9/1/09 *Madmen in Control – While Rome Burned*
Nero fiddled.
Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (15 December AD 37–9 June AD 68), born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, also called Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus, was the fifth and last Roman emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Nero was adopted by his great uncle Claudius to become heir to the throne. As Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, he succeeded to the throne on 13 October 54, following Claudius's death.Nero's rule is often associated with tyranny and extravagance. He is known for a number of executions, including those of his mother and adoptive brother, as the emperor who "fiddled while Rome burned", and as an early persecutor of Christians.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero
Ironic, isn’t it?
That a man with the reputation of “tyranny and extravagance”, and a history of treachery,...
killing his Mother and Brother, “fiddling while Rome burned”, would carry the same job title of Caesar as the Czars, *who were called Dictators in FDR’s era*, in the Administration today?
(Czar/Tsar/Kaiser… all the same word)
And again, strangely enough, the Obama Administration’s “Czars” seem to have those same traits in common with the fabled Nero...
They are the kind of men that will “fiddle”… while America burns.
Madman #2 Cass Sunstein
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Tonight’s Madman (#2) is just that sort of “Czar”… Cass Sunstein.
This Chicago/Harvard law professor is our new “Regulatory Czar” and is now the head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.
What does that mean?
Why should we be concerned about what type of man Mr. Sunstein is, and what he believes?
The Wall Street Journal reported that “the post wields outsize power. It oversees regulations throughout the government, from the Environmental Protection Agency to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (*and everything in-between*). Obama aides have said the job will be crucial as the new administration overhauls financial-services regulations, attempts to pass universal health care and tries to forge a new approach to controlling emissions of greenhouse gases.”"“Sunstein will be another Obama “Czar” but will really be the chief regulator of what can or cannot appear on the internet….
http://citizenwells.wordpress.com/2009/07/23/cass-sunstein-obama-czar-information-and-regulatory-affairs-white-house-office-sunstein-quotes-us-constitution-sunstein-radical-ideas/
And also…
As amended by President George W. Bush's Executive Order 13,422, the Executive Order covers federal agencies' "guidance documents", in addition to regulations. The Order's stated purpose is to ensure that agencies, to the extent permitted by law, comply with the regulatory principles stated in Executive Order 12866 and that the President's policies are reflected in agency rules…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Information_and_Regulatory_Affairs
Mr. Sunstein is President Obama’s …enforcer.
He’s in charge of overseeing and ensuring compliance with Governmental regulations.
A sort of Bureaucratic rule-maker & knuckle-breaker, if you will.
And he answers to no-one but The President.
Not the House… not the Senate… not the Courts… not you… not me….
No-one.
So who is Cass Sunstein?
I believe that “By their fruits, you shall know them” (Matthew 7) and also by their stated beliefs and their words…
Scrump
Obama czar pick: 'Raving animal rights nut'
Nominee advocated hunting ban, giving creatures right to file lawsuits
Posted: July 24, 2009
12:00 am Eastern
© 2009 WorldNetDaily President Obama's friend and nominee for "regulatory czar" is a "raving animal rights nut" who has a secret agenda, according to one consumer group.
David Martosko, director of the Center for Consumer Freedom, told Fox News' Glenn Beck that Cass Sunstein, the Harvard Law professor nominated by the president to become the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, is a "raving animal rights nut" and devout disciple of Peter Singer.
Singer, a bioethics professor at Princeton University, is a leader in the animal rights movement. He has also argued that abortion should be permissible because unborn babies as old as 18 weeks cannot feel pain or satisfaction.
Singer once explained his belief that, "killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living."
In 1993, Singer said infants lack "rationality, autonomy and self-consciousness."
"Infants lack these characteristics," he said. "Killing them, therefore, cannot be equated with killing normal human beings, or any other self-conscious beings."
