Archive for August, 2009
On Watch
Did you notice… Headline news suddenly changed from the Most Marvelous Magnificent Health Care Reform, back to the more popular topic of Torture? Actually, it was presented as Softer, Milder Interrogation. No longer will interrogators do the horrendous to detainees, such as say, “If you don’t answer we’ll go scare your children.” (Politically Correct words used only for the purpose of satire, no PC garbage intended.) -hepsy
Media’s Czars
-by Linda Butts
They call them Obama’s Czars. Like Holdren, the Science Czar or Herb Allison, TARP Czar. What’s telling is, Obama isn’t technically naming Czars. What’s disconcerting is, it’s Media who’s naming them, Czars.
Take Adolfo Carrion, identified as the White House Office on Urban Policy, named by Media as Urban Czar, or the Special Envoy for the Middle East, the Middle East Czar, George Mitchell. These aren’t Senate blessed appointments, rather appointments made at the whim of a president more familiar with Community Organization than Business Management. I previously identified 37 Czars whose power Media acknowledged.
It’s telling that Obama is using the power of his office to make appointments to positions he creates. He’s not the first, just the most prolific. Someone with his background would be expected to create positions. The power of the positions lie in the power of the man overseeing Media’s Czars to control massive amounts of micromanagement that have nothing to do with the votes, voices or vision of the people of the United States of America.
I can appreciate the importance Obama puts into getting others to do his dirty work. The idea is simple, one Georgie didn’t quite get. (Georgie had a war, the Iraqi War. [I voted for him, I can call him that.] That was his war. The 43rd President lacked the ability to make that an American War, something We, the People could get behind.) Georgie lacked the verbal adroitness that Obama mesmerizes the masses with. He [Georgie] wasn’t a community organizer. Simply put: to ensure success of a project, instill a sense of ownership in others who you want to do the work. Obama has done that, like a good community organizer would. (Check the history books, for others more famous who have left their soporific organizational mark.) Problem is, our Country doesn’t need to be organized so much as it needs returning to the ideals our Forefathers set in motion.
Obama doesn’t appoint Czars. He appoints people to positions he creates, at his pleasure, at his whim, outside the arm of the American People.
Media names them czars.
We can’t vote them out. We can’t talk to them. They don’t have to listen to us, or even pretend to care about our insights or objections. They bring US Taxation without Representation.
Back in his day, Andrew Jackson spoke against what he dubbed a banking Czar. He didn’t want the Bank of the United States of America, controlled by who he named a Czar, to enslave Americans by controlling their money in the form of paper. He (Jackson) wanted currency you could “sink your teeth into.” In the long run, Jackson lost. (The Bank of the United States eventually, indirectly, gave way to the Federal Reserve, same thing.) Point is, Jackson identified as Czar, a banker with influential power over the people of US.
Reagan is said to have had three czars. (I found one, the Drug Czar.) It was Congress who, in 1982, enacted law that provided for another layer of bureaucracy within the Executive Branch of US Government. Media named him the Drug Czar. “The so-called ‘drug Czar’ provision was enacted hastily without thoughtful debate and without benefit of any hearings.” Reagan, as it’s told, didn’t like it (the appointment of a position untouched by representation of the people).
Okay, so Congress made a provision for Executive appointments. Considering the complaints against the 43rd President, against whom Media named a dozen, it is significant that Media puts names to twenty nine Czars, against the 44th President.
Hiding in plain sight of US, We, the People of the United States, are the Executive appointments of dozens of people who Media has named, Czar. A czar by any other name is a person who wields power. They are answerable not to We, the People of the United States, rather to the good Community Organizer. We pay their salaries. We have no say in what they do, nor do We have access to what they know.
We pay for the Czars, generous salaries while unemployment rises. We pay not only salaries, but suffer their decisions handed to an Organizer, outside the Representation of Congress.
If you know anything about Community Organizing, you know this: Delegate, and let the delegates do what they do, and don’t micromanage. Look at Obama’s Executive Appointees. Media has. That’s why they’re called Czars.
Sources include research on Jackson and Reagan, American Thinker, news sites and various sources around the Internet. This isn’t presented as scholarly research, so references are omittted.
Lost: $30,000 for every man, woman & child in our country
Who at the Federal Reserve is keeping track of its $2Trillion losses?
Rep Alan Grayson asks great questions!
There Are No Words To Describe The Following Part II
And Grayson talking to Geithner, on what rules are needed to Prevent the Taxpayer from being on the hook:
Cash Ends Monday
Car sales went up! Cash for Clunkers is so successful, Demolition will end Monday!
The car ran well. It needed tires and a brake job, to pass inspection. Instead of fixing, the owner was paid $3,500 for the car to be demolished. The losers: charities, schools, the dealer who had to foot the $3,500. If the dealer is repaid the generous, interest-free, required loan to the Government, it will be taxpayer expense. If it was a normal citizen to work such a deal as Cash for Klunkers, he’d be charged with duplicity, or something.
