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Nevermind the spinelessness the Administration is showing in its policy of continuing the Bush torture shenanigans (so much for real change), now we see them playing this game:

Article II, Section 2 also says “Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone,” but Congress explicitly did not view the head of the financial consumer bureau as an inferior officer. On July 21, Mr. Obama signed a bill passed by both Houses stating that the “Director shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.”

We have here another end-run around Constitutional niceties so Team Obama can invest huge authority in an unelected official who is unable to withstand a public vetting. So a bureau inside an agency (the Fed) that it doesn’t report to, with a budget not subject to Congressional control, now gets a leader not subject to Senate confirmation. If Dick Cheney had tried this, he’d have been accused of staging a coup.

Read the whole thing. It’s not just this President, but virtually all. Sadly, I don’t think these sorts of things get the Tea Partiers all that excited, but it is, in my view, far more serious than any spending problem. Why? Because there is some check on spending – the economy can crash, the bond vigilantes may rear their heads, and so on. But when we see the Executive Office make end runs around the Senate in appointing an unelected official to wield more power than any single elected official likely holds … well, then, we aren’t in the U.S. of A. that we learned about in our civics classes.

But hey, since I argue that pubic schooling is a disaster for various reasons, maybe we never actually learned anything about the rule of law in civics class.

3 Responses to “The Rule of Law, ObamaStyle”

  1. Harry says:

    Mike, they cannot repeal the laws of human behavior, as your nearby graph on the price of gold proves.

    Today I read several articles in the Journal that tried to explain the quandary China finds itself in with an Everest of depreciating dollars.

    I am not so sure the Chinese bureaucrats fully understand the reason for their anger over our cheapening our currency, but there seem to be gutteral rumblings over there about why the hell they should lend us ten
    trillion at a .1% rate of interest.

    Amidst all this lunacy, is there anyone out there reading Riccardo?

  2. Harry says:

    Rereading my post, it looks like I dodged your question, or your several questions.

    Regarding civics classes, I never took any, but fondly remember my mother complain about how little everybody learned from their civics classes.

    I do know one thing, though. Your Hayek seminar will be one hell og a civics class. Wish I were there.

  3. Michael says:

    It is interesting that Glenn Beck was warning Congress about become obsolete a while back. Things like this essentially make them obsolete. I would add Constitution, but it is already obsolete in the eyes of government.

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