Free the president from the bonds of Congress!
Wealthy financier and opinion writer Steven Rattner is a long-time mover and shaker in the Democratic Party, although he never held any political position in a Democratic administration until he became Obama’s auto czar for a while. How important have Rattner (and his wife, a former national financial chair of the DNC) been to the Democratic Party? This important:
…[T]he Rattners were””and are””considered to be among the very top Democratic Party benefactors, often holding lavish candidate fund-raisers at their palatial apartment at 998 Fifth Avenue, overlooking the Metropolitan Museum, and at their secluded 15,000-square-foot mansion on Martha’s Vineyard, to which Rattner flies regularly on a Dassault Falcon 2000 jet he pilots himself. Because they have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democratic candidates around the country and to the party itself, they have been described as the “D.N.C.’s A.T.M.”
This Vanity Fair article is worth reading if you’re interested in more about Rattner, his wealth, his maneuverings, and his personal aspirations (a failed decades-long goal of becoming Treasury Secretary never came to fruition). This guy is about money and power, and he has had both. When he was appointed car czar, it seemed an odd choice (which I wrote about at the time) because he had no experience in the auto industry and knew little about the restructuring process.
So, why am I prattling on about Steven Rattner? He has written an op-ed for the NY Times that says that a “dsyfunctional” Congress should stop tying Obama’s hands. It is worth quoting:
Last week’s news from Washington: A dysfunctional Congress managed to function just long enough to bludgeon President Obama into ceding his prerogative to enter into an executive agreement with Iran regarding its nuclear program.
That’s unfortunate. I wish the president had had the votes to hang tough on this important right, in part because of the precedent it sets for future executive agreements and the pall it casts over his fight for the legality of his recent executive orders on immigration, climate change and other matters.
Note the hyperbolic violence of “bludgeon.” Note also the absence of any mention of the bipartisan nature of this terrible, unfair “bludgeoning” of Obama. Note also the acceptance of the notion that Obama has the right to enter into an “executive agreement” with Iran that is really a treaty of the type that traditionally and constitutionally has been the right of Congress, as well as his usurpation of the laws on immigration that are currently being challenged in the legal system.
Rattner doesn’t bother to confront the constitutionality of those things head-on, nor does he even mention the treaty/executive agreement distinction. He acts as though the inability to pass a law is a bad thing, and the ability to pass one is a good thing. Why should we have to wait for a bunch of people to agree on something, when we can get one person to simply order it? It’s so, so, so much simpler.
No great surprise that Rattner, with his history, would be in favor of greater and greater executive power. It’s especially no surprise since he’s been one of the earliest and strongest supporters of Hillary Clinton, and has raised an enormous amount of money for her in the past. If Hillary becomes president, Rattner stands an excellent chance of finally, after all these years, achieving his long-held ambition of becoming Treasury Secretary.
He closes his piece by saying that there should be greater presidential power whether the president is a Republican or a Democrat. But does anyone really think he’d be writing this op-ed if George Bush were president? I did a search for something like that in his output while Bush was president, and although it’s possible I missed something, I haven’t been able to find a word about it.
As I said, it’s not surprising that Rattner would be in favor of increased presidential power for Obama and presumably for Hillary. What is more depressing is to read the comments to his Times piece. I quit after growing weary of looking at them, but most of the commenters I saw seem to agree wholeheartedly with him.
I continue to conclude that very very few people seem interested in the Constitution, and very very many seem inclined towards being ruled by dictators.
And our dictators can’t even make the trains run on time.
[NOTE: None of Rattner’s history described in this post appears in the short blurb about him after his Times column, which reads “Steven Rattner is a Wall Street executive and a contributing opinion writer.” The reader could be forgiven for being completely unaware of his history and personal investment in the issue of executive power. The Times is certainly aware of it, however.]
Constitution? We don’t need no stinkin’ constitution!
Screw Rattner.
His auto bailout plan was a disgrace.
“No great surprise that Rattner, with his history, would be in favor of greater and greater executive power.”
“Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties:
1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes.
2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depository of the public interests.
In every country these two parties exist, and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves.” —Thomas Jefferson to Henry Lee, 1824
“Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.” – Robert A. Heinlein
When I was young and cutting my teeth on the ways of the world it had always been a conundrum — why were the rich so despised? It couldn’t be envy; vitriolic, murderous hatred such as was displayed time and time again can’t be had by non-personal envy.
When you seek support for the theory you first seek out the academics. Who is more easily beguiled than those in ivory towers? When then you seek support for the implementation of the theory, you seek out the law — makers and givers. Who is more certain that all that’s needed is a new law? When finally you seek the theory and its implementation become orthodoxy, you seduce the wealthy. Who would sooner sell his soul for a place at the power table than the man who had no use for his?
When tradition ruled, the Left hated the rich for that is where the rich were. When now the Left rules the rich flock there — George Soros, Bill Gates, Maurice Strong, Warren Buffett, Rattner, etal. — and the worm turns. And now I understand the hatred. And the gospel:
And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. – Matthew 19:24
Every morning a new reminder as to just how differently the world looks to other people – or maybe it’s whether it’s your ox or somebody else’s getting gored.
