Republicans vote to defund Obama's 'czars' [The vote was 249-171......]

The Hill ^

[Sub-Driver]

Republicans vote to defund Obama's 'czars' By Andrew Restuccia - 02/17/11 07:01 PM ET

The House GOP approved an amendment to a government-spending bill that would block funding for the Obama administration’s so-called policy "czars,” appointed advisers to the president that have been much-criticized by Republicans.

The vote was 249-171.

The amendment, offered by Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), specifically targets Obama’s “climate czar” by blocking funding for the assistant to the president for energy and climate change, the position's official title. The amendment would block funding for the 'czars' through the end of the fiscal year, when the spending bill would run out. The underlying bill also includes a provision to block funding for the position.

"I think this sends a strong signal to the president that we are tired of him running this shadow government, where they have got these czars that are literally circumventing the accountability and scrutiny that goes with Senate confirmation," Scalise said after the vote.

Carol Browner, who currently holds the position, announced last month that she will resign, leaving the future of the office in doubt.

Scalise said the measure blocking the czars also makes good fiscal sense.

"We are going to save millions of taxpayer dollars, but we are also going to send him a signal that he is going to have to hold his administration accountable to the same transparency that he promised, but has unfortunately failed to deliver," he said.

Republicans railed against Browner and Obama’s other policy advisers, arguing they played too great a role in the president’s policy decisions for officials that were appointed rather than confirmed by Congress.

The amendment would also prohibit funding for the director of the White House Office of Health Reform; the State Department’s special envoy for climate change; the special adviser for green jobs, enterprise and innovation at the Council on Environmental Quality; the senior adviser to the secretary of the treasury assigned to the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry and senior counselor for manufacturing policy; the White House director of urban affairs; the special envoy to oversee the closure of Guantanamo Bay; the special master for TARP executive compensation at the Department of the Treasury; and the associate general counsel and chief diversity officer at the Federal Communications Commission.

[Sub-Driver]

Made my day.........keep it up...

[SatinDoll]

This is goody good-good!

[LostInBayport]

Excellent news!

[unixfox]

Good! Now defund the U.N., the EPA, the DOE, etc,etc,etc

[EdReform]

BTTT

[VanDeKoik]

After a nonstop barrage of migraine-inducing news, this is nice to read.

[SueRae]

Great work.

[RedMDer]

WooHoo! Keep the pressure on.
Can the senate try to remove this thru reconciliation?

[Hotlanta Mike]

List of Obama’s Czars

http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/29391/

[Liz]

Hard to stomach Obama's appointees like onetime WH Communist Van Jones who fronted as Obama's "green jobs czar," and regulatory czar Cass Sunstein, who wants to muzzle conservatives for daring to oppose the president.

Homo-erotic czar Kevin Jennings's job is to insure homosexuals get lots of willing young sex partners---Jennings oversees "safe schools" program and is the founder of the pro-homosexual GLSEN organization. Jennings was involved in the 2000 "Fistgate" scandal in which homosexual adults at a GLSEN youth workshop "guided young teens on how to engage in sexual perversions, including the violent gay sex practice known as "fisting."

Obama's vicious anti-male feminist Domestic Violence Czar, Lynn Rosenthal- Director of the National Network to End Domestic Violence, supports male castration.

Fat-happy White House promoting "Health food czar" Sam Kass......a comical move even for czarist Ohaha, who has rewarded dozens of cronies with faked-up titles. Kass was the Obamas' personal Chicago cook is "Senior Policy Adviser for Healthy Food Initiatives." The Chicago chef's rapid ascension from kitchen help to high-level govt employee was kept secret.

Better eat those Hardee's Thickburgers, Chicago hot dogs and Geno's cheese steaks now.......before they're banned.

[Liz]

ACTION NOW Czar funding to date needs rigorous scrutiny. Czars had to sign off on numerous official documents. Taxpayers demand to know the scope and dimension of deceptive and intentionally ambiguous information contained therein.

RICO (the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) may have been violated by generating fraudulent documents to extort taxpayers and steal govt monies.

Repubs should place a hold on all czar documents. Czars that may have stolen or conveyed or destroyed official govt records get 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. L/E should also look at Computer Trespass--a class C felony if access is made with the intent to commit a crime and/or the violation involves a computer or database maintained by a government agency.

