Czars, friends, and fundraisers

Czars

Many Americans have never heard of a “Czar” until Obama took office. That is most likely because - according to GlenBeck.com - Obama has at least 32 of these “Czar’s” that he has appointed to work for him and plans to appoint at least 3 more. There are other sources that say that Obama now has at least self-appointed Czars. This is certainly more than any other president has had before him but isn’t the most concerning thing about these individuals that- we the people, have no way of approving of or disapproving of since they don’t go through the election process like our other elected officials do – the scary thing is who he has actually appointed.

In March of 2008 Obama was quoted in saying:

"The biggest problems that we're facing right now have to do with George Bush trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all. And that's what I intend to reverse when I'm president of the United States."

Looks like President Obama failed to follow through with yet another campaign promise.


Here are just a few of his “Czars” and some of the “issues” that go along with them:

Former Green Jobs Czar – Van Jones

• 1993: was arrested at the Los Angeles riots that followed the acquittal of cops in the Rodney King beating. "I was arrested simply for being a police observer," says Jones, who had just graduated from Yale Law School and was working with the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights in San Francisco.
• 1999: was arrested in the 1999 Seattle protests against the World Trade Organization.
• Excerpt from a Nov. 2005 interview in the East Bay Express:

"Jones had planned to move to Washington, DC, and had already landed a job and an apartment there. But in jail, he said, ‘I met all these young radical people of color — I mean really radical, communists and anarchists. And it was, like, ‘This is what I need to be a part of.’ Although he already had a plane ticket, he decided to stay in San Francisco. ‘I spent the next ten years of my life working with a lot of those people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary.’ In the months that followed, he let go of any lingering thoughts that he might fit in with the status quo. ‘I was a rowdy nationalist on April 28th, and then the verdicts came down on April 29th,’ he said. ‘By August, I was a communist.’ In 1994, the young activists formed a socialist collective, Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement, or STORM, which held study groups on the theories of Marx and Lenin and dreamed of a multiracial socialist utopia. They protested police brutality and got arrested for crashing through police barricades. In 1996, Jones decided to launch his own operation, which he named the Ella Baker Center after an unsung hero of the civil-rights movement.”

• Reportedly signed a petition seeking an investigation into whether the U.S. government was behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Regulatory Czar – Cass R. Sunstein

• Obama said about Sunstein: "Cass is not only a valued advisor, he is a dear friend."
• In his 2002 book, “Republic.com”, discussed the drawbacks of limitless choices on the Internet that allow people to seek out only like-minded people and opinions that merely fortify their own views; he talked about the idea of the government requiring sites to link to opposing views. He later came to realize it was a "bad idea."
• In his 2004 book, “Animal Rights”, suggested that animals ought to be able to bring suit, with private citizens acting as their representatives, to ensure that animals are not treated in a way that violates current law.
• In a 2007 speech at Harvard he called for banning hunting in the U.S.
• The American Conservative Union started a website, Stop Sunstein, in an effort to keep him out of the White House.

Science Czar – John Holdren

• Is an outspoken advocate of the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and believes the United States should sign the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty.
• In a 2008 New York Times op-ed, Holdren called climate change skeptics “dangerous” members of a “denier fringe.”
• In 1971, co-authored a paper in Global Ecology suggesting "some form of ecocatastrophe, if not thermonuclear war, seems almost certain to overtake us before the end of the century."
• Some conservative media outlets have called attention to a book Holdren co-authored in 1977 titled “Ecoscience: Population, Resources, and Environment”. The book reportedly includes this statement: "population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution." Holdren’s office says he "does not now and never has been an advocate of compulsory abortions or other repressive measures to limit fertility."

Drug Czar * – Gil Kerlikowske

• Was police chief for the city of Seattle from 2000-2009
• A strong gun-control advocate, urged both the Washington legislature and the U.S. Congress to pass an assault-weapons ban and has worked to close the loophole that doesn’t require background checks at gun shows.
• 2003: admitted that busting people for personal marijuana possession was not a top priority of the Seattle Police Department.
• As Seattle police chief, assigned an officer full-time to the drug court, which commuted sentences of drug users who complete medical treatment in lieu of going to jail.

 Energy and Environment Czar – Carol Browner

• Was Environmental Protection Agency administrator in the Clinton administration (1993-2000).
• Worked on the Socialist International’s Commission for a Sustainable World Society, which argues that the global community must work collectively to address environmental policies.
• While orchestrating private discussions between the White House and auto industry officials on vehicle fuel efficiency standards, kept the talks as quiet as possible. Mary Nichols, the head of the California Air Resources Board, said, "We put nothing in writing, ever."
• 2003: A federal judge held the Environmental Protection Agency in contempt for destroying computer files during the Clinton administration that had been sought by a conservative legal foundation. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth also ordered the EPA to pay the Landmark Legal Foundation’s legal fees and costs because the agency disobeyed his order to preserve the electronic records of Browner, the former EPA chief.

Urban Affairs Czar – Adolfo Carrion Jr.

• The NY Daily News reported numerous developers made tens of thousands of dollars in campaign donations to Carrión around the same time he was considering approving their projects in the Bronx.

Climate Czar – Todd Stern

• Supports a national cap-and-trade system.

