It’s not just Democrats getting tired of this dreary old “Constitution” thing, whose various articles and sections keep getting in the way of progress (defined as the centralization of total power.) When King Barack I declared he had the unilateral power to decide whether Congress is in recess or not, Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) was quick to bend his knee, as reported by the Associated Press:
U.S. Sen. Scott Brown said he supports President Barack Obama's decision to name Richard Cordray as the nation's chief consumer watchdog despite the objections of Brown's fellow Senate Republicans.
The Massachusetts Republican said in a statement Wednesday that while he would have preferred that the appointment go through the normal confirmation process, the political system is "completely broken" in Washington.
Obama said he was tired of Senate Republicans stalling his nominee to lead the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and put him in charge Wednesday over their opposition.
"I refuse to take `no' for an answer," Obama said.
Brown said he agreed with the Democratic president.
"I support President Obama's appointment today of Richard Cordray to head the CFPB. I believe he is the right person to lead the agency and help protect consumers from fraud and scams," Brown said in a statement.
"If we're going to make progress as a nation, both parties in Washington need to work together to end the procedural gridlock and hyper-partisanship," he added.
In 2010, Brown had written to the President “strongly urging him not to bypass the Senate when appointing someone to lead the new agency,” although he also wanted a straight up-or-down vote instead of blocking the nominee. He voted with the Democrats in December to end the filibuster against Cordray.
There’s nothing mysterious about Brown’s enthusiasm for creating a new “super czar” accountable to no one but the King. Congress can’t even defund the CFPB, because it’s funded by the Federal Reserve. But Richard Cordray is Obama’s second choice to become his new executor of financial control. His first choice, far-left ideologue Elizabeth Warren – who believes the State owns everything its citizens produce, because they could accomplish nothing without using the resources of the State – is currently locked in a tight election battle with Brown, and the battlefield is Massachusetts.
What is harder to understand is why Brown would happily kneel before Obama’s outrageous new extra-Constitutional power to control Congressional recess, installing not just Cordray but three new union operatives on the National Labor Relations Board. The chief executive of a constitutional republic is not empowered to arbitrarily dismiss articles of the Constitution he finds inconvenient to his agenda, even when he loudly declares he’s doing it “for the people.” Brown hasn’t been in the Senate long enough to have seen Democrats using pro-forma sessions of the Senate to block Bush nominees, but maybe he could ask the old-timers to tell him what it was like.
The Cordray imperial charter shreds not only the Constitution, but the very Dodd-Frank legislation that created the CFPB, and expressly requires Senate confirmation of its director. Why should any American obey one single provision of Dodd-Frank, if Barack Obama may ignore its provisions at will?
Brown is a liberal Republican running for re-election in a liberal state. The difficulties of that position are easy enough to appreciate. It’s no surprise that he’d take various positions dismaying to conservatives. His faith in the CFPB is horrendous, but it’s frankly disgusting to see him abandon all concern over how the new super czar is installed. Freedom is protected by law, and law is a matter of procedure. Shouldn’t we expect even the most liberal Republican to offer at least a minimal defense of the Republic?
Once again, we are reminded that the Constitution will receive no defense from cowards.
