Harold Koh’s views: Threat to Democracy? / Do you see the trend in all of Obama’s nominations? To weaken the U.S., to equalize us to any banana republic, to make us vulnerable to a world court!

This is a rush transcript from “Glenn Beck,” April 2, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

Harold Koh nominated for top legal position at State Department

GLENN BECK, HOST: Now, this morning, I read a story in The New York Times about Harold Koh and how I have just taking this poor man out of context, how I just — I’ve been smearing him. President Obama’s pick to become one of the State Department’s top lawyers has ignited fury among his critics, this according to The New York Times. I guess I’m one of them now. His legal views are a threat to American democracy, I believe.

Jay Sekulow is here. He’s the chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice.

You know what? I — Jay, I want to be really, really clear here, and I want to make sure we get all the facts exactly right because…

JAY SEKULOW, AMERICAN CENTER FOR LAW AND JUSTICE: Sure.

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BECK: … The New York Times is an apologist for this guy and they say — oh, that Glenn Beck is, oh, well, he’s just crazy, quote, “This is just an attempt to whip up hysteria.”

So, tell me a little bit, in this man’s own words, tell me who he is.

SEKULOW: He’s a transnationalist. He believes that the United States’ sovereignty and our judicial sovereignty should be subservient to the European Union or to the United Nations. I mean, if you look at what his written — this is not by the way, you know, some are criticizing, Glenn, that we are using this term “transnational” as if it’s pejorative. This is the terms he uses.

BECK: Yes.

SEKULOW: He’s written the law review articles that say he’s a transnationalist.

BECK: Right.

SEKULOW: And I want everybody to understand this, what Justice Scalia said about 15 years ago. When the United States Supreme Court is determining whether something is constitutional or not, they are expounding on a Constitution. Europe does not have a Constitution, so applying European standards to the United States Constitution basically takes our United States Constitution and makes it a local law only to be superseded by the European Union. And I litigate cases in Europe.

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BECK: OK. So, look, here’s the thing. So people understand what transnationalism is.

SEKULOW: Sure.

BECK: and again, it’s not a dirty word.

SEKULOW: No.

BECK: And this is how he describes himself.

SEKULOW: Absolutely.

BECK: What it means is — and correct me if I’m not wrong, it is — it is an evolutionary law. We no longer open up a textbook, go to any college and study the law. You’re not going to see the quotes from the Founding Fathers or anything from the constitutional convention.

SEKULOW: Right.

BECK: You’re going to see case law. This started in the 1920s, if I’m not mistaken. And what happened is, they started saying, wait a minute, evolution, if evolution is real well then people evolve, so must our understanding of things and so must the law. So now they just look to the future.

SEKULOW: Right.

BECK: And kind of sum and we continue to move forward. Now, it’s moving into other nations, correct or not?

SEKULOW: It’s even more — yes, it is correct, but it’s even more than that. You mentioned the Darwinian aspect of this — it does have a Darwinian base and that over time, universal norms come into existence. And even where you have a national sovereignty, a United States Constitution, that document no longer becomes the charter document upon which the government in the United States is to operate.

BECK: Right.

SEKULOW: And we have to meet these systems from foreign countries and apply that to United States. And here’s the real danger on this and this is a danger.

Now, here’s the danger. Dean Koh is a smart guy, don’t — listen, nobody should not question he’s an intelligent guy. But what he is proposing is to take the State Department — he is not going to be a senior lawyer at the State Department, he is going to be the lawyer at the State Department, the chief counsel, and he is basically saying, we take our American experience and if it doesn’t mesh with the rest of the world, the rest of the world wins.

And that, frankly, is — I call — it’s — a lot of people are calling this “lawfare,” it’s utilizing the law as a weapon.

BECK: Oh, yes.

SEKULOW: And that’s where you got to be very, very concerned.

BECK: And, America, you know this. When they can’t get you to vote for something, they kick it up to the legal — into the legal system. If they can’t win in the legal system, they kick it up to the United Nations or to the E.U. or whatever.

