Anatomy of a Failed Presidency!
The following is an interesting article and I wonder how long Dr. Hunt can remain at NIH once the powers that be get wind of this article.
Dr. Hunt is a social and cultural anthropologist. He has had nearly 30 years experience in planning, conducting, and managing research in the field of youth studies, and drug and alcohol research. Currently Dr. Hunt is a Senior Research Scientist at the Institute for Scientific Analysis and the Principal Investigator on three National Institutes on Health projects. He is also a writer for American Thinker.
Another Failed Presidency
An article from American Thinker by Geoffrey P. Hunt
Barack Obama is on track to have the most spectacularly failed presidency since Woodrow Wilson. In the modern era, we've seen several failed presidencies--led by Jimmy Carter and LBJ. Failed presidents have one strong common trait-- they are repudiated, in the vernacular, spat out.
Of course, LBJ wisely took the exit ramp early, avoiding a shove into oncoming traffic by his own party. Richard Nixon indeed resigned in disgrace, yet his reputation as a statesman has been partially restored by his triumphant overture to China.
But, Barack Obama is failing. Failing big. Failing fast. And failing everywhere: foreign policy, domestic initiatives, and most importantly, in forging connections with the American people. The incomparable Dorothy Rabinowitz in the Wall Street Journal put her finger on it: He is failing because he has no understanding of the American people, and may indeed loathe them. Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard says he is failing because he has lost control of his message, and is overexposed. Clarice Feldman of American Thinker produced a dispositive commentary showing that Obama is failing because fundamentally he is neither smart nor articulate; his intellectual dishonesty is conspicuous by its audacity and lack of shame.
But, there is something more seriously wrong: How could a new president riding in on a wave of precedented promise and goodwill have forfeited his tenure and become a lame duck in six months? His poll ratings are in free fall. In generic balloting, the Republicans have now seized a five point advantage. This truly is unbelievable. What's going on?
No narrative. Obama doesn't have a narrative. No, not a narrative about himself. He has a self-narrative, much of it fabricated, cleverly disguised or written by someone else. But this self-narrative is isolated and doesn't connect with us. He doesn't have an American narrative that draws upon the rest of us. All successful presidents have a narrative about the American character that intersects with their own where they display a command of history and reveal an authenticity at the core of their personality that resonates in a positive endearing way with the majority of Americans. We admire those presidents whose narratives not only touch our own, but who seem stronger, wiser, and smarter than we are. Presidents we admire are aspirational peers, even those whose politics don't align exactly with our own: Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Harry Truman, Ike, and Reagan.
But not this president. It's not so much that he's a phony, knows nothing about economics, and is historically illiterate and woefully small minded for the size of the task--all contributory of course. It's that he's not one of us. And whatever he is, his profile is fuzzy and devoid of content, like a cardboard cutout made from delaminated corrugated paper.
Moreover, he doesn't command our respect and is unable to appeal to our own common sense. His notions of right and wrong are repugnant and how things work just don't add up. They are not existential. His descriptions of the world we live in don't make sense and don't correspond with our experience.
In the meantime, while we've been struggling to take a measurement of this man, he's dissed just about every one of us--financiers, energy producers, banks, insurance executives, police officers, doctors, nurses, hospital administrators, post office workers, and anybody else who has a non-green job. Expect Obama to lament at his last press conference in 2012:
"For those of you I offended, I apologize. For those of you who were not offended, you just didn't give me enough time; if only I'd had a second term, I could have offended you too."
Mercifully, the Founders at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 devised a useful remedy for such a desperate state--staggered terms for both houses of the legislature and the executive. An equally abominable Congress can get voted out next year. With a new Congress, there's always hope of legislative gridlock until we vote for president again two short years after that.
Yes, small presidents do fail, Barack Obama among them. The coyotes howl but the wagon train keeps rolling along.
Margaret Thatcher: "The trouble with Socialism is, sooner or later you run out of other people's money."
"When you subsidize poverty and failure, you get more of both." - James Dale Davidson, National Taxpayers Union
"The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates." - Tacitus
"A Liberal is a person who will give away everything he doesn't own." - Unknown
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Health Care
I have this same Health Care bill argument all the time, and it can be so frustrating. Most Americans believe in the capitalist system, and that our free market society was what made us great. Not all, but most. Those who don't, have a right to their opinions, but what is the sense in being American if you aren't a capitalist? Health care got screwed up when we entered a third party into the mix, and began insuring normal activity, and not just catastrophic events. Health Care in America is not a capitalistic oriented system. It used to be, when we paid our doctors directly, medical care was being provided as a service for a fee, just like taking your car to a mechanic. Would you buy insurance for changing the oil in your car? Of course not, but that is precisely what we have done in the medical industry. Even those who had great insurance in the 70s, paid the doctor directly, filed his/her own insurance, using the form provided by your employer or insurance company, and received some portion of the charges back according to the terms of the insurance policy or your employer. But by and large it was insurance against catastrophic events, like an operation, an injury, or a lethal disease. In dealing with your doctor, there was a fee that we negotiated with the doctor, the insurance company, and sometimes both. It is just natural human behavior to closely monitor the cash coming out of our pockets, not so when a third party picks up the tab, and we are required to pay only a paltry sum for the expertise of a highly skilled physician.
For those who did not have insurance in the pre-1980s era of medical care, before the expansion of government Medicare and Medicaid went about setting prices for every imaginable ailment, by a strict diagnostic code, that the government alone determined. In those times patients studied the bill closely before leaving the doctors office, and if there was a discrepancy, we would stay and ask to speak to the doctor about the charges. There were no $400 office visits in those days for 5 minutes of the doctors time.
If we couldn’t pay on the day of the service, the doctor either did or did not, according to his business model, carry our balance forward. Doctors did not have insurance experts and office managers in those days. They didn't have to. They were then, and some still are, small business owners. But more and more often doctors are going to work for a third party corporation, a hospital, or as a contractor to a number of corporations .It is now so complicated, because the federal government set prices, dictated mounds of required paperwork, and complicated the practice of medicine to such an extent that one busy doctor today can generate 3, or sometimes 4 office workers. Mal-practice insurance can be $30,000 a year or more for a single doctor depending on the type of practice. Our society is so litigious, that very few doctors will enter into the care of pregnant mothers and their children, particularly in rural areas. Why is the Congress not looking to overhaul that aspect of health care? Could it be that most legislators are also lawyers? I don't know, but I am certainly suspicious.
Government has ruined the small business owner doctor for the most part, but so far they haven’t ruined our health care system. It is far too expensive, and far too many people are unable to pay for health care insurance coverage, but individuals are hampered, while groups with a lobby(corporations, unions, special interests, and particularly government workers) are favored under our current laws. This is what we need to change. We do not need to place the industry under government control. That has never worked for anything except the military, and even that has not worked too well since WWII, when the civilian leaders began to micro manage the work of generals. Decision by special interest lobby or political interest does not work!
We are now insured for everything, including the common cold, and even though we all know the doctor can’t fix a cold, since we only have to pay the co-pay to see a doctor, huge numbers of people with insurance go to the doctor at every little sniffle, sore toe, or cut finger, thus abusing the system, and running up huge administrative costs for everyone. It's a never ending cycle. The more government is involved, the worse it gets. The worse it gets the more government intervention. There is no good way to go back to the 70s now, and if Congress passes the current legislation, we will never be able to get back to the imperfect place we are today. We will become worse off every single year, until the four monstrosity entitlement programs in this country perpetuate our demise. It could come a lot sooner than you might think.
This legislation will also increase the number of people abusing the system by some percentage of the 30 million who are expected to receive government provided health care insurance, at a time when we are already seeing a shortage of General Practitioners, and Internists. This will over burden an already over worked medical profession and result in long waits for appointments, diagnostic procedures, and critical care for the majority of Americans.
This is not to say doctors and hospitals particularly do not bear part of the blame. They do. Rather than push back against the heavy hand of government, when Medicare pays 80% of the cost of any given service, and Medicaid pays 70% of that same cost per service, the doctors and hospitals charge privately insured patients 130% of the cost of providing any given service or procedure. In addition, office visits are billed in the $200 to $400 range, even though insurance companies pay on average only 50 to $100. Those without insurance are expected to pay the full amount, while everyone with insurance pays a small fraction of that cost, including what the insurance company covers. It is difficult to blame the medical profession. Doctors and hospitals cannot remain in the business of caring, healing, and researching with no profit. Profit, and the entrepreneurial spirit is precisely what has made the United States the leader of the world. The list of 20th century achievement in this country surpasses all of the years of the human race combined in every aspect of our lives including medicine, communications, travel, comfort, convenience. There is almost nothing we have failed to improve exponentially. And we have been motivated by profit and the will to succeed for our own sake. That isn't corrupt. It is who we are, and who we should remain, if we are to survive as the world leader.
When my grandfather was a boy, in the 1890s, you could die from a cut on the leg. Everyone who had a heart attack would most assuredly die, or live a life bedridden as a result of any type of heart attack. Now we have vaccines for smallpox, one of humanity’s most deadly diseases. Polio, that rendered one of our most powerful Presidents a cripple, and maimed or killed children indiscriminately has been virtually eliminated. The mumps, measles, and other child hood diseases have been for the most part conquered. Emergency room physicians have a remarkable record in saving the lives of the critically injured and ill persons who make it to the hospital in time. The list of medical achievement is phenomenal in all but a few diseases the medical industry is still working to conquer. If we go down this road to national health care, and that is what is on the table, regardless of how the politicians in Washington dress it up, we will render the medical profession in this country forever mediocre.
My class in high school had 10 or so kids who were exceptional students. All of those students have done well, but the best among them became doctors. The majority of doctors in our country today are doctors precisely because they are the best and brightest we have to offer. I am not implying that profit is the primary motive for a career in medicine, but it is the best way, in this country, to guarantee you wind up making a good living. For the prospect of being a productive member of society, financially secure, well thought of in their community, and ensuring the well being of their family, the best among us, more often than not, take up the practice of medicine. When we take this step down the road to socialized medicine, we are forever assuring that we will leave our children and grandchildren with mediocre, unionized doctors. The best and brightest will not go into medicine when the government dictates where they practice, what they practice, what they charge, and what they earn. If you believe I am wrong in making this statement, you either know nothing of the human spirit, or you are so wrapped up in your own world, you can’t see the light of day anywhere else.
If the people we elected to Congress went there for the purpose of doing what is right, we might be able to depend on government, but that is a pipe dream. We have career politicians after 233 years. You must have a vast treasure of contributions, or be extremely wealthy already to successfully run for national office. If the Congress members are not wealthy when they are elected for the first time, they most certainly will be in very short order. Congress appears more and more like the ruling class our ancestors left Europe to escape nearly 400 years ago. Does anyone see the irony here? Have we come full circle? Twenty years ago this year, the biggest social experiment in history, failed miserably and crumbled from the inside out, while we had one of our most prosperous decades. This is still a current event, and only recently available in text books. The progressives are writing the text books, and they are lying about why socialism or communism failed. Our own text books lie to our children. A few have grown children that were lied to, and some of us chose to set the record straight with our own childern, but far too many were not aware of what was being taught, and we are quickly becoming two generations deep in progressively educated voters.
Words do have meaning, particularly the words Socialism, Marxism, Leninism, and Communism. Each one of those words has a different meaning to most. I assert the only difference, really, is how corrupt and even violent the central government is willing to be while redistributing the wealth from those who have, and giving it to first the government, and then whatever happens to be left over, equally among everyone else, so that all citizens are equally hungry. It has been proven over and over that the socialist dream is just that, and in the end they always run out of other people’s money. Men will not do their best when they aren’t rewarded. It is a guarantee of mediocrity at best, and thuggery at every layer.
I simply cannot fathom any American not seeing the fallacy of government health care. There is nothing worth having that is free. Welfare begats more welfare. We learned that lesson in the 1990s when Bill Clinton reduced the rolls of welfare dramatically. The next democratic president has forgotten that lesson? Or perhaps, his intent is to enslave the people to the government! Our founders went to great lengths to prevent a powerful central government from developing, realizing how dangerous it would be to freedom and the republic. Thomas Jefferson warned us what would happen.
The demwits of the current majority in Congress are going to pass some sort of health care legislation in the neighborhood of $1 Trillion, as they calculate it. It could be 10 times, 20 times, even even 100 times worse based on previous Congressional estimates for entitlement programs. Medicare has $17 Trillion in unfunded liabilities right now. They tell us they are going to use savings from the corruption in that entitlement program to fund another medical entitlement, and we believe it??? My God, this is ludicrous. If we could reduce Medicare by $500 billion over the next ten years, are we not first obligated to pay down the unfunded liabilities of Medicare? Neither our President, nor our Congress ever mentions that. Why not? Do we ask? If so, do you receive an answer? Why not? Each American owes $345,000 on the unfunded liabilities of our government, if equally divided right now. We cannot sustain another entitlement program. The rest of the world is about to replace the dollar with a basket of currencies that does not include our dollar. Our wealth will disappear like an apparition. It will put us on a one way road we will not be able to reverse…..ever, at least not without an overhaul to our entire society. It will be the end of the republic as we learned of it as children.
This is the one thing that can destroy us, Here is a link to the real time debt clock. http://www.usdebtclock.org/ Look in the bottom right corner. We are bankrupt already. The Fed monetized $1 Trillion in debt on 8/18/2009. That is doubling the amount of dollars in circulation just as info. And yet, they have continued pumping more than $2B a day into the banks in additional currency. There is a method the Fed can use to pull all of that money out of circulation. They will have to raise the interests rates, which correspondingly drives inflation. After the Jimmy Carter years, the interest rates peaked at 21%, in order to resolve the printing of money we did not have. The longer we wait, the more dollars printed, the higher the rates will have to go. Do you understand hyper-inflation?
