“But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned;

if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity;

but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand."

Ezekiel 33:6


"A righteous man falling down before the wicked is as a troubled fountain, and a corrupt spring."

Proverbs 25:26

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Why isn't Obama impeached yet?

"In a free society, government reflects the soul of its people. If people want change at the top, they will have to live in different ways. Our major social problems are not the cause of our decadence. They are a reflection of it." - Cal Thomas

Key Republican Senators are bracing for legislative battles and Constitutional challenges to President Barack Obama’s unprecedented end-run around Congress to install several controversial political appointees.

Obama announced the decision Wednesday to make the so-called recess appointments -- even though the Senate is not in recess -- putting Richard Cordray in charge of a contentious new consumer protection agency and also naming three appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) – Sharon Block, Richard Griffin and Terence F. Flynn.

“Business as we know it in the Senate is over for this administration in terms of accomplishing anything legislatively or finding any cooperation from this side of the aisle,” said Sen. John Barrasso (R. –Wyo.). “He has poisoned the well.”

“Apparently, advise and consent called for in the Constitution doesn’t apply to this Chicago-style politician. He’s more interested in rewarding his friends than living under the law Americans need to abide by,” Barrasso said.

The Constitution allows the president to make recess appointments, but the controversy in this case is whether or not the Senate is in recess.

“I believe it’s an abuse of power. Now he is saying he’s above the law -- the law doesn’t apply to him,” Barrasso said.

Republicans have kept the Congress in a pro forma session, gaveling in for a few minutes of official business every three days. It’s a tactic that was used by Democrats during the Bush administration to block recess appointments. Additionally, Obama’s own Justice Department argued before the Supreme Court in 2010 that Congress is not in recess unless it’s absent for more than three days.

Republicans say they are frustrated because Obama did not nominate the NLRB picks until last month -- just two days before the Christmas holiday -- allowing no time for the Senate to hold hearings.

Meanwhile, Senate Democrats have stalled the confirmation of the lone Republican nominee for the labor board, Brian Hayes, since July 2009.

Another contentious factor in Obama’s maneuver, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau created by the Dodd-Frank Act, requires that the new director be confirmed by the Senate, so Cordray’s appointment puts the agency’s legal authority in limbo.

“I don’t think he has the full authority to run this agency,” said J.W. Verrett, an assistant professor of law at George Mason University and a senior scholar at the Mercatus Center.

“The president’s decision is a purely political one, and not about consumer protection,” Verrett said. “In fact, he’s sacrificed consumer protection. He’s more interested in being tough on Congress than being tough on predatory lenders.”

Sen. Mike Lee (R. –Utah), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said these actions were not ordinary recess appointments but “egregious and inexcusable” acts of a president who thinks he’s above the law.

“As a matter of raw political force, can he do it? He just did,” Lee said.

“I think the president wanted to pick a really big fight, and he has surely chosen one,” Lee said. “This is a direct affront to the American people and the constitutional system of government that we have.”

Republicans are hesitant to give away their game plan on how they will respond to Obama’s move, but Lee suggested that Congress could withhold the salaries for the new federal appointees.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R. Ky.) said Obama “upped the ante” and set “a terrible precedent that could allow any future president to completely cut the Senate out of the confirmation process, appointing his nominees immediately after sending their names up to Congress.”

“This was surely not what the framers had in mind when they required the president to seek the advice and consent of the Senate in making appointments,” McConnell said.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R. –Utah) said Obama made the appointments to placate his “big labor allies,” but that it might not be enough to save him come Election Day.

“The president put his own political future and the radical views of his far-left base ahead of constitutional government. The president will have to answer to the American people for this power grab," Hatch said.

Vincent Vernuccio, a labor policy lawyer with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said the NLRB appointees are a gift to Obama’s labor backers, and that Griffin comes to the board directly from a labor union.

“The vacancies on the Board have occurred because Obama has insisted on nominating pro-union ideologues too controversial to pass Senate confirmation,” Vernuccio said.

Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, congratulated Obama on overcoming what he called “Republican obstructionists.”

“Working families and consumers should not pay the price for political ploys that have repeatedly undercut the enforcement of rules against Wall Street abuses and the rights of working people,” Trumka said.