SEKULOW: Yes.

BECK: That’s the way it works.

SEKULOW: And you really have to watch the U.N. issue here because — and we do a lot of work at the U.N. and here’s the problem — you take those standards, for instance, the president has made the change now in the Human Rights Council, so the United States is going to join the Sudan and Cuba in the Human Rights Council. That’s been not the policy for two decades. We’ve now changed that.

The danger, and to me, its significant is, again, it’s subservient to our national interests, and what happens is, the international norms take over the U.S. norms.

BECK: OK.

SEKULOW: And the danger on that and the justices have said, be very careful when that starts happening because American sovereignty is at risk.

BECK: Real quick, I just have to say this because we have to go take a break.

SEKULOW: Yes.

BECK: The New York Times made this whole thing about he never called for Sharia law. I never claimed he called for Sharia law.

SEKULOW: Right.

BECK: What he was talking about, again, is transnationalism, that if this is something that is starting to grow around the world, well then the world is moving in that direction and we move as well. That is what transnationalism means, right or wrong?

SEKULOW: Look, they’re doing — absolutely — they’re doing that in the United Kingdom right now. They are applying Sharia courts.

BECK: I know. I know.

SEKULOW: So, it’s absolutely that standard. And there you talked about the American people should understand what that means long-term for Americans’ domestic interest, not good.

BECK: Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Listen to me, America, I have never — I have never ever felt this way before, ever. And I started to feel it in the last couple of years, and now it is so strong. I’m telling you, you are being lied to. You are being lied to.

If the people at The New York Times don’t know what transnationalism is, well, then maybe they should be fired or just wait until their paper closes, which is probably going to happen soon, or they’re lying to you.

This is what it means, that if the world is moving in that direction, then we should, too, and we’ll all just play happy together. It’s dishonest what’s going on.

Content and Programming Copyright 2009 FOX News Network, LLC.

Pesky Emotional Republican Opines: Some *faux pas* are not as serious as other *faux pas*/Toss some water on your hair-on-fire

By Lorna Alexander / Pesky Emotional Republican

Diplomatic protocol… Should touch…Shouldn’t touch…Should Bow…Shouldn’t bow…  and whereas the diplomats might blather about it for fifteen minutes, it’s not the most serious topic on the table.

I realize that people often show dominance by putting their arm around the other person’s shoulder or their hand on the other person’s back. Obama played that trick on Bush not long ago. We know that it is done and we know that   faux pas happen even without hostile intent, and there are enough serious issues surrounding Hussein and Michelle Obama without us having to pick at small flakes of their political dandruff, so:

Sleeveless Michelle

I don’t care that Michelle Obama wore a sleeveless shirt in winter. I care that she spoke ill of our country.

I don’t care that Michelle Obama made the <gasp> political faux pas of touching Her Majesty. MoBama did a lot worse when she admitted that she was never proud of America until her hubby got nominated to run for Prez. And hey, Nick Sarkozy touched Michelle Obama on that same diplomatic faux pas level. Unless she develops a skin disease from it, let’s drop it.

Michelle and the Queen

And I don’t care that Michelle Obama has odd taste in clothes. What’s far worse is that she has majorly bad  taste in husbands.

AND

Obama bows to Saudi King

I don’t care that Barack Hussein Obama bowed to the Saudi King. The general intent was to show a positive attitude. Consider First Lady Carla Bruni’s cold stand-offish gesture with the American president: Now THAT is something that can heat  my blood even though Obama  is not my Main Man.

Inappropriate warmth might be a faux pas but not a hair-on-fire faux pas. Rudeness  and disrespect is a faux pas of much denser consequence. Lack of respect is never to be tolerated. Why is no one slapping lovely Carla Bruni on her fine-boned little wrist for dissing our American Prez? But then, how important is it, when all is said and done a million times?

I’d rather talk about how Obama is destroying our country with the blessing of uninformed voters whose first priority was to finally have a Black American president, like that’ll solve our problems.

