Invasion of the Czars

,
According to the most recent count in Politico, with the resignation of the red green czar Van Jones, the White House still has 30 czars in its stable (12 more than Russia which had but 18 Romanov czars):

Afghanistan Czar: Richard Holbrooke
AIDS Czar: Jeffrey Crowley
Auto recovery Czar: Ed Montgomery
Border Czar: Alan Bersin
California Water Czar: David J. Hayes
Car Czar: Ron Bloom
Central Region Czar: Dennis Ross
Domestic Violence Czar: Lynn Rosenthal
Drug Czar: Gil Kerlikowske
Economic Czar: Paul Volcker
Energy and Environment Czar: Carol Brower
Faith-Based Czar: Joshua DuBois
Great Lakes Czar: Cameron Davis
Guantanamo Closure Czar: Daniel Fried
Health Czar: Nancy-Ann DeParle
Information Czar: Vivek Kundra
International Climate Czar: Todd Stern
Intelligence Czar: Dennis Blair
Mideast Peace Czar: George Mitchell
Pay Czar: Kenneth Feinberg
Regulatory Czar: Cass Sunstein
Science Czar: John Holdren
Stimulus Accountability Czar: Earl Devaney
Sudan Czar: J. Scott Gration
TARP Czar: Herb Allison
Terrorism Czar: John Brennan
Technology Czar: Aneesh Chopra
Urban Affairs Czar: Adolfo Carrion Jr.
Weapons Czar: Ashton Carter
WMD Policy Czar: Gary Samore

All of them work out of the White House and report directly to the President and none have been through the confirmation process, a process that would have weeded out Van Jones and a number of others who represent views anathema to the voters. (Cass Sunstein comes to mind, for example.)

But Senator Byrd made some very good points about Obama's overall misuse of his prerogatives: As he noted:

• (a) They are not accountable to the Cabinet members in their areas of control;
• (b) They rarely testify before Congress on data informing their decisions, their policies or their views.

Senator Byrd argued, in sum, that they were powerful, their work opaque and the means for holding them accountable for their acts or even for Congress to oversee their work were not apparent. Were I in Congress, I'd demand that funds for these posts be cut off until a better system for scrutiny and accountability is offered and agreed upon.

In the absence of oversight and Congressional scrutiny of this powerful inner circle in the White House the entire system of Constitutional checks and balances is meaningless...

READ MORE

image toon 1st fnn sclm bbro libs reps = Job board = all CZAR positions