The Smoke Break

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Quote Of The Day

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Blog comment about the First Lady dozing off during Ted Kennedy’s funeral mass on Saturday:

“I wonder if she was dreaming about her friends Bill Ayers and Bernadine, and how they love sirhan sirhan so much that they dedicated a book to him, and she gets to sit here with his victims family. Here she is sitting in that church nodding off thinking about what a small world it is. She is at Bobby’s brothers funeral, and oh how she can’t wait to call her best girlfriend Bernie to tell her about her day with Bobby’s relatives.”

Counting The Unaccountable

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I wish we had our own dedicated research staff, but since we don’t, we’ll give credit to Glenn Beck’s.  Here is a list they recently published of the various “czars” that are in place in the Obama administration.  It is amusing to note that the White House has contacted Beck’s show a few times now – while they were on the air – and scolded them to stop calling these people “czars”.

But if they are in place duplicating effort at the sole choosing of the President, just what do you call them?  Other than calling some of them real, live left-wing radicals?

 

NOTE: positions that also existed under previous administrations are indicated with an *.

1. Afghanistan Czar – Richard Holbrooke

Title: Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Appointed: January 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues:  State

• Will work with CENTCOM head Gen. David Petraeus to integrate U.S. civilian and military efforts in the region.
• 45 years of experience have made him a fixture of the Democrats’ foreign policy establishment.
• Was U.S. ambassador to U.N., 1999-2001
• Brokered the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords in Bosnia
• Also served as Assistant secretary of state, East Asia and the Pacific (1976 to 1980); worked in foreign service (1962 to 1976)
• From 1972 through 1976, was the editor of Foreign Policy magazine.

2. AIDS Czar * – Jeffrey Crowley

Title: Director of the Office of National AIDS Policy
Salary: $102,000
Reports to: President Obama (as part of the Executive Office of the President’s Domestic Policy Council)
Appointed: February 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues:  Health and Human Services

• Coordinates HIV/AIDS policy domestically and internationally.
• 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.
• Was Deputy Executive Director for Programs at the National Association of People with AIDS
• Has Master of Public Health from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health

3. Auto Recovery Czar – Ed Montgomery

Title: Director of Recovery for Auto Communities and Workers
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Larry Summers, the president’s top economic adviser, and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis
Appointed: March 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Labor

• Will work to leverage government resources to support the workers, communities and regions that rely on the American auto industry.
• Was Deputy Secretary and Chief Economist at the Labor Department (1997 to 1998)
• Is Dean of the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences at the University of Maryland (2003 to present)
• Has PhD in economics from Harvard
• In 2008, made $1,200 in political donations, all of which went to Obama’s presidential campaign.
• Wife is the granddaughter of a General Motors worker from Portland, Mich.
• Drives a 2000 Lincoln

4. Border Czar * – Alan Bersin

Title: Assistant Secretary for International Affairs and Special Representative for Border Affairs
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano
Appointed: April 2009
Agencies that might have handled similar issues: Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

• Will coordinate all of the department’s border security and law-enforcement efforts.
• Essentially had the same job under President Clinton; served as Attorney General Janet Reno’s special representative on border issues, a job that he held while retaining the position of U.S. attorney for San Diego.
• This time, boss will be Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who will expect him to handle illegal immigration and drug violence issues along the Mexican-American border
• Previous experience: Chairman of the San Diego Regional Airport Authority (2006 to 2009); Secretary of Education for California (2005 to 2006); Superintendent of San Diego Public Schools (1998 to 2005); U.S. Attorney for San Diego (1993 to 1998)
• Graduate of Harvard and Yale Law School
• Talking about border security shortly before he was named Clinton border czar in 1995, said he wanted to focus on suspected smugglers of both drugs and people and was not interested in prosecuting “economic migrants.”
• Often tied to the 1994 border policy called “Operation Gatekeeper.” The policy shifted the U.S. focus from the arresting of immigrants who actually crossed the border to an increased border presence designed to stop border crossing in the first place. When Bersin left the position in 1998, border arrests were on pace for an 18-year low of just more than 200,000. Latino groups complained that Operation Gatekeeper was immoral, saying the program monitored the border near San Diego but simply forced illegal immigrants to other, more dangerous areas.
• Has given more than $50,000 to political campaigns since 1999, almost all of it to Democrats.

5. California Water Czar – David J. Hayes

Title: Deputy Interior Secretary
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Interior Secretary Ken Salazar
Appointed: June 2009
Confirmed by Senate (as Deputy Interior Security): May 20, 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Interior

• Charged with coordinating federal agencies to ease California’s water shortage
• Graduate of Stanford Law School; clerked for U.S. District Court for the D.C., has been a partner at two big D.C. law firms
• Was deputy interior secretary under Bruce Babbitt during Clinton administration
• From 1993 to 1995, was chairman of the board at the Environmental Law Institute, a non-profit research center.
• As a lobbyist, represented the Southern California Metropolitan Water District in 2001
• In August 2008, wrote a policy report while working at the Progressive Policy Institute accusing the Bush administration of leaving a “damaging legacy” in their natural resource management policies
• Donated $2,300 to Clinton during 2008 campaign; after she withdrew, donated $2,300 to Obama

6. Car Czar – Ron Bloom

NOTE: on July 13, 2009, Bloom took over as head of the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry, replacing Steven Rattner

Title: Counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and National Economic Council head Larry Summers
Appointed: July 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Treasury

• A leader of the White House task force overseeing auto company bailouts; worked on restructuring of General Motors and Chrysler LLC.
• Was special assistant to president of the United Steelworkers union from 1996-Feb 2009
• Has negotiated restructuring deals for more than 50 companies, getting major concessions from unions and companies.
• Was raised in New York in a pro-union family, which included a schoolteacher mother and unionized relatives.
• After working for the Service Employees International Union, got an MBA from Harvard University because he thought unions lacked business smarts, he said in a 1996 interview in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
• From 1985 to 1990, he worked as an investment banker with Lazard Freres & Co., which specializes in mergers, acquisitions and corporate restructuring, before co-founding the investment-banking firm Keilin and Bloom.

7. Central Region Czar – Dennis Ross

Title: Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for the Central Region (encompasses the Middle East, the Gulf, Afghanistan, Pakistan and South Asia)
Salary: unknown
Reports to: National Security Adviser Gen. James L. Jones
Appointed: June 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: State

• Spent 12 years in the George H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations trying to create a permanent agreement between the governments of Israel and the Palestinian territories
• In 1981, was named to President Ronald Reagan’s national security staff as the director of Near East and South Asian Affairs.
• Was director of the State Department’s Policy Planning office during President George H. W. Bush’s term.
• 1993: appointed to the position of Middle East coordinator, making him the top negotiator for peace between Israel and Palestinian territories
• After he left government in 2000, headed up Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a hawkish think tank with a pro-Israeli bent

8. Climate Czar – Todd Stern

Title: Special Envoy for Climate Change
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Appointed: January 2009
Agency or department that might have handled similar issues: Environmental Protection Agency; State

• Responsible for developing international approaches to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.
• Served in the Clinton White House from 1993 to 1999; Was Head of the Initiative on Global Climate Change (1997 to 1999) and Adviser to the Secretary of the Treasury (1999 to 2001)
• As a top aide to President Clinton, helped negotiate the Kyoto and Buenos Aires climate pacts, both of which fell apart partially because of a lack of U.S. support during Bush administration.
• After Bush was elected to office, went to the Wilmer Hale law firm, where he is a partner in the regulatory and government affairs division.
• Was most recently a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, where he focused on climate change and environmental issues.
• Has written extensively on climate change, and has called on the American government and the international community to take a series of steps to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.
• Supports a national cap-and-trade system that would limit carbon emissions and reduce U.S. dependency on foreign oil
• Has law degree from Harvard

