GOP judges rule in favor of Republican wish list

Ignoring precedent, mitigating circumstance and even common sense, in a breathtaking display of judicial hackery, GOP appointees ruled in favor of GOP obstructionism:

The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said Obama did not have the power to make three recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board because the Senate was officially in session - and not in recess - at the time. If the decision stands, it could invalidate hundreds of board decisions made over the past year. [...]

The three-judge panel, all appointed by Republican presidents, flatly rejected arguments from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, which claimed the president has discretion to decide that the Senate is unavailable to perform its advice and consent function.

If it's upheld by the higher courts, it would also effectively shut down the NLRB and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In other words, what the GOPers couldn't win on the floor, they could gain in the GOP stacked courts. Considering how the upper court bench is stacked, I'd say their odds are much too good.

And, as Charlie Pierce explains, this is how it happens:

This, children, is what you get when you operate politically under the theory that They're All The Same. You get 20 or 30 years of primarily Republican judges acting primarily as Republicans, drawn from the legal chop-shops in the conservative movement bubble, and doing their partisan duty like performing seals.

This is what I mean when I say every single election is important. The political pageantry between the White House and Capitol Hill is theater. Big power is in the judiciary. You can't vote them out.