What do our leaders expect will happen when the rest of the world stops using our Fiat currency. It is already happening. There is a reason gold is $1200 an oz. today. There is a reason Obama just went to China, and a reason the Communists capitalists chided him about our exploding liabilities. This is not about health care insurance. This is about saving our republic! Every American owes it to himself, his children, and the country to stop this out of control Congress. The republicans started this. The democrats are putting the pedal to the medal after we threw out the republicans for their over spending. What is left for us to do. Every American of voting age must take part, not only with respect to going to the polling booth on election day, but to ask the questions, research the actions of our government, compare your results to the mistakes of history, and ultimately replace any elected official who is guilty of over spending, and keeping us in the prison of debt. Save our Republic Now?
For those who did not have insurance in the pre-1980s era of medical care, before the expansion of government Medicare and Medicaid went about setting prices for every imaginable ailment, by a strict diagnostic code, that the government alone determined. In those times patients studied the bill closely before leaving the doctors office, and if there was a discrepancy, we would stay and ask to speak to the doctor about the charges. There were no $400 office visits in those days for 5 minutes of the doctors time.
If we couldn’t pay on the day of the service, the doctor either did or did not, according to his business model, carry our balance forward. Doctors did not have insurance experts and office managers in those days. They didn't have to. They were then, and some still are, small business owners. But more and more often doctors are going to work for a third party corporation, a hospital, or as a contractor to a number of corporations .It is now so complicated, because the federal government set prices, dictated mounds of required paperwork, and complicated the practice of medicine to such an extent that one busy doctor today can generate 3, or sometimes 4 office workers. Mal-practice insurance can be $30,000 a year or more for a single doctor depending on the type of practice. Our society is so litigious, that very few doctors will enter into the care of pregnant mothers and their children, particularly in rural areas. Why is the Congress not looking to overhaul that aspect of health care? Could it be that most legislators are also lawyers? I don't know, but I am certainly suspicious.
Government has ruined the small business owner doctor for the most part, but so far they haven’t ruined our health care system. It is far too expensive, and far too many people are unable to pay for health care insurance coverage, but individuals are hampered, while groups with a lobby(corporations, unions, special interests, and particularly government workers) are favored under our current laws. This is what we need to change. We do not need to place the industry under government control. That has never worked for anything except the military, and even that has not worked too well since WWII, when the civilian leaders began to micro manage the work of generals. Decision by special interest lobby or political interest does not work!
We are now insured for everything, including the common cold, and even though we all know the doctor can’t fix a cold, since we only have to pay the co-pay to see a doctor, huge numbers of people with insurance go to the doctor at every little sniffle, sore toe, or cut finger, thus abusing the system, and running up huge administrative costs for everyone. It's a never ending cycle. The more government is involved, the worse it gets. The worse it gets the more government intervention. There is no good way to go back to the 70s now, and if Congress passes the current legislation, we will never be able to get back to the imperfect place we are today. We will become worse off every single year, until the four monstrosity entitlement programs in this country perpetuate our demise. It could come a lot sooner than you might think.
This legislation will also increase the number of people abusing the system by some percentage of the 30 million who are expected to receive government provided health care insurance, at a time when we are already seeing a shortage of General Practitioners, and Internists. This will over burden an already over worked medical profession and result in long waits for appointments, diagnostic procedures, and critical care for the majority of Americans.
This is not to say doctors and hospitals particularly do not bear part of the blame. They do. Rather than push back against the heavy hand of government, when Medicare pays 80% of the cost of any given service, and Medicaid pays 70% of that same cost per service, the doctors and hospitals charge privately insured patients 130% of the cost of providing any given service or procedure. In addition, office visits are billed in the $200 to $400 range, even though insurance companies pay on average only 50 to $100. Those without insurance are expected to pay the full amount, while everyone with insurance pays a small fraction of that cost, including what the insurance company covers. It is difficult to blame the medical profession. Doctors and hospitals cannot remain in the business of caring, healing, and researching with no profit. Profit, and the entrepreneurial spirit is precisely what has made the United States the leader of the world. The list of 20th century achievement in this country surpasses all of the years of the human race combined in every aspect of our lives including medicine, communications, travel, comfort, convenience. There is almost nothing we have failed to improve exponentially. And we have been motivated by profit and the will to succeed for our own sake. That isn't corrupt. It is who we are, and who we should remain, if we are to survive as the world leader.
When my grandfather was a boy, in the 1890s, you could die from a cut on the leg. Everyone who had a heart attack would most assuredly die, or live a life bedridden as a result of any type of heart attack. Now we have vaccines for smallpox, one of humanity’s most deadly diseases. Polio, that rendered one of our most powerful Presidents a cripple, and maimed or killed children indiscriminately has been virtually eliminated. The mumps, measles, and other child hood diseases have been for the most part conquered. Emergency room physicians have a remarkable record in saving the lives of the critically injured and ill persons who make it to the hospital in time. The list of medical achievement is phenomenal in all but a few diseases the medical industry is still working to conquer. If we go down this road to national health care, and that is what is on the table, regardless of how the politicians in Washington dress it up, we will render the medical profession in this country forever mediocre.
My class in high school had 10 or so kids who were exceptional students. All of those students have done well, but the best among them became doctors. The majority of doctors in our country today are doctors precisely because they are the best and brightest we have to offer. I am not implying that profit is the primary motive for a career in medicine, but it is the best way, in this country, to guarantee you wind up making a good living. For the prospect of being a productive member of society, financially secure, well thought of in their community, and ensuring the well being of their family, the best among us, more often than not, take up the practice of medicine. When we take this step down the road to socialized medicine, we are forever assuring that we will leave our children and grandchildren with mediocre, unionized doctors. The best and brightest will not go into medicine when the government dictates where they practice, what they practice, what they charge, and what they earn. If you believe I am wrong in making this statement, you either know nothing of the human spirit, or you are so wrapped up in your own world, you can’t see the light of day anywhere else.
If the people we elected to Congress went there for the purpose of doing what is right, we might be able to depend on government, but that is a pipe dream. We have career politicians after 233 years. You must have a vast treasure of contributions, or be extremely wealthy already to successfully run for national office. If the Congress members are not wealthy when they are elected for the first time, they most certainly will be in very short order. Congress appears more and more like the ruling class our ancestors left Europe to escape nearly 400 years ago. Does anyone see the irony here? Have we come full circle? Twenty years ago this year, the biggest social experiment in history, failed miserably and crumbled from the inside out, while we had one of our most prosperous decades. This is still a current event, and only recently available in text books. The progressives are writing the text books, and they are lying about why socialism or communism failed. Our own text books lie to our children. A few have grown children that were lied to, and some of us chose to set the record straight with our own childern, but far too many were not aware of what was being taught, and we are quickly becoming two generations deep in progressively educated voters.
Words do have meaning, particularly the words Socialism, Marxism, Leninism, and Communism. Each one of those words has a different meaning to most. I assert the only difference, really, is how corrupt and even violent the central government is willing to be while redistributing the wealth from those who have, and giving it to first the government, and then whatever happens to be left over, equally among everyone else, so that all citizens are equally hungry. It has been proven over and over that the socialist dream is just that, and in the end they always run out of other people’s money. Men will not do their best when they aren’t rewarded. It is a guarantee of mediocrity at best, and thuggery at every layer.
I simply cannot fathom any American not seeing the fallacy of government health care. There is nothing worth having that is free. Welfare begats more welfare. We learned that lesson in the 1990s when Bill Clinton reduced the rolls of welfare dramatically. The next democratic president has forgotten that lesson? Or perhaps, his intent is to enslave the people to the government! Our founders went to great lengths to prevent a powerful central government from developing, realizing how dangerous it would be to freedom and the republic. Thomas Jefferson warned us what would happen.
The demwits of the current majority in Congress are going to pass some sort of health care legislation in the neighborhood of $1 Trillion, as they calculate it. It could be 10 times, 20 times, even even 100 times worse based on previous Congressional estimates for entitlement programs. Medicare has $17 Trillion in unfunded liabilities right now. They tell us they are going to use savings from the corruption in that entitlement program to fund another medical entitlement, and we believe it??? My God, this is ludicrous. If we could reduce Medicare by $500 billion over the next ten years, are we not first obligated to pay down the unfunded liabilities of Medicare? Neither our President, nor our Congress ever mentions that. Why not? Do we ask? If so, do you receive an answer? Why not? Each American owes $345,000 on the unfunded liabilities of our government, if equally divided right now. We cannot sustain another entitlement program. The rest of the world is about to replace the dollar with a basket of currencies that does not include our dollar. Our wealth will disappear like an apparition. It will put us on a one way road we will not be able to reverse…..ever, at least not without an overhaul to our entire society. It will be the end of the republic as we learned of it as children.
This is the one thing that can destroy us, Here is a link to the real time debt clock. http://www.usdebtclock.org/ Look in the bottom right corner. We are bankrupt already. The Fed monetized $1 Trillion in debt on 8/18/2009. That is doubling the amount of dollars in circulation just as info. And yet, they have continued pumping more than $2B a day into the banks in additional currency. There is a method the Fed can use to pull all of that money out of circulation. They will have to raise the interests rates, which correspondingly drives inflation. After the Jimmy Carter years, the interest rates peaked at 21%, in order to resolve the printing of money we did not have. The longer we wait, the more dollars printed, the higher the rates will have to go. Do you understand hyper-inflation?
What do our leaders expect will happen when the rest of the world stops using our Fiat currency. It is already happening. There is a reason gold is $1200 an oz. today. There is a reason Obama just went to China, and a reason the Communists capitalists chided him about our exploding liabilities. This is not about health care insurance. This is about saving our republic! Every American owes it to himself, his children, and the country to stop this out of control Congress. The republicans started this. The democrats are putting the pedal to the medal after we threw out the republicans for their over spending. What is left for us to do. Every American of voting age must take part, not only with respect to going to the polling booth on election day, but to ask the questions, research the actions of our government, compare your results to the mistakes of history, and ultimately replace any elected official who is guilty of over spending, and keeping us in the prison of debt. Save our Republic Now?
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Letter to President Obama from a Teacher in Missouri
I am posting this lady's letter here because it will appear on Facebook and other blog sites. It is just to good not to pass on, and my email distribution list doesn't do her justice.
S
April 17, 2009
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington , DC 20500
Mr. Obama:
I have had it with you and your administration, sir. Your conduct on your recent trip overseas has convinced me that you are not an adequate representative of the United States of America collectively or of me personally.
You are so obsessed with appeasing the Europeans and the Muslim world that you have abdicated the responsibilities
of the President of the United States of America . You are responsible to the citizens of the United States .. You are not responsible to the peoples of any other country on earth.
I personally resent that you go around the world apologizing for the United States telling Europeans that we are arrogant and do not care about their status in the world. Sir, what do you think the First World War and the Second World War were all about if not the consideration of the peoples of Europe ? Are you brain dead? What do you think the Marshall Plan was all about? Do you not understand or know the history of the 20th century?
Where do you get off telling a Muslim country that the United States does not consider itself a Christian country? Have
you not read the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution of the United States ? This country was founded on Judeo-Christian ethics and the principles governing this country, at least until you came along, come directly from this heritage. Do you not understand this?
Your bowing to the king of Saudi Arabia is an affront to all Americans. Our President does not bow down to anyone, let alone the king of Saudi Arabia . You didn't show Great Britain , our best and one of our oldest allies, the respect they deserve yet you bow down to the king of Saudi Arabia .. How dare you, sir! How dare you!
You can't find the time to visit the graves of our greatest generation because you dont want to offend the Germans , but make time to visit a mosque in Turkey ... You offended our dead and every veteran when you give the Germans more respect than the people who saved the German people from themselves. Whats the matter with you? I am convinced
that you and the members of your administration have the historical and intellectual depth of a mud puddle and should be ashamed of yourselves, all of you..
You are so self-righteously offended by the big bankers and the American automobile manufacturers yet do nothing about the real thieves in this situation, Mr. Dodd, Mr. Frank, Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelic, the Fannie Mae bonuses, and the Freddie Mac bonuses. What do you intend to do about them ? Anything? I seriously doubt it.
What about the U.S. House members passing out $9.1 million in bonuses to their staff members on top of the $2.5 million in automatic pay raises that lawmakers gave themselves? I understand the average House aide got a 17% bonus. I took a 5% cut in my pay to save jobs with my employer. You havent said anything about that. Who authorized that? I surely didnt!
Executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be receiving $210 million in bonuses over an eighteen-month period, that's $45 million more than the AIG bonuses. In fact, Fannie and Freddie executives have already been awarded $51 million not a bad take. Who authorized that and why haven't you expressed your outrage at this group who are largely responsible for the economic mess we have right now?
I resent that you take me and my fellow citizens as brain-dead and not caring about what you idiots do. We are watching what you are doing and we are getting increasingly fed up with all of you.
I also want you to know that I personally find just about everything you do and say to be offensive to every one of my
sensibilities. I promise you that I will work tirelessly to see that you do not get a chance to spend two terms destroying my beautiful country.
Sincerely, Every real American
P.S. I rarely ask that emails be 'passed around'.............PLEASE SEND THIS TO YOUR EMAIL LIST ......it's past time for all Americans to wake up!
Ms Kathleen Lyday, Fourth Grade Teacher
Grandview Elementary School
11470 Hwy . C Hillsboro , MO 63050
(636) 944-3291 Phone (636) 944-3870 Fax
S
April 17, 2009
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington , DC 20500
Mr. Obama:
I have had it with you and your administration, sir. Your conduct on your recent trip overseas has convinced me that you are not an adequate representative of the United States of America collectively or of me personally.
You are so obsessed with appeasing the Europeans and the Muslim world that you have abdicated the responsibilities
of the President of the United States of America . You are responsible to the citizens of the United States .. You are not responsible to the peoples of any other country on earth.
