Free Republic

My column today shines light on the autocratic agenda of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. Readers of Culture of Corruption already know all about this Chicago crony porker’s ties to Rahm Emanuel, Richard Daley, Rod Blagojevich, and Tony Rezko. For a trenchant look at LaHood’s penchant for government coercion and central planning, see chapter one of Terry Jeffrey’s Control Freaks. Ray LaHood: Obama’s Power-Mad Cell Phone Czar By Michelle Malkin • November 19, 2010 09:40 AM He’s got hang-ups. My column today shines light on the autocratic agenda of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. Readers of Culture of Corruption already know all...

NAMBLA-gate: The Strange Case of Kevin Jennings, Part Two Hay, who inspired Jennings, was not apparently a formal member of NAMBLA. Sean Hannity of Fox News, who has called for the resignation of Obama Education Department official Kevin Jennings, interviewed a former FBI agent, Bob Hamer, who infiltrated the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) and documented their criminal activities. Asked if Jennings had been unaware of Hay’s pro-NAMBLA activities when he said that Hay had been an inspiration to him, Hamer replied that Jennings “knew the agenda of Harry Hay and he certainly supported Harry Hay and Harry Hay...

Energy czar Carol Browner needs to go the way of disgraced green-jobs czar Van Jones: under the bus and stripped of her unbridled power to destroy jobs and lives in the name of saving the planet. ASAP. One of the Beltway’s most influential, entrenched, and unaccountable left-wing radicals, Browner has now been called out twice by President Obama’s own federal BP-oil-spill commission and Interior Department inspector general. How many strikes should a woman who circumvented the Senate confirmation process and boasts a sordid history of abusing public office get? Pushing the question — and shining a bright, hot spotlight on...

Steven Rattner, the former car czar, has agreed to a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission over kickback claims involving the New York State pension fund, a person with knowledge of the negotiation said Wednesday. Mr. Rattner will accept a multiyear ban from the securities industry and pay a fine of more than $5 million, the person said. He is still in negotiations over a similar settlement with the office of the New York attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo.

n a video interview this week, White House Office of Science and Technology Director John P. Holdren told CNSNews.com that he would use the “free market economy” to implement the “massive campaign” he advocated along with Paul Ehrlich to “de-develop the United States.” Thursday, September 16, 2010 By Nicholas Ballasy John P. Holdren President Barack Obama confers with his top science and technology adviser, John P. Holdren. (White House photo) In a video interview this week, White House Office of Science and Technology Director John P. Holdren told CNSNews.com that he would use the “free market economy” to implement the...

“Special adviser” is the new czar. Facing stiff opposition and pointed questions about the left-wing, anti-business advocate that he wanted to nominate as chairman of the new federal consumer financial protection bureau, President Obama once again circumvented the Senate’ constitutional advice and consent role and installed Elizabeth Warren with a wave of his hand: Consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren will help set up a powerful new watchdog agency policing the financial marketplace on behalf of ordinary borrowers and savers, a Democratic official said Wednesday. But it’s unclear whether the Harvard University law professor will end up running the Consumer Financial Protection...

John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, says that the term "global warming" is "a dangerous misnomer” that should be replaced with “global climate disruption." At the Environmental Protection Agency's 40th celebration of the Clean Air Act on Tuesday, Holdren said, "I think one of the failures of the scientific community was in embracing the term 'global warming'. Global warming is in fact a dangerous misnomer." And in a speech last week in Norway, echoing remarks he made at a 2007 speech at Harvard University, Holdren said the

Contrary to press reports that he would not be compensated, uncovered Treasury Department documents reveal President Obama's pay czar, Kenneth Feinberg, received a $120,830 annual salary. The documents were obtained by the public interest group Judicial Watch in a Freedom of Information Act request filed July 20.

We have drug czars, energy czars, actual Russian czars (well, we used to), and -- perhaps a mark that we maybe need a nomenclature czar -- we now have an Asian carp czar. Yesterday The White House announced that a former leader of the Indiana Department of Natural Resources and the Indiana Wildlife Federation would become the first "Asian carp czar." John Goss will oversee the near $80 million federal response to the Asian carp, a particularly invasive species that is threatening the Great Lakes.

