The Smoke Break

You want some brie with that whine?

Another Example Of Why They All Must Go

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Michelle Malkin recently posted a piece about Representative Pete Stark (D-CA).   In it, she has documented his rude, crude, and socially unacceptable reactions to being questioned.

It’s definitely worth a look.

Just don’t allow the children around when you watch it.

It is this kind of blatant, know-it-all arrogence and contempt for their constituents that has finally awakened the silent and mainly conservative majority, much to the August recess angst of Congress critters of all stripes.  They can try to spin it all they want, but as more and more light illuminates the dangerous mindset of the vast majority of our unrepresenting representatives at all levels of government, the more we, the people, realize the need to take matters (back) into our own hands.

Bummer, dudes and dudettes.  Or is that, bummer, commies, Marxists, progressives, and socialists?  You have no one to blame but yourself.  Well, maybe you can blame the mainstream media, who have allowed you to flourish like a poisonous, noxious weed. 

After too-long of a long sleep, we’re going to pull you all out by the roots and burn you with the brush pile.

If You Wonder What The President Thinks…

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…then pay attention to the White House spin.  On George Stephanopoulos’ show, This Week, George and Robert had the following exchange:

GEORGE:  “So the president doesn’t endorse in any way the things that Van Jones said before but the president doesn’t want him to go?’

GIBBS:  “He doesn’t but he thanks him for his service.”

Folks, that’s like saying “yes” when someone asks you if you want chocolate or vanilla ice cream.  It’s a non-answer.  A deliberate feint.

In the interests of that Obama-vaunted “transparency”, let’s call ’em clearly.  They are weasel words.

What they really tell us is that President Obama knows full well what’s going on in his administration and won’t do anything about it unless his own image becomes tarnished when the views and actions of those he selects to advise him finally become visible to the mainstream, majority, and ultimately rather conservative American public.

So while Van Jones may be the first casualty of the White House’s socialist agenda, the victory celebrations must necessarily be brief.  For there is a lot more rot left to root out.

Next?

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One down, at least 31 more to go:

“I am resigning my post at the Council on Environmental Quality, effective today.

On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me. They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide.

I have been inundated with calls – from across the political spectrum – urging me to “stay and fight.”

But I came here to fight for others, not for myself. I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past. We need all hands on deck, fighting for the future.

It has been a great honor to serve my country and my President in this capacity. I thank everyone who has offered support and encouragement. I am proud to have been able to make a contribution to the clean energy future. I will continue to do so, in the months and years ahead.”

Did he sign it, “Love & Commie Kisses, Van”?

It’s really a pity that someone who is apparently so bright went so wrong.  First by buying into the victim mentality and then by using that bright mind to push for something that history has proved time and time again will reward no one but a few who pull the real strings.

It’s time for reflection, Van.  A time to realize that you, along with so many others, have simply been used to further the ambitions of a few, and to understand that there never was a place for you at their exclusive, elitist table.  That was only a carrot dangled in order to get you to be a front man and to take the fall for them should, as has happened, their nefarious tactics come to light.

Knocking down others in order to raise yourself has never worked.  Only by supporting the United States Constitution will you find that you may freely pursue your own happiness and, in that pursuit, perhaps even find it.

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)

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.

Professional-Grade Astroturf

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Stupid is not the failure of average Americans to believe the lies of the left, but that the left still believes Americans don’t see right through them.  Witness the latest marching orders from the White House:

All throughout August, our members of Congress are back in town. Insurance companies and partisan attack groups are stirring up fear with false rumors about the President’s plan, and it’s extremely important that folks like you speak up now.

So we’ve cooked up an easy, powerful way for you to make a big impression:  Office Visits for Health Reform.

All this week, OFA members like you will be stopping by local congressional offices to show our support for insurance reform. You can have a quick conversation with the local staff, tell your personal story, or even just drop off a customized flyer and say that reform matters to you.

We’ll provide everything you need:  the address, phone number, and open hours for the office, information about how the health care crisis affects your state for you to drop off (with the option of adding your personal story), and a step-by-step guide for your visit.