Can Republicans Impeach Obama Over Recess Appointment?





As Todd Gaziano of the Heritage Foundation explained:
[The recess appointment] power has been interpreted by scores of attorneys general and their designees in the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel for over 100 years to require an official,legal Senate recess of at least 10-25 days of duration. (There are a few outlier opinions,never sanctioned by the courts,that suggest a recess of six to seven days might be enough–but never less than that.)
The President’s purported recess appointment of Cordray would render the Senate’s advice and consent role to normal appointments almost meaningless. It is a grave constitutional wrong that Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has already denounced. But it fits a pattern of extra-constitutional abuse by the White House that seems more interested in energizing a liberal base than safeguarding the office of the presidency.
Experts say this kind of non-recess appointment is unprecedented in American history —another historic Obama first.
Will Congress act? At first blush,one is tempted to say if they stepped aside for an illegal war,a miniature terrorist plot known as Operation Fast and Furious,the miscarriage of justice in the Black Panthers voter intimidation case,the harassment of Sheriff Joe Arpaio,and numerous other offenses,this ranks pretty far down the list.
But that would overlook the one thing this scandal has that the others do not:this one offended senators’vanity. Senators of both parties relish their reputation as “the world’s greatest deliberative body.”Bob Dole famously joked,“If someone went into the Senate Cloak Room and said,‘Mr. President,’everyone would turn-around.”They all believe they are presidents-in-waiting,with the Senate their temporary fiefdom. They cherish the constitutional role of giving advice and consent —which is why the Democrat-controlled Senate went into pro forma session;to preserve their right to examine Mr. Cordray and the three union extremists.
Obama not only trampled on the traditional order; he took away some senators’privileges. He may have to pay dearly for that. He should have long ago.

Even Obama Agrees that the Senate Was Not in Recess




Defenders of President Obama’s unprecedented “recess” appointments of Richard Cordray to the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and three members to the National Labor Relations Board argue that the Constitution is vague on when Congress is in session and that the President can therefore take a “functionalist” approach that considers whether the Senate is available to vote on nominations.
Yet even the President doesn’t buy that argument.
Proof is that on December 23, President Obama signed a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut.  He said that Congress passed the bill “in the nick of time” and that it was “a make-or-break moment for the middle class in this country.”  The compromise extension really did come through at the last minute, but in a different sense: most members of the Senate had already departed Washington, D.C.
That’s why on December 17, the Senate agreed to an order instituting “pro forma” sessions, of the kind the President now claims are actually recess.  (See the PDF of the Congressional Record here.)  But it was at one of those sessions, on December 23, that the Senate passed the payroll tax cut extension that the President signed into law later that day.  (Again, see the Congressional Record entry.)
Of course, if the Senate was actually on recess that day, it couldn’t have passed the bill, and the President couldn’t have signed it into law.  (The President has not claimed—at least, not yet—that he can enact laws that have not passed Congress.)  But in that case, the President chose to respect the Senate’s own view as to whether it was open for business.
And he was right to do so.  The Constitution empowers the Senate to “determine the rules of its proceedings,” and that’s just what the Senate did by scheduling pro forma sessions at the end of the year.  That much of the Senate was out of town is irrelevant, as passage of the tax cut extension demonstrates.  Indeed, the Constitution specifically provides that, although it states that “a majority . . . shall constitute a quorum to do business” in the Senate, “a smaller number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the attendance of absent members.”  In this way, the Constitution specifically authorizes rump sessions that, if necessary, can recall the rest of the body to conduct vital business.
Nothing even suggests that the President gets to overrule Congress on this point.  To the contrary, the Constitution prevents either chamber from adjourning for more than three days “without the consent of the other” and, while it requires that all bills and resolutions be presented to the President for signature or veto, carves out a sole exception for votes “on a question of adjournment.”
It is little surprise that an Administration which finds the Constitution flexible enough to support an individual mandate for individuals to purchase health insurance would also argue that its seemingly clear text is sufficiently pliable to empower the President to overrule Congress’s decision that it’s actually in session.
But to make that argument less than two weeks after embracing the very opposite position, that takes chutzpah!

QUESTION: Why isn't Obama impeached yet?

ANSWER: Because YOU haven't elected representatives in government that have the integrity to do so!




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