When Liberal Senators Become Concerned About Tzars

Perhaps the two most moderate Senators in office at this time are Senator Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, ID-Conn., and Ranking Member Susan Collins, R-Me.

According to the American Conservative Union ratings, Senator Lieberman is moderate to "left" among Democrats and Senator Collins is to the "left" of most Republicans.

On October 22nd, 2009, they held a hearing on their concerns about the Czars appointed by President Obama.

At the beginning of the meeting, Senator Collins said,“This is not an academic exercise.Czars – not Cabinet secretaries – are negotiating with members of Congress on key policy issues."

She asked, Where is the Cabinet official in these talks? As I have stated before, this is not a partisan issue; this is not a political issue. It is an issue of institutional imperative and Constitutional prerogative.”



A PARTIAL HISTORY OF CZARS

The use of "Czars" can trace its history back at least to President Andrew Jackson's "Kitchen Cabinet." Nor can it be claimed that the Bush Administration did not have Czars. President Roosevelt had 12 Czar type jobs and 19 appointees reviewed by the Senate.

President G.W. Bush had 31 Czars and 46 appointees in eight years. Some of those positions were due, in part, to the 9/11 terrorist attack. So far, President B.H. Obama has created 31 Czars and 35 appointees in eight months.

Thomas J. Ridge, the original Home Security Czar and the first Secretary of Home Security gave testimony. He said his interest was in the issues of effective management, good governance, transparency and lines of authority:

1. Who’s reporting to whom?
2. How specific is the job description?
3. Does the individual initiate, coordinate or execute policy?
4. To whom does the individual report?
5. Is it the same person to whom the individual is accountable?

President Obama's Czars have were appointed with minimal public clarification of duty and have a Department of subject authority, that is supposed to be led by a Senate-approved Secretary. What is the line of authority? Are they directly accountable to the President or to the Secretary? Or both? Do they just make policy or do they direct it as well?

If an organization such as a company or non-profit organization needs to remain in compliance with policy, whom do they consult with? It contributes to conflict and reduces the effectiveness of both the Secretary and the Czar.

Former Attorney-Advisor in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice, Lee Casey, gave testimony that divided the Czars into three types. The first are those who are in offices appointed with the advice and consent of the Senate such as the "Drug Czar" and the "Intellegence Czar." The second are those who do not necessarily develop policy or coordinate function, such as Ambassadore Holbrooke who has been appointed to the Department of State acting as the "Afghanistan Czar" to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The third type is the one causing the most concern, the White House policy Czar. They are presidential assistants employed as part of the White House staff, or otherwise in the Executive Office of the President (“EOP”).

They are appointed by the President, and, ultimately, responsible only to him. They are exempt from recordkeeping and public disclosure requirements generally applicable to Executive Branch agencies. That was established by Armstrong v. Executive Office of the President under the Clinton Administration in 1996.

Examples of these are the Energy and Environment Czar, the Domestic Violence Czar, the Faith-Based Czar and the Green Jobs Czar. The last, Green Jobs Czar, is the most notorious, as it was held by Mr. Van Jones whose sudden resignation has caused a great deal of controversy and brought this issue into public scrutiny.

Expect these Czars to be more widely discussed, but Senator Collins restricted herself to naming only 18 Czars that may or may not fit this category:

SENATOR COLLINS' LIST OF 18 CZARS

Positions in the Executive Office of the President (10)

Central Region Czar: Dennis Ross
Official Title: Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for the Central Region
Reports to: National Security Adviser Gen. James L. Jones

Cybersecurity Czar: Phil Reitinger

Reported Duties: Will have broad authority to develop strategy to protect the nation's government-run and private computer networks.
Reports to: National Security Advisor Gen. James L. Jones and Larry Summers, the President’s top economic advisor

Domestic Violence Czar: Lynn Rosenthal
Official Title: White House Advisor on Violence Against Women
Reported Duties: Will advise the President and Vice President on domestic violence and sexual assault issues.
Reports to: President Obama and Vice President Biden

Economic Czar: Paul Volcker
Official Title: Chairman of the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board
Reported Duties: Charged with offering independent, nonpartisan information, analysis and advice to the President as he formulates and implements his plans for economic recovery.
Reports to: President Obama

Energy and Environment Czar: Carol Browner
Official Title: Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change
Reported Duties: Coordinate energy and climate policy, emphasizing regulation and conservation.
Reports to: President Obama