Czars need to prove where they spent govt money. Hope it didn't go up their noses . But judging by all the homos Obama hired, rear entry is more likely (/snix).

[Liz]

A STROLL DOWN MEMORY LANE Diversity Czar Threatens Free Speech
IBD Editorials | August 31, 2009 | INVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY Staff
FR Posted 08/31/2009 by Kaslin

Mark Lloyd, a disciple of Saul Alinsky and fan of Hugo Chavez, wants to destroy talk radio and says free speech is a distraction. The new FCC diversity "czar" says Venezuela is an example we should follow.

When Mark Lloyd was appointed July 29 as the chief diversity officer at the Federal Communications Commission, a nation focused on ObamaCare and a deteriorating economy took little notice. But as angry constituents flood town hall meetings and call in to talk radio, a man dedicated to silencing them sits at the right hand of the president. They share a common hero — Saul Alinsky — who wrote the community organizer's bible, "Rules for Radicals." It speaks of confrontation or, as candidate Obama put it, of "getting in their faces" as a way to obtain power, not from the people or for the people, but over the people.

Lloyd has written that we make too much of the constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of speech and the press — for "the purpose of free speech is warped to protect global corporations and block rules that would promote democratic governance." We thought we were democratically governed. We thought we could vote as we choose after a vigorous and open debate. Once the major networks served as information gatekeepers controlling what we saw and heard. Now talk radio, the Internet and cable news have enhanced democracy by promoting the free flow of information and discourse. Lloyd wants to stop all that. (Excerpt) Read more at ibdeditorials.com ...

======================================

Mark Lloyd is a Martin Luther King, Jr. Visiting Scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he teaches communications policy and conducts research on the relationship between communications policy and strong democratic communities. Most recently, he served as the Executive Director of the Civil Rights Forum on Communications Policy, a nonprofit, non-partisan project he co-founded to bring civil rights principles and advocacy to the communications policy debate.

Previously, Mr. Lloyd worked as General Counsel to the Benton Foundation, and as a communications attorney at Dow, Lohnes & Albertson in Washington, D.C. representing both commercial and non-commercial companies. He also has nearly twenty years of experience as a print and broadcast journalist, including work as a reporter and producer at NBC and CNN, and is the recipient of several awards including an Emmy and a Cine Golden Eagle. He has served as board member of dozens of national and local organizations, including the Independent Television Service and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund.

He has also served as a consultant to the Clinton White House, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Soros' Open Society Institute and the Smithsonian Institution. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan and his law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center.

[Cowgirl]

While their at it they can defund his out-of-control wife of her army of servants.

[fuzzybutt]

This is too good to be true.

[lurk]

Removing czars will have little financial effect, but it relieves the citizenry of a few tyrants. So many more tyrants to go.

[freekitty]

However, the left Health and Energy and someone else in place so how does it help; if these people are doing most of the damage?

[JMJJR]

There are currently 241 Republicans in the house ? That says at least 8 Democrats “reached cross the isle”

Seem like the only bipartisanship is, as always, is in opposition to the 0

Do we have a link to the vote breakdown ?

[reg45]

The best way to remove czars is the way the Russians did it.

[aces]

Keep it up, I want my country back!!!

[potlatch]

Some good news!

[SaxxonWoods]

Anyone know the where the Senate is on this question? And if the Senate goes along, do we have an Obama veto coming?

[EQAndyBuzz]

249 votes?

Isn’t that called “Bi-partisan”?

[potlatch]

[Isn’t that called “Bi-partisan”?]

Has to be, lol, there are 241 Republicans and 193 Democrats in the House! Looks like we picked up 8 Dems.

[EQAndyBuzz]

“Looks like we picked up 8 Dems.”

So the headline should be:

Obama’s Czars Defunded in Bi-Partisan Vote

[potlatch]

That probably should be the headline, but this headline gives us something to rave about, something to show the Pubs are accomplishing something. I won’t quibble, lol.

