SCotUS: Barack Obama’s recess appointments were invalid.

Shocking and surprising absolutely nobody at all.  Leon Wolf did an excellent job at expressing his scorn for President Barack ‘I’m a Constitutional Scholar!’ Obama’s ridiculous position that the Senate is in recess when the President says that it is; I’ll merely add that the President was one Justice away from having the entire situation blow up for every President from now on, forever.  Because Barack Obama seems determined to be the guy who makes sure that Presidents can’t have nice things, apparently.

National Labor Relations Board begs Supreme Court for a miracle.

Because they’re going to need one:

Today, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) announced it will seek U.S. Supreme Court review of the D.C. Circuit’s decision invalidating the President’s recess appointments to the NLRB. In January, the court ruled that the three “recess” appointments to the NLRB are invalid because they exceeded the scope of the President’s authority under the Recess Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The NLRB’s petition will be due by April 25, 2013.

The really short version is that the NLRB is currently facing a scenario where every single one of its decisions that were reached after Obama’s invalid recess appointments can be overthrown just as soon as any particular loser of said decisions can get it into court.  For that matter, as the rule stands now the courts have more or less invalidated the current system of recess appointments entirely; which ruling is a disaster for the executive branch, and one that the NLRB really, really needs the Supreme Court to overturn.

Which is why they’re going to court.  At this point simply getting the recess appointment thing turned back on again would be a bit of a win.  If you define ‘win’ nicely, or at least non-judgmentally.

Moe Lane

Continue reading National Labor Relations Board begs Supreme Court for a miracle.

White House: The DC Circuit Court has made its NLRB decision…

now let it enforce it:

President Obama’s spokesman denounced the invalidation of the so-called ‘recess’ appointments as a “novel and unprecedented ruling,” adding that the decision has “no impact on the ongoing operations of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

“The decision is novel and unprecedented,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said during the press briefing. “It contradicts 150 years of practice by Democratic and Republican administrations. so, we respectfully but strongly disagree with the ruling.” Carney said that over 280 intrasession recess appointments have been made since 1867.

And, thanks to the Obama administration, that particular little political pressure valve may be clamped shut forever! All because Barack Obama and his team of N-dimensional geniuses apparently don’t know how to deal with people who will tell them “No.” Continue reading White House: The DC Circuit Court has made its NLRB decision…

Federal appeals court nixes Obama’s recess appointments.

Boom.

In a case freighted with major constitutional implications, a federal appeals court on Friday overturned President Obama’s controversial recess appointments from last year, ruling he abused his powers and acted when the Senate was not actually in a recess.

The three-judge panel’s ruling is a major blow to Mr. Obama. The judges ruled that the appointments Mr. Obama made to the National Labor Relations Board are illegal, and the board no longer has a quorum to operate.

But the ruling has even broader constitutional significance, with the judges arguing that the president’s recess appointment powers don’t apply to “intrasession” appointments — those made when Congress has left town for a few days or weeks.

We got our specialists over at RedState working out the consequences to this one – the only thing that I’m a specialist at, frankly, is at being an absolutely insufferable [expletive deleted] – but the short version is that if this gets upheld by the Supremes (and the thinking is that the court is going to either uphold the smaller decision 7-2, or 9-0) then pretty much every favor Barack Obama’s done Big Labor lately ain’t worth diddly.

Yes.  Weep, my droogies.  Weep.

Moe Lane

PS: Constitutional scholar, my [expletive deleted].

#rsrh [NLRB]’s* Craig Becker under ethics investigation.

Mark Tapscott calls this the “least surprising news of the week:” [NLRB]* recess appointee Craig Becker is under investigation for ethics violations.

Aside from impartiality, the other concern about Becker was that the former associate general counsel for the radical Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and AFL-CIO lawyer would be embroiled with conflicts of interest regarding unions he’s now charged with overseeing.

Sure enough, on June 2, Becker joined in on an NLRB decision involving SEIU Local 1957 and denied St. Barnabas Hospital’s request to review a union election. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Ranking Member Darrell Issa, R-Calif., asked the Inspector General to examiner Becker’s conflict of interest in the matter. An investigation is underway.

 Continue reading #rsrh [NLRB]’s* Craig Becker under ethics investigation.