Click here to find your representatives’ local offices.

As you’ve probably seen in the news, special interest attack groups are stirring up partisan mobs with lies about health reform, and it’s getting ugly. Across the country, members of Congress who support reform are being shouted down, physically assaulted, hung in effigy, and receiving death threats. We can’t let extremists hijack this debate, or confuse Congress about where the people stand.

Office Visits for Health Reform are our chance to show that the vast majority of American voters know that the cost of inaction is too high to bear, and strongly support passing health reform in 2009.

Don’t worry if you’ve never done anything like this before. The congressional staff is there to listen, and your opinion as a constituent matters a lot. And if you bring a friend, you’ll have more fun and make an even greater impact.

Click here to sign up for an Office Visit for Health Reform.

Wherever you live, these visits matter:  Many representatives are pushing hard toward reform, and they are taking a lot of heat from special interests. They deserve our thanks and need our support to continue the fight. But those who are still putting insurance companies and partisan point-scoring ahead of their constituents must know that voters are watching — and that we expect better.

Earlier this week, the President wrote that “this is the moment our movement was built for” and asked us all to commit to join at least one event this month. This is the way to answer that call, and rise to the challenge of this moment together.

Thank you for going the extra mile when it matters the most,

Mitch

Mitch Stewart
Director
Organizing for America

 

In case you aren’t aware, “Organizing For America” is a partner of the Democratic National Committee.

“…Obama for America campaign manager David Plouffe introduced Mitch Stewart, who will serve as Director of Organizing for America.

Organizing for America will work in partnership with the DNC to continue to build, engage and strengthen the unprecedented organization that was built during the campaign and the grassroots network built over the past four years at the DNC. The joint partnership signifies the ongoing commitment to both building and strengthening the grassroots movement, and reaching out to people in all 50 states to engage Americans in this movement for change.

“I’m extremely pleased that Organizing for America will be housed here at the DNC.  Working in partnership, we will seek to engage people in new ways, and to broaden what President Obama calls the ‘Coalition for Change’ in America ,” said Governor Tim Kaine. “I know first-hand how important it is to reach out and engage the grassroots all across a state and all across our country.”

In addition to Mitch Stewart, the DNC also announced that Jeremy Bird will serve as [OFA] Deputy Director.

Mitch Stewart served as Iowa Caucus director, Indiana state director and Virginia state director for the Obama campaign. Before joining Obama’s campaign, Stewart was the coordinated campaign manager for the Democratic Farm Labor party in Minnesota in 2006, when Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D) won her race. In 2004, Stewart served as former South Dakota senator Tom Daschle’s field director. He was also a regional field director in Iowa for former senator John Edwards’ during his presidential bid in 2004.

Jeremy Bird served as Obama campaign field director in South Carolina during the primaries and general election director in Ohio .”

The 1st Amendment: The Freedom Of Speech

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“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,

or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;

or the right of the people peaceably to assemble,

and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

This is the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.  First in the series and number one for a reason.  The Founding Fathers saw “the freedom of speech” as a most basic of human rights, one that exists through simple, natural law (because it is “…endowed by their Creator….”)  They refer to it as an “inalienable” right, meaning it is a right that cannot be alienated (made hostile, unfriendly, or indifferent when there was previously an attachment; or cause to be withdrawn or diverted); it is not something that can be surrendered or transferred.

This fundamental inability of the government to alienate, surrender, or to transfer the people’s right to the freedom of speech is important.  They do not give to you, and they can’t take it away.  No matter what anyone says or what anyone tries to do, you always, now and forever, have the right to make your thoughts heard.

The current “protests” coming from the far-left that anyone who is now voicing their disagreement with their spin or with their actions (or lack thereof) is somehow doing wrong is actually, in itself, not only incorrect but a dangerous mindset.  It’s not merely a matter of what’s good for the goose should be good for the gander, this reaches even beyond the confines of what most people commonly call “fairness”.  It is that at the most basic and fundamental level, simply because of their existence, anyone in this country has the right to voice their opinion. 

