Sabyen91: Oh, this is wrong! farking 0bama! The Congress is clearly in session. They have a guy going in to bang a gavel every few days. Serious business getting done in THIS session.

REPUBLICAN SENATE CALENDAR (new window)

no really they're hard at work... have been since Dec 16th...

Descartes: Obama is making it so that any future President, including someone we will despise....President Santorium anyone?, can easily bypass our control of the Senate and make recess appointments.

Presidents can already easily make recess appointments. The only thing slightly atypical that Obama has done in this case is to circumvent the parliamentary tactic of pretending to never be out of session. He is not even setting a precedent by making an appointment during an intrasession recess, it's been done before.

Sofa King Smart: Sabyen91: Oh, this is wrong! farking 0bama! The Congress is clearly in session. They have a guy going in to bang a gavel every few days. Serious business getting done in THIS session.

REPUBLICAN SENATE CALENDAR (new window)

no really they're hard at work... have been since Dec 16th...

That's wonderful. The GOP's own senate calendar reads "The Senate is not in session." every single day for the last few weeks. Makes the "we're still in session" rhetoric even more delicious.

This might be a really big deal.

Like really big.

The Relationship between the executive and legislature is where the supreme court finds most of its relevancy.

Does the president have a right to have his nominees 'confirmed or denied' in a timely manner? And if so, How does the executive go about requiring that that nominee get voted on? Otherwise, the only time that a recess appointment makes sense is between the midterm elections and the convention of the subsequent senate. This doesn't seem to have been the intent in the constitution - or does it? Let's let those 'originalists' on the court talk about this.

To my mind, the president has an obligation to make appointments during the session of the senate, and the senate really does have an obligation to give its advice (say no) or consent (say yes).

But the Senate clearly has the right to run its own business - including scheduling all votes (or non-votes).

Can one branch compel the other branch to act? This is classic supreme court territory, and it seems as though the only way it could happen (short of a constitutional amendment giving the senate something akin to a 'pocket veto') is if the court got involved each time it happened. Now, the Court itself doesn't want to constantly be convening to handle these operational details of governance - it's not that kind of branch. So how will it manage it?

iiiintersting stuff.

Thrag: Sofa King Smart: Sabyen91: Oh, this is wrong! farking 0bama! The Congress is clearly in session. They have a guy going in to bang a gavel every few days. Serious business getting done in THIS session.

REPUBLICAN SENATE CALENDAR (new window)

no really they're hard at work... have been since Dec 16th...

That's wonderful. The GOP's own senate calendar reads "The Senate is not in session." every single day for the last few weeks. Makes the "we're still in session" rhetoric even more delicious.

If you liked that, then you should get a real kick out of their 'daily' calendar.
Link (new window)

if you don't want to click, here's the details:

The Senate is not in session.
Jan 04 2012

Republican senators continue to focus on creating jobs, lowering the deficit, reducing gas prices, and replacing the Democrats' health care bill with reforms that will actually lower costs.

markie_farkie:
There are plans....within plans...

I see two great houses... house Boehner, house Cantor, feuding.
I see... you behind it.... you must... ssssshhhare with us...

/wonder what they ever did with that prop?

what_now: Hey, can anyone here tell me why I should be opposed to a government agency that protects consumers from predatory financial institutions?

Can anyone here tell me why the banking industry- which caused the current credit crisis and recession- shouldn't be more heavily regulated?

Anyone?

Because *wait for it* - SOSHULIZUMZ!!!
/whhharrrgarrrbll

For the last three years President Obama has tried to use the front of his hand, reaching out to try and compromise with the politicians from the other party, and had it slapped away again and again and again.
Now he gets to use the back. Watch what happens when he's re-elected.
/I can't wait
//dem knuckles be hard

Fri Nov-23-07 06:48 PM
Original message

Senate Blocks Bush 'Recess' Appointments
By JIM ABRAMS - 2 days ago

WASHINGTON (AP) - Two days before Thanksgiving the Senate had a 22-second session, a fleeting moment in the life of an occasionally droning body but plenty of time for majority Democrats to keep President Bush from making "recess" appointments.

