Czar and Other Updates

An updated "czar" list has been published. I wanted to link it here and state that this is the list I will be working from in my examination of the different czars. It has been thoroughly researched and vetted.

I also thought I would drop in a couple other bits today. There is an article regarding a Town Hall meeting held on "Climate Change." It brought people together to actually debate the science and show support for those that are looking at the science and saying Al Gore and his PowerPoint brigade are wrong. It's nice to see the "settled debate" actually starting and happening. It points out some interesting facts about previous impending "ecodisasters" and predicts what people may claim will be the next few.

As the health care debate rages on, it's interesting to see how different groups land on this issue. The CEO of WholeFoods recently came out against government healthcare. The hopey changies are all in a tizzy over this one. Some are calling for a boycott of Whole Foods. When 80% of Americans like the healthcare they have, I don't think calling for a boycott of Whole Foods is going to sway many people. Another notable person speaking out against government healthcare is Nancy Reagan. Of course, that does not come as a surprise to me.

The other thing I just had to mention is Michael Vick. What kind of example does that set for kids when you say, "oh yeah sure, you broke the law in a major way, but come back and we'll pay you several million dollars a year just the same." Something that once again points to societies lack of forcing people to own up to their own personal responsibility.

For those of you that feel that any of this is "fishy" truth, you can report it here.

Last but not least, for those of you feeling down with the whole creeping in of Socialist Fascisism, here is something that will just make you laugh. I know it makes me laugh every time.

Here a Czar, There a Czar, Everywhere a Czar Czar

I’ve been thinking lately if there is one thing that I can concentrate on. To continually inform everyone about and get the information out there. Recently Glenn Beck stated that with so much going on and so much being thrown at us that everyone needs to be a watchdog for the constitution. I think this is dead on. It was suggested to find something you are interested in or want to know more about and just study and watch that one thing. Get the information out on what is happening with that particular subject. I have decided to research and look into all the “czars” that the President has been appointing.

There are several things I have learned in attempting to start a business and make my own stake. One of the things I learned early on is that I don’t have to know everything. I can create what many people refer to as a “Master Mind Alliance.” You can surround yourself with people knowledgeable in areas you know little or nothing about. You should leverage their knowledge and time to help fill in the gaps and get to your goals much faster. This is what his “High and Mightiness” has done. I think the Old McDonald’s farm analogy is perfect. There are currently more “czars” in the administration then the Russian dynasty ever had. Recent counts put it at just about 40 “czars” and growing. Here is a sampling.

1. Herbert Allison Jr., bailout czar, [replaced Bush bailout czar Neel Kashkari, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability confirmed by Senate]

2. Alan Bersin, border czar

3. Dennis Blair, intelligence czar [Director of National Intelligence, a Senate confirmed position]

4. John Brennan, counterterrorism czar

5. Carol Browner, energy czar

6. Adolfo Carrion, urban affairs czar

7. Ashton Carter, weapons czar [actually Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics and so subject to Senate confirmation]

8. Aneesh Chopra, technology czar

9. Jeffrey Crowley, [openly gay white man] AIDS czar

10. Cameron Davis, Great Lakes czar

11. Nancy-Ann DeParle, health czar

12. Earl Devaney, stimulus oversight czar

13. Joshua DuBois, religion czar, aka God czar

14. Arne Duncan, education czar

15. Kenneth Feinberg, pay czar

16. Daniel Fried, Guantanamo closure czar

17. J. Scott Gration, Sudan czar

18. Melissa Hathaway, [soon to be] cybersecurity czar

19. David J. Hayes, water czar [a Deputy Interior Secretary and therefore subject to Senate oversight]

20. Richard Holbrooke, Afghanistan-Pakistan (Af-Pak) czar

21. John Holdren, science czar

22. Kevin Jennings, safe schools czar [nominated to be Assistant Deputy Secretary of Education, Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools, a newly created post; openly gay founder of an organization dedicated to promoting pro-homosexual clubs and curricula in public schools]