Health Czar: Nancy-Ann DeParle
Official Title: Counselor to the President and Director of the White House Office of Health Reform
Reported Duties: Coordinates the development of the Administration’s healthcare policy agenda.
Reports to: President Obama

Senior Director for Information Sharing Policy: Mike Resnick
Reported Duties: Lead a comprehensive review of information sharing and lead an interagency policy process to identify information sharing and access priorities going forward. (Perhaps performing functions statutorily assigned to the Program Manager for the Information Sharing Environment).
Reports to: Unknown

Urban Affairs Czar: Adolfo Carrion Jr.
Official Title: White House Director of Urban Affairs
Reported Duties: Coordinating transportation and housing initiatives, as well as serving as a conduit for federal aid to economically hard-hit cities.
Reports to: President Obama

WMD Policy Czar: Gary Samore
Official Title: White House Coordinator for Weapons of Mass Destruction, Security and Arms Control
Reported Duties: Will coordinate issues related to weapons of mass destruction across the government, including: proliferation, nuclear and conventional arms control, threat reduction, and terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction.
Reports to: National Security Advisor Gen. James L. Jones

Green Jobs Czar: TBD (Van Jones – Resigned)
Official Title: Special Adviser for Green Jobs, Enterprise, and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality
Reported Duties: Will focus on environmentally-friendly employment within the administration and boost support for the idea nationwide.
Reports to: Head of Council on Environmental Quality

Positions in a Department or Agency (8)

Afghanistan Czar: Richard Holbrooke
Official Title: Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan
Reported Duties: Will work with CENTCOM head to integrate U.S. civilian and military efforts in the region.
Reports to: Secretary of State (position is within the Department of State)

Auto Recovery Czar: Ed Montgomery
Official Title: Director of Recovery for Auto Communities and Workers
Reported Duties: Will work to leverage government resources to support the workers, communities, and regions that rely on the American auto industry.
Reports to: Labor Secretary and Larry Summers, the President’s top economic advisor (position is within the Department of Labor)

Car Czar (Manufacturing Policy): Ron Bloom
Official Title: Counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury
Reported Duties: Leader of the White House task force overseeing auto company bailouts; worked on the restructuring of General Motors and Chrysler LLC.
Reports to: Treasury Secretary and Larry Summers, the President’s top economic advisor (position is within the Department of Treasury)

Great Lakes Czar: Cameron Davis
Official Title: Special advisor to the U.S. EPA overseeing its Great Lakes restoration plan
Reported Duties: Oversees the Administration’s initiative to restore the Great Lakes’ environment.
Reports to: Environmental Protection Agency Administrator (position is within the Environmental Protection Agency)

Pay Czar: Kenneth Feinberg
Official Title: Special Master on executive pay
Reported Duties: Examines compensation practices at companies that have been bailed out more than once by the federal government.
Reports to: Treasury Secretary (position is within the Department of the Treasury)

Guantanamo Closure Czar: Daniel Fried
Official Title: Special Envoy to oversee the closure of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay
Reported Duties: Works to get help of foreign governments in moving toward closure of Guantanamo Bay.
Reports to: Secretary of State (position is within the Department of State)

International Climate Czar: Todd Stern
Official Title: Special Envoy for Climate Change
Reported Duties: Responsible for developing international approaches to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.
Reports to: Secretary of State (position is within the Department of State)

Special Representative for Border Affairs and Assistant Secretary for International Affairs (dubbed “Border Czar”): Alan Bersin
Official Title: Assistant Secretary for International Affairs
Reported Duties: Will coordinate all of the Department’s border security and law-enforcement efforts.
Reports to: Homeland Security Secretary (position is within the Department of Homeland Security

MSNBC GETS IT: Geithner At Center of Economic Woes Before Appointment

The MSNBC talking head, Dylan Ratigan,stresses the comparison of the banks being like a casino with the banks being the high rollers who get paid off regardless.

Representative Darrell Issa (R)points out how Secretary Geithner was at the center of the abuse of credit that lead to the banking crisis. I have pointed this out often in the Yahoo Groups I participate in, but this is the first I have heard about it being pursued in Congress. From what is being said here, an investigation into whether Tim Geithner violated SEC rules is the question.

