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Special Report
Richard Cordray’s ‘Heroes’ Occupy Banks and Private Homes
Obama consumer nominee’s long support of radical East Side Organizing Project.
When asked about the “Occupy Wall Street” movement in October, Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren praised it to the hilt. “I created much of the intellectual foundation for what they do,” she told the Daily Beast. Yet when pressed in November on the OWS adherents’ increasingly violent tactics, she told a Boston TV interviewer: “Everybody has to follow the law. There’s no exception on that.”
But Warren’s apparent disavowal of the tactics of OWS and like-minded community organizers may not be shared by Richard Cordray, President Obama’s nominee to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that Warren designed. Cordray has long supported ESOP, formerly known as the East Side Organizing Project, an Ohio housing advocacy group that has distinguished itself by storming into banks and launching plastic “shark attacks” on the lawns of private homes. ESOP’s leaders brag about what they call their “organized hits” on banks and other targets, which have included the home of the late Congressman and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Jack Kemp.
As Ohio treasurer and attorney general, Cordray lobbied for state and federal funding for ESOP and publicly praised funders of the group as “the real heroes.” And in a highly unusual move for a nominee awaiting confirmation, Cordray returned to Ohio in October to be the keynote speaker at the group’s gala dinner.
Since his nomination in July to head the bureau created by the Dodd-Frank financial “reform” law, Republicans have held fast against confirmation. But largely, they haven’t made Cordray’s state record an issue. They have focused instead on structural defects in the agency’s design, such as the massive new powers the bureau will have to ban financial products it deems “abusive” and its lack of accountability to Congress.
These criticisms are valid, but they may not be enough to hold Senate Republicans together without criticism of the nominee’s merits. Just before Thanksgiving, Scott Brown (R-Mass.), facing a tough reelection challenge from Warren, became the first GOPer to commit to voting for Cordray. The Democrat-controlled Senate plans to hold a vote on his confirmation this week, possibly as early as Tuesday. Human Events’ Neil McCabe reports that in addition to Maine Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, other GOP targets for Cordray supporters include Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, Tennessee’s Bob Corker, and Cordray’s home state Senator Rob Portman of Ohio (though Portman seemed to reaffirm his opposition in a statement to Human Events last week).
But Cordray’s support of ESOP needs further scrutiny, particularly since as head of the bureau, he will have the power to help funnel federal support to ESOP and like-minded community organizers with virtually no oversight by Congress. And a report by Bloomberg News suggests that Cordray specifically blessed ESOP’s “organized hits” on banks and homes.
As reported by Bloomberg upon Cordray’s nomination in July, “Mark Seifert recalls being impressed when Richard Cordray, then the Ohio state treasurer, walked into the offices of his Cleveland activist group one day in August 2007.” Seifert recalled warning Cordray: “We are not necessarily safe for the powers-that-be to hang around with. We do direct action. We throw plastic sharks at bankers.”
According to Bloomberg, “‘Far from being aghast, Cordray approved of the tactics [emphasis added] and said the small, Cleveland-focused group should expand,’ Seifert recalled.” Since that time, the community organizing group, which has changed the full name underlying its acronym to Empowering and Strengthening Ohio’s People, has expanded to more than 10 offices across the state and grown its staff from five to about 40.
ESOP’s growth is due in no small part to Cordray’s support. According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, as state treasurer and AG, Cordray “helped them find grants to expand.” With state and federal funding that Cordray helped secure, ESOP grew from a “little ACORN” — to borrow the phrasing of Subversion Inc. author and TAS contributor Matthew Vadum — into a powerful tree. But its core is still rotted by its tactics of threats and intimidation.
In fact, national Leftie pundits praise ESOP for taking militant “direct action” to whole new levels. As the Huffington Post recently put it, “ESOP takes a civil approach, but stops at nothing to get lenders to negotiate options for homeowners who face foreclosure.” In other words, the group is civil until it isn’t.
As the New York Times recently described ESOP’s actions in a glowing opinion profile, after demonstrating in front of a lender’s office, ESOP “would fill a bus with community members, drive out to the suburban house of a regional vice president and demonstrate there. ESOP’s signature tactic was to throw hundreds of two-inch plastic sharks on the lawn and circulate flyers saying, ‘Your neighbor is a loan shark.’”
Although ESOP may not do as many organized “hits” as it did in the past — their last major “hit” seemed to be a storming of JPMorganChase bank branches in 2009 with busloads yelling “Chase Bank Sucks” — group leaders make it clear that it’s a tactic in their arsenal. When negotiation “doesn’t work, that’s when we really start to have fun,” an ESOP employee told the Press, a Toledo, Ohio newspaper, in late 2010. “It’s an organized hit.” ESOP founder Inez Killingsworth stressed to the New York Times: “The word has gotten around. Now, most of the time we ask for a meeting, we get a meeting.”