I personally resent that you go around the world apologizing for the United States telling Europeans that we are arrogant and do not care about their status in the world. Sir, what do you think the First World War and the Second World War were all about if not the consideration of the peoples of Europe ? Are you brain dead? What do you think the Marshall Plan was all about? Do you not understand or know the history of the 20th century?
Where do you get off telling a Muslim country that the United States does not consider itself a Christian country? Have
you not read the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution of the United States ? This country was founded on Judeo-Christian ethics and the principles governing this country, at least until you came along, come directly from this heritage. Do you not understand this?
Your bowing to the king of Saudi Arabia is an affront to all Americans. Our President does not bow down to anyone, let alone the king of Saudi Arabia . You didn't show Great Britain , our best and one of our oldest allies, the respect they deserve yet you bow down to the king of Saudi Arabia .. How dare you, sir! How dare you!
You can't find the time to visit the graves of our greatest generation because you dont want to offend the Germans , but make time to visit a mosque in Turkey ... You offended our dead and every veteran when you give the Germans more respect than the people who saved the German people from themselves. Whats the matter with you? I am convinced
that you and the members of your administration have the historical and intellectual depth of a mud puddle and should be ashamed of yourselves, all of you..
You are so self-righteously offended by the big bankers and the American automobile manufacturers yet do nothing about the real thieves in this situation, Mr. Dodd, Mr. Frank, Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelic, the Fannie Mae bonuses, and the Freddie Mac bonuses. What do you intend to do about them ? Anything? I seriously doubt it.
What about the U.S. House members passing out $9.1 million in bonuses to their staff members on top of the $2.5 million in automatic pay raises that lawmakers gave themselves? I understand the average House aide got a 17% bonus. I took a 5% cut in my pay to save jobs with my employer. You havent said anything about that. Who authorized that? I surely didnt!
Executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be receiving $210 million in bonuses over an eighteen-month period, that's $45 million more than the AIG bonuses. In fact, Fannie and Freddie executives have already been awarded $51 million not a bad take. Who authorized that and why haven't you expressed your outrage at this group who are largely responsible for the economic mess we have right now?
I resent that you take me and my fellow citizens as brain-dead and not caring about what you idiots do. We are watching what you are doing and we are getting increasingly fed up with all of you.
I also want you to know that I personally find just about everything you do and say to be offensive to every one of my
sensibilities. I promise you that I will work tirelessly to see that you do not get a chance to spend two terms destroying my beautiful country.
Sincerely, Every real American
P.S. I rarely ask that emails be 'passed around'.............PLEASE SEND THIS TO YOUR EMAIL LIST ......it's past time for all Americans to wake up!
Ms Kathleen Lyday, Fourth Grade Teacher
Grandview Elementary School
11470 Hwy . C Hillsboro , MO 63050
(636) 944-3291 Phone (636) 944-3870 Fax
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Prepare For The Worse, but Act Now
Every week in the past ten months has resulted in one crisis after another. I could recite hundreds of stories to illustrate the condition of our nation. Instead consider that just in the past week we have heard news from some news agencies, but rarely from the mainstream media that a United States Senator has publicly bragged about selling her vote in the health care debate for not the reported 100 but 300 million dollars. She admits to being a political whore, but only a very high priced one. I hope her constituents in Louisiana kick her to the curb in the next election. Anything else would be public suicide.
We have seen three Navy Seals brought up on assault charges while capturing one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq. The prisoner received a fat lip during his arrest, this after having hung his victims from a bridge. Just a few years ago, one of the most senior Democrats in the House of Representatives publicly declared three Marines cold blooded murderers for their actions in Iraq. When they were later acquitted of all charges, Congressman Murtha made no apology to the soldiers, or to the nation. This is likely the most corrupt politician in this nation's history, and yet the voters in his district of PA keep reelecting him every two years. Not one lesson was learned from this travesty. These three Seals will be acquitted as well, and yet the PC progressive police will continue their public flogging of anyone who does what is right, while championing those who are the antithesis of all that was once considered great about our country.....Honor, Duty, Commitment, Entrepreneurial spirit, hard work, success, wealth, courage, and personal responsibility, just to name a few!
We have seen evidence that some of the most public of the scientists who decry human Co2 emissions have been manipulating the data to support their conclusions, while conspiring to marginalize those scientists who dare point out inconsistencies in their conclusions. The mainstream media has not run the story, or any of thousands of emails proving the collusion of the global warming geeks. This is not a new pattern. The mainstream media has ignored every major story Fox runs, at least until the very conclusion, when a communist resigns from the White House as example.
In fact the global warming farce is much worse than just that. We are allowing the progressives to convince the governments of the world to punitively tax businesses and citizens for the very thing that gives life to the plants on our Earth, and as a result, our oxygen. I mean, I am no climatologist, not even a scientist, but I solve problems for a living, and this one is a no brainer. If the substance we exhale was poisoning our Earth, mammals would have rendered this planet dead thousands of years ago. It is just common sense. Some of the same progressives pushing the global warming theory today were preaching a second ice age just 30 some odd years ago, and using the same arguments in reverse.
Our Commander in Chief has taken three months to consider his hand picked general's request for additional troops to win a war in Afghanistan. He can decide overnight to pass a $787 billion Stimulus bill, which was actually the liberal Congress on a spending spree to celebrate their majority status, while our country is drowning itself in debt, citizens are losing their jobs, their homes, and 401ks have been decimated. He hasn't announced his decision yet, but he has leaked all of the details out to run a war tax up the flagpole to gauge the resistance in public opinion polls before he actually tells the public anything directly.
Our president has continued his world wide apology tour in Asia, while bowing from the waist ninety degrees in deference to other world leaders. We have elected a man who detests everything we stand for. What in the name of God possessed us to elect this man to the most powerful position in the world? If Congress sends him a Cap and Trade bill or a health care bill to sign, either of which will fundamentally change the economy of our country, he will sign in hours.
The short answer is the press. It has been called a slobbering love affair between Obama and the mainstream media, and I agree with the assessment. The same media is ignoring the news that would shine the light of day on what is happening in our country. That is, all but Fox, a few conservative internet sites, and one or two newspapers that can still be considered journalists. In all fairness, the NY Times did run part of the Global Warming story, but refused to print any of the correspondence because it was not meant for public disclosure. This is the same news agency that has printed CIA methods, in the middle of a War, among so many stories that could well be considered treason.
The founding fathers feared this very situation more than any other short of monarchy. They therefore set up checks and balances within the three branches of government, but just in case, they gave the press the freedom to challenge the government at every corner, believing this would be enough to deter ruling conditions, such as we are experiencing now. As history evolved, the press all came into lockstep with the progressives, and now the democratic party. They are now in total control. Even the moderate democrats cannot fend off the pressure of this administration along with Congressional leadership. They fear other politicians more than they fear the people of this county. Thomas Jefferson warned us, and gave guidance. It is time to listen to Mr. Jefferson. Our politicians have become the ruling class and we the serfs.
They will destroy our country. They will take our freedoms away, our liberty will be stripped from us every one. They will do so a little at a time, starting with the rich, but it will not end there. Just consider how much has happened in the 10 months of the 111th Congress and the present administration. Think about where we are today, and where we are headed. The debt is unsustainable. If all the profits from every Fortune 500 Company, using last years numbers, were confiscated every year and paid on the national debt, we would pay off the principal in 100 years, but not the interest. By inserting interest on the debt into the same equation we would never pay off the debt and unfunded liabilities, even if we balanced every year's budget going forward. Bush did much to set us on this path by forsaking the principals of fiscal conservatism, but it is exploding now by comparison to even Mr. Bush. If you believe nothing else, know this, we are on the precipice of collapse.
Prepare for the worse. There are many things you can do to brace for the storm, but none are fool proof. Get out of debt, no matter what you have to do. Stop buying anything you do not absolutely have to have. Sell anything you do not own outright. Pull your extended families together into one household where practical. Prepare to protect yourself, you will be confronted by criminals, when people get hungry. Convert your assets into tangible items. Gold, silver, and anything you can barter with when the monetary system collapses, because make no mistake, we are headlong into a total collapse. Obama is taking us there as quickly as possible. He knows he will never be elected again, but if there exists a national emergency, he might just pull off a coup and remain in power until the crisis passes.
We have one chance and one chance only. Vote every democrat in Congress out of office in 2010. It is our last chance before a total failure in America. I believe we will come out the other end of this stronger, but either way, many sacrifices, and a lot of very bad times lay ahead if we do not take our government back now.
We have seen three Navy Seals brought up on assault charges while capturing one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq. The prisoner received a fat lip during his arrest, this after having hung his victims from a bridge. Just a few years ago, one of the most senior Democrats in the House of Representatives publicly declared three Marines cold blooded murderers for their actions in Iraq. When they were later acquitted of all charges, Congressman Murtha made no apology to the soldiers, or to the nation. This is likely the most corrupt politician in this nation's history, and yet the voters in his district of PA keep reelecting him every two years. Not one lesson was learned from this travesty. These three Seals will be acquitted as well, and yet the PC progressive police will continue their public flogging of anyone who does what is right, while championing those who are the antithesis of all that was once considered great about our country.....Honor, Duty, Commitment, Entrepreneurial spirit, hard work, success, wealth, courage, and personal responsibility, just to name a few!
We have seen evidence that some of the most public of the scientists who decry human Co2 emissions have been manipulating the data to support their conclusions, while conspiring to marginalize those scientists who dare point out inconsistencies in their conclusions. The mainstream media has not run the story, or any of thousands of emails proving the collusion of the global warming geeks. This is not a new pattern. The mainstream media has ignored every major story Fox runs, at least until the very conclusion, when a communist resigns from the White House as example.
In fact the global warming farce is much worse than just that. We are allowing the progressives to convince the governments of the world to punitively tax businesses and citizens for the very thing that gives life to the plants on our Earth, and as a result, our oxygen. I mean, I am no climatologist, not even a scientist, but I solve problems for a living, and this one is a no brainer. If the substance we exhale was poisoning our Earth, mammals would have rendered this planet dead thousands of years ago. It is just common sense. Some of the same progressives pushing the global warming theory today were preaching a second ice age just 30 some odd years ago, and using the same arguments in reverse.
Our Commander in Chief has taken three months to consider his hand picked general's request for additional troops to win a war in Afghanistan. He can decide overnight to pass a $787 billion Stimulus bill, which was actually the liberal Congress on a spending spree to celebrate their majority status, while our country is drowning itself in debt, citizens are losing their jobs, their homes, and 401ks have been decimated. He hasn't announced his decision yet, but he has leaked all of the details out to run a war tax up the flagpole to gauge the resistance in public opinion polls before he actually tells the public anything directly.
Our president has continued his world wide apology tour in Asia, while bowing from the waist ninety degrees in deference to other world leaders. We have elected a man who detests everything we stand for. What in the name of God possessed us to elect this man to the most powerful position in the world? If Congress sends him a Cap and Trade bill or a health care bill to sign, either of which will fundamentally change the economy of our country, he will sign in hours.
The short answer is the press. It has been called a slobbering love affair between Obama and the mainstream media, and I agree with the assessment. The same media is ignoring the news that would shine the light of day on what is happening in our country. That is, all but Fox, a few conservative internet sites, and one or two newspapers that can still be considered journalists. In all fairness, the NY Times did run part of the Global Warming story, but refused to print any of the correspondence because it was not meant for public disclosure. This is the same news agency that has printed CIA methods, in the middle of a War, among so many stories that could well be considered treason.
The founding fathers feared this very situation more than any other short of monarchy. They therefore set up checks and balances within the three branches of government, but just in case, they gave the press the freedom to challenge the government at every corner, believing this would be enough to deter ruling conditions, such as we are experiencing now. As history evolved, the press all came into lockstep with the progressives, and now the democratic party. They are now in total control. Even the moderate democrats cannot fend off the pressure of this administration along with Congressional leadership. They fear other politicians more than they fear the people of this county. Thomas Jefferson warned us, and gave guidance. It is time to listen to Mr. Jefferson. Our politicians have become the ruling class and we the serfs.
They will destroy our country. They will take our freedoms away, our liberty will be stripped from us every one. They will do so a little at a time, starting with the rich, but it will not end there. Just consider how much has happened in the 10 months of the 111th Congress and the present administration. Think about where we are today, and where we are headed. The debt is unsustainable. If all the profits from every Fortune 500 Company, using last years numbers, were confiscated every year and paid on the national debt, we would pay off the principal in 100 years, but not the interest. By inserting interest on the debt into the same equation we would never pay off the debt and unfunded liabilities, even if we balanced every year's budget going forward. Bush did much to set us on this path by forsaking the principals of fiscal conservatism, but it is exploding now by comparison to even Mr. Bush. If you believe nothing else, know this, we are on the precipice of collapse.
Prepare for the worse. There are many things you can do to brace for the storm, but none are fool proof. Get out of debt, no matter what you have to do. Stop buying anything you do not absolutely have to have. Sell anything you do not own outright. Pull your extended families together into one household where practical. Prepare to protect yourself, you will be confronted by criminals, when people get hungry. Convert your assets into tangible items. Gold, silver, and anything you can barter with when the monetary system collapses, because make no mistake, we are headlong into a total collapse. Obama is taking us there as quickly as possible. He knows he will never be elected again, but if there exists a national emergency, he might just pull off a coup and remain in power until the crisis passes.
We have one chance and one chance only. Vote every democrat in Congress out of office in 2010. It is our last chance before a total failure in America. I believe we will come out the other end of this stronger, but either way, many sacrifices, and a lot of very bad times lay ahead if we do not take our government back now.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
November 21, 2009 The Last Day Americans Were Really Free
Today will be known in history as the last sunrise over American soil, where citizens were free to pursue their lives as each individual sees fit. Our elected representatives thumbed their noses at us today with total disregard for the constitution, and for those of us who have been pointing this out since January 20, 2009.