This should have been pursued before he took over as it was well known that he was lose with credit at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Geithner was made its president in October of 2003. Of course, we know that the Federal Reserve is the central bank of the US and a quisi-governmental entity whose governing board chairman, since February 1, 2006, is Ben S. Bernanke.

At this point, it will be difficult to proceed when the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is the investigative organ for this and is under the authority of President Obama.

Then President Geithner was under the authority of then Chairman Berneke when in May 2007 he worked to reduce the capital required to run a bank.

In March 2008, he arranged the rescue and sale of Bear Stearns. Geithner made both decisions to bail out AIG as well as the government decision not to save Lehman Brothers from bankruptcy.

Essentially, Secretary Geithner was both the cause of the need for bailouts and the author of those bailouts. His plan was criticized by Nobel economist Paul Krugman as well as Nobel laureate and former World Bank Chief Economist Joseph Stiglitz.

Obviously, the Nobel Committee was not the first to debase the intended value of that honor. President Obama and Secretary Geithner ignored those previously honored without much concern.

If Representative Darrell Issa can gather the investigative power to attack this issue, there actually may be change and hope for our government. That depends on the integrity of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Time will tell.

I remember in 2006 when Speaker Pelosi claimed she would get rid of the alligators of corruption by draining the swamp. Obviously, "Dollar Bill" Jefferson and "Cold Cash" Rangel are protected alligators in protected "wetlands."

Will there be a bipartisan effort to combat corruption? Or will Congress continue to subsidized it? Time will tell.

Presidental Tracking Poll: 10/22/09

President Obama's Approval Index has been in the double digit negative range for a week of daily polling. His 26% who Strongly Approve of his job performance is the lowest yet recorded.

Obama Daily Presidential Tracking Poll

Mainstream Media Vs. Marginalized Socialist Media

Marginalized Socialist Media

The "MSM" acronym commonly used I have been told means "Mainstream Media." Since they depend on turning "Mainstream" into two words, "Main Stream," that becomes a bit awkward.

Right after the elections in November of 2008, even though President Obama won, they self identified as conservative according to the Battleground Poll by the Tarrance Group of the George Washington University. (Nov. 5-6, 2008 / N=1,001 Registered 2008 Voters / ±3.1% M.O.). It indicated 69% are fiscal conservatives and 53% are social conservatives.

FOX NEWS is often identified as conservative and MSNBC is often identified as liberal. Yet FOX NEWS out performs all others by at least double the audience and has over three times the audience of MSNBC.

For MSNBC to be called "MSM," would force defining of that as Marginalized Socialist Media, if you consult the most recent numbers I could find:

Cable News Ratings for Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Posted on 15 October 2009 by Robert Seidman Live + Same Day Cable News Daily Ratings for October 14, 2009

P2+ Total Day
FNC – 1,437,000 viewers
CNN – 520,000 viewers
MSNBC –380,000 viewers
CNBC – 233,000 viewers
HLN –333,000 viewers

P2+ Prime Time
FNC – 2,699,000viewers
CNN— 933,000 viewers
MSNBC –887,000 viewers
CNBC – 206,000 viewers
HLN – 730,000 viewers
Read the full story

President Obama and the Less Noble Award

"Let me be clear: I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations," he said at the White House. "To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who've been honored by this prize."




Perhaps President Obama sees it as a manipulation and a bribe. The Constitution, Article I, Section 9, that says:

No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or, foreign state.

"Unlike the other Nobel Prizes, which are awarded by Swedish institutions, the peace prize is given out by the five-member committee elected by the Norwegian Parliament," according to the Huffington Post.

It is also a violation of the US Code to accept gifts of over $100 under:

Receipt and disposition of foreign gifts and decorations
TITLE 5 > PART III > Subpart F > CHAPTER 73 > SUBCHAPTER IV > § 7342. Receipt and disposition of foreign gifts and decorations (a) For the purpose of this section— (1) “employee” means— (E) the President and the Vice President;

The nominations can come from any foreign state, though. Those nominations are a secret for fifty years and it must have been made before February 1st of 2009.

Therefore, we will not know who nominated President Obama until 2059. We do know it was likely done after his November election and before February, but it could have been a nomination by Hugo Chavez, Kim Jung Il, Dmitry Medvedev, and any other totalitarian despot.

Alfred Nobel stipulated that the peace prize should go to the "person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses."

