Federal Court Slams Obama’s Use of Recess Appointment Power

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It’s been a bad week for Barack Obama, and things just got worse. On top of the growing scandals over the I.R.S. targeting conservative groups and the Justice Department snooping on journalists, the president has just received a major constitutional reprimand from the federal courts over his dubious exercise of executive power.

According to the Constitution, the president must seek the “advice and consent” of the Senate when filling certain government positions. The president may only bypass this confirmation requirement in those rare cases where a temporary appointment is needed to “fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate.” This is known as the president’s recess appointment power.

In a decision handed down Thursday morning, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit ruled that Obama violated the Constitution by making a recess appointment to the National Labor Relations Board when the Senate was not actually in recess, but was instead holding pro forma sessions for the precise purpose of denying him the lawful ability to make a recess appointment. In an unprecedented move in January 2012, Obama simply ignored this legal impediment and made four purported recess appointments anyway, including the addition of three members to the NLRB.

In its decision, the 3rd Circuit strongly rejected Obama’s unilateral action. “Nothing in the text of the Clause or the historical record suggests that it is intended to be a type of pressure valve for when the president cannot obtain the Senate‘s consent, whether that be because it has become dysfunctional or because it rejects a president‘s nominations,” the court held. Indeed, the opinion continued, under the government’s interpretation, “If the Senate refused to confirm a president‘s nominees, then the president could circumvent the Senate‘s constitutional role simply by waiting until senators go home for the evening.” So much for the separation of powers.

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Resigned IRS Chief Formerly Ran Non-Profit Section

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Photo Credit: Fibonacci BlueAs Congressional Democrats scurry for cover in the wake of the growing scandal surrounding IRS harassment of tea party and conservative groups, President Obama announced on Wednesday that acting IRS chief, Steven T. Miller would resign. As with Benghazi and seemingly everything else these days, Obama claims to have known nothing about it. Too much time at the golf course no doubt.

But the dam is bursting on this story. Every day the number of affected groups grows as more and more is uncovered. Today it was revealed for example that the decades-old Leadership Institute was audited in 2011. To defend itself, the institute had to shell out over $50,000 in legal fees. Run by stalwart Reagan friend Morton Blackwell, the LI has an impeccable reputation. Of course the IRS found nothing.

During the recall of Wisconsin governor Scott Walker in 2012, a group called “Verify the Recall” hastily formed to check the 1 million recall petitions turned in at the last minute by union organizers. Working with True the Vote, this organization evaluated every one of those petitions in little more than a month. Other groups, including this writer, publicized their herculean efforts.

The IRS apparently didn’t like this. The North East Tarrant Texas Tea Party (NETTTP) never told the IRS they were working on the recall, yet IRS questioned them about their relationship with VTR. True the Vote’s Catherine Engelbrect said, “There is no explaining this away. It is a reprehensible abuse of power by the IRS to ask one organization for information about the activities of a separate organization while holding their non-profit status hostage.”

Similarly, in 2010, the IRS demanded that an Ohio group, the 1851 Center for Constitutional Law explain in detail its “involvement with the Tea Party.” The Center provides legal counsel to Ohioans whose constitutional rights have been aggrieved, including tea party organizations and individuals. While it ultimately received its tax-exempt status, the Center said that, “IRS harassment of liberty-oriented groups, and intent to root out “tea party” activities, even through non-tea party sources such as 1851, has been in full force for a minimum of three years.”

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Innis Blasts Media’s ‘Vile, Unfair’ Tea Party Stereotype

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Photo Credit: GettyAn activist with a tea party organization tore into the media in attendance at a Capitol Hill news conference Thursday, blaming the media in part for the recent Obama administration scandals because they weren’t tougher on the president.

“I want all of you to ask the question to yourself, what did you do to help create this environment where the IRS, an agent of government, can operate with such impunity?” Niger Innis, the chief strategist of TheTeaParty.net, said during a press conference with lawmakers about the IRS’ targeting of conservative groups.

Innis said today’s political environment is different than during Watergate because “40 years ago the press actually had an adversarial relationship with the chief executive, Dick Nixon.”

Innis, who is also a spokesman for the Congress on Racial Equality and son of legendary civil rights leader Roy Innis, said things have changed since those days.

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The 16-Year-Old Who Changed Medicine Is Out to Change It Again

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Photo Credit: TEDxNijmegenAt 16 years old, Jack Andraka is already a superstar in the field of science. Earlier this year, he won Intel’s prestigious Gordon E. Moore Award, when he created a groundbreaking testing method that can detect pancreatic cancer in its earliest stages. His work is expected to save thousands of lives.

And in the few short months since then, Andraka has already begun work on his next invention—a handheld device that he hopes will have the ability to scan the human body, read vital signs and detect any disease instantly.

While it sounds straight off the set of Star Trek, Andraka’s tricorder is part of a global science competition started by the XPRIZE foundation. The challenge is to create a mobile device that can diagnose 15 diseases across 30 patients, and at stake is a $10 million prize.

But on this project, Andraka isn’t working alone. He teamed up with two other Intel finalists to create what they call “Generation Z.” So far, they’re the only team made up entirely of kids. Despite being up against other teams like the one from Scanadu—a startup based in the NASA Ames Rsearch Center—Andraka is looking forward to exploring the challenge with kids his own age.

“I really enjoy big challenges and figured that it would be fun to collaborate with a group of teens to work on this prize,” he tells TakePart. “I meet such interesting teens at science competitions, and so we are going to work on this problem together. We may not succeed, but we are going to learn a lot and also learn how to work better in a team on a big project. Hopefully, we will be able to be productive and move the idea forward.”