Once this bill is passed, you can be jailed for not purchasing a product that some bureaucrat in Washington deems essential, for you to continue to walk the streets of this country, or reside in your own home. Have you stopped to consider this? Have you thought at all about what it means when the Congress ignores the will of the people and saddles an already bankrupt nation with another entitlement program that will add to the already more than $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities. If the USA were a bank, the FDIC would have closed the government down 25 years ago, perhaps before that. If the U.S. were a business, we would have filed bankruptcy in 1913.
America, as we grew up believing it to be a free and just society, is no more. IT is our fault. It is our fault because as a general rule, the majority of us have not taken our citizenship responsibilities seriously. We now have a totally irresponsible Congress, a President who detests the very idea of the free market economy, and is determined to see it fail in ignominy. And due to the failures with regard to those two arms of our government, we have a court system that is making laws on their own, rather than act as the constitution laid out plainly. Our 17 page constitution is now replaced with 2000+ page legislative farces that no one in the government reads, and even if they do, it is virtually impossible to understand what was read.
Our dollar will soon decline sharply as prices increase on an exponential scale, rendering the United States as the latest third world country. The public will get involved at that point, but it will be to riot, steal, murder, and take from those who have anything of value left in their possession. Dollar bills with be worth the same as a piece of tissue paper. Real estate will be worthless because no one will be able to pay the tax the governments have levied on us to keep pace with the increased social programs.
The end result after a few years of living in daily fear of your life, and the hunger of not being able to buy any food because none is available, even if you do have something of value in your possession will be the new world order our President and his minions are scheming to achieve. I wonder just how that will work out for us? How many will wish for the revival of those greedy corporations that made it possible to have the wealthiest nation and the highest standard of living the planet had ever seen?
You make think this fear mongering. You may think me a fool, but you will find out the hard way. I weep for my nation. I mourn for all we have lost, but I blame my fellow citizens, even more than I blame the greedy self serving left wing PC do-gooder idiots in Washington. We should know better. We should have taken control of our government years ago. Thomas Jefferson warned us this would happen, and even told us how to prevent it. Instead we all became too engrossed in our petty day to day issues, that we didn't take the time or have enough interest to take part in what our government has been doing to us over the last few decades. Just as the Soviet Union failed 20 years ago, America will begin tumbling down around us starting today, with this cloture vote in the Senate. If you do not understand what I am saying about the cloture vote, then you are the problem.
Once this bill is passed, you can be jailed for not purchasing a product that some bureaucrat in Washington deems essential, for you to continue to walk the streets of this country, or reside in your own home. Have you stopped to consider this? Have you thought at all about what it means when the Congress ignores the will of the people and saddles an already bankrupt nation with another entitlement program that will add to the already more than $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities. If the USA were a bank, the FDIC would have closed the government down 25 years ago, perhaps before that. If the U.S. were a business, we would have filed bankruptcy in 1913.
America, as we grew up believing it to be a free and just society, is no more. IT is our fault. It is our fault because as a general rule, the majority of us have not taken our citizenship responsibilities seriously. We now have a totally irresponsible Congress, a President who detests the very idea of the free market economy, and is determined to see it fail in ignominy. And due to the failures with regard to those two arms of our government, we have a court system that is making laws on their own, rather than act as the constitution laid out plainly. Our 17 page constitution is now replaced with 2000+ page legislative farces that no one in the government reads, and even if they do, it is virtually impossible to understand what was read.
Our dollar will soon decline sharply as prices increase on an exponential scale, rendering the United States as the latest third world country. The public will get involved at that point, but it will be to riot, steal, murder, and take from those who have anything of value left in their possession. Dollar bills with be worth the same as a piece of tissue paper. Real estate will be worthless because no one will be able to pay the tax the governments have levied on us to keep pace with the increased social programs.
The end result after a few years of living in daily fear of your life, and the hunger of not being able to buy any food because none is available, even if you do have something of value in your possession will be the new world order our President and his minions are scheming to achieve. I wonder just how that will work out for us? How many will wish for the revival of those greedy corporations that made it possible to have the wealthiest nation and the highest standard of living the planet had ever seen?
You make think this fear mongering. You may think me a fool, but you will find out the hard way. I weep for my nation. I mourn for all we have lost, but I blame my fellow citizens, even more than I blame the greedy self serving left wing PC do-gooder idiots in Washington. We should know better. We should have taken control of our government years ago. Thomas Jefferson warned us this would happen, and even told us how to prevent it. Instead we all became too engrossed in our petty day to day issues, that we didn't take the time or have enough interest to take part in what our government has been doing to us over the last few decades. Just as the Soviet Union failed 20 years ago, America will begin tumbling down around us starting today, with this cloture vote in the Senate. If you do not understand what I am saying about the cloture vote, then you are the problem.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Letter From an American
"I'm a home grown American citizen, 53, registered Democrat all my life. Before the last presidential election I registered as a Republican because I no longer felt the Democratic Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. Now I no longer feel the Republican Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. The fact is I no longer feel any political party or representative in Washington represents my views or works to pursue the issues important to me. There must be someone. Please tell me who you are. Please stand up and tell me that you are there and that you're willing to fight for our Constitution as it was written. Please stand up now. You might ask yourself what my views and issues are that I would horribly feel so disenfranchised by both major political parties. What kind of nut job am I? Will you please tell me?
Well, these are briefly my views and issues for which I seek representation:
One, illegal immigration.. I want you to stop coddling illegal immigrants and secure our borders. Close the underground tunnels. Stop the violence and the trafficking in drugs and people. No amnesty, not again. Been there, done that, no resolution. P.S., I'm not a racist. This isn't to be confused with legal immigration.
Two, the STIMULUS bill, I want it repealed and I want no further funding supplied to it. We told you no, but you did it anyway. I want the remaining unfunded 95% repealed. Freeze, repeal.
Three: Czars, I want the circumvention of our checks and balances stopped immediately. Fire the czars. No more czars. Government officials answer to the process, not to the president. Stop trampling on our Constitution and honor it.
Four, cap and trade. The debate on global warming is not over. There is more to say.
Five, universal healthcare. I will not be rushed into another expensive decision. Don't you dare try to pass this in the middle of the night and then go on break. Slow down!
Six, growing government control. I want states rights and sovereignty fully restored. I want less government in my life, not more. Shrink it down. Mind your own business. You have enough to take care of with your real obligations. Why don't you start there.
Seven, ACORN. I do not want ACORN and its affiliates in charge of our 2010 census. I want them investigated. I also do not want mandatory escrow fees contributed to them every time on every real estate deal that closes. Stop the funding to ACORN and its affiliates pending impartial audits and investigations. I do not trust them with taking the census over with our taxpayer money. I don't trust them with our taxpayer money. Face up to the allegations against them and get it resolved before taxpayers get any more involved with them. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, hello. Stop protecting your political buddies. You work for us, the people. Investigate.
Eight, redistribution of wealth. No, no, no. I work for my money. It is mine. I have always worked for people with more money than I have because they gave me jobs. That is the only redistribution of wealth that I will support. I never got a job from a poor person. Why do you want me to hate my employers? Why -- what do you have against shareholders making a profit?
Nine, charitable contributions.. Although I never got a job from a poor person, I have helped many in need. Charity belongs in our local communities, where we know our needs best and can use our local talent and our local resources. Butt out, please. We want to do it ourselves.
Ten, corporate bailouts. Knock it off. Sink or swim like the rest of us. If there are hard times ahead, we'll be better off just getting into it and letting the strong survive. Quick and painful. Have you ever ripped off a Band-Aid? We will pull together. Great things happen in America under great hardship. Give us the chance to innovate. We cannot disappoint you more than you have disappointed us.
Eleven, transparency and accountability. How about it? No, really, how about it? Let's have it. Let's say we give the buzzwords a rest and have some straight honest talk. Please try -- please stop manipulating and trying to appease me with clever wording. I am not the idiot you obviously take me for. Stop sneaking around and meeting in back rooms making deals with your friends. It will only be a prelude to your criminal investigation. Stop hiding things from me..
Twelve, unprecedented quick spending. Stop it now.
Take a breath. Listen to the people. Let's just slow down and get some input from some nonpoliticians on the subject. Stop making everything an emergency. Stop speed reading our bills into law. I am not an activist. I am not a community organizer. Nor am I a terrorist, a militant or a violent person. I am a parent and a grandparent. I work. I'm busy. I'm busy. I am busy, and I am tired. I thought we elected competent people to take care of the business of government so that we could work, raise our families, pay our bills, have a little recreation, complain about taxes, endure our hardships, pursue our personal goals, cut our lawn, wash our cars on the weekends and be responsible contributing members of society and teach our children to be the same all while living in the home of the free and land of the brave.
I entrusted you with upholding the Constitution. I believed in the checks and balances to keep from getting far off course. What happened? You are very far off course. Do you really think I find humor in the hiring of a speed reader to unintelligently ramble all through a bill that you signed into law without knowing what it contained? I do not. It is a mockery of the responsibility I have entrusted to you. It is a slap in the face. I am not laughing at your arrogance. Why is it that I feel as if you would not trust me to make a single decision about my own life and how I would live it but you should expect that I should trust you with the debt that you have laid on all of us and our children. We did not want the TARP bill.. We said no. We would repeal it if we could. I am sure that we still cannot. There is such urgency and recklessness in all of the recent spending.
From my perspective, it seems that all of you have gone insane. I also know that I am far from alone in these feelings. Do you honestly feel that your current pursuits have merit to patriotic Americans? We want it to stop. We want to put the brakes on everything that is being rushed by us and forced upon us. We want our voice back. You have forced us to put our lives on hold to straighten out the mess that you are making. We will have to give up our vacations, our time spent with our children, any relaxation time we may have had and money we cannot afford to spend on you to bring our concerns to Washington . Our president often knows all the right buzzword is unsustainable. Well, no kidding.. How many tens of thousands of dollars did the focus group cost to come up with that word? We don't want your overpriced words Stop treating us like we're morons.
We want all of you to stop focusing on your reelection and do the job we want done, not the job you want done or the job your party wants done. You work for us and at this rate I guarantee you not for long because we are coming. We will be heard and we will be represented. You think we're so busy with our lives that we will never come for you? We are the formerly silent majority, all of us who quietly work , pay taxes, obey the law, vote, save money, keep our noses to the grindstone and we are now looking up at you. You have awakened us, the patriotic freedom spirit so strong and so powerful that it had been sleeping too long.. You have pushed us too far. Our numbers are great. They may surprise you. For every one of us who will be there, there will be hundreds more that could not come. Unlike you, we have their trust. We will represent them honestly, rest assured. They will be at the polls on voting day to usher you out of office. We have cancelled vacations. We will use our last few dollars saved. We will find the representation among us and a grassroots campaign will flourish. We didn't ask for this fight. But the gloves are coming off. We do not come in violence, but we are angry. You will represent us or you will be replaced with someone who will. There are candidates among us when he will rise like a Phoenix from the ashes that you have made of our constitution.
Democrat, Republican, independent, libertarian. Understand this. We don't care. Political parties are meaningless to us Patriotic Americans are willing to do right by us and our Constitution and that is all that matters to us now. We are going to fire all of you who abuse power and seek more. It is not your power. It is ours and we want it back. We entrusted you with it and you abused it. You are dishonorable. You are dishonest. As Americans we are ashamed of you. You have brought shame to us. If you are not representing the wants and needs of your constituency loudly and consistently, in spite of the objections of your party, you will be fired. Did you hear? We no longer care about your political parties. You need to be loyal to us, not to them. Because we will get you fired and they will not save you. If you do or can represent me, my issues, my views, please stand up. Make your identity known. You need to make some noise about it. Speak up. I need to know who you are. If you do not speak up, you will be herded out with the rest of the sheep and we will replace the whole damn congress if need be one by one. We are coming. Are we coming for you? Who do you represent? What do you represent? Listen. Because we are coming. We the people are coming."
Well, these are briefly my views and issues for which I seek representation:
One, illegal immigration.. I want you to stop coddling illegal immigrants and secure our borders. Close the underground tunnels. Stop the violence and the trafficking in drugs and people. No amnesty, not again. Been there, done that, no resolution. P.S., I'm not a racist. This isn't to be confused with legal immigration.
Two, the STIMULUS bill, I want it repealed and I want no further funding supplied to it. We told you no, but you did it anyway. I want the remaining unfunded 95% repealed. Freeze, repeal.
Three: Czars, I want the circumvention of our checks and balances stopped immediately. Fire the czars. No more czars. Government officials answer to the process, not to the president. Stop trampling on our Constitution and honor it.
Four, cap and trade. The debate on global warming is not over. There is more to say.
Five, universal healthcare. I will not be rushed into another expensive decision. Don't you dare try to pass this in the middle of the night and then go on break. Slow down!
Six, growing government control. I want states rights and sovereignty fully restored. I want less government in my life, not more. Shrink it down. Mind your own business. You have enough to take care of with your real obligations. Why don't you start there.
Seven, ACORN. I do not want ACORN and its affiliates in charge of our 2010 census. I want them investigated. I also do not want mandatory escrow fees contributed to them every time on every real estate deal that closes. Stop the funding to ACORN and its affiliates pending impartial audits and investigations. I do not trust them with taking the census over with our taxpayer money. I don't trust them with our taxpayer money. Face up to the allegations against them and get it resolved before taxpayers get any more involved with them. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, hello. Stop protecting your political buddies. You work for us, the people. Investigate.
Eight, redistribution of wealth. No, no, no. I work for my money. It is mine. I have always worked for people with more money than I have because they gave me jobs. That is the only redistribution of wealth that I will support. I never got a job from a poor person. Why do you want me to hate my employers? Why -- what do you have against shareholders making a profit?
