Cracking the Czars

AmericanThinker.com ^ | 8/7/2013 | J R Dunn

[RoosterRedux]

In his genius for sleaze, Obama saw something else in the position of "czar": a means of overcoming the limitations of the system of checks and balances that would enable him to carry out programs under the radar and without oversight by Congress -- or anyone else either. The czars were tailor-made for Obama's cards-in-sleeve method of government. A more fitting example of the perils of monkeying with the constitutional order could not be devised.

Obama has applied the concept of czar with alacrity unknown to previous administrations. He began with 32, shortly expanded to 39, and thereafter to the mid-40s. The numbers have shifted but have always remained within that range.

How many are there now? That's difficult to say. So opaque is the cloak of bureaucratic secrecy surrounding these positions that there is no complete, accurate, and up-to-date list of Obama czars active in 2013. The administration has played a consistent game of three-card monte all down the line, abolishing some positions only to reestablish them under other names, consolidating some into a single position while spinning off others, and every other conceivable bureaucratic trick.

What have the Obama czars accomplished? We don't know. They don't report to anybody (except perhaps the Chicago Augustus himself). They don't testify before Congress. They don't publish. We don't know how many personnel are involved, or who they might be...We don't know, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, what we don't know.

We do know the names (well, some of them). While a few are well-known figures of weight...such as Paul Volcker and Ashton Carter, most are...hacks of the progressive type who share in Obama's vaporous ideals and, much like him, have never directed or managed anything in their lives.

[Red Badger]

The Shadow Government..........Only The Shadow knows..........

[stockpirate]

And our republican leadership in both houses does NOTHING.

[molson209]

If Obama ever leaves the White House ,watch the Czars and see where they go and do

[who knows what evil?]

Marxists to the left of me; marxists to the right...here I am, stuck in the middle...

[Parmy]

Really, this is not unlike what Roosevelt did when he became President. Just that he didn’t bury them quite as deep. He kept most of his same henchmen, just changed their titles, buacracies(sp), etc.

[Paine in the Neck]

The czars are Obama's Jarrett's Cheka. They carry the real authority while the formal department secretaries are just fluncky stage props [except in the few cases where the dept heads are true believers like Sebelius]. Clinton famously used this setup in his 'Justice' dept with Reno being the sock puppet and real control flowing through Hubbell and Holder.

[Noumenon]

The gallows for all of them.

[I am Richard Brandon]

Where’s the damn-stupid, brainless, round-objectless GOP. There are daily reports of the Administration ‘overturning the Constitution’, but from the GOP - words - sometimes. “Out with the GOP!” “Bring on the troops!” Let’s put this Dictator and his Regime back under the Constitution.

[Bernard Marx]

Really, this is not unlike what Roosevelt did when he became President.

Pretty much the same except Obama's selected Czars seem as much fascist as Communist. FDR's closest aides were Communist agents reporting directly to the Soviet Communist International (Comintern.) They included Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White. While Harry Hopkins, his closest adviser who actually lived in the White House, hasn't been proven as a Soviet agent, the facts surrounding him are pretty damning HARRY HOPKINS This piece is definitely worth a read.

[Sheapdog]

At this point even if a Republican became President I’m sure in the name of bipartisanship the czars will remain.

I don’t understand why they are not mentioned more often and excoriated for being unconstitutional and a means of bypassing congress and turning the President into a kind of all powerful dictator. They have pissed me off since the beginning. 90% and up of both ignorant democrats don’t even know they exist while 90% and up of GOP officials and representatives approve of them. All part of “the Plan”.

This country is a sick joke of what it was. Bring on the gulags.

[Gandalf_The_Gray]

If Obama ever leaves the White House ,watch the Czars and see where they go and do...

Frisk them all before we lose sight of them...

Regards,
GtG

[neverdem]

Obama will doubtlessly squeal "executive privilege," but it would be worthwhile in and itself to establish once and for all just how far that extends.

Who pays for these czars, and by what authority? It's unconstitutional.