THIS WEEK IN POLITICAL NEWS -- 2/9/12

HONESTLY DID NOT SEE THAT COMING: On Tuesday, Rick Santorum swept all three primaries, winning Minnesota, Colorado, and the non-binding Missouri race, earning more than 40% in all three states. In Minnesota, Romney came in third, with only 17%, behind Ron Paul (27%) and Santorum (45%). The biggest upset has to have been Colorado, a state Romney won in 2008 with 60% of the vote. This year, he scored a comparatively dismal 35%, losing by five points to Santorum. It was a really, really bad night for Romney -- or, as Nate Silver put it, “about the worst results conceivable.” And that was even after his campaign tried to set expectations absurdly low the morning of the voting, in a memo sent to reporters. I turn the analysis of the memo over to my friend Shebby: “It screams insecurity even as it attempts to project confidence. There are lots of good lines, but I think this is my favorite: ‘Of course, there is no way for any nominee to win first place in every single contest — John McCain lost 19 states in 2008, and we expect our opponents to notch a few wins too.’ McCain ended up running a train wreck campaign against Obama and that's the guy they are channeling? So Romney is competing for the right to get creamed in the general election?” Good point, Shebby!

But Romney wasn’t the only one who had a bad night. In all three states that voted, Gingrich won exactly one county, Bent County in southeast Colorado, where he netted 25 votes -- that’s votes, not percent -- to best Santorum’s 22 votes. Then again, if Gingrich’s real goal is to defeat Romney at all costs, he is certainly helping: check out how Romney’s favorability ratings have nose-dived since Gingrich started his all-out assault in early January.

9TH CIRCUIT STRIKES DOWN PROP 8: On Tuesday, the 9th Circuit ruled that Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in California, violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. It was a very narrow decision, limited to the unusual facts of the case: The court held that where gay couples had been legally allowed to marry (after the state Supreme Court ruled that denying them that right violated the state constitution), the taking away of that right constituted the Equal Protection violation. In other words, the 9th Circuit ruled that singling out gays as a disfavored group from whom to take away a right was unconstitutional; the court did not reach the broader question whether denying gays the right to marry -- period -- violated the Constitution. This narrow decision has disappointed some. “Today, the most liberal judges in the most liberal state on the most liberal appeals court had an opportunity to make history. Instead, they opted to do far less,” wrote Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick. On the other hand, she noted that the narrow grounds of the decision make it less likely that the U.S. Supreme Court will hear the case, leaving in place legal gay marriage in the largest state in the country. Alternatively, if the Court does accept cert and hear the appeal, Garret Epps writes that the opinion “is written to survive Supreme Court review, and for that reason, it is written for an audience of one: Justice Anthony M. Kennedy.”
Despite the narrowness of the holding, its language was still stirring in many places. Here are some of the best quotes from the 80+ page opinion [pdf]:

• "Proposition 8 serves no purpose other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples. The Constitution simply does not allow for laws of this sort."
• On the word "marriage": "A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but to the couple desiring to enter into a committed lifelong relationship, a marriage by the name of 'registered domestic partnership' does not."
• "Here, the argument that withdrawing the designation of 'marriage' from same-sex couples could on its own promote the strength or stability of opposite-sex marital relationships lacks any...footing in reality."
• "Just as the criminalization of homosexual conduct is an invitation to subject homosexual persons to discrimination both in the public and in the private spheres, so too does the elimination of the right to use the official designation of 'marriage' for the relationships of committed same-sex couples send a message that gays and lesbians are of lesser worth as a class--that they enjoy a lesser societal status."

Ted Olsen, half of the legal dream team that litigated this case, disagreed with the idea that the decision was a narrow one. “Actually I think it’s a very broad decision,” he told Rachel Maddow on Tuesday night. He noted that the 9th Circuit panel stressed “that there was no justification, there was no rational basis to single out gay and lesbian individuals in this country and take away rights from them or to deny rights from them. The court went through every argument that had been made on the other side and systematically dismantled every one of those arguments. So while the court focused on the peculiarities of California, the principles it articulated are quite broad and very compelling.” Olsen expressed confidence that, not only would the Supreme Court uphold the opinion.