Nine, charitable contributions.. Although I never got a job from a poor person, I have helped many in need. Charity belongs in our local communities, where we know our needs best and can use our local talent and our local resources. Butt out, please. We want to do it ourselves.
Ten, corporate bailouts. Knock it off. Sink or swim like the rest of us. If there are hard times ahead, we'll be better off just getting into it and letting the strong survive. Quick and painful. Have you ever ripped off a Band-Aid? We will pull together. Great things happen in America under great hardship. Give us the chance to innovate. We cannot disappoint you more than you have disappointed us.
Eleven, transparency and accountability. How about it? No, really, how about it? Let's have it. Let's say we give the buzzwords a rest and have some straight honest talk. Please try -- please stop manipulating and trying to appease me with clever wording. I am not the idiot you obviously take me for. Stop sneaking around and meeting in back rooms making deals with your friends. It will only be a prelude to your criminal investigation. Stop hiding things from me..
Twelve, unprecedented quick spending. Stop it now.
Take a breath. Listen to the people. Let's just slow down and get some input from some nonpoliticians on the subject. Stop making everything an emergency. Stop speed reading our bills into law. I am not an activist. I am not a community organizer. Nor am I a terrorist, a militant or a violent person. I am a parent and a grandparent. I work. I'm busy. I'm busy. I am busy, and I am tired. I thought we elected competent people to take care of the business of government so that we could work, raise our families, pay our bills, have a little recreation, complain about taxes, endure our hardships, pursue our personal goals, cut our lawn, wash our cars on the weekends and be responsible contributing members of society and teach our children to be the same all while living in the home of the free and land of the brave.
I entrusted you with upholding the Constitution. I believed in the checks and balances to keep from getting far off course. What happened? You are very far off course. Do you really think I find humor in the hiring of a speed reader to unintelligently ramble all through a bill that you signed into law without knowing what it contained? I do not. It is a mockery of the responsibility I have entrusted to you. It is a slap in the face. I am not laughing at your arrogance. Why is it that I feel as if you would not trust me to make a single decision about my own life and how I would live it but you should expect that I should trust you with the debt that you have laid on all of us and our children. We did not want the TARP bill.. We said no. We would repeal it if we could. I am sure that we still cannot. There is such urgency and recklessness in all of the recent spending.
From my perspective, it seems that all of you have gone insane. I also know that I am far from alone in these feelings. Do you honestly feel that your current pursuits have merit to patriotic Americans? We want it to stop. We want to put the brakes on everything that is being rushed by us and forced upon us. We want our voice back. You have forced us to put our lives on hold to straighten out the mess that you are making. We will have to give up our vacations, our time spent with our children, any relaxation time we may have had and money we cannot afford to spend on you to bring our concerns to Washington . Our president often knows all the right buzzword is unsustainable. Well, no kidding.. How many tens of thousands of dollars did the focus group cost to come up with that word? We don't want your overpriced words Stop treating us like we're morons.
We want all of you to stop focusing on your reelection and do the job we want done, not the job you want done or the job your party wants done. You work for us and at this rate I guarantee you not for long because we are coming. We will be heard and we will be represented. You think we're so busy with our lives that we will never come for you? We are the formerly silent majority, all of us who quietly work , pay taxes, obey the law, vote, save money, keep our noses to the grindstone and we are now looking up at you. You have awakened us, the patriotic freedom spirit so strong and so powerful that it had been sleeping too long.. You have pushed us too far. Our numbers are great. They may surprise you. For every one of us who will be there, there will be hundreds more that could not come. Unlike you, we have their trust. We will represent them honestly, rest assured. They will be at the polls on voting day to usher you out of office. We have cancelled vacations. We will use our last few dollars saved. We will find the representation among us and a grassroots campaign will flourish. We didn't ask for this fight. But the gloves are coming off. We do not come in violence, but we are angry. You will represent us or you will be replaced with someone who will. There are candidates among us when he will rise like a Phoenix from the ashes that you have made of our constitution.
Democrat, Republican, independent, libertarian. Understand this. We don't care. Political parties are meaningless to us Patriotic Americans are willing to do right by us and our Constitution and that is all that matters to us now. We are going to fire all of you who abuse power and seek more. It is not your power. It is ours and we want it back. We entrusted you with it and you abused it. You are dishonorable. You are dishonest. As Americans we are ashamed of you. You have brought shame to us. If you are not representing the wants and needs of your constituency loudly and consistently, in spite of the objections of your party, you will be fired. Did you hear? We no longer care about your political parties. You need to be loyal to us, not to them. Because we will get you fired and they will not save you. If you do or can represent me, my issues, my views, please stand up. Make your identity known. You need to make some noise about it. Speak up. I need to know who you are. If you do not speak up, you will be herded out with the rest of the sheep and we will replace the whole damn congress if need be one by one. We are coming. Are we coming for you? Who do you represent? What do you represent? Listen. Because we are coming. We the people are coming."
Thursday, August 27, 2009
CZARS: Who are they and how much POWER do they have?
1. Afghanistan Czar - Richard Holbrooke
Title: Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Appointed: January 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: State
• Will work with CENTCOM head Gen. David Petraeus to integrate U.S. civilian and military efforts in the region.
• 45 years of experience have made him a fixture of the Democrats' foreign policy establishment.
• Was U.S. ambassador to U.N., 1999-2001
• Brokered the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords in Bosnia
• Also served as Assistant secretary of state, East Asia and the Pacific (1976 to 1980); worked in foreign service (1962 to 1976)
• From 1972 through 1976, was the editor of Foreign Policy magazine.
2. AIDS Czar * - Jeffrey Crowley
Title: Director of the Office of National AIDS Policy
Salary: $102,000
Reports to: President Obama (as part of the Executive Office of the President’s Domestic Policy Council)
Appointed: February 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Health and Human Services
• Coordinates HIV/AIDS policy domestically and internationally.
• Senior Research Scholar at Georgetown University's Health Policy Institute and a Senior Scholar at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, Georgetown University Law Center.
• Was Deputy Executive Director for Programs at the National Association of People with AIDS
• Has Master of Public Health from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health
3. Auto Recovery Czar - Ed Montgomery
Title: Director of Recovery for Auto Communities and Workers
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Larry Summers, the president's top economic adviser, and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis
Appointed: March 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Labor
• Will work to leverage government resources to support the workers, communities and regions that rely on the American auto industry.
• Was Deputy Secretary and Chief Economist at the Labor Department (1997 to 1998)
• Is Dean of the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences at the University of Maryland (2003 to present)
• Has PhD in economics from Harvard
• In 2008, made $1,200 in political donations, all of which went to Obama’s presidential campaign.
• Wife is the granddaughter of a General Motors worker from Portland, Mich.
• Drives a 2000 Lincoln
4. Border Czar * - Alan Bersin
Title: Assistant Secretary for International Affairs and Special Representative for Border Affairs
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano
Appointed: April 2009
Agencies that might have handled similar issues: Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
• Will coordinate all of the department's border security and law-enforcement efforts.
• Essentially had the same job under President Clinton; served as Attorney General Janet Reno's special representative on border issues, a job that he held while retaining the position of U.S. attorney for San Diego.
• This time, boss will be Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who will expect him to handle illegal immigration and drug violence issues along the Mexican-American border
• Previous experience: Chairman of the San Diego Regional Airport Authority (2006 to 2009); Secretary of Education for California (2005 to 2006); Superintendent of San Diego Public Schools (1998 to 2005); U.S. Attorney for San Diego (1993 to 1998)
• Graduate of Harvard and Yale Law School
• Talking about border security shortly before he was named Clinton border czar in 1995, said he wanted to focus on suspected smugglers of both drugs and people and was not interested in prosecuting “economic migrants.”
• Often tied to the 1994 border policy called “Operation Gatekeeper.” The policy shifted the U.S. focus from the arresting of immigrants who actually crossed the border to an increased border presence designed to stop border crossing in the first place. When Bersin left the position in 1998, border arrests were on pace for an 18-year low of just more than 200,000. Latino groups complained that Operation Gatekeeper was immoral, saying the program monitored the border near San Diego but simply forced illegal immigrants to other, more dangerous areas.
• Has given more than $50,000 to political campaigns since 1999, almost all of it to Democrats.
5. California Water Czar - David J. Hayes
Title: Deputy Interior Secretary
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Interior Secretary Ken Salazar
Appointed: June 2009
Confirmed by Senate (as Deputy Interior Security): May 20, 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Interior
• Charged with coordinating federal agencies to ease California's water shortage
• Graduate of Stanford Law School; clerked for U.S. District Court for the D.C., has been a partner at two big D.C. law firms
• Was deputy interior secretary under Bruce Babbitt during Clinton administration
• From 1993 to 1995, was chairman of the board at the Environmental Law Institute, a non-profit research center.
• As a lobbyist, represented the Southern California Metropolitan Water District in 2001
• In August 2008, wrote a policy report while working at the Progressive Policy Institute accusing the Bush administration of leaving a “damaging legacy” in their natural resource management policies
• Donated $2,300 to Clinton during 2008 campaign; after she withdrew, donated $2,300 to Obama
6. Car Czar - Ron Bloom
NOTE: on July 13, 2009, Bloom took over as head of the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry, replacing Steven Rattner
Title: Counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and National Economic Council head Larry Summers
Appointed: July 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Treasury
• A leader of the White House task force overseeing auto company bailouts; worked on restructuring of General Motors and Chrysler LLC.
• Was special assistant to president of the United Steelworkers union from 1996-Feb 2009
• Has negotiated restructuring deals for more than 50 companies, getting major concessions from unions and companies.
• Was raised in New York in a pro-union family, which included a schoolteacher mother and unionized relatives.
• After working for the Service Employees International Union, got an MBA from Harvard University because he thought unions lacked business smarts, he said in a 1996 interview in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
• From 1985 to 1990, he worked as an investment banker with Lazard Freres & Co., which specializes in mergers, acquisitions and corporate restructuring, before co-founding the investment-banking firm Keilin and Bloom.
7. Central Region Czar - Dennis Ross
Title: Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for the Central Region (encompasses the Middle East, the Gulf, Afghanistan, Pakistan and South Asia)
Salary: unknown
Reports to: National Security Adviser Gen. James L. Jones
Appointed: June 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: State
• Spent 12 years in the George H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations trying to create a permanent agreement between the governments of Israel and the Palestinian territories
• In 1981, was named to President Ronald Reagan’s national security staff as the director of Near East and South Asian Affairs.
• Was director of the State Department’s Policy Planning office during President George H. W. Bush’s term.
• 1993: appointed to the position of Middle East coordinator, making him the top negotiator for peace between Israel and Palestinian territories
• After he left government in 2000, headed up Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a hawkish think tank with a pro-Israeli bent
8. Climate Czar - Todd Stern
Title: Special Envoy for Climate Change
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Appointed: January 2009
Agency or department that might have handled similar issues: Environmental Protection Agency; State
• Responsible for developing international approaches to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.
• Served in the Clinton White House from 1993 to 1999; Was Head of the Initiative on Global Climate Change (1997 to 1999) and Adviser to the Secretary of the Treasury (1999 to 2001)
• As a top aide to President Clinton, helped negotiate the Kyoto and Buenos Aires climate pacts, both of which fell apart partially because of a lack of U.S. support during Bush administration.
• After Bush was elected to office, went to the Wilmer Hale law firm, where he is a partner in the regulatory and government affairs division.
• Was most recently a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, where he focused on climate change and environmental issues.
• Has written extensively on climate change, and has called on the American government and the international community to take a series of steps to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.
• Supports a national cap-and-trade system that would limit carbon emissions and reduce U.S. dependency on foreign oil
• Has law degree from Harvard
9. Domestic Violence Czar - Lynn Rosenthal
Title: White House adviser on Violence Against Women
Salary: unknown
Reports to: President Obama and Vice President Biden
Appointed: June 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Health and Human Services
• Will advise the President and Vice President on domestic violence and sexual assault issues.
• 2000-2006: served as the Executive Director of the National Network to End Domestic Violence
• Was an advocate for the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act in 2000 and 2005 and has assisted states and local communities with implementation of this federal legislation
• Was director of the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence
10. Drug Czar * - Gil Kerlikowske
Title: Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy
Salary: unknown
Reports to: President Obama
Appointed: March 2009
Confirmed by Senate: May 7, 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Justice
• Directs drug-control policy in the U.S.; is expected to shift drug policy to intervention, treatment and a reduction of problem drug use.
• Was police chief for the city of Seattle from 2000-2009
• Was Deputy Director of the Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (1998 to 2000); Police Chief for the city of Buffalo (1994 to 1998); Police chief of Fort Pierce, Fla. (N/A to 1994)
• 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.
11. Economic Czar * - Paul Volcker
Title: Chairman of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board
Salary: Volcker reportedly isn't paid for his advice.
Reports to: President Obama
Appointed: January 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Treasury
• Charged with offering independent, nonpartisan information, analysis, and advice to the President as he formulates and implements his plans for economic recovery.
• Some reports say he's been marginalized by Larry Summers.
• Former Federal Reserve chairman (1979-1987)
• Was Undersecretary for Monetary Affairs, Department of the Treasury (1969 to 1974); Deputy Undersecretary for Monetary Affairs, Department of the Treasury (1963 to 1965)
• Gave Obama campaign $2,300 in 2008.
12. Energy and Environment Czar - Carol Browner
Title: Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change
Salary: $172,200
Reports to: President Obama
Appointed: January 2009
Agency that might have handled similar issues: EPA
• Coordinates energy and climate policy, emphasizing regulation and conservation.
• Was Environmental Protection Agency administrator in the Clinton administration (1993-2000)
• Was Florida Secretary of the Environment (1991 to 1993)
• Founded and continues to serve as a principal of The Albright Group LLC, a global strategy firm led by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Also a principal of Albright Capital Management, an investment advisory firm that concentrates on emerging markets.