23. Van Jones, green jobs czar

24. Gil Kerlikowske, drug czar

25. Ron Kirk, trade czar

26. Vivek Kundra, infotech czar [Shoplifted four shirts, worth $33.50 each, from J.C. Penney in 1996 (source)]

27. Douglas Lute, war czar [retained from Bush administration, married to Jane Holl Lute, currently a Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security]

28. George Mitchell, Mideast peace czar

29. Ed Montgomery, car czar [replacing Steve Rattner, who stepped down amid controversy over his former firm’s role in a possible kickback scandal]

30. Lynn Rosenthal, domestic violence czar

31. Dennis Ross, Mideast policy czar

32. Gary Samore, weapons of mass destruction czar

33. Todd Stern, climate change czar

34. Cass Sunstein, regulatory czar

35. Larry Summers, economic czar

36. Michael Taylor, food czar

37. Arturo Valenzuela, Latin-American czar (nominee) [although this post is referred to as a czar, he is nominated to be Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs and so is subject to Senate confirmation]

38. Paul Volcker, economic czar number two

39. Elizabeth Warren, TARP czar [chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Trouble Assets Relief Program; note that Herb Allison is more frequently called the TARP czar]

40. Jeffrey Zients, government performance czar [replaced original nominee Nancy Killefer who withdrew her name after issues with her personal income tax filings surfaced]

Positions established but not yet filled:

41. behavioral science czar

42. copyright czar

Positions rumored as being planned:

1. income redistribution czar
2. land-use czar
3. consumer financial protection czar, aka mortgage czar (source)
4. radio-internet fairness czar
5. student loan czar, to oversee a program of mandatory service in return for college money (source)
6. voter list czar
7. zoning czar

I know that recently the person rumored to become his Cybersecurity Czar resigned and went back to the private sector. It makes you wonder if she learned some things about government “efficiency” that didn’t sit well with what she was tasked to do.

Although there are a few of these people that are in positions confirmed by the Senate, most of them are not. There is even a long standing Democrat Senator that is against and worried about the President appointing all these czars. It circumvents the process laid out in the Constitution for oversight by the Congress. Circumventing the Constitution and grossly expanding the scope and reach of the Executive Branch does not seem to bother the “Chosen One.” He says he has a “mandate” from the people to “fundamentally change” America. I like the old fashioned fundamentals just the way they are.

I believe it is important and crucial for us to know who is advising the President, what their beliefs are, and what their backgrounds are. Lots of people try to say, “oh, that was in the past, or I have changed my view on that.” I firmly believe that our past actions and beliefs have a profound effect on who we are and the current opinions we hold. Every week I will research a “czar” and back it up with sources. I will share that information with you so we can all stay informed. If there is another subject or topic that is just dying for me to comment on, I’ll just have to have two posts that week.

Remember to write and call your representatives on issues you are concerned about. Go to town hall meetings when they are home on break and discuss the issues. Don’t be afraid of the SEIU and ACORN goons that are trying to keep you out. Show up and exercise your first amendment right to free speech, even if your representative doesn’t want to listen to it.

A Representative Government?

 

You know, I must have been mistaken growing up. I kept hearing about how we live in a country with great representative government. You elect people to office and they do the bidding of their constituents. That even if there are those they represent who do not agree with them, they have an open dialogue and take the opposing viewpoints into account. After what I have heard from the White House and congressional representatives facing heat from their constituents, I just don’t believe that anymore.

At many town hall meetings across the country people who are normally quiet, you know, the people who spend their time making an honest living, have shown up to voice their opinion on health care. Most of the people showing up are against any type of government takeover of the healthcare industry. These individuals are well spoken and have very good, logical points they are making when voicing their opinion. What is the response from the White House and the very representatives that supposedly represent them? They accuse the people of being a “fringe” element and of using “talking points”. Let me figure this one out; because somebody has taken the time to research an issue, formulate an opinion, and put their conclusions and opinions with logic it is a bad thing?

Here are some examples:

People at a town hall in Austin, TX voiced their opinions and disagreement with Representative Lloyd. This is how he described these constituents.

“A fringe group committed to doing anything they can to disrupt and stop this healthcare reform legislation.”