~Pesky Emotional Republican / Lorna Alexander

New (reliable/valid) poll comfirms Obama voters are uninformed

Obama voters might be embarrassed to see how they as a group compared with knowing answers to THE SAME QUESTIONS that were also asked of McCain voters.   ~Pesky Emotional Republican

The Crying Game video/ “I’m so sorry I voted for Obama!”

FBI says Supreme Court Website Hacked!

The Recovering Liberal

Dr./Attorney Orly Taitz

Atty. Orly Taitz is one of several lawyers who have brought emergency motions to the U.S. Supreme Court over eligibility of Barack Obama to be president under the U.S. Constitution’s requirement that the office be occupied only by a “natural born” citizen, only to have them dropped without a hearing.

While her effort was pending at the court, its references suddenly were scrubbed from the public website just two days before a conference among justices on the case was to be heard.

She filed a complaint with the FBI, which promised a review, but the investigative agency noted that in that situation, technically the Supreme Court was the “victim” of having its website hacked, and officials there would need to cooperate for the effort to move forward.

Should Obama Control the Internet? Two senators think so. Can his fans be far behind?

Hat tip to Kurt Vangsness for this article and his commentary.  ~Pesky Emotional Republican

____________________

Where are the people who vilified Bush for wanting to tap foreign telephone calls routed through the US??

The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 (PDF) gives the president the ability to “declare a cybersecurity emergency” and shut down or limit Internet traffic in any “critical” information network “in the interest of national security.” The bill does not define a critical information network or a cybersecurity emergency. That definition would be left to the president.

The bill does not only add to the power of the president. It also grants the Secretary of Commerce “access to all relevant data concerning [critical] networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access.” This means he or she can monitor or access any data on private or public networks without regard to privacy laws.

~Kurt Vangsness

____________________

The bill’s scope, she says, is “contrary to what the Constitution promises us.”

By Steve Aquino | Thu April 2, 2009 12:33 PM PST

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/04/should-obama-control-internet

Should President Obama have the power to shut down domestic Internet traffic during a state of emergency?

Senators John Rockefeller (D-W. Va.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) think so. On Wednesday they introduced a bill to establish the Office of the National Cybersecurity Advisor—an arm of the executive branch that would have vast power to monitor and control Internet traffic to protect against threats to critical cyber infrastructure. That broad power is rattling some civil libertarians.

The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 (PDF) gives the president the ability to “declare a cybersecurity emergency” and shut down or limit Internet traffic in any “critical” information network “in the interest of national security.” The bill does not define a critical information network or a cybersecurity emergency. That definition would be left to the president.

The bill does not only add to the power of the president. It also grants the Secretary of Commerce “access to all relevant data concerning [critical] networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access.” This means he or she can monitor or access any data on private or public networks without regard to privacy laws.

Rockefeller made cybersecurity one of his key issues as a member of the Senate intelligence committee, which he chaired until last year. He now heads the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, which will take up this bill.

“We must protect our critical infrastructure at all costs—from our water to our electricity, to banking, traffic lights and electronic health records—the list goes on,” Rockefeller said in a statement. Snowe echoed her colleague, saying, “if we fail to take swift action, we, regrettably, risk a cyber-Katrina.”

But the wide powers outlined in the Rockefeller-Snowe legislation has at least one Internet advocacy group worried.

“The cybersecurity threat is real,” says Leslie Harris, head of the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), “but such a drastic federal intervention in private communications technology and networks could harm both security and privacy.”
The bill could undermine the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), says CDT senior counsel Greg Nojeim. That law, enacted in the mid ’80s, requires law enforcement seek a warrant before tapping in to data transmissions between computers.

“It’s an incredibly broad authority,” Nojeim says, pointing out that existing privacy laws “could fall to this authority.”