Martosko told Beck, "When you embrace this whole utilitarian idea, guess what else comes in the back door? Some animals, according to Singer, are worth more than some humans. A smart border collie, he says, is worth more, inherently, than a retarded child. … Cass Sunstein has embraced the whole enchilada. … He believes that animals should have some of the same rights as humans, in fact, greater rights than some people – including the right to follow lawsuits."
Sunstein has also supported outlawing sport hunting, giving animals the legal right to file lawsuits and using government regulations to phase out meat consumption.
The center quotes Sunstein's 2007 speech at Harvard University, where he argued in favor of "eliminating current practices such as … meat eating" and proposed: "We ought to ban hunting, I suggest, if there isn't a purpose other than sport and fun. That should be against the law. It's time now."…
According to the group, Sunstein was editor of the 2004 book "Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions" that said "animals should be permitted to bring suit, with human beings as their representatives … Any animals that are entitled to bring suit would be represented by (human) counsel, who would owe guardian-like obligations and make decisions, subject to those obligations, on their clients' behalf."
Martosko believes if Sunstein becomes "regulatory czar," he could "spell the end of animal agriculture, retail sales of meat and dairy foods, hunting and fishing, biomedical research, pet ownership, zoos and aquariums, traveling circuses, and countless other things Americans take for granted." …
"Americans don't realize that the next four years could be full of bizarre initiatives plucked from the wildest dreams of the animal-rights fringe."
As WND reported, Sunstein has also been an outspoken proponent of tough restriction on gun sales and ownership and what has been characterized as a "Fairness Doctrine" for the Internet." Sunstein also has argued in his prolific literary works that the Internet is anti-democratic because of the way users can filter out information of their own choosing…
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=104820
Cass Sunstein, Obama Czar, Information and Regulatory Affairs, White House office, Sunstein quotes, US Constitution, Sunstein radical ideas
July 23, 2009
Speaking about the US Constitution:“it is an imperfect document.” Barack Obama
“Why should we be governed by people long dead? … In any case, the group that ratified the Constitution included just a small subset of the society; it excluded all women, the vast majority of African Americans, many of those without property, and numerous others who were not permitted to vote.” Cass Sunstein
“we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.” Signers of The Declaration of Independence
I am not aware of Barack Obama or Cass Sunstein pledging their lives, their fortunes or their sacred honor to preserve the US.
“In the world of Obama there cannot be any dissent or criticism of the master designer (no, not God – President Barack Obama) and any attempts to impugn the Obama plans for “change” must be demolished. So if negativity comes from the internet , then of course the blogosphere must be added to litany of government control and censorship.
The recent Obama intended appointment of Cass Sunstein, a Harvard Law professor, to the position of head of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs is the next nail in the coffin of the First Amendment. In this position Sunstein will have powers that are unprecedented and very far reaching; not merely mind-boggling but with explicit ability to use the courts to stifle free speech if it opposes Obama policies. In particular, Sunstein thinks that the bloggers have been “rampaging out of control” and that “new laws need to be written” to contain them. Advance copies of Sunstein’s new book, “On Rumors: How Falsehoods Spread, Why We Believe Them, What Can Be Done,” have gone out to reviewers ahead of its September publication date, but considering the new position to which Sunstein is about to be appointed, the powers with which Sunstein will be endowed are very, very, troubling.
The Wall Street Journal reported that “the post wields outsize power. It oversees regulations throughout the government, from the Environmental Protection Agency to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Obama aides have said the job will be crucial as the new administration overhauls financial-services regulations, attempts to pass universal health care and tries to forge a new approach to controlling emissions of greenhouse gases.”"
“Sunstein will be another Obama “Czar” but will really be the chief regulator of what can or cannot appear on the internet. It is very scary that the person who will be in charge of public cyberspace believes that – “Whether you’re a blogger or the York Times or a Web hosting service – you should be held responsible even for what your comments say.” Currently you’re immune under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. “Reasonable people,” he says, “might object that this is not the right rule,” though he admits that imposing liability for comments on service providers would be “a considerable burden.”"
