Circumventing Reality

President Obama appointed Richard Cordray as the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau during congress' winter recess. He did this because in the Republicans' usual manner of putting party before country, they blocked every effort to this appointment in the past. And stated they will continue to do so until the Consumer Protection Bureau's power is whittled down to pointless. Because they don't want people to be protected from corporations' and banks' ability to squeeze every last fucking penny from you using hidden fees, predatory lending and 400% interest rates on payday loans. Follow the profits.

And now that it has a director, the CFPB can be properly funded – against the wishes of the Republican Party. (I went into more detail about this in the December 12, 2011 post, “Filibuster Me? Filibuster You!”)

Republicans claim this move is an unprecedented power-grab by the President. Kentucky Senator Mitch "Yertle" McConnell said, "President Obama, in an unprecedented move, has circumvented the American people by recess appointing Richard Cordray." He went on to say Presidents can only 'recess appoint' when the Senate is in recess for over 10 days.

In the unanimous consent that sent the Senate to recess, the Senate explicitly stated it would conduct no business from a week before Christmas until January 23rd.

Unlike "Republican math," which apparently comes up with a number less than 10, I come up with at least five weeks. (5 weeks x 7 days per week = 35 days -- for you Republicans that don’t know actual math.)

Republicans do, however, send one guy every 3 days to the Senate for a couple seconds just to smack the gavel and pretend the Senate is still in session - even though nothing could possibly get done with only one guy.

Because of this, Republicans could technically take Obama to court to have the appointment denied since there's one asshole in the Senate pretending to be working before reaching the 10-day recess deadline.

Here's why this is a brilliant move by Obama. This would mean that Republicans, on the official record, would have taken Obama to court for the sole purpose of preventing Americans from being protected from corporations' ability to steal as much of their money as possible using shady tactics without any repercussions. Another example in a thousand mile long list of examples of Republicans savagely protecting corporate profits over the well-being of American citizens.

And this recess appointment (along with 3 others) brings Obama's "unprecedented moves that circumvent the American people" to a total of 29. Continuing at this rate, he will hit 60 or 70 if he's elected to a second term.

During his two terms, President G.W. Bush circumvented the American people in unprecedented moves a total of 171 times.

President Reagan, 243 times.

Teddy Roosevelt, 160 – in one friggin' day.

Either 'unprecedented' means 'never happened before' or Republican hypocrisy knows no bounds. Which, if you go by all the things they say and do and want - such as recess appointing, a bipartisan deficit commission, Paygo, cap and trade, individual mandate in health reform, the DREAM Act, remove Muammar Gaddafi from power - then take the opposite stance when Obama says or does or wants the very same things, this would seem the most logical reason. (Gaddafi is a special one. Republicans took several simultaneous contradictory stances – Obama shouldn't have/did it too soon/did it too late/shouldn't lead from behind – and when Gaddafi was killed, they gave credit to everyone but Obama. I think even Inigo Montoya got the credit at one point. And I still don’t know what the apparent criticism “lead from behind” is supposed to mean.)

Or Republicans don't know that words have actual meanings. Which, if you go by all these very different-meaning words they continually call Obama - socialist, Marxist, communist, Kenyan, Muslim, Atheist, the anti-Christ - then this seems the most logical reason.

Me? I just think they put their party above their country and will take any measure, contradictory or not, to insure their party's success at the cost of everything else in the process. And about 9 times out of 10, this tactic has put their party on the road to increased job loss, massive deficit, huge government and fascism.

And I know words have meaning.

Whatever the case, they don’t seem to understand that everything they do and say is recorded and can easily be found on that newfangled highfalutin computer machine gizmo and its interweb-tube-nets thingy.

Yertle McConnell just wants to be loved. Is that so wrong?

On a side note, how many of you get a 5-weeks-straight vacation at your job? Two times a year. And typically have a 3-day work week to begin with?

Tough life being a do-nothing-but-obstruct-progress Senator.


Good day.
Apologies to Theodore Geisel.