The Glade 4.0

With the resignation of Van Jones, I wanted to see exactly how many Czars have been created by this adminstration. I'm a little shocked.

1, Afghanistan-Pakistan (Af-Pak) czar, Richard Holbrooke

2. AIDS czar, Jeffrey Crowley

3. Auto recovery czar, Ed Montgomery

4. Behavioral science czar, position not yet filled (Gates is rumored to have been considered if the incident polls favorably in resolution)

5. Bailout czar, Herbert Allison Jr., [replaced Bush bailout czar Neel Kashkari, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability confirmed by Senate]

6. Border czar, Alan Bersin

7. Car czar, Ron Bloom [Counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury , under Senate oversight]

8. Climate change czar, Todd Stern

9. Copyright czar, not appointed yet

10. Counterterrorism czar, John Brennan

11. Cybersecurity czar, position will be vacant on August 21st [upon the departure of Melissa Hathaway]

12. Disinformation czar, [This is a new media buzz since our earlier list, a response by pundits to the White House request for informants: see Glenn Beck and Lew Rockwell]

13. Domestic violence czar, Lynn Rosenthal

14. Drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske

15. Economic czar, Larry Summers

16. Economic czar number two, Paul Volcker

17. Education czar, Arne Duncan

18. Energy czar, Carol Browner

19. Food czar, Michael Taylor [a former Monsanto executive, or, the fox in charge of the henhouse]

20. Government performance czar, Jeffrey Zients

21. Great Lakes czar, Cameron Davis

22. Green jobs czar, Van Jones (recently stepped down)

23. Guantanamo closure czar, Daniel Fried

24. Health czar, Nancy-Ann DeParle

25. Infotech czar, Vivek Kundra [Shoplifted four shirts, worth $33.50 each, from J.C. Penney in 1996 (source). His last day in DC government was March 4 but on March 12 the FBI raided his office and arrested two staffers.]

26. Intelligence czar, Dennis Blair [Director of National Intelligence, a Senate confirmed position. He is a retired United States Navy four-star admiral]

27. Latin-American czar, Arturo Valenzuela (nominee) [although this post is referred to as a czar, he is nominatied to be Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs and so is subject to Senate confirmation. Voting on his confirmation was delayed to clarify his position on Honduras. Watch WaPo’s Head Count to track status of confirmation.]

28. Mideast peace czar, George Mitchell

29. Mideast policy czar, Dennis Ross

30. Pay czar, Kenneth Feinberg

31. Regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein [Married to Samantha Power, an Obama foreign policy advisor. Friend of Peter Singer.]

32. Religion czar, Joshua DuBois

33. Safe schools czar, Kevin Jennings [appointed to be Assistant Deputy Secretary of the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, a newly created post (that does not require Senate confirmation)

34. Science czar, John Holdren

35. Stimulus oversight czar, Earl Devaney

36. Sudan czar, J. Scott Gration

37. TARP czar, Elizabeth Warren [chair of the [Congressional Oversight Panel for the Trouble Assets Relief Program; note that Herb Allison is frequently called the TARP czar]

38. Technology czar, Aneesh Chopra

39. Trade czar, Ron Kirk

40. Urban affairs czar, Adolfo Carrion

41. War czar, Douglas Lute [retained from Bush administration, married to Jane Holl Lute, currently a Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security]

42. Water czar, David J. Hayes [a Deputy Interior Secretary and therefore subject to Senate oversight]

43. Weapons czar, Ashton Carter [actually Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics and so subject to Senate confirmation]

44. Weapons of mass destruction czar, Gary Samore


Considering what these folks are overseeing, I don't understand how they are allowed to operate without having to submit to hearings.

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

Border czar?! What the hell? Does Napolitano have too much work to do at DHS?

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The Dude abides.

Of course she does.

Making hard decisions is hard. Day at DHS Director's office:

"Yellow!


No, wait...


Orange!"

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

0.0

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Holy shitsnacks!

Not to reduce the level of concern for some of those positions, or the people chosen to "advise" on some subjects, but some of those listed as "czars" don't actually have any power, and I would equate them more to advisers than decision makers.

I think some people are going a bit wide in the definition.

Do any of them have any actual power?

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

Well what is power? Is it the latitude to act and make decisions autonomously? Or is advising an executive who can't possibly have the time to become well-informed on all matters, and who may just have to resort to trusting someone, also tantamount to power? This seems to me to have been an issue that was raised in previous presidencies as well.

Well, Bush not only had Czars, but *plenty* of regular advisers, especially from the extremist wing of the christian faith. I didn't see a lot of folks up in arms about that. What's with the double standards?

The president has the power to appoint advisers, congress does not have oversight on those advisers, and if I am not mistaken, that power is right there in the description of his office.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

For me personally, I don't care how many advisors/czars the president has. Those are a portion of the executive branch and serve at the leisure of the president to help make informed decisions on policy. You might make an argument for not appointing so many people that you're unnecessarily encumbered by sheer numbers - do we really need both AIDS and health advisors? Both Mideast policy and Mideast peace advisors? But that's more a pragmatic point than an opposition to the concept in general.

I tend to think of this as being part of our system of checks and balances. Having executive advisors submitting to hearings sounds a bit much; it'd be like compelling Senate subcommittees reporting directly to the oval office or the judiciary. I don't think interfacing between branches is particularly healthy at that level.