Read more:
http://www.rightsidenews.com/200907215607/homeland-security/obama-outrage-controlling-the-internet.html
I decided to find out more about this radical law professor with a long time association with Obama. Below are a collection of quotes attributed to Cass Sunstein.
It is beleived that these quotes are accurate.
Second Amendment
“Consider the view that the Second Amendment confers an individual right to own guns. The view is respectable, but it may be wrong, and prominent specialists reject it on various grounds.”
“The National Association of Broadcasters and others with similar economic interests
typically use the First Amendment in precisely the same way the National Rifle
Association uses the Second Amendment. We should think of the two camps as
jurisprudential twins.”
Hunting & Animal Rights
“We ought to ban hunting”
“[Humans’] willingness to subject animals to unjustified suffering will be seen … as a form of unconscionable barbarity… morally akin to slavery and the mass extermination of human beings.”
Free Speech
“A legislative effort to regulate broadcasting in the interest of democratic principles should not be seen as an abridgment of the free speech guarantee.”
“I have argued in favor of a reformulation of First Amendment law. The overriding goal of the reformulation is to reinvigorate processes of democratic deliberation, by ensuring greater attention to public issues and greater diversity of views.”
“Consider the “fairness doctrine,” now largely abandoned but once requiring radio and television broadcasters:
…[I]n light of astonishing economic and technological changes, we must doubt whether, as interpreted, the constitutional guarantee of free speech is adequately serving democratic goals. It is past time for a large-scale reassessment of the appropriate role of the First Amendment in the democratic process.”
Taxes
“In what sense in the money in our pockets and bank accounts fully ‘ours’? Did we earn it by our own autonomous efforts? Could we have inherited it without the assistance of probate courts? Do we save it without the support of bank regulators? Could we spend it if there were no public officials to coordinate the efforts and pool the resources of the community in which we live?… Without taxes there would be no liberty. Without taxes there would be no property. Without taxes, few of us would have any assets worth defending. [It is] a dim fiction that some people enjoy and exercise their rights without placing any burden whatsoever on the public fisc. … There is no liberty without dependency. That is why we should celebrate tax day …”
Second Bill of Rights
“My major aim in this book is to uncover an important but neglected part of America’s heritage: the idea of a second bill of rights. In brief, the second bill attempts to protect both opportunity and security, by creating rights to employment, adequate food and clothing, decent shelter, education, recreation, and medical care.”
“Much of the time, the United States seems to have embraced a confused and pernicious form of individualism. This approach endorses rights of private property and freedom of contract, and respects political liberty, but claims to distrust “government intervention” and insists that people must fend for themselves. This form of so-called individualism is incoherent, a tangle of confusions.”
“For better or worse, the Constitution’s framers gave no thought to including social and economic guarantees in the bill of rights.”
http://citizenwells.wordpress.com/2009/07/23/cass-sunstein-obama-czar-information-and-regulatory-affairs-white-house-office-sunstein-quotes-us-constitution-sunstein-radical-ideas/
Read more:
http://stopsunstein.com/media/pdf/Sunstein%20quote%20file.pdf
The Trouble with Cass Sunstein
By Matthew Vadum Tuesday, July 28, 2009
An animal rights fanatic is on track to become President Obama’s regulatory “czar.” That individual is the radical legal theorist Cass Sunstein who has argued that:your money doesn’t really belong to you because the government laid the foundations for your success;
Internet censorship is a good idea;
animals should be allowed to sue people;
the names of carbon dioxide emitters should be compiled as part of a “greenhouse gas inventory” and publicized to shame those emitters into changing their behavior; and
Americans’ support for property rights and freedom of contract is an “incoherent” form “of so-called individualism”…
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/13201
Obama's nominee for regulatory czar faces scrutiny
Cass Sunstein, selected to be Obama's regulatory czar, has labor activists and environmentalists digging into his record.