Friends

Rev. Jeremiah Wright

Was Obama’s pastor for 20 years. He has also made some very disturbing statements while preaching regarding America as well as making extremely racist statements towards “white folks”. However Rev. Wright served proudly on Obama’s political advisors during the 2008 until his comments were discovered by the press and then Obama quickly removed him.

Despite Obama’s attempt to do damage control he just continued to get caught in one lie after another regarding whether or not  he had ever heard these types of inflammatory statements while listening to Rev. Wright’s sermons. Obama appeared on Anderson Cooper’s show March 14, 2008 where he was asked if he had “ever” heard such statements. Obama’s response, “I have to confess that those are not statements that I ever heard when I was sitting in the pews at this church. . . .” Anderson Cooper went onto ask him about a specific sermon that took place shortly after 9/11 when Jeremiah Wright made claim that “this was America’s chickens coming home to roost,” and if Obama had heard of any mention to such comments. Obama said again, “You know, I confess that I did not hear about this – until I started running for president.”

Four days later he gave a speech where he said the following:

“I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, that statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes.”

In fact, these comments made such an impression Obama that he referenced a sermon in his first book “Dreams of My Father” and named he second book “The Audacity of Hope” after another of his spiritual mentors sermons - after all this is the man who married Mr. and Mrs. Obama and also baptized his children. Rev. Wright also happens to be the man who said, “Not God bless America, God damn America.”

Here is an excerpt from Obama’s book where he referenced one of Jeremiah Wright’s sermons:

“’It is this world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white folks’ greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere … That’s the world! On which hope sits.’

And so it went, a meditation on a fallen world. While the boys next to me doodled on their church bulletin, Reverend Wright spoke of Sharpesville and Hiroshima, the callousness of policy makers in the White House and in the State House.”

Antoin "Tony" Rezko

For those of you who don’t know who he is, here is a little biography. He was born in July 1955. He, according to Wikipedia, “is a political fundraiser, restaurateur, and real estate developer in Chicago, Illinois.” Oh, and he happened to be “convicted on several counts of fraud and bribery in 2008.”  It also goes on to say, “On July 31, 1995, the first ever political contributions to Obama were $300 from a lawyer, a $5,000 loan from a car dealer, and $2,000 from two food companies owned by Rezko. Starting in 2003, Rezko was one of the people on Obama's U.S. Senate campaign finance committee, which raised more than $14 million. Rezko threw an early fundraiser for Obama that Chicago Tribune reporter David Mendelland claims was instrumental in providing Obama with seed money for his U.S. Senate race. Obama in 2007-08 identified over $250,000 in campaign contributions to various Obama campaigns as coming from Rezko or close associates.”

Later on there was a suspicious property deal where Obama just happened to be able to purchase a house $300,000 under the asking price. Obama’s story changed a couple of times regarding how the purchase came about. NYTimes.com quoted Obama in 2008 article saying, “It was a mistake to have been engaged with him [Tony Rezko] at all in this or any other personal business dealing that would allow him, or anyone else, to believe that he had done me a favor.” However the article did mention that $10,000 of the money Mr. Rezko extorted ended up in Barrack Obama’s 2004 Senate campaign.

WashingtonPost.com also ran a story about this in 2006 where they quoted Obama in saying, "There's no doubt that this was a mistake on my part. 'Boneheaded' would be accurate." He went onto say, “There's no doubt I should have seen some red flags in terms of me purchasing a piece of property from him." They went onto report that the $11,500 that Rezko had contributed to Obama’s federal campaign account had been recently donated to charity. 

Fundraising

It was no secret that the Obama campaign “shattered all fund-raising records” in the 2008 election and it isn’t going to be any different in the 2012 election. However, the avenues in which the money was acquired was a bit shady to say the least. Newsweek.com ran an article on October 4, 2008 flagging some of the issues. At the time the article was written, Obama had nearly earned $500 million. Here is the shady part though – most of these contributions were from donors who contributed $200 or less. That would make sense if you consider that any donation of $200 or less doesn’t have to be publicly reported.

The article also brought to light two specific cases – “Doodad Pro” of Nunda, N.Y. and “Good Will” of Austin, Texas. Both of these “individuals” were flagged by the Federal Election Commission because they had donated nearly $30,000 between the two of them – way over the $2,300 per-person federal limit. Neither of these “individuals” had been reported because their contributions came in $10 and $25 increments. Obviously when these two “individuals” were investigated, they were not real people.

Newsweek.com also reported: “Watchdog groups asked both campaigns to share more information about its small donors. The McCain campaign agreed; the Obama campaign did not.”

It is apparent that Obama’s fundraising efforts never stopped. In an August 16, 2010 article released by cbsnews.com it was reported that Obama had already attended 40 fundraisers in 2010 and 28 fundraisers in 2009 for a total of $76.8 million.

Now President Obama is back on the fundraising wagon once again. He spends many of his days touring a school to later hit up a fundraiser before flying back to the White House. He is now even attending sometimes two fundraisers a day. It must be nice having Air Force One at your disposal any time you want to hit up some fellow Democrats for some extra campaign cash. It is no secret that the 2012 Obama campaign plans on raising at least $1 billion – much of this will not have to be spent until the last few months of the campaign. It looks like Obama is getting a jump start on his $1 billion dollar goal.