This holds true even and – as hard as this is to swallow for those who embrace the ideology of material entitlement – especially if the way something is expressed is not to the listener’s liking.

Judge Andrew Napolitano explains it this way:

“Because speech can startle and offend, as well as enlighten and illuminate, the courts have held that it requires breathing room.  Stated differently, no one in the government – any government – may impose a burden on the exercise of speech. That means that the government may not require a license, demand permission, or intimidate any speakers. It may not punish speech, no matter what the speech asks.”

Does this mean you should run around screaming and yelling like a moron?  Personally, I don’t think you should.  But if you choose to do so, it isn’t against the law.  Unless you are doing something like yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater and thereby overtly and deliberately endangering the lives of others, you have the right to make an ass out of yourself any time you like.  The consequences of such behavior fall under the jurisdiction of societal mores – meaning, if you run around making stupid or lying statements or are always rude when you speak, don’t be surprised if you don’t have many (if any) friends and people go out of their way to avoid you. 

But while regular citizens may choose to ignore your blatherings, the government does not have the power to shut you up.  No matter what means you use to get your message across, no matter how much they may dislike what you have to say, they may not interfere with your expressing it.

The Obama administration’s latest “snitch” program is in violation of the 1st Amendment.  By encouraging citizens to do little more than spy on one another, even if they cloak their request in the guise of trying to counter “misinformation” about health care reform, they have not simply overstepped their Constitutional authority, they have crossed the line into a place where no such authority even exists.  The laws governing the federal archival of all communication with the executive branch require that they keep the names, e-mail addresses, and correspondence sent to them and this, then, through this latest request for “help”, creates an opportunity for the federal government to create a database of “dissidents”.  There is precedent for such activity and while there are those in the White House who would like you to remain ignorant, the outcome came down firmly on the side of the American people:

When the Nixon administration created the “Cointelpro” and”Houston” plans in the 1970s, it used undercover FBI, CIA, and civilian-garbed military to photograph and record the faces and voices of anti-war protestors. Nixon claimed that he needed the records of this for national security purposes. He argued to David Frost, after he had resigned the Presidency, that in case of domestic upheaval, his government would know who to arrest.

 The Supreme Court rejected the idea that the First Amendment permits the government to make and keep a record of the faces and voices and ideas of its domestic political opponents. The Court called this “chilling” the right to speak freely; in other words, denying it the breathing room that free speech requires. The whole purpose of the First Amendment, the Court wrote, is to encourage – not discourage – open, broad, robust political debate, and any inhibition, real or threatened, that comes from the government is unconstitutional.

In direct response to Cointelpro and Houston, Congress enacted the Privacy Act. Among many other protections, it specifically prohibits the President or anyone in his name from making or keeping records of any persons’ use of speech. The constitutional rule is “All innocuous speech is absolutely protected. And all speech is innocuous when there is time for more speech to address the same matter.”

Continue to speak out, America.  For the ability to dissent is, truly, American and patriotic.  And by doing so, freedom rings.

I Am The Mob

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On the one hand, it’s delicious fun – in that train wreck kind of way – to watch leftwing heads spinning like nuts being tightened by a master mechanic in an overweight, Burkenstocked version of “The Exorcist” as average Americans catch on to the monstrous devastation being heaped upon our beloved country, but on the other, I’ve had more than my fill of suits and lemmings drunk on Kool-Aid endlessly bleating their psychobabble about why I’m angry and speaking out against the policies of this administration. 

Frankly, my dears, I am just your average American citizen.  I go to work, I pay my bills (including my taxes – hint, hint, Obamabuds), I care for my family and my friends, and I care deeply about the freedoms we have in this country.  I care so deeply about those freedoms that I take the time to read the pork-laced swill spewed hastily by Congress and labelled as legislation.  I take the time to listen to the words coming out of lips both painted and unpainted and I pay attention to the actions that follow.  Actions that, inevitably, do something different.

