About Cass Sunstein, Regulatory Czar

Animal rights activist and “social engineer”. Has argued that animals should be able to file lawsuits (represented by lawyers of course). Wants to “balance” the Internet.

- Is a Harvard Law School professor; prior to that, was a professor at the Univ. of Chicago Law School (1981-2008)

- Academic specialties: constitutional law, administrative law, and regulatory policy

- Known for advancing a field called “law and behavioral economics” that seeks to shape law and policy around the way research shows people actually behave; though embraced by conservatives, critics say it fails to account for the sometimes less-than-rational aspects of human behavior

- In his 2002 book, Republic.com, discussed the drawbacks of limitless choices on the Internet that allow people to seek out only like-minded people and opinions that merely fortify their own views; he talked about the idea of the government requiring sites to link to opposing views. He later came to realize it was a “bad idea.”

- In his 2004 book, Animal Rights, suggested that animals ought to be able to bring suit, with private citizens acting as their representatives, to ensure that animals are not treated in a way that violates current law.

- In a 2007 speech at Harvard he called for banning hunting in the U.S.

- The American Conservative Union started a website, Stop Sunstein, in an effort to keep him out of the White House

Duties include

- Reviewing draft regulations under Executive Order 12866, Regulatory Planning and Review

- Reviewing proposed collections of information under the Paperwork Reduction Act

- Developing and overseeing the implementation of Administration policies in the areas of (1) Statistical Policy, (2) Information Technology, (3) Privacy, and (4) Data Quality.

Salary: Unknown

Resources

Glenn Beck - Know Your Czars! on Cass Sunstein

Wall Street Journal on Cass Sunstein

Videos

About Joshua DuBois

Appointed at the age of 26 (Feb 2009)

Led the “National Fatherhood Tour”, despite not being a father.

Salary: $98,000

Resources

Who is Joshua DuBois? Here you Go (Black Christian News)

Excerpts:

Important Quotes

“Licenses are freely given to local stations to serve local communities, in exchange those stations make millions. Community service cannot be measured in advertising revenues and Neilsen ratings. And to let the local broadcasters get away with empty claims of knowing and serving their local community is worse than letting the fox guard the chicken coop.

“Yes, I am talking about bringing back the ascertainment requirement. This is the baseline, I think. And, yes, I am talking about forcing broadcasters to get real community people on the air to talk about something other than crime. No, I am not talking about content regulation.” (Speech by Mark Lloyd to Advisory Committe on Public Interest Obligations of Digital Television Broadcasters, Dec 5, 1997)

Salary: Unknown

Resources

“Forget the Fairness Doctrine” by Mark Lloyd (wants to accomplish the same thing with “localism”)

Excerpts: “Despite what we thought was fairly stark evidence of conservative bias, despite clear proposals to address that bias, Rush Limbaugh and other distortionists insisted that we were calling for a “return” of the Fairness Doctrine. But as we wrote, “simply reinstating the Fairness Doctrine will do little to address the gap between conservative and progressive talk unless the underlying elements of the public trustee doctrine are enforced, in particular, the requirements of local accountability and the reasonable airing of important matters.”

“The power of right-wing talk radio and their echo chambers in the conservative blogosphere and Fox News was amply demonstrated by their simple “black or white, for or against” reaction to our report. They refused to discuss the underlying market control exercised by radio corporations eager to promote the conservative agenda. But it worked. Even the radio hosts of supposedly liberal public radio stations asked the authors of the report over and over, “Why are you calling for a return of the Fairness Doctrine?”

Meet your new Media Diversity Czar, Mark Lloyd

Important Quotes

“The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) must be reformed along democratic lines and funded on a substantial level. Federal and regional broadcast operations and local stations should be funded at levels commensurate with or above those spending levels at which commercial operations are funded,” Lloyd wrote. “This funding should come from license fees charged to commercial broadcasters. Funding should not come from congressional appropriations. Sponsorship should be prohibited at all public broadcasters.” (quoted here)

Videos

Mark Lloyd on the need for “independent” news:

Glenn Beck on Mark Lloyd, “New Radio Czar”

Duties include

- Helping to shape and implement job-generating climate policy

- Working to ensure equal protection and equal opportunity in the administration’s climate and energy proposals

- Publicly advocating the administration’s environmental and energy agenda

Salary: Unknown

Important Quotes

Van Jones told the East Bay Express in 2005:

“I was a rowdy nationalist on April 28th [1992], and then the verdicts came down on April 29th. By August, I was a communist. (…)

“I met all these young radical people of color – I mean really radical: communists and anarchists. And it was, like, ‘This is what I need to be a part of.’ I spent the next ten years of my life working with a lot of those people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary.”

