1.) Goodbye Constitution, hello Obamastitution — “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
Cute idea, wasn’t it? But it turns out that for hundreds of years, we’ve been doing the Constitution wrong. As we’ve been made to understand by our patient and benevolent rulers, all of human history has just been a holding pattern as the world awaited the glory of Obama. Once again he’s showing us the error of our ways, as TheDC’s Matthew Boyle reports:
“President Barack Obama made four recess appointments Wednesday, naming three new members to the National Labor Relations Board and appointing Richard Cordray to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. But the appointments may have been illegal, according to past administration statements. Obama’s own lawyers publicly stated in a 2010 exchange with Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts that the president doesn’t consider a congressional recess official — meaning he can’t legally exercise his recess appointment power — until Congress has been gone for three full days. ‘The recess appointment power can work in — in a recess,’ Obama’s Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal said. ‘I think our office has opined the recess has to be longer than three days [to make an appointment].’ The Senate entered a recess on Tuesday, after having held a pro forma session to keep Obama from making any recess appointments. Another was planned for Friday. By making the appointments just one day after the Senate went into a recess, Obama appears to breaking his own administration’s rules and, as scores of Republicans are quick to point out, decades of executive precedent.”
The problem with the separation of powers is that sometimes Obama can’t get his way. So he’ll just do what he wants. He’ll just follow his own personal Constitution that applies to him and him alone. Problem solved!
Some are speculating that Obama is trying to pick a fight with Congress as part of his reelection campaign. Hey, he can’t exactly run on his record. He can’t claim we’re better off than we were four years ago. So why shouldn’t a failed, power-hungry president use the Constitution as bathroom tissue?
2.) Green cars, red ink — Maybe Obama is feeling cocky — well, even more so than usual — because he just won a few more awards. TheDC’s Neil Munro reports:
“President Barack Obama can claim partial credit for two of this year’s greatest product failures described in a top-seven disaster list prepared by Yahoo! Finance. The top two product disasters were a push-up bra for pre-teens and Netflix’s short-lived Qwikster video-rental spin-off. But two autos pushed by Obama’s government-directed auto companies won slots No. 3 and No. 6 on Yahoo!’s ‘Worst Product Flops of 2011.’ The No. 3 prize went to the battery-powered Chevy Volt, which had been touted by Obama as the green-tech model for future vehicles. It is being built by General Motors — which is still partially-owned by the federal government — but the company only sold 7,000 of the cars by December… Obama’s second flop took sixth place. The booby prize want to the Fiat 500 auto, which administration officials touted when they arranged for Fiat to buy the ailing Chrysler company. ‘The car was expected to be a big seller, rivaling BMW’s Mini… [and] Fiat expected to sell 50,000 500s during 2011 in North America,’ according to the Yahoo! Finance Top 7 list. However, ‘Fiat sold fewer than 12,000 [and] sales were so poor that Chrysler Group, which manages the Fiat brand in the United States, ousted U.S. chief Laura Soave this past November,’ noted Yahoo.”
Now there’s a campaign slogan for you… Obama 2012: Not Quite As Crappy As Qwikster.
3.) Happy New Year, Attorney General Eric Holder — And how are you this morning, sir? Did you enjoy the holidays? That’s good. Well, back to the ol’ grind, huh? Back to those meanies holding you accountable for your actions. Matthew Boyle reports:
“Attorney General Eric Holder will testify about Operation Fast and Furious before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Feb. 2. According to a release from committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, Holder will be asked to testify on what happened during Operation Fast and Furious and how the Department of Justice has responded to the congressional investigation into the program. Holder’s DOJ recently withdrew a February 4, 2011 letter it sent to Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley because it contained false statements. Holder has refused to comply with a subpoena from Issa’s committee that lawfully requires the DOJ to provide Congress with Fast and Furious documents created after that false letter was sent last year… If Holder continues to refuse to provide Congress with the relevant legally-subpoenaed documents, Issa may move forward with contempt of Congress proceedings… Before Congress’s Christmas holiday, 62 congressmen, two senators, two sitting governors and every major Republican presidential candidate had demanded Holder’s ouster over the resulting scandal.”
Isn’t it weird how the Obama administration doesn’t think the rules apply to them? That they’re not subject to the same laws they expect the rest of us to follow? Well, not so much “weird” as “at this point, entirely expected.” Hang in there, Attorney General Eric Holder. Just 10 more months!
4.) Gore and Olby sittin’ in a tree, B-R-E-A-K-I-N-G (the branch) — If you were skeptical that Keith Olbermann would last very long at Current TV, that’s only because you know anything about Keith Olbermann. The portly, petulant pontificator is back to his old tricks after just six months, as reported by the New York Times:
“Keith Olbermann is famous for estranging himself from his bosses, be it at ESPN, Fox or MSNBC. At his new home, Al Gore’s Current TV, he has done it in record time. Mr. Olbermann, who was hired last year to be the top star of the upstart liberal news source, had been on the job scarcely three months when trouble started. He declined Current’s requests to host special hours of election coverage, apparently out of frustration about technical difficulties that have plagued his 8 p.m. program, ‘Countdown.’ The channel decided to produce election shows without him. Mr. Olbermann, however, said he did not know that, and on Tuesday, the day of the Iowa caucus, the cold war of sorts reached a flash point.”
Which was why Current had to resort to putting Al Gore on the air. Apparently Keith is ticked off about the low-end channel’s technical problems, such as when the lights went out during a broadcast. (He should be grateful. An hour of black screen would get better ratings than Keith Olbermann.) So now he’s alienating yet another employer. Say, does it count as a fall from grace if he’s the one who keeps jumping?
5.) Five days into 2012 and we’ve already got the Mother of the Year — Now here’s the feel-good story of the morning, courtesy of TheDC’s Alexis Levinson:
“In order to protect her infant son, an Oklahoma woman asked permission from a police dispatcher to shoot intruders if they entered her home before a police car could arrive — and ultimately pulled the trigger. Eighteen-year-old Sarah McKinley called police as two men were trying to break into her home on New Year’s Eve. One was armed with a 12-inch hunting knife, Good Morning America reported. McKinley, whose husband died of cancer on Christmas day, was at home alone with her baby. As the men were trying to gain entry to her house, McKinley reportedly ‘quickly got her 12 gauge, went into her bedroom and got a pistol, put the bottle in the baby’s mouth and called 911.’ She then explained the situation to the dispatcher. ‘I’ve got two guns in my hand — is it okay to shoot him if he comes in this door?’ she asked, explaining, ‘I’m here by myself with my infant baby, can I please get a dispatcher out here immediately?’ ‘I can’t tell you that you can do that,’ said the dispatcher in response to whether McKinley could shoot the intruders, ‘but you do what you have to do to protect your baby.’ When one of the men ‘kicked in the door’ and went for McKinley with the hunting knife, she took a shot and killed him.”
As the saying goes, “If you don’t want to get shot and killed, don’t break into a young mother’s house and attack her and her baby with a knife.” This is a powerful argument for gun control, in that McKinley did a fine job of controlling her gun. Good thing that kid isn’t being raised in New York, huh?
6.) Today’s words of wisdom from Keith Olbermann’s Twitter feed — “@DougButabiJTV Another moron speaks. You can kiss my ass too.”
VIDEO: Krauthammer on recess appointments: “It’s banana republic style”
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