NYC Letter: Presidential Imperium -- Recess Appointments Redux Redux

Day 1,083 of CHOPE

But when Congress refuses to act, and as a result, hurts our economy and puts our people at risk, then I have an obligation as President to do what I can without them. (Applause.) I’ve got an obligation to act on behalf of the American people. And I’m not going to stand by while a minority in the Senate puts party ideology ahead of the people that we were elected to serve. (Applause.)

Mr. Obama,
impatient man of action, coincident with re-election
SHAKER HEIGHTS, Ohio January 4, 2011 (White House)

In politics, Republicans are petty ideologues and Democrats -- and most especially this president -- are noble public-spirited empaths. Somehow though Mr. Obama can't work the magic of his Senate majority to get things done, for example, his cap-and-trade policy or his "Pass This Bill!" jobs plan -- which he hadn't produced when he first demanded its passage.

The obstruction is so bad Mr. Obama has concluded the obstructers do not deserve objects to obstruct.

DEM NLRB ‘RECESS’ APPOINTMENTS RUSHED,
DON’T APPEAR ON WHITE HOUSE NOMINEE LIST

January 6, 2012 (TDC) - The two Democrats that President Barack Obama appointed to the National Labor Relations Board during what he considered a congressional "recess" are not on the White House’s official list of Obama’s appointments and nominations for various positions.

Obama referred his two Democratic nominees, Sharon Block and Richard Griffin, to the Senate on Dec. 15. The Senate adjourned for the year – but did not go into an official recess — on the following day.

WhiteHouse.gov tracks the status of all of Obama’s appointments and nominations. Block and Griffin do not appear on that list — a sign that the administration rushed the recess appointments through too quickly for the Senate to even consider them.

"It's hard to argue that the Senate was obstructing these Democratic nominees when they don’t even appear on the administration’s own list of nominations and appointments," U.S. Chamber of Commerce labor policy specialist Glenn Spencer told The Daily Caller.

The Republican member Obama recess-appointed to the NLRB, Terence F. Flynn, does show up on the White House list. His nomination was referred to the Senate months ago.

So let's see if we have this right. The Republican nominee has been kept waiting months for a confirmation hearing, the scheduling of which is the prerogative of the majority party (hint, Democrats), while the Democrat "recess" appointees are not even on the White House's own list of nominations -- incredibly, still not updated as of this post, 25 days after the WH submission. This is the simple stuff, but Team Barry doesn't even put in an effort. Hold your incredulous splutter. It gets more incredible.

Wyoming Republican Sen. Mike Enzi’s office has pointed out that Block and Griffin were referred to the Senate so quickly that they didn’t pass basic criminal and civil background checks. A statement from Enzi, the ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said that the background checks ensure that no criminal investigations are pending against potential nominees, and that they have paid their income taxes. The checks also ensure nominees don’t have conflicts of interest.

OBAMA’S NLRB ‘RECESS’ APPOINTEES
CIRCUMVENT BACKGROUND CHECKS

January 6, 2012 (Heritage) - The Senate committee handling the nominations of Democrats Sharon Block and Richard Griffin to the NLRB never received the required paperwork from the two nominees. The president submitted the nominations to the Senate on December 15, a day before it entered pro forma session, with most Senators returning to their home states. The paperwork includes information required for a background check, "which addresses whether taxes are paid and if the nominee is facing any pending civil or criminal investigations," according to a committee release. "This also ensures that there are no conflicts-of-interest before being confirmed for the position."

The president has invoked alleged congressional gridlock as justification for his likely-unconstitutional “recess” appointments (not actually made during a recess), repeatedly invoking his "We Can’t Wait" slogan.

"Senate Republicans’ disposition towards [the NLRB nominees] could not have been more clear," claimed White House press secretary Jay Carney on Thursday. But committee spokesman Joe Brenckle said members had not taken positions on the nominees, for the simple reason that they had not undergone even the most basic vetting procedures.

Read the exchange at the link above. Mr. Carney doesn't even try, because you are that stupid.

In other words, there is no evidence that the committee – let alone the full Senate – would have blocked those nominations even if they had come up for a vote. In fact, HELP committee rules specify that action cannot be taken on a nominee until five days after the paperwork is filed. So even if members had wanted to move Block and Griffin forward, they would have been unable to do so by the committee’s own written procedures.

To give you an idea of how closely the WH considers its appointment selections, you may remember Mr. Obama nominated tax cheats Tim Geithner and Tom Daschle and connubial tax cheat Hilda Solis* for high office. Advice and consent caught them out. Mr. Obama appointed Green Czar Van Jones without basic vetting. Mr. Jones was later exposed as an obnoxious radical. And there was auto czar Steven Rattner:

Yet another of Barack Obama’s major appointments has legal troubles. Steven Rattner, the auto czar that never worked in the auto industry, did work as a senior executive at an investment firm doing business with New York’s state pension fund. According to the SEC, Rattner may have arranged illegal kickbacks in exchange for investing in the pension fund — and the Obama administration was aware of the allegations when Obama appointed him auto czar.

Two month's later Mr. Rattner resigned coincident with pending legal action related to the SEC probe.

By this time perhaps you, like us, are annoyed at Mr. Obama's foot-stamp-annoyed-princess approach to political rule. When he promised the most transparent administration in history, little did we suspect he meant the most transparently inept, the most transparently fatuous, the most transparently dishonest. And lazy. Too lazy to lie with cunning.

CHOPE.

Obama cried. Obstructers denied.

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* From the Los Angeles Times (WASHINGTON and LOS ANGELES February 6, 2009) at the link above: