NO DEAL. These politicians work for us and if they have to have their thanksgiving dinner on the senate floor to save our country from more criminals in power, then so be it. I'll fly to dc and help cook the gd dinner for them.

Talk, bluster, and bluff... There are a couple of football field lengths of lines the Democrats have drawn in the sand. "Don't cross THIS line this time. And THIS time I really mean it! Don't make me propose another non-binding resolution!" The 98lb. weakling is kicking sand in the face of Charles Atlas, for God's sake! (For those of you old enough to remember...)

Judging by comments here, on yesterday's post about failure to issue contempt citations, and elsewhere on TPM, I am surmising that the Democrat "leadership" has completely lost the confidence of anyone paying any attention at all. I know I am done with them.

Why blame Reid ?

The Republicans allowed Rove and Cheney to browbeat them for six years. They rolled up every Tuesday and told the Senate exactly what they were going to do. No backtalk was allowed.

When Rove departed, did a single member of Congress say a single word of farewell ?

The White House then destroyed the Deparment of Justice. Congress would have to go through Justice to prosecute the bad guys. Now that is impossible.

The White House does not like adhering to the constitution. They have found ways to work around it. Is this Reid's fault ?

As I mentioned in a blog post at the Cafe, I have no respect for Reid. Especially when it comes to Presidential appointments. He's already shown his weak spine in cow-towing to the Bush Administration, and I have no doubts he will do so again.

Hey, cut Reid and Pelosi little slack. The Senate has a democratic majority based on Lieberman caucusing with them, not a true majority. In addition, some of the Dem senators are Dems in name only, and need to be voted out. All their majority means in this senate is that they get to chair the committees and have the speaker.
It's almost as bad in the House, with the blue dogs dems. They definitely need to be gone.

They are trying. Don't waste your anger on them, put it on the R's where it belongs.

The real question is not recess at TG, but at the end of the session later this year. A recess appointment made during the current session can last until the end of the NEXT session--i.e., late in 2008. A recess appointment made AFTER the adjournment of the current (2007) session can last until the end of the 2009 session. That's not a typo. That wouldn't matter so much for those who "serve at the pleasure of the president", but for appointees to "independent" boards and commissions, who can only be removed "for cause," it could matter a whole lot.

In the late 90's this problem was addressed by agreements, between Clinton and GOP Senate, specifying who could be recessed.

I called Senator Reid yesterday asking him to keep someone there over the holidays to avert recess appointments . I said I'd come to Washington myself to be there over the holidays to keep Bush from making more unaccoutable recess appointment s.
I hope he makes sure this dosent happen !!!11

Lucy (Bush) is telling Charlie Brown (Reid) she won't pull the football away this time. Right.

I guess Cheney will just have to open his Man-Sized safe and see what dirt he has on Reid (and his family), again.

Reid should require Feinstein and Lieberman to stay in the Senate chambers during the holidays.

>>But wait, I thought the reason we all had to go along with the nomination of "Muck"asey was because Bush would recess-appoint a much worse person for Attorney General and there was nothing the Democrats could do about it. So were they lying then or are they lying now?>Asinine. I've said it before: The only reason for pro forma sessions is if they already gave in to twisted administration interpretations of the recess appointment clause.

One court case interpreting the clause and we could avoid this theater every few months. Clearly the clause is not meant to be used so the President can wait out the Senate to avoid oversight--it's for vacancies that *arise during* not *exist during* Senate recesses.<<

Good luck with that. Appointments that existed during a recess instead of occurred during a recess have been going on for at least 100 years.

Also, in the early days when Congress was only in session for something like 3 months, if they refused to confirm someone for a position, then went on break for 9 months, one could argue that this clause should be used at the time, especially if it's an important position.

So I think both historical precedence and an practical example of how it could have been used in that manner early on would make it hard for the clause to be interpreted in the way you'd like it to be.

Why can't the senate just go out of session for a day anytime it wants to cancel recess appointments?