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Donald Berwick, the rationing advocate President Barack Obama nominated to head the U.S. Medicare and Medicaid programs in the face of opposition from pro-life advocates, has quite his post in the Obama administration. Because he is unable to get enough votes in the Senate to approve his nomination, his recess appointment will end and Berwick has decided to stop down from his position as the chief implementor of Obamacare, the health care law pro-life groups opposed because its prompts concerns about abortion funding, rationing, and fails to protect the conscience rights of medical workers.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The point man for carrying out President Barack Obama’s health care law will be stepping down after Republicans succeeded in blocking his confirmation by the Senate, an official said Wednesday. Medicare chief Don Berwick, a Harvard professor widely respected for his ideas on how to improve the health care system, became the most prominent casualty of the political wars over a health care overhaul law whose constitutionality will be now decided by the Supreme Court. Berwick’s Dec. 2 resignation was confirmed by a senior congressional official, speaking on condition of anonymity ahead of an announcement by the...

A proposed federal health insurance regulation set to take effect next year requires insurers to provide consumers with explanatory summaries of their plans, but the insurance industry contends this could be costly to enrollees, and offer little benefit. The new rule – part of the $1 trillion Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare – was announced Wednesday by Donald Berwick, President Obama's recess appointee to be director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Berwick has never been confirmed or subjected to a confirmation hearing by a Democrat-controlled Senate.

On June 7, 1995, KFOR-TV broadcast its first story in which witnesses Magazine Cover featuring Jayna Davis: Oklahoma Woman identified the disgruntled Gulf War veteran, Firefighter with child bombing victim Timothy McVeigh, drinking beer with a swarthy, soft-spoken foreigner in an Oklahoma City tavern. Those brief moments of television history launched Jayna's decade long quest to unveil the Middle East's hand in the heartland massacre. In 2001, she founded a non-profit corporation, Journalists' Committee for Justice, Inc, which has carried on the mission to seek justice for those who perished. In April 2004, Nelson Current Publishers released the New York...

WASHINGTON — The Health and Human Services Department is telling the state of Indiana that its Medicaid plan, which bans funding to Planned Parenthood, is illegal and must be changed. In a letter sent to Indiana's Medicaid director, and obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday, Medicaid Administrator Donald M. Berwick says Indiana's plan will improperly bar Medicaid beneficiaries from receiving services. Berwick writes that federal law requires Medicaid beneficiaries to be able to obtain services from any provider qualified to provide services.

May 19, 2011 Boy may have been killed in Hampton Staff and Wire Reports The Daily News of Newburyport Thu May 19, 2011, 03:59 AM EDT HAMPTON, N.H. — State police have cordoned off the parking lot at Stone Gable Inn on Route 1, searching for evidence of whether 6-year-old Camden Pierce Hughes was killed there. Camden's body was found Saturday in South Berwick, Maine, just over the New Hampshire border. Yesterday morning, his mother, Julianne McCrery, 41, of Irving, Texas, was taken into custody at the Chelmsford, Mass., rest stop on Interstate 495, just south of Lowell. She reportedly...

Professors gone wild. That is the only conclusion you can come to when you apply Sherlock Holmes' astute dictum to the striking similarities between the widespread failures of American education and government, institutions universally dominated by a self-proclaimed "educated class." Think about what the great fictional detective said: "Once you eliminate the impossible whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth." And so extracting the truth underlying the dysfunction of what the inimitable James Lewis more correctly terms our national corps of "educated idiots" (or, as our Harvard-educated president puts it more accurately, "corpse") one finds...professors. Professors have...

Professors gone wild. That is the only conclusion you can come to when you apply Sherlock Holmes' astute dictum to the striking similarities between the widespread failures of American education and government, institutions universally dominated by a self-proclaimed "educated class." Think about what the great fictional detective said: "Once you eliminate the impossible whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth." And so extracting the truth underlying the dysfunction of what the inimitable James Lewis more correctly terms our national corps of "educated idiots" (or, as our Harvard-educated president puts it more accurately, "corpse") one finds...professors. Professors have...

