The Lawless NRLB and Obama

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia just decided that Obama's three appointments to the National Labor Relations Board on 4 January 2012 were illegal because they were not approved by the Senate which had started a new session on 3 January.  Obama had claimed he was making recess appointments, which the Constitution allows when the Senate is in recess.  Obama claimed the right to determine when the Senate was in recess or not, despite the fact that Congress traditionally declares itself to be in session or recess.

In 2010, the Supreme Court had ruled that the NLRB could not make case rulings or undertake rule-making activities without a quorum of three of its usual five members.  One of the illegally added members, the sole Republican, had resigned long ago because of the very one-sided pro-Labor Union decisions against business owners.  One of these cases was the Boeing ruling in which they were trying to set up a production facility in South Carolina, a Right to Work state.  The NRLB had ruled that Boeing had to do more of that work than it wanted to in Washington, a Union Shop state.  With two of the remaining four NRLB members illegally appointed, hundreds of rulings should be considered to have no authority.  The NRLB Chairman, Mark Gaston Pearce, claims that only the single case actually decided upon by the Appeals Court is tossed out and that all of its other decisions remain in force despite a lack of quorum.  In addition, he claims that the NRLB will continue making rulings and rules with its current members, including those just ruled to have been illegally and unconstitutionally appointed by Obama in direct violation of the 2010 Supreme Court decision.

The initial appointments were a lawless act by Obama.  The determination of the NRLB, with only pro-labor union members, to continue with rulings and rule making without a legal quorum is stunningly lawless.  The fact that Obama has not ordered the NRLB to stop proceeding without a quorum is a renewal of his claim to be above the law.  Note that the claim that a violation of the quorum requirement only overturns one out of hundreds of rulings is absurd.  This means that a lawless federal agency can continue to abuse the People in every case in which the People do not have the money and the time to pursue their own case in the federal courts to at least the Appeals Court level!  It makes a mockery of justice and of individual rights and clearly mocks the idea that government is a servant of the people.

Obama also made a similar "recess appointment" of Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Board, which was set up by the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill.  That bill was really an attempt to divert public attention from the fact that the 2008 financial crisis was primarily caused by the government.  Obama has just asked to have Cordray appointed again to be director of this CFPB.  Its activities under this illegally appointed director have also been challenged in the courts.

Obama's failure to order the Justice Department to produce the public documents they are required to produce on the Fast and Furious investigation and to require the EPA to produce documents it was required to produce on Lisa Jackson's hidden e-mail activities are other examples of his common lawlessness.  His providing billions of dollars of funding to his campaign contributors who set up flimsy green energy companies, while not providing federal funding to more sound green energy companies is another instance of his lawlessness.  Then what could beat his awarding exemptions from the requirements of ObamaCare to his union friends and to his contributors and those of other top Democrat leaders, when no such exemptions are a part of the law?  He has made similar unauthorized exemptions to the law through the programs of the Department of Education.

Obama is a very shady, lawless man and he likes to gather similar people around himself and put them in positions of power.  American federal government institutions have been rapidly degraded by this man and his regime of outlaws.