"Advise and Consent"? The man who swore an oath to protect the Constitution never heard of it, apparently.
And the media? The crew that called for impeachment every time George W. Bush took a shit now cheers wildly for the man who is rapidly creating the very imperial presidency our founders fought a revolution to prevent:
Stymied by Congress, Obama to boldly seat nominees
A defiant President Barack Obama on Wednesday took his boldest action yet to show voters he will confront Republicans, announcing he will bypass Congress and install nominees into politically sensitive jobs...
"Boldly"? "Confront Republicans"? And yet nowhere do I see the word "controversial", which again accompanied coverage of every trip W made to the men's room...
We've thrown around the word "fascist" a lot on this blog when referring to Barack Hussein Obama, and refused to take it back when called on it. Events have borne us out, alas...
And so we see the president's re-election strategy take hold. I created the CFBP to protect you from Wall Street, and when the Republicans tried to block me to protect the rich, I went around them. I supported middle-class jobs by staffing the NLRB when Republicans tried to defang it. And when the Republicanism said no, I still borrowed $1 trillion dollars to pay off all your mortgages anyway!
The media will amplify this message verbatim, while denouncing Obama's eventual opponent as...well, whatever Obama tells them to.
If our Founding Fathers returned to visit the nation they created, I have always thought that out of all the perversions of their dream, one thing alone would make them vomit out of their eyeballs. And it wouldn't necessarily be the massive over-reach of government, or the expansion of the welfare state, or our nearly constant state of war.
It would be the role that the media - the press, back in the day - has taken in American society. Imagined to be the the best defense of the citizen against the encroachment of tyranny, it has instead become a tool of the government itself, used as a cudgel against the very people it was supposed to protect. The lies of the State are printed without reproach, false information disseminated and never retracted, and the enemies of the status quo vilified and destroyed, be they political fugues opposed to the leftist agenda (think Sarah Palin), or simply ordinary citizens who dare ask challenging questions (think Joe the Plumber). The contemporary media has turned their backs on their very purpose in a democratic society, and instead have chosen to take the words of Vladimir Lenin to heart:
“The press should be not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, but also a collective organizer of the masses”.
The Founders groan in their graves, while the Republic they built with their blood is frittered away, more rapidly by the day...
So this is how liberty dies...to thunderous applause:
So, all of the other Presidents who used this method, especially GW Bush to appoint judges and John Bolton the UN, did it unconstitutionally? Just trying to figure out if you are arrogantly angry because it was THIS President that used his power. (Like I don't know the answer...)
ReplyDeleteSigh...the "Bush did it" defense is a fail here:
ReplyDeleteThe last clause of Section 5 of Article 1 of the Constitution says that “Neither House” of Congress can adjourn for more than three days “without the Consent of the other” house. In this case, the House of Representatives had not formally consented to Senate adjournment. It’s true the House did this to block the President from making recess appointments, but it is following the Constitution in doing so. Let’s hear Mr. Obama’s legal justification.
Democrats had used a similar process to try to thwart Mr. Bush’s recess appointments late in his term when they controlled both the House and the Senate. Prodded by West Virginia’s Robert C. Byrd, who has since died, Majority Leader Harry Reid kept the Senate in pro forma session. Some advisers urged Mr. Bush to ignore the Senate and make recess appointments anyway, but he declined. Now Mr. Reid is supporting Mr. Obama’s decision to make an end run around a Senate practice that he pioneered.
Some lawyers we respect argue that a pro forma session isn’t a real Congressional session, and that’s certainly worth debating. But that isn’t the view that Mr. Reid or then-Senator Obama took in 2007-08, and it would certainly be an extension of Presidential power for the chief executive to be able to tell Congress that he can decide when Congress is really sitting and when it isn’t. In any event, that still wouldn’t explain the violation of the language in Section 5 above.
Here: http://lonelyconservative.com/2012/01/on-obamas-recess-appointments-dont-try-saying-bush-did-it/
Funny to hear liberals use the actions of a man they absolutely loathed as a defense of their own power-grabbing chicanery.
Of course, as indicated above, if you knew what you were talking about, you would have realized that Bush never even dreamed of attempting the breach of the Constitution that came so easily to Barack Obama...so you'll need to come up with something else.
Blaming Bush is so 2008...
I think he can make that argument...especially now when the rhetoric and rancor are at a fever pitch. It would be interesting to see what happens, or if they even try to challenge this since the republican house methods are just so Bush, so to speak. I would venture that you could make an argument by saying that no quorum was present, so how could it possibly be in session. Like I said, it would be interesting. The SC has interpreted the Constitution in stranger ways.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I was not "blaming Bush"...just pointing out that all the Presidents have used recess appointments, as I said in the beginning of my comment.