Growing Crowd Of Czars
June 18, 2009/ by Save America
President Barack Obama has added new members (to the tune of at least 22 of them so far, not counting the special envoy) to the growing crowd of top officials, known as czars, who have authority over our (as in United States) government agencies.
Czars report directly to POTUS. Czars answer only to POTUS. Czars have no accountability and no one to monitor or control their budgets (taxpayer money, of course). More importantly, czars have no vetting process…..they do not have to be approved by Congress, as other cabinet appointees do. So, POTUS has established a “shadow government” between himself and Congress. A shadow government that has no vetting, no approval, no clear duties, no budget oversight and no idea how it will impact the national debt. Just ask yourself…..with all the attorneys in the House and Senate, why isn’t anyone standing up and challenging the legality of the President’s actions? I have no doubt that money and power have much to do with the inactions. The constitution is being shredded right before all of us!! So, let’s examine just one aspect of the Constitutional violations…which is obviously, the establishment of this shadow government.
A shadow government has been described as a “government-in-waiting that remains in waiting with the intentions of taking control of a government in response to some event.” It stands to reason that the creation and wide spread use of Czars is the formation of a shadow government given their lack of accountability and control, which is designed to usurp the Constitution, the Congress and the CITIZENS of the United States of America.
So, in terms of history, what is a czar. Well, according to Wikipedia a czar is:
“Originally, the title Czar (derived from Caesar, fitting isn’t it?) meant Emperor in the European medieval sense of the term, that is a ruler who claims the same rank as a Roman Emperor, with the approval of another emperor or a supreme ecclesiastical official (the Pope or the Ecumenical Patriarch). Occasionally the work could be used to designate other, non-Christian supreme rulers.”
Now Presidents appointing czars is nothing new. Reagan had one czar, the senior Bush has two, and Clinton and Bush Jr. both had four. Obama leaves all previous Presidents in the DUST. So far in his Presidency Obama has appointed twenty two czars. These czars have power over everything from executive’s pay to Iran to the internet, etc..
What exactly can a czar do? The idea is to have one person ultimately responsible for an issue and avoid problems of overlapping bureaucracies that previous administrations have experienced. This means that czars have broad powers with which to work. For instance, the energy czar is in charge of SIX government agencies (oh, and did I mention these czars are not vetted, approved by Congress, etc….. just put in place by Obama? Yep, I thought I did………)
You see, the main problem is that Obama’s czars are likely to have the authority to influence and make decisions for Cabinet-level agencies (are you getting the picture, now?) Yet, they aren’t confirmed by Congress. Obama’s appointments of this many czars has irked lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. “The raid and easy accumulation of power by the White House staff can threaten the Constitutional system of check and balances,” wrote Senator Byrd, a Democrat, in a letter to the White House. Senator John McCain also criticized Obama by saying, “Obama has more czars than the Romanovs, who ruled Russia for three centuries”.
So, what do these Czars control and who are they?
1. AF Pak Czar – special envoy Richard Holbrooke
2. U.S. Border Czar – Alan Bersin ( had the same job under the Clinton Administration)
3. Car Czar – Steve Rattner
4. Climate Czar – Todd Stern
5. Cyber Security Czar – TBA
6. Drug Czar – Gil Kerlikowske ( worked under Clinton, buddy to Eric Holder)
7. Economic Czar – Larry Summers
8. Energy Czar – Carol Browner
9. Education Czar – http://gunowners.org/op04092009.htm) Duncan (read this if you’re interested in second amendment rights)
10. Faith Based Czar – Joshua DuBois
11. Great Lakes Clean up Czar – Cameron Davis (from a Chicago firm, hummmmm…….)
12. Guantanamo Closure Czar- Daniel Fried
13. Health Reform Czar- Nancy Ann DeParle
14. Info Tech Czar – Vivek Kundra (to be the transparency guru)
15. Iran Middle East Czar – Special Envoy George Mitchell
16. Pay Czar – Kenneth Feinburg (makes the rules on pay restrictions and works closely with Tim Geithner….that’s a good one)
17. Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia Czar – Special Envoy Dennis Ross
18. Regulatory Czar- Cass Sustein
19. Stimulus Accountability – Earl Devaney
20. Sudan Czar – Special Envoy J. Scott Gratim
21. Tarp Czar – Herb Allison
22. Terrorism Czar – John Brennan
23. Urban Czar – Adolfo Carrin (he allegedly pocketed thousands of dollars in campaign cash from city developers whose projects he approved or funded with taxpayers dollars, nice huh?)
