There should be a special joker card for The One.
Posted on 08/31/2009 3:46:21 PM PDT by library user
(AXcess News) S. Orange, NJ - Here's a question that has been nagging me for months. Are Obama's ever-growing number of "czars" constitutional? I am not a constitutional scholar, but I have read the document.
"Article II. Section 2. "He (the President) shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consults, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein provided for, and which shall be established by law; but the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments."
As I read it, the Constitution is very specific about whom the President may appoint and he can do so only within parameters "established by law" and this applies specifically to the "heads of departments." I interpret this to mean Cabinet Secretaries, all of whom must be vetted and approved for their positions by the Senate.
The Republican National Committee's conservative caucus recently passed a resolution expressing their concern noting that "The U.S. Constitution explicitly states government officers with significant authority (called 'principal officers') must be nominated by the President and are subject to a vote of the U.S. Senate."
Obama's appointments are clearly "principal officers" though it will be argued that they are only advisors to the office of the President. Clearly, Obama's appointments are not heads of departments, but they appear to have been granted an unknown degree of influence and control as regards their responsibilities. They function "in the dark."
For example, since we have a Department of Labor why do we need an "Auto Recovery" czar, Ed Montgomery, who reports to Larry Summers, the President's top economic advisor? What can he do to effect recovery? And, constitutionally speaking is it lawful for the United States to have "ownership" of General Motors? Or any other private enterprise? I think not.
Why does President Obama need a "Special Envoy for Climate Change"? Todd Stern reports to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but we have the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that includes the National Weather Service. What exactly does Stern do and why? Stern is best known for having helped negotiate the Kyoto climate pact which was based on the discredited claims of a global warming that is not happening. It was instantly rendered void by the exemption of nations such as China and India.
Meanwhile, the so-called energy and environment czar, Carol Browner, is reportedly coordinating policy in the same area as the "climate change" czar despite the fact that we have both a Department of Energy and an Environmental Protection Agency. Obama's choice for "Green Jobs" czar, Van Jones, is a Marxist radical.
I could go on, but the point, obviously, is that there is an enormous amount of overlap going on and it involves appointees who give the appearance of being doppelgangers to the existing Secretaries and the huge bureaucracies they oversee. They answer directly to the President, but presumably so do the Secretaries whom we occasionally see gathered around a huge table in cabinet meetings.
If these people who have not been approved by the Senate or occupy positions that have not been "established by law" and are not "heads of departments" exist solely at the pleasure of the President, are we not hip deep in some very muddy waters concerning who is answerable to the Senate or House committees?
I am of the belief that Obama has methodically gone about creating a shadow government of men and women with undefined powers, but who likely have even more influence with the Oval Office than those who hold office under the mandates of the Constitution.
To borrow a term from the White House, it all smells "fishy" to me in ways that go beyond just the provision of advice and which likely intrude deeply into the process by which laws and regulations are drafted and enacted.
There are now some thirty or more of these "czars" and they represent a threat to the authority of the Congress and could be utilized in some manufactured "crisis" to take control of the federal government, dispensing with the rule of law.
Alan Caruba writes a daily post at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. A business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.
Bump.
There have been czars for a while now. I have had problems with them for obvious reasons. Obama has taken this crap to a whole other level. 44 and counting? What the crap?! and why the crap isn’t every congressional turd screaming their heads off about it?
It's just that simple.
I would like to offer an idea to an enterprising FReeper: Develop the Deck of Czars - playing cards depicting each Czar, a brief description of what they are supposed to do, and an actual quote from them that best demonstrates why they are part of Barry’s Romanov Cabinet. The more Marxist of a quote, the better. FReepMail me if you are going to “go for it”. If, on the other hand, the deck is available already, please post a link so I can buy one.
We need answers and we need then NOW. I believe this is one of the most frightening period in my lifetime and I’m 66. I was stunned and afraid on Sept. 11, 2001, but I believed in the fundamental strength of our government. I can honestly say that I am now afraid of our government eight years later.
The one question that hasnt been asked is. Who authorised them to get paid and where does the money come from?
They are obvious political appointments.
The Senators should be screaming their heads off over this coup, and it is a coup.
What are they afraid of?
A coup d'état (pronounced /ˌkuːdeɪˈtɑː/, us dict: kōō′·dā·tâ′), or coup for short, is the sudden unconstitutional deposition of a legitimate government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment — typically the military — to replace the deposed government with another, either civil or military. A coup d’état succeeds when the usurpers establish their legitimacy if the attacked government fail to thwart them, by allowing their (strategic, tactical, political) consolidation and then receiving the deposed government’s surrender; or the acquiescence of the populace and the non-participant military forces.
Typically, a coup d’état uses the extant government’s power to assume political control of the country. In Coup d'État: A Practical Handbook, military historian Edward Luttwak says: “A coup consists of the infiltration of a small, but critical, segment of the state apparatus, which is then used to displace the government from its control of the remainder”, thus, armed force (either military or paramilitary) is not a defining feature of a coup d’État.
Apparently not their constituents.
And after 2010 - make their lives very miserable as an interim measure.
Instead of screaming their heads off, the Republicans in the senate are all hiding in the tall grass afraid of their own shadow. Can you imagine what Barry Goldwater, Strom Thurmond or Jesse Helms would be saying if they were in the senate now? They sure as hell wouldn’t be hiding out somewhere...
“Send these assholes back to their Ivy league colleges. “
Why? So they can continue to muddle the minds of our children?
We need to get rid of them just like any other threat to a peaceful society.
Unless I mistyped something a google search returned: No results found for "deck of czars"
deck of czars;
Gibbs as one of the jokers.
Lenin mentioned this explicitly as a way to control government. You have overlapping layers of bureaucracy which compete with one another, while the real power lies with the party. Predictable stuff with Obama.
Madison, Federalist #47 - “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few or many and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounce the very definition of tyranny.”
All three branches are singing off the same sheet of statist music and make little fuss as to which branch does the dirty work.
Tyranny.
It's a post with the same suggestion looking for a "entrepreneurial graphics person."
A deck of czars naming Obama's czars would have a double-entendre, you know.
In Iraq our military had a deck of cards where each card represented an enemy which would be hunted down and captured or killed.
This would take someone brave and crazy enough to do it. Have you thought of emailing Glenn Beck?
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