Right-Wingers and Obama's Recess Appointments: Now It's Imperial to Just Execute the Laws:
Man, the Nancies of the right have their panties all bunched up into their ass cracks over President Obama's recess appointments of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Bureau and of three members of the National Labor Relations Board, just so those agencies can actually function. They're screeching like Real Housewives being told that surgery to remove their melanoma might leave scars.

The New York Post, in an editorial charmingly titled "King Barack's Power Grab," wept, "President Obama yesterday played a violent game of kickball with the US Constitution, making a number of high-level “recess” appointments — even though the Senate isn’t actually in recess." Ahh, there's the outrage. See, the Senate is doing the pro forma dance, making sure that someone walks into the chamber and bangs a gavel every three days so that it's never actually "in recess." That's in the Constitution, Article 1, Section 5: "Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days."

But, see, Obama, with approval from his lawyers, said, "You know what? Fuck that shit. Let's play." The Wall Street Journal sniffled, "In this case, the House of Representatives had not formally consented to Senate adjournment. It's true the House did this to block the President from making recess appointments, but it is following the Constitution in doing so...Democrats had used a similar process to try to thwart Mr. Bush's recess appointments late in his term when they controlled both the House and the Senate...Majority Leader Harry Reid kept the Senate in pro forma session. Some advisers urged Mr. Bush to ignore the Senate and make recess appointments anyway, but he declined."

Ahh, now there's the ass-kick. Bush didn't try it. In other words, Republicans and their right-wing media lackeys are pissed because they're jealous. Oh, sure, it's totally okay for Senate Republicans to have used the filibuster in an unprecedented way to change the very process of bills have to be voted on. That's kosher. But this? Well, that's just way too dickish only because they didn't get to do it first. Harry Reid must be laughing his glasses off.

Oh, and then there's this from Article 2, Section 3 of the Constitution: "[The President] may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper." And a disagreement is exactly what happened: the Democratic Senate asked the Republican House to adjourn. The House declined and thus the cycle of pro forma sessions started. Thus the President can invoke this power. It exists in case Congress becomes too dysfunctional, like, you know, it is, thanks to the GOP. (Right now, this section is not the legal reasoning being put forth by the White House, which is simply asserting that the pro forma sessions do not mean Congress is in session.)

And if Obama is feeling particularly pissy, the Constitution actually says that he can keep the Congress adjourned as long as he damn well pleases.

The sad part is that Obama is doing this just because he wants to fulfill another clause of Article 2, Section 3. That says the President "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." Republicans were blocking nominees in these specific positions because it didn't want the laws that previous congresses had passed to be executed. Instead of attempting to overturn the laws through the, you know, legislative process, they were just obstructionist cocks. Once again, to get the merest of things done, President Obama had to slap those erect pricks out of his face and tell their owners that he was done sucking them off, and that the Republicans can go fuck themselves.

(For extra fun, check out torture-enabler John Yoo being a total douchebomb about the recess appointments.)