9. Domestic Violence Czar – Lynn Rosenthal

Title: White House adviser on Violence Against Women
Salary: unknown
Reports to: President Obama and Vice President Biden
Appointed: June 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Health and Human Services

• Will advise the President and Vice President on domestic violence and sexual assault issues.
• 2000-2006: served as the Executive Director of the National Network to End Domestic Violence
• Was an advocate for the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act in 2000 and 2005 and has assisted states and local communities with implementation of this federal legislation
• Was director of the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence

10. Drug Czar * – Gil Kerlikowske

Title: Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy
Salary: unknown
Reports to: President Obama
Appointed: March 2009
Confirmed by Senate: May 7, 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Justice

• Directs drug-control policy in the U.S.; is expected to shift drug policy to intervention, treatment and a reduction of problem drug use.
• Was police chief for the city of Seattle from 2000-2009
• Was Deputy Director of the Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (1998 to 2000); Police Chief for the city of Buffalo (1994 to 1998); Police chief of Fort Pierce, Fla. (N/A to 1994)
• A strong gun-control advocate, urged both the Washington legislature and the U.S. Congress to pass an assault-weapons ban and has worked to close the loophole that doesn’t require background checks at gun shows
• 2003: admitted that busting people for personal marijuana possession was not a top priority of the Seattle police department.
• As Seattle police chief, assigned an officer full-time to the drug court, which commuted sentences of drug users who complete medical treatment in lieu of going to jail.

11. Economic Czar * – Paul Volcker

Title: Chairman of the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board
Salary: Volcker reportedly isn’t paid for his advice.
Reports to: President Obama
Appointed: January 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Treasury

• Charged with offering independent, nonpartisan information, analysis, and advice to the President as he formulates and implements his plans for economic recovery.
• Some reports say he’s been marginalized by Larry Summers.
• Former Federal Reserve chairman (1979-1987)
• Was Undersecretary for Monetary Affairs, Department of the Treasury (1969 to 1974); Deputy Undersecretary for Monetary Affairs, Department of the Treasury (1963 to 1965)
• Gave Obama campaign $2,300 in 2008.

12. Energy and Environment Czar – Carol Browner

Title: Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change
Salary: $172,200
Reports to: President Obama
Appointed: January 2009
Agency that might have handled similar issues: EPA

• Coordinates energy and climate policy, emphasizing regulation and conservation.
• Was Environmental Protection Agency administrator in the Clinton administration (1993-2000)
• Was Florida Secretary of the Environment (1991 to 1993)
• Founded and continues to serve as a principal of The Albright Group LLC, a global strategy firm led by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Also a principal of Albright Capital Management, an investment advisory firm that concentrates on emerging markets.
• Worked on the Socialist International’s Commission for a Sustainable World Society, which argues that the global community must work collectively to address environmental policies
• Described Bush administration as the “worst environmental administration ever”
• While orchestrating private discussions between the White House and auto industry officials on vehicle fuel efficiency standards, kept the talks as quiet as possible. Mary Nichols, the head of the California Air Resources Board, said, “We put nothing in writing, ever.”
• 2003: A federal judge held the Environmental Protection Agency in contempt for destroying computer files during the Clinton administration that had been sought by a conservative legal foundation. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth also ordered the EPA to pay the Landmark Legal Foundation’s legal fees and costs because the agency disobeyed his order to preserve the electronic records of Browner, the former EPA chief.

13. Faith-Based Czar * – Joshua DuBois

Title: Director of the Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships
Salary: $98,000
Reports to: President Obama
Appointed: February 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Health and Human Services

• Acts as a liaison between faith and secular community groups and the White House, often partnering with them to tackle social issues. Helps these groups apply for federal grants available to them.
• Is 26 years old
• Has master’s in public affairs from Princeton University; served as associate pastor
• Worked for Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) as an intern and then as a fellow for Rep. Charles B. Rangel (DN. Y.).
• Hired as a legislative correspondent in Obama’s Senate office in May 2005
• In 2008, at the age of 25, was appointed director of religious affairs for the Obama campaign.

14. Government Performance Czar – Jeffrey Zients

Title: Chief Performance Officer
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orzag
Appointed: April 2009
Confirmed by the Senate (as deputy director for management for the OMB): June 19, 2009
Agency that might have handled similar issues: OMB

• Charged with cutting costs and finding best practices throughout government.
• Has never worked in government before
• Was a chief executive and former management consultant
• Was founder of Portfolio Logic (2004 to present); Partner of the Washington Baseball Club (2004 to 2006); CEO of the Advisory Board (1998 to 2004)
• Has donated just over $90,000 to political campaigns since 1999, almost all of which went to Democratic candidates

15. Great Lakes Czar – Cameron Davis

Title: Special advisor to the U.S. EPA overseeing its Great Lakes restoration plan
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson
Appointed: June 2009
Agency that might have handled similar issues: Environmental Protection Agency

• Oversees the administration’s initiative to restore the Great Lakes’ environment.
• President of the Chicago-based environmentalist group Alliance for the Great Lakes
• Was a litigating attorney and served as an adjunct clinical assistant professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School.
• Served with the United Nations Environment Program in Nairobi, Kenya, where he worked on the Montreal Protocol to protect the Earth’s ozone layer, and U.S. EPA’s Office of Regional Counsel in Chicago.

16. Green Jobs Czar – Van Jones

Title: Special Adviser for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Head of Council on Environmental Quality Nancy Sutley
Appointed: March 2009
Agency or department that might have handled similar issues: Environmental Protection Agency; Labor

• Will focus on environmentally-friendly employment within the administration and boost support for the idea nationwide
• Rose from near obscurity in the Oakland, Calif., grassroots organizing scene to the leader of a national movement to spur the green economy.
• Founded Green For All, an organization focused on creating green jobs in impoverished areas
• Also co-founder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and Color of Change, which includes Bay Area PoliceWatch, a group devoted to “protect[ing] the community from police misconduct”
• Published New York Times best-seller The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems, in October 2008
• Started career as a prison-reform advocate in Oakland, Calif., lobbying for reform of the juvenile justice system and youth-violence prevention programs
• Has law degree from Yale
• 2007: worked on the Green Jobs Act with then-Rep. Hilda Solis (D-Calif.), who co-sponsored the bill in the House
• 1993: was arrested at the Los Angeles riots that followed the acquittal of cops in the Rodney King beating. “I was arrested simply for being a police observer,” says Jones, who had just graduated from Yale Law School and was working with the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights in San Francisco.
• 1999: was arrested in the 1999 Seattle protests against the World Trade Organization
• Excerpt from a Nov. 2005 interview in the East Bay Express:
Jones had planned to move to Washington, DC, and had already landed a job and an apartment there. But in jail, he 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.'” Although he already had a plane ticket, he decided to stay in San Francisco. “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.” In 1994, the young activists formed a socialist collective, Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement, or STORM, which held study groups on the theories of Marx and Lenin and dreamed of a multiracial socialist utopia. They protested police brutality and got arrested for crashing through police barricades. In 1996, Jones decided to launch his own operation, which he named the Ella Baker Center after an unsung hero of the civil-rights movement.