Most work? Best work? Abolition or reductiong of standing armies? Formation AND spreading of peace congresses? Perhaps it is hard to argue when weasel words like most and best are used.

It has not been approved by Congress and yet the money from it has been designated to go to a charity. It is, therefore, a case of President Obama failing to keep his oath to support and defend the Constitution by accepting the Nobel Prize without the approval of Congress.

Term Limits In Illinois-In Prison

Another Compromised Congress Person Out of Illinois

US Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) has been accused of having a lesbian affair with a Turkish spy. The accuser, Sibel Edmonds, was a translator working for the FBI when she became aware of the alleged affair. Schakowsky denies the entire thing, but a US Dept of Justice report said that the Edmonds accusations have enough merit to warrant a thorough investigation. Schakowsky called Edmonds a liar - in this video, I ask her "It's all lies?" and she responds, "It is." But Edmonds has challenged Schakowsky to take a polygraph.

Traitors To The Reagan Revolution:Hastert&Frist

Republicans are bound to lose if they do not avoid the legacy of the Hastert/Frist Regime. They had to go in a hurry after their misbehavior.

If you think the President is much more than a glorified cheerleader, you need to check back over the last 16 years of politics. The Republican Party did not change. After Newt Gingrich left we went from Contract With America to Contract On Capitalism.

Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert never saw an Entitlement program he did not like. His culture of corruption spread wide and far. This is what you get out of letting anyone from Illinois get their hands on the People's money. Their politics have tainted the whole nation.

Senator Frist was even more scary.

The Military Commissions Act of 2006: The Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA) ushered in military commission law for US citizens and non-citizens alike. Text in the MCA allows for the institution of a military alternative to the constitutional justice system for "any person" arbitrarily deemed to be an enemy of the state, regardless of American citizenship. Senator Bill Frist and Senator John Warner were the two co-sponsors of the bill.

Both of them were RINOs. That bill would sound conservative to the willingly ignorant. Now, perhaps, you see the folly of concentrating power in a Party or a President.

As much as I like Senator Mitch McConnell and Representative John Boehner, we need to get away from trusting personalities in politics. We need executives to run the government and legislators to write policies, but we need to engage constantly in the workings of our government to defeat the special interests.

Republican Leader Boehner seems to have gotten the message when he said:

"I think people are seeing Republicans take principled stands against their government takeover of health care, spending and clearly the issue of their national energy tax. And, so, we continue to show people that we've learned our lessons from the past, that we can stand on principle, and as people begin to hear about our better solutions, I think we're going to do fine."

(Audio)

"I'm just telling you, we're going to have our hands full. The only way that we can stop this is if with the American people stay engaged in their government. You know, they did a great job over the summer and through September but we've gotta have the American people engaged or they are going to find some way to ram this thing through Congress."

(Audio)

The Speaker of the House holds the people's purse strings. You cannot increase Entitlements without the Speaker's cooperation, if not instigation.

You can have the same President and change the Speaker, like was done under Clinton for surpluses. Speaker Gingrich was the author of our surpluses until 2000.

You can lose ground under Bush as was done by Hastert with ever increasing Entitlements. Entitlements ("welfare") grew by 2005 to be larger than the entire budget of 2000. The surpluses were gone.

When Speaker Pelosi got in, she changed the rules and consolodated all the power into her office. We did not just go from the frying pan to the fire. We fell into a blast furnace. They tanked the housing market and used the Treasury to compete with private industry for credit.

Without the people engaged, the only change in government will be toward more nationalization of whole sections of our economy.

None dare say it, but we are on track to becoming a totalitarian nation with a President who violates the Consitution through a culture of corruption that includes the Speaker Pelosi and is propelled by a Personality Cult .

Who Was Van Jones: The Apollo File

The Apollo File :
Summary: The radical environmentalistsof the Apollo Alliance have tremendous clout with the Obama administration and Congress. The shadowy group is home tos elf-described communists and left-wingterrorists from the 1960s yet it somehow maintains a squeaky clean public image .In February lawmakers inserted into stimulus legislation its “green jobs” program, agovernment make-work project based on the fantasy that America could painlessly transition to an oil-free economy.


Ignored by the MSM, or Marginalized Socialistic Media as I referred to it, the Van Jones story has cooled down. Likely it will be out of the minds of most of the pubic, if President Obama's Administration has its way.

