How much incompetence can the
elected representatives of the American people put up with before the "President" is taken to task for his fiscal irresponsibility? Here's a list of the most recent issuance of political plums - and remember, none of these people have been vetted by Congress, nor are they responsible to anyone other than Obama. Also, keep in mind that
collectively they are being paid
hundreds of thousands - perhaps
millions - of
tax dollars, AND they will each require government funded office space, transportation, and a significant staff of underlings to whom they will
delegate all the "grunt work", retaining only the decision making for themselves.
1. Technology Czar:
Aneesh Chopra -
Chopra talks about the role of technology in government policy, and advancing Obama's health care IT, smart grid, education technology, and economic development agendas. (I don't know much about Chopra,
so I'm taking a "wait and see" attitude about his performance.)
2. Drug Czar: Gil Kerlikowske - While ramping up efforts to ensure that no human suffering can be relieved by doctors prescribing marijuana, Kerlikowske said his office will soon begin two new initiatives: first, to outlaw breast feeding and baby formula; and then campaign to urge teenagers to avoid marijuana by increasing their use of alcohol and tobacco. (BEAM ME UP, SCOTTY! There is no intelligent life in Washington D.C. What a nut job!)
3. Copyright Czar: Not yet appointed.
4. Energy Czar: Carol M. Browner - Browner is a member of Socialist International, inasmuch as she has a leadership role at the Commission for Sustainable World Society. Following her appointment, her name was been removed from the Socialist International web site, but that information is available if you look hard enough.
5. Car Czar: Ed M
ontgomery - an economist who specializes in job training and local economic development. He is currently Dean at the University of Maryland, and he once served as Labor Department Deputy Secretary in the Clinton administration. (Montgomery has never actually been involved in the auto industry, but it is rumored that he has in fact driven a car. Political plum.)
6. Terrorism/WMD Czar: Gary Samore - was a veteran arms control negotiator in the Clinton Administration, and as its new "czar" he will be responsible for preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. Good luck to him!
7. Health Care Czar: Nancy-Ann DeParle - stated that, "A public plan is something that’s sponsored by the government, and therefore has very low or almost nonexistent administrative costs, compared to others. It doesn’t have the need to have brokers out selling; it wouldn’t have the need to have a lot of costs and profits, the way private plans would. So it has that advantage. It could operate by the same rules that all the other plans do; it could have payments rates that are very similar. Or it could have payment rates that are the same as Medicare — that’s one idea that’s been used. So there are various ways of looking at it." (Promoting the Party line doesn't make it any more true than standing atop a tall building repeating the line, "I can fly... I can fly" gives one the ability to defy gravity. But, you won't know for sure until you take that first step... and then it's too late. Besides, Obama already has a Cabinet-level Secretary of Health and Human Services who shouldn't need additional supervision!)
8. Education Czar: Arne Duncan - has run the Chicago School District since 2001, the third largest in the country, with a focus on transforming weak schools, closing failing ones, and improving teacher quality. He is known as an innovative reformer, who has called for high quality education as the key to fighting poverty, strengthening the economy, and promoting opportunity. “It is the civil rights issue of our generation and it is the one sure path to a more equal, fair and just society,” Duncan says. “While there are no simple answers, I know from experience that when you focus on basics like reading and math, when you embrace innovative new approaches to learning, and when you create a professional climate that attracts great teachers -- you can make a difference for children." (Basic education is a civil right, but higher education is not. It is, and must remain, a competitive level of education. Obama already has a Cabinet-level Secretary of Education who shouldn't need additional supervision!)
9. Economic Czar: Paul Volcker - is an American economist. He is currently the Economic Czar in the Obama White House. Volcker is charged with coordinating with the Treasury Department and other relevant agencies. He is best known as Chairman of the Federal Reserve under United States Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. (He may be one of the very few Obama appointees who actually has the credentials to support the rationale behind his appointment.)
10. Mortgage Czar: Not yet appointed.
11. Urban Affairs/Housing Czar: Adolfo Carrión - In the past two fiscal years, the now White House urban policy director - spent about $19,000 on his State of the Borough tours, records show.
