[Editor's Note: Watch this hearing live]

I love how Cordray is a “controversial” nominee. Why? Because Republicans don’t think there should be a CFPB? How exactly does that make Cordray controversial?

Obviously, the Secessionist doesn’t understand that if the federal government helps Texas now, there would be no incentive for other states to avoid wildfires.

It’s easy to see what’s going on here. Elites, having broken the world, are trying to pin the blame on voters. It’s not voters’ fault that their votes matter far less than the elite consensus, which has been adopted by virtually every politician, regardless of stated ideology, and which has been proven to be tragically wrong.

Three new national polls were released this morning and all of them paint a bleak picture for President Obama. All three polls found Obama’s approval numbers in net negative territory, with large majorities disapproving of how he is handling economic issues.

Congress is back on the job today, at least in the Senate. The House just had to have one more day off to refresh them for the ideological agenda-setting ahead. The return to session comes at a time when polls show a total collapse in confidence in Congress’ ability to do their job, and a general pessimism about the prospects for a turnaround in the economy. The big story of the week will be the President’s jobs speech on Thursday. But what will Congress do when left to their own devices?

Exceedingly little.

It’s been fun watching FOX News twist themselves into a pretzel to exclude gay presidential candidate Fred Karger from the debates they’ve broadcast: they’ve changed their criteria, and then simply ignored them when Karger met the bar even as it was raised. Now FOX has a Federal Election Commission complaint on its hands.

Jimmy Hoffa Jr. makes reference to “son’s-of-bitches” and immediately teabaggers and Republicans and conservatives and rightwing bloggers think he’s speaking specifically about them (guilt? … deeply guarded family secret? … mom really was a bitch?) and so they get the vapors and now they are super totally not going to vote for the black guy.

• Your move, Mr. President.
• Why they keep getting it wrong.
• This is how you do it: “I said it, I meant it.“
• Help! We need some tax cuts down here.
• Willard is so doomed.

Another stirring non-victory by the anti-heroes of the Bush foreign policy team.

John Lee Hooker and Bonnie Raitt – I’m In The Mood and Bonnie Bishop – Virginia