Obama's Socialist Appointees - Where is the Spotlight?

New Zeal, Obama File 87

I.O. is very pleased to publish this and other articles by one whose research has been fundamental to exposing Barack Obama and the global movement, of which he is a key component. Trevor Loudon will be our guest on Sentinel Radio's "The Awakening," this Monday, 9/28, 9-11pm ET,,, 6-8pm PT (link, here).

by Trevor Loudon


I have written here, here, here , here, here, here, here, here, here ,here, here, here, here , here, here, here, here, here, and here about Barack Obama's long term association with Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

So what you say-they're "democratic" aren't they? they're only "socialists, not communists or militant radicals?

Some facts:

Quentin Young, Barack Obama, circa 2002

President Obama has close personal and political ties to several DSA members including Quentin Young, Timuel Black, the late Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf, the late Saul Mendelson, Lou Pardo, Congressman Danny Davis and DSA honorees Jackie Grimshaw, Jackie Kendall and Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky.

DSA's several thousand strong membership has grown incresingly militant over the years until the point its policies are almost indistinguishable from those of the Communist Party USA.

In an article in DSA's Democratic Left, Spring 2007, DSA National Political Committee member David Green wrote;

Our goal as socialists is to abolish private ownership of the means of production. Our immediate task is to limit the capitalist class’s prerogatives in the workplace...

In the short run we must at least minimize the degree of exploitation of workers by capitalists. We can accomplish this by promoting full employment policies, passing local living wage laws, but most of all by increasing the union movement’s power...

DSA has some cross membership with the Communist Party and considerable cross-membership with the the equally militant Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism.

DSA has close ties to many Congressman, including John Conyers, Danny Davis, Jan Schakowsky (all close Obama supporters) Jerrold Nadler and Bob Filner.

DSA has key personnel or allies at the top of AFL-CIO, SEIU, United Auto Workers, United Steelworkers of America and other major unions.

DSA has considerable influence in ACORN, Working Families Party, Green Party, Democratic Party, USAction, Jobs with Justice, Economic Policy Imstitute, Campaign for America's Future, Demos (which Obama helped found), Black Radical Congress and many other mass organisations, including some churches.

DSA is affiliated to the Socialist International which now includes several "former" communist parties-Mongolia, Mozambique, Bulgaria, Latvia, Belarus, Ukraine, Estonia, Angola, Hungary and Poland, as well as the Nicaraguan Sandinistas and the still-existing Communist Parties of Laos, Cuba and China ("observer" only).

Former DSA National Political Committee member Kurt Stand is currently serving a 17 year jail sentence for spying for the former East Germany and offering to spy for the South African Communist Party. His wife and co-conspirator Theresa Squillacote, a former Pentagon lawyer and a Committees of Correspondence member is serving 22 years.

Several DSA members have long term ties to the Washington based Institute for Policy Studies, which was linked, some years back to Soviet and Cuban intelligence offers and many third world revolutionary movements.

In 2006/7 several DSA leaders, including Paul Buhle, Barbara Ehrenreich and Bill Fletcher Jr held leadership roles in Movement for a Democratic Society-with leaders of the Communist Party USA, the Committees of Correspondence and four former key leaders of the terrorist Weather Underground, Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Jeff Jones and Mark Rudd.

Ehrenreich and Fletcher Jr, together with another two MDS leaders, Carl Davidson of Committees of Correspondence and Tom Hayden, went on to form Progressives for Obama.

Still think DSA is harmless, insignificant?

Next I list seven menbers of the Obama administration who have had some ties to DSA/Socialist international- ranging from paid up DSA membership, to signing a DSA petiton, to addressing one DSA sponsored event, to being related to a DSA member.

Some may be entirely innocent, but some may not.

Do any, or all warrant further investigation?

You judge.

Ron Bloom - Manufacturing Czar.

Ron Bloom, a socialist since his teens, has worked for several DSA linked organizations including SEIU, Jewish Labor Committee and United Steelworkers of America.

Bloom wrote in an article for the Fall 2006 edition of DSA's Democratic Left;

In today’s world the blather about free trade, free-markets and the joys of competition is nothing but pablum for the suckers.

David Bonior - Member of the Obama Economic Transition Team-now delegated by president Obama to negotiate the unification of the AFL-CIO and Change to Win labor federations.

Former Democratic speaker of the house David Bonior, has been linked to DSA for many years and had formally joined the organization by 2006.