Killingsworth, still active with ESOP as board president, first gained fame for a threatened “hit” in the '90s on the home of Jack Kemp, then secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the first Bush Administration. Killingsworth and other housing advocates visiting the Washington, D.C., area threatened to disrupt Kemp’s daughter’s wedding being held at the family home. “Then all of a sudden, he calls us to say he’ll meet us if we promise not to hit his daughter’s wedding,” Killingsworth recounted to the Cleveland Plain Dealer in 1992. Kemp met with the “advocates” a few months later.
Cordray continued to embrace ESOP during his Ohio political career and even during his current nomination fight. At an Ohio housing summit in 2009, Cordray showered praise on the government agencies that funded ESOP. “A number of community groups working with homeowners, especially ESOP, got more funding and local agencies have been the real heroes,” Cordray said in a statement reported by the Gannett-owned Mansfield (Ohio) News Journal (story available here with a fee).
If confirmed as director of the consumer bureau, Cordray will have plenty of chance to be such a “hero” and to throw federal support ESOP’s way. In addition to its broad powers from Dodd-Frank to ban any financial product it deems “abusive,” the bureau has authority to hire “contractors” to help with consumer issues. And as most Republicans have pointed out in their objections to approving a director, the bureau gets a guaranteed independent stream of funding from the Federal Reserve, denying Congress the oversight through the appropriations process that it has with other agencies.
About the Author
John Berlau is Senior Fellow for Finance and Access to Capital at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and blogs at OpenMarket.org.
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Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 12.5.11 @ 7:11AM
How digusting!
Alan Brooks| 12.5.11 @ 9:54AM
Look at the smirk on Berlau's smug face.
Alan Brooks| 12.5.11 @ 10:15AM
... Berlau, I may not like you, but I don't hate you; so please would you answer this question:
why does a good-looking guy such as yourself want to use a photo at a Rightist site with an expression on your face similar to Joey Buttafuoco's? naturally, you will not answer, but think about it- okay?
ENOUGH ROPE| 12.5.11 @ 1:17PM
These radical policies and appointments will end when Newt becomes President. Although Obama and his thugs commit frequent outrages against freedom, those outrages win votes against the Democrats who have become the radicals and collectivists that threaten America from within.
Timothy L. Pennell| 12.5.11 @ 7:36AM
"After they finished protesting at the Businesses, they would fill up the Buses, and drive out to the people's HOMES."
As long as this Far Left SCUM, is in the White House, this is NOT America.
As Jimmy Hoffa Jr. would say: "We need to TAKE OUT this Son of a B*tch, and bring back an AMERICA where WE THE PEOPLE can belong, again."
Look at EVERYONE he surrounds himself with. They are SCUM. America Hating, Free Market Capitalism Hating, Marxist SCUM. Just like everybody he's ever surrounded himself with, HIS ENTIRE LIFE.
I Pray to GOD, to forgive this Country of her sins, of which, she has many. Take this EVIL from our midst, that we may again, gain your Favour.
Amen
coal carrier| 12.5.11 @ 8:19AM
Sounds like this administration is slowly organizing another Bolshevik Revolution. Just imagine hordes of peasants taking over private homes and businesses because the government says that this is the only way to obtain Social Justice. Or is it Economic Justice this week.
Alan Brooks| 12.5.11 @ 9:57AM
You wasted 8 years with the Rove-Cheney administration, so now it will take a full 8 years to merely start over again.
Dick Nome | 12.5.11 @ 3:46PM
Forget it. You are a waste.
c. j. acworth| 12.5.11 @ 7:53AM
Two questions. These clowns drive to peoples homes and cover the lawn with plastic sharks. And then? Has this tactic ever actually brought about policy changes in the banks whose directors were thus targeted, or did they simply do what I would and have my lawn care service vacuum up the mess and dump it in the nearest recycling bin. Question two: While the director does not serve at the pleasure of the President, his budget is set by congress. So, can they just zero the whole thing out?
John Berlau | 12.5.11 @ 9:30AM
C.J.,
Good questions. In answer to your 2nd question, I'm afraid Congress couldn't zero it out, because under Dodd-Frank, it has no control over the consumer bureau's budget. As I say in the piece, "the bureau gets a guaranteed independent stream of funding from the Federal Reserve, denying Congress the oversight through the appropriations process that it has with other agencies."
Alan Brooks| 12.5.11 @ 10:04AM
Change that conceited photo of yours, Berlau: from the look of it, you nailed a cherry right before it was taken.
c. j. acworth| 12.5.11 @ 3:29PM
John; Thanks for the reply, I didn't read closely enough the first time and missed the part about the funding directly from the Fed. One more reason to kill Dodd-Frank I suppose.
Redstateboy| 12.5.11 @ 8:27AM
It's only a matter of time before these dirt-bags come in to a conservative neighborhood throwing their plastic sharks that they get baseball bats in return.
crookedwren| 12.5.11 @ 8:57AM
That's Alinsky sulfur I smell, isn't it? Do you think Obama ever taught Alinsky principles? How Lucifer must enjoy their tactics.
Battling the Left is akin to battling an addict in your household and in your family.
