Posted by CrabbyCon on June 10, 2009 · Leave a Comment
Last time I checked, czars did not have the best track record throughout history… i.e. Ivan the Great; from his biography:
Other events of this period include the introduction of the first laws restricting the mobility of the peasants, which would eventually lead to serfdom, and change in Ivan’s personality, traditionally linked to his near-fatal illness in 1553 and the death of his first wife, Anastasia Romanovna in 1560. Ivan suspected boyars of poisoning his wife and of plotting to replace him on the throne with his cousin, Vladimir of Staritsa. In addition, during that illness Ivan had asked the boyars to swear an oath of allegiance to his eldest son, an infant at the time. Many boyars refused, deeming the tsar’s health too hopeless to survive. This angered Ivan and added to his distrust of the boyars. There followed brutal reprisals and assassinations, including those of Metropolitan Philip and Prince Alexander Gorbatyi-Shuisky.
So what exactly is a czar by definition?
1. an emperor or king.
2. (often initial capital letter) the former emperor of Russia.
3. an autocratic ruler or leader.
4. any person exercising great authority or power in a particular field: a czar of industry.
It can certainly be assumed that definition #4 is the one being used by the White House, but much could be argued that the eventual role of these czar will be autocratic authority over that industry. There is nothing Democratic about czars or those with absolute power.
Why don’t we use all the retread titles of the past? Fuhrer, Emperor, Ruler, King, or Potentate?
Obama is appointing czars as quickly as the House Wives of new York charge their American Express cards. The latest czar picks (why do I feel like this is an NFL draft?) are for Executive Pay, Health & Wellness, and next on the list: Meditation…? By the end of this we all may be living on some hippie commune practicing yoga, drinking green tea, eating organic fruits and vegetables that we planted, and using cow farts to power our electricity (after taxes of course). This is just sheer insanity. The government wants to control every aspect of our lives whether it’s how we relax, eat, smoke, drink, exercise, get paid, etc. I don’t see where in the constitution it allows for such obtrusion into our lives.
Here is some information on the Executive Pay Czar:
The Obama administration on Wednesday appointed a compensation czar who will have broad discretion to set the pay for 175 top executives at seven of the nation’s largest companies, which received hundreds of billions of dollars in federal assistance to survive.
The mandate given to the new compensation official, Kenneth R. Feinberg, a well-known Washington lawyer, reflects the federal government’s increasingly intrusive role in the corporate affairs of deeply troubled companies. From his nondescript office in Room 1310 of the Treasury building, Mr. Feinberg will set the salaries and bonuses of some of the top corporate executives in America, including Kenneth Lewis, the chief executive of Bank of America; Vikram Pandit, the head of Citigroup, and Fritz Henderson, the chief executive of General Motors.
The compensation of executives at some of the companies receiving aid provoked a firestorm of political outrage earlier this year. In revising an earlier proposal to set pay limits, the Obama administration has decided to take an approach that will leave the success or failure of the effort to curtail high compensation at the assisted companies in the hands of Mr. Feinberg. (Mr. Feinberg himself will not receive any government compensation.)
Instead of deciding compensation levels himself, the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, decided to appoint Mr. Feinberg, a well-known mediator whose last high-profile assignment was putting a financial value on the lives of victims of the 9/11 attack, to decide the pay for the top 25 executives at the American International Group, Citibank, Chrysler, Chrysler Credit, General Motors, GMAC and Bank of America.
Just what America needs, another lawyer running things! This lawyer is only accountable to Obama and not “the people” and when a particular individual is establishing pay caps it can most definitely result in conflicts of interest and corruption. Not like that would be any different from the current political elite we have.
The Health Czar:
President Barack Obama eats his vegetables and exercises every day — and he really wants you to do the same.
From the White House garden to his picks for top health jobs, Obama is telling America’s McDonald’s-loving, couch-dwelling, doctor-phobic populace that things are about to change.
Don’t be fooled by the presidential burger runs. Obama and Congress are moving across several fronts to give government a central role in making America healthier — raising expectations among public health experts of a new era of activism unlike any before.