I have never been one to tolerate fools easily and now the attacks being perpetuated on me, a plain, old, hard-working American citizen, through the continuing onslaught against my Constitutional freedoms, have set my teeth on edge and prodded me to the point that I get up out of my chair and march on the street.  As an American citizen it is my right to do this.  And there I find thousands of others who are thinking exactly the same thing.

This government is out of control.  And we, the people, want that control back.

Because I dare to choose to exercise my Constitutional right to assemble or my Constitutional right to voice my opinion, I am labelled any of the following:

  • Bitter
  • Right-wing extremist
  • Mob member
  • Destructive
  • Ringer
  • Astroturf
  • Racist
  • Redneck
  • Teabagger

What is frightening is that these labels are not placed on me (or on any of the other millions of Americans who now find themselves unexpected participants in our process of government) only by those with whom I disagree.  These labels are placed by our Community Organizer in Chief, that Great Divider of the United States, President Obama, and by members of his administration.  Most recently, campaigning at a rally for Virginia’s Democratic gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds, President Obama said:

“I expect to be held responsible for these issues because I’m the president.  But I don’t want the folks who created the mess doing a lot of talking. I want them to just get out of the way so we can clean up the mess.”

Yo, Barry.  You ARE being held responsible.  But the only “mess” here is the one created by you peeing on my leg and then having the audacity to tell me it’s raining.  You are responsible for creating the most enormous deficit this country has ever seen, and doing it in only six short month’s time.  And we, the American people who hold down real jobs in the real world, something about which you haven’t a clue, we aren’t buying your excuses and your “oopses” any more and we certainly aren’t buying your exortions to “spend more to save money”.  The truth is that the current economic “recovery” you’re so quick to claim would have happened had you done absolutely NOTHING.  We see through your rhetoric and we aren’t buying what you have for sale, especially not your takeover of American medicine.  And we are not going to get out of your way.

Encouraged by the President’s childish attention to matters that ought not concern him, such as his “friend” Professor Gate’s recent idiotic behavior, his administration gleefully casts stones as well and is now doing everything they can to marginalize and demonize the American people.  Attempting to divide their precious left from right, blacks and Hispanics from white, they are calling on their unions and the Obama campaign astroturf (including government-funded – read:  our hard-earned tax-dollar-funded – ACORN) to bully people like me and you who take the time to attend a townhall.  They are paying people – with our hard-earned tax dollars – to collect information from snitches about people who disagree with the facts set down in black and white in their draft health care reform legislation and are using the Secret Service to contact those people as a way to intimidate and silence them.

Listen.  Do you hear that sound?  It’s those stones hitting the walls of their glass houses, and it’s growing louder every day.  For the truth is that any argument is lost once one side begins calling the other names.

Mobs may shout.

But anger votes.

It’s A Clunker, All Right

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“Cash For Clunkers”, the Obaminable little project to encourage folks (whose number include more and more unemployed every day so a fine target market…what?) to replace their “clunker” (read:  gas-guzzler) with a spiffy, new “green” vehicle, kicked off last Friday.

It’s just been reported the program is being ended. 

Tonight.

At midnight.

Through late Wednesday, 22,782 vehicles had been purchased through the program and nearly $96 million had been spent. But dealers raised concerns about large backlogs in the processing of the deals in the government system, prompting the suspension.

A survey of 2,000 dealers by the National Automobile Dealers Association found about 25,000 deals had not yet been approved by NHTSA, or nearly 13 trades per store. It raised concerns that with about 23,000 dealers taking part in the program, auto dealers may already have surpassed the 250,000 vehicle sales funded by the $1 billion program.

The government failed to fully understand the potential financial ramifications of this knee-jerk program.  They also seem to be having problems handling it on their end.  Now they’re rushing through “health care reform”.

You really think that could possibly work any better?

 

Health Insurance Is Not Health Care

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After spending the time necessary to digest the initial draft of H.R. 3200, that bastardizing socialization of American medicine the U.S. House is calling “health care reform”, not only do I find I have a severe case of heartburn, I am even more deeply angered at the state of this great nation under the current adminstration.  I am also flabbergasted at the depths of ignorance calculatingly displayed by those unrepresenting representatives in Washington and dismayed at the ignorance unintentionally displayed by Americans in general.