17. Guantanamo Closure Czar – Daniel Fried

Title: Special envoy to oversee the closure of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
Appointed: March 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Justice; State

• Works to get help of foreign governments in moving toward closure of Guantanamo Bay, in fulfillment of Obama’s promise to close the prison within a year of taking office.
• Was Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasian Affairs, State Department (2005 to 2009); Director for European and Eurasian Affairs, State Department (2001 to 2005); U.S. Ambassador to Poland (1997 to 2001)

18. Health Czar * – Nancy-Ann DeParle

Title: Counselor to the President and Director of the White House Office of Health Reform
Salary: $158,500
Reports to: President Obama
Appointed: March 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Health and Human Services (HHS)

• Coordinates the development of the Administration’s healthcare policy agenda.
• Experience: Managing Director, CCMP Capital (since 2001); Adjunct professor (focusing on healthcare policy), Wharton School of Business (since 2001); Commissioner, Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (since 2001); Fellow, Harvard Institue of Politics (2000 to 2001); Director, Healthcare Financing Administration (1997 to 2000)
• Has law degree from Harvard
• Served as the OMB’s representative on health-care reform during Bill Clinton’s first term
• As head of the HHS Health Care Financing Administration under Clinton, ran the largest health insurance provider in America, overseeing $600 billion in payments annually to 74 million recipients of Medicare and Medicaid
• 2001: left government to take a year-long fellowship at Harvard’s Institute of Politics, where she was part of Harvard’s Health Care Policy Forum and led a weekly study group on reforming Medicare.
• During Bush administration, sat on the boards of many health companies, from medical treatment producers to hospital systems
• In September 2008, donated $2,300 each to Clinton and Barack Obama.

19. Information Czar – Vivek Kundra

Title: Federal Chief Information Officer
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Director of the Office of Management and Budget Peter Orszag
Appointed: March 2009
Agencies that might have handled similar issues: other federal agency CIOs

• Basically in charge of overseeing other federal agency CIOs and for setting technology policy across the government.
• Head of a federal technology budget that amounts to $71 billion annually
• Operation is housed in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and will likely have authority to question how money in departmental technology budgets is used
• Formerly head of the District of Columbia’s technology operations
• Shortly after he joined the OMB, federal authorities raided his old District government office. They arrested two technology office managers and a subcontractor, charging them with a bribery scheme that allegedly defrauded the city out of at least $500,000. Kundra was not a suspect in the case, the U.S. Attorney’s office said.
• Has a masters from Maryland in information technology.
• Experience: Washington, D.C. Chief Technology Officer (2007 to 2009); State of Virginia’s Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Trade (2006 to 2007); CEO of computer security firm Creostar

20. Intelligence Czar * – Dennis Blair

Title: Director of National Intelligence
Salary: $197,700
Reports to: President Obama
Appointed: January 2009
Confirmed by Senate: January 28, 2009
Agency that might have handled similar issues: CIA

• Nation’s top intelligence official.
• Retired four-star admiral.
• Graduate of the United States Naval Academy, 1968; sixth-generation naval officer
• Lacks professional roots in the world of intelligence
• Held a number of prestigious Washington posts, including the Pentagon’s top liaison to the CIA and director of the Joint Staff.
• Ran the non-profit Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), which focuses primarily on issues related to national security, and does a lot of work for the Defense Department. Left IDA under a cloud of controversy in mid-2006.

21. Mideast Peace Czar – George Mitchell

Title: Special Envoy for Middle East Peace
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
Appointed: January 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: State

• Works to maintain the shaky peace between Israel and Hamas after recent hostilities
• Senate majority leader from 1989 to 1994
• Was special envoy to Northern Ireland during the Clinton administration and lead investigator into steroid use in Major League Baseball.
• 2000: led a fact-finding committee to study violence in the Middle East; 2001’s Mitchell Report formed the basis for the road map for Middle East peace

22. Pay Czar – Kenneth R. Feinberg

Title: Special Master on executive pay
Salary: reportedly receiving no compensation for his work.
Reports to: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner
Appointed: June 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Treasury

• Named to examine compensation practices at companies that have been bailed out more than once by the federal government
• Oversaw the payouts to the families of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks
• Was the chief administrator to the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund, which commemorates the students who died in the April 2007 shooting rampage at Virginia Tech
• Founder and managing partner of Feinberg Rozen LLP (1992 to present), law firm specializing in mediation
• Was Chief of staff for Sen. Edward Kennedy (1978 to 1980)
• While working with the Feinberg Group, donated over $150,000, nearly all of which has gone to Democratic candidates and political action committees. In 2007, donated $2,300 to 2008 presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani (R).

23. Regulatory Czar – Cass R. Sunstein *

Title: Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Office of Management and Budget head Peter Orszag
Appointed: January 2009
Nomination was sent to Senate on April 20, 2009 – no action yet taken
Agency that might have handled similar issues: OMB

• Will be responsible for reviewing draft regulations and assessing their costs and benefits
• Is a Harvard Law School professor; prior to that, was a professor at the Univ. of Chicago Law School (1981-2008)
• Academic specialties: constitutional law, administrative law, and regulatory policy
• Obama: “Cass is not only a valued advisor, he is a dear friend”
• Known for advancing a field called “law and behavioral economics” that seeks to shape law and policy around the way research shows people actually behave; though embraced by conservatives, critics say it fails to account for the sometimes less-than-rational aspects of human behavior.
• In his 2002 book, Republic.com, discussed the drawbacks of limitless choices on the Internet that allow people to seek out only like-minded people and opinions that merely fortify their own views; he talked about the idea of the government requiring sites to link to opposing views. He later came to realize it was a “bad idea.”
• In his 2004 book, Animal Rights, suggested that animals ought to be able to bring suit, with private citizens acting as their representatives, to ensure that animals are not treated in a way that violates current law.
• In a 2007 speech at Harvard he called for banning hunting in the U.S.
• The American Conservative Union started a website, Stop Sunstein, in an effort to keep him out of the White House.

24. Science Czar – John Holdren

Title: Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology
Salary: unknown
Reports to: President Obama
Appointed: December 2008
Confirmed by Senate: March 19, 2009
Agency or department that might have handled similar issues: Energy

• Top adviser to Obama on science and technology, issues that are increasingly relevant to other issues such as homeland security, energy and environmentalism
• Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy and Director, Program in Science, Technology, and Public Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government (1996-2009); Harvard University Professor of Environmental Science and Public Policy (1996-2009); University of California, Berkeley Professor of Energy and Resources Emeritus (1996 to present)
• Studied aerospace engineering and plasma physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — where he earned his BS and MS — and Stanford University, where he received his doctorate in 1970
• Is an outspoken advocate of the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and believes the United States should sign the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty.
• In a 2008 New York Times op-ed, Holdren called climate change skeptics “dangerous” members of a “denier fringe.”
• In 1971, co-authored a paper in Global Ecology suggesting “some form of ecocatastrophe, if not thermonuclear war, seems almost certain to overtake us before the end of the century.”
• Some conservative media outlets have called attention to a book Holdren co-authored in 1977 titled Ecoscience: Population, Resources, and Environment. The book reportedly includes this statement: “population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution.” Holdren’s office says he “does not now and never has been an advocate of compulsory abortions or other repressive measures to limit fertility.”

25. Stimulus Accountability Czar – Earl Devaney

Title: Chair of the Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Vice President Biden
Appointed: February 2009
Agency that might have handled similar issues: OMB

• Leads oversight board that monitors money spent by the stimulus package
• Experience: Inspector General at the Interior Department (1999 to present); Director of criminal enforcement at the Environmental Protection Agency (1991 to 1999); Special Agent at the Secret Service (1970 to 1991)
• During his tenure at Interior, uncovered the shady dealings of disgraced ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, an investigation that eventually led to Abramoff’s imprisonment and the resignation of Interior’s no. 2, J. Steven Griles, for lying under oath about his own role in the scandal.
• On July 8, 2009, the U.S. General Services Administration issued a press release announcing an $18 million contract for a new recovery.gov web site, which quoted Devaney as saying, “We are pleased that another major milestone has been achieved.”

