I Believe I Have Found Your Activist Judges, GOP

If this ridiculous ruling from the three Republican-appointed judges on the DC Appeals Court is allowed to stand, the Republicans can shut down the executive branch, period.  Adam Serwer at Mojo:

On Friday, a federal appeals court ruled that President Barack Obama's appointments to the National Labor Relations Board, which regulates and oversees labor disputes, were unconstitutional. The Constitution allows the president to make temporary appointments, called recess appointments, while the Senate is on break—or recess, in DC terms. Obama did make the NRLB appointments while the Senate was on vacation. But Senate Republicans claimed that the Senate was technically still in session over their vacation because they were holding brief, minutes-long meetings over the course of the break. The three judges on the panel—all of whom were appointed by Republican presidents—agreed with the challengers. Now all the decisions Obama's NLRB appointees made since they joined the board are at risk of being invalidated.

The court's decision doesn't just affect labor law: it could also have an impact on the White House's broader economic agenda. The sweeping ruling throws into question the future of regulatory decisions made by one of the administration's most aggressive agencies, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 

So two executive agencies that Republicans despise are now effectively out of business as of Friday: the people that keep corporations from screwing over workers, and the people that keep banks from screwing over everybody.  That's not allowed in the Republican worldview:  people are simply resources that must be exploited for maximum profit.

Also out of business:  The President can basically no longer make recess appointments.

Friday's ruling takes the sweeping view that recess appointments made during Senate breaks, like vacations, are unconstitutional. The court found that the recess appointment power can only be used during breaks between Senate sessions—and those only happen once a year, usually over the Christmas and New Year's holidays. It also holds that the president can only make recess appointments for positions that become open during a recess—as opposed to ones that already were open. The court's position would invalidate the vast majority of recess appointments made by Republican and Democratic presidents over the course of the last century, including that of John Bolton, George W. Bush's ambassador to the United Nations.

In other words, recess appointments were fine until the black guy made a couple.  Somebody please come up with an argument that says otherwise, because right now as it stands, Republican judges are really just putting a black man "in his place".