[Fantomw]

Can the senate try to remove this thru reconciliation?....... The Senate does not get to override the House if that is what you mean. Any bill advanced thru either Chamber of the bicameral Congress must be passed in both Chambers in exact substantive language. If not then the process goes to reconciliation. Essentially a Bicameral committee of each chambers choosing which bill one substantive language. If either changes the other substantially than it must be voted again in the chamber/s in which the bill is substantially changed. Usually the Senate can bully the House into compliance as the House is always in election mode(two year term vr's six). The House does have one Major hole card. All spending bills must originate in the House. Should the House decide not to originate a spending bill for say the EPA... Hmnnn. Now it gets interesting. Can the Senate amend another spending bill to fund the EPA? Is such Constitutional as such spending did not originate in the House. Anybody have any SCOTUS on this?

[devolve]

.

I demand that Jimmy Qaeda II steps now! Not in September!

March on Washington DC!

.

[Marine_Uncle]

Hey Browner, don’t let the door bruise your miserable ass. Bye bye.

[potlatch]

OK. I’ve seen that 3 times and haven’t figured it out yet but know Jimmy Carter must be involved, lol.

[RedMDer]

IIRC, that is what the senate tried to do with obamacare last year and it had to go back to the house. That’s when we went to DC again last March to try to “Kill the Bill”.
On Saturday 3-20-2010 thru Sunday 3-21? The house wanted to ‘deem’ it passed on Saturday and we (I would like to think) helped that to fail. Then the house passed it late on Sunday night 3-21-2010. And it when back to the senate again to be passed on Christmas Eve 2010.

Bastards.

[hattend]

Elections have consequences, Obummer

[Secret Agent Man]

Good. Now just don’t back down.

Everytime I see them finally do something, I then jsut wait to see how they will backtrack or back down.

STAY THE EFFING COURSE! DAMN THE MEDIA! DAMN THE WHITE HOUSE! FULL SPEED AHEAD!!!!

[PA Engineer]

The best way to remove czars is the way the Russians did it.

I like you style.

[Fantomw]

Actually, the Senate passed ,essentially, the House version, thus bypassing reconciliation. That allowed a deem and pass with very minor variation. Nothing of substantial variance, nothing which changed a dang thing, substantially from the House Bill.

This allowed the House to pass on a simple majority obamascam. Of course they could do so even if major changes from the House bill had been made. No such changes were made, or at least not to arouse SCOTUS.

So the Bill goes back to the Senate, for a simple majority vote. A routine checkoff of procedure only. No substantive changes in the House Bill coming from the Senate is Pro-Forma approved via “deemed as” , such really does not matter as it would have pased a house vote... the “deemed as did”.

Then the same Bill is sent to back to the Senate for another simple majority pro-forma vote as there is no substantive change from the bill the Senate sent to the House.

The real worm in this is Collins I do believe. Her vote brought this whole mess to the floor of the Senate from committee.

Upon which I find myself remanded unto a perspective.

“Not where he eats, but where he is eaten. A certain convocation of politic worms are e’en at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet. We fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service—two dishes, but to one table. That’s the end.”

And to take literary license.... Kings have a way to be crapped out of the body politic.

[RedMDer]

Yes, Collins let this out of committee. We need to target her for defeat in the next primary election. As far as Kings have a way to be crapped out of the body politic. LOL. We can send Mr. Hanky Dumplin Ears home.

[Irish Eyes]

A good news bump...it is a start.

[Fantomw]

Maybe replace Collins, if we can field something better in her stead. Believe you me I am to the right of .. well lets just say, I am Steadfast in opposition to socialist/progressives .

But you, mayhap you shrug off my analogy of Collins as a worm. In this case a particular worm which did eat of a King. Which in turn allows us to go fishing. And in such manner did obama go a progress thru the bowls of America.

All prose in short. Without Collins advancing obamacare then we would not have all the events to date. We would not have the Tea Party.... only an obstructionist Republican party which would be today, even shorter in stature.

Certainly an interestin’ consideration no?

A Simple Bricklayer.

[Danae]

Hehehe!!! Lalalalalalalalalalal

Oh yes.... hows that november election ass kicking feelin now Bambi?

The bruises are only just now starting to show... more to come! LOL

[Lazamataz]

Both amazing, and greatly encouraging.

[Georgia Girl 2]

I’ll drink to that.

[sheikdetailfeather]

Very wonderful news!

[Post Toasties]

Good move by Congressional Republicans!

Up with consent of the governed!

[dixiechick2000]

Great post and ping!

Thank you both for this good news!

It made my day!

[EdReform]

BTTT

[CPT Clay]

Yes! Yes! Yes!