26. Sudan Czar – J. Scott Gration

Title: Special Envoy to Sudan
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Appointed: March 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: State

• Will coordinate U.S. role in the aftermath of the genocide in Darfur
• Experience: Supreme Allied Command, NATO (2004 to 2005); Air Force assistant deputy undersecretary for international affairs (2003 to 2004)
• Commanded all air operations during the Iraq war in 2003
• 2006: left Air Force position to join Obama’s staff after traveling to Africa with the then-Senator from Illinois, even though he was a Republican
• Has won a Bronze Star, a Purple Heart, a Defense Superior Service Medal and 16 other awards
• Is a fluent Swahili speaker who grew up in the Congo
• Has called on the Obama administration to incentivize participation by the Sudanese government in peace talks by lifting sanctions, a position that is controversial. Also worked to position himself as the principal negotiator between the Sudanese government and its adversaries in Darfur, and is planning an international conference for September 2009
• Has M.A. in security studies from Georgetown

27. TARP Czar – Herb AllisonTitle: Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner
Appointed: June 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Treasury

 

• Leads the government’s $700 billion financial rescue program in the office of financial stability
• Veteran Wall Street banker and interim head of the mortgage-finance company Fannie Mae
• Worked at Merrill Lynch for 28 years, reaching position of president and COO
• Was CEO of Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association College Retirement Equities Fund (2002 to 2008); CEO of the Alliance for Lifelong Learning (2000 to 2002)
• Has undergraduate degree from Yale and MBA from Stanford
• 2000: was John McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign finance chairman
• In 2008, donated $2,300 to Obama’s presidential campaign

28. Technology Czar – Aneesh Chopra

Title: Chief Technology Officer
Salary: unknown
Reports to: President Obama
Appointed: April 2009
Confirmed by Senate: May 21, 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Commerce

• Will lead in the effort to eliminate wasteful government programs
• Will probably work to increase broadband access nationwide and computerize medical records
• Was Virginia’s secretary of technology (2005-2009)
• Has degree in public health from Johns Hopkins, Master’s from Harvard in public policy
• Worked at Morgan Stanley as investment banker; also worked at Advisory Board, a health-care research and consultancy firm
• Has donated more than $24,000 since 1997 to various campaigns. With the exception of a $1,000 donation to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) in 2004, all of Chopra’s contributions have gone to Democrats. From 2007 to 2008, Chopra donated $2,750 to Obama’s presidential campaign.

29. Terrorism Czar – John Brennan

Title: Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism
Salary: $172,200
Reports to: National Security Adviser James L. Jones
Appointed: January 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Homeland Security

• Under Obama’s plan the homeland security adviser’s office would be eliminated, and the National Security Council would take over those duties. Brennan would be responsible for guarding against natural disasters and terrorism.
• Has called for increased integration between the Departments of Commerce, State and Defense
• Graduated from Fordham University in 1977 after a year of intensive Arabic and Middle Eastern studies in Cairo. Earned his J.D. from the University of Texas at Austin before joining the CIA as an intelligence director in 1980.
• Is a CIA veteran and fluent Arabic speaker
• Was CIA deputy executive director (2001 to 2003) and National Counter-Terrorism Center, Chair (2004 to 2005)
• Worked at Analysis Corp, (2005 to 2008);
• Staunch supporter of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Program; defended the use of extraordinary rendition, saying it is “an absolutely vital tool.”

30. Urban Affairs Czar – Adolfo Carrion Jr.

Title: White House Director of Urban Affairs
Salary: $158,500
Reports to: President Obama
Appointed: February 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Housing and Urban Development

• Job entails coordinating transportation and housing initiatives, as well as serving as a conduit for federal aid to economically hard-hit cities.
• Has undergraduate degree in world religions from Kings College; became an associate pastor at a Bronx church; earned his master’s degree in urban planning from Hunter College
• Was Bronx Borough President (2001-2009); President of the National Association of Latino Elected Officials (since 2007); City Council member (1998 to 2000)
• Many reporters say he has higher ambitions and will probably run for New York City mayor in the next ten years.
• Was an active campaigner for Obama, travelling across the country to speak on his behalf. He focused particularly on states with large Hispanic populations.
• The NY Daily News reported numerous developers made tens of thousands of dollars in campaign donations to Carrión around the same time he was considering approving their projects in the Bronx.

31. Weapons Czar – Ashton Carter

Title: Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Defense Secretary Robert Gates
Appointed: April 2009
Confirmed by Senate: April 23, 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Defense

• Will coordinate the Pentagon’s acquisitions, technology and logistics for weapons.
• Will oversee a weapons-buying system that Obama has placed at the top of his list of federal programs he wants to fix and will be asked to quickly weigh in on difficult decisions concerning at least 10 major defense programs, while also instantly dissecting the procurement system’s ailments so he can advise the administration on its Pentagon acquisition reform agenda
• Is a physicist and Harvard academic whose only previous Pentagon stint was in a mid-level policy post from 1993 until 1996 under the Clinton administration
• Graduated from Yale summa cum laude; studied at Oxford University as a Rhodes scholar and earned a doctorate in theoretical physics.
• Chair of Harvard’s International Relations, Science & Security Area International Security Program within the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy (1993 to 1996); Director of the Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University’s Kennedy School (early 1990s)
• Has donated primarily to Democratic politicians since 2000. He donated $6,900 to then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) in 2007 and 2008. He gave the same amount to then Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) during that same span.

32. WMD Policy Czar – Gary Samore

Title: White House Coordinator for Weapons of Mass Destruction, Security and Arms Control
Salary: unknown
Reports to: National Security Advisor Gen. James L. Jones
Appointed: January 2009
Department or agency that might have handled similar issues: NSC; Defense; State

• Will coordinate issues related to weapons of mass destruction across the government. His portfolio includes proliferation, nuclear and conventional arms control, threat reduction, and terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction.
• Position sits within the National Security Council.
• Is a veteran arms control negotiator.
• B.A. in sociology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and his PhD in government from Harvard University in 1984.
• After brief stints with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the RAND Corporation, joined the State Department during the Reagan administration in 1987. Held several positions there, including director of the Office of Regional Non-proliferation Affairs; special assistant to the Ambassador-at-Large for Non-proliferation and Nuclear Energy Policy; and deputy to Ambassador-at-Large for Korean Affairs Robert Gallucci. Helped to negotiate the 1994 U.S.-North Korea Framework Treaty
• Joined the Clinton administration’s National Security Council in 1995 as an adviser on nonproliferation. Coordinated U.S. policy on nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
• Was Director, Council on Foreign Relations (2006 to 2009); Vice President for Global Security and Sustainability, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (2005); Researcher, International Institute of Strategic Studies (2001 to 2005)

Call It By Its Real Name

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America has always been a great and grand country.  Her enormous expanse is a direct reflection of the enormous heart of Her people.  There is a generosity in the American spirit that is matched only by Her wildness; she is born of an inherent restlessness that over the course of two short centuries has spurred both jaw-dropping exploration and seemingly miraculous innovations, and the founding freedoms that encourage them have been a beckoning inspiration to the rest of the old and weary world.

I see America today standing at a crossroads, for Her generous and trusting heart may be Her undoing.  She has always struggled to balance her fierce, wild independence with the human need for the safety of the collective; the last few tumultuous decades culminated in the 2008 election of someone who used soaring rhetoric to speak directly to that human need to belong.  It was rhetoric the likes of which the younger generation had never heard and both wary and weary of the realities of responsible citizenship, they eagerly fell under the spell of its hypnotic rhythms.

Those who actually listened to the words knew there was nothing good afoot.  And, indeed, the first 200 days of Obama’s presidency have proved this to be true.  The progressive, liberal, left-wing ideologies of Pater Knows Best came fast and furious, crushing an already crashing economy and promptly sunk this nation into mind-boggling, multiple generations of debt.  Policies previously derided and formerly vocally and visibly protested have been hypocritically (even if rightly) adopted and adapted by this new administration, while promises of transparency are countered by an ever-increasing number of  presidential appointees who are no longer accountable to the people or to those in Congress sent to represent them.