Carrión also had taxpayers fund his $140-a-year satellite radio subscription because he spends "a great deal of time traveling throughout the Bronx and the city." Apparently It was important for him at the taxpayers expense to have a 'mobile' source for news and information.
He is the first borough president to charge taxpayers more than $13,000 a year for his membership in the County Executives of America organization. (Basically, Carrión is a spendthrift. And, once again, Obama already has a Cabinet-level Secretary of Housing and Urban Development who shouldn't need additional supervision!)
12. Guantanamo Closure Czar: Danny Fried - served as the Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs since 2005. He was Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for European and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council beginning in 2001. He also worked as Principal Deputy Special Advisor to the Secretary of State for the New Independent States from 2000 to 2001. He served as Ambassador to Poland from 1997 until 2000. (Although all the titles are impressive, where are the qualifying experience factors, and why is a "Czar" necessary to close a military installation? We have successfully closed military installations around the world for over 100 years without the use of a single "Czar".)
13. Great Lakes Czar: Cameron Davis - is a leader of a Chicago-based environmentalist group, who has been appointed to oversee President Barack Obama's initiative to clean up the Great Lakes.
Davis is president of the Alliance for the Great Lakes, one of many organizations that have pushed for a restoration program expected to cost more than $20 billion. He was appointed by Lisa Jackson, head of the Environmental Protection Agency. (Davis may actually be the 2nd appointee with some qualifications for the position to which he has been appointed.)
14. Stimulus accountability Czar: Earl Devaney - was a one-time cop and Secret Service agent appointed to monitor spending of the administration's $787 billion stimulus plan. (No budgetary experience at all, but let’s give him a $787 billion stimulus plan to control.)
15. Cyberspace Czar (Internet Czar): Not yet appointed.
16. Border Czar: Alan Bersin (Former US attorney) - essentially had the same job under President Clinton. He is expected to handle illegal immigration and drug violence issues along the Mexican-American border. (Good luck to him! Perhaps he can get Secretary Napolitano to actually do something in the way of providing "Homeland Security".)
17. Intelligence Czar: Admiral Dennis Blair - is the third and current Director of National Intelligence and a retired United States Navy four-star admiral. He was confirmed by the United States Senate to serve in the Obama administration as Director of Naval Intelligence.
According to journalist Alan Nairn, Blair disobeyed orders from civilians in the Clinton Administration and was implicated in backing the perpetrators of church massacres in East Timor in 1999. Allan Nairn also claims new information that indicates he may have lied to Congress. (At least as a four-star Admiral he showed he was dedicated to serving America, and disobeying orders from civilians is not necessarily a bad thing - especially if those civilians are not appointed as one's superiors. If civilians had less control over our military commanders perhaps the Korean "Police Action" and Vietnam War would not have been as costly in terms of American lives. Let the warriors fight the wars, and let the politicians thank them for doing so!)
18. Regulatory Czar: Cass Sunstein - is an American legal scholar, in the fields of constitutional law, administrative law, environmental law, and law and behavioral economics.
This is what the constitutional law scholar has this to say about the US Constitution:
“Why should we be governed by people long dead? … In any case, the group that ratified the Constitution included just a small subset of the society; it excluded all women, the vast majority of African Americans, many of those without property, and numerous others who were not permitted to vote.”
Sunstein is also a radical (extremely radical) animal rights activist who desire is to establish legal rights for livestock, wildlife, and pets. He states, "There should be extensive regulation of the use of animals in entertainment, scientific experiments, and agriculture." Current Debates and New Directions, a 2004 book that Sunstein co-edited with then-girlfriend Martha Nussbaum states his ambitious plan to give animals the legal “right” to file lawsuits. Is this a joke?
“Animals should be permitted to bring suit, with human beings as their representatives, to prevent violations of current law … Any animals that are entitled to bring suit would be represented by (human) counsel, who would owe guardian-like obligations and make decisions, subject to those obligations, on their clients’ behalf.”
Keep in mind that as OIRA Administrator, he will have the political authority to change existing laws. (Animals should be free from abuse, or being used as experiments for anything other than for medical progress. This one has the technical credentials, but... can you say NUTJOB?)