Senators have been taking turns standing sentry duty this week - just to prevent Bush from circumventing the confirmation process by immediately installing people in federal posts while the chamber is in recess. Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., who carried out that less than glamorous task Tuesday, is a relative newcomer, a low-ranking freshman and a senator who lives just minutes from the Capitol; he wielded his gavel before an empty chamber Tuesday, devoid of senators and even the young pages who serve as messengers.

"I'd much rather be doing this than allow the president to skirt the confirmation process in the Senate," Webb said in a statement. "This is an exercise in protecting the Constitution and our constitutional process."

The Senate must confirm major presidential appointments and judicial nominations, providing a constant source of confrontation between the White House and Senate Democrats. But when the Senate is off, as it is now for the Thanksgiving holiday, the president can make recess appointments that are not subject to confirmation hearings. These appointees can serve until the end of the congressional session, which at this point would be until Bush leaves office.

Among the more controversial recess appointments Bush has made have included John Bolton to be ambassador to the United Nations and Sam Fox, a GOP fundraiser and contributor to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth during the 2004 presidential campaign, as ambassador to Belgium.

Showing the level of distrust between the White House and the Democrats, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., announced that he would employ, apparently for the first time, what are called "pro forma" sessions as a tactic to technically keep the Senate on the job and stop recess appointments.

A pro forma session, during which no legislative business is conducted, satisfies the constitutional obligation that neither chamber can adjourn for more than three days without the consent of the other.

These pro forma sessions will continue throughout the current holiday recess.

/got this off of Democratic Underground... some of you idiots should go there to get your politics and not Fark.. you just might learn something.

//the problem is not with the nominee, or the president's ability to do this when the Senate is recessed.... the problem is that the Senate wasn't recessed... just like we used to do when Bush was President

/// Finally, for all the "but Bush, Bush did recess appointments... ", he did them before we took over the Senate.. after Thanksgiving 2007, the Senate was never again recessed

Descartes: Fri Nov-23-07 06:48 PM
Original message



Senate Blocks Bush 'Recess' Appointments
By JIM ABRAMS - 2 days ago

WASHINGTON (AP) - Two days before Thanksgiving the Senate had a 22-second session, a fleeting moment in the life of an occasionally droning body but plenty of time for majority Democrats to keep President Bush from making "recess" appointments.

Senators have been taking turns standing sentry duty this week - just to prevent Bush from circumventing the confirmation process by immediately installing people in federal posts while the chamber is in recess. Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., who carried out that less than glamorous task Tuesday, is a relative newcomer, a low-ranking freshman and a senator who lives just minutes from the Capitol; he wielded his gavel before an empty chamber Tuesday, devoid of senators and even the young pages who serve as messengers.

"I'd much rather be doing this than allow the president to skirt the confirmation process in the Senate," Webb said in a statement. "This is an exercise in protecting the Constitution and our constitutional process."

The Senate must confirm major presidential appointments and judicial nominations, providing a constant source of confrontation between the White House and Senate Democrats. But when the Senate is off, as it is now for the Thanksgiving holiday, the president can make recess appointments that are not subject to confirmation hearings. These appointees can serve until the end of the congressional session, which at this point would be until Bush leaves office.

Among the more controversial recess appointments Bush has made have included John Bolton to be ambassador to the United Nations and Sam Fox, a GOP fundraiser and contributor to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth during the 2004 presidential campaign, as ambassador to Belgium.

Showing the level of distrust between the White House and the Democrats, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., announced that he would employ, apparently for the first time, ...

Having a majority Senate has nothing to farking do with it.

Cup_O_Jo: tlchwi02: Cup_O_Jo: Your state with Medicaid and SSI is welfare---Federal SSDI (disability) not Welfare.


Keep rationalizing, hypocrite.

That is the most ridiculous case of cognitive dissonance i've ever heard of.

you're disgusting.

Each successive administration builds upon the abusive powers of the previous one.

This worries me less than SOPA and NDAA.

Recess appointments should be made. The pro-forma session is BS but it was BS both sides agreed to.

Why didn't the GOP allow a simple up or down vote?

Isn't that the real abuse of power?

