Czars Are Not Good

The czars that the Obama administration has appointed are undertaking tasks that they are not Constitutionally able to enforce and it is troubling that this administration and Congress believe there is nothing wrong with the idea. Appointed advisers, or czars, are not new with President Obama, they were in place long before him. However, he has taken the position to new levels.

The problems with the czars? They are not approved, like other cabinet and administration appointments, by the Senate. So they are not vetted or is there investigation and discussion on their merits and their shortcomings before a panel. They are simply appointed.

This week, companies that received TARP funds were told by the "Pay Czar" Kenneth Feinberg that he was cutting executive compensation by an average of 50%. Read about it in the Wall Street Journal here.

Two different thoughts on this -

1. If you are a company that accepted bailout TARP money then you know that you had just sold your soul to the devil. In an open market you would have folded but you effectively gave up your control to the federal government. You had to know that something like this would come. Brilliant PR strategy by the White House on this move but with a good chance at backfiring on them.
2. This position of this czar is so ripe for corruption due to the large amounts of money involved not only in the compensation of these executives but the fortune of many mega companies that are affected when talent leaves the firm if they don't feel like they are being rewarded for their hard-work. You could be on the side of the affected company and watch your talented executives leave - so you do anything you can to stop that, including making donations to certain campaign funds. Or you could be on the side of the competition - you would love to see the brain drain from your competitor. So you make deals and contributions. This administration has shown a propensity for having more skeletons in their closet in the first year than the previous 6 administrations combined.

Nowhere is the idea of a czar considered Constitutionally sound, it is independent of any branch and has no oversight.

Get rid of the czars.

So 13,000 people die last year from the regular flu and nothing is ever mentioned but 1,000 people die this year from "the swine flu" and the Obama administration feels like it needs to declare an emergency? 120 million vaccinations promised by mid-October but only 12 million (10%) delivered?

When a state of emergency, like war, is declared by a government then it gains extra powers that it would not normally be granted in times of peace to become the "protector" of the people. A prime example of this is the Patriot Act that is still around that a all-Democratic Congress renewed this year. The Patriot Act is perhaps the most un-Constitutional piece of legislation since the establishment of the Federal Reserve and the income tax. Why isn't this state of emergency being considered at the state level? A central government with this much power is so dangerous.

Two other notes, why don't the Obama children get the vaccination? It's not available to them? Come on, give me a break. (Update 10/29/2009 - the Obama girls did get their shot, thanks to Christina for the story link). And a Democratic Congress and Democratic President are cowards for attaching an incredibly short-sighted hate crimes bill to the Defense bill that was signed today. It couldn't stand on its own so these cowards put it with legislation that they knew would pass. These men and women do not deserve to represent their people and if they are representative of their constituency, so help us God.

A Slave Currency

This is the Amero, it is the proposed monetary unit that will take the place of the dollar and the peso if President Obama and his friends have their way. There has been several mentions of a new global currency this week at the UN and the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh. It is the same concept as the Euro, the currency of those countries that are part of the European Union.

So why is this so important? And why do we care?

If we lose the dollar, which we are currently in the process of doing as China continues to buy up American debt at an astounding rate, then we lose our national sovereignty. We lose our identity. We lose any independence we have and tie ourselves unwillingly to the fortunes of Mexico, Canada, and other Latin American countries that have nowhere near the economy, infrastructure, or freedoms that you and I enjoy here in America.

We may as well burn the Constitution as its rights will be superseded by those in some form of a union treaty. When the EU became a reality, all member countries agreed to be governed by EU laws that trumped those of the individual country. Now any law that is made in an EU country is subject to laws made by the EU. Court judgments that are made in the country can be overturned by the EU courts. Are our interests and situations the same as Mexico's? No, not at all.

The global currency is another step on the way to allowing the UN to be the world government and the US losing everything that it has. Please elect leaders this fall who will follow the Constitution.

Solutions to Health Care

I read the transcript of Ron Paul's comments to Congress yesterday and I loved them. They made so much sense in the health care debate.

Forget the public option. Forget the awful plans put forth by Max Baucus and my very own Bob Bennett. They don't solve the problem, they only further government control of aspects of our lives that should be left up to the patient and free market.

Like Congressman Paul states, health care is not a right, just as education is not a right nor is a job a right. Those things shouldn't be provided by the government but by the free market. The federal government needs to get out of the way.

Read the article here.

Obama and the World Order

President Obama gave another 'historic' speech at the United Nations this morning and talked about how America cannot go it alone. The AP called the speech blunt in tone, although he said he wants "a new era of engagement based on mutual interest and mutual respect". Kind of like imposing those new high tariffs on Chinese products.

Through all of this talk he spoke about working together for the common good of the world but there was one very disturbing statement he made.

In an era where our destiny is shared, power is no longer a zero-sum game. No world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will succeed. That is the future America wants.

No, America does not want a new world order, we are firmly opposed to such a concept. That may be the socialist utopia that President Obama envisions but that is not what the Founding Fathers wanted nor what the American people want. Mr. President, you represent us, not the Saul Alinsky's and Noam Chomsky's of the world who think we can all band together in a la-la land of love and happiness. We love our national sovereignty, we fight for it and sacrifice for it. We will not give in to a world order that you spoke about.

Remember, this is coming from a man who also claimed that climate change was more important than economic recovery, that the days of America dragging its feet on this issue are over.

Yes, they are over, Mr. President. Climate change hoopla is NOT more important than several of the other issues we are working on.

One more thing- remember that promise last fall during the campaign to sit down and talk with President Ahmadinejad of Iran over the conflict? Hey, he was in the room with you? Did you guys sit down and have a beer together to talk about your differences? Shoot, it looked good when you tried to do it with that cop from Boston a couple of months ago . . .

It's Ovah! Isn't it?

The Obama administration announced last week that the economic depression is over! Based on what? That not as many people are losing their jobs as were last month? The national unemployment rate is still very high - 9.7% and is expected to top 10% in 2010. Congress will now extend unemployment benefits (for the third time) another 13 weeks.

Some kind of turnaround you are taking credit for, Mr. President.

Now President Obama has announced that he will impose high tariffs on some Chinese imports, sparking another preventable trade war. Only this time it isn't with Canada. It is with our biggest trading partner.

And the one who owns 1/3 of our national debt. China continues to buy up US national debt at an astounding rate.

So if the US starts the trade war, China will end it very quickly by devaluing the dollar and making our currency worth next to nothing.

Yeah, that is a great victory over the recession.

Ron Paul wrote an excellent article on this, read it here.

Mr. President, don't do this. Please reconsider this move. We should be able to trade freely with all but avoid entangling alliances. This is what happens when we don't.

Martial Law and the Threat of Quarantine

For decades there has always been the threat of suspending the Constitution and the declaration of martial law to impose the government's will on the people. We have seen several instances of that through the years, the latest being the suspension of law in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.

When is the next opportunity to do something like this? The US faces the threat of quarantine over the perceived deadliness of the swine flu. If people are quarantined to their homes for a matter of weeks, this can be enforced through law enforcement/military involvement and the declaration of martial law because of a pandemic that would "threaten" to wipe out large swathes of the population.

Don't fall for this and be very careful as we move forward with the coming of winter. Please ensure that you have supplies to be self-sufficient for several weeks without access to food, water, fuel, power, and outside contact.