19. Pay Czar: Kenneth Feinberg - a lawyer who served as the Special Master of the Federal September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, which distributed nearly $7 billion to more than 5,000 families and victims of 9/11. And if that wasn't enough, three years later he agreed to be the administrator of the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund, set up for the benefit of victims' families in the wake of the 2007 Virginia Tech mass shooting. Now Feinberg will be dealing with high-paid executives blamed for contributing to the global economic meltdown and will be tasked with vetting compensation for executives of large corporations that have received federal bailout funds, including AIG, Citigroup and Bank of America. (I wish him the best of luck in that endeavor! These corporations have done nothing but ABUSE those bail out funds.)
20. Iran Czar: To be re-appointed.
21. Tarp Czar: Herb Allison - the Fannie Mae Chief Executive will head the government's $700 billion financial-rescue program. However the rumor mill says: "In choosing Mr. Allison to head the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the administration is turning to an experienced manager at a time when it is having trouble filling key finance posts. Mr. Allison, 65 years old, is the former chairman of investment company TIAA-CREF and was a Merrill Lynch & Co. executive for years. In September, he agreed to run Fannie Mae after the U.S. took over the mortgage giant and its sister firm, Freddie Mac." (Excuse me, but this guy was at the helm of Fannie Mae when it went under! If he could have saved it, why didn't he do so then?)
22. Middle-East Peace Czar: George Mitchell - has earned a reputation as a diplomat capable of untangling the world's most tangled webs. Since leaving the U.S. Senate fifteen years ago, he has helped broker a peace agreement in war-torn Northern Ireland, spearheaded a Clinton Administration committee on Middle East peace. Coming up with a viable resolution to the simmering Israeli-Palestinian conflict may be his most difficult challenge yet. (He has the bona fides, but they have thousands of years of hatred and mistrust to overcome.)
23. Science Czar: John Holdren - the latest and perhaps most disturbing example of extremism.
In a 1977 book he co-authored, called "Eco science: Population, Resources, Environment," the most outrageous ideology for America was stated on the written page. Holdren called for a "Planetary Regime" to enforce mandatory abortions for population control and limit the use of natural resources. Holdren wrote: "There exists ample authority under which population growth could be regulated. It has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society." His book goes on...
pg 786 - One way to carry out this disapproval might be to insist that all illegitimate babies be put up for adoption—especially those born to minors, who generally are not capable of caring properly for a child alone. If a single mother really wished to keep her baby, she might be obliged to go through adoption proceedings and demonstrate her ability to support and care for it. Adoption proceedings probably should remain more difficult for single people than for married couples, in recognition of the relative difficulty of raising children alone. It would even be possible to require pregnant single women to marry or have abortions, perhaps as an alternative to placement for adoption, depending on the society. Let's look at some excerpts from his book -
pg 786 - Involuntary fertility control - A program of sterilizing women after their second or third child, despite the relatively greater difficulty of the operation than vasectomy, might be easier to implement than trying to sterilize men.
The development of a long-term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin and removed when pregnancy is desired opens additional possibilities for coercive fertility control. The capsule could be implanted at puberty and might be removable, with official permission, for a limited number of births.
pg 787 - Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for involuntary fertility control. Indeed, this would pose some very difficult political, legal, and social questions, to say nothing of the technical problems. No such sterilant exists today, nor does one appear to be under development. To be acceptable, such a substance would have to meet some rather stiff requirements: it must be uniformly effective, despite widely varying doses received by individuals, and despite varying degrees of fertility and sensitivity among individuals; it must be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and it must have no effect on members of the opposite sex, children, old people, pets, or livestock.
pg 838 - If some individuals contribute to general social deterioration by overproducing children, and if the need is compelling, they can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility—just as they can be required to exercise responsibility in their resource-consumption patterns—providing they are not denied equal protection.
pg 838 - In today's world, however, the number of children in a family is a matter of profound public concern. The law regulates other highly personal matters. For example, no one may lawfully have more than one spouse at a time. Why should the law not be able to prevent a person from having more than two children?