Cup_O_Jo: WOW talk about insane projection. Did you not read a single thing I said. -----WTF does getting MS have to do with personal responsibility? Let me tell you--I don't blame anyone else for my MS. I don't even blame God. I don't blame myself. Which is why I am full of empathy and understanding. Your personal attack is proof I gave you butt hurt. Why? Because the last thing I said was explain why we need a guy to pretend to read the fine print for you. I also told you the fine print was not going to go away and now that there is a newly appointed guy the fine print will probably be harder to understand. Meaning we as people will still have to take personal responsibility for our own financial actions. YOUR counter to that is to attack me personally. I know personal responsibility sucks doesn't it? Wasting tax dollars to pay someone to pretend to protect you from the fine print is asinine. That is what this thread is about. You keep trying to go all OWS on me because I pointed out that one will still have to have personal responsibility. Growing up freaks you out doesn't it.

The point is not and never has been to get rid of the fine print, as you put it. The point is to prevent abusive practices that an average consumer does not understand and cannot prevent. And somehow you lack the basic comprehension skills and simple empathy to comprehend that.

And the point about getting MS and personal responsibility is precisely that you aren't responsible for it, despite having had access to knowledge about it and knowing the potential to contract it existed well before it actually manifested in you. You had the theoretical ability to plan for it ahead of time and be "personally responsible", if you had been able to foresee the outcome.

Well, that's exactly how it works for people who do not understand complex finances when dealing with banks. A blue collar worker with some high-school economics cannot be expected to fully comprehend the kind of arcane financial dealings that the banks engage in. He cannot be expected to match their lawyers and accountant, their lobbyists, their control over the wording and interpretation of their own rules. He isn't responsible for the predatory behaviour of the banks that he can neither prevent nor combat. All of those things are beyond the capacity of an average consumer to affect and often to even understand, and yet you insist on blathering about personal responsibility towards these things that an average consumer is all but powerless against.

The intent of this agency to rectify that imbalance. To prevent and forbid the kind of abuses the banks have demonstrably and provably been doing to the average consumer. And yet you, who laughably proclaims to be empathic, spits on that, and tells those average consumers to just man up and be responsible (as if that would somehow help), so that you, recipient of government largesse that you are, can pay a tiny fraction less in taxes.

That is contemptible.

RexTalionis: By the multi-limbed Bodhi tree of St. Josephat, are we really going to start internet diagnosing people with mental disorders, now?

Sociopathic behaviour, and lack of demonstrated empathy doesn't constitute conclusive proof of the actual disorder, it only indicates that this person behaves in a manner that is compatible with that diagnosis - which in this particular case is shiatty way to behave towards one's fellow humans.

I alone am best: Pot meet kettle.

I offered rational arguments. You offered knee-jerk demonstrably partisan reactionary behaviour. No matter how much you might want to pretend otherwise, these things are not equivalent.

Ninepoundhammer: Eshman: Garet Garrett: Ninepoundhammer: And your failure to address republican obstructionism and it's role in his decision to go this route makes it difficult to take you seriously.

So you'll take me seriously if I address the GOP's obstructionism? Ok, how's this: The GOP isn't the first party to engage in any sort of obstructionism. Yet Obama is the first to redefine "recess" to mean "not recess" in order to respond to it. So, two things come to mind: first, why is the GOP's particular flavor of obstructionism unique? I don't believe it is, and thus I see no reason why non-unique problems would force unique responses. Second, is there a "they weren't playing nice" exception to constitutional process? Is that what you favor? Is constitutionality a sliding scale, dependent upon the amount of cooperation you're getting from other (co-equal, remember) branches of government?

God help us if the Supreme Court finds the individual mandate unconstitutional. What will you believe Obama to be justified in doing, then?

Please cite one instance of Democratic obstructionism in the last 10 years.

and that's where your wrong. You can continue to argue that this particularly virulent strain of republican obstructionism is not unusual but that doesn't change the fact that it is.

And yet I'm still not receiving an example of such Democratic obstructionism aside from Garrett's obscure Will Smith reference. The response is always "IT IS CAUSE IT IS, DUMBASS". You guys have nothing, as usual.