Elderly people in the Netherlands are so fearful of being killed by doctors that they carry cards saying they do not want euthanasia, according to a campaigner who says allowing assistant suicide in Britain would put the vulnerable at risk. [...] In an article published on BMJ.com on Friday, Mr Fitzpatrick wrote: “Disabled people, like others, and often with more reason, need to feel safe. Thus eroding what may already be a shaky sense of safety in medical care poses a further threat to disabled people’s wellbeing...and life itself.” He cited the experience of Baroness Campbell of Surbiton, the disabled...

(CNSNews.com) – At a press conference on Tuesday to announce the allocation of $1 billion in federal funding to improve patient health in the nation’s hospitals, Donald Berwick, administrator for the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), compared the new health care law, which requires more government control, to other products that have become better and cheaper over time in the marketplace, without more government control. Berwick said health care is “just like any other important segment of our economy” and “doing it right” will cost less in the long run. “Computers today do more than they ever...

Washington (CNSNews.com) – The Obama administration is standing “firmly” behind the nomination of Dr. Donald Berwick -- who was recess-appointed without Senate confirmation last summer to run Medicare and Medicaid -- despite growing Republican opposition because of his controversial comments, such as the remark that a “civilized and humane” health care funding plan “must redistribute wealth.” “The president stands firmly behind the nomination of Don Berwick because he’s far and away the best person for the job, and he’s already doing stellar work at CMS saving taxpayer dollars by cracking down on fraud, and implementing delivery system reforms that...

Barack Obama’s renomination of Donald Berwick to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) came as a surprise on Capitol Hill. Presidents do not usually renominate recess appointments after a recess ends their term unless the recess appointment was a true emergency or the President in question wants to make a point. In Berwick’s case the decision makes even less sense, as Obama gave the controversial Berwick the recess appointment without even allowing the Senate to hold a single hearing when his party had nearly a supermajority in the Senate. Indeed, Berwick didn’t even do the Senate the...

According to Politico, President Obama will be forced to abandon his controversial nomination of Donald Berwick as the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Politico reports that "Senate Democrats have given up on confirming Don Berwick as CMS administrator in the wake of a letter from 42 Republican senators opposing the nomination," as "there's no way for Berwick to get the 60 votes needed to clear the Senate." As with his various "czars," President Obama had previously circumvented the Senate confirmation process (despite having a Democratically controlled Senate) to install Berwick in his post. He had...

According to Politico , President Obama will be forced to abandon his controversial nomination of Donald Berwick as the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Politico reports that “Senate Democrats have given up on confirming Don Berwick as CMS administrator in the wake of a letter from 42 Republican senators opposing the nomination,” as “there's no way for Berwick to get the 60 votes needed to clear the Senate.” As with his various “czars,” President Obama had previously circumvented the Senate confirmation process (despite having a Democratically controlled Senate) to install Berwick in his post....

Senate Democrats have given up on confirming Don Berwick as CMS administrator in the wake of a letter from 42 Republican senators opposing the nomination, sources tell POLITICO. Citing the GOP letter, a person familiar with the situation said Senate Democrats and the White House "can do the arithmetic" and now see that there's no way for Berwick to get the 60 votes needed to clear the Senate. At a meeting with health care lobbyists Friday, Democratic Senate Finance Committee staffers indicated that the nomination is dead, that there will be no confirmation hearing, and that they'll soon be discussing...

In Robert Louis Stevenson's famous novella about the duality of human nature, a minor character describes Mr. Hyde thus: "There is something wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, something down-right detestable. I never saw a man I so disliked." It is difficult to avoid similar feelings of revulsion watching the C-SPAN video of Dr. Donald Berwick's alter ego testifying at the February 10 hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee. His disingenuous opening remarks, evasive answers, and transparent contempt for congressional oversight revealed Obama's recess-appointed administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) as a grotesque changeling. Gone...