Reporting from Washington — Harvard Law School professor Cass R. Sunstein, a widely admired intellectual and friend of President Obama, has spent years delving into the obscure issues of regulatory law and behavioral economics.Though he is generally described as left of center, Sunstein's academic interests in regulation have led him to raise questions about the constitutionality of liberal favorites such as workplace safety laws and the Clean Air Act. He has embraced a controversial "senior death discount" that calculates the lives of younger people as having a greater value than those of the elderly.
Until recently such debates have taken place largely in the world of legal scholarship. But now that Obama has named Sunstein to serve as his regulatory czar, environmentalists and labor activists are digging into his voluminous body of work -- and wondering what policies might emanate from a man so dedicated to calculating the dollar value of every regulation.
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jan/26/nation/na-sunstein26
Obama's Regulatory Czar Likely to Set a New Tone
JANUARY 8, 2009
By JONATHAN WEISMAN and JESS BRAVIN
WASHINGTON -- Cass Sunstein, a Harvard Law School professor who pioneered efforts to design regulation around the ways people behave, will be named the Obama administration's regulatory czar, a transition official said Wednesday.
Mr. Sunstein, a friend of President-elect Barack Obama from their faculty days at the University of Chicago law school, will mark a sharp departure for the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Although obscure, the post wields outsize power…http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123138051682263203.html
Obama Outrage - Controlling the Internet
Written by Vincent Gioia
Tuesday, 21 July 2009 13:54
In the world of Obama there cannot be any dissent or criticism of the master designer (no, not God - President Barack Obama) and any attempts to impugn the Obama plans for "change" must be demolished. So if negativity comes from the internet, then of course the blogosphere must be added to litany of government control and censorship.
The recent Obama intended appointment of Cass Sunstein, a Harvard Law professor, to the position of head of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs is the next nail in the coffin of the First Amendment. In this position Sunstein will have powers that are unprecedented and very far reaching; not merely mind-boggling but with explicit ability to use the courts to stifle free speech if it opposes Obama policies
http://www.rightsidenews.com/200907215607/homeland-security/obama-outrage-controlling-the-internet.htmlStopping Sunstein
April 30th, 2009 by Matthew Vadum
Conservatives have launched a campaign to prevent Cass Sunstein, an obtuse law professor with no understanding of the U.S. Constitution, from becoming regulatory czar.The American Conservative Union started a website, Stop Sunstein, in an effort to keep the dangerous left-wing extremist out of the White House. More information on the radical legal theorist who believes the words of the Constitution are virtually meaningless is available at discoverthenetworks.org.
Here are some Sunstein gems:
Much of the time, the United States seems to have embraced a confused and pernicious form of individualism. This approach endorses rights of private property and freedom of contract, and respects political liberty, but claims to distrust “government intervention” and insists that people must fend for themselves. This form of so-called individualism is incoherent, a tangle of confusions.
– Cass R. Sunstein, The Second Bill of Rights: FDR’s Unfinished Revolution and
Why We Need it More Than Ever, Basic Books, New York, 2004, p. 3
A system of limitless individual choices, with respect to communications, is not necessarily in the interest of citizenship and self-government.
–Cass Sunstein, arguing for a Fairness Doctrine for the Internet in his book,
Republic.com 2.0 (Princeton University Press, 2007), p.137
http://www.capitalresearch.org/blog/2009/04/30/stopping-sunstein/
Source: Obama to name Sunstein his regulatory czar
By PHILIP ELLIOTT
Associated Press
January 17, 2009
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President-elect Barack Obama has tapped legal scholar Cass Sunstein as his administration's regulatory czar, a Democratic source said Friday.