But like any wild animal, no matter how seemingly tame, that inherent American wildness remains intact.  As the differences between the words and actions of President Obama and his administration make clear an ideology so at odds with the United States Constitution, those who could not find the words for their initial unease are now at last starting to come to terms with it.  They are beginning to identify it, and to call it by its real name:  enemy.  And though it confuses and chagrins them to see that enemy is within America’s own borders, they have begun to speak out.

The reemergence of America’s untamed spirit has taken the left by surprise.  They mistook tameness for tacit agreement and they have been unable to reconcile their gloating “I won” perspective with the August recess townhalls filled with citizens questioning their Congressional representatives.  Blinking like proverbial deer in the headlights they have been taken aback by the very core of the questioning: 

When did you stop serving US? 

And to their discredit, because they are incapable of feeling shame, they have not handled it well at all.

Hip-hop President Obama got himself all “wee-weed up”, beating his chafed campaign stump harder than ever to try to salvage his plummeting poll numbers.  Nancy Pelosi has taken to dismissing average American citizens, even her own constituents, as “astroturf”, while Robert Gibbs finds himself  lumbering in tap shoes two sizes too small as he tries to wave away both the dangerous and the stupid actions of his boss.  And he who represents both the best and the most unaccountable worst of both capitalism and simple humanness1, Obama supporter George Soros, is bankrolling television ads and hiring people to go to health care reform townhall meetings to try to silence the questions and opposition protests of ordinary citizens.  And all the while self-proclaimed communists now seated within the Obama inner circle call on their homies to boycott the advertisers of cable news opinion shows who dare to ask questions and who dare to connect the dots and who – in direct contrast to the countless spineless, so-called professional reporters in the mainstream media – then dare to tell America exactly what is going on behind that curtain in Oz.

It is time to ask the tough questions.  And it is time to demand answers.  What could possibly be the reason for President Obama and certain members of Congress to surround themselves with self-avowed Marxists, communists, socialists, revolutionaries, and anti-capitalists?  While freedom of speech and thought is everyone’s right and therefore are certainly to be supported, are Marxists, communists, socialists, revolutionaries, and anti-capitalists really the kind of people ordinary Americans want advising the President, effectively running the country by writing legislation?

“This legislation [stimulus bill] is the first step in building a clean energy economy that creates jobs…. The Apollo Alliance2 has been an important factor in helping us develop and execute a strategy that makes great progress on these goals and in motivating the public to support them.”
(Harry Reid)

Why does America need “a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded” as our military?  A civilian national security force under the control the government, of course, and intended to fight against…who?  We already have the Army, the Navy, the Marines, the Air Force, and the National Guard to protect our country.  Does President Obama and his administration see Americans now standing up in protest of their cadre of Marxists, communists, socialists, revolutionaries, and anti-capitalists and the ideas spewing forth from them as some sort of enemy against whom force will be necessary?  Based on the immediate reactions to squelch any kind of criticism of the President, based on Homeland Security Reports that continue to flag conservatives and veterans as “right-wing extremists”, based on their requests for citizens to “snitch” on fellow citizens who disagree with health care reform legislation, based on their use of taxpayer dollars to send propaganda to people who never expected to get an email from the White House, based on efforts by the FCC’s “diversity czar”3  to shut down conservative voices in the media, I believe this is a valid question.  The United States is financially broke yet the President wants to stand up what amounts to little more than his own private army solely for the purpose of…exactly what?  Forcibly stamping out political dissent? 

Tyranny by any other name is still as evil.  Americans are guaranteed the right to bear arms in order to protect themselves, in particular against a tyrannical government.  This is an important point when we are faced with a government that won’t let a “good crisis” go to waste, even if – as many are now beginning to suspect – it has to manufacture it and likely is planning even more.  It should go without saying that any attempts to legislate such a “civilian national security force” must be stopped before they even begin, and all its sneaky beginnings in the form of “government service” like AmeriCorps and the “GIVE Act” be yanked out by its roots.

“[I]f circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude[,] that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. ”
(Alexander Hamilton, 1788) 

For many years, America has slowly and stealthily been encircled and She is now being backed into a corner.  Like any lazy-assed hunter who uses bait or dogs, the enemy has been oh-so-careful to disguise its true motives but cornered is cornered and living in a cage instead of living free is still living in a cage instead of living free.  America must now make a choice.  Will She heed the siren call of the Constitution’s guarantee of life and true liberty, allow her wild instincts to come to the fore and once again stand up and fight for Her freedom, or will She fall asleep with begging hands outstretched to the government?

“Hey, Obama has just nationalized nothing more and nothing less than General Motors.  Comrade Obama! 
Fidel, careful or we are going to end up to his right!”
(Hugo Chavez)

 

 

1 CBS’ 60 Minutes  interview with Steve Krofton December 20, 1998:

KROFT: (Voiceover) You’re a Hungarian Jew…

Mr. SOROS: (Voiceover) Mm-hmm.

KROFT: (Voiceover) …who escaped the Holocaust…

(Vintage footage of women walking by train)

Mr. SOROS: (Voiceover) Mm-hmm.

(Vintage footage of people getting on train)

KROFT: (Voiceover) …by–by posing as a Christian.

Mr. SOROS: (Voiceover) Right.

(Vintage footage of women helping each other get on train; train door closing with people in boxcar)

KROFT: (Voiceover) And you watched lots of people get shipped off to the death camps.

Mr. SOROS: Right. I was 14 years old. And I would say that that’s when my character was made.

KROFT: In what way?

Mr. SOROS: That one should think ahead. One should understand and – and anticipate events and when – when one is threatened. It was a tremendous threat of evil. I mean, it was a – a very personal experience of evil.

KROFT: My understanding is that you went out with this protector of yours who swore that you were his adopted godson.

Mr. SOROS: Yes. Yes.

KROFT: Went out, in fact, and helped in the confiscation of property from the Jews.

Mr. SOROS: Yes. That’s right. Yes.

KROFT: I mean, that’s–that sounds like an experience that would send lots of people to the psychiatric couch for many, many years. Was it difficult?

Mr. SOROS: Not – not at all.  Not at all.  Maybe as a child you don’t – you don’t see the connection. But it was – it created no – no problem at all.

KROFT: No feeling of guilt?

Mr. SOROS: No.

KROFT: For example that, ‘I’m Jewish and here I am, watching these people go. I could just as easily be there. I should be there.’ None of that?

Mr. SOROS: Well, of course I c– I could be on the other side or I could be the one from whom the thing is being taken away. But there was no sense that I shouldn’t be there, because that was–well, actually, in a funny way, it’s just like in markets–that if I weren’t there – of course, I wasn’t doing it, but somebody else would – would – would be taking it away anyhow. And it was the – whether I was there or not, I was only a spectator, the property was being taken away. So the – I had no role in taking away that property. So I had no sense of guilt.

2  Jeff Jones, a leader of the Apollo Alliance, was a founder of the Weather Underground (alongside Bill Ayers), and a leader of the infamous “Days of Rage” in October 1969.

 3  Mark Lloyd, FCC Diversity Chief, has proposed that radio companies pay 100% of their operating budget each year as a tax that would then be transferred to the state-run radio, NPR.  If not paid, you’d lose your license and it would be sold to minority group.  (And by the way, the FCC just approved the sale of another radio station — this one on Long Island — to ACORN.)  He has previously and admiringly said, “In Venezuela, with Chavez, really an incredible revolution — a democratic revolution — to begin to put in place saying that we’re going to have impact on the people of Venezuela, the property owners and the folks who were then controlling the media in Venezuela rebelled — work frankly with folks here in the U.S. government, worked to oust him and came back and had another revolution. And Chavez then started to take the media very seriously in this country.”

