From our Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson charged the British King, “He has erected a Multitude of new Offices and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People and eat out their Substance”
President Obama is not the first president to appoint unelected officials to high level positions of authority but attention has been called to them by assigning the title of “czars.” He is now trying to stop the use of that term but it is not working. It‟s not a bad title since most people tend to remember the Russian Czars who ruled with authority and had not been elected to those positions. In our case these Czars are unelected, unconfirmed by our Congress and given unconstitutional authority over various sections of our government.
During the FDR reign Roosevelt appointed 12 people to those kind of positions where he did not want to go through the approval process. Truman had six, Eisenhower and Reagan both had one and George Bush (41) had two. Clinton had seven and then George Bush (3) had thirty one. President Obama has around thirty four and some of their titles indicate that functions are being performed that are really unconstitutional. We have a Science Czar, a School Safety Czar, a Car Czar, Energy Czar, Urban Czar, Health Czar and a Czar Czar.
There is also a Pay czar, a Domestic Violence Czar, a Green Jobs Czar, a TARPS Czar, a Technology Czar, a Regulatory Czar, an Afghanistan Czar, a Mid-East Peace Czar, a Sudan Czar, an AIDS Czar, an Economics Czar, a Border Czar, a Climate Czar, a Stimulus Accountability Czar, and on and on and on.
House Minority Leader John Boehner has accused the President of subverting the Constitution. He stated, “He clearly is circumventing the Constitution, in my view, ….” Senator Robert Byrd (D- W. Va) wrote a letter to Obama, warning, “The rapid and easy accumulation of power by White House staff can threaten the Constitutional system of checks and balances. At the worst, White House staff have taken direction and control of programmatic areas that are the statutory responsibility of Senate confirmed officials.” Further he wrote,” I am concerned about the relationship between these new White House positions and their executive branch counterparts. Too often, I have seen these lines of authority become tangled and blurred, sometimes purposely, to shield information and to obscure the decision-making process.”
Some of his appointments are very troubling. His Energy Czar, Carol Browning, was the former Secretary of the EPA and a member of a Socialist organization. She had announced by February of 2009
that she had plans to declare carbon – dioxide emissions a danger to the public. She had previously been declared to be in contempt of court for having some of her computer files destroyed. A judge had ordered her to produce those files to help him decide a law suit against General Electric but Carol destroyed the files which would have helped GE in the law suit. Her membership in the “Commission for a Sustainable World Society,” a socialist organization, reveals her opinions of our capitalistic government.
Another very questionable appointment was Van Jones, the Green Jobs Czar. An admitted communist, he signed a petition circulated by 911 Truth.org that questioned whether Bush officials may have allowed the terrorist attacks of 9/11 to go forward “perhaps as a pretext for war.” He also was involved in a group appealing for clemency for death- row inmate Mumia ABu – Jamal who had been convicted for the murder of a police officer. He resigned his position when his background was revealed but is still in the White House administration.
Science Czar John Holdren , coauthored a book , Ecoscience, Population, Resources and Environment , where it was stated that, “population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing constitution.” His understanding of our constitution is really peculiar.
He has also been involved in “Climategate,” the deliberate manipulation of scientific data and the stonewalling of Freedom of Information requests.
We have another campaign promise from Mr. Obama that has been discarded. On April 15, Mr. Obama signed the budget law passed by Congress and added a signing statement to it (he pledged he would not do that) in which he indicated he would ignore the part of that act which prohibits funds to pay for four
“czars,” namely, Director, White House Office of Health Reform; the Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change; the Senior Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury assigned to the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry and Senior counselor for Manufacturing Policy; and the White House Director of Urban Affairs. Mr. Obama obviously believes he is above the law and not subject to it.
The really, really, really questionable one is the Safe School Czar, homosexual activist Kevin Jennings.
Obama‟s recent request to the military to change their “don‟t ask, don‟t tell policy reveals his support of the homosexual group but this appointment is still surprising. It seems probable that someone in charge of safety in our schools would have a background in law enforcement or police work or something of that nature.
However, the most recent program of the homosexuals is to complain that homosexuals are being harassed and bullied and that they need special protection and privileges. Kevin Jennings has the background for promoting that agenda.
His organization, GLSEN, (the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education network) is known for promoting explicit, outrageously age – inappropriate sexual lessons in the classroom. GLSEN‟s recommended reading for teens includes pamphlets promoting leather bars and public sex in parks and lurid books describing incest, rape, and adult-child fantasies. He has admitted his in his 2006 memoirs that he harbored a deep seated hatred for God and religious believers. As a teacher at Concord Academy in Massachusetts he failed to report a homosexual rape of a high school minor to the administration or police. We can expect some great things for the homosexual movement from this homosexual and the Obama administration.
Many of these Czars appear to be engaged in functions that are already covered by normal appointments. We do not really know what they do for all we have are their titles. We don‟t know what their pay is nor how many people they have working for them nor expenses associated with them. Are they issuing rules and regulations? Carol Browder announced that she was going to declare carbon dioxide as a dangerous substance in 2009 just after she was appointed and before any scientific study had been done. Where does she get that authority?
In some cases we have found some information about their backgrounds but these appointments have not been examined or approved by our Senate as is required of Presidential appointments. This is setting up a whole new government that is not controlled by our Congress and if they assume that they have the authority to issue regulations that are then published in the Congressional Record have they made new laws? Are those laws now to be followed and enforced? At one time our government had three branches of government and each branch had some check over the other branches. We now have a government by bureaucrats without those checks and balances.
They are unelected, unknown and uncontrolled.