David Bonior, Detroit DSA chair David Green, Douglass-Debs Dinner November 8th 2008

Detroit DSA celebrated the 10th Annual Douglass-Debs Dinner November 8th 2008 Co-chairs were United Auto Workers official Rory Gamble and International Union of Operating Engineers Business Manager Phillip Schloop. The Douglass-Debs Award winners were David and Judy Bonior...

David Bonior served in Congress for 26 years rising through the leadership to become the Democratic Caucus Whip. During his tenure in Congress, Bonior fought to raise the minimum wage, protect pensions, support unions, and extend unemployment benefits. He led the fight to oppose NAFTA in 1993.

He worked to prevent war in Central America in the 1980s and again to prevent the Iraq War in 2002. After leaving Congress, Bonior co-founded American Rights at Work, a labor advocacy and research organization, which has made passage of the Employee Free Choice Act its major legislative priority. Bonior was recently appointed to the Obama economic team.

In his remarks at the dinner, David Bonior stressed the importance of building social movements...to pressure the new Obama administration for bold progressive changes such as single-payer national health insurance, significant public investment in infrastructure and green technology, fair trade, progressive taxation, massive cuts in the military budget, ending the war in Iraq, and passing the Employee Free Choice Act.

Rosa Brooks - Senior advisor to the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Michele Flournoy.

Reportedly named after communist radical Rosa Luxemburg, Brooks is the daughter of prominent DSA member, Movement for a Democratic Society board member and Progressives for Obama founder, Barbara Ehrenreich.

Rosa Brooks is a well known "liberal" newspaper columnist and writer on defense and international relations.

Brooks has served as Special Counsel to the President at George Soros' Open Society Institute.

Carol Browner - Energy Czar/Director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy.

Until summer 2008 Carol Browner was a member of Socialist International Commission for a Sustainable World Society.

Carol Browner addressing SI 13th Congress, Athens, Greece June 30th 2008 -Acting Now on Climate Change

The other US delegates to the Athens conference above were DSA leaders Frank Llewellyn, Corey Walker, George Roberts, David Duhalde, Alejandro Duhalde and Andrew Hammer.

In the 1970s Carol Browner worked for Citizen's Action, which was founded by former Students for a Democratic Society radicals, Steve Max and Heather Booth, both lateraffiliated to DSA.

Browner is also a financial supporter of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, a socialist, openly aligned with DSA.

Heather Higginbottom - Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, formerly with the Obama for America campaign

From 1999 to 2007, Higginbottom served as legislative director for Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts-who has a relationship to Boston DSA.

On October 30, 2001, while working for Senator Kerry, Heather Higginbottom addressed a Boston DSA organized forum "Welfare, Children and Families: The Impact of Welfare Reform".

Heather Higginbottom, William Julius Wilson, Dottie Stevens, Jack Clark and Robert J Haynes

Of those listed above Jack Clark was Boston DSA Chair , William Julius Wilson is a long time DSA affiliate and in 1996 addressed a DSA forum in Chicago with Barack Obama.

Robert Haynes is President of the Massachisetts AFL-CIO, with whom DSA works "frequently".



Samantha Power - National Security Council, as director for multilateral affairs.

After the 2008 presidential election, Power was a member of Obama's Transition Team, working for the Department of State.

In April 2003 Samantha Power signed her name to an open letter, initiated by prominent DSA member Leo Casey , calling for normalization of relations with Cuba.

The letter is in line with DSA and Communist Party aims to remove the trade embargo on Cuba. DSA uses the subtle approach of claiming that sanctions are actually encouraging Cuba to violate human rights, so that easing restrictions would make Cuban authorities more tolerant of dissent.

Democratic Left Against Cuban Repression

Below is a statement circulating among democratic left/socialist folks, largely by members of Democratic Socialists of America, condemning the recent trials and convictions of non-violent dissenters in Cuba.

The petition sharply criticized Cuba's poor human rights record, but shared the blame for Cuba's failures with "reactionary elements of the US administration..."

The democratic left worldwide has opposed the US embargo on Cuba as counterproductive, more harmful to the interests of the Cuban people than helpful to political democratization. The Cuban state's current repression of political dissidents amounts to collaboration with the most reactionary elements of the US administration in their efforts to maintain sanctions and to institute even more punitive measures against Cuba.