Paying For Protestors – Your Tax Dollars At Work

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Is it really “grassroots” when you advertise to hire and to pay people to attend protests? 

Los Angeles area and Capital Hill:

We’re fighting for health care that will protect families’ financial health, lay out a clear path for all Americans to afford health care, and improve patient safety and quality care.

You can work for change.

Join motivated staff around the country working to make change happen. You can make great friends and money along the way. Earn $400-$600 a week.

To apply for a job, visit our website—www.JobsThatMatter.org

Sacramento:

Build the public support it is going to take to pass health care reform this summer with the California Public Interest Research Group (CALPIRG). Go out in your community and make change happen. And make friends and money along the way.

Earn $350-500 per week. To apply for a job, visit our website or call Chris at (916) 455-5000.

Apply now at www.JobsThatMatter.org.

The Fund for the Public Interest has been working for over 25 years with organizations such as Sierra Club, Environment America, Human Rights Campaign, Progressive Future and U.S. PIRG to win concrete victories for the public interest. We are the nation’s premier nonprofit for raising money, building membership and winning grassroots campaigns.

We are also hiring college graduates to run our campaign offices across the country. Competitive salary and benefits available. For more information visit, www.FundJobs.org.

 

If you follow the money, you’ll soon find that it’s not only donations by left-wingnuts providing this protest money, but your tax dollars.  So even if you don’t agree with them, you’re helping to fund them.

“Clunker” Is Spelled O-B-A-M-A

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In a manner consistent with having to report bad news that politicians want to go as unnoticed as possible, late Friday the Obama administration announced that it has revised its own forecasts of the U.S. deficit.  Their 10-year projection is now being aligned with outside sources, including the Congressional Budget Office.  The number?  An unfathomable $9 trillion.

Look at it: 

$9,000,000,000,000

 

That’s one hell of a lot of zeroes and one hell of a big, deep hole into which the Audacious One, his hand-picked, unaccountable czars, and unrepresenting Congress have thrown the American people.  And all the creative accounting that accompanies it, like removing $250 billion set aside for bank bailouts from this fiscal year’s budget, won’t make it go away. 

But Obama and the left-wing socialists and Democrats are pushing on relentlessly in their quest for more and more spending.  I heard House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer saying the other day that they just “have to pass” a health care bill this year; even if you set aside the unspeakably cruel end results of putting bureaucrats and Obama advisors like Dr. Ezekiel Emmanuel into the position of inevitably rationing American health care, when the myriad “advisory” and “oversight” committees and federal employees required to attempt to manage 1/6th of the national economy are tossed into the equation, at bargain-basement prices the whole notion of the attempt at “health care reform” is nothing but a trillion dollar-albatross and my reaction to his words was, “Why?”  Why do we “have” to do this? 

Obama recently told America’s religious leaders to encourage their congregations to label anyone who understands and supports the United States Constitution and therefore sees that socialized health care is wrong as someone who is “bearing false witness”.  He brought out yet again the old liberal saw of “moral imperative” to disguise the fact that this push for health care “reform” is really an attempt to legislate morality, and those who know even a little bit about history know how well that worked out during, say, the Inquisition.  The truth is that American taxpayers should never be asked to pay for those things that are the responsibility of the individual and the Founding Fathers did a brilliant job of setting up our government to help insure this.  It is up to individuals to make the choice to help their brother; government as Big Brother has been proven time and time again to be not only inefficient and therefore ineffective, but ultimately the root cause of corruption.  The Obama administration, in the guise of “economic stimulus” has already forced us to help pay the mortgages of our more stupid fellow Americans and to keep the more stupid of our automotive company employees (including union members; or is that especially union members?) employed.  They have forced us to help our fellow Americans to buy new cars via the “Cash for Clunkers” program, to the tune of some $3 billion (if you don’t include the existing costs of keeping all those federal employees occupied with busy work).  And in yet another show of big government competence, the auto companies are the ones paying the dealers because all those federal employees working for the administration can’t seem to manage to get rebate payments processed.

But what brilliance on the part of President Obama!  What a stimulus to our economy!  If you listen to the administration, you might get the impression that those auto companies the government bought for itself with billions of our hard-earned tax dollars would be reaping the benefits of such bright, Ivy League minds, right? 

Wrong.  Clunker again:

TOP SELLERS

1. Toyota Corolla
2. Honda Civic
3. Ford Focus front-wheel drive
4. Toyota Camry
5. Hyundai Elantra
6. Toyota Prius
7. Nissan Versa
8. Ford Escape front-wheel drive
9. Honda Fit
10. Honda CR-V four-wheel drive

I’m not seeing Government Motors or Chrysler here, folks.  Are you?  And only two of the top sellers are American.  Where we do see GM and Chrysler, though, is in the list of clunkers being dumped:

TOP TRADE-INS

1. Ford Explorer four-wheel drive
2. Ford F-150 Pickup
3. Jeep Grand Cherokee
4. Jeep Cherokee
5. Ford Explorer two-wheel drive
6. Dodge Caravan/Grand Caravan two-wheel drive
7. Chevrolet Blazer four-wheel drive
8. Ford F-150 pickup four-wheel drive
9. Chevrolet C15000 pickup two-wheel drive
10. Ford Windstar front-wheel drive van

Half the “clunkers”, in fact.  This speaks volumes about the faith of the American people in our government-ruled, union-driven automotive industry.

I suspect more faith will be shattered when the news finally gets around that Social Security cost of living increases probably won’t happen for the next two years because of “negative inflation”, though premiums for Medicare Part B and Medicare drug coverage insurance are going to go up.  Not to mention that the way things stand today Social Security will be paying out more than it receives by 2016 and the fund will be completely wiped out by 2037.  (Though rumor now has it that Congress may be scheming to to appropriate every state’s pension plans into the bankrupt system.  That ought to be interesting….)

But the administration remains oblivious to such things, for it doesn’t fit within their reality.  That is why the United States has now agreed to loans and guarantee to Petrobras, so Brazil can drill for oil off its own coast.  Of course it’s merely coincidence that just a few days before the U.S. deal with Petrobras was announced, Obama’s big supporter, George Soros, shifted his holdings in Petrobras to preferred shares.

Nine trillion dollars and counting.  Yet ignoring the huge August recess outcries against his administration, Obama and leading Democrats are talking seriously about forcing socialized medicine on America by abusing the (budget) reconciliation process to pass their idea of health care reform legislation and putting even more huge debt onto America.  My first thought is that President Obama and his administration are, indeed, something that starts with the letter “C” but I’ll be polite and say they are the real clunkers.

The Big HR 3200 Lie: Coverage Of Pre-Existing Conditions

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One of the biggest complaints about health insurance is that many companies deny coverage for pre-existing conditions.  If you think about it, this is like asking someone to insure that your car can get you from point A to point B when it doesn’t have an engine.  Doesn’t make much sense, does it?  Certainly, you can see it’s a losing proposition for the insurer, who knows full-well they’ve given you the right to demand they drop in an engine for you.

But coverage for pre-existing conditions is one of the rallying points being used by the administration to sell health care reform, and it’s a rallying point to which the remaining Kool-Aid drinkers cling like conservatives cling to their guns and religion.  President Obama is now saying it like it’s a magic mantra, and the Congress critters are repeating it like proper little parrots.  Just the other day, in New Hampshire, Obama opined,

“This is not about putting the government in charge of your health insurance. I don’t believe anyone should be in charge of your health insurance decisions except you and your doctor.

“I don’t think government bureaucrats should be meddling but I don’t think insurance company bureaucrats should be meddling.”

And right on the administration’s own website, they state their plans for health care reform will:

Require insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions so all Americans regardless of their health status or history can get comprehensive benefits at fair and stable premiums.