The White House has tapped a former leader of the Indiana Department of Natural Resources and the Indiana Wildlife Federation as the Asian carp czar to oversee the federal response to keeping the invasive species out of the Great Lakes. On a conference call today with Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin and other congressional leaders, President Obama's Council on Environmental Quality announced the selection of John Goss to lead the near $80 million, multi-pronged federal attack against Asian carp. "This is a serious challenge, a serious threat," Durbin said. "When it comes to the Asian carp threat, we are not in...

Two organizations not known as members of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy are worried that President Obama's recess-appointed Medicare czar won't allow the government health care program to cover two FDA-approved anti-cancer drugs with proven records of extending patients' lives. The FDA approved Provenge, which is used to fight prostate cancer, and Avastin, which is used to delay the spread of breast cancer after it appears elsewhere in the body. The problem is that Dr. Donald Berwick, the man Obama recess-appointed as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, appears to be considering denying Medicare reimbursement for patients using...

Somehow, some way, this has to be a bad joke, right? Barack Obama made a big deal about creating the Most Transparent Administration Evah in the 2008 Hope and Change campaign, and after taking office appointed a transparency “czar,” which is in itself a contradiction in terms. Eighteen months later, Obama has eliminated the position. This perfectly captures the Obama White House’s attitude toward disclosure. Sure, the administration publish the names of all White House visitors, but, as the New York Times reported a few weeks back, White House folks just meet their lobbyists at Caribou Coffee across the street....

White House science czar John Holdren has called for the U.S. to surrender sovereignty to a "planetary regime" armed with military power to enforce population limits upon nations and prevent perceived dangers from global eco-disasters

Dr. Ronald Berwick, President Obama’s choice to oversee Medicare and Medicaid, will run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services without any vetting by the Senate. That is because Obama decided to bypass the Senate before even one hearing was held, by using his power to make recess appointments while the Senate is on vacation. The New York Times applauded Obama’s move and accused Dr. Berwick’s critics of distorting his record. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs mocked a reporter from CNS who asked Gibbs about Berwick’s past statements concerning health care rationing and redistribution. But Berwick’s supporters, try as...

Health Care: The president recess-appoints a fan of rationing and Britain's National Health Service to direct one-third of American health care. Why does the administration want his views hidden from scrutiny? 'The decision is not whether or not we will ration care — the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open." That's what Dr. Donald Berwick, President Obama's nominee to head the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services, told a National Institutes of Health publication a year ago, when he was just president and CEO of the Institute for Health Care Improvement. Such views were to be...

Czarist America Bethany Stotts, July 1, 2010 At Accuracy in Academia’s June 21 Author’s Night Ken Blackwell and Ken Klukowski discussed the premises of their book The Blueprint: Obama’s Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency. “That is a very provocative title,” noted Blackwell, the former Ohio Secretary of State. The book does not, he cautioned, say that President Barack Obama is a “tyrant” or “evil,” but that his actions have undermined the principles of the U.S. Constitution and that “…Team Obama is determined to change the balance of power achieved through the separations of power and...

As concerns mount about the presence of Asian carp near Lake Michigan, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin today urged President Obama to appoint a carp czar to oversee efforts to keep the invasive species out of the Great Lakes. "We need to have one person who coordinates the efforts of the federal, state and local agencies that are doing everything they can to keep the Asian carp out of Lake Michigan," Durbin said during a news conference at the Shedd Aquarium. "We believe it's absolutely essential."

Here is the Obama Disaster Management Theory: In times of crisis, you can never have enough unelected, unvetted political appointees hanging around. Nearly two months after the BP oil spill, the White House will now name an oil-spill-restoration point person to oversee recovery efforts in the Gulf of Mexico. Too many czars have already spoiled this administration’s credibility. Might as well pile on another. The new oil-spill czar is not to be mistaken for the old oil-spill czar, U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, who was officially designated the “National Incident Commander of the Unified Command for the Deepwater Horizon...

In his widely-panned, bloodless Oval Office address Tuesday night (did I call this last month or what!?), President Obama tapped his Navy Secretary Ray Mabus as the new oil spill recovery czar. Doesn’t he have enough to do leading the Navy? More to the point, as my latest column below points out, don’t we have enough czars and bureaucrats tripping over each other for Gulf headlines and photo-ops already? Meanwhile, Mark Knoller reports that Obama is scheduled to finally meet with BP execs tomorrow at 10:15am…for a whopping 20 minutes. Where is the ass-kicking czar?

Obama Appoints Health Care Rationing Czar 84rules May 25, 2010