Recess Appointments Conundrum

This is a brief follow-up to my 1/8/12 post entitled Obama AGAIN Violates the Constitution.

POST SCRIPT: On 01/12/12, I contacted Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's office regarding his position on this matter. And while his position is at variance with highly credible sources such as ACLJ (American Cntr for Law & Justice), here's what went down today:

While McConnell too is deeply frustrated by this unprecedented circumvention of Senate rules--rules which had been successfully applied by Sen. Reid in 2007 to block Bush appointments--whether or not Obama's action was, in the strictest sense of word, unconstitutional, is questionable. While Obama did violate long accepted and honored "proforma session" Senate rules, technically speaking he probably didn't violate the Constitution. Thus, a law suit is probably out of the question.

What McConnell's spokeswoman did confirm is that funding for both the Consumer Bureau and the NLRB has already been authorized, and that only a special act of Congress, which most likely would not pass muster in the Democratic-controlled Senate, could withhold that funding. She also confirmed that since these appointments were, in the view of the President, "recess appointments", a formal confirmation process wasn't required, rendering the appointments a fait accompli.

So, we are, in effect, stuck with a presidential breach of trust--again!

Upshot: going forward, and thanks to the hypocrisy and double-standards of the Democrats, the heretofore generally accepted "proforma session" procedure will never again be relied upon by either party to prevent recess appointments. A new, ugly precedent has been established by the ruthless left, and on Capitol Hill both honor and and integrity are, indeed, on life support.

Lesson learned: compromising with libs is suicidal; trusting a lib is delusional.

(For a detailed legal analysis of this issue, go to "recess appointments, ACLJ")

[Postscript 1/25/13: a 3-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals/DC ruled three of Obama's "recess appointments" to the NLRB unconstitutional. Other Obama appointments also under challenge. The wheels of justice spin ever so slowly. In typical arrogant fashion, the White House dubbed the ruling "novel and unprecedented". Will Obama ignore the ruling? Stay tuned.]