Feet to the Fire

Finally, a positive reason to support a GOP majority:

“When the Republicans are in charge, you will see the oversight subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee active on a whole host of fronts,” said Rep. Fred Upton, Michigan Republican, who likely would chair the subcommittee if the Republicans take control of Congress. “How are these [czars] funded? So whether it be the authorizing committees and appropriations committees in terms of deleting the funds for those, I think you could go after it in one of two different ways.

“It is time to hold them accountable for what they are trying to promulgate with rules and regulations.”

Obama’s penchant for czars — adding yet another layer of officials between himself and his own cabinet members — struck me, at first, simple executive inexperience. But it became quickly obvious that the czars were one of Obama’s ways of circumventing Congress and even his own executive branch bureaucracy. That must have seemed a fine way for one man to impose his will on a system constituted to prevent just that.

But to do so requires a complicit (or at least supine) legislative branch, and those days are nearly over.

Plus, there’s the obligatory Star Wars reference I couldn’t quite work into the main body of the post.

In the council room of the original Death Star:

Governor Tarkin: The Imperial Senate will no longer be of any concern to us. I have just received word that the Emperor has dissolved the council permanently. The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away.

General Tagge: But that’s impossible. How will the Emperor maintain control without the bureaucracy?

Governor Tarkin: The regional governors now have direct control over their territories. Fear will keep the local systems in line. Fear of this battle station.

On November 2, we’ll locate the ventilation shaft.