions were legal and that he had a much higher success rate with borrowers than what the government has alleged.

• ITT Educational Services Inc. and Corinthian Colleges Inc., which run for-profit colleges, are turning over documents related to the ‘‘advertising, marketing or origination of private student loans,’’ they said in public filings. Consumer bureau officials are looking at how the companies subsidized private loans for some students, says Conway, the Kentucky attorney general. Corinthian has provided documents, but is petitioning the bureau to scrap or modify the subpoena, it said in a filing last month.

Scott Brown and his anti-family GOP cronies are still working to stop enforcement that they perceive as harming the banksters.

Blue America is hoping to help raise campaign contributions for Elizabeth. This is a neck and neck race and although she's ahead now, it will go down to the wire. If you'd like to contribute, you can do it here on our Senate page.