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I heard Mark Levin last night. I heard Rush Limbaugh today. I am hearing Sean Hannity. They were discussing Obama non-recess appointments. Who else have "you" listened to today? I have been waiting for what is supposed to be done about this situation and is possible I missed something? They have pointed out how wrong it was, unconstitutional etc but okay , what now? That is besides fuming , and getting angry and holding our breathe until November.

What is a recess? Constitution doesn't specifyBy ALAN FRAM Associated Press Updated: Jan 05, 2012 10:32 AM EST (AP) - The Constitution lets presidents make temporary appointments while the Senate is in recess but does not specify what a recess is or how long one must last before that power can be exercised. That ambiguity, courtesy of the founding fathers, is helping fuel a battle between President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans over whether he had legally installed Richard Cordray on Wednesday to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, along with three others he named to the National Labor...

Do you have information about a company that you think has violated federal consumer financial laws? Are you a current or former employee of such a company, an industry insider who knows about such a company, or even a competitor being unfairly undercut by such a company? If so, the CFPB wants to hear from you. Tipsters and whistleblowers are encouraged to send information about what they know to whistleblower@cfpb.gov. Current employees providing information about their own employers – known as “whistleblowers” – may be protected from being fired or from other employer retaliation for providing us information. To learn...

CIUDAD VICTORIA, Mexico – A vicious fight among inmates armed with makeshift knives, clubs and even stones left 31 people dead in a prison in a drug cartel-plagued state in northern Mexico, authorities said. Another 13 prisoners were wounded in the brawl in the penitentiary in the Gulf Coast city of Altamira, Tamaulipas state's Public Safety Department said in a statement. The fight started when a group of inmates burst into a section of the prison they were banned from and attacked the prisoners housed there, the department said. Local media said the fight was between members of the rival...

Republican lawmaker: Obama recess appointment is attack on ConstitutionBy Pete Kasperowicz - 01/04/12 12:39 PM ET House Financial Services Committee Chairman Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) on Wednesday predicted that the Obama administration's decision to recess-appoint Richard Cordray as director of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) would lead to numerous legal challenges against the agency that will render it unable to function for the foreseeable future. "President Obama has delegitimized the CFPB and has opened the agency up to legitimate legal challenges that will cripple it for years," Bachus said. "The greatest threat to our economy right now is uncertainty,...

The recess appointments President Obama announced Wednesday are “almost certain” to be challenged in court, according to a top official with the nation’s largest business lobby. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has not decided whether it will file a legal challenge to the appointments, according to David Hirschmann, who heads the Chamber’s Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness. But he said he’s confident that Obama’s precedent-shattering move will land the administration in court. "We've made no decisions ourselves," Hirschmann told The Hill. "What we do know is ... it's almost certain ultimately a court will decide if what the president did...

The Senate is famed for its long-winded debates, but on Friday it took Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown just seconds to stop Republicans in their tracks. With the Senate entering the first day of its Memorial Day recess, the Ohio senator was briefly in the chair, before a near-empty chamber, to gavel in and gavel out what is called a pro forma session. Without that procedural move, the Senate would technically be adjourned and President Bush could install administration officials or judges as "recess appointments" — without Senate confirmation. "That's the fastest I've ever done it," said Brown, who like other...

It isn’t just Richard Cordray. Obama is also set to use recess appointments to install his picks to the National Labor Relations Board, according to White House officials and others familiar with ongoing discussions. The move, which is arguably as impotant as the Cordray appointment, will ratchet up opposition from Republicans and make this an even bigger fight, since they have been attacking the NLRB regularly for its moves to streamline union elections and inform workers of their rights. Obama is set to appoint Sharon Block, Terence Flynn, and Richard Griffin to the board — something unions have made a...

Senate Republicans have tried to prevent the White House from acting by keeping the Senate technically in “pro forma” session until senators return to Washington later this month. One way around the GOP maneuvering would have been for the White House to appoint Mr. Cordray during the short window in between congressional sessions. That window was open Tuesday morning, and some expected Mr. Obama to act then. But he didn’t, and administration officials maintained that they still have all options on the table. That’s because the White House has concluded that it can make the appointment even if the Senate...

The men and women of Congress haven’t yet adjourned for Christmas and Barack Obama hasn’t yet boarded Air Force One to begin his $4 million trip to Hawaii, but Republicans in the Senate have already begun to think of what might happen while they’re in recess. Namely, they’ve realized the president might appoint a couple of partisans to the National Labor Relations Board when they’re not around to advise and consent. So, all 47 Republican senators signed and sent a letter to the president admonishing him not to do that. They write: Appointments to the NLRB have traditionally been made...