Van Jones called himself a small-c communist. That was years after that label had lost its shock value and the official party had self-destructed. When Van Jones was even a young Yalie, it has been noted that he was a pain in the neck to work with as a born-again eco-capitalist.

Van Jones is evidently charming, bright and charismatic. He is also arrogant and uncooperative. He has that quick intelligence that creates the power to move audiences, like President Obama.He is ambitious, and likes to be the center of attention in whatever he does.

Rumors say the same thing about Rahm Emanuel. Perhaps there is a story there of a clash. At some point Van Jones made his midnight decision with an email sort of resignation.

That left it up for the media to make up its own rationale. The populists who saw the recent revelations of the background of Van Jones claimed a victory for the more libertarian portion of the media. The collectivists claimed President Obama caved in to pressure from the more popular media like the Fox Network and various radio show personalities.

The question still remains. How did Van Jones get into his position as "Green Czar?" Perhaps it began with Van Jones co-founding the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in 1996. That gave him the creditials to be on the National Steering Committee of the Apollo Alliance.

A founder of the Apolllo Alliance is Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr., US Congress (D-IL). Besides being the son of the well known former candidate for U.S. President, Jackson served as a national co-chairman of the Barack Obama presidential campaign.

When Candidate Obama vacated his position as Senator, he authorized Rahlm Emanuel to pass on the names of four people he considered to be highly qualified to take over his seat — Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes, Illinois Veterans’ Affairs Director Tammy Duckworth, Rep. Jan Schakowsky and Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.

When is Governor Blagojevich claimed emissaries offered up to a million dollars in exchange for the appointment, that likely killed the possibility of Jackson, becoming the Senator Jesse Jackson Jr.

In no way did the Obama Administration go looking for a "Green Czar" and discover Van Jones out of 307 million U.S. citizens. While we cannot assume Van Jones received his appointment as a pay-for-play issue, you have to begin to wonder whether the "Culture of Corruption," so much in the media was the motivating factor without monetary payoffs.

More Thoughts On Health Care.....

People focus on what they have contact with and assume the problem is there. I looked up the profit margin on insurance companies. They go from 0% to 5%. I am with Regency BlueCross/BlueShield. They are a non-profit and I pay $476 per month for just myself. It is 15.3% of my income after taxes. That 15.3% is also the portion of our economy that health care costs.

Premiums go up because health care goes up. It goes up because people who are not insured are paid for by the hospitals and doctors. Guess who pays for it? Your insurance and you. Federal law forces hospitals to accept all comers for emergent medical care.

If you do not have property to lose in a medical bankruptsy from a car accident or treatment for a major disease, you might be correct about the lack of motivaton to be insured. Of course, you need not to want to buy a car or a house either because a bankruptsy means not having credit.
Obama'SCare will lead us by the nose into nationalization of health care. Like Medicare, it will tank after they have used the Public Option monopoly to destroy private health insurance.

People seem to forget the US Government is the largest corporation in the world and writes the regulations. Would you want General Motors running your health care? Do you remember that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are US corporations run by the government? Would you like them doing to health care what they did to the mortgages/housing bubble?

How many letters to you get from someone not at your address from the U.S. Postal Service? Would you like them delivering your medications? How about the IRS? Would you like them determining your eligibility for medical treatments?

What throws me is how the proposed "Health Choices Administration" is going to be under the Treasury with tax collecting functions.

HR 2502 is on the surface an apportionment of taxes for health care research. However it also funds communication between health care providers - which will include your medical records. Whatever the Government funds, the Government has access to by law.

MORE INFO ON MY SOURCES?:

Sure. Use the Google financial. They list the ones on the stock exchange.
I would start with UnitedHealth Group . They are the largest in the US, I believe.
Wellpoint is a big one in California.
Tenet Health Care is one in the mid range .

The Blue Cross/Blue Shield collection are essentially non-profits. Of that one example is:
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan is Michigan's leading health benefits organization, serving some 4.7 million members residing in the state or employed by companies headquartered there. The company's insurance offerings include traditional indemnity, PPO, and POS plans, in addition to its Blue Care Network HMO plans. It also offers consumer-directed Flexible Blue plans paired with health savings accounts, as well as options for individual buyers and Medicare beneficiaries. The not-for-profit organization is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.
There is a WHOLE LIST of those.

Nightmares From My Wife: A Story of Hate and Regrets