Few lawmakers have expressed as much outrage over President Obama’s unconstitutional “recess” appointments as Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT). He was among the first to warn about the consequences of the president’s unilateral action on Jan. 4.

More than a month later, a new director is running the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and three members of National Labor Relations Board are conducting business—all in blatant violation of the U.S. Constitution, Lee said in a recent interview with The Heritage Foundation.

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President’s appointment of liberal former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray to head the powerful Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was a direct assault on the Constitution and the law causing constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley to remark that President Obama has surpassed Richard Nixon in “the development of an imperial presidency of unchecked executive powers.”

Cordray is well aware that the Constitution provides the president with the power of appointment when the Congress is not in session.  But the Congress was not in recess when the President appointed Cordray.  Adding insult to injury, the 2010 law that created the CFPB included a section that says many of the bureau’s new powers are to be held by the secretary of the Treasury “until the Director of the Bureau is confirmed by the Senate.”  The Senate, obviously, never confirmed Cordray.

Despite these constitutional and legal roadblocks, Cordray has assumed the full power of the office and has started the process of regulating the economy in earnest.

In Birmingham, Alabama, Cordray held a field hearing laying the groundwork for a regulatory assault on the short-term lending industry, as well as, the mortgage and student loan industry.  Cordray seems unconcerned of the constitutional and legal challenges ahead.  He told the Hill newspaper, “I’m going to leave that to others … lawyers are digging into it,” when asked if his appointment would survive a legal challenge.  But he added that “the position was long overdue to be filled.” “We’ve got a lot of work to do for the public to make these markets function effectively,” he said.

Cordray, in a few sentences was able to articulate the president’s view of the Constitution and the economy.

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Apparently, “respecting the U.S. Constitution” didn’t make it onto President Obama’s 2012 New Year’s resolution list, as evidenced by his “recess” appointment of anti-business extremist Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Just an few hours later, Obama made three additional appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which has become little more than a Big Labor battering ram under this president.

Obama is terming his appointments “recess” appointments. They are nothing of the sort, because Congress is not in recess. Article I, Section 5, Clause 4 of the U.S. Constitution provides that “Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days …” To prevent any recess appointment, the Republican-controlled House has refused to consent to Senate adjournment, resulting in the Senate coming into pro forma session every three days. But as Ed Meese, who served as Attorney General under Ronald Reagan, points out: these pro forma sessions aren’t gimmicks. The two-month extension of the payroll tax holiday was approved during a pro forma Senate session.

But in an unprecedented power grab, Obama has decided that he can decide when Congress is or is not in session. Meese rightly calls it a “constitutional abuse of a high order.” If this abuse stands, the U.S. Senate’s constitutional role to advise and consent in the confirmation of key executive appointees, already undermined by Obama’s many czar appointments, could become moot. (more…)

Message to my fellow conservatives: Please don’t blame the mainstream media for the improvement in jobs, unemployment, and economic growth. Reporters are not making this up. The economy is better. It’s going to give President Obama a leg up on the election. GOP beware, and come to your senses.

Take Friday’s jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nonfarm payrolls gained 200,000 and the unemployment rate slipped to 8.5 percent from 8.7 percent. It may well be that a seasonal quirk added 42,000 messengers and couriers to the totals, but that will be lost in the headline reporting. It will be given back next month. It’s inconsequential to the overall story. Likewise, a normal labor participation rate would yield much higher unemployment. But that’s academic.

Like any president, Mr. Obama will take credit for these economic gains. He’s doing that right now. And he has a case to make: A year ago the unemployment rate was 9.4 percent, and in 2011 it fell almost a percentage point. In the twelve months through December 2011, the economy produced 1.64 million new jobs, while in 2010, only 940,000 were created. On a monthly average basis, 137,000 new jobs per month were created in 2011, compared to only 78,000 a month in 2010. Things are getting better.

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President Obama is hoping to capitalize on his controversial decision to appoint Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Less than 12 hours after making the announcement, Obama’s campaign sent a fundraising email seeking up to $2,500 from supporters.

The purported “recess” appointment enraged conservatives because the Senate isn’t even in recess. Senators never passed a resolution to adjourn, meaning it is officially still in session.

That didn’t dissuade Obama, however. Now the president is seeking to use the publicity to raise money for his re-election campaign.

