Back To Standing On My Head

For those of you that haven’t heard this joke here you go:

This guy dies and because he voted Democrat his whole life, he was sent to Hell. Satan met him at the gates of Hell and told he would give him a tour of hell and he would have to pick the form of his eternal punishment. They first came to a room where demons were dipping the damned in vats of boiling oil. Once their bodies had burnt away, they were pulled out and became whole again, only to be dipped in again. The next room had the damned being skinned alive. Once all their skin was removed, they became whole and the process started all over. The man told Satan that those looked awful and didn’t he have anything else? Satan thought about it a bit, then told him that there was one more room he might qualify for. Upon entering the room, the man noticed all the people in the room were drinking coffee and standing knee deep in raw sewage. The man thought to himself, “Well this doesn’t look too bad”. He told Satan that this was the room that he wanted to be in. Satan handed him off to the head demon for the room and left. Shortly thereafter the head demon blew a whistle and shouted “Ok, coffee breaks over, everybody back to standing on your head!”

And thus marks the end of my Christmas break and return to regular work. I hope everyone had a good vacation and wish everyone the best in the New Year!

Ninth Man in the Twelfth Hour

I actually didn’t really have much to say this morning, but then I saw Drudge’s headline that Obama might be able to squeeze through his SupremeCourt appointments. At first glance I thought this was more left wing malarkey. After all, they have been rather vocal about wanting to turn the norms of our democracy on its head since they lost. 

To be through, I followed the link to the Washington Times to see what the real scoop on this was. The article points out that 9 or so of Obama’s appointments have been thrown out because he tried to push them through when the Senate wasn’t open for business. The ruling was that as long as they did a formal gavel open and close ceremony, they were open and he couldn’t do a ‘recess appointment’. Since they continue to do this every day, even when no one but a few senators are in attendance, he can’t step around them. However, the court did supposedly note that there is a ‘golden’ 15 minutes or so where he might be able to do a recess appointment when the old congress ends and the new one begins.

This is of course why lawyers are the smartest stupid people on earth. Backing up to the plain language that is in the constitution, a president is charged with appointing Supremes with the ‘advice and consent’ of the senate. Specifically, Article II, Section 2, paragraph 2 of the Constitution says:

[The President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States

Note there is nothing in the language of the constitution about ‘recess appointments’. The ‘advice and consent’ wording is quite deliberate. It was put there to specifically limit the power of the executive and to legislative branches of the government when staffing the judicial branch. They have to cooperate, thus ensuring that no branch may obtain power over another. This is an intrinsic part of the ‘checks and balances’ of our system of government. 

So where did the concept of recess appointments come from? Article 2, Section 2 of the Constitution also states:

The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.

The Wikipedia entry on recess appointments is rather biased, only noting at the very end that the Supreme Court in deciding NLRB v. Noel Canning confirmed that pro-forma Senate sessions count and Obama’s attempt to squeeze in an appointment was not legal. Thus I won’t point you to those entries for reference. Again illustrating that lawyers are the smartest stupid people, the above plain text of the constitution indicates that this clause can’t apply to the Supreme Court as it currently exist because such appointments are ‘for life’, not for a session of congress. Unfortunately however, that is the legal fiction we are stuck with. 

So given the legal fiction, what can the current and the new congress do to avoid a ‘golden 15 minute’ window for Obama to push in his Supreme Court nominee? Mathematically there are just a few scenarios available for how and when Congress and the new President can cede power to the next leaders. Let’s acknowledge for a moment that Obama is president until Trump raises his hand on the 20^th to accept the oath of office. If the Congress remains in session through that process, then there is nothing Obama can do. However, if the gavel open, then gavel close, wait for Trump to be sworn in, then gavel open the new session, then Obama will, in theory have the opportunity to do a recess appointment. 

There is nothing in the constitution or law that I can see that says that the congress and president have to exchange power at exactly the same time. The solution then is to keep the congress in session until Trump is sworn in, then adjourn. It really is that simple. Since most of our Senate leadership are lawyers, making them smart dump people, I have to wonder if they have the wherewithal to do this. God help us all if they don’t! Obama has shown that he is ruthless when exercising is executive prerogative. Now that his 'legacy' is effectively in ashes and rejected by the electorate, he will do what he can to frustrate the peaceful transition of power. The answer is a courageous Congress. I hope they for once show a backbone.

Taking Another Spin Around The Sun

Well here we are! We made it through 2016, and are ready to take another spin around the sun, whether we want to or not. Like just about everyone, I am using this day as a marker of sorts, to look back on what I have done and to look forward on what I want to do in the year to come. So let’s look at what we have accomplished together this last year:

• It doesn’t really matter who you are or what you worship, we all took a spin around the sun. While that is the same thing Earth has done for like 4.543 billion years, and (hopefully) will continue to happen, it’s still a somewhat impressive feat. We all traveled 585,600,000 miles at a speed of 67,000 miles per hour to get here! Wow – look at us! Before you get all swell headed about that remember that we all did that. That includes that rather large woman in line in front of you at the fast food joint ordering 5 hamburgers, 4 fries, and a diet coke. Granted eating that way she might not go as far as the rest of us this year, but still she was with us last year! On the other hand, we could run into a stray asteroid this round and all life on earth could be wiped out and none of us will make another circuit. The important thing is we are all in this together.

• I realize this next point might twerk the ‘other’ people off, but we put a Republican in the White House. That also is not really a small feat. After all, it’s been like 8 years since we had a Republican there. As I have stated elsewhere, I am really hoping that Trump will be a real conservative. That remains to be seen. What I do see is that he is a major break from Obama, and even a break from what we had with Bush. On its own, that’s not really remarkable. When Obama came in 8 years ago, he too was a ‘major change’ from the status quo. Little did anyone know at that time just what kind of change he was going to be. It clearly wasn’t what people were looking for or they would have elected Hillary or Burnie this time around. It’s really hard to get perspective on this as I can’t easily project myself 8 years back to see how I was feeling then. The 8 year ago me is dead and gone. There has been too much that has happened to me personally and to our country for me to even know that guy anymore. Here’s hoping that Trump is a change we can all get behind.

• I really don’t have a third point here. I think the above really covers about everything that I wanted to say about the past year. Beyond that it was a hard year for me personally, but a lot of good stuff happened also. I continue to grow and change. Those two things are indicators of life and by their very nature mark us all as being alive. This too is a good thing.

Next, I’d like to look at what I want to happen in the New Year. I can only talk about my goals, as I am sure you all have things that you want to accomplish. Here’s my short list:

• I’d like to be more active on this blog. I have been experimenting over Christmas break about how I can go about doing that. To get an article up, it takes me on average about an hour of work. This is time that I need to set aside. I will try to keep this going, taking either one or both of the weekend days off. When I first started the blog, I tried to do too much, writing essays of 3000 words or more. Now I will try to keep it at less than 1000 and try to say something pithy in that span. Admittedly, that’s hard – much harder than I thought when I started. Editing continues to be a problem also, so you will have to forgive my occasional nonsense sentence that tend to wonder off track and end up being way to wordy for the concept that I am trying to get across in as few words as possible when I really should just say what I mean, yanno?

• I have started learning how to invest again. Years ago I did some trading in options that was near disastrous. I didn’t lose my shirt as I wasn’t really ‘playing’ with very much money, but I learned that investing is hard and it’s a skill that takes time to develop. I am now hooked up with a decent brokerage firm and I am trying to learn and apply knowledge that I obtained from the learning opportunities that they offer. Over this Christmas break I have started practicing some of the methods they teach and am hopeful that they will work as they seems to be based on solid principals. If they bear out, I will begin sharing my trades here for your amusement.

• Like most blog writers the blog is just a warm up for real writing. I’d like to get around to trying my hand at writing a real book. I have some ideals, and have been reading up on how this is done. That naturally will take its own time investment. Somehow, I will try to make time for that creative outlet.

• Finally, like about every other ‘older’ person, I am resolved that I will try to keep physically active and try to improve my body. As I may have noted earlier, I had something of a setback at the end of 2015 when my dog passed away. I have recovered, but I still am not down to weight I was or want to be or at the stamina and strength levels I desire. The older you get, the harder it gets to recover from these things. I am in a good place now, but I want to be much better than I am so I can keep doing the things that I love to do like hiking, mountain biking, and kayaking.

So, I wish you all successful year and I hope that we all get stronger in 2017!