Free Republic

President Barack Obama says he won't take "no" as an answer from Republicans, so he's going around them to appoint the head of a new consumer protection agency. Obama says Republicans would just keep holding Richard Cordray's nomination hostage—and the president says that's inexcusable and wrong. He says Cordray must be in place in order for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to start helping consumers deal with unscrupulous mortgage companies, dishonest payday lenders, and others. Obama announced the appointment of Cordray during a stop Wednesday in Ohio, where Cordray once served as attorney general. Republicans are outraged but Obama says...

At a time when economists say U.S. manufacturing policy is in "disarray," the Obama administration on Monday said it has created a new Office of Manufacturing Policy to be co-chaired by the Commerce Department Secretary and the director of the White House National Economic Council. "At this make or break time for the middle class and our economy, we need a strong manufacturing sector that will put Americans back to work making products stamped with three proud words: Made in America," President Barack Obama said in a statement. Wisconsin leads the nation with the highest share of its workforce employed...

NEW YORK (AP) — Cable companies said Wednesday that they will offer Internet service for $9.95 per month to homes with children that are eligible for free school lunches. The offer will start next summer and is part of an initiative the Federal Communications Commission cobbled together to get more U.S. homes connected to broadband. One third, or about 35 million homes, don't have broadband. That affects people's ability to educate themselves and find and apply for jobs, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said.

Smoking Gun? "And then there's Van Jones, who recently joined the Obama administration, a special adviser to the president on green jobs. Van started out as a grassroots organizer and became an advocate and a creator of ‘green collar’ jobs –- jobs that are not only good for the environment, but also provide good wages and career advancement for both skilled and unskilled workers,” she said. Obama confidante Valerie Jarrett echoed that praise to a cheering crowd at the Netroots Nation convention this summer. “Van Jones, we were so delighted to be able to recruit him into the White House,...

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 “massive campaign” he advocated along with Population Bomb author Paul Ehrlich to “de-develop the United States.” In his role as President Barack Obama’s top science and technology adviser, Holdren deals with issues ranging from global warming to health care. “A massive campaign must be launched to restore a high-quality environment in North America and to de-develop the United States,” Holdren wrote along with Paul and Anne H. Ehrlich in the...

Jobs Czar Moves US Jobs to China By Mark Wachtler, Independent Examiner July 27, 2011. Beijing. In an attempt to capture a larger share of the booming Chinese market, General Electric announced that it was moving its X-Ray technology headquarters from Wisconsin to China. While GE is one of the largest military suppliers in the world, it is also the parent of the NBC broadcasting group of companies. Ironically enough, GE’s CEO is Jeff Immelt, the same man President Obama anointed as America’s Jobs Czar.

On July 6, I told you about all the well-heeled spinners in the White House Office of Public Engagement. Their ranks keep on swelling. My column today introduces you to the newly-designed “America’s Champions of Change for the Arts.” Yes, it’s as creepy as it sounds.

In what could be a repeat of the easy-lending cycle that led to the housing crisis, the Justice Department has asked several banks to relax their mortgage underwriting standards and approve loans for minorities with poor credit as part of a new crackdown on alleged discrimination, according to court documents reviewed by IBD. [snip] Another Reno protege, Perez has compared bankers to Klansmen. Only difference is, he said, bankers discriminate "with a smile" and "fine print." He said this kind of racism, though more subtle, is "every bit as destructive as the cross burned in a neighborhood." Perez has put...

President Obama's regulatory czar told a Capitol Hill gathering Tuesday that the administration has produced fewer burdensome rules for industry than did the administration of President George W. Bush. "There is no tsunami" of regulations, said Cass Sunstein, administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, at a symposium on innovation on Capitol Hill, rejecting complaints from the business community and congressional Republicans that the administration's regulatory policies had harmed the economy and cost U.S. jobs. Industry leaders have complained about the growth of costly regulations under Mr. Obama. It was U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue who...

(CNSNews.com) - President Barack Obama’s regulatory czar retreated from a 2003 academic report he wrote advocating that government assign a higher monetary value to the lives of young people than to senior citizens during testimony to Congress on Friday. Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Cass Sunstein testified in front of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations about the Obama administration’s plans for reviewing and reducing federal regulations. “I’m a lot older now than the author with my name was, and I’m not sure what I think about what that young man wrote,”...

