Random Politics & Religion #35: It's Turtle Time!

Its the excuse for pulling his press pass.

what total *** and abuse of power

so he’s in trouble for blocking this rando from grabbing his microphone?

And back to the news.



Or something like it.

Again, there was nothing unconstitutional about Trump firing Sessions. Why is everyone making up crap today?

100 pages!

And still no topic bans mods!

Liberals hated Comey. Trump fired Comey. Liberals were mad that he fired Comey.

Liberals hated Sessions. Trump fired Sessions. Liberals are mad that he fired Sessions.

I'm seeing a pattern. It doesn't make any sense, but at least it's a pattern.

The Obama administration's Justice Department spied on Fox News reporter James Rosen. The DOJ, led by Eric Holder, somehow labeled Rosen an unindicted co-conspirator in a criminal case, even went so far as to call him a flight risk. He thereby avoided the pesky need to inform him he was under surveillance. Of course, he was guilty of absolutely nothing. Holder would much later acknowledge regret over the Rosen subpoena.

The same DOJ seized two months of phone records from the Associated Press. Close your eyes for a moment and picture the reaction if Attorney General Jeff Sessions had been found to order the same action against the New York Times.

And still no topic bans mods!

I prefer the new, un-modded site.

Better yet, I'm un-banning Lordgrim!

Liberals hated Comey. Trump fired Comey. Liberals were mad that he fired Comey.

Liberals hated Sessions. Trump fired Sessions. Liberals are mad that he fired Sessions.

I'm seeing a pattern. It doesn't make any sense, but at least it's a pattern.

“[F]or purposes of appointment,” the Clause divides all officers into two classes—“inferior officers” and noninferior officers, which we have long denominated “principal” officers. Germaine, supra, at 509, 511. Principal officers must be appointed by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.

Although a closer question, the general counsel also is likely a principal officer...

A principal officer is one who has no superior other than the President. The general counsel of the NLRB appears to satisfy that definition...
Before 1947, the Board “controlled not only the filing of complaints, but their prosecution and adjudication” as well. The Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, ch. 120, 61 Stat. 136, however, “effected an important change” in the NLRB’s structure by “separat[ing] the prosecuting from the adjudicating function, to place the former in the General Counsel, and to make him an independent official appointed by the President.”
Congress thus separated the NLRB into “two independent branches,” Food & Commercial Workers, 484 U. S., at 129, and made the general counsel “independent of the Board’s supervision and review,” (Congress “decided to place the General Counsel within the agency, but to make the office independent of the Board’s authority”).

Moreover, the general counsel’s prosecutorial decisions are unreviewable by either the Board or the Judiciary. Although the Board has power to define some of the general counsel’s duties, and the general counsel represents the Board in certain judicial proceedings, the statute does not give the Board the power to remove him or otherwise generally to control his activities, (holding that executive officials were inferior officers in large part because they were subject to a superior’s removal).

Because it appears that the general counsel answers to no officer inferior to the President, he is likely a principal officer. Accordingly, the President likely could not lawfully have appointed Solomon to serve in that role without first obtaining the advice and consent of the Senate.


I recognize that the “burdens on governmental processes” that the Appointments Clause imposes may “often seem clumsy, inefficient, even unworkable.” INS v. Chadha, 462 U. S. 919, 959 (1983). Granting the President unilateral power to fill vacancies in high offices might contribute to more efficient Government. But the Appointments Clause is not an empty formality. Although the Framers recognized the potential value of leaving the selection of officers to “one man of discernment” rather than to a fractious, multimember body, see The Federalist No. 76, p. 510 (J. Cooke ed., 1961), they also recognized the serious risk for abuse and corruption posed by permitting one person to fill every office in the Government, see id., at 513; 3 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States §1524, p. 376 (1833).

The Framers “had lived under a form of government that permitted arbitrary governmental acts to go unchecked,” Chadha, supra, at 959, and they knew that liberty could be preserved only by ensuring that the powers of Government would never be consolidated in one body. They thus empowered the Senate to confirm principal officers on the view that “the necessity of its co-operation in the business of appointments will be a considerable and salutary restraint upon the conduct of ” the President.We cannot cast aside the separation of powers and the Appointments Clause’s important check on executive power for the sake of administrative convenience or efficiency.