Sweet!  No idea how we’ll pay for it but the problem’s solved, right?

Not so fast, Weedhopper.  They are all lying.

HR 3200 contains the following:

Section 111.  PROHIBITING PRE-EXISTING CONDITION EXCLUSIONS. 

A qualified health benefits plan may not impose any pre-existing condition exclusion (as defined in section 2701(b)(1)(A) of the Public Health Service Act) or otherwise impose any limit or condition on the coverage under the plan with respect to an individual or dependent based on any health status-related factors (as defined in section 2791(d)(9) of the Public Health Service Act) in relation to the individual or dependent.

In order to understand what this really means, it’s necessary to go look up the dependencies.  This is a very important point because those dependencies are being included, not specifically excluded.

PHSA section 2701(b)(1)(A):

IN GENERAL.-The term “preexisting condition exclusion” means, with respect to coverage, a limitation or exclusion of benefits relating to a condition based on the fact that the condition was present before the date of enrollment for such coverage, whether or not any medical advice, diagnosis, care, or treatment was recommended or received before such date.

PHSA Section 2701(d)(9):  The term “health status-related factor” means any of the factors described in section 2702(a)(1).

Section 2702 (a)(1) of the PHSA says:

(a) INELIGIBILITY TO ENROLL.-

(1) IN GENERAL.-Subject to paragraph (2), …a group health plan, and a health insurance issuer offering group health insurance coverage in connection with a group health plan, may not establish rules for eligibility (including continued eligibility) of any individual to enroll under the terms of the plan based on any of the following health status-related factors in relation to the individual or a dependent of the individual:

(A) Health status.
(B) Medical condition (including both physical and mental illnesses).
(C) Claims experience.
(D) Receipt of health care.
(E) Medical history.
(F) Genetic information.
(G) Evidence of insurability (including conditions arising out of acts of domestic violence).
(H) Disability.

(2) NO APPLICATION TO BENEFITS OR EXCLUSIONS.-To the extent consistent with section 701,…paragraph (1) shall not be construed–

(A) to require a group health plan, or group health insurance coverage, to provide particular benefits other than those provided under the terms of such plan or coverage, or

(B) to prevent such a plan or coverage from establishing limitations or restrictions on the amount, level, extent, or nature of the benefits or overage for similarly situated individuals enrolled in the plan or coverage.

SEC. 701. INCREASED <<NOTE: 29 USC 1181.>> PORTABILITY THROUGH LIMITATION ON PREEXISTING CONDITION EXCLUSIONS.

(a) Limitation on Preexisting Condition Exclusion Period; Crediting for Periods of Previous Coverage.–Subject to subsection (d), a group health plan, and a health insurance issuer offering group health insurance coverage, may, with respect to a participant or beneficiary, impose a preexisting condition exclusion only if– (1) such exclusion relates to a condition (whether physical or mental), regardless of the cause of the condition, for which medical advice, diagnosis, care, or treatment was recommended or received within the 6-month period ending on the enrollment date; (2) such exclusion extends for a period of not more than 12 months (or 18 months in the case of a late enrollee) after the enrollment date; and (3) the period of any such preexisting condition exclusion is reduced by the aggregate of the periods of creditable coverage (if any, as defined in subsection (c)(1)) applicable to the participant or beneficiary as of the enrollment date.

Not a whole lot of change when all is said and done, is there?  This is what will give the federal government, through its numerous “advisory” committees, the right to decide when and what kinds of care will be provided.  In exactly the same way that insurance companies today decide the risks they will take when insuring someone’s health.

Which makes the federal government no better than the “evil” insurance companies they are subtly and not-so-subtly villifying to get you to buy their snake oil.

No, Mr. President, I Will Not Shut Up

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The left wingnuts have been doing a lot of chest-beating these days about regular Americans daring to speak out against the administration’s continuing plans to flush the country down its personal, gold-plated toilet.  While groups like the SEIU, ACORN, and President Obama’s campaign arm, Organizing For America (aka Moveon.org) send out millions of emails and even put up help-wanted ads to pay people to attend townhalls to make it look like socializing America’s health care system is really and truly the medicine America wants to take, sensible, worried conservatives are also extending feelers and finding they aren’t alone with their grave concerns.  And they are setting aside their inherent independent streak to meet up with one another and go to tea parties and townhall meetings with one, single purpose:  to tell their unrepresenting representatives face-to-face and in no uncertain terms that it’s high time they do their job.

As the media continues to show us day after day, they are met with scorn and ridicule at best (the mainstream media being equally juvenile as the administration); with a beating from SEUI members at worst.

And all President Obama can do is to tell concerned Americans to just shut up and let him fix the mess.  The so-called mess he helped create as one of the majority Democrats in the Senate of the previous administration, but atruth conveniently shed as quickly as the time it took to pull up his Superman Underoos and hit the eternal campaign trail.  The very same Senate that allowed the self-proclaimed “best and brightest” like Tim (“tax cheat”) Geithner to take down Wall Street, with a little help from irresponsible who-cares-if-they-can’t-afford-to-pay-back-the-loan types like Barney Frank.

To this I say:  get over yourself, Barry.  There is no “health care crisis” in America.  No one is denied health care, unless perhaps they happen to be unfortunate enough to show up at the Chicago hospital where your wife put in place that clever little plan to divert less-than-wealthy folks to other hospitals.

Unlike Canada and Great Britain, America’s medical machine continues to roll out great and wondrous things and our free market economy benefits from Canada’s rationing when their patients are sent to New York and Michigan for treatments.  And let’s not forget the money that comes in from all those American sperm donors who are filling in the gaps in Canada’s socialized infertility program, eh?

No, Barry, there is no “crisis” here at all.  Grow some real cajones, poke your head out of your little bubble, and understand that you’ve driven this country into unimaginable debt and we, the American people, aren’t buying your spin any more.  We know your hands are just as bloody as anyone in any previous administration, and we know you want nothing more than to wallow knee-deep in the blood of hard-working Americans based on some unnatural view of “fairness” sown into your psyche by the radicals and entitlement-derangement syndrome types with whom you have spent your life.  All your theories are nothing but.  Read your history.  None of your ideas are new and history shows us they don’t work.

In what can only now be seen as a sort of madness you keep beating the dead horse.  Too bad for you that there is only a very small, niche market in America for British comfort food.  We want no part of what you’re putting on our menu; indeed, we’d like nothing more than for you and all your communists and radicals to shut up and get out of OUR way.

The truth is we don’t need you, Barry.  Never have.  Never will.  Maybe because you really didn’t grow up amongst us you don’t realize that we, the average American, are tough, we are resilient, and we are brave.  You misread our silence as acceptance, Barry, and that is your big mistake.  We are also a patient lot.  Administrations come and administrations go and that includes yours.  The slim minority of us who didn’t vote for your flowery rhetoric hoped you were just another wacked Carteresque blip on the political radar, but as these first few months find this country being usurpped by unaccountable, radicalist czars and our unrepresenting representatives – which includes you, Barry – are no longer even pretending to listen to the voices of those who sent them to Washington to represent them, we will no longer remain silent.

This is your real Waterloo, Barry.  The boy who would be president, now the man with a messiah complex who would be king, must finally come face-to-face with the American people.  A people who aren’t stupid and who know full well that when all is said and done there is a difference between wants and needs, and will only tolerate for so long petty crises manufactured solely for the gain of a few fools.

In your snobbish, childish, and decidedly classless derision and dismissal of us you’ve now crossed the line.  Yes, the sleeping dragon has awakened and this enemy within – Congress, you, and your administration – will be cut out like the cancer you have become.  We, the people, will do this cleanly and without remorse. 