GETTING A HOLD OF THIS CONTRACEPTION STORY: Late last month, the Obama administration announced that, under the health reform bill, most health insurance plans would have to cover contraception. “The rule includes an exemption for certain ‘religious employers,’ including houses of worship....A religious employer cannot qualify for the exemption if it employs or serves large numbers of people of a different faith, as many Catholic hospitals, universities and social service agencies do.” Given that 98 percent of American women -- including 98 percent of Catholic women -- use contraceptives, that 28 states currently have almost identical rules requiring coverage of contraceptives, and that the rule is insanely, broadly popular, I didn’t think much of it except that it was a long-time coming and good on the Obama White House. So of course, cue the conservative freak-out. The Conference of Catholic Bishops was in full-out meltdown mode -- though, to me, it’s hard to take a group of men who, by definition, have never been faced with the prospect of impregnating anyone all that seriously on the question of universal access to contraception. But some people do! Like congressional Republicans (and, sadly some Democrats), who now have vowed to undo the policy with legislation. In the meantime, the Catholic Bishops aren’t just insisting on broader religious exceptions; they want every single employer to be able to cut off contraception funding from the health plans they offer, just in case some boss-man’s “conscience” is somehow offended by the prospect of people being safe and responsible (and yes, sexual) adults. Rachel Maddow had a great segment on this, reminding viewers that opposing contraception is not a winning issue, to say the least. Here’s David Frum, trying to make the same point to his fellow conservatives. I think this thoughtful defense of the White House policy really hits every point, and, to my mind, ends the debate.

GOOD NEWS -- Washington Passes Gay Marriage Bill: By a 55-43 vote on Wednesday, the Washington state house passed a same-sex marriage bill, following the senate’s earlier approval of the bill. The governor has promised to sign it promptly. Freedom to Marry reports on one potential snag: “However, opponents of the freedom to marry have until June 6th to turn in the necessary signatures to file for a referendum that would put marriage on the ballot this coming November. Should they file a referendum with a sufficient number of verified signatures, the law would not be implemented until after the election.”

Fun Video of the Week: To continue last week’s theme, here’s Michelle Obama challenging Jimmy Fallon to a five-round fitness challenge. Make sure to watch to the very end, where Jimmy talks about meeting Michelle and how insanely cool she is.
Bonus Video of the Week: Ellen DeGeneres responds to the anti-gay critics who have blasted JC Penny for signing up Ellen as a spokesperson. To me, the most incredible thing about this video is watching a full studio audience of what appear to be middle-aged, middle-class suburban women cheer their faces off for the Prop 8 decision and for JC Penny’s refusal to back down. It’s pretty hard not to think that Ellen DeGeneres, just by being who she is and by having a super mainstream TV show, has accomplished an enormous amount of unacknowledged work for the cause of equality in this country.
Double Bonus Video of the Week: Justice Sonia Sotomayor solves cases on the street -- Sesame Street!

THIS WEEK IN POLITICAL NEWS -- 2/2/12

ROMNEY MARCHES ON: On Tuesday, Romney won the Florida primary by a commanding 14 points. He then proceeded to give a victory speech filled with lies and bile. (Sullivan’s take: “This speech is the most dishonest, manipulative, disgusting series of lies I've heard in a very long time. … This man will say anything to gain power.”) In other words, the usual fare. Gingrich’s defeat speech laid out the many, many, many things he would accomplish on his first day in the oval office -- so he’s clearly not going anywhere. The candidates march on to Nevada, which holds it primary on Saturday (and seems poised for another huge Romney win). Gingrich is now pinning his hopes to Super Tuesday, but it’s unclear whether he has the money to keep campaigning that long. Then again, he has the support of Sarah Palin, and if that’s not a clear path to the White House, I don’t know what is.

The most interesting thing about the GOP race now is the money situation. This week, the SuperPacs affiliated with various candidates reported their intake from the previous quarter. Romney’s group, Restore Our Future, raised about $18 million from just 200 donors in the second half of 2011 -- that’s an average of $90,000 per donor! The Washington Post reports that “a quarter of the money amassed by Romney’s campaign and an allied super PAC has come from just 41 people, each of whom has given more than $100,000, according to a Washington Post analysis of disclosure data. Nearly a dozen of the donors have contributed $1 million or more.” This is absolutely astronomical. But this is only half the story. As the Times reminds us today, “nonprofits” associated with each PAC can donate to the SuperPac without revealing its donors, meaning that millions are dollars are being given to these campaign apparatuses without any way of being traced -- “like a $250,000 contribution to a super PAC backing Mr. Romney from a company with a post office box for a headquarters and no known employees.” More on that here. Jonathan Bernstein argues that if you really want to make a difference with your political contribution dollars, you should forget the presidential race and give instead to congressional races.