• 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
• Described Bush administration as the "worst environmental administration ever"
• 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.
13. Faith-Based Czar * - Joshua DuBois
Title: Director of the Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships
Salary: $98,000
Reports to: President Obama
Appointed: February 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Health and Human Services
• Acts as a liaison between faith and secular community groups and the White House, often partnering with them to tackle social issues. Helps these groups apply for federal grants available to them.
• Is 26 years old
• Has master’s in public affairs from Princeton University; served as associate pastor
• Worked for Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) as an intern and then as a fellow for Rep. Charles B. Rangel (DN. Y.).
• Hired as a legislative correspondent in Obama’s Senate office in May 2005
• In 2008, at the age of 25, was appointed director of religious affairs for the Obama campaign.
14. Government Performance Czar - Jeffrey Zients
Title: Chief Performance Officer
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orzag
Appointed: April 2009
Confirmed by the Senate (as deputy director for management for the OMB): June 19, 2009
Agency that might have handled similar issues: OMB
• Charged with cutting costs and finding best practices throughout government.
• Has never worked in government before
• Was a chief executive and former management consultant
• Was founder of Portfolio Logic (2004 to present); Partner of the Washington Baseball Club (2004 to 2006); CEO of the Advisory Board (1998 to 2004)
• Has donated just over $90,000 to political campaigns since 1999, almost all of which went to Democratic candidates
15. Great Lakes Czar - Cameron Davis
Title: Special advisor to the U.S. EPA overseeing its Great Lakes restoration plan
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson
Appointed: June 2009
Agency that might have handled similar issues: Environmental Protection Agency
• Oversees the administration's initiative to restore the Great Lakes' environment.
• President of the Chicago-based environmentalist group Alliance for the Great Lakes
• Was a litigating attorney and served as an adjunct clinical assistant professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School.
• Served with the United Nations Environment Program in Nairobi, Kenya, where he worked on the Montreal Protocol to protect the Earth’s ozone layer, and U.S. EPA’s Office of Regional Counsel in Chicago.
16. Green Jobs Czar - Van Jones
Title: Special Adviser for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Head of Council on Environmental Quality Nancy Sutley
Appointed: March 2009
Agency or department that might have handled similar issues: Environmental Protection Agency; Labor
• Will focus on environmentally-friendly employment within the administration and boost support for the idea nationwide
• Rose from near obscurity in the Oakland, Calif., grassroots organizing scene to the leader of a national movement to spur the green economy.
• Founded Green For All, an organization focused on creating green jobs in impoverished areas
• Also co-founder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and Color of Change, which includes Bay Area PoliceWatch, a group devoted to "protect[ing] the community from police misconduct"
• Published New York Times best-seller The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems, in October 2008
• Started career as a prison-reform advocate in Oakland, Calif., lobbying for reform of the juvenile justice system and youth-violence prevention programs
• Has law degree from Yale
• 2007: worked on the Green Jobs Act with then-Rep. Hilda Solis (D-Calif.), who co-sponsored the bill in the House
• 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.
17. Guantanamo Closure Czar - Daniel Fried
Title: Special envoy to oversee the closure of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
Appointed: March 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Justice; State
• Works to get help of foreign governments in moving toward closure of Guantanamo Bay, in fulfillment of Obama's promise to close the prison within a year of taking office.
• Was Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasian Affairs, State Department (2005 to 2009); Director for European and Eurasian Affairs, State Department (2001 to 2005); U.S. Ambassador to Poland (1997 to 2001)
18. Health Czar * - Nancy-Ann DeParle
Title: Counselor to the President and Director of the White House Office of Health Reform
Salary: $158,500
Reports to: President Obama
Appointed: March 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Health and Human Services (HHS)
• Coordinates the development of the Administration's healthcare policy agenda.
• Experience: Managing Director, CCMP Capital (since 2001); Adjunct professor (focusing on healthcare policy), Wharton School of Business (since 2001); Commissioner, Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (since 2001); Fellow, Harvard Institue of Politics (2000 to 2001); Director, Healthcare Financing Administration (1997 to 2000)
• Has law degree from Harvard
• Served as the OMB’s representative on health-care reform during Bill Clinton’s first term
• As head of the HHS Health Care Financing Administration under Clinton, ran the largest health insurance provider in America, overseeing $600 billion in payments annually to 74 million recipients of Medicare and Medicaid
• 2001: left government to take a year-long fellowship at Harvard’s Institute of Politics, where she was part of Harvard’s Health Care Policy Forum and led a weekly study group on reforming Medicare.
• During Bush administration, sat on the boards of many health companies, from medical treatment producers to hospital systems
• In September 2008, donated $2,300 each to Clinton and Barack Obama.
19. Information Czar - Vivek Kundra
Title: Federal Chief Information Officer
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Director of the Office of Management and Budget Peter Orszag
Appointed: March 2009
Agencies that might have handled similar issues: other federal agency CIOs
• Basically in charge of overseeing other federal agency CIOs and for setting technology policy across the government.
• Head of a federal technology budget that amounts to $71 billion annually
• Operation is housed in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and will likely have authority to question how money in departmental technology budgets is used
• Formerly head of the District of Columbia's technology operations
• Shortly after he joined the OMB, federal authorities raided his old District government office. They arrested two technology office managers and a subcontractor, charging them with a bribery scheme that allegedly defrauded the city out of at least $500,000. Kundra was not a suspect in the case, the U.S. Attorney’s office said.
• Has a masters from Maryland in information technology.
• Experience: Washington, D.C. Chief Technology Officer (2007 to 2009); State of Virginia's Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Trade (2006 to 2007); CEO of computer security firm Creostar
20. Intelligence Czar * - Dennis Blair
Title: Director of National Intelligence
Salary: $197,700
Reports to: President Obama
Appointed: January 2009
Confirmed by Senate: January 28, 2009
Agency that might have handled similar issues: CIA
• Nation’s top intelligence official.
• Retired four-star admiral.
• Graduate of the United States Naval Academy, 1968; sixth-generation naval officer
• Lacks professional roots in the world of intelligence
• Held a number of prestigious Washington posts, including the Pentagon’s top liaison to the CIA and director of the Joint Staff.
• Ran the non-profit Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), which focuses primarily on issues related to national security, and does a lot of work for the Defense Department. Left IDA under a cloud of controversy in mid-2006.
21. Mideast Peace Czar - George Mitchell
Title: Special Envoy for Middle East Peace
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
Appointed: January 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: State
• Works to maintain the shaky peace between Israel and Hamas after recent hostilities
• Senate majority leader from 1989 to 1994
• Was special envoy to Northern Ireland during the Clinton administration and lead investigator into steroid use in Major League Baseball.
• 2000: led a fact-finding committee to study violence in the Middle East; 2001's Mitchell Report formed the basis for the road map for Middle East peace
22. Pay Czar - Kenneth R. Feinberg
Title: Special Master on executive pay
Salary: reportedly receiving no compensation for his work.
Reports to: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner
Appointed: June 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Treasury
• Named to examine compensation practices at companies that have been bailed out more than once by the federal government
• Oversaw the payouts to the families of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks
• Was the chief administrator to the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund, which commemorates the students who died in the April 2007 shooting rampage at Virginia Tech
• Founder and managing partner of Feinberg Rozen LLP (1992 to present), law firm specializing in mediation
• Was Chief of staff for Sen. Edward Kennedy (1978 to 1980)
• While working with the Feinberg Group, donated over $150,000, nearly all of which has gone to Democratic candidates and political action committees. In 2007, donated $2,300 to 2008 presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani (R).
23. Regulatory Czar - Cass R. Sunstein *
Title: Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Office of Management and Budget head Peter Orszag
Appointed: January 2009
Nomination was sent to Senate on April 20, 2009 - no action yet taken
Agency that might have handled similar issues: OMB
• Will be responsible for reviewing draft regulations and assessing their costs and benefits
• Is a Harvard Law School professor; prior to that, was a professor at the Univ. of Chicago Law School (1981-2008)
• Academic specialties: constitutional law, administrative law, and regulatory policy
• Obama: "Cass is not only a valued advisor, he is a dear friend"
• Known for advancing a field called "law and behavioral economics" that seeks to shape law and policy around the way research shows people actually behave; though embraced by conservatives, critics say it fails to account for the sometimes less-than-rational aspects of human behavior.
• 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.
24. Science Czar - John Holdren
Title: Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology
Salary: unknown
Reports to: President Obama
Appointed: December 2008
Confirmed by Senate: March 19, 2009
Agency or department that might have handled similar issues: Energy
• Top adviser to Obama on science and technology, issues that are increasingly relevant to other issues such as homeland security, energy and environmentalism
• Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy and Director, Program in Science, Technology, and Public Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government (1996-2009); Harvard University Professor of Environmental Science and Public Policy (1996-2009); University of California, Berkeley Professor of Energy and Resources Emeritus (1996 to present)
• Studied aerospace engineering and plasma physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — where he earned his BS and MS — and Stanford University, where he received his doctorate in 1970
• 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."
25. Stimulus Accountability Czar - Earl Devaney
Title: Chair of the Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Vice President Biden
Appointed: February 2009
Agency that might have handled similar issues: OMB
• Leads oversight board that monitors money spent by the stimulus package
• Experience: Inspector General at the Interior Department (1999 to present); Director of criminal enforcement at the Environmental Protection Agency (1991 to 1999); Special Agent at the Secret Service (1970 to 1991)
• During his tenure at Interior, uncovered the shady dealings of disgraced ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, an investigation that eventually led to Abramoff's imprisonment and the resignation of Interior's no. 2, J. Steven Griles, for lying under oath about his own role in the scandal.
• On July 8, 2009, the U.S. General Services Administration issued a press release announcing an $18 million contract for a new recovery.gov web site, which quoted Devaney as saying, “We are pleased that another major milestone has been achieved."
26. Sudan Czar - J. Scott Gration
Title: Special Envoy to Sudan
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Appointed: March 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: State
• Will coordinate U.S. role in the aftermath of the genocide in Darfur
• Experience: Supreme Allied Command, NATO (2004 to 2005); Air Force assistant deputy undersecretary for international affairs (2003 to 2004)
• Commanded all air operations during the Iraq war in 2003
• 2006: left Air Force position to join Obama’s staff after traveling to Africa with the then-Senator from Illinois, even though he was a Republican
• Has won a Bronze Star, a Purple Heart, a Defense Superior Service Medal and 16 other awards
• Is a fluent Swahili speaker who grew up in the Congo
• Has called on the Obama administration to incentivize participation by the Sudanese government in peace talks by lifting sanctions, a position that is controversial. Also worked to position himself as the principal negotiator between the Sudanese government and its adversaries in Darfur, and is planning an international conference for September 2009
• Has M.A. in security studies from Georgetown
27. TARP Czar - Herb Allison
Title: Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner
Appointed: June 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Treasury
• Leads the government's $700 billion financial rescue program in the office of financial stability
• Veteran Wall Street banker and interim head of the mortgage-finance company Fannie Mae
• Worked at Merrill Lynch for 28 years, reaching position of president and COO
• Was CEO of Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association College Retirement Equities Fund (2002 to 2008); CEO of the Alliance for Lifelong Learning (2000 to 2002)
• Has undergraduate degree from Yale and MBA from Stanford
• 2000: was John McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign finance chairman
• In 2008, donated $2,300 to Obama's presidential campaign
28. Technology Czar - Aneesh Chopra
Title: Chief Technology Officer
Salary: unknown
Reports to: President Obama
Appointed: April 2009
Confirmed by Senate: May 21, 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Commerce
• Will lead in the effort to eliminate wasteful government programs
• Will probably work to increase broadband access nationwide and computerize medical records
• Was Virginia’s secretary of technology (2005-2009)
• Has degree in public health from Johns Hopkins, Master's from Harvard in public policy
• Worked at Morgan Stanley as investment banker; also worked at Advisory Board, a health-care research and consultancy firm
• Has donated more than $24,000 since 1997 to various campaigns. With the exception of a $1,000 donation to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) in 2004, all of Chopra’s contributions have gone to Democrats. From 2007 to 2008, Chopra donated $2,750 to Obama’s presidential campaign.
29. Terrorism Czar - John Brennan
Title: Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism
Salary: $172,200
Reports to: National Security Adviser James L. Jones
Appointed: January 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Homeland Security
• Under Obama's plan the homeland security adviser’s office would be eliminated, and the National Security Council would take over those duties. Brennan would be responsible for guarding against natural disasters and terrorism.
• Has called for increased integration between the Departments of Commerce, State and Defense
• Graduated from Fordham University in 1977 after a year of intensive Arabic and Middle Eastern studies in Cairo. Earned his J.D. from the University of Texas at Austin before joining the CIA as an intelligence director in 1980.
• Is a CIA veteran and fluent Arabic speaker
• Was CIA deputy executive director (2001 to 2003) and National Counter-Terrorism Center, Chair (2004 to 2005)
• Worked at Analysis Corp, (2005 to 2008);
• Staunch supporter of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Program; defended the use of extraordinary rendition, saying it is “an absolutely vital tool.”
30. Urban Affairs Czar - Adolfo Carrion Jr.
Title: White House Director of Urban Affairs
Salary: $158,500
Reports to: President Obama
Appointed: February 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Housing and Urban Development
• Job entails coordinating transportation and housing initiatives, as well as serving as a conduit for federal aid to economically hard-hit cities.
• Has undergraduate degree in world religions from Kings College; became an associate pastor at a Bronx church; earned his master’s degree in urban planning from Hunter College
• Was Bronx Borough President (2001-2009); President of the National Association of Latino Elected Officials (since 2007); City Council member (1998 to 2000)
• Many reporters say he has higher ambitions and will probably run for New York City mayor in the next ten years.
• Was an active campaigner for Obama, travelling across the country to speak on his behalf. He focused particularly on states with large Hispanic populations.
• 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.
31. Weapons Czar - Ashton Carter
Title: Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Defense Secretary Robert Gates
Appointed: April 2009
Confirmed by Senate: April 23, 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Defense
• Will coordinate the Pentagon's acquisitions, technology and logistics for weapons.
• Will oversee a weapons-buying system that Obama has placed at the top of his list of federal programs he wants to fix and will be asked to quickly weigh in on difficult decisions concerning at least 10 major defense programs, while also instantly dissecting the procurement system’s ailments so he can advise the administration on its Pentagon acquisition reform agenda
• Is a physicist and Harvard academic whose only previous Pentagon stint was in a mid-level policy post from 1993 until 1996 under the Clinton administration
• Graduated from Yale summa cum laude; studied at Oxford University as a Rhodes scholar and earned a doctorate in theoretical physics.
• Chair of Harvard’s International Relations, Science & Security Area International Security Program within the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy (1993 to 1996); Director of the Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University’s Kennedy School (early 1990s)
• Has donated primarily to Democratic politicians since 2000. He donated $6,900 to then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) in 2007 and 2008. He gave the same amount to then Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) during that same span.
32. WMD Policy Czar - Gary Samore
Title: White House Coordinator for Weapons of Mass Destruction, Security and Arms Control
Salary: unknown
Reports to: National Security Advisor Gen. James L. Jones
Appointed: January 2009
Department or agency that might have handled similar issues: NSC; Defense; State
• Will coordinate issues related to weapons of mass destruction across the government. His portfolio includes proliferation, nuclear and conventional arms control, threat reduction, and terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction.
• Position sits within the National Security Council.
• Is a veteran arms control negotiator.
• B.A. in sociology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and his PhD in government from Harvard University in 1984.
• After brief stints with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the RAND Corporation, joined the State Department during the Reagan administration in 1987. Held several positions there, including director of the Office of Regional Non-proliferation Affairs; special assistant to the Ambassador-at-Large for Non-proliferation and Nuclear Energy Policy; and deputy to Ambassador-at-Large for Korean Affairs Robert Gallucci. Helped to negotiate the 1994 U.S.-North Korea Framework Treaty
• Joined the Clinton administration’s National Security Council in 1995 as an adviser on nonproliferation. Coordinated U.S. policy on nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
• Was Director, Council on Foreign Relations (2006 to 2009); Vice President for Global Security and Sustainability, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (2005); Researcher, International Institute of Strategic Studies (2001 to 2005)
Title: Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Appointed: January 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: State
• Will work with CENTCOM head Gen. David Petraeus to integrate U.S. civilian and military efforts in the region.
• 45 years of experience have made him a fixture of the Democrats' foreign policy establishment.
• Was U.S. ambassador to U.N., 1999-2001
• Brokered the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords in Bosnia
• Also served as Assistant secretary of state, East Asia and the Pacific (1976 to 1980); worked in foreign service (1962 to 1976)
• From 1972 through 1976, was the editor of Foreign Policy magazine.
2. AIDS Czar * - Jeffrey Crowley
Title: Director of the Office of National AIDS Policy
Salary: $102,000
Reports to: President Obama (as part of the Executive Office of the President’s Domestic Policy Council)
Appointed: February 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Health and Human Services
• Coordinates HIV/AIDS policy domestically and internationally.
• Senior Research Scholar at Georgetown University's Health Policy Institute and a Senior Scholar at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, Georgetown University Law Center.
• Was Deputy Executive Director for Programs at the National Association of People with AIDS
• Has Master of Public Health from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health
3. Auto Recovery Czar - Ed Montgomery
Title: Director of Recovery for Auto Communities and Workers
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Larry Summers, the president's top economic adviser, and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis
Appointed: March 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Labor
• Will work to leverage government resources to support the workers, communities and regions that rely on the American auto industry.
• Was Deputy Secretary and Chief Economist at the Labor Department (1997 to 1998)
• Is Dean of the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences at the University of Maryland (2003 to present)
• Has PhD in economics from Harvard
• In 2008, made $1,200 in political donations, all of which went to Obama’s presidential campaign.
• Wife is the granddaughter of a General Motors worker from Portland, Mich.
• Drives a 2000 Lincoln
4. Border Czar * - Alan Bersin
Title: Assistant Secretary for International Affairs and Special Representative for Border Affairs
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano
Appointed: April 2009
Agencies that might have handled similar issues: Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
• Will coordinate all of the department's border security and law-enforcement efforts.
• Essentially had the same job under President Clinton; served as Attorney General Janet Reno's special representative on border issues, a job that he held while retaining the position of U.S. attorney for San Diego.
• This time, boss will be Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who will expect him to handle illegal immigration and drug violence issues along the Mexican-American border
• Previous experience: Chairman of the San Diego Regional Airport Authority (2006 to 2009); Secretary of Education for California (2005 to 2006); Superintendent of San Diego Public Schools (1998 to 2005); U.S. Attorney for San Diego (1993 to 1998)
• Graduate of Harvard and Yale Law School
• Talking about border security shortly before he was named Clinton border czar in 1995, said he wanted to focus on suspected smugglers of both drugs and people and was not interested in prosecuting “economic migrants.”
• Often tied to the 1994 border policy called “Operation Gatekeeper.” The policy shifted the U.S. focus from the arresting of immigrants who actually crossed the border to an increased border presence designed to stop border crossing in the first place. When Bersin left the position in 1998, border arrests were on pace for an 18-year low of just more than 200,000. Latino groups complained that Operation Gatekeeper was immoral, saying the program monitored the border near San Diego but simply forced illegal immigrants to other, more dangerous areas.
• Has given more than $50,000 to political campaigns since 1999, almost all of it to Democrats.
5. California Water Czar - David J. Hayes
Title: Deputy Interior Secretary
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Interior Secretary Ken Salazar
Appointed: June 2009
Confirmed by Senate (as Deputy Interior Security): May 20, 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Interior
• Charged with coordinating federal agencies to ease California's water shortage
• Graduate of Stanford Law School; clerked for U.S. District Court for the D.C., has been a partner at two big D.C. law firms
• Was deputy interior secretary under Bruce Babbitt during Clinton administration
• From 1993 to 1995, was chairman of the board at the Environmental Law Institute, a non-profit research center.
• As a lobbyist, represented the Southern California Metropolitan Water District in 2001
• In August 2008, wrote a policy report while working at the Progressive Policy Institute accusing the Bush administration of leaving a “damaging legacy” in their natural resource management policies
• Donated $2,300 to Clinton during 2008 campaign; after she withdrew, donated $2,300 to Obama
6. Car Czar - Ron Bloom
NOTE: on July 13, 2009, Bloom took over as head of the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry, replacing Steven Rattner
Title: Counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and National Economic Council head Larry Summers
Appointed: July 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Treasury
• A leader of the White House task force overseeing auto company bailouts; worked on restructuring of General Motors and Chrysler LLC.
• Was special assistant to president of the United Steelworkers union from 1996-Feb 2009
• Has negotiated restructuring deals for more than 50 companies, getting major concessions from unions and companies.
• Was raised in New York in a pro-union family, which included a schoolteacher mother and unionized relatives.
• After working for the Service Employees International Union, got an MBA from Harvard University because he thought unions lacked business smarts, he said in a 1996 interview in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
• From 1985 to 1990, he worked as an investment banker with Lazard Freres & Co., which specializes in mergers, acquisitions and corporate restructuring, before co-founding the investment-banking firm Keilin and Bloom.
7. Central Region Czar - Dennis Ross
Title: Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for the Central Region (encompasses the Middle East, the Gulf, Afghanistan, Pakistan and South Asia)
Salary: unknown
Reports to: National Security Adviser Gen. James L. Jones
Appointed: June 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: State
• Spent 12 years in the George H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations trying to create a permanent agreement between the governments of Israel and the Palestinian territories
• In 1981, was named to President Ronald Reagan’s national security staff as the director of Near East and South Asian Affairs.
• Was director of the State Department’s Policy Planning office during President George H. W. Bush’s term.
• 1993: appointed to the position of Middle East coordinator, making him the top negotiator for peace between Israel and Palestinian territories
• After he left government in 2000, headed up Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a hawkish think tank with a pro-Israeli bent
8. Climate Czar - Todd Stern
Title: Special Envoy for Climate Change
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Appointed: January 2009
Agency or department that might have handled similar issues: Environmental Protection Agency; State
• Responsible for developing international approaches to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.
• Served in the Clinton White House from 1993 to 1999; Was Head of the Initiative on Global Climate Change (1997 to 1999) and Adviser to the Secretary of the Treasury (1999 to 2001)
• As a top aide to President Clinton, helped negotiate the Kyoto and Buenos Aires climate pacts, both of which fell apart partially because of a lack of U.S. support during Bush administration.
• After Bush was elected to office, went to the Wilmer Hale law firm, where he is a partner in the regulatory and government affairs division.
• Was most recently a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, where he focused on climate change and environmental issues.
• Has written extensively on climate change, and has called on the American government and the international community to take a series of steps to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.
• Supports a national cap-and-trade system that would limit carbon emissions and reduce U.S. dependency on foreign oil
• Has law degree from Harvard
9. Domestic Violence Czar - Lynn Rosenthal
Title: White House adviser on Violence Against Women
Salary: unknown
Reports to: President Obama and Vice President Biden
Appointed: June 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Health and Human Services
• Will advise the President and Vice President on domestic violence and sexual assault issues.
• 2000-2006: served as the Executive Director of the National Network to End Domestic Violence
• Was an advocate for the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act in 2000 and 2005 and has assisted states and local communities with implementation of this federal legislation
• Was director of the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence
10. Drug Czar * - Gil Kerlikowske
Title: Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy
Salary: unknown
Reports to: President Obama
Appointed: March 2009
Confirmed by Senate: May 7, 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Justice
• Directs drug-control policy in the U.S.; is expected to shift drug policy to intervention, treatment and a reduction of problem drug use.
• Was police chief for the city of Seattle from 2000-2009
• Was Deputy Director of the Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (1998 to 2000); Police Chief for the city of Buffalo (1994 to 1998); Police chief of Fort Pierce, Fla. (N/A to 1994)
• 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.
11. Economic Czar * - Paul Volcker
Title: Chairman of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board
Salary: Volcker reportedly isn't paid for his advice.
Reports to: President Obama
Appointed: January 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Treasury
• Charged with offering independent, nonpartisan information, analysis, and advice to the President as he formulates and implements his plans for economic recovery.
• Some reports say he's been marginalized by Larry Summers.
• Former Federal Reserve chairman (1979-1987)
• Was Undersecretary for Monetary Affairs, Department of the Treasury (1969 to 1974); Deputy Undersecretary for Monetary Affairs, Department of the Treasury (1963 to 1965)
• Gave Obama campaign $2,300 in 2008.
12. Energy and Environment Czar - Carol Browner
Title: Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change
Salary: $172,200
Reports to: President Obama
Appointed: January 2009
Agency that might have handled similar issues: EPA
• Coordinates energy and climate policy, emphasizing regulation and conservation.
• Was Environmental Protection Agency administrator in the Clinton administration (1993-2000)
• Was Florida Secretary of the Environment (1991 to 1993)
• Founded and continues to serve as a principal of The Albright Group LLC, a global strategy firm led by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Also a principal of Albright Capital Management, an investment advisory firm that concentrates on emerging markets.
• 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
• Described Bush administration as the "worst environmental administration ever"
• 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.
13. Faith-Based Czar * - Joshua DuBois
Title: Director of the Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships
Salary: $98,000
Reports to: President Obama
Appointed: February 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Health and Human Services
• Acts as a liaison between faith and secular community groups and the White House, often partnering with them to tackle social issues. Helps these groups apply for federal grants available to them.
• Is 26 years old
• Has master’s in public affairs from Princeton University; served as associate pastor
• Worked for Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) as an intern and then as a fellow for Rep. Charles B. Rangel (DN. Y.).
• Hired as a legislative correspondent in Obama’s Senate office in May 2005
• In 2008, at the age of 25, was appointed director of religious affairs for the Obama campaign.
14. Government Performance Czar - Jeffrey Zients
Title: Chief Performance Officer
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orzag
Appointed: April 2009
Confirmed by the Senate (as deputy director for management for the OMB): June 19, 2009
Agency that might have handled similar issues: OMB
• Charged with cutting costs and finding best practices throughout government.
• Has never worked in government before
• Was a chief executive and former management consultant
• Was founder of Portfolio Logic (2004 to present); Partner of the Washington Baseball Club (2004 to 2006); CEO of the Advisory Board (1998 to 2004)
• Has donated just over $90,000 to political campaigns since 1999, almost all of which went to Democratic candidates
15. Great Lakes Czar - Cameron Davis
Title: Special advisor to the U.S. EPA overseeing its Great Lakes restoration plan
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson
Appointed: June 2009
Agency that might have handled similar issues: Environmental Protection Agency
• Oversees the administration's initiative to restore the Great Lakes' environment.
• President of the Chicago-based environmentalist group Alliance for the Great Lakes
• Was a litigating attorney and served as an adjunct clinical assistant professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School.
• Served with the United Nations Environment Program in Nairobi, Kenya, where he worked on the Montreal Protocol to protect the Earth’s ozone layer, and U.S. EPA’s Office of Regional Counsel in Chicago.
16. Green Jobs Czar - Van Jones
Title: Special Adviser for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Head of Council on Environmental Quality Nancy Sutley
Appointed: March 2009
Agency or department that might have handled similar issues: Environmental Protection Agency; Labor
• Will focus on environmentally-friendly employment within the administration and boost support for the idea nationwide
• Rose from near obscurity in the Oakland, Calif., grassroots organizing scene to the leader of a national movement to spur the green economy.