Obama hired the Harvard law professor to run the White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, the administration's central approver of rules that has say over environmental policy, workplace safety issues and federal health care policies. All major agencies' rules will pass across Sunstein's desk, giving him great influence in the new administration…
http://www.gopusa.com/news/2009/january/0117_rules_czar.shtml
Green nudges: An interview with Obama regulatory czar Cass Sunstein
Posted 11:28 AM on 6 Apr 2009
by Josh Stephens
From deceptive advertising to misguided public policy to sheer bone headedness, Americans have no shortage of forces pushing them to make unwise choices. How else to explain Ding-Dongs? Or ruining a perfectly good planet?Legal scholar and avowed environmentalist Cass Sunstein, however, holds out hope that we, both individually and collectively, are not condemned to irrationality. In Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness (released in paperback last month), Sunstein and co-author Richard Thaler explain how enlightened “choice architecture” can close the gap between hedonism and wisdom though “libertarian paternalism”: a kind of minimalist interventionism designed to remedy some of the America’s greatest collective action problems.
“Nudges” impose no mandates. Instead, with canny combinations of framing, informing, and cheerleading, they can inspire free decisions to eat more broccoli, enroll in retirement accounts, and perhaps even rip apart fewer mountaintops. Though he was a mild-mannered law professor at Harvard at the time this interview took place, Sunstein recently became director of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. With Sunstein in the role of President Obama’s “regulation czar,” Americans should prepare to get nudged…
http://www.grist.org/article/2009-green-nudges-an-interview-with-obama-re/
U.S. regulatory czar nominee wants Net 'Fairness Doctrine'
Cass Sunstein sees Web as anti-democratic, proposed 24-hour delay on sending e-mail
Posted: April 27, 2009
8:41 pm Eastern
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=96301
Obama’s czars: Autocratic tyranny
August 18, 9:43 AM
Louisville City Hall ExaminerThomas McAdam
Writing in USA Today, Lurita Doan asks the question: Do we need Czars? She wonders:
• How will the president ensure that the various Czars' responsibilities do not duplicate the efforts and responsibilities of Senate-confirmed Cabinet members?
• How can accountability be ensured when so many responsibilities are divided among so many masters?
• Where's the funding for this new position and its accompanying infrastructure?
For Cabinet members, the arrival of yet another Czar competing for the president's attention reduces their influence. Perhaps even more important, the rapid proliferation of direct reports to the president is impossible to manage effectively.
The Los Angeles Times reports that Sen. Robert C. Byrd (Dem.,W.Va.) recently sent a letter to President Obama, voicing his concern that past White House staffers have assumed duties that should be the responsibility of officials cleared through the Senate confirmation process. "They rarely testify before congressional committees and often shield the information and decision-making process behind the assertion of executive privilege," Byrd wrote of past Czars and White House staffers in similar positions. At times, he said, one outcome has been to "inhibit openness and transparency, and reduce accountability." "The rapid and easy accumulation of power by White House staff can threaten the constitutional system of checks and balances," Byrd said….
http://www.examiner.com/x-3747-Louisville-City-Hall-Examiner~y2009m8d18-Obamas-czars--Autocratic-tyranny
Where does a czar's reign end and Congress' begin?
By Lurita DoanHere we go again. By my count, President Obama has appointed nearly three dozen czars to deal with myriad policy issues, from technology to restructuring the auto industry. Now, Congress is keen to add to the stable of existing czars yet another Slavic potentate, the insurance czar, who would be given sweeping new powers to oversee the medical insurance industry.
Czars are a terrible idea.
The old adage used to be that not everyone could be a chief. But in the Obama administration, everyone can be a czar. Each week, it seems, the president announces yet another one. Historically, there was only ever one omnipotent czar at a time. Obama's czars, in contrast, have neither autonomy nor clear authority and seem only to erode the statutory responsibilities of Senate-confirmed Cabinet members.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/08/column-where-does-a-czars-reign-end-and-congress-begin.html
By Nancy Matthis | Monday, August 3rd, 2009 at 6:05 am
[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.]
