"Bypassing Congress, Obama fills consumer post" January 05, 2012|By Bobby Caina Calvan
President Obama, in a politically provocative move that incensed Republican leaders, bypassed the Senate nomination process yesterday and appointed Richard Cordray to lead a contentious financial agency intended to rein in lending abuses and simplify the process for consumers.
Yeah, they are not angry about illegal torture, detentions, and wars, the unconstitutional spying, or the effort to shut down blogs under the cover of copyright protection.
“He’ll be in charge of one thing: looking out for the best interests of American consumers,’’ Obama, with Cordray at his side, told a raucous crowd of 1,300 assembled at a high school in Cleveland. “His job will be to protect families like yours from the abuses of the financial industry.’’
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The decision to install Cordray without Senate approval under the constitutional provision for making appointments when lawmakers are in recess was an audacious opening salvo in Obama’s reelection strategy of demonizing Congress.
Oh, it is all politics?
The president, announcing his decision before a political rally-like crowd, seemed to welcome a contentious second session of the 112th Congress, in which any attempts at bipartisan compromise appear in danger of being lost in all-out election-year war....
I'm tired of the war terminology coming from the war paper when it concerns politics -- or anything else.
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"Justice Dept. backs Obama on recess appointments; Says pro forma Senate sessions do not apply" by Charlie Savage | New York Times, January 13, 2012
Everything Hitler did was considered legal, too.
WASHINGTON - President Obama had the power to lawfully consider the Senate to be on a lengthy break - even though Congress contended otherwise - and make recess appointments, the Justice Department concluded in a previously secret legal memorandum it made public yesterday.
In the 23-page document, Virginia A. Seitz, the assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, concluded that the Senate’s “pro forma’’ sessions - in which a single senator comes into the chamber to bang the gavel every three days - could not prevent Obama from being able to exercise his constitutional power to appoint officials when the body was in recess.
“The Senate could remove the basis for the president’s exercise of his recess appointment authority by remaining continuously in session and being available to receive and act on nominations, but it cannot do so by providing for pro forma sessions at which no business is to be conducted,’’ Seitz wrote.
At the time, Ruemmler declined to say whether the Office of Legal Counsel had approved the step, leading some critics to speculate that the White House had either failed to consult the Justice Department or had rejected its conclusions.
Seitz’s memorandum was dated Jan. 6, but says that she had previously provided the same legal guidance orally to Ruemmler.
Translation: They wrote the memo AFTER the fact!
Obama was the first president to make recess appointments under such circumstances, although the tactic by Congress of using such sessions to block recess appointments is also new. It was first used by Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, in late 2007, to prevent President George W. Bush from making recess appointments.
While Bush did not make any such appointments for the remainder of his term, Seitz’s memorandum cited a previously undisclosed memorandum completed in January 2009 by a Bush administration lawyer in the Office of Legal Counsel, John Elwood, saying she was drawing on his analysis.
Obama is worse than Bush?
After leaving government, Elwood wrote that presidents have the authority to take such a step.
So the Obama administration is drawing off Bush administration opinion and policy? Some f***ing change!
And it shows you the s*** fooleys that are AmeriKan politics. Republicans didn't care when Bush was making recess appointments while Democrats complained. Now the roles are reversed, and we are no longer fooled.
Still, Obama’s recess appointments remain deeply controversial. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, denounced the move the day it happened, saying Obama had “arrogantly circumvented the American people’’ and endangered “Congress’s role in providing a check on the excesses of the executive branch.’’’
Eight Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, including its ranking member, Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, sent a letter on Jan. 5 to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., asking whether the Office of Legal Counsel had been consulted and demanding that any legal conclusions it had reached be released.
Much of the criticism of Obama’s move has been based on the theory that the Senate has in fact been in session every three days, so the recess was only as long as a long weekend.
Traditionally, presidents have not made recess appointments during congressional breaks of fewer than 10 days, so Obama’s move raised the notion that he had established a precedent that, if taken to its logical conclusion, could gut the confirmation process by allowing presidents of either party to make recess appointments whenever the chamber was momentarily empty.
That does look like a dictatorship.
Seitz’s memorandum, however, said that the administration considered the Senate to be on a single long recess of 20 days - from Jan. 3, when its new pro forma session started, to Jan. 23, when members are scheduled to return to Washington and start conducting business again.
Critics of that theory have cited several arguments to bolster the view that the Senate has instead been in a series of shorter, three-day recesses.
For example, Congress has occasionally conducted business in pro forma sessions, including approving a payroll tax cut extension just before Christmas - a step Obama treated as valid because he signed the bill into law.
Related: Tea Party Republicans Rolled Over Payroll Tax
Also see: Democrats' Payroll Tax Problem
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"Obama seeks authority to merge federal agencies; Congress would have to approve the new powers" January 14, 2012|By Mark Landler, New York Times
WASHINGTON - President Obama announced a new campaign yesterday to shrink the federal government, a proposal notable less for its goal - the fight against bloat has been championed by every modern-day president - than for its challenge to a hostile Congress.
Obama called on lawmakers to grant him broad new authority to propose mergers of government agencies, which Congress would have to approve or reject in an up-or-down vote.
Hmmmmmmmmmm.
Obama, announcing the plan at the White House, said he would begin his pruning exercise by folding the Small Business Administration and five other agencies involved in trade and business into a single agency that would replace the Commerce Department.
So he is not waiting for a vote?
The White House said the consolidation would save $3 billion over 10 years and result in the elimination of 1,000 to 2,000 jobs, though he said those reductions would occur through attrition rather than layoffs.
“From the moment I got here, I saw up close what many of you know to be true: The government we have is not the government we need,’’ Obama told an audience of small-business owners.
It is not clear whether Congress, which has blocked the bulk of Obama’s legislative agenda, will go along with the initiative. White House officials said no president since Ronald Reagan has had the so-called consolidation authority Obama is seeking.
Republicans were immediately skeptical. They suggested that the White House was more interested in honing its reelection message than in reducing the size of government.
Related: The State of Obama's Campaign
“Yesterday, President Obama asked for a $1.2 trillion increase in the debt limit, today he is proposing to shrink the federal government,’’ said Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas. “Unfortunately, President Obama does not have much of a record to back up his newfound, election-year enthusiasm for limited government.’’
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By putting the onus for streamlining government on Congress, however, Obama was seizing a core issue of Republican presidential candidates - and trying to turn it to his own political advantage.
It was the latest sally by the president, who has gone on the offensive against Congress as he embarks on his reelection bid. He appointed a new head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Richard Cordray, as well as other appointees to regulatory agencies, during a congressional recess to get around the opposition of lawmakers.
Under the terms of the reorganization proposed yesterday, six relatively small agencies - the Small Business Administration, the Office of the US Trade Representative, the Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corp., and the Trade and Development Agency - would be consolidated into a single agency focused on opportunities for the private sector....
But if Ron Paul suggested such a thing it would be radical and wrong.
Btw, all those agencies exist to funnel taxpayer dollars to profitable corporations.
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Also see: Republicans to retaliate in Obama appointees spat