24. Non Proliferation – Gary Samare
25. Intelligence Czar – Dennis Blair (on a different org chart)
26. Copyright Czar – TBD (Hollywood donors to Obama love this one, names being kicked around are: Hal Ponder, lobbyist Michelle Ballantyne, and a few others)
Listen to where the $1.7 TRILLION of your taxpaying dollars are being allocated, thus far:
- Did you hear what Dan Mitchell just said, economic ruin? You need to take a closer look at the most prominent and the manner in which they’ll steer programs in their new fiefdoms given their backgrounds and prior associations. Most of the American public has no idea we have twenty two Czars thus far, and who knows when Obama will stop? How do we stop our Constitutional Republic from becoming a Monarchy? I know that political appointees who are supposed to be a part of the cabinet are to be vetted and approved by Congress.
We must stop this by directing our Senators and Representatives to put an end to this madness or come 2010 we’ll elect officials who will persevere our Republic. In the meantime, whenever a conversation turns to politics be sure to inform your friends, neighbors and loved ones of what is really taking place up on Capitol Hill. If you haven’t had a chance to read the Technotronic Era….. you’ll find a common theme .. CONTROL !
This post is from the Save America website. Please visit our website at changefor2012.com
Another day……another Czar
The Boston Herald asks: Do you know how many czars have been appointed by the Obama administration? 33
Congressional Democrats want another one to bring the grand total to 34. This new czar would oversee health insurance.
According to the AP the responsibilities for this new czar would include “determining who qualifies for federal subsidies to help buy coverage, setting standards for handling grievances and appeals for claims denied, determining plan benefits for each year, policing insurance marketing campaigns, and enforcing a requirement that the insurers spend on medical care at least 85% of what they collect in premiums.”
There are several problems with adding a new czar to the federal government. First, states already have insurance commissioners who protect consumers. This would be a duplication of effort.
Second, these czars are being granted sweeping new powers and yet none of them have gone through a confirmation process. The term czar means emperor or king. So Obama administration has already created 33 kings in the federal government. They don’t have to report to Congress or a Cabinet Secretary, but yet they have all this power.
It is time to stop the czarring of our government. This is the United States not Russia.
ONE MORE COMMUNIST……
Obama’s newly appointed “Green” Czar, was as an admitted radical communist and black nationalist leader.
Van Jones, president and founder of Green For All, a nonprofit organization that advocates for building a so-called inclusive green economy, has been tapped to serve as the special adviser for green jobs, enterprise and innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. According to the White House blog, Jones’ duties will include helping to craft job-generating climate policy and ensuring equal opportunity in the administration’s energy proposals.
While in jail in San Francisco in 1992, Jones said, “I met all these young radical people of color — I mean really radical, communists and anarchists. And it was, like, ‘This is what I need to be a part of.’ I spent the next ten years of my life working with a lot of those people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary. In the months that followed, he let go of any lingering thoughts that he might fit in with the status quo. I was a rowdy nationalist on April 28th, and then the verdicts came down on April 29th,” he said. “By August, I was a communist.”
Jones, formerly a self-described “rowdy black nationalist,” boasted in a 2005 interview that his environmental activism was a means to fight for racial and class “justice.”
“I’ll work with anybody. I’ll fight anybody if it will push our issues forward,” he told the left-leaning East Bay Express in a 2005 interview. “I’m willing to forgo the cheap satisfaction of the radical pose for the deep satisfaction of radical ends.”