Senate Republicans blocked confirmation votes on two of President Obama's most high-profile nominees this week — one for a seat on a federal appeals court, the other to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Traditionally, the end-of-the-year holidays have allowed presidents to bypass Congress and give such thwarted nominees recess appointments. But an angry President Obama is quickly leaning that this might not be the case this year. Obama insisted, "I will not take any options off the table when it comes to getting Richard Cordray in as director of the consumer finance protection board." The only way the...

Senate Dems discuss canceling July 4 recessBy Erik Wasson - 06/29/11 03:27 PM ET Senate Democrats will discuss canceling the July 4 recess after President Obama chided Congress publicly on Wednesday for taking breaks while debt-ceiling talks are stalled. A Democratic aide confirmed Wednesday that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and the caucus will discuss being in town next week. During his press conference, Obama said "if by the end of this week, we have not seen substantial progress, then I think members of Congress need to understand, we are going to, you know, start having to cancel things...

Freshman Congressman Jeff Landry, R-La., says that President Obama is misusing recess appointments, and he's going to do something about it. "When the president puts up nominees, they go through the confirmation process, and the senate blocks them or doesn't confirm them, and then he waits for a recess appointment just to appoint those people. He is circumventing the Constitution," said Landry on Fox News Saturday.

Congress has been running around and installing child-safety locks on various aspects of the Presidency over the past few days. First, House Republicans announced they would not be sending an adjournment resolution to the Senate for the Memorial Day break. “We will remain in pro forma session,” explained Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC), who urged the House to take this remarkable step. “No controversial nominees will be allowed to circumvent the confirmation process during the break.” No recess means no recess appointments. Neat. ((READ ON))

Racine, Wisc. Did you hear the news? Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan, the architect of the House Republicans' budget, was booed! By his own constituents! The video of said town hall booing was clipped by the liberal blog ThinkProgress, zipped around the Internet, and then moved up the conveyor belt to CNN, MSNBC, NPR, NBC's Nightly News, Comedy Central's The Daily Show, and other media outlets. And so the "budget backlash" narrative began. "Chairman Ryan, the people, including your constituents, are talking,” House minority leader Nancy Pelosi said in response to the video. “Are you listening?" (Yes, this is the same...

On Wednesday, Obama shed any pretense of bipartisanship in making six recess appointments. As were his previous recess appointments, this batch included two individuals whose records are so controversial that they could not obtain confirmation even with 59 Democratic senators. Also included was Stephen Ford, nominated as ambassador to Syria and stymied as a forceful rebuttal to Obama's failed Syrian engagement policy... The most egregious appointment is undoubtedly James Cole, installed as the deputy attorney general. There were good reasons why he could not secure Senate confirmation. The Web site Main Justice explained that Sen. Jeff Sessions (R.-Ala.), the ranking...

Sarah Palin deserves an apology. When she said that the new health-care law would lead to "death panels" deciding who gets life-saving treatment and who does not, she was roundly denounced and ridiculed. Now we learn, courtesy of one of the ridiculers -- The New York Times -- that she was right. Under a new policy not included in the law for fear the administration's real end-of-life game would be exposed, a rule issued by the recess-appointed Dr. Donald M. Berwick, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

A headline I just saw on Rollcall.com. My thought is that it's good they are leaving Washington. That is less time for them to harm the country.

The Constitution requires the “advice and consent of the Senate” on certain presidential appointments. Not all, mind you, just some, such as ambassadors and public ministers whom the Congress has not actively exempted from the requirement. This is fortunate for the busy Senate, since our overgrown executive branch now employs about two million civilians across some 1300 federal agencies. The Constitution allows most of these aptly-named “inferior officers” to be appointed without Congressional vetting. Since Congress has the Constitutional right to decide which roles require Senate approval, a really active role in executive personnel management could utterly paralyze that body...

Press Releases Contact: Brendan Daly/Nadeam Elshami 202-226-7616 For Immediate Release 08/09/2010 Pelosi Statement on Republican Opposition to Jobs Bill Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi released the following statement today in advance of tomorrow’s vote to create or save 310,000 American jobs – preserving the jobs of teachers, nurses, firefighters, and police officers, and boosting the private sector – and in response to Republican plans reiterated on the Sunday talk shows yesterday to extend tax cuts for the wealthiest few Americans and protect tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas: “Taking a page out of the failed Bush playbook,...