NWV News - Calls for Defunding Obama's Shadow Government Growing

CALLS FOR DEFUNDING OBAMA'S SHADOW GOVERNMENT GROWING

By NWV News writer Jim Kouri
Posted 1:00 AM Eastern
February 22, 2011
© 2011 NewsWithViews.com

President Barack Obama’s arguably unconstitutional and unaccountable political appointees known as "czars" may be joining the nation's unemployed now that the U.S. House of Representatives voted to block funding for those officials -- many of whom are radical leftists -- he assigned to run government without congressional approval.

In all, President Obama has appointed 41 czars who have enormous power to regulate and control the American economy and government without any sort of oversight, according to Judicial Watch, a public-interest group that investigates and reports government corruption and crime.

By design, Obama's czars answer only to him even though they manage crucial areas of national policy and that violates the constitutional system of checks and balances and its separation of powers, according to the longest serving U.S. Senator in history, the late Democrat Robert Byrd.

Before passing away last summer Byrd, a nine-term senator who twice chaired the powerful Appropriations Committee, blasted the president’s czar appointments as unconstitutional and a clear attempt to evade congressional oversight. He referred to Obama’s “czar strategy” as an unprecedented power grab centralizing authority in the White House. And he said they were dangerous.

“It is time that we end this practice by President Obama of creating a shadow government run by czars with cabinet-level powers who circumvent the accountability and scrutiny that comes with Senate confirmation required by the Constitution,” said Congressman Steve Scalise (R-LA).

“Hardworking American families should not be forced to pay millions of dollars to fund these czars who are implementing radical policies under the cloak of darkness rather than going through the open and transparent process that we were promised. The government should not be running car companies, we should not be regulating the Internet, and we should not have all these czars!” said Rep. Scalise.

Obama has appointed czars to oversee everything from healthcare to energy, science, terrorism, education, diversity, AIDS, Medicare, technology and cyberspace, among others. The president even assigned the family’s personal cook from Chicago (Sam Kass) to be Health Foods Czar. The Windy City gourmet chef's official title is actually “Senior Policy Adviser for Healthy Food Initiatives.”

Judicial Watch has been a frontrunner in probing Obama’s czars and has requested public records on all of them in an effort to reveal their actual mission and how much taxpayer money and government personnel they have at their disposal.

As part of the ongoing investigation, last fall Judicial Watch uncovered U.S. Treasury Department documents that revealed “Pay Czar” Kenneth Feinberg got a six-figure salary to establish executive compensation at bailed out companies even though the administration said Feinberg was performing his duties for free.

While most of Obama's czars hide in the dark shadows of Washington, DC, one of his most vocal and closest advisors found himself under a microscope of the Tea Party activists, the conservative media and talk show hosts across the nation. Van Jones, the man President Obama appointed his Green Jobs Czar, was successfully driven out of the White House thanks to the conservative bloggers, talk radio, and a few journalists.

Jones' real title was Special Advisor on Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, a title one political analyst claimed needed an extra-large business card.

Jones background is almost a carbon copy of Obama's: Yale Law School graduate, civil rights lawyer, community activist and friend or "comrade" of some of the biggest names in radical anti-American politics.

Of note is his creation of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. While the mainstream media ignored Jones and his affiliations, some professional journalists pursued honest reporting and revealed that the Ella Baker Center was "joined at the hip" with STORM (Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement), a neo-Marxist group with funding from the likes of George Soros and other deep-pocketed influences with whom Jones was involved.

"Van Jones, and Obama's many other "Czars" with suspicious credentials and troubling backgrounds, were not dependent upon making it through Congressional hearings so that they slipped under the radar until exposed by men and women who still believe in America, capitalism, the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution," said political strategist and consultant Mike Baker.

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Czar compensation is a big issue because the House amendment (Sunset All Czars Act) that passed Thursday night defunds their offices and none of them are working pro bono.

The measure passed 249-179 with the support of 13 Blue Dog Democrats. The Louisiana Republican who introduced it says its time to end Obama’s practice of creating a “shadow government" run by officials with cabinet-level powers who circumvent the accountability and scrutiny that comes with Senate confirmation required by the Constitution.