Just saw this on Twitter... Is it true? bccohan Brittany Cohan by cnsnews_com Yup. RT @diggrbiii: Wait. Wait. The WH's new propaganda czar is married to the person behind the Moveon.org General "Betrayus" ads? Really?

As the days wind down to the scheduled weeklong congressional recess to mark Memorial Day, Republicans have a choice to make. Will they merely grumble about President Obama using the break to appoint more radical nominees without Senate confirmation, or will they actually stop him? To date, Obama has made 28 recess appointments. One of them, Donald Berwick, was put in charge of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, even though he was never scheduled for a Senate confirmation hearing. If Republicans don't act, history could repeat itself next week. Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/2011/05/gop-should-block-memorial-day-recess-appointments#ixzz1NGwYo4pq

HHS this month sent a letter to 83-year-old Forest Labs CEO Howard Solomon, announcing it would henceforth refuse to do business with him. What earned Mr. Solomon the blackball? Well, nothing that he did—as admitted even by HHS. In any case, the federal complaint contained no suggestion that Mr. Solomon was involved with, or even aware of, misconduct. And the question of his continued leadership was never part of the plea deal. Only after a federal court ratified the deal in March did HHS drop its intent-to-ban bomb. Mrs. Sebelius unearthed a dusty provision in the Social Security Act that...

The consumer finance czar answers to no one and sets her own budget.A House subcommittee will hold an "oversight" hearing today on the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the über-regulator that will soon have jurisdiction over most of the country's credit-making institutions. We put "oversight" in quotes because Congress has little say over either the new bureau or its unofficial czar, Elizabeth Warren.This unprecedented lack of accountability is by Ms. Warren's design. The bureau was the Harvard professor's idea, and she lobbied the Obama Administration and Congress to make it part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform.

The U.S. has “raced” to control space exploration, nuclear arms and electronics. Since taking office, President Obama has introduced the idea that the U.S. is now battling China — the world’s largest polluter — in new race for world domination. A clean energy race. “The nation that leads in the creation of a clean-energy economy will be the nation that leads the 21st-century global economy,” the president has said. Energy Secretary Steven Chu has repeated the message several times, creating a frenzy to “go green,” before China does. If America really is in such a race, the Energy and Commerce...

What happens when someone with no executive experience takes over the toughest executive job in the world? Since we’ve not seen that situation in most of our lifetimes — even John Kennedy, the last President elected with no executive experience in government or the private sector, had some command experience in the Navy — we had little hard evidence to predict failure to manage the executive branch of the US government, but it was rather easy to presume that on-the-job training at that level would be problematic, to say the least. Today, the Washington Post reports that even Barack Obama’s...

Why does the CIA along with the FBI, our premier law enforcement agency, stand by and allow Marxist employment and involvement within our Executive Branch of government? Background checks are supposed to screen and block such Socialist/ Communist people from serving in any capacity within the federal government. Could corruption, fear of being fired and political payoffs be going on within the FBI and CIA? Why can't these federal agencies, which have served America well in past decades, just do their fiduciary duty for our children and grandchildren?

Senate Democrats Abandon Obama Rationing Czar Donald Berwick Washington, DC -- Senate Democrats have officially given up their fight to confirm Donald Berwick, the rationing advocate President Barack Obama nominated to become the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the chief of implementation of the Obamacare law. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/03/05/senate-democrats-abandon-obama-rationing-czar-donald-berwick/

The House voted Thursday to dethrone nine White House “czars.” Republicans successfully added an amendment to the continuing resolution that would leave President Barack Obama’s senior advisers on policy issues including health care, energy and others out of a job.

Obama health IT guru leaving his post2.4.11 | Chris Seper Health IT change in Washington. Dr. David Blumenthal, who has overseen President’s Obama’s health IT around the adoption of electronic medical records, is leaving to return to Harvard. “He’s helped bring the industry back to life when it seemed to be failing, and he gave the industry a jolt of energy it lacked,” Betty Otter-Nickerson, president of Sage Health, told Kaiser Health News. Some are concerned about the impact of changing leaders in the midst of the national EMR adoption.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said Wednesday her office will start pressing BP Oil and federal claims administrator Ken Feinberg to expedite payments to Florida businesses affected by the Deepwater Horizon spill last summer.

