Thursday, January 12, 2012

If you aren't part of the solution...

The right wing is completely losing their shit over Obama's recess appointment of Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and three appointments to the National Labor Relations Board.
With Senate Republicans vowing to block any labor board nominees, the five-member board would have been paralyzed this year because it has only two sitting members. The Supreme Court has ruled the board needs at least three members to operate.
So, here's John Stewart to put it into perspective for you.


The problem is that we have a Congress which has done less than any Congress in recent memory, because so many seats have been filled with small-minded small-government idiots, who ran on a platform of "Congress doesn't work. Elect me, and I'll prove it!"

The majority of them don't have any interest in fixing the economy or helping Americans. Instead, they've embraced Mitch McConnell's strategy, which, as he explained it, was very simple: "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president."

So they obstruct, delay and obfuscate; they prevent anything from happening, and then they try to claim that Obama is a "failed president" because he couldn't fight his way past the obstruction.

Well, guess what? He just did, and it's completely thrown them for a loop.

How can you claim that the Senate is "in session" when the entire sesson consists of gaveling in, saying the Pledge of Allegiance, and gaveling out? That's nothing but a sham, and the Senate has been completely open about it.

Steven Bradbury and John Elwood, two former legal advisors for President Bush, pointed out that the nature of a "recess" is still open for interpretation, and Obama is fully within his rights to make these appointments.
In a 1905 report that the Senate still considers authoritative, the Senate Judiciary Committee recognized that a "Recess of the Senate" occurs whenever the Senate is not sitting for the discharge of its functions and when it cannot "participate as a body in making appointments." The committee cautioned that a "recess" means "something actual, not something fictitious." The executive branch has long taken the same common-sense view...

The Senate, of course, does not meet as a body during a pro forma session. By the terms of the recess order, no business can be conducted, and the Senate is not capable of acting on the president's nominations. That means the Senate remains in "recess" for purposes of the recess appointment power, despite the empty formalities of the individual senators who wield the gavel in pro forma sessions.
But you can still hear the sobbing from the poor, thwarted motherfuckers. Ironically, one of the motherfuckers in question, Rep. Diane Black (R-TN) managed to step on her metaphorical dick in her public pearl-clutching.
"These appointments are an affront to the Constitution. No matter how you look at this, it doesn’t pass the smell test. I hope the House considers my resolution as soon as we return to Washington so we can send a message to President Obama."
The problem is, the Constitution doesn't specify a minimum length of time the Senate has to be in recess before the president can enact a recess appointment. And since this Congress has effectively been in recess since 2010, it's time for them to shut up and admit that he played the game better than they did.

4 comments:

  1. Love that classic formulation: the Senate is NOT in recess, and just as soon as we come back....

    The Grand Obama-Lama was entirely right to act so "autocratically" and appoint someone to head up an outfit that the Congress, after all, voted into existence. It's just too bloody bad if the childish blanknozzles then refused to allow it to have a director. And the joke's on them 2X because when they ruled out Elizabeth Warren, she decided to run for the senate in MA. Looks like she'll probably win handily, too, costing the GOP a seat in a year that may otherwise go pretty well for them in that body.

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  2. Nameless, a great post in its entirety but I am particularly fond of your observation that ...since this Congress has effectively been in recess since 2010, it's time for them to shut up and admit that he played the game better than they did.

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  3. I think this kind of authoritive muscle flexing is going to work well for the president as we get ready for election time. This is exactly what many of us have wanted from him from the beginning; screw the infantile GOP toerags - step all over them and get the job done. The economy is improving, my real estate business is very busy right now and that is unusual for Jan. which historically is a really dead time. At my business exchange group other sectors are also reporting an uptick in their business. Retirees got a increase in money this year and they are benefitting from some of the programs implementing under that dastardly, bastardly "Obamacare". There are many right leaners who grudgingly admit all the dire predictions of doom under Obama did NOT happen and that things are getting better.
    Pretty soon the GOP hacks will be performing their dog and pony show for a very small audience of low information die hards and that won't be near enough to take back the White House.

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  4. Low information diehards? Do you mean the State of Florida?

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