• Founded Green For All, an organization focused on creating green jobs in impoverished areas
• Also co-founder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and Color of Change, which includes Bay Area PoliceWatch, a group devoted to "protect[ing] the community from police misconduct"
• Published New York Times best-seller The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems, in October 2008
• Started career as a prison-reform advocate in Oakland, Calif., lobbying for reform of the juvenile justice system and youth-violence prevention programs
• Has law degree from Yale
• 2007: worked on the Green Jobs Act with then-Rep. Hilda Solis (D-Calif.), who co-sponsored the bill in the House
• 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.
17. Guantanamo Closure Czar - Daniel Fried
Title: Special envoy to oversee the closure of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
Appointed: March 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Justice; State
• Works to get help of foreign governments in moving toward closure of Guantanamo Bay, in fulfillment of Obama's promise to close the prison within a year of taking office.
• Was Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasian Affairs, State Department (2005 to 2009); Director for European and Eurasian Affairs, State Department (2001 to 2005); U.S. Ambassador to Poland (1997 to 2001)
18. Health Czar * - Nancy-Ann DeParle
Title: Counselor to the President and Director of the White House Office of Health Reform
Salary: $158,500
Reports to: President Obama
Appointed: March 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Health and Human Services (HHS)
• Coordinates the development of the Administration's healthcare policy agenda.
• Experience: Managing Director, CCMP Capital (since 2001); Adjunct professor (focusing on healthcare policy), Wharton School of Business (since 2001); Commissioner, Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (since 2001); Fellow, Harvard Institue of Politics (2000 to 2001); Director, Healthcare Financing Administration (1997 to 2000)
• Has law degree from Harvard
• Served as the OMB’s representative on health-care reform during Bill Clinton’s first term
• As head of the HHS Health Care Financing Administration under Clinton, ran the largest health insurance provider in America, overseeing $600 billion in payments annually to 74 million recipients of Medicare and Medicaid
• 2001: left government to take a year-long fellowship at Harvard’s Institute of Politics, where she was part of Harvard’s Health Care Policy Forum and led a weekly study group on reforming Medicare.
• During Bush administration, sat on the boards of many health companies, from medical treatment producers to hospital systems
• In September 2008, donated $2,300 each to Clinton and Barack Obama.
19. Information Czar - Vivek Kundra
Title: Federal Chief Information Officer
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Director of the Office of Management and Budget Peter Orszag
Appointed: March 2009
Agencies that might have handled similar issues: other federal agency CIOs
• Basically in charge of overseeing other federal agency CIOs and for setting technology policy across the government.
• Head of a federal technology budget that amounts to $71 billion annually
• Operation is housed in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and will likely have authority to question how money in departmental technology budgets is used
• Formerly head of the District of Columbia's technology operations
• Shortly after he joined the OMB, federal authorities raided his old District government office. They arrested two technology office managers and a subcontractor, charging them with a bribery scheme that allegedly defrauded the city out of at least $500,000. Kundra was not a suspect in the case, the U.S. Attorney’s office said.
• Has a masters from Maryland in information technology.
• Experience: Washington, D.C. Chief Technology Officer (2007 to 2009); State of Virginia's Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Trade (2006 to 2007); CEO of computer security firm Creostar
20. Intelligence Czar * - Dennis Blair
Title: Director of National Intelligence
Salary: $197,700
Reports to: President Obama
Appointed: January 2009
Confirmed by Senate: January 28, 2009
Agency that might have handled similar issues: CIA
• Nation’s top intelligence official.
• Retired four-star admiral.
• Graduate of the United States Naval Academy, 1968; sixth-generation naval officer
• Lacks professional roots in the world of intelligence
• Held a number of prestigious Washington posts, including the Pentagon’s top liaison to the CIA and director of the Joint Staff.
• Ran the non-profit Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), which focuses primarily on issues related to national security, and does a lot of work for the Defense Department. Left IDA under a cloud of controversy in mid-2006.
21. Mideast Peace Czar - George Mitchell
Title: Special Envoy for Middle East Peace
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
Appointed: January 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: State
• Works to maintain the shaky peace between Israel and Hamas after recent hostilities
• Senate majority leader from 1989 to 1994
• Was special envoy to Northern Ireland during the Clinton administration and lead investigator into steroid use in Major League Baseball.
• 2000: led a fact-finding committee to study violence in the Middle East; 2001's Mitchell Report formed the basis for the road map for Middle East peace
22. Pay Czar - Kenneth R. Feinberg
Title: Special Master on executive pay
Salary: reportedly receiving no compensation for his work.
Reports to: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner
Appointed: June 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Treasury
• Named to examine compensation practices at companies that have been bailed out more than once by the federal government
• Oversaw the payouts to the families of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks
• Was the chief administrator to the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund, which commemorates the students who died in the April 2007 shooting rampage at Virginia Tech
• Founder and managing partner of Feinberg Rozen LLP (1992 to present), law firm specializing in mediation
• Was Chief of staff for Sen. Edward Kennedy (1978 to 1980)
• While working with the Feinberg Group, donated over $150,000, nearly all of which has gone to Democratic candidates and political action committees. In 2007, donated $2,300 to 2008 presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani (R).
23. Regulatory Czar - Cass R. Sunstein *
Title: Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Office of Management and Budget head Peter Orszag
Appointed: January 2009
Nomination was sent to Senate on April 20, 2009 - no action yet taken
Agency that might have handled similar issues: OMB
• Will be responsible for reviewing draft regulations and assessing their costs and benefits
• Is a Harvard Law School professor; prior to that, was a professor at the Univ. of Chicago Law School (1981-2008)
• Academic specialties: constitutional law, administrative law, and regulatory policy
• Obama: "Cass is not only a valued advisor, he is a dear friend"
• Known for advancing a field called "law and behavioral economics" that seeks to shape law and policy around the way research shows people actually behave; though embraced by conservatives, critics say it fails to account for the sometimes less-than-rational aspects of human behavior.
• 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.
24. Science Czar - John Holdren
Title: Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology
Salary: unknown
Reports to: President Obama
Appointed: December 2008
Confirmed by Senate: March 19, 2009
Agency or department that might have handled similar issues: Energy
• Top adviser to Obama on science and technology, issues that are increasingly relevant to other issues such as homeland security, energy and environmentalism
• Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy and Director, Program in Science, Technology, and Public Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government (1996-2009); Harvard University Professor of Environmental Science and Public Policy (1996-2009); University of California, Berkeley Professor of Energy and Resources Emeritus (1996 to present)
• Studied aerospace engineering and plasma physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — where he earned his BS and MS — and Stanford University, where he received his doctorate in 1970
• 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."
25. Stimulus Accountability Czar - Earl Devaney
Title: Chair of the Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Vice President Biden
Appointed: February 2009
Agency that might have handled similar issues: OMB
• Leads oversight board that monitors money spent by the stimulus package
• Experience: Inspector General at the Interior Department (1999 to present); Director of criminal enforcement at the Environmental Protection Agency (1991 to 1999); Special Agent at the Secret Service (1970 to 1991)
• During his tenure at Interior, uncovered the shady dealings of disgraced ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, an investigation that eventually led to Abramoff's imprisonment and the resignation of Interior's no. 2, J. Steven Griles, for lying under oath about his own role in the scandal.
• On July 8, 2009, the U.S. General Services Administration issued a press release announcing an $18 million contract for a new recovery.gov web site, which quoted Devaney as saying, “We are pleased that another major milestone has been achieved."
26. Sudan Czar - J. Scott Gration
Title: Special Envoy to Sudan
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Appointed: March 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: State
• Will coordinate U.S. role in the aftermath of the genocide in Darfur
• Experience: Supreme Allied Command, NATO (2004 to 2005); Air Force assistant deputy undersecretary for international affairs (2003 to 2004)
• Commanded all air operations during the Iraq war in 2003
• 2006: left Air Force position to join Obama’s staff after traveling to Africa with the then-Senator from Illinois, even though he was a Republican
• Has won a Bronze Star, a Purple Heart, a Defense Superior Service Medal and 16 other awards
• Is a fluent Swahili speaker who grew up in the Congo
• Has called on the Obama administration to incentivize participation by the Sudanese government in peace talks by lifting sanctions, a position that is controversial. Also worked to position himself as the principal negotiator between the Sudanese government and its adversaries in Darfur, and is planning an international conference for September 2009
• Has M.A. in security studies from Georgetown
27. TARP Czar - Herb Allison
Title: Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner
Appointed: June 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Treasury
• Leads the government's $700 billion financial rescue program in the office of financial stability
• Veteran Wall Street banker and interim head of the mortgage-finance company Fannie Mae
• Worked at Merrill Lynch for 28 years, reaching position of president and COO
• Was CEO of Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association College Retirement Equities Fund (2002 to 2008); CEO of the Alliance for Lifelong Learning (2000 to 2002)
• Has undergraduate degree from Yale and MBA from Stanford
• 2000: was John McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign finance chairman
• In 2008, donated $2,300 to Obama's presidential campaign
28. Technology Czar - Aneesh Chopra
Title: Chief Technology Officer
Salary: unknown
Reports to: President Obama
Appointed: April 2009
Confirmed by Senate: May 21, 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Commerce
• Will lead in the effort to eliminate wasteful government programs
• Will probably work to increase broadband access nationwide and computerize medical records
• Was Virginia’s secretary of technology (2005-2009)
• Has degree in public health from Johns Hopkins, Master's from Harvard in public policy
• Worked at Morgan Stanley as investment banker; also worked at Advisory Board, a health-care research and consultancy firm
• Has donated more than $24,000 since 1997 to various campaigns. With the exception of a $1,000 donation to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) in 2004, all of Chopra’s contributions have gone to Democrats. From 2007 to 2008, Chopra donated $2,750 to Obama’s presidential campaign.
29. Terrorism Czar - John Brennan
Title: Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism
Salary: $172,200
Reports to: National Security Adviser James L. Jones
Appointed: January 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Homeland Security
• Under Obama's plan the homeland security adviser’s office would be eliminated, and the National Security Council would take over those duties. Brennan would be responsible for guarding against natural disasters and terrorism.
• Has called for increased integration between the Departments of Commerce, State and Defense
• Graduated from Fordham University in 1977 after a year of intensive Arabic and Middle Eastern studies in Cairo. Earned his J.D. from the University of Texas at Austin before joining the CIA as an intelligence director in 1980.
• Is a CIA veteran and fluent Arabic speaker
• Was CIA deputy executive director (2001 to 2003) and National Counter-Terrorism Center, Chair (2004 to 2005)
• Worked at Analysis Corp, (2005 to 2008);
• Staunch supporter of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Program; defended the use of extraordinary rendition, saying it is “an absolutely vital tool.”
30. Urban Affairs Czar - Adolfo Carrion Jr.
Title: White House Director of Urban Affairs
Salary: $158,500
Reports to: President Obama
Appointed: February 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Housing and Urban Development
• Job entails coordinating transportation and housing initiatives, as well as serving as a conduit for federal aid to economically hard-hit cities.
• Has undergraduate degree in world religions from Kings College; became an associate pastor at a Bronx church; earned his master’s degree in urban planning from Hunter College
• Was Bronx Borough President (2001-2009); President of the National Association of Latino Elected Officials (since 2007); City Council member (1998 to 2000)
• Many reporters say he has higher ambitions and will probably run for New York City mayor in the next ten years.
• Was an active campaigner for Obama, travelling across the country to speak on his behalf. He focused particularly on states with large Hispanic populations.
• 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.
31. Weapons Czar - Ashton Carter
Title: Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics
Salary: unknown
Reports to: Defense Secretary Robert Gates
Appointed: April 2009
Confirmed by Senate: April 23, 2009
Department that might have handled similar issues: Defense
• Will coordinate the Pentagon's acquisitions, technology and logistics for weapons.
• Will oversee a weapons-buying system that Obama has placed at the top of his list of federal programs he wants to fix and will be asked to quickly weigh in on difficult decisions concerning at least 10 major defense programs, while also instantly dissecting the procurement system’s ailments so he can advise the administration on its Pentagon acquisition reform agenda
• Is a physicist and Harvard academic whose only previous Pentagon stint was in a mid-level policy post from 1993 until 1996 under the Clinton administration
• Graduated from Yale summa cum laude; studied at Oxford University as a Rhodes scholar and earned a doctorate in theoretical physics.
• Chair of Harvard’s International Relations, Science & Security Area International Security Program within the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy (1993 to 1996); Director of the Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University’s Kennedy School (early 1990s)
• Has donated primarily to Democratic politicians since 2000. He donated $6,900 to then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) in 2007 and 2008. He gave the same amount to then Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) during that same span.
32. WMD Policy Czar - Gary Samore
Title: White House Coordinator for Weapons of Mass Destruction, Security and Arms Control
Salary: unknown
Reports to: National Security Advisor Gen. James L. Jones
Appointed: January 2009
Department or agency that might have handled similar issues: NSC; Defense; State
• Will coordinate issues related to weapons of mass destruction across the government. His portfolio includes proliferation, nuclear and conventional arms control, threat reduction, and terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction.
• Position sits within the National Security Council.
• Is a veteran arms control negotiator.
• B.A. in sociology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and his PhD in government from Harvard University in 1984.
• After brief stints with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the RAND Corporation, joined the State Department during the Reagan administration in 1987. Held several positions there, including director of the Office of Regional Non-proliferation Affairs; special assistant to the Ambassador-at-Large for Non-proliferation and Nuclear Energy Policy; and deputy to Ambassador-at-Large for Korean Affairs Robert Gallucci. Helped to negotiate the 1994 U.S.-North Korea Framework Treaty
• Joined the Clinton administration’s National Security Council in 1995 as an adviser on nonproliferation. Coordinated U.S. policy on nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
• Was Director, Council on Foreign Relations (2006 to 2009); Vice President for Global Security and Sustainability, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (2005); Researcher, International Institute of Strategic Studies (2001 to 2005)
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