When you strip away all the rhetoric, a truth is that we are each responsible for our own lives.  You can’t spin the fundamental fact that, with the extreme exceptions of abortions and executions, no one makes our choices for us; all they do is offer us various options.  It remains up to us to take something or to leave it, or to take something else instead.  Speaking philosophically and literally, even choosing nothing is still having made a choice.

When it comes to our health, our choices in this country are nearly endless.  Every breath we take (or do not take), everything that enters our bodies through our mouths, our ears, our eyes, every movement or non-movement (as with tv-slothing or sleep) is a health-affecting choice on our part.  Sure, some things like breathing are, in the main, unconscious choices but remember the last time you caught yourself holding your breath in eagerness, anticipation, or fear and reminded yourself to breathe again?

Truly, all bodies are marvels in and of themselves.  They are an ultimate machine, capable of both creation and destruction even when simply existing, and such is mirrored every second through continuous regeneration at the cellular level.  But, like all machines, each one of our bodies was apparently designed for a limited period of service and as we age our regenerative abilities slow down until, in the end, it stops altogether and so we die.

There is nothing bad, nothing shameful in all of this.  It is, as in popular vernacular, the circle of life.  But Man sees himself in the mirror and believes that the recognition of Self somehow makes him superior to other species.  Yet the whispers of his instincts can never be suppressed for long, and it is those whispers – ever-reminding him that man, too, is ruled by natural law –  that cause him to vainly create a phantom, parallel world within his own species.  A world where his physical inferiority is replaced by some pseudo-intellectual or material superiority.

Life will never be anything more than a competition, a survival of the fittest.  Certainly, as a species man is more willing than some to assist others, to assist the collective but this latest Obamanation of forced equality, particularly this religious zealotry aimed at the idea of health care reform, will fail.  As it has forever failed.  For it goes against natural law and no matter how “smart”, or how much techology we can create, we are now and will be forever subject to our humanness.

Ask the antelope in the jaws of the jaguar if life is fair.  We would be better off to accept our place in this world and enjoy the fact we get a life at all.  Return to the foundations upon which this country was birthed and let its inherent support of natural law take care of things like the auto industry, the banks, people who bit off more mortgage than they can chew, and also take care of “health reform”.  Anything else will simply accelerate our inherent propensity for self-destruction.

If you take the time to read and to understand what is being proposed in H.R. 3200, it is clear that the Obama administration intends to wholly assume not the business of health insurance but to flat-out control every aspect of the practice of medicine in the United States.  The campaign rhetoric endlessly spewing forth vaccilates and confuses care with insurance and perhaps this is done on purpose, but without understanding the difference it is easy to get swept up in its destructive fervor.

It is well-known that health CARE in the United States is the best in the world.  As a result of our capitalistic, free-market economy, innovations in the field of medicine have resulted in understandings of human health and the manifestation of health CARE that allows us to live far more comfortably and far more productively than anywhere else in the world.  We have the best doctors, the best facilities, and the best equipment.  Period.

But everything comes with a price and medical technology is no different.  Whether it is a Viagra capsule that gives an old man past his reproductive prime the ability to pursue nothing more than simple carnal gratification or the MRI machine that gives doctors the ability to diagnose the presence and extent of a tumor in a young child, each and every thing we use or do has cost someone time and money to create.  They pursue these things out of a combination of altruistic and financial motivations and…you know what?  There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

With the help of more and more technology, the collective mindset of the modern era has served to steer us further and further away from the basic understanding of nature’s cycles and somehow given rise to a belief that we, humans, have a fundamental right to, for lack of a better term, physical immortality.  Or at least the right to die in a body that looks like a plasticized 20-year old.  Fearing death, we cling to the notion we are immune from the processes of aging, that we may exist above the mandates of natural law. 