50 years and all we get is a Bobblehead?
– by Linda ButtsAugust 21, 1959 – August 21, 2009: Fifty Years. The anniversary didn’t just leap out of nowhere and take us by surprise. We’ve known the date. Any kid in elementary school here knows the remarkable history that preceded the fifty years today marks. The tee shirts, mugs and bags have been printed, bobblehead dolls neatly packed in their boxes to stand unforgivingly on the special deals pedestal. The surprise is the parade that isn’t to be walked, the fireworks not ignited, the celebrations left undone. People are quietly remembering. It’s to be a quiet 50th anniversary for the 50th state of the United States.
Hawaii’s Legislature must have exhausted themselves, finding the means to cause the people of Hawaii to be the highest taxed in the Union. Oh, and we can’t forget their generous raise to themselves, a bit reminiscent of the Congressmen in Washington. But, alas! There aren’t the funds for even a modest celebration of Fifty Years of Statehood for the Fiftieth State.
OBAMA- Aloha Bobblehead
Hawaii's Son - America's President
Hawaii’s 50th anniversary as the 50th state in the Union will be marked by a Commemorative Conference for the next 50 years. Whoopie! Oh, and there are to be reenactments of the overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani. A nice, quiet conference and solemn reenactment. Seems the most excitement is to be the Aloha Bobblehead.
Along with claiming the highest taxes, Hawaii also claims the first Black President. Obama. America’s President. Hawaii’s Son. That’s what’s proclaimed on the box, anyway, and on the base of the bobblehead: “Obama –Aloha Bobblehead– America’s President–Hawaii’s Son” Will the Son Hawaii claims make mention of the half century of statehood of the state where it’s claimed he was born? Or will Hawaii be as absent from mention by Hawaii’s Son, as from the Son’s MySpace and FaceBook entries? It’s quite the disconnect. One’s proud to claim the other, but the other is destined to be an Aloha Bobblehead.
You can read a brief, government approved timeline of Hawaii’s walk to statehood, if you want to, right here. The history of Hawaii’s Monarchy, as the Republic’s, predates this timeline. Most school kids here are adequately versed in Hawaii history, and the Palace is on the must visit list of elementary students on Oahu. The history of Hawaii, really, is much richer than her present appears.
(note: I bought the Bobblehead to go with the 57 States pin.)
Why Break Health Care too?
Government Broke:
Medicare
Medicaid
Social Security
Post Office
Amtrak
Why does anyone want them to Break our Health Care?
hint: fix what’s broken before breaking more. A picture worth a thousand words (to save many thousands of dollars).
Can’t Help the Poor by Destroying the Rich
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away people’s initiative and independence.
You cannot help people permanently by doing for them,
what they could and should do for themselves.– Abraham Lincoln
also attributed to Reverend William John Henry Boetcker
Blue Dog History
The Blue Dogs are the political descendants of a now defunct-in-name Southern Democratic group known as the Boll Weevils, who played a critical role in the early 1980s by supporting President Ronald Reagan’s tax cut plan. The Boll Weevils, in turn, may be considered the descendants of the Dixiecrats and the “states’ rights” Democrats of the 1940s through ’60s.
“Blue Dog Democrat” is derived from the term “Yellow Dog Democrat.” Former Texas Democrat Rep. Pete Geren is credited for coining the term, explaining that the members had been “choked blue” by “extreme” Democrats from the left. The term is also a reference to the “Blue Dog” paintings of Cajun artist George Rodrigue of Lafayette, Louisiana; the original members of the coalition would regularly meet in the offices of Louisiana representatives Billy Tauzin and Jimmy Hayes, both of whom had Rodrigue’s paintings on their walls. Tauzin and Hayes later switched to the Republican Party. An additional explanation for the term: “A blue dog is our mascot because when dogs are not let into the house, they stay outside in the cold and turn blue,” a reference to moderate and conservative Democrats feeling left out of the Party which they believed had shifted to the political left.
The Blue Dog Coalition was formed in 1994 during the 104th Congress to give more conservative members from the Democratic party a unified voice after the Democrats’ loss of Congress in 1994.
The coalition was notably successful in a special election of February 2004 in Kentucky to fill a vacant seat in the House of Representatives. They were also successful in the November 2004 elections, when three of the five races in which a Democrat won a formerly Republican House seat were won by Blue Dogs. Freshman Blue Dogs in the House are sometimes nicknamed “Blue Pups.”
In 2005, the members of the Blue Dog Coalition voted 32 to 4 in favor of the bill to limit access to bankruptcy protection (S 256).
In the summer of 2009, The Economist magazine said “[t]he debate over health care… may be the pinnacle of the group’s power so far” and quoted Charlie Stenholm, a founding Blue Dog, as saying that “this is the first year for the new kennel in which their votes are really going to make a difference.”
-tip to ES
Hepsy's Kuleana 