You have failed, President Obama.  Should you have had even the slightest shred of decency to wince or to make the briefest pause as the figurative torches and pitchforks come towards you and those of ill-intentioned like minds with whom you surround yourself, we, the American people, might perhaps have once forgiven you and allowed you to claim your immaturity as an excuse.  But you are the audacious one, aren’t you?  Go ahead and cling to your dreams, sir, but we, the American people, will cling to our guns and our religion as the symbols of our Constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms, and we will continue to shout it out for all the world to hear. 

For it is there that rests America’s great faith and the real, most true hope of all.

Time To Boycott Communist & Radical Supporters

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Oh, woe are the progressive and Communist cohorts within the Obama administration.  It seems they’ve taken offense with Glenn Beck pointing out their divisive, anti-American connections and are calling on advertisors to boycott his television show on FOX.

Let’s see who has decided that paying for exposure during one of the late afternoon’s highest-viewed shows isn’t worth being harrassed by self-avowed Communists:

  • Geico Insurance
  • Lawyers.com
  • Progressive Insurance
  • Procter & Gamble
  • SC Johnson

Just as a bit of background, Progressive was founded by one left-wing philanthropist Peter B. Lewis.  Who is he?

  • Major donor to Democrat political candidates and leftist causes
  • In 2004 the list included $16 million to the Joint Victory Campaign, $2.9 million to America Coming Together, and $2.5 million to Move On.Org.  In February 2008, Lewis contributed money to the presidential campaign of Barack Obama. He is also a close friend of Democrat Senator Ted Kennedy.
  • Supports the legalization of marijuana
  • Close friend of George Soros 

    • No great loss there.

    But just who are the divisive, anti-Americans behind the boycott?  Of particular interest is the Obama administration’s “green jobs czar”, Van Jones.  You know, one of those people annointed … errr … appointed by the President and given great powers over the people without having to be vetted or confirmed by Congress. 

    Van Jones is a founding board member of Color of Change, often referred to as “an extremist racial grievance group” whose methods include stirring up racial antagonism in order to promote a socialist agenda.  (Sounds like a kissing cousin of ACORN, doesn’t it?)  Van Jones was also a founder and leader of the communist revolutionary organization Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement, aka STORM.  Speaking to the East Bay Express, Van Jones said he first became radicalized in the wake of the 1992 Rodney King riots, during which time he was arrested.

    “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.”

    “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 10 years of my life working with a lot of those people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary,” he said.

    Just a shining example of morality this country needs, eh?

    But now that their home boy done good, both Mr. Jones and Color of Change are trying to hide their connections from what they know full well are the majority of Americans who are, rightfully, less-than-sympathetic to either radicals or Communists.   From Newsbusters:

    Now that Van Jones is in the news all the time, Color of Change doesn’t want you to know he helped start the group. Maybe having an avowed America-hating totalitarian radical on the group’s board is bad public relations.

    The group deleted references to Jones on its “about” page. That page used to say, “James Rucker and Van Jones came together in the wake of [Hurricane] Katrina to use the organizing power of the Internet to give Black Americans and our allies a renewed and strengthened political voice.”

    But now it doesn’t.

    The old page still exists in the Google cache.  (The cache will eventually be cleared, so for safekeeping, I made a PDF of the page here.) The 501(c)(4) group’s 2006 and 2007 tax returns (IRS Form 990) show Jones as a director.

    Jones was also on the board of the Apollo Alliance, a hard-left environmentalist group that is now running large chunks of the Obama administration. Beck pounded away at the Apollo Alliance and Jones on a recent show.

    I think that the sensible reaction to this kind of bullying, playground nonsense is to boycott the cowardly and in-the-commie-hip-pocket advertisers.  I also think it’s always a good idea to let businesses know why they are losing you as a customer so use the links below to tell them that caving in to the whining of entitlement radicals and the administration is bad business:

    •  

    The Danger Looming With The 2010 Census

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    You aren’t seeing this in the mainstream media, but a piece in the Wall Street Journal spells out the grim consequences looming with the way the government is planning to handle the outcome of the 2010 census.  Here’s the bottom line: 

    According to the latest American Community Survey, California has 5,622,422 noncitizens in its population of 36,264,467. Based on our round-number projection of a decade-end population in that state of 37,000,000 (including 5,750,000 noncitizens), California would have 57 members in the newly reapportioned U.S. House of Representatives.

    However, with noncitizens not included for purposes of reapportionment, California would have 48 House seats (based on an estimated 308 million total population in 2010 with 283 million citizens, or 650,000 citizens per House seat). Using a similar projection, Texas would have 38 House members with noncitizens included. With only citizens counted, it would be entitled to 34 members.

    Of course, other states lose out when noncitizens are counted for reapportionment. According to projections of the 2010 Census by Election Data Services, states certain to lose one seat in the 2010 reapportionment are Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania; states likely (though not certain) to lose a seat are Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, and Ohio could lose a second seat. But under a proper census enumeration that excluded illegal residents, some of the states projected to lose a representative—including our own state of Louisiana—would not do so.

    Taking a census is not a bad thing; we are a vast sprawl of a country and to know how many people reside here is necessary so that those things for which the federal government is Constitutionally responsible may be effectively accomplished.  (Yes, “effectively” is a stretch since the federal government has so overstepped its bounds, but stay with me here.)

    That the United States government intends to allow the presence of illegal immigrants, deliberate criminals who by definition are in no way entitled to the privileges of an American citizen, to dictate the representative makeup of Congress boggles the mind.  It dangerously erodes the very foundation of the idea of state sovereignty;  when a state like California that, by its own choices, coddles high numbers of illegals it forces other states to pay for their resulting problems by ending up with greater voting influence in Congress.  Voting influence that determines where the hard-earned tax dollars of the residents of other states are sent. 

    Simply put, it rewards bad behavior and hurts those states that act responsibly.  Even more simply put, if you are not from California (or Texas), THIS DIRECTLY HURTS YOU.

    In 1790, the first Census Act provided that the enumeration of that year would count “inhabitants” and “distinguish” various subgroups by age, sex, status as free persons, etc.  Inhabitant was a term with a well-defined meaning that encompassed, as the Oxford English Dictionary expressed it, one who “is a bona fide member of a State, subject to all the requisitions of its laws, and entitled to all the privileges which they confer.”

     The Constitution, in Article 1, Section 2 states that “The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.”  Although simple counting for the original purpose of apportioning State Representatives has morphed into an enormous trivial pursuit, I don’t think it is asking to much of the government to use said trivia appropriately.   The U.S. Code, Title 13, Chapter 3, Subchapter V, Section 101 states that:

    (a) The Secretary may collect decennially statistics relating—

    (1) to the defective, dependent, and delinquent classes; and
    (2) to crime, including judicial statistics pertaining thereto.

    (b) The statistics authorized by subsection (a) of this section shall include information upon the following questions, namely: age, sex, color, nativity, parentage, literacy by race, color, nativity, and parentage, and such other questions relating to such subjects as the Secretary deems proper.

    (c) In addition to the decennial collections authorized by subsections (a) and (b) of this section, the Secretary may compile and publish annually statistics relating to crime and to the defective, dependent, and delinquent classes.

    Translated, this means the government has the legal right to count the number of illegal immigrants in the United States.  Frankly, they should then use that data to remove them, not to reward criminals and states like California who harbor them in great numbers by giving them a voice in the House of Representatives.

     

    How To Start Your Day Off Right

    By

    1. Open a new file in your computer.

    2. Name it “Barack Obama”.

    3. Send it to the Recycle Bin.

    4. Empty the Recycle Bin.

    5. Your computer will ask you: “Do you really want to get rid of Barack Obama?”

    6. Firmly click “Yes”.

     

    Feel better?

    Good!

    Tomorrow, we’ll do Nancy Pelosi.