pg 917 - If this could be accomplished, security might be provided by an armed international organization, a global analogue of a police force. Many people have recognized this as a goal, but the way to reach it remains obscure in a world where factionalism seems, if anything, to be increasing. The first step necessarily involves partial surrender of sovereignty to an international organization.
pg 942 - Toward a Planetary Regime - Perhaps those agencies, combined with UNEP and the United Nations population agencies, might eventually be developed into a Planetary Regime—sort of an international superagency for population, resources, and environment. Such a comprehensive Planetary Regime could control the development, administration, conservation, and distribution of all natural resources, renewable or nonrenewable, at least insofar as international implications exist. Thus the Regime could have the power to control pollution not only in the atmosphere and oceans, but also in such freshwater bodies as rivers and lakes that cross international boundaries or that discharge into the oceans. The Regime might also be a logical central agency for regulating all international trade, perhaps including assistance from DCs to LDCs, and including all food on the international market.
The Planetary Regime might be given responsibility for determining the optimum population for the world and for each region and for arbitrating various countries' shares within their regional limits. Control of population size might remain the responsibility of each government, but the Regime would have some power to enforce the agreed limits. (Impossible, you say? This is one more NUT JOB appointed to a powerful, ungoverned government position!)
24. Green jobs Czar: Anthony “Van” Jones - A few short years ago Jones was a Bay Area radical agitator-a committed Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, waging war on the police and capitalist system, who freely admits he’s a proud San Franciscan with an arrest record. (That's a good solid recommendation for a power position.)
25. Afghanistan Czar: Richard Holbrooke - Holbrooke is a diplomat and a negotiator with a knack for getting things done. He brokered the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords in Bosnia, an accomplishment that some said deserved a Nobel Peace Prize. A New York Times reporter wrote “if you want somebody to pull the trigger, or close a deal, think Holbrooke.” His 45 years of experience have made him a fixture of the Democratic Party’s foreign policy establishment. When Russia invaded Georgia in August 2008, Holbrooke was one of the first Americans to meet with Georgian leader Mikhail Saakashvili. (Holbrooke could be a genuine winner among these generally lame appointments!)
26. Sudan Czar: J. Scott Gration - A retired USAF Major General, has been caricatured in the press as the ultimate "Obamanaut and the most mystic believer in Obama-ism" prone to "hero-worship." While serving as an attaché during Obama's trip to South Africa, Chad, and Kenya in 2006, he was taken by Obama's ability to speak transformatively about problems with tribal and nationalistic roots, and Gration has been an Obama adviser ever since. (Swell, now we have the White House sycophant. Isn't it a bit odd that a professional military man, who swore an oath to "protect and defend the Constitution of the United States", has aligned himself with those who wish to circumvent, ignore and/or undermine that same document? On the other hand, you don't become a General Officer in the military without knowing how to kiss political butt.)
Significant to his appointment is that Gration originally set his sites on running NASA, to which he had Obama's full support, that is until defense lobbyists squashed the idea. This raises doubts and questions about whether this new assignment is an afterthought for the administration. Is it simply as a patronage job for a loyal supporter, after all Gration's diplomatic experience is very thin and not a good thing for someone who must jump into the middle of a diplomatic crisis with hundreds of thousands of lives at stake?
27. Mideast Policy Czar: Dennis Ross - is a controversial U.S. diplomat with close ties to Israel and a history of pushing hardliner policies toward Iran. He has served both Republican and Democratic administrations in negotiations on Middle East peace and other foreign policy issues. (This sounds like one of the more sensible appointments to me - somebody who kicks butt instead of kissing it.)
Ross’s first appointment in the Obama administration was as the State Department’s special advisor for the Gulf and Southwest Asia. But in June 2009, he abruptly shifted to the NSC, a move first reported by Israel’s Haaretz.
28. Information Czar: Vivek Kundra - took charge of the District of Columbia's technology operations in late 2007, ushering in a new era of experimentation—adopting popular Web sites such as YouTube, Wikipedia, and Twitter to improve city services. Now, as the newly appointed chief information officer of the federal government, he plans to bring the same technical innovation to the national stage. The problem is that the District's technology budget was small in comparison, and its staff concentrated, while the federal government's budget of $71 billion is spread across dozens of departments and agencies. (At least this guy's résumé sounds like he has some experience in the field he now oversees.)