ROMNEY ADMITS WHAT WE ALL KNEW: Straight off his victory in Florida, Romney made a classic gaffe: inadvertenly saying what he actually thinks. On CNN Wednesday morning, Romney declared that he is “not concerned with the very poor.” Here’s his whole quote, so no one can yell about lack of context: “I’m not concerned with the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich, they’re doing just fine. I’m concerned about the very heart of the America.” When host Soledad O’Brien asked if he really meant that he’s not concerned about the poor, Romney doubled down: “We will hear from the Democrat party the plight of the poor. And there’s no question it’s not good being poor. And we have a safety net to help those that are very poor.” Even the Right is enraged by this unforced error. The irony, of course, is that Romney’s entire campaign is premised on destroying that very “safety net” that he declares is sufficient to take care of the poor. He would eliminate Title X funding, he wants to privatize unemployment insurance, he wants to cap Medicaid spending and then block-grant it to states, who would be free to disburse it however they want, and he has repeatedly endorsed the Paul Ryan plan to turn Medicare into underfunded vouchers. And as Jon Stewart points out, if you’re in the net, something has already gone terribly wrong! Is it just me, or is Romney not good at this?

SENATE BILL TO ENACT THE BUFFETT RULE: Yesterday, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) introduced a bill to put Obama’s “Buffett Rule” into law. The bill would require that those making more than a million dollars pay 30 percent of that income in federal income taxes. Whitehouse explained it in one sentence: “If your income is over 1 million, multiply it by 0.3, and if that number is bigger than you’d otherwise be paying, pay that.” It would effectively work like an Alternative Minimum Tax, making sure that the small percentage of millionaires who pay less than 30% of their income in taxes, well, don’t. Jonathan Bernstein has a great rundown of arguments against the Buffett Rule, and an explanation for why all those objections fail. One thing that is not clear to be is how a tax bill can constitutionally originate in the Senate, given Art. 1, Section 7. But let’s wait for more details! At the minimum, this would be a great move politically for Democrats and the White House, given the fact that 76 percent -- 76 percent!! -- of the public supports it, and that the probable Republican nominee pays only a 14 percent tax rate.

RETHINK YOUR SUPPORT OF THE PINK RIBBON: Caving to ever-present conservative pressure, this week the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation pulled all its funding -- amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars -- to Planned Parenthood, despite the nonprofit’s essential work providing breast cancer screenings to countless women. Conservatives are declaring victory, as they get another step closer to making Planned Parenthood a pariah of American politics with whom no one may interact without facing right-wing smears, attacks, and distortions. According to Planned Parenthood, Susan G. Komen funding over the past 5 years has allowed their health centers to provide nearly 170,000 breast exams and 6,400 mammogram referrals. But not everyone is caving. HuffPo reports that “the Connecticut affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure said in a statement on Wednesday that it ‘shares’ people's frustration over the decision and that it will continue funding Planned Parenthood of New England.” Same goes for the Komen center of Denver. Two dozen senators have now signed a letter asking Komen to reverse its position, and Planned Parenthood says it raised $650,000 in the 24 hours after Komen’s announcement, close to the $700,000 in annual grants that used to come from the foundation. And today Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that he will donate $250,000 of his own money to Planned Parenthood in response. You can donate here.

INDIANA BECOMES LATEST LABOR WAR FRONT: On Wednesday, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels signed a “right-to-work” bill, making the state the latest front in the GOP’s battle against unions. It marks a sharp reversal for Daniels, who in 2006 declared himself to be a “supporter of the labor laws we have in the state of Indiana” who was “not interested in changing any of it. Not the prevailing wage laws, and certainly not the right to work law.” More than 10,000 people have protested the bill this week, and they now have a very impressive supporter: the NFL Players Association -- a coup in any context but an especially important ally given that Indianapolis is hosting the Super Bowl this Sunday. “While we’re out here, we’re going to make sure the folks who work for a living and unions they belong to know we appreciate them, we appreciate the strength they gave us for our fight. We’re always going to be standing shoulder to shoulder with men and women who want to collectively protect themselves,” said DeMaurice Smith, the players’ union’s executive director. The AFL-CIO plans to distribute information and materials at the game this weekend, and other Occupy groups are planning a presence there as well.

HERO OF THE WEEK: Virginia is on the verge of passing a bill requiring all women to undergo ultrasounds prior to getting abortions, despite the fact that such ultrasounds are not medically necessary. So state senator Janet Howell introduced an amendment to the bill requiring all men to undergo rectal exams before receiving a prescription for Viagra. Yes -- she is that awesome. “I said, it’s only fair, that if we’re going to subject women to unnecessary procedures, and we’re going to subject doctors to having to do things that they don’t think is medically advisory, well, Mr. President, I think we should just have a little gender equity here,” Howell said, explaining her amendment. Unsurprisingly, her amendment failed.