I read Rattner this morning and was surprised at just how openly he repudiates the Constitution.
“The British example also shows that our system of checks and balances is not required to safeguard against a runaway leader.”
I hope I remember this guy’s name. In a few years when we might have an aggressive Republican president cooperating with a Republican Congress (my preferred solution to gridlock) I want to read his comments as this president’s “executive orders on immigration, climate change and other matters” not only get reversed by executive orders but by legislation which reforms the immigration system, restricts that the EPA to much narrower boundaries, and other matters such as voter ID, the trampling of civil rights on college campuses, affirmative action, gun rights, etc etc etc.
“The reader could be forgiven for being completely unaware of his history and personal investment in the issue of executive power. The Times is certainly aware of it, however.” And the Times wishes to conceal that from us. The NYT knows we are ignorant peons and wishes us to remain so.
He closes his piece by saying that there should be greater presidential power whether the president is a Republican or a Democrat.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha………….
The only thing worth pondering here is whether Ratner actually expects anyone to swallow such patent bullshit. Only a brain-dead person could believe for a nanosecond that Ratner and his fellow Dems wouldn’t scream like stuck pigs if a Republican president tried to pull 1% of the unconstitutional crap that His Royal Majesty, King Barack, has done.
Actually, there is something slightly interesting here, the mindset of the person who would write something like this:
1) Is it total shamelessness, presenting something so ridiculous as though it were a serious point?
2) Is he completely delusional?
3) Or does he have so much disdain for Republicans that he thinks they’re stupid enough to buy it?
My money is on a combination of 1) and 3).
I did a search for something like that [advocating greater presidential power] in his output while Bush was president, and although it’s possible I missed something, I haven’t been able to find a word about it.
Try searching things like “imperial president,” “dictator OR tyrant OR despot OR emperor Bush,” “Bush Nazi,” “Bush Hitler,” “Benito Bush,” “Bush fascist,” “Bush lied millions died,” etc.
I seem to recall when Obama was first elected some on the left were asking Bush to step down immediately so Obama could take control.
Now, there is this call for congress to give up its power because it is “dysfunctional.”
What’s next asking Biden to dissolve congress because the Tea Party wins too many seats?
He does NOT have that power . . yet; so, let’s see if someone sets it on fire and gives Obama/Biden a pretext to declare martial law. Hey, it worked in 1933 for someone else.
President for Life, dictatorship will cure the Bush Syndrome, watch and see.
Have they achieved that which has been impossible for the last 1000 years? Have they undermined the civic culture of the English-speaking peoples that has time and again thrown off the despots and reasserted the ancient liberties and the dominance of the representative body in governing with a law of the land that applies to all from monarchs to society’s lowest? Perhaps we are lost?
I’ve been reading Daniel Hannan’s ‘Inventing Freedom’ and listening to John Robson’s videos on Magna Carta. One thing that has come from it is a completely different view of where our Founders developed their ideas. I having not read specifically before remained in the ignorance that is taught in our school systems for the last 70 or so years. Namely that they read of Athens, etc. That they were students of such and such philosophers. It was always a bit uncomfortable and didn’t really seem to fit with the age of most of the Founders.
Well, the different story that they were just being a bit fundamental on the ancient liberties of the English-speaking people makes more sense. But I wonder why the effort for near the last century by Liberal and Conservative, Democrat/Republican alike to hide the story?
Here is an excerpt from John Fiske’s ‘The American Revolution’ first paragraph. In that paragraph he tells a more logical and compelling story than I’d ever heard on how the first assertion of ancient liberties then break with England came. Why is even the American “history” taught in the 1970s so off?
“the royal governors” are not elected by us but they still seem bent on undermining the ancient liberties.
Funny, how the Democrats complain about the Koch brothers, but don’t seem to mind Rattner or George Soros.
Soon!
The biggest Obama benefactors are unidentified and untraceable. Although, there is evidence that they may originate in the Middle East. Perhaps the far Middle East.
Make abortion, not life. Selective exclusion. Too many labels. Toxic Green energy. Human-centric and flat-Earth consensus or political models. Democrat, thou are a sanctimonious hypocrite.
Democrat, thou are a sanctimonious hypocrites…
Make that pompous, condescending, holier-than-thou, sanctimonious hypocrites …
your basic hippocrits indeed
I read where eco warrior Leonardo di caprio has
been on a private jet 6 times in 6 weeks.
The 1% have to get where they have to go
Actually living *green* is for the *little people*
I wrote a little song (well, a new set of lyrics for an existing song) about one of Rattner’s sub-czars, Brian Deese.
Ruler of the Auto Industree
I always wondered how a country could vote a leader to be “President-for-Life”, e.g. Chavez in Venezuela, and now I see it being attempted here. I guess people think things would turn out differently here than it has in , say, Zimbabwe. It would turn out exactly the same.