America, do you love your GOP legislators? Do you love the fact that they can just get stone-cold obstreperous and block things like relief for hurricane victims ? Did you like the march right up to the edge of the goddamn fiscal cliff ? We bet you did! There's nothing funner than governing by petulance! So, we know you'll super-love, like want to have sexytime levels of love with, the idea that the GOP members of the senate can cockblock Bamz' National Labor Relations Board picks -- or anything else he wants to do, we guess -- pretty much forever:
In an embarrassing setback for President Barack Obama, a federal appeals court ruled Friday that he violated the Constitution in making recess appointments last year, a decision that would severely curtail the president's ability to bypass the Senate to fill administration vacancies.
The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said Obama did not have the power to make three recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board because the Senate was officially in session - and not in recess - at the time. If the decision stands, it could invalidate hundreds of board decisions made over the past year.
Are you confused? Are you thinking "goddamn those fuckers in the Senate went home for like 20 days how is that not a fucking recess?" THAT IS WHAT WE ARE THINKING TOO BUT WE ARE ALL WRONG. Apparently the GOP makes sure the Senate stays in session by leaving some poor sod behind to open and close Senate sessions every couple days -- sometimes leaving the Senate open for LESS THAN A MINUTE, just to block Obummer's nominations. Democracy, yo. So, the court ruled that because the Senate never technically went into recess, Obama could never make recess appointments so all the appointments to NLRB get voided AND the GOP gets nice reinforcement for their bad behavior and will do this again and again and again.
The GOP is especially interested in blocking nominations to the NLRB because, unsurprisingly, they HATES it:
The court's decision is a victory for Republicans and business groups that have been attacking the labor board for issuing a series of decisions and rules that make it easier for the nation's labor unions to organize new members... Obama made the recess appointments after Senate Republicans blocked his choices for an agency they contended was biased in favor of unions.
How DARE anyone ever affirm that unions are worthwhile and allow people to organize? Who needs protection from the bossman? Only fucking weenies, that's who! Free us from the tyranny of unions and safety regulations, GOP, and we can return to these glorious days:
One hundred years ago on March 25, fire spread through the cramped Triangle Waist Company garment factory on the 8th, 9th and 10th floors of the Asch Building in lower Manhattan. Workers in the factory, many of whom were young women recently arrived from Europe, had little time or opportunity to escape. The rapidly spreading fire killed 146 workers.
The building had only one fire escape, which collapsed during the rescue effort. Long tables and bulky machines trapped many of the victims. Panicked workers were crushed as they struggled with doors that were locked by managers to prevent theft, or doors that opened the wrong way.
FUCK YEAH FREEDOM.
If you want someone to, you know, actually explain this instead of just yelling, the good folks over at Lawyers, Guns & Money have a good summary of why the lead judge writing this decision is a fucking hack. Fair warning: reading it will likely just make you even madder. Yay?!
[ AP / Lawyers, Guns & Money ]
Zeus?
Since January 21, 2009, more or less.