With little fanfare, Rationer-in-Chief Donald Berwick, President Obama’s choice to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, appeared before the House Ways and Means Committee and did his best impression of Gumby – twisting and turning his support for rationing health care. Berwick has championed the British health care system for years proclaiming his outright support of rationing. In 2009, Berwick said, “The decision is not whether or not we will ration care — the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open.” In a 2008 speech, Berwick proclaimed, “I am romantic about the NHS; I love...

Reform: As the head of Medicaid and Medicare services testifies in favor of ObamaCare, the CBO director says it will destroy 800,000 jobs. Talk about killing two birds with one stone. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi once famously said that we'd have to pass ObamaCare to see what was in it. She also boasted that the health care bill would create 4 million jobs — "400,000 of them almost immediately." Now that we've seen what's in it, we realize the possible consequences for our physical and economic health. And congressional testimony before GOP-led committees has given us fresh reasons for...

President Obama’s renomination of Don Berwick to lead the Medicare agency means that the controversial healthcare leader will finally have to face the public grilling that Republicans have been aching to give him. Berwick, who has been panned by Republicans for what they describe as his radical views on healthcare rationing, was able to avoid a Senate Finance Committee hearing before his recess appointment in July. Since then, he has rebuffed several requests from Republicans to share his views, even as he has taken to the much friendlier lecture circuit to spread the administration’s message. Berwick has stoked Republican fears...

Complete title: Sen. Rand Paul: Medicare Chief Berwick Is Qualified to Run Health Care System -- In England or Sweden (CNSNews.com) – Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said that Dr. Donald Berwick, re-nominated this week by President Obama to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), is qualified to oversee a nationwide health care system in England or Sweden.“I think Don Berwick would be a great head of health care in maybe England or Sweden or something,” Paul, an ophthalmologist, told CNSNews.com about Berwick, a pediatrician. “He said he admires the British system, so I think maybe we should...

Complete title: Medicare Chief Berwick Dodges Whether Obamcare Redistriutes Wealth, Which He Had Praised in Britain's Health System Washington (CNSNews.com) – Donald Berwick, recently re-nominated as Medicare chief, praised the new health care law in a speech on Thursday.  But he declined to say if it redistributed wealth from the rich to the poor, as he has previously said a "just" and "equitable" health care funding plan must do. President Barack Obama, who appointed Berwick in July 2010 during the congressional recess, allowing him to forego Senate confirmation, sent his name back to the Senate on Wednesday for consideration. Without...

President Obama has triggered a new fight with Republicans by re-nominating two controversial officials to key administration posts. Obama on Wednesday re-nominated former labor lawyer Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board, and Donald Berwick to serve as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

[Note: This is not a duplicate of http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2664090/posts as this thread is from a different source and contains information not in the other thread.] President Obama renominated Donald Berwick yesterday as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a pivotal position in implementing the president’s health care law. Using a recess appointment, Obama had placed Berwick, a Harvard professor and Boston pediatrician noted for his studies on improving health care without raising costs, into his post on July 7 after the Senate would not confirm him. Some Republicans contended Berwick’s positions could lead to care rationing; others hinted...

Buried in the mass of directives issued by the new head of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services was a little ol' regulation putting the government in the business of end-of-life consultations. Or what Sarah Palin in one of her unseemly flights of candor referred to as "death panels." But as soon as this regulation came to light, and the public reacted, not at all favorably, it was the regulation whose end had to be hastened. It's not just that the new provision was issued without the approval of Congress -- indeed, Congress refused to pass it after strenuous...

Health Care: Unable to attach it directly to ObamaCare, a new Medicare rule will offer incentive to doctors who advise patients on end-of-life care in a program that seeks to control costs. Connect those dots, grandma. The GOP House that comes in January has pledged to chip away, defund and neuter ObamaCare in any way it can, since outright repeal is problematical until 2012. President Obama's veto pen looms large, even if such a bill makes it through the Senate. Target one should be a Medicare regulation that says it will cover doctors as part of an annual covered "wellness"...