The 8/06/09 update reflects the impending departure of the cybersecurity czar, Melissa Hathaway, adds the new “disinformation czar” and clarifies the media caused ambiguity between the “auto recovery czar” and the “car czar”
- Afghanistan-Pakistan (Af-Pak) czar, Richard Holbrooke
- AIDS czar, Jeffrey Crowley [openly gay white man]
- Auto recovery czar, Ed Montgomery
- Behavioral science czar, position not yet filled
- Bailout czar, Herbert Allison Jr., [replaced Bush bailout czar Neel Kashkari, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability confirmed by Senate]
- Border czar, Alan Bersin
- Car czar, Ron Bloom [Counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury , under Senate oversight]
- Climate change czar, Todd Stern
- Copyright czar, not appointed yet
- Counterterrorism czar, John Brennan
- Cybersecurity czar, position will be vacant on August 21st [upon the departure of Melissa Hathaway]
- 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]
- Domestic violence czar, Lynn Rosenthal
- Drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske
- Economic czar, Larry Summers
- Economic czar number two, Paul Volcker
- Education czar, Arne Duncan
- Energy czar, Carol Browner
- Food czar, Michael Taylor [a former Monsanto executive, or, the fox in charge of the henhouse]
- Government performance czar, Jeffrey Zients
- Great Lakes czar, Cameron Davis
- Green jobs czar, Van Jones [who has a communist background]
- Guantanamo closure czar, Daniel Fried
- Health czar, Nancy-Ann DeParle
- 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.]
- Intelligence czar, Dennis Blair [Director of National Intelligence, a Senate confirmed position. He is a retired United States Navy four-star admiral]
- 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.]
- Mideast peace czar, George Mitchell
- Mideast policy czar, Dennis Ross
- Pay czar, Kenneth Feinberg
- Regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein
- Religion czar, aka God czar Joshua DuBois
- 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]
- Science czar, John Holdren
- Stimulus oversight czar, Earl Devaney
- Sudan czar, J. Scott Gration
- 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]
- Technology czar, Aneesh Chopra
- Trade czar, Ron Kirk
- Urban affairs czar, Adolfo Carrion
- War czar, Douglas Lute [retained from Bush administration, married to Jane Holl Lute, currently a Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security]
- Water czar, David J. Hayes [a Deputy Interior Secretary and therefore subject to Senate oversight]
- Weapons czar, Ashton Carter [actually Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics and so subject to Senate confirmation]
- Weapons of mass destruction czar, Gary Samore
- Income redistribution czar
- Land-use czar
- Mortgage czar, formally “consumer financial protection czar” (source)
- Radio-internet fairness czar
- Student loan czar, to oversee a program of mandatory service in return for college money (source)
- Voter list czar
- Zoning czar
http://frontpage.americandaughter.com/?tag=regulatory-czar
So Three Cows Walk into Court . . .
Animal-rights extremism in the Obama entourage is no joke.
by Wesley J. Smith
07/20/2009, Volume 014, Issue 41
Have you ever been sued by your cattle?
If the answer is yes, what was the outcome of that suit?
Have you received any correspondence or other communication from your herd's legal representatives threatening suit or seeking to redress any legal grievance?
If you think that's a ridiculous scenario, that animals suing their owners could never happen, think again. For years, the animal rights movement has quietly agitated to enact laws, convince the government to promulgate regulations, or obtain a court ruling granting animals the "legal standing" to drag their owners (and others) into court…
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/726xtosv.asp
Gird your blogs!
Posted: April 21, 2009
1:00 am Eastern
© 2009
Gird your blogs, because if liberals in Congress get their way, President Obama will have sole discretionary authority to shut down the Internet or critical parts of the Internet should he feel his presidency is being tested. Worse, under the guise of cybersecurity, Obama will essentially be granted the power to destroy free speech on the Web.
On April 1 of this year, Sens. Rockefeller, Snowe, Bayh and Nelson introduced bills S. 773 and S.778, collectively called the Cybersecurity Act, which would give President Obama dictatorial power over the Internet during a time of national crisis or emergency.