“We can’t afford to continue allowing Wall Street to write its own rules. But today’s action by the President is already coming under partisan attack, which we expect to intensify in the days to come,” wrote James Kvaal, national policy director at Obama for America, in Wednesday night’s email.

The fundraising pitch was disguised as a petition to supporters. Only when recipients click on the link to “stand with President Obama and Richard Cordray” and sign the petition are they taken to a fundraising page with a form to donate up to $2,500 to Obama.

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(Reuters) – President Barack Obama plans to use a recess appointment to install Richard Cordray as head of the country’s new consumer financial protection watchdog, sidestepping Republican congressional opposition to his pick.

“Today in Ohio, President Obama will announce the recess appointment of consumer watchdog Richard Cordray,” White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer announced in a tweet.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was created by the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial oversight law to police the market for consumer products such as credit cards and mortgages.

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Senate Republicans have been holding up the confirmation of Richard Cordray to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau until changes to the agency’s structure are made to provide oversight and accountability at the agency. But sources from inside the Capitol tell Capitol Confidential that a recess appointment of Richard Cordray to head the unconstitutional CFPB could come as early as tomorrow.

“We have been hearing consistently from the Senate offices that the President is considering a recess appointment of Richard Cordray along with a slew of other controversial nominees in the brief period between the two sessions of Congress,” a key Senate source said. “Now we are hearing from Senior Democrat staffers that something big is coming tomorrow [Jan 4].”

Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution provides the president with the power to “fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate.” The problem for the president and his liberal allies is that the Senate has not recessed and technically remains in session. However, liberal groups are pressing the White House to invoke the “Roosevelt Option” to stack key government positions with radicals ready to carry out an anti-business, pro-big labor regulatory agenda. The Roosevelt Option is coined from the actions of Teddy Roosevelt who in 1903, in a split-second between two congressional sessions of Congress, made more than 100 recess appointments. In 2012, Congress will need to move from the First Session of this current Congress to the Second Session. Liberals claim the fraction of a second between the sessions is enough to trigger presidential power.

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When Scott Brown upset the Massachusetts Democratic establishment by winning the Senate seat held by Ted Kennedy for a generation, he ran as a Republican. This cycle, facing the “founder” of the Occupy Wall Street movement, Elizabeth Warren, he appears to be running away from conservative principles.

Brown’s most recent capitulation is his support for a floor vote for President Obama’s nominee for the uber-regulatory agency known as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Brown’s announcement undercuts not only his Republican colleagues who are fighting to limit the power of this new government agency but of the principles of limited government he professes to support.

Unfortunately, Brown may not be alone. Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) is purportedly seeking a deal with the White House to get fellow Ohioan Cordray confirmed despite ethical questions about his behavior as the state’s Attorney General. Insiders are always concerned about the Maine Senators and Alaskan Lisa Murkowski. If a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, Portman, Collins, Snowe and Murkowski need to buck up and support their colleagues.

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Washington public policy is replete with examples of government regulators thinking they know best, imposing new government rules that then exacerbate the existing problems. As things become worse, they blame the free market and call for more government regulations to fix the burdens they created.  Of course, just as it was the first time, the cure is worse than the disease. And the vicious cycle continues.

Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren could be the poster child for the law of unintended consequences.  Warren’s career was built upon advocacy of government regulations that created bigger problems than those she initially addressed.  As the problems compound, so does her call for even more government red tape.

All of this mader her a hero to the progressive community, a Harvard professor, an advisor to the president and a creator of a new regulation-pushing agency of government known as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).  Maybe once, she will get something right but don’t hold your breath. The housing market collapse is a case in point.

In 1994, President Clinton and his cronies laid the groundwork for the creation of the Housing Bubble and the Wall Street crisis a decade later.  The Investors Business Daily uncovered a “smoking gun” memo that declared war on a near invisible enemy – racism is mortgage lending:

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At the outset of the financial crisis, the Bush administration began an unprecedented government takeover of the private sector with the so-called bailouts. When Barack Obama took office, he doubled down on this gamble and kicked the door wide open, pumping massive amounts of taxpayer cash in order to further control the private sector, particularly the financial sector. This unprecedented growth in government control included creating new federal agencies such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and and expanding existing agencies such as the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

The professed purpose of these government agencies is to “keep watch” on the business dealings of corporations in order to “protect” the consumer. But after reading some documents JW obtained recently revealing the generous salaries and bonuses being paid to government workers in these agencies, I have one question: Who is watching out for the American taxpayer?

