Obama Recess Appointments Unconstitutional

The Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit held today that President Obama abused his power in making recess appointments to the NLRB and cannot make such appointments when Congress is out of town for days or weeks, but only when a session of Congress has been permanently adjourned, which means at the end of the year.

It further held that he can make recess appointments only for vacancies that come up when the Senate has adjourned.

So unless the Supreme Court overturns this ruling, the whole recess appointment thing is pretty much over.

If the Senate would act on nominations as it’s supposed to, recess appointments wouldn’t be an issue.  And the ATF wouldn’t still be without a director after six years.  Isn’t that an abuse of the Senate’s power?

 

Paranoid Fringe 1, Newtown Children 0

Crazies in and out of Congress are threatening to impeach President Obama over his executive actions on guns.

Yes, those actions are very scary.

For example, he is going to nominate a director for the ATF.

He’s going to begin a conversation about mental health.

He’s going to begin a campaign to emphasize safe and responsible gun ownership.

He’s going to clarify what mental health services Medicaid must provide.

He’s going to offer additional training for active shooter situations.

Nominations and conversations and campaigns and clarifications and training, oh my!

All of the executive actions he outlined today are pretty wimpy and none of them can be interpreted as taking away anyone’s Second Amendment rights.

All the big stuff, the meaningful stuff is going to Congress, and it looks as if we may get better background checks, but we won’t get a ban on assault weapons or large ammo clips.

I can’t believe that this moment is going to slip away, but now I think it is.  And if Sandy Hook doesn’t get us to act, I have no idea what will.

It’s awful enough that those beautiful children and brave teachers died.  Even worse is that they will have died in vain.  Even worse is that the paranoid fringe is going to win.

Mr. President, Please Read Fortune’s Fast and Furious Article

A day before the House votes on whether Attorney General Eric Holder is in contempt, Fortune magazine is up with a piece* based on a six-month investigation which finds that the ATF never intentionally allowed “gun walking,” as both lawmakers and the media have assumed.

I encourage beg you to read the whole article and get everyone you know to read it, but here are some excerpts:

“Quite simply, there’s a fundamental misconception at the heart of the Fast and Furious scandal.  Nobody disputes that suspected straw purchasers under surveillance by the ATF repeatedly bought guns that eventually fell into criminal hands.  Issa and others charge that the ATF intentionally allowed guns to walk as an operational tactic.  But five law-enforcement agents directly involved in Fast and Furious tell Fortune that the ATF had no such tactic.  They insist they never purposefully allowed guns to be illegally trafficked.  Just the opposite:  They say they seized weapons whenever they could but were hamstrung by prosecutors and weak laws, which stymied them at every turn.

“Indeed, a six-month Fortune investigation reveals that the public case alleging that [head Phoenix ATF agent] Voth and his colleagues walked guns is replete with distortions, errors, partial truths, and even some outright lies.  Fortune reviewed more than 2,000 pages of confidential ATF documents and interviewed 39 people, including seven law-enforcement agents with direct knowledge of the case.  Several, including Voth, are speaking out for the first time.

“How Fast and Furious reached the headlines is a strange and unsettling saga, one that reveals a lot about politics and media today.  It’s a story that starts with a grudge, specifically [ATF agent] Dodson’s anger at [his boss] Voth.  After the terrible murder of agent Terry, Dodson made complaints that were then amplified, first by right-wing bloggers, then by CBS.  Rep. Issa and other politicians then seized those elements to score points against the Obama administration….

“Republican senators are whipping up the country into a psychotic frenzy with these reports that are patently false,” says Linda Wallace, a special agent with the Internal Revenue Service’s criminal investigation unit who was assigned to the Fast and Furious team (and recently retired from the IRS).  A self-described gun-rights supporter, Wallace has not been criticized by Issa’s committee.

“The ATF’s accusers seem untroubled by evidence that the policy they have pilloried didn’t actually exist.

“Irony abounds when it comes to the Fast and Furious scandal.  But the ultimate irony is this:  Republicans who support the National Rifle Association and its attempts to weaken gun laws are lambasting ATF agents for not seizing enough weapons — ones that, in this case, prosecutors deemed to be legal.”  Italics in original, emphasis added.

To me this isn’t  irony,  it just shows that however much the GOP loves guns, they hate Obama more.  Fast and Furious may be a Seinfeld Scandal —  a scandal about nothing. 

Much as I’d love to blame Fox, CBS initially behaved shamefully here, believing the bad apple (Dodson) over the good apple (Voth) and taking Voth’s email out of context to say he was referring to gunwalking, when he was not.

* “The truth about the Fast and Furious scandal,” Katherine Eban