Racheal Maddow does a lovely job of dealing with this "current right wing conniption about Czars in government".
edit - Youtube embeds don't work anymore? Sadpanda.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8jPi-72D_0


edit - Yay. I agree with Jeryen.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

I don't care if he has "Czars". First of all, Czar is just a term dredged up to evoke a specific emotional reaction.

Secondly, the President was elected on the faith of the States to execute his office to the best of his ability. "Electing or appointing" Czars to "positions of power" is at the discretion of The President. If they are acting as advisers to him (even if they are basically handed this portion of his responsibility and told to make the decisions for him), it is at his discretion with which they do so. So therefore, he is still executing his Oath as he swore to do, but doing it through these so-called Tsars. It is akin to a foreman using his craft laborers, engineers etc to build a boiler; he is doing so, but through those under him. If the President acts on bad advice, he did so at his discretion which is his power to do so.

Thus, there is no reason these Tsars are a "bad" thing from a technical standpoint. However, they should not be allowed a salary paid for out of Public Treasury unless such provisions to pay them for such are passed into law. To pass such laws would require ratifying an Amendment to The Constituion, unless it is interpreted that the contracting of Tsars for their services is defined as part of the scope of Executive Power.

Yes, I realize their salaries total a payroll of probably less than 15 million or so. No, I do not care.

They are fine, but they should not be paid without the aforementioned actions.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

I don't think you could reasonably expect people to do the kind of work these positions must take for free.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

It doesn't matter if it's reasonable or not. It's not Constitutional.

And I'm not asking them to work for free, I'm asking them to do what is correct if they wish to be paid. Unless the USSC can make a case it's part of Article 2.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

Yes. The desire to stab them on the steps of the Senate.

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Funny that.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

That's interesting take Rafe.

The problem comes in two places.

Just because something's harmless doesn't make it legal. Does he have the legal ability to do this? one could argure legal precident on this granted. but no one's actually ever challenged it to my knowledge.

The second is checks and balance. Can the congress Impeach these Czars? Can the SCOTUS declare their actions unconsitutional and have them desist. Some people don't want to wait around until they do something to find out they or the administation is arguing they can't.

And since this is supposed to be the accountability and transparency era I'd certainly like some more of both on what they are doing and being paid and other such things.


That aside my problem isn't always with the concempt of these Czars as much as it is the positions they represent or have represented unrepentantly in the past. They paint a different picture of the President than the Centralist Post-partisan moderate that he ran as.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

But the Czars are employed (not in terms of financially employed, as I highlighted my contention with that) at the discretion of Obama,

In what tangible way is this different than him employing the knowledge he has accumulated over the course of his education or career in law? He employs the resources at his disposal at his discretion to execute the Office he has been sworn to. It is entirely his failure or success which he should keep in mind when choosing which resources to employ.

If Congress cannot impeach or check textbooks from which Presidents gained knowledge, then should it be able to do so from advisers? Granted, this is predicated on the idea that these "Czars" are not employed by the Federal Government or Public Treasury.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

I'm confused. Are you speaking hypothetically? The czars are government employees.

_________________
“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

See his previous posts on the matter of pay DFK!

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

In summary, I find nothing wrong with these so called Czars given that they function in the capacity as advisors. Even if The President allows them to function in his capacity in regards to matters of their alleged expertise, there is still nothing I find wrong about it. He is using his discretion to employ resources he thinks best execute his Office. In this way, I find no tangible difference between using Czars or any other resource. All that should matter is that he executes his oath to defend The Constitution.

However, these Czars cannot exist as government employees as no provisions exist in The Constitution to employ them on a payroll except if The Supreme Court can read this out of Article 2 of The Constitution:



The second clause of A2S2 (perhaps Cabinet member fall into here?) allows for appointment, but not the Czars I am hypothesizing, since it is still discretionary by Congress. Though, the court could make the case that such discretion is and has implicity belonged to The President.

Section 3 mentions making recommendations to the consideration of Congress as The President judges necessary and expedient. It seems plausible that so-called Czars could be instruments by which The President performs this function, though no allowance is made for their pay, of course.

In my mind, the Czars could be interpreted as The President calling up his uncle for good advice, should he trust the advice direct his action in a way that faithfully executes his Oath. Such is not that case them being publicly paid officials, except if the SCotUS made a case from Sections 2 or 3. Section 1 doesn't apply.

And take this with a grain of salt of course. I'm not a lawyer, much less extremely well verse in Constitutional Law, but I think The Constitution is a simple and straightforward enough document that all citizens should be able to understand every single character in it. After all, the citizens are the ultimate defenders of The Constitution, when distilled to its bare elements.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

If Obama would like to pay his advisors out of his own pocket, much like buying a refrence book, then have at it. However, funding for these individuals are buried in various agencies.

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

That is what I do have problems with. Even though the payrolls may only amount to pissing in the ocean when compared to the annual budget, it's not right.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

Well, reading Section 2 about 3 times just now tells me that theoretically if these positions are provided for by the law, they're constitutional if that same law also removes the duty/responsibility of the legislature to vet. Also, there is nothing that prevents them from being impeachable, though I don't think that has come up.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

What does the constitution say about compensation for the President, Senate, Congress, or the Supreme court?



Dunno.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

It says they do get paid:

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones