No More Mr. Nice Obama  There’s a common and compelling logic to
President Obama’s recess appointments today of Richard Cordray
to head the Consumer Financial Protection Board and of three
appointees to the National Labor Relations Board. In the case of
both boards, the appointments were necessary if the boards were
to function at al—the very reason that Senate Republicans had
made clear their determination to appoint nobody at all to the
two boards.  In December, Republicans filibustered Cordray’s
nomination, stating clearly that they had nothing in particular
against Cordray but were opposed to the existence of the board
itself, which had come into being as part of the Dodd-Frank
Financial Reform Act passed by Congress in 2010. Lacking the
votes to repeal the act, Republicans chose instead to kill the
board by refusing to confirm a director, without which the board
could not fully, or even substantially, function.  At the NLRB,
the expiration of board member Craig Becker’s term at the end of
December left t