The House Republican position on President Obama’s recess appointments is hard to even express without laughing. GOP Congressmembers are actually saying that they oppose the appointments because Congress is not in recess – and as soon as they finish their vacation and get back to Washington, they’ll have something to say about that.

President Obama missed his chance yesterday to use the “Roosevelt precedent” to appoint Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or make any recess appointment. But the Wall Street Journal reported that the President got legal clearance to basically ignore the pro forma sessions being held by Congress, enabling a recess appointment at any point in this holiday break.

So this is entirely on the Senate to fail to come up with an adjournment motion. Jeff Sessions planned to block unanimous consent. And while seeking cloture would have had them sitting around a couple days, Democrats may have figured they couldn’t get 7 Republicans to agree to adjourn. Or maybe Harry Reid just wanted to go home. So Reid never even made the motion.

This threat is empty, and should be regarded with a laugh and a recess appointment for CFPB as soon as possible. In addition, they should elevate this threat. “Republicans just sent me a letter saying that they’ll stop the business of the Senate if I dare install someone to protect consumers getting ripped off by banks and mortgage companies,” would be a sample public statement.

Janet Yellen and Sarah Bloom Raskin finally got confirmed by the Senate as members of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors. Peter Diamond, another nominee, will have to wait until the lame duck session. The confirmations were part of a large deal, where some nominees got to move through the Senate in exchange for Democrats holding pro forma sessions so President Obama could not make any recess appointments.