Many of the petition's 120 odd signatories were known members of DSA-including Theresa Alt, Dave Anderson, Stanley Aronowitz, Leo Casey, Bogdan Denitch, Bill Dixon, Nancy Fraser, Andrew Hammer, Richard Healey, Michael Hirsch, James Hughes, Maurice Isserman, Mark Levinson, Maxine Phillips, Michael Pugliese, Michele Rossi, Joseph Schwartz, Jason Schulman, Timothy Sears and Ian Williams.

Samantha Power is married to Obama regulatory "Czar" Cass Sunstein.

Hilda Solis - Secretary of Labor.

Before being appointed to her new role, Solis served on the board of American Rights at Work with several DSA supporters including David Bonior, then AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, labor economist Harley Shaiken and NAACP leader Julian Bond.

Hilda Solis was a keynote speaker at the DSA national conference "21st Century Socialism" in Los Angeles in November 2005.

Saturday evening delegates recognized the contributions of DSA vice chair and Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson, Occidental College sociologist and longtime DSAer Peter Dreier and insurgent California Congress member Hilda Solis who in turn provided in-depth perspectives of the political scene.

In June 2008, the Socialist International Migrations Committee held a Migrations Reform, Integration, Rights forum in Los Angeles.

DSA was represented by National Director Frank Llewellyn plus Duane Campbell and Dolores Delgado Campbell of DSA's Anti Racism and Latino networks.

Hilda Solis was formally represented by Elena Henry, a caseworker from Solis' East Los Angeles Office.

In 2008 Hilda Solis served on Barack Obama's National Latino Advisory Council alongside DSA honorary chair and SEIU vice president Eliseo Medina.

The seven officials profiled above include some of the most powerful and influential people in America today.

Several have the power to profoundly influence the future prosperity and security of the world's most powerful nation. Some have access to highly secret information.

The MSM practically went through Sarah Palin's underwear drawers when she sought the US vice Presidency. Why does the media not give Obama appointees, even a cursory level of scrutiny?

After the Van Jones fiasco, public faith in the Obama Administration's much vaunted vetting procedures are rock bottom.

Should the spotlight now shine on President Obama's socialist affiliated appointees?

If not, why not?

This article originally appeared in Trevor Loudon's blog, New Zeal.

The Compleat List of Czars

Updated, Monday, 8/17/2009

Drafting the fishy angles and curves of the czar regime of Barack the Destroyer. And here we thought we already had a government -- you know, the constitutional one.

The Compleat* List of Czars
in American Daughter, by Nancy Matthis

Bypassing the authority of Congress, Barack Obama rules through czars -- the beginnings of dictatorship:

1. Afghanistan-Pakistan (Af-Pak) czar, Richard Holbrooke
2. AIDS czar, Jeffrey Crowley [openly gay white man]
3. Auto recovery czar, Ed Montgomery
4. Behavioral science czar, position not yet filled
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, Linda Douglass [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 [who has a communist background]
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
32. Religion czar, aka God 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); openly gay founder of an organization dedicated to promoting pro-homosexual clubs and curricula in public schools]
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

Positions being planned:

1. Income redistribution czar
2. Land-use czar
3. Mortgage czar, formally "consumer financial protection czar" (source)
4. Radio-internet fairness czar
5. Student loan czar, to oversee a program of mandatory service in return for college money (source)
6. Voter list czar
7. Zoning czar

Obama has moved swiftly to concentrate power in the White House, bypassing the review of our elected representatives in Congress in most of the posts listed above. Even though cabinet positions are part of the executive branch, the cabinet secretaries must be approved by Congress, they are funded by Congress, and they can be called before Congress to testify. Most of these czars, on the other hand, are appointed by Obama at his sole discretion, and are answerable only to him. If subpoenaed by Congress, they can claim executive privilege.

Right after the election last November, Lowell Ponte of NewsMax published a tongue-in-cheek article that purported to be written eight years in the future, looking back on the Obama administration. Given the administration's current initiatives, the ominous prognostication seems frighteningly likely:

Looking back from 2016 on eight strange years of President Barack Obama's administration, we see that it has been nothing like what idealists believed they were electing in 2008.

The Obama years will be remembered in the Ministry of Truth's official history as the era of 1,000 czars, the elitist commissars he gave the power to rule by fiat in every sector of America's government, economy, and society.... And through their partisan power, Barack Obama became America's permanent caesar.

---

[This article is an update of our earlier post -- Obama's Imperial Court. It was created specifically to serve as a current reference list of czars with news links, since we have not found such a research tool readily available.]