Any health care reform plan that Obama signs is almost certain to call for nutrition counseling, obesity screenings and wellness programs at workplaces and community centers. He wants more time in the school day for physical fitness, more nutritious school lunches and more bike paths, walking paths and grocery stores in underserved areas.
The president is filling top posts at Health and Human Services with officials who, in their previous jobs, outlawed trans fats, banned public smoking or required restaurants to provide a calorie count with that slice of banana cream pie.
Even Congress is getting into the act, giving serious consideration to taxing sugary drinks and alcohol to help pay for the overhaul.
I really hope he appoints Richard Simmons as one of, if not THE, czar. Wagyu beef required for everyone!
And the soon to be named Yoga Czar:
Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) says he’s found a cost effective way to address chronic pain, stress, and other illnesses: meditation.
Ryan is urging policymakers to consider adding “mindfulness education”–learning to reduce one’s own stress level–to healthcare reform legislation.
“Every day, I meditate for at least 45 minutes before leaving home in the morning,” Ryan wrote on his website. “I find it makes me a better listener, and my concentration is sharper. I get less distracted when I’m reading. It’s like you see through the clutter of life and can penetrate to what’s really going on.”
At a hearing last week, Ryan asked HHS Secretary Kathleen [Sebelius] to keep in mind the positive effects of mindfulness when re-working the nation’s healthcare system…
…”I think it’s a prevention strategy that I know has the potential of paying huge dividends,” Sebelius said.
My additional suggestion for a czar is Tommy Chong for weed czar – this would help our economy as well as “like, totally relax us, man” – His official title: Joint Chief of Grass.
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Posted by CrabbyCon on April 30, 2009 · Leave a Comment
Last Tuesday evening, Rahm Emanuel quietly slipped into an eighth-floor office at the Watergate.
Watergate…That may be an omen!
As white-jacketed waiters poured red and white wine and served a three-course salmon and risotto dinner, the White House chief of staff spent two hours chatting with some of Washington’s top journalists — excusing himself to take a call from President Obama and another from Hillary Clinton.
Meanwhile, the rest of us are hoping to keep our jobs and have to watch family and friends lose theirs and try to balance a budget and pay their bills.
For more than a year, David Bradley, the Atlantic’s soft-spoken owner, has hosted these off-the-record dinners at a specially built table in his glass-enclosed office overlooking the Potomac. And the guests, from Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to Jordan’s King Abdullah II, are as A-list as they come.
That’s what it’s all about now anyway, why report the news? We all just want to be celebrities and on the A-List (remind anyone of those needing to be popular in high school?)
“It’s just a joy for me,” Bradley says. “These are reflective, considered conversations, which is hard to do when you’re going after headlines for the next day’s publication.” While the guests seem quite open, says the businessman who bought Atlantic a decade ago, he is new enough to journalism “that I can’t tell the difference between genuine candor and deeply rehearsed candor.”
Emanuel says he enjoyed the chance to “put aside the adversarial. . . . I tried to be honest and frank and hope they felt that way. They want context, they want thinking. You’re not selling, you’re presenting.”
When has anyone in Obama’s administration presented…without a teleprompter that is? Their entire shtick is a marketing campaign so of course they are selling.
Still, the catered gatherings also sound rather cozy, like some secret-handshake gathering of an entrenched elite. Are the top-level officials, strategists and foreign leaders there for serious questioning or risk-free spin sessions? And what exactly is the journalistic benefit if the visitors are protected by a shield of anonymity?
Among those in regular attendance are David Brooks and Maureen Dowdof the New York Times, Gene Robinson and Ruth Marcus of The Washington Post, NBC’s David Gregory, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, PBS’s Gwen Ifill, the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer, Vanity Fair’s Todd Purdum, former Time managing editor Walter Isaacson and staffers from Bradley’s Atlantic and National Journal, including Ron Brownstein, Andrew Sullivanand Jonathan Rauch.