We obtained the documents in response to Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests filed on July 12, 2011, with the CFPB and the CFTC, as well as with the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the U.S. Treasury, and the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC).

The FOIAs requested Standard Form 50s (SF-50s) from each of the agencies. An SF-50 is a human resources form that documents any change in a government worker’s employment situation, including pay. Check out some of the responses we received:

• The CFPB responded on August 4, 2011. The SF-50s revealed CFPB workers being hired at salaries twice the maximum ordinarily allowed under guidelines published each year by the Office of Personnel Management. A dozen new hires take home more than $225,000 a year, and a student intern is currently being paid $42,036 “through completion of education & study” as a communications trainee.

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Elizabeth Warren might just be the motivation that conservatives need to get behind the re-election campaign of Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA). Until now, the Tea Party activists that helped push Brown to an historic victory in 2010 had been grumbling about Brown’s leftish voting record. But Warren’s embrace of tax-and-spend policies, and her disregard for constitutional checks and balances, are giving conservatives new reasons to care.

I once admired Warren–and told her so. I was a student at Harvard Law School when she was plucked from her teaching job to serve as the congressional “oversight czar” for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). In that role, Warren stood out for her unique willingness to criticize Obama administration appointees, notably treasury secretary Tim Geithner, for failing to comply with basic transparency and reporting requirements.

Warren had also been extremely popular among her students–so much so that our graduating class awarded her the Sacks-Freund Teaching Award in 2009, even though she hadn’t taught since the previous fall. I hadn’t had the privilege of being in one of her classes, but I congratulated her on the award, and told her that as a conservative, I felt she was speaking for me, too, in holding the Obama administration accountable.

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The #OccupyWallStreet movement has an agenda and has made it available for all to see.  Among their demands is that government eviscerate existing contracts by “eliminating all debt, everywhere.”  Imagine there was a government agency with the power to make decisions like that.  With a sleight of hand, one person could vitiate contracts and overturn years of business decisions, destroying marketplaces through government intervention.  You don’t have to imagine very long.  If President Obama and his progressive supporters get their way, the Director of the newly created regulatory agency called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) will have similar powers.

Created by the flawed Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation, the CFPB Director will be the most powerful regulator in government with little checks and balances from Congress.  President Obama said last week that if confirmed, the Director of the Bureau would be able to overturn any private market action it deems abusive.  Obama specifically cited the increase in debit card fees as an example of an area where the CFPB could take action to overturn the fee.

Let that sink in for a moment. A legitimate, legal business in America raises its prices by $5 and some bureaucrat would veto it, or worse, punish the business for raising its prices – in order to “make less profit,” as the president said.  This is the world Obama and the Democrats seek, a world in which an elite few are empowered to override the marketplace based on their own whims or, in this case, to mollify their voters.

No one likes bank fees, but in a market economy, you could take your money from one bank and move it to another. Avoiding this and keeping you happy is what keeps your bank in line. That’s how the market works, but that’s not good enough in Obama-world. On this fantasy island, the government singlehandedly keeps the electoral mobs happy through the utilization of a financial death squad. It’s government by organized mob.

This case becomes even more ridiculous when you consider the fact that the reason the banks are adding new fees is to cover the cost of a new federal price fixing law that took billions from banks and allocated it to giant retailers like Wal-Mart. And even more absurdly, the pricing fixing law that caused the fee increase is the very same law that created the agency that Obama wants to use to overturn the fee increase.

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In the pitched battle over whether government should take over our health care system, a group of pro-life Democrat congressmen held the line to oppose the legislation because they knew the bill authorized funding for abortion.  Under intense pressure from the president and their pro-choice comrades in the Congress, the group, led by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) flip-flopped when they received a letter from the president ensuring that government would not spend money for abortion.  They were had.

Now Sen. Rob Portman appears ready to “pull a Stupak.”  Under pressure from Democrat Sen. Sherrod Brown, Portman appears ready to cut a deal to confirm former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray to a five-year term to head the super-regulatory agency known as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

Word on Capitol Hill is that Portman has assured Cordray he has no problems with his nomination and is asking for assurances that his concerns about the Bureau will be address – not in legislation, but in a letter.  Has Portman learned anything from the Stupak incident?  Apparently not.