All of the bills' sponsors voted for the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 that prohibited organizations and individuals from running advocacy ads against candidates 60 days in advance of a general election. Now it seems these same people have conjured up a gag order for the Internet.
According to the current drafts, under the Cyber Security Act of 2009, the president may "declare a cybersecurity emergency and order the limitation or shut down of Internet traffic to and from any comprised federal government or United States critical infrastructure information system or network." He may also "order the disconnection of any Federal Government or United States critical infrastructure information systems or networks in the interest of national security."
Washington elite's message to you: "Shut Up, America!" – Brad O'Leary's new book about the effort to muzzle talk radio
What constitutes "cybersecurity emergency" or "critical infrastructure information system or network" is left completely up to the president to define. We know that the administration, according to Rahm Emanuel, never wants "a serious crisis to go to waste." …
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=95615
Scary times for free speech
Posted: May 15, 2009
1:00 am Eastern
Michael Savage was officially barred from entering the United Kingdom because Home Secretary Jacqui Smith doesn't like his opinions.
Rush Limbaugh was labeled a "traitor" and "terrorist" by a "comedienne" at the White House Press Correspondents Dinner. She also called for him to be waterboarded and wished for his death by kidney failure – all to the apparent amusement of Barack Obama.
Through a mandate of Congress, radio stations across the country began seeking out community activists to monitor their programming, which is expected to have a chilling effect on content and result in at least some license renewal challenges because of controversial talk.
Acting Federal Communications Chairman Michael Copps urged a 31-member "Diversity Advisory Panel" loaded with activists who detest the state of talk radio to "be bold" – to "make a real and lasting difference" in increasing minority and female ownership of the media and to act quickly. Henry Rivera – a longtime champion of the so-called "Fairness Doctrine" – serves as chairman of this censorship panel.
Don't be silent! Sign the petition to block government attacks on freedom of speech and freedom of the pressThe Senate Commerce Committee announced it was ready to hold confirmation hearings on the nomination of Julius Genachowski to be the new FCC chairman. He is known as a staunch advocate of "Net neutrality," another step in imposing censorship and government control of the Internet. He would have the government be the final arbiter in determining the content suitable for your blog or website.
The Senate Homeland Security and Government Oversight Committee held hearings on the confirmation of Cass Sunstein to be the "regulatory czar" for the Obama administration. He once proposed what can only be characterized as a "Fairness Doctrine" for the Internet including a notion for a mandatory 24-hour cooling-off period for sending angry e-mails. He has also appeared on short lists of Obama's potential Supreme Court nominees.
Congress is considering "investing" billions of dollars more in so-called "public broadcasting" – those entities that compete against private broadcasters and independent journalists though they are funded, aand thus controlled, by government.
Members of Congress are actually talking about bailing out failed newspapers – at least those that are perceived as being essential propaganda tools for Big Government.
Obama is considering establishing a new White House "cyber czar" under the National Security Council, while a bill in the U.S. Senate has been introduced to give the president the power to shut down the Internet in times of "national emergency."
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=98099
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cass_Sunstein
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.search&keywords=Cass+Sunstein&search_WND.x=14&search_WND.y=5
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…Strange Times Indeed
Scrump
Do you believe what you see on TV?
Have you ever seen the movie “Wag The Dog”?
Would you believe me if I told you that CNN, “The Most Trusted Name in News”,
FAKED coverage of The First Gulf War?
No?
Watch This…
CNN’s Hoax on America
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIZh1nm8Lzg
This "What's Happening" series of emails is something I'm putting together (most) each day to shed light on things not normally heard on TV.
If you want to be taken off the email list, let me know.
If you think any of this is important, spread it around.
Scrump
With Windows Live, you can organize, edit, and share your photos. Click here.
Hotmail® is up to 70% faster. Now good news travels really fast. Try it now.
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