GOOD NEWS -- New Mortgage Relief Plan: In a new plan that Matt Yglesias says could “break a long-standing deadlock in the housing finance market and provide a significant boost to a ‘recovery winter’ scenario,” Obama announced a new home mortgage relief proposal today. The plan “parts of which require Congressional legislation, aims to make it easier for homeowners to refinance their mortgages, by streamlining the financing process and clearing the way for people with underwater mortgages to obtain new mortgages.”

Unsurprising-and-yet-still-vomit-inducing Headline of the Week: “Lieberman, Cantor defend Capitol Hill’s Insider Traders”
Must-Read of the Week: Matt O’Brien has a thorough and clear explanation of why carried interest is an even bigger scam than you think.
Fun Video of the Week: Two videos this week featuring my favorite person/future best friend, Michelle Obama: Here she is in a push-up contest with Ellen DeGeneres, and here she is telling Rachel Ray that her husband is “freaking out” about the prospect of Malia dating.

THIS WEEK IN POLITICAL NEWS -- 1/26/12

WHOA!: Before we get started, this new ad from Newt’s SuperPac just hit the internets and it is jaw-droppingly aggressive. And just plain insane. Check it out! Also note: This was released just a couple hours before tonight’s CNN debate in Florida.

‘THE STATE OF OUR UNION IS GETTING STRONGER’: On Tuesday, President Obama delivered his third official State of the Union address. Clocking in at over an hour, the speech offered a plethora of populist bromides and demands to Congress to give him some legislation to sign. Obama also reminded Congress that, with or without their help, he would continue to move on strengthening the economy, reforming education, and encouraging clean energy, among other executive branch initiatives. One of the biggest goals of the speech was obviously to push back against the mountains of lies and distortions about his presidency that have been pushed by the GOP candidates during primary season. So Obama touted his record on job creation, his renewed diplomacy and foreign policy, his (rebuffed) efforts to cut the deficit and reform the tax code, his low rate of regulation approval in comparison to Bush, his approval of new trade deals, his expansion of offshore oil drilling, his successful passage of Wall Street reform, and his repeated attempts to work toward bipartisan compromise. The White House once again put together an annotated video of the speech, placing charts and graphs touching on the content of the speech in a side-by-side view next to the speech. It’s pretty cool.

Overall, though, I didn’t find the speech that exciting or inspiring. Granted, it was refreshing to hear him spend so much time discussing income inequality and the basic unfairness of our tax system. But even those sections were not nearly as powerful as his Osawatomie speech, which a fraction of the American people heard. I was particularly disturbed by his touting of an “all of the above” energy strategy -- a line straight out of Sarah Palin’s mouth -- that gives equal weight to oil, natural gas, coal, and clean energy development. And nowhere in his rather lengthy discussion of energy did he mention climate change. I also don’t understand his refusal to name the specific policies he is defending, with the primary example being the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform bill. He reminded the audience, to applause, that under his administration “we’ve put in place new rules to hold Wall Street accountable, so a crisis like this never happens again.” That’s clearly what Dodd-Frank is intended to do, and it’s popular! But it doesn’t help if he doesn’t say, “By the way, that is called the Dodd-Frank bill, the same one you keep hearing the GOP candidates label a ‘job-killer’ that they pledge to repeal.” In every debate, both Gingrich and Romney spout lie after lie about “Dodd-Frank.” My guess is that most people have no idea what that bill even is. So if Obama’s going to to go the trouble of defending it, he should name it, so that people can compare what he’s saying about it to what the GOP is saying about it.

UNMITIGATED CRAZY IN THE GOP RACE: When I left you two weeks ago, Romney’s path to the nomination seemed obstacle-free (except, of course, for the giant obstacle of his total unlikeability). But last weekend’s South Carolina primary has, once again, thrown the race wide open, with Newt defeating Romney by a resounding 12 points, coming from as much as a 14-point deficit in the polls just a week before the vote. Newt’s ascent was fueled mostly by his two South Carolina debate performances. In one, he attacked CNN for having the audacity to ask him about his ex-wife’s claim that he demanded an “open marriage” so that he could continue his six-year-long affair with Callista. In the other, he spewed forth what may be the most racist 4 minutes of speech I’ve seen on TV ever. (And then he promptly made an ad out of it.) Newt also benefited from the fact that Romney still had not figured out a way to talk about his work at Bain successfully, and still did not have an answer to the question to when he would release his tax returns. After hemming and hawing about it for a week, Romney released two years’ worth of tax returns on Tuesday morning, hours before Obama’s State of the Union Speech. The president could hardly have hoped for a better gift: Romney’s returns showed that he paid an effective tax rate of 14 percent on over $20 million of income each year -- years, by the way, during which Romney claimed to be “unemployed.” This set up perfectly Obama’s pitch for the “Buffet Rule,” which would close the loopholes that allow millionaires to pay a lower effective tax rate than teachers, cops, and the rest of the middle class. The fact that Romney’s enormous income came entirely from dividends means that he also paid almost nothing to Social Security and Medicare through the payroll tax. (Similarly, even during the time he was at Bain Capital, he likely paid only a tiny percentage of his total income to FICA taxes, since the bulk of his income came through carried interest. More about carried interest here.)

GOOD POINT ON NEWT’S RISE: I would make this into a “Must-Read,” but it’s good enough to quote at length. Here’s Jon Chait, writing that the Republican Establishment, which is now in full panic over Gingrich’s potentially unstoppable rise, has no one to blame but itself: “The Republican Establishment, having spent three years stoking its voters into a fit of wild rage against President Obama, now finds itself in a panic over the possibility that those voters might be wild and enraged enough to go ahead and select Newt Gingrich as their nominee. There really is a lot of humor in the situation. The proposition Gingrich is offering GOP voters is just the natural extension of what they have come to believe. Obama is an ultra-radical, as well as a lightweight, who can’t speak without a TelePrompTer, so simply forcing him into a series of lengthy debates will expose his incompetence and extremism. To convince Republican voters to settle for Mitt Romney, the Establishment now has to tell them that defeating Obama will be … tough.” Chait writes a follow-up post arguing that Gingrich can credit his current good-fortunes primarily to Citizens United -- a development liberals decried and conservatives, including the Republican Establishment, welcomed with open arms.

GOOD NEWS -- Getting Closer to Marriage Equality: This week, Washington state Senator Mary Margaret Haugen (D) announced her support for a bill allowing same-sex marriage, becoming the final vote needed for passage in the state senate. The New Jersey legislature is similarly poised to pass marriage equality, as a key committee passed the bill earlier this week. As the Times explains, “The same-sex marriage bill is a priority for Democrats, led by the Senate president, Stephen M. Sweeney, who has said that his decision not to vote on a similar bill two years ago, when there was a Democratic governor who supported same-sex marriage, was “the biggest mistake” of his political career.” Unlike Washington, however, where Gov. Christine Gregoire has vowed to sign a same-sex marriage bill, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey promised to veto the bill, and then announced that the issue should be left up to a popular referendum. Such a vote seems likely to happen in Maine, where gay marriage advocates announced today they planned to put the issue on the November ballot, after collecting nearly twice the requisite signatures for the initiative. Oh, and retiring Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) has confirmed that he will marry his longtime partner Jim Ready, in Massachusetts, though a date has not yet been set.

Cool Video of the Week: One more shout-out to the annotated State of the Union. Click around in the video -- it’s really cool!
Good Read of the Week: James Suroweki on how private equity firms, like Bain, profit form the tax system. Preview: “For an industry that’s often held up as an exemplar of free-market capitalism, private equity is surprisingly dependent on government subsidies for its profits.”
Fun Video of the Week: Jon Stewart drives himself into a frenzy trying to understand Newt’s audacious hypocrisy regarding his marriages -- and the media’s complete failure to explain why the issue is important.

THIS WEEK IN POLITICAL NEWS -- 1/13/12

ROMNEY, THE EARLY PRIMARIES, AND ENVY: Hopefully you’ve all heard by now that Romney won both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, the latter by a healthy 16-point margin. (The former, it turns out, may not actually have been a win.) Now all eyes turn to South Carolina, where polls put Romney up above second-place Gingrich by about 5 points. Surprisingly, Rick Santorum’s support appears to be waning, big time, in the Palmetto state, and libertarian Ron Paul is surging, currently sitting in third place. At this point, Romney’s nomination appears all but inevitable, especially considering that the three “conservative” alternatives -- Perry, Santorum, and Gingrich -- are all remaining in the race and thus splitting the Not-Romney vote. (By the way, what in the world is Perry still doing in this campaign?) Gingrich has been doing the most damage to Romney by pummeling him on his record at Bain Capital, where he made millions of dollars on the backs of bankrupt, collapsing companies. Not really a great American success story. Gingrich’s SuperPac ran a 30-minute only somewhat factual “documentary” on Bain, and has been in full-throated assault mode every since New Hampshire, despite outrage among conservative circles that this validates the Obama campaign’s aim to go after Romney for the same thing. (Hint: It does!) Amazingly, Romney appears completely unprepared for the attacks. This week on the Today show, he claimed that questions from other Republicans about his tenure at Bain and the propriety of making millions by firing thousands of workers, looting pensions, and shutting down businesses were about nothing more than “envy”. He even went so far as to suggest that talking about income inequality -- the issue the Obama campaign calls the “central challenge of our time” -- is inappropriate on the campaign trail: “I think it’s fine to talk about those things in quiet rooms and discussions about tax policy and the like. But the president has made it part of his campaign rally.” “Where are these rooms?” Hendrick Hertzberg asks. And, if they’re discussing the massive inequality created and perpetuated by conservatives’ regressive policies, why are they quiet at all?

ROMNEY STRUGGLES TO BE LIKEABLE: Earlier, I said that Romney’s nomination was all but inevitable. The one stumbling block appears to be Romney himself, who is, purely and simply, not a likeable person. Campaign reporters have taken notice, and have provided us with some illuminating -- and truly hilarious -- accounts of this zillionaire (one of the 3,000 richest men in America) trying to relate to normal humans. It isn’t pretty. Here he is trying to be folksy by (incorrectly) guessing people’s age and ethnicity. Here he is trying to relate his love for his grandkids by talking about who he’ll bequeath his massive fortune to. Here he is making the wildly implausible claim, “There were a couple of times I wondered whether I was going to get a pink slip." And then following up by proclaiming he “never imagined” he would run for president. Here’s an account of his general awkwardness on the campaign trail. This account of a fairly disastrous town hall is even more entertaining. The point is that acting like a normal person, someone with personal intuition and compassion, does not come easily to the Mittster. (If you have any doubt about his compassion deficit, watch this video -- and pay special attention to his shit-eating grin as he walks away from a very sick man with a legitimate question.)

OBAMA’S GUTSY RECESS APPOINTMENTS: On January 4, the President announced that he would be making three new recess appointments: three new members to the National Labor Relations Board, which had been deprived of a quorum -- and, by extension, of the power to enforce national labor laws -- since 2008, and Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, which was created by the 2009 Wall Street reform bill. The GOP had vowed to block any nominee to the CFPB out of ideologically pique, despite the fact that the statute -- passed by Congress and signed by the President -- requires a director to head the new agency. As Steve Benen explained, this signaled “a radical embrace of nullification”: “As a matter of legal and institutional principles, Americans haven’t seen tactics like these since the Civil War.” Obama’s move was controversial, however, because Republicans in the Senate had specifically sought to prevent such appointments by holding pro forma sessions throughout the holidays, so they could claim the Senate was not technically in recess. And so it will shock no one to hear that the GOP was apopolectic over Obama’s so-called “power grab.” Here’s John Yoo and David Addington -- Bush administration officials who were responsible for designing and justifying his torture policies -- decrying the recess appointments as an extreme and unconstitutional overstepping of presidential authority. For real. The GOP claims that the Senate minority has sole authority to decide whether they’re in recess, and thus unfettered power to block all appointments. But the absurdity of the GOP’s claim to be in recess is perfectly encapsulated by this amazing catch by Jon Bernstein, who quotes a House Republican decrying the appointments while in the same breath acknowledging that Congress was in recess. (And here’s Joe “You Lie” Wilson explaining, with regards to a separate matter, that Congress “doesn't return from recess until Jan. 17.”) Today, the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel published its legal opinion assessing the constitutionality of the appointment, finding that the appointments were legal because the pro forma sessions did not provide an opportunity for the Senate to actually consider the nominations.

Hilarious Anecdote of the Week: Rick Perry tries to call on a mannequin.
Fun Video of the Week: Jimmy Kimmel explains exactly how gay marriage could spell the end of humanity.
Bonus Fun Video of the Week: The Daily Show on Gingrich’s general dickish condescension. (Part 2, which is also hilarious. Watch the whole thing!)
Must Read of the Week: Lakhdar Boumediene provides a haunting account of the seven years he spent Guantanamo -- locked up apparently for no reason at all.
Bonus Must-Read: Dahlia Lithwick on the ten-year anniversary of Guantanamo.