References:

Concord Monitor -- Obama and his 32 czars

"The biggest problems that we're facing right now have to do with George Bush trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all. And that's what I intend to reverse when I'm president of the United States."

- Sen. Barack Obama, March 31, 2008

To say President Obama failed to follow through on this promise is an understatement. By appointing a virtual army of "czars" - each wholly unaccountable to Congress yet tasked with spearheading major policy efforts for the White House - the president has made an end-run around the legislative branch of historic proportions.... Vesting such broad authority in the hands of people not subjected to Senate confirmation and congressional oversight poses a grave threat to our system of checks and balances.

NewsFlavor -- The Obama "Czars"

These Czars are well paid, earning between $158,500 and $172,200, and using just the lower level of $158,500, this calculates to $5,072,000 annually.... These Czars are designing policies in our country, and are neither subject to congressional approval or oversight. They do what they want, when they want, and the public through its elected representatives have no recourse.

WorldNetDaily -- Obama's radical, anti-American czars

Among Barack Obama's 34 unaccountable "czars" are at least two whose radical roots and extremist views should disqualify them from service in government at any level – let alone as top advisers to the president.... John Holdren, his pick as top science adviser, is a population-control zealot who believes the Constitution justifies compulsory abortions on a massive worldwide scale. So much for the notion that radical abortion politics is ultimately about "choice."... Van Jones, the special environmental adviser to the White House, has an equally checkered past deep-rooted in radical politics, including black nationalism, anarchism and communism.

The Daily Beast -- Get to Know Obama's Czars

....maybe he just likes delegating, but President Obama has been appointing czars at a furious rate since taking office.... ...the czar-ness of various executive branch positions is somewhat ambiguous (one man’s czar is another man’s special assistant to the president)....

NoisyRoom -- Obama's Czars Listing UPDATED

Note from ADMC: While this list contains some inaccuracies, it has something none of the other sources offered -- a comprehensive list of duties associated with each position. Terrific piece of research by Terresa Monroe-Hamilton. (UPDATE 8/3/09, late evening: All inaccuracies have been corrected.)

IMAO -- Czar Czar Galore

The Obama Administration is not the first administration to appoint someone with broad powers to oversee a function. You know. A "czar." Previously, we've had Drug Czars, Energy Czars, and so on. But, Barack Obama has gone Czar crazy.

The Business Insider -- Obama's Czars: The Men Behind The Crown

UPDATE: Some clarification is needed about the "car czar." In mid-February, Obama created the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry, officially led by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers ("economic czar"). In practice, Wall Street hedge fund mogul and auto industry insider Steve Rattner was brought to Washington to spearhead operations -- his official title was Counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury -- and he was dubbed the "car czar" by the media.

Rattner orchestrated the amazingly fast restructuring of Chrysler and General Motors, but his brief service was plagued by unresolved allegations of his involvement in the New York State retirement fund kickback scandal, exacerbated by the fact that he was building a $15 million summer home on Martha's Vineyard as many Americans were losing their primary homes to foreclosure.

Ron Bloom, formerly a Wall Street investment banker who was familiar with the auto industry from serving as advisor to the United Steel Workers Union, was already working alongside Rattner on the task force. When Rattner left, Ron Bloom stepped into the job of Counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury vacated by Rattner, leading many to call him the new car czar.

But the "heavy lifting" of the task force had already been done in the restructuring of the car manufacturers, and the emphasis now shifted to the recovery of the auto industry. That is the responsibility of Ed Montgomery, whose official title is Director of Recovery for Auto Communities and Workers. And unlike Rattner, who nominally reported to a Cabinet Secretary subject to Congressional review, Montgomery is a true "czar" who reports directly to the President, is not subject to vetting, and enjoys executive privilege.

We could resolve this ambiguity in the "czar list" as follows:

• Ron Bloom, car czar


• Ed Montgomery, auto recovery czar

but we may not hear a lot about Ron Bloom going forward, while the work of Montgomery will remain in focus. Bottom line: Ron Bloom got Steve Rattner's actual job, but Ed Montgomery inherited the media mantle of "car czar."

___________________
* The spelling of the title is a literary allusion to The Compleat Angler by Izaak Walton, circa 1653, a staple of English literature. The variant spelling "compleat" signifies "quintessential," the be all and end all, the last word.

Thank you, American Daughter.
Is this preparing the way for a replacement government, when the "disruption" of America is... compleat?