29. AIDS Czar: Jeffrey Crowley - is an openly gay man appointed to help lead the Administration's response to HIV/AIDS and disability policies. Most recently, he was a Senior Research Scholar at Georgetown University's Health Policy Institute and a Senior Scholar at the O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, Georgetown University Law Center. Crowley also served as Deputy Executive Director of Programs at the National Association of People with AIDS (NAPWA). (Seems like a reasonable appointment for an AIDS program. After all, who would know more about AIDS than a practicing homosexual?)
30. Faith-based Czar: Joshua Dubois - a relative newbie and senior political aide who started out in Obama’s U.S. Senate office, as the only Democratic full-time staffer devoted to faith outreach. DuBois is a 26-year-old Pentecostal pastor who has been appointed to lead the new White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnership with a broader mission than with the past administration. He will lead a council of 25 influential religious and nonprofit leaders helping both faith-based and secular groups invigorate their communities by providing everything from social services to job training, with his main focus being to reduce poverty and promote responsible fatherhood. (Looks like just another political plum to me. But a plum of good intentions... and we all know where the road paved with good intentions leads.)
31. Climate Czar: Todd Stern - is a Washington, D.C., lawyer with climate change and environmental expertise, some say. He served in a variety of positions during the Clinton administration, including the President's Coordinator for Climate Change. He was the chief negotiator at the 1997 Kyoto climate change talks and will be empowered to negotiate on behalf of the United States at climate change talks.
His mantra on the climate change issue, "The time for denial, delay and dispute is over."
For the record, Kyoto is known as the treaty that failed to pass in the UN Senate 10 years ago, it managed to get zero votes. (How about CLIMATE RESTORATION, rather than "climate change"? We know that not all change is good, but our climate used to be just fine. It's not nice to fool with Mother Nature!)
32. California Water Czar: David J. Hayes - is a member of the Obama Transition Project's Agency Review Working Group in charge of the energy and natural resources agencies. He is a former Global Chair of the Environment, Land and Resources Department at Latham & Watkins, an international law firm. He is a Senior Fellow at the World Wildlife Fund, advising the President of WWF on climate change matters, and he is a Senior Fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute, specializing on energy matters. He holds the title of Vice-Chairman of the national conservation group, American Rivers, and he is the former Chairman of the Board of the Environmental Law Institute. He was the Deputy Secretary of the Interior during the Clinton Administration. He served as a Consulting Professor at Stanford University's Woods Institute for the Environment. He also served as a Board member of RESOLVE and the Natural Heritage Institute. He certainly has the credentials, now let’s see what his 'policies' bring to the table. (Is this the guy responsible for cutting off the water supply to tens of thousands of acres of irrigated produce in California, idling some 80,000 farm workers, causing a tremendous increase in unemployment claims in that state, and a noticeable jump in produce prices at the market? All to save a 2" smelt that isn't even native to fresh water? Fine job, Bubba!)
There are five more Czars appointments lurking about the White House, including the “Cybersecurity Czar” (aka: Internet Czar), but I have not yet been able to glean any information about them.
There is nothing truly creative about any of these appointments. Although a few have expertise in the area to which they have been appointed, most are inexperienced in the areas they now control, many are products of the Chicago political machine (no surprise there), and the remainder primarily seem to be recycled from the Clinton administration. About half of these so-called "Czars" 
are nothing more than duplication of existing Cabinet-level Secretary positions. If these Cabinet members need additional supervision, then it should become obvious that they aren't capable of doing their job. Replace them!
Our government has now created more "Czars" in 7 months than Czarist Russia had in its entire history! What's wrong with this picture?
WAKE UP AMERICA!!There are now foxes guarding every taxpayer funded hen-house in Washington D.C.! And, as the pangs of Constitutional hunger strike the rank and file citizens... there will be nothing left for us to eat (except maybe some of that "pie in the sky" Obama has promised us).
There's always an outside chance that I could be misunderstanding everything I see going on... in fact, you should pray for that!