But, again, the truth is that we are not now, nor will we ever be.  And the sooner we let go of this dangerous belief, the better off we will find ourselves. 

Now, this does not mean that if we get sick, we shouldn’t bother going to see a doctor.  It doesn’t mean that medical CARE should never be provided.  What it means is that medical CARE can only do so much for us and the responsibility to choose that CARE is entirely our own.  And this is where the business of health INSURANCE enters the picture. 

Health INSURANCE is simply a financial risk agreement between two parties.  It’s a lot like a bet.  One person bets that they’ll need expensive medical care at some point and the other is betting they won’t.  If the payer stays healthy, the insurer keeps their money; otherwise the insurer shells out what is needed to get the payer back on their physical feet.  Frankly, it’s a rather nifty and interesting arrangement.  The problem is that over time the payer has come to believe that the sum they pay to the insurer is a replacement for the choices that they make for themselves in terms of what they put into and how they treat their body.  Like les enfants terrible, it’s come to be expected that everything needed will simply be provided, promptly and without question.

Nice thought, but dangerously naive.  Everything comes with a price, remember?  If, for example, you ask me to watch your house while you’re away and agree to pay me to do so, the cost for me to stop by every day and bring in the mail is going to be a lot lower than asking me to spend additional time to water your plants, feed your cat, scoop its litterbox, etc.  If you travel a lot and want to keep the costs down, well, you won’t keep either houseplants or a cat, will you?  Health insurance works very much the same way.  If you want me to pay your doctor(s) for every little thing you want done, you’re going to have to pay me more money.  Now, it makes sense for me to help you pay for preventative-type screenings, those early warnings that you, the individual, need to change your couch potato, greaseburger, fries, and beer gut ways.  But if you choose to do or continue to do things proven risky to you, with your unique historical combination of DNA, then you’re going to have to pay me more to cover your body’s sooner-than-later eventual breakdown.

What we need in America is, in my mind, not health CARE reform but to take another look at health INSURANCE.  Medical CARE is available and, for the most part, guaranteed.  Sure, there are situations like in Chicago, where Michelle Obama’s infamous “Urban Health Initiative” was found to be turning away the poorer, less-insured patients in favor of the well-heeled genteel folks, but that’s a business and a moral problem, not a medical CARE problem.

Bottom line:  it’s more than time for the federal government to just get out of the way.  It’s time to stop unsustainable federal medical programs, cut out all the pork-funding taxes, and let Americans look for different and better ways to take care of themselves.  Let Americans place their own bets on what kind of medical care they may need; one thing that comes to mind is having more walk-in clinics or small general practices for all the garden-variety cuts-scrapes-sore throats and even preventative-type care (there is one here in my area that even without any insurance is affordable).  These old-fashioned, less-expensive, priced to pay-as-you-go practices could be combined with health insurance to cover only catastrophic illness, the kinds of illnesses that most of us never experience but that hurt families the most.  And then have a menu of available coverage running the gamut between the two for the more cautious and the hypochondriacs.  I suspect that tort reform would have to accompany such an idea since our sue-happy society has yet to get a grip and stop blaming everyone but themselves for their individual stupidity, but I know from talking to them that there’d be far more general practioners/family doctors if it wasn’t for all the stinkin’ government-related paperwork and the price of insurance against the constant threats of lawsuits.  It would also be good to quit advertising drugs on television with the insistent, cheery message that people should “ask their doctor” about them.  Someone savvy could easily set up an information clearinghouse that provides a searchable list containing all the same caveats as the commercials.  (Am I the only one who’s noticed that for some of the advertised drugs, the list of side-effects takes longer to read than the actual “buy me” part of the commercial?!)

I look at it this way:  doctors (and lawyers) practice.  To expect guarantees from their efforts, then, is ridiculous.  But they do serve a purpose, for the probability of healing as a result of their efforts remains higher here than anywhere in the world.  We should be encouraging doctors by taking back ownership of our health and working with them as our counsel, our partners, not handing the responsibility for our medical care over to the federal government and its proven track record of program administration failures.