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Electrical Brain Boost Can Make You Better at Math

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Photo Credit: ALAMYFor anyone who struggles with dividing the bill at the end of a meal, there is now a way to give your brain a boost.

Scientists have shown they can improve people’s ability to perform mental arithmetic for up to six months by giving them a short course of harmless electrical stimulation on their scalps.

Volunteers who received rapid pulses of electrical current – equivalent to that from an AA battery – for just 20 minutes a day for five days saw their ability to solve calculations improve by 28 per cent.

The enhancement, which made them faster at carrying out sums and other mathematical tasks, lasted for up to six months after receiving the electrical treatment.

The researchers, who are based at the University of Oxford, believe stimulating the brain in this way could be used to help people who struggle with performing mental arithmetic.

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Justice Department Subpoenas of AP Phone Records Unites Left, Right in Opposition to ‘Big Brother’

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Photo Credit: J. Scott ApplewhiteThe revelation that the U.S. government used secret subpoenas to pry into Associated Press reporters’ phone records triggered two contradictory reactions in the political world.

“What the subpoenas did was remind the left that the right has reasons to fear big government and remind the right and left of the objectives they share politically,” said Joe Miller, the Alaska conservative who was the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate last year.

For conservatives, the phone-records story fortified their fear that, despite the best of intentions, government by its nature will tend to erode the freedom of the individual — and almost always in the name of protecting the collective good.

That conservative fear is one that liberals tend to regard as verging on paranoia.

Yet this latest Justice Department action — an action that for many on the right confirms long-held concerns about big government — is also, paradoxically, bringing conservatives and liberals together. Both ideologies, after all, share an interest in defending the freedom of the individual.

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Obama Stole Election from Romney With Illegally Leaked IRS Documents? (+video)

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Photo Credit: AFPOne of President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign co-chairmen used a leaked document from the IRS to attack GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney during the 2012 election, according to the National Organization for Marriage (NOM).

NOM, a pro-traditional marriage organization, claims the IRS leaked their 2008 confidential financial documents to the rival Human Rights Campaign. Those NOM documents were published on the Huffington Post on March 30, 2012. At that time, Joe Solmonese, a left-wing activist and Huffington Post contributor, was the president of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). Solmonese was also a 2012 Obama campaign co-chairman.

Both the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein and HRC described the leak as coming from a “whistleblower.” The Huffington Post used the document to write a story questioning former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s support for traditional marriage. The document showed Romney donated $10,000 to NOM. HRC went a step further than the Huffington Post in its criticism of Romney and accused him of using “racially divisive tactics” in a press release.

Solmonese, then still the HRC’s president, said in the release he felt Romney’s “funding of a hate-filled campaign designed to drive a wedge between Americans is beyond despicable.”

“Not only has Romney signed NOM’s radical marriage pledge, now we know he’s one of the donors that NOM has been so desperate to keep secret all these years,” Solmonese added.

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California Cops Break Into House Without a Warrant, Tase Man Who Complains About Police State and It’s All on Video

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Photo Credit: West Midlands PoliceIn this video, a group of officers arrive at a home and, through a closed screen door, demand that the occupants come outside.

The unidentified man inside, along with his female companion, demand that the officers produce a warrant, but they don’t.

When the police continue to demand that they come outside, and order that both occupants raise their hands, the man responds that he doesn’t live in a police state with martial law. He also warns the police that he is video-recording everything.

Eventually, the police breakthrough a side door and tase the man with the video camera. It sounds as if his female companion may have been tased as well.

Surprise: IRS Employees Gave Disproportionately to Obama

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Photo Credit: National ReviewPresident Barack Obama received more than twice as much in campaign donations from IRS employees in 2012 as did his opponent, Mitt Romney, records show.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, which maintains an online database of political contributions, individuals listing their employer as “IRS” or “Internal Revenue Service” donated a total of $48,827 to Obama in 2012 and gave just $20,361 to Romney. That disparity is mild compared with that of 2008, when IRS employees donated $59,959 to Obama, and just $1,950 to his challenger John McCain.

Slightly over 100 IRS employees donated to Obama in 2012, while only 25 contributed to Romney, according to the database, and most contributed less than $1,000. At least one of the IRS employees who donated to Obama in 2012 — Kim Kitchens — appears to have worked in the agency’s Exempt Organizations Rulings and Agreements office in Cincinnati, Ohio, as of October 2012, according to IRS documents.

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Here’s that Dynamic Scoring You Asked for, Senator Rubio

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Photo Credit: Daily CallerThe Heritage Foundation recently issued a comprehensive report showing that Sen. Marco Rubio’s plan to instantly legalize 11.5 million illegal immigrants would add $6.3 trillion to the nation’s budget deficits over the next 50 years. Heritage assumed there are 11.5 million illegals, but other estimates put the number at 33 million, which would mean adding another $18 trillion to the deficit. To put that in perspective, the largest U.S. budget deficit in history was $1.4 trillion in 2009.

Currently, the average illegal alien gets about $24,721 in taxpayer-funded benefits and pays about $10,334 in taxes. After full legalization, they will be eligible for a whole new panoply of government benefits such as direct welfare payments, Obamacare, Social Security and Medicare. Heritage concludes that the total government benefits to these former illegal aliens will then rise to about $43,900 per household, while the taxes paid by them will increase only modestly to around $16,000.

Rubio says Heritage’s report is all wrong because it fails to use “dynamic scoring.”

The sentence ends there. It’s like when Obama responds to questions about Benghazi by saying it’s a “political circus,” or liberals say their position on abortion is that “it’s a complex issue.” What isn’t political? What isn’t complex? Those aren’t answers; they’re deflections.

How about Rubio explain the hidden rays of sunshine that will appear by applying “dynamic scoring” to his amnesty bill.

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