Glad to see the “Elected Conservatives” of the Democrats, traitor Maureen and faux Brooks, were there to represent what it is we definitely are not. I’m also happy to see that Andrew Sullivan of the Daily Dish was there, you know, the guy who started the whole Trig Trutherism? Sick! If you lambaste a real conservative you get invited to these wonderfully expensive dinners, most likely brought to you by the taxpayer dollar.
Politicians have been sharing off-the-record meals and drinks with reporters roughly forever. During the transition, Obama attended a three-hour dinner with conservative “conservative” columnists at George Will’s Chevy Chase home.
George Will – another fake conservative! It is so incredibly obvious how the establishment played a big part in this past election as well as many others. The media is as much a part of the establishment as the politicians on Capitol Hill. It’s sickening how intolerant they are of anyone who does not “fit-in.” Like, I said in “The Establishment Hates Rocking the Boat,” look for those on the outside, not those who are part of the establishment or could be easily swayed into being part of it – those outsiders are the ones you want in the White House, they will change the way things are done and turn this country back around heading towards a Republic again, not an Oligarchy.
The Bradley dinners are different because of their regular nature — a floating group of 12 to 16 journalists, with specialists added depending on the subject matter — and the rarefied level of access. Others who have dined include General Electric chief executive Jeffrey Immelt, former Bush White House aide Karl Rove, Gen. David Petraeus, White House economic adviser Larry Summers, former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Bradley always begins the questioning and tries to maintain a civil tone, while the journalists tend to pursue their favorite subjects. At the dinner with Emanuel, who waved off the shortcake dessert, participants said that Brownstein asked about health-care reform, Goldberg pushed on Iran and Mayer pressed him about torture techniques in terror interrogations.
I love how the elite, who have no concept of what it means to be an average American, discuss these important topics as if it were a board game or some type of “would you rather” or “truth or dare game.” The elite, as they have always done, just sit around playing with other peoples’ lives – because they seem to always think they know what is best. If we look back into history, how has that played out?
“The hard truth is that what may be acceptable in elite culture may not be acceptable in mass culture, that tastes which pose only innocent ethical issues as the property of a minority become corrupting when they become more established. Taste is context, and the context has changed.” ~ Susan Sontag
The networks have given President Obama more coverage than George W. Bush and Bill Clinton combined in their first months — and more positive assessments to boot.
I wonder why!? Could it be all the fancy dinners he invites them to? Or maybe the following quote can enlighten some:
“Only the mob and the elite can be attracted by the momentum of totalitarianism itself. The masses have to be won by propaganda.” ~ Hannah Arendt
In a study to be released today, the Center for Media and Public Affairs and Chapman University found the nightly newscasts devoting nearly 28 hours to Obama’s presidency in the first 50 days. (Bush, by contrast, got nearly eight hours.) Fifty-eight percent of the evaluations of Obama were positive on the ABC, CBS and NBC broadcasts, compared with 33 percent positive in the comparable period of Bush’s tenure and 44 percent positive for Clinton. (Evaluations by officials from the administration or either political party were not counted.)
On Fox News, by contrast, only 13 percent of the assessments of Obama were positive on the first half of Bret Baier’s “Special Report,” which most resembles a newscast. The president got far better treatment in the New York Times, where 73 percent of the assessments in front-page pieces were positive.
A striking contrast: Obama’s personal qualities drew more favorable coverage than his policies, with 32 percent of the sound bites positive on CBS, 31 percent positive on NBC and 8 percent positive on Fox.
This continues to disturb and disgust me. His personal popularity is high but people don’t like his policies? I don’t get it. I don’t understand how someone so out of touch with regular folks, implementing policies that will devastate this nation and kill the economy, is still popular!?
“It’s time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the Founding Fathers. James Madison said, “We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government.” This idea that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power, is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man’s relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. (October 27, 1964)” Ronald Reagan
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Filed under Corruption, Double Standards, Media, Obama, Obama Administration, Politicians, Socialism · Tagged with Bias, Corruption, Dinners, Double Standards, Elite, Media, Obama, Obama Administration, Politburo, Rahm Emmanuel, Snobbery, Socialism, Totalitarianism