Sarah Palin was excoriated for making the entirely correct observation that when a government controls health care, rationing becomes inevitable. Democrats squealed like stuck pigs, but dropped the execrable end of life counseling language from ObamaCare. Undeterred, Obama used a recess appointment to afflict us with Dr. Donald Berwick who is unabashed in his affection for the deeply dysfunctional British health care system. Comrade Berwick heads the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and his positions on government control over health care are pretty plain.

When a politician tells you he wants to give you something for “free,” he really means it will be rationed. The currency of the State is compulsion – it has no other resource. Its money is extracted from taxpayers by force. Its mandates are implemented by force. The use of force to control distribution of a limited resource is rationing. It can be prettied up with flowery language and high minded promises - and of course a stiff measure of hatred for those who resist having their resources taken away to fulfill the promises of the State - but its...

When a proposal to encourage end-of-life planning touched off a political storm over “death panels,” Democrats dropped it from legislation to overhaul the health care system. But the Obama administration will achieve the same goal by regulation, starting Jan. 1. Under the new policy, outlined in a Medicare regulation, the government will pay doctors who advise patients on options for end-of-life care, which may include advance directives to forgo aggressive life-sustaining treatment. Congressional supporters of the new policy, though pleased, have kept quiet. They fear provoking another furor like the one in 2009 when Republicans seized on the idea of...

Medicine: The FDA has reversed its approval of a widely used cancer drug approved in Europe to treat breast cancer on the grounds it doesn't provide a "sufficient" benefit. Let the terminally ill and their doctors decide. One of the blessings of blocking the omnibus spending bill was that it included $1 billion for the implementation of ObamaCare. Yet the first effects are still being felt, the latest being the Food and Drug Administration's revoking of regulatory approval of Avastin to treat late-stage breast cancer. The reason given by the FDA was that the drug does not provide "a sufficient...

Medicare Administrator Donald Berwick, MD, and White House officials are about to hold a series of closed-door meetings with physicians and other providers on the healthcare reform law, according to a report by the Hill. An invitation to the meetings, which start Dec. 17, by White House health policy adviser Zeke Emanuel, MD, said they would be with "healthcare providers to exchange ideas on areas in need of attention." Becker's Hospital Review previously reported that CMS officials are expected to release proposed rules for accountable care organizations, part of the reform law, in the short week before Christmas. However, the...

President Barack Obama’s Medicare chief, rationing advocate Donald Berwick, says he is happy with ObamaCare in terms of how it redistributes wealth similar to the British health care system.Berwick is the man Obama appointed to implement ObamaCare and head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.He recently claimed he has backed away from some of his pro-rationing positions, but CNS News caught up with him at speech he delivered Friday at a conference sponsored by the National Committee for Quality Assurance.“Do you think the new health care law–President Obama’s health care law–does enough and a sufficient job to redistribute...

Is Donald Berwick, the controversial new head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, standing by the Obama administration’s double counting of savings in the new health care law? At a Senate hearing this morning, he declined to engage with official criticism of the administration's claim that the the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act extends the Medicare Trust Fund. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius has been pushing the line that the PPACA extends Medicare’s solvency for a while, despite pushback from both the Congressional Budget Office and Medicare's chief actuary, Richard Foster. And now Berwick...

Donald Berwick, Obama's nominee to head up the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, made himself infamous earlier this year when video came to light showing him telling a British audience how much he admired their socialist healthcare system because it "redistributes" the Brit's wealth. Berwick went all warm and fuzzy over the socialist features of the British National Health Service saying,“Any health care funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized, and humane must, must redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and the less fortunate. Excellent health care is by definition redistributional." The Heartland Institute had...

Lawmakers Unload on Medicare HeadNovember 17, 2010 1:16 PM ABC’s Brian Hartman Reports: **SNIP** Just three months after nominating him, President Obama used a recess appointment this summer to put Berwick in his post while the Senate was on break. Hatch said his constituents were “outraged” by Berwick’s recess appointment and he complained today’s hearing was too brief to cover the vastness of Republican health care concerns. “On November 2 the American people issued a clarion call for more transparency and responsiveness out of Washington,” Hatch said. “Obviously asking us to cover all our concerns in this hour-long hearing with...

Senate Republicans Tuesday took aim at President Obama's choice to oversee a key component of his health care overhaul plan, complaining about the way the choice was made and the lack of time given to lawmakers to question him. The Senate Finance Committee hearing was the first Capitol Hill public appearance by Donald M. Berwick, the Harvard Medical School professor who now heads the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. A lightning-rod for criticism for some of his past comments on health care rationing and economics, Mr. Berwick was named to the post this summer by Mr. Obama as a...

Dr. Donald Berwick has his coming out party today in Washington. After President Obama snuck him into office during a recess appointment as the head of the second largest health insurance company in the world- CMS (Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services) without so much as a single hearing, Senators finally have an opportunity to meet him during a Finance Committee meeting.

CMS head Donald Berwick faces congressional hot seat Dr. Donald Berwick, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, is facing a hot seat in Washington, D.C., tomorrow as he prepares for his first appearance in front of the U.S. Senate since a controversial recess appointment in July. Republican senators, led by healthcare hawk Charles Grassley of Iowa, are gearing up to grill Berwick on a number of issues, according to the Politico website. “Dr. Berwick was recess appointed before he had even a nomination hearing before the committee of jurisdiction,” Grassley told the website in prepared remarks. “The...

If and when a new Congress comes in, the fastest way to eliminate Obamacare will be by shutting down its "operating system" the Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services and investigating its unconfirmed director, Donald Berwick. And it should start by pulling the plug on Berwick's Triple Aim Program and the billions of dollars he has for implementing it. The Triple Aim Program (TAP) focuses on "improving the patient experience, improving population health and lowering per capita health care costs." Berwick claims that all three are achievable not through consumer driven healthcare. In various speeches and slide presentations, Berwick claims...

(CNSNews.com) – A coalition of health care groups is urging Congress to withhold money for implementing the new health care law as a means of forcing the controversial new Medicare chief – who bypassed the Senate confirmation process through a recess appointment – to at least answer questions from members of the coalition.Marking three months since President Barack Obama recess-appointed Dr. Donald Berwick to be administrator of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), six groups sent a letter to members of Congress about Berwick, who has openly advocated the rationing of health care and argued that “humane”...

After Donald Berwick's controversial recess appointment to head the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), his allies claimed that he was preparing a "point-by-point" rebuttal to his critics. Berwick does have a lot of explaining to do, after all. He's publically romanticized Britain's government-run healthcare and is on the record arguing that most cities should ration the “number of centers engaging” in "cardiac surgery," "neonatal intensive care" and "cancer care." It's been three months now since his recess appointment, and still no word from the new CMS director. In fact, Berwick hasn't granted any interviews, refuses to testify before...

The Berwick ChroniclesBerwick Pretends to Change Spots on RationingObama resubmitted his pick to run the Medicare and Medicaid programs to the Senate on Monday, two months after bypassing the body with a recess appointment- Donald BerwickBerwick-Linked Advocacy Group Spearheaded ‘Torture’ Campaign against American Officials- Obama has appointed Donald Berwick, a board member of Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), to head Medicare. While participating in an EU-funded project on “documenting” torture charges, PHR took aim at America.Democrats Refuse to Hold Medicare Rationing Czar Hearing; Won't discuss BerwickBerwick battle escalates: GOP introduces resolution calling recess appointment ‘abuse of power’Obama, without fanfare, submitted...

Medicine: After the recess appointment of a Medicare and Medicaid head, an FDA panel drops its endorsement of a widely used cancer drug. Another FDA-approved cancer therapy may not be paid for. It begins. It didn't take long for the health care philosophy of Dr. Donald Berwick, President Obama's choice to head the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services, and an appointee we have labeled a "one-man death panel," to have an effect. Berwick is an admirer of Britain's National Health Service and its National Institute for Clinical Excellence, with the Orwellian-acronym NICE. "NICE," Berwick has said, "is extremely effective...

Just days after the recess appointment of Donald Berwick, the controversial new head of Medicare and Medicaid, the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance posted the following grim news: for the first time in history, an FDA-approved anti-cancer therapy may not be covered by Medicare.

American seniors take note: There's a new bureaucrat in charge of your health care. Perhaps zookeeper is a more appropriate title, as the newly appointed but never-to-be confirmed head of Obama's Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) likes to refer to the U.S. health care payment system as a zoo. If you haven't heard of Dr. Donald Berwick, that's because President Obama and his Capitol Hill Democratic colleagues don't want you to have this information. After leaving the post vacant, Obama snuck him in on Independence Day weekend with a recess appointment. A Washington Post columnist admiringly called the...

Washington (CNSNews.com) – At a press conference on Wednesday, Senators Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) indicated they were open to filibustering any and all legislation by Republicans in the Senate until a confirmation hearing is held for Dr. Donald Berwick, who was recently recess-appointed by President Obama to head the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Dr. Berwick is controversial because he supports rationing health care services, has said a “just” health care funding plan “must redistribute wealth,” and has praised Britain’s government-run National Health Service. President Obama nominated Berwick back in April and then recess-appointed him on...

THE BRIEFING ROOM • THE BLOG THE BLOG TUESDAY, AUGUST 4TH, 2009 AT 6:55 AM Facts Are Stubborn Things Posted by Macon Phillips Opponents of health insurance reform may find the truth a little inconvenient, but as our second president famously said, "facts are stubborn things." Scary chain emails and videos are starting to percolate on the internet, breathlessly claiming, for example, to "uncover" the truth about the President’s health insurance reform positions. In this video, Linda Douglass, the communications director for the White House’s Health Reform Office, addresses one example that makes it look like the President intends to...

Complete title: Britain’s National Health Service, Praised by Obama’s Medicare Chief, To Undergo Cost-Cutting Overhaul (CNSNews.com) – Britain’s National Health Service (NHS), which rations basic health care services to control costs, will undergo major budget cuts and restructuring ostensibly to make the government-run system less bureaucratic and more decentralized, according to detailed news reports over the weekend from the United Kingdom.  Dr. Donald Berwick, who was recently given a recess-appointment by President Barack Obama to run the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in America, has praised Britain’s National Health Service, saying he loves the single-payer system.  In a July...

How does Dr. Berwick hope to control the billions of decisions made by practicing physicians every day? Daniel Henniger, in his Wonder Land column, has some revealing, and frightening, quotations: “The unaided human mind, and the acts of the individual, cannot assure excellence. Health care is a system, and its performance is a systemic property.” “I would place a commitment to excellence standardization to the best-known method above clinician autonomy as a rule for care.” “Young doctors and nurses should emerge from training understanding the values of standardization and the risks of too great an emphasis on individual autonomy.” The...

Barack Obama's incredible "recess appointment" of Dr. Donald Berwick to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is probably the most significant domestic-policy personnel decision in a generation. It is more important to the direction of the country than Elena Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court. The court's decisions are subject to the tempering influence of nine competing minds. Dr. Berwick would direct an agency that has a budget bigger than the Pentagon. Decisions by the CMS shape American medicine. Dr. Berwick's ideas on the design and purpose of the U.S. system of medicine aren't merely about "change."...

Kansas Republican Sen. Pat Roberts has just introduced an amendment calling for the Senate to declare the recess appointment of Medicare and Medicaid chief Donald Berwick “an abuse of power.” The nonbinding “sense of the Senate” resolution also calls on Berwick to appear before the Senate Finance Committee to answer questions. The measure is designed to send a message to the White House that Republicans remain angry about President Obama’s decision to short-circuit the confirmation process, before a hearing was held for Berwick, and put Berwick in the job by recess appointment. The president blamed the GOP for its potential,...