If it is just a fringe group, how come there were recently 10,000 people that came out in Columbus, Ohio to protest healthcare.

Senator Arlen Specter and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius were at a town hall in Philadelphia. This is what one constituent said.

“I see this healthcare plan I see nothing that's about health or care. What I see is a bureaucratic nightmare, senator. Medicaid is broke. Medicare is broke. Social security is broke, and you want us to believe that a government that can't even run a Cash for Clunkers program is going to run one-seventh of our US economy?”

Senator Specter and Secretary Sebelius accused the people of using “talking points”, that they can’t read on their own, and that all of their opinions were being fed to them by the insurance companies. The last time I checked, the big insurance companies were actually in the Oval Office supporting this legislation. Big business is in bed with the government on this because it will eliminate their competition for them. What they don’t see is that they are committing suicide.

This was Specter’s response to constituents asking why their representatives weren’t taking the time to read the legislation.

“My practice -- when you have a bill and you have a more than a thousand pages of healthcare and we divide up the bill, we have to make judgments very fast”

The crowd was not too receptive of that. They actually booed him. Call me crazy but if you are honestly representing the people who put you into office, shouldn’t you show the common courtesy of reading ALL legislation completely?

Recently on YouTube there was a video placed that showed President Obama making the following statement in 2003.

“Single-payer healthcare coverage. Universal healthcare coverage. That's what I'd like to see. But as all of you may know, we may not get there immediately because first we've got to take back the White House. We've got to take back the Senate.”

The White House went ballistic and had Linda Douglas, Communications Director for the White House Office of Health Reform ( I didn’t even know such an office existed, our tax dollars at work I guess) put out a video stating the following:

“Hi, I'm Linda Douglas. I'm the communications director for the White House Office of Health Reform. And one of my jobs is to keep track of all the disinformation that's out there about health insurance reform. There are a lot of very deceiving headlines out there such as this one. Take a look at this one. This one says uncovered video. Obama explains how his healthcare plan will eliminate private insurance. Well, nothing could be farther from the truth. You know, the people who always try to scare people whenever you try to bring them health insurance reform are at it again. And they're taking sentences and phrases out of context and cobbling them together to leave a very false impression. The truth is that the president has been talking to the American people a lot about health insurance reform and what is at stake for them. So what happens is that that because he's talking to the American people so much there are people out there with a computer and a lot of free time and they take a phrase here and there. They simply cherry pick and put it together. And make it sound like he's saying something that he didn't really say.”

If you watch the video, nothing was cherry picked and they didn’t use editing software to create some manufactured occurrence. The video is uncut. Glenn Beck was right, it’s like 1984. Two plus two doesn’t equal four, it equals whatever we say it is. Do they just think we are stupid? White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, had this gem to say yesterday, “I hope people will take a jaundiced eye to what is clearly the Astro-turf nature of grassroots lobbying." He basically called every constituent that came out to voice disagreement as a fake grassroots movement. That we are on some mythical person’s payroll and we are taking marching orders. What a load of crap!

This is what DNC spokesman Brad Woodhouse said, "The Republicans and their allied groups desperate after losing two consecutive elections and every major policy fight on Capitol Hill ... are inciting angry mobs of a small number of rabid right wing extremists funded by K Street Lobbyists to disrupt thoughtful discussions about the future of health care in America taking place in Congressional Districts across the country,"

I email my representative and Senators on a daily basis. I call them once a week to leave a message. This is all to voice my disagreement on several issues, but healthcare being a biggie. In Overton they have started having weekly tea parties on Saturday afternoons. Starting next weekend, this weekend I am getting away with my Sweetie!, I will be out there as well. I am doing everything I can to make my voice heard and encouraging others to do the same. Your country is being hijacked and although people are starting to wake up, I’m afraid the pace needs to pick up a bit. This battle is a long haul and if the reactions of our elected officials to our discontent are any indicator, it is going to be a drawn out knock down fight to the finish. Hopefully our Republic will remain intact and the TRAITORS will be replaced by honest hard working folks like us.