President Obama will use a recess appointment to name Richard Cordray head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Associated Press (AP) reports this morning. Cordray’s nomination has been blocked by Senate Republicans who want to gut the agency that was created by 2010’s Wall Street reform legislation.

While Republicans in Congress were busy undermining the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the CFPB was busy doing its job.

Today, obstructionists in the Senate blocked an up-or-down vote on the nomination of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Fifty-three senators voted for Cordray, while 45—all Republicans—voted against ending debate on his nomination. Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown (R) voted for Cordray, and Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe (R) voted present.

Some of those in the 1 percent are stepping forward to express their support for the 99 percent, agreeing with Occupy Wall Street protesters that the nation’s financial system is seriously harming our economy. The latest to indicate their support for the 99 percent are the financially savvy members of the Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment, who are calling for greater corporate transparency, restraint of excessive payouts to executives and support for the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The consumer bureau does not yet have a director because Senate Republicans have blocked a vote on the nomination of Richard Cordray to lead the agency.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka announced support for President Obama’s plan to nominate Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Cordray, a former Ohio attorney general, currently is chief of enforcement at the CFPB.

Last week, we told you how 44 U.S. senators are fighting to keep consumer and working family advocate Elizabeth Warren out of the top spot of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), created by last year’s landmark Wall Street reform legislation.

There are 44 members of the United States Senate who don’t want consumer and working family advocate Elizabeth Warren to run the new federal agency designed to protect consumers and working families from the kind of Wall Street and Big Bank abuses last year’s landmark Wall Street reform legislation outlawed.