Wonder how Sir Cordray and his family would react to folks showing up at their homes, disrupting their most cherished family moments (I know they must have them). Ah, but that would be considered unfair. Mean. And THAT would be decried by the media.
SEND THIS ARTICLE TO EVERY TEA PARTY GROUP YOU CAN. FREEDOMWORKS. ETC.
NEED TO CALL YOUR SENATORS NOW.
BLOCK THIS GUY. Obama is truly fond of the most radical people -- gee, I wonder why?
Pecos Pete| 12.5.11 @ 9:00AM
Egad! With King O there is nothing but chaos. November 2012 starts the clean-up.
Ed| 12.5.11 @ 2:04PM
In the book version of "The Return of the King", there was a chapter with the title "The Scouring of the Shire". The four Hobbits returned to the Shire and found that Saruman and Grima Wormtongue had established a fascist government that micromanaged every little thing in the Hobbit's lives.
When I read the book many decades ago, I thought that this chapter was a bit far out. Now, after Obama's rule, is seems as if Tolkein saw the future in both England and America.
In the book, the clean-up was fast and easy. In the real world, it is going to take a lot of blood, toil, tears, and sweat.
BILL| 12.5.11 @ 9:32AM
Bulldoze those OWS mobs, and eliminate them from the earth........................
Al Adab| 12.5.11 @ 10:18AM
Every appointee from this administration has been of this ilk. It has always been the intent to fill the agencies with radical Leftists whose only goal is control. Remember what "fundamentally transform America" means?
bill| 12.5.11 @ 10:18AM
Fire Eric Holder
Fire Janet Neapolitan
Fire Steven Chu
Impeach Barack Obama
RICHARD| 12.5.11 @ 11:47AM
The Left is our enemy and we must do whatever is necessary to defeat them. Hell, we need a fund to buy these milquetoast commies one way tickets to Cuba or North Korea.
Bill| 12.5.11 @ 12:39PM
DUMP OBAMA AND ALL HIS LIBERAL FRIENDS IN THE ATLANTIC........................MAYBE THEY WILL EXPLORE TITANIC..................
Right Write| 12.6.11 @ 10:36PM
That would be so unfair to the fishes.
Marc Jeric| 12.5.11 @ 1:16PM
All one needs to know about "community organizations" is that in Russian it means "soviets". Also, our President Obama is in fact our Community Organizer-in-Chief.
Flee| 12.5.11 @ 3:22PM
Sounds like domestic terrorist tactics to me. Is this group on the Obama Justice Dept and DHS list of domestic terrorists? It should be.
cicero| 12.5.11 @ 4:30PM
JC and JB
If the bureau cannot be defunded, then either it, Dodd/Frank, or both are clearly uncostitutional. What are those clowns in Congress doing? Congress has oversite over all government institutions created by Congress. They may choose not to exercise the oversite, but they have it. What Congress funds, they can unfund. And, only Congress can spend money.
John Berlau | 12.5.11 @ 8:15PM
Cicero,
You are correct. Both Dodd-Frank and the design of the bureau have very serious constitutional defects. CEI and other groups are looking at legal challenges.
Unfortunately, as with Obamacare, even if the courts do the right thing and uphold the Constitution, it still takes a long time and much damage can be done in the meantime.
It's also true that Dodd-Frank and the bureau could theoretically be repealed by Congress. But even assuming the next president would sign such a bill, it would stilll take 60 senators. It's a lot easier to get 41 senators to vote against a nominee than to get 60 to overturn a law. And that's where the immediate fight should be.
POST American| 12.5.11 @ 10:03PM
---AHHH yes, ther 'red tie' school.
Speakign of 'red', one and ALLL following the
Tavistock engineered blur around the 'red'
association viz a viz 'red state' Republicans
----and our 'fave' red state creditor, and
genocidal 'Model for the World' --ACROSS
the Pacific.
The boys are ALWAYS 'at it', aren't they?
leaving no stone un-turned, no angle undiddled.
---------And so, here we stand, we the ITs.
---------------HUAC/ NEW-remberg 2012------------
wedding dresses| 12.6.11 @ 3:23AM
"The threat has always been from the Left."
Really? Well now, I say it's now also from the Lefty-Libertarians who are just as bad.
NO Conservative is good enough for them, and in fact nobody's really even good enough to be considered a Conservative except members of the Ron Paul cult.
Nope~ we're all just a bunch of Neo-Con Trolls!
Ugh.
wedding dresses | 12.6.11 @ 3:26AM
Really? Well now, I say it's now also from the Lefty-Libertarians who are just as bad.
NO Conservative is good enough for them, and in fact nobody's really even good enough to be considered a Conservative except members of the Ron Paul cult.
Nope~ we're all just a bunch of Neo-Con Trolls!
Ugh.
Ralph Gizzip| 12.6.11 @ 11:49AM
IIRC the Senators from the same State as a nominee have a special veto over said nominee. That said, all it would take is Rob Portman to put the kibosh on Cordray's confirmation. (You don't really believe Sherrod Brown would do it, do you?)
wedding dresses | 12.7.11 @ 4:20AM
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