Unlike Portman, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) is taking a principled stand against the creation of a new super regulatory agency and is not shaking in his boots.  Shelby has organized his colleagues who have pledged to oppose the nomination of Cordray or any other nominee unless the Bureau is reformed.  Unlike Portman, apparently, Shelby is smart enough to demand real statutory changes as opposed to “promised” changes.

The CFPB was structured in a way to give huge, and perhaps unconstitutional, power to its Director.  Alan Raul, who served as general counsel of the Office of Management and Budget and associate counsel to President Ronald Reagan, described the CFPB’s power as “an independent agency on steroids because Congress essentially exempted the director from any meaningful accountability or strong presidential oversight.”

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Hopefully, it is not an ominous sign of things to come.

Last week, the Senate confirmed former Kentucky insurance regulator S. Roy Woodall for the one voting position on the federal Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) reserved for someone with insurance expertise. The term is for six years.  The FSOC is in charge of monitoring the financial system to guard against the failure of the largest bank holding companies and non-bank financial institutions.

For the past year, Republicans in the House and Senate have worked together to prevent the approval of numerous president appointments both through regular order and through the use of recess appointment authority.  By keeping the House from adjourning when vacation and breaks come, the president has been unable to exercise his power thus sparing the nation from another round of liberal appointments that can do great damage to the country.

Because the confirmation process is often one of compromise and deal making, some worry about the possibility of a deal involving Richard Cordray and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

Especially in light of the fact that the Senate Banking Committee has called a vote on the Cordray confirmation itself this Thursday, October 6.   Sources in the nation’s Capitol have told Big Government that liberal Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) is pressuring Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) to break the logjam, as Cordray is from Ohio.

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If the American Left has a Joan of Arc, her name would be Elizabeth Warren.  The Harvard professor was the designer and creator of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the independent regulatory agency that was given the power to regulate every financial transaction in America without proper checks and balances from Congress.

The plan was for Warren to head the Bureau and conduct a reign of regulatory terror on the economy.  But even President Obama got cold feet.  Warren was too radical to be confirmed by the Democrat-controlled Senate.  So Warren picked her replacement, Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray, packed her bags back to Massachusetts and declared a run for the US Senate.

The arrogance of power and the ignorance of history may be the best way to describe Warren and the government agency she concocted.  The philosophy behind the Bureau is simple – the learned and intelligencia must control the marketplace in order to protect the simple-minded.

We were given a little insight into her philipsophy by a person who videotaped a recent campaign appearance.  In Warren’s worldview, your success is dictated not by your efforts to work hard or your ingenuity, but by the state.

Warren addressed the issue of class-warfare in a manner appropriate for the Harvard faculty lounge.

“I hear all this, you know, ‘Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever.’ No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own —nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police-forces and fire-forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory — and hire someone to protect against this — because of the work the rest of us did.

This arrogance extends beyond a philosophical debate.

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Many conservatives and even some liberals have complained about Obama’s penchant for appointing “czars” in order to avoid accountability under law. One of his most notorious is the Consumer Czar, Elizabeth Warren, who was appointed by Obama to help set up and, many fear, to eventually run the monstrous new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

We recently uncovered documents indicating the CFPB has been intensely involved in a 50-state settlement discussion underway with the nation’s largest mortgage lenders regarding alleged improper foreclosure procedures. (Anti-business zealots in the Obama administration and state attorney general offices are trying to extract a $20 billion “settlement” from banks to settle paperwork issues related to foreclosures.)

The documents, obtained in response to open records requests with CFPB and the offices of attorneys general from all 50 states, seem to contradict Warren’s statements before Congress suggesting her office merely responded to requests for advice, but did not seek to push its views. (We initiated our investigation into the controversies surrounding Ms. Warren and the CFPB on March 22, 2011.)

During a March 16, 2011, hearing of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit, Ms. Warren downplayed her agency’s involvement in the state settlement negotiations: “We have been asked for advice by the Department of Justice, by the Secretary of the Treasury, and by other federal agencies. And when asked for advice, we have given our advice.”

But this does not come close to telling the full story.

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