“The solution for the economy is simple: deliberately cut demand for energy [sounds like inflating the price to make it unusable] and intelligently increase its supply.” - The Green Collar Economy, by Van Jones

Resources

Glenn Beck: Your Science Czar is a Commie (actually referring to Van Jones)

Excerpt: This is yet another community organizer. This is yet another black nationalist in the same way that Reverend Jeremiah Wright is a black nationalist. This is an acclaimed, self‑acclaimed communist who has just written the book, “How one solution, green collar jobs, can fix two problems.” Climate, if he even believes it. He wasn’t a believer before he went to prison. If he even believes it. Climate will solve inner city poverty. How? Because we’ll take money from the people who can afford to have this piece of glass thingy and the jet engine on their house and get them to pay to put a jet ‑‑ I’m just quoting him ‑‑ them to pay to put the jet engine, as he likes to describe it, and piece of glass ‑‑ that I like to call a solar panel ‑‑ on your home. And then on their home. And then on the person’s that lives next to you, and the one that lives next to them. And then everybody in the inner city, you know, all the homes in the hood. That’s what this is really all about. And America, you need to wake up because this country is being transformed, and if you don’t think ‑‑ it’s way beyond socialism. It is way beyond socialism. It is into black nationalism.

Greening the Ghetto: Can a remedy serve for both global warming and poverty? (The New Yorker)

Video

About Linda Douglass, Disinformation Czar

Profile at WhoRunsGov.com

Duties include

- Keep track of disinformation on health insurance reform

- As legislation takes shape in Congress, will make sure Democrats have a unified message when it comes to controversial issues such as the need for a publicly funded health insurance option

- To make sure the American people understand any big changes to the current system, such as a proposed new national exchange on which consumers can buy insurance

Salary: Unknown

Video

Salary: $172,200

Resources

Time Bio on Carol Browner, Energy Czar

Duties include

- To oversee the compensation of the top executives at companies which have received federal bailout assistance

- He will have broad discretion to set the salaries and bonuses for their five most senior executives and their 20 most highly paid employee

Salary: Reportedly receiving no compensation

Important Quotes

“The statute provides these guideposts, but the statute ultimately says I have discretion to decide what it is that these people should make and that my determination will be final… Anything is possible under the law.”

Duties include:

- To “serve as a principal advisor on international climate policy and strategy

- He will be the Administration’s chief climate negotiator

- He will be leading efforts with United Nations negotiations and processes involving a smaller set of countries and bilateral sessions

- Because the main cause of climate change is the burning of fossil fuel and because the solution rests with our ability to shift the global economy from a high to a low carbon energy base, the Envoy will be a lead participant in the development of climate and clean energy policy

- He will participate in all energy-related policy discussions that, across our government, can have an impact on carbon emissions, and will be looking for opportunities to forge working alliances

Salary: Unknown

Important Quotes

“The time for denial, delay and dispute is over.” — at a news conference announcing his appointment (Washington Post, January 26, 2009)

“The problem is that if we do any kind of report & fail to address these Qs, press jumps on you wanting to know answers; while if you give answers that aren’t fully honest (e.g. nothing re Hillary) you risk hugely compounding the problem by getting caught in half-truths. You run risk of turning this into ‘cover-up.’ ” — from a note that Stern wrote regarding the firing of the White House travel office staff, allegedly at the request of then-First Lady Hillary Clinton. Some people claimed that the employees were fired so that Hillary could appoint friends. (New York Times, January 5, 1996)

“Evaporation and rainfall are increasing; glaciers are retreating; sea ice is shrinking; sea level is rising; permafrost is melting; wildfires are increasing; storm and flood damage is soaring. The canary in the coal mine is singing for all she’s worth.” — on reading the signs of climate change (Center for American Progress, May 28, 2004)

Resources

ABCnews article - All about Kevin Jennings counseling 15 year old to continue sexual relationship with adult male he met in a public bathroom

Video

About Jeffrey Zients

- Has never worked in government before

- Was a chief executive and former management consultant

- Was founder of Portfolio Logic (2004 to present); Partner of the Washington Baseball Club (2004 to 2006); CEO of the Advisory Board (1998 to 2004)

- Has donated just over $90,000 to political campaigns since 1999, almost all of which went to Democratic candidates

Salary: Unknown

Duties include

- He is also the Deputy Director for Management of the Office of Management and Budget in the federal government of the United States

- To help “streamline processes, cut costs, and find best practices throughout” the U.S. government

Resources

GovernmentExecutive.com Article