Former Obama 'car czar' settles suit with state of New YorkBy Peter Schroeder - 12/30/10 02:46 PM ET Former Obama administration "car czar" Steven Rattner has agreed to pay $10 million to settle a civil suit with the state of New York. State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced the agreement Thursday, in which Rattner admitted no wrongdoing, The Associated Press reported. Cuomo will be sworn in as the state's governor on Saturday. Rattner had been accused by Cuomo of participating in a kickback scheme that allowed his company to obtain $150 million in state pension fund investments in 2004 and...

The financier Steven L. Rattner (Obama's lead auto industry overhaul administrator), has agreed to pay $10 million to settle civil charges that he engaged in a kickback scheme involving New York state’s pension fund... Rattner will pay restitution to the state pension fund and will be barred from appearing in any capacity before a public pension fund within the state for five years. He did not admit any wrongdoing... Rattner accused Mr. Cuomo of “extortion” and said this conduct was “not the kind of behavior I think we want out of an attorney general or a governor.” Cuomo was infuriated...

Arnold Schwarzenegger indicates he would accept position in Obama administration Arnold Schwarzenegger, the outgoing Republican Governor of California, has indicated he would accept a position as an "energy tsar" in President Barack Obama's Democratic administration. Mr Schwarzenegger suggested he would like to go to Washington and influence national policy on clean energy use, and promote environmentalism. The former Hollywood action star has until now refused to disclose what he plans to do after he leaves office next month. Giving his first indication of what direction he wants to pursue however, Mr Schwarzenegger said he was a "very big believer in...

Let’s briefly review the Obama administration’s unprecedented transparency record: *Loophole-ridden, special interest-pandering DISCLOSE Act *Backdoor kickbacks *Secret Big Labor deals *C-SPAN camera evasion *Disclosure-ducking coffeehouse meetings *Sunlight-shirking holiday and midnight floor votes *Behind-the-scenes recess appointments That’s for starters. And now, the White House is set to hold a new round of backdoor meetings with recess appointee Donald Berwick, the Medicare/Medicaid czar, on the besieged Obamacare mandate. The Hill reports: The White House has invited stakeholders to discuss the healthcare law with the administration’s controversial appointee to head Medicare.

Once long ago the Colorado River was unimpressive. Over time it eroded the stone through which it coursed and the landscape was forever transformed. Not long ago, Barack Obama was an unimpressive river. Now he erodes the Constitution as he courses through his Presidency. He promised to "fundamentally transform" this country from a Democratic Republic into something else. Obama has surrounded himself with a cadre of czars- a shadow government. Cass Sunstein is one of them. Sunstein believes that a population can be "nudged" into doing the "right" thing. Barack Obama and his left wing czars are the arbiters...

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

Uncovered Audio: Obama’s Regulatory Czar Pushes Creepy Plan for Legally Controlling Internet Information (link is video)

Now that Obama Information Czar Cass Sunstein is making spoon-fed government propaganda mandatory on political websites, Canada Free Press (CFP) is introducing balancingtherightmessage.com. Forcibly including government propaganda on political blogs gave us the idea for balancingtherightmessage.com, a dumping ground for the right to do the same thing to the left.

Note: Photo included. "White House Science ‘Czar’ Tells Students: U.S. Can’t Expect to Be Number One in Science and Technology Forever" SNIPPET: "The Obama administration’s top science and technology official, who has argued for the economic de-development of America, warned science students last Friday that the United States cannot expect to be “number one” forever. “We can’t expect to be number one in everything indefinitely,” Dr. John P. Holdren said at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Holdren is director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and chairs the President’s Council of Advisors...

New Zeal has an explosive piece up that is absolutely mind-blowing: Obama File 99 Security Risk? Obama “Science Czar” John Holdren and the Federation of American Scientists Last time we looked at Holdren, we covered his Soviet ties, his relationship with the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists and his contacts that were Communists, Socialists, radicals and spies. I know it sounds like a Hollywood thriller, but unfortunately it’s not – it’s based on facts and evil just as the rest of Holdren’s story is. Snip A number of the founders/sponsors for the F.A.S. have interesting histories involving Communism, Socialism and active...