Jennifer Granick, civil liberties director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says that granting such power to the Commerce secretary could actually cause networks to be less safe. When one person can access all information on a network, “it makes it more vulnerable to intruders,” Granick says. “You’ve basically established a path for the bad guys to skip down.”

The bill’s scope, she says, is “contrary to what the Constitution promises us.” That’s because of the impact it could have on Internet users’ privacy rights: If the Commerce Department uncovers evidence of illegal activity when accessing “critical” networks, that information could be used against a potential defendant, even if the department never had the intent to find incriminating evidence. And this might violate the Constitutional protection against searches without cause.

“Once information is accessed, it can be used for whatever purpose, no matter the original reason for accessing something,” Granick says. “Who’s interested in this [bill]? Law enforcement and people in the security industry who want to ensure more government dollars go to them.”

Nojeim, though, thinks it’s possible the bill’s powers could be trimmed as it moves through Congress. “We will be working with them to clarify just what is needed and how to accomplish that,” he says. “We’re hopeful that some of the very broad powers that the bill would confer won’t be included.”

Copyright ©2009 Mother Jones and the Foundation for National Progress. All Rights Reserved.

He’s no gentleman and no diplomat. Neither are his fans in this crowd.

And he was too stupid to remember that these middle-finger salutes would be recorded for all time in YouTube videos — except for the ones that his people pressure to have deleted.  You realize that the Obama people shut down opposing viewpoints, right?

~Pesky Emotional Republican / Lorna

Remember and use this for when he runs in 2012

Story About a Man Applying for a Job

He is the President of the United States and he will probably want to run again in 2012. When he does, remember this information and add it to the laundry list of atrocities that he will have committed by that time.  ~Pesky Emotional Republican

The Jihad Candidate II, Rich Carroll / US WEEKLY (Not affiiated with US MAGAZINE)

Imagine for a few moments that you are the human resources director of a major multi-billion dollar corporation. You are sitting in your large, luxurious office when you receive a phone call from the Chairman of the Board of Directors.

He tells you that the board is considering a candidate for a high-level executive position. He advises you to complete a thorough background investigation and have it to him within 10 days.

You immediately call the private detective agency you have used for years and give them the name and address of the prospective candidate, along with the deadline for a high level security clearance.

Your next move is to call your assistant to your office, giving him/her the candidate’s personal information along with instructions to “do your standard beginning background checks.”

Preliminary findings begin landing in your fax machine on the third day:

1. Your candidate has used more than one name.
2. His original birth certificate is unavailable.
3. He was mentored during his youth by a high level communist in Hawaii, Frank Marshall Davis.
4. You receive a 3 page dossier on Frank Marshall Davis.
5. You also learn the candidate was proctored into an elite Eastern private university by a middle eastern Muslim, Khalid al-Mansour.
6. You receive a short dossier on Khalid al-Mansour.
7. You learn the candidate has terrorist organization “Nations of Islam” employees on his current staff, and one of his advisors is a member of the global terrorist group “Muslim Brotherhood.”

On day four, you receive in the mail from the security agency two books the candidate has written:

1. You read both books, highlighting the anti-American, anti-white racist passages.
2. You note the admissions of drug use.
3. You also receive in the packet a copy of the bitter anti-white thesis his wife wrote as a college undergraduate.
4. You receive a 4 page fax on the candidate’s relative, Raila Odinga, who is connected with brutal Muslim politics in Africa, and background information on the candidate’s estranged father who was part of Kenya’s most corrupt regime.

The fifth day brings to your special delivery mail the complete background on Bill Ayers; his association with your candidate, his FBI criminal record, and a copy of the book “Rules for Radicals” written by communist Saul Alinsky:

• You are advised your candidate used tactics from “Rules for Radicals” at his previous employment.
• You are advised the candidate’s wife used an excerpt from this book during a recent speech.
• You receive by fax, a background on A.C.O.R.N. and an alert that this group is being watched by the U.S. Department of Justice and other state and local law enforcement agencies.
• You learn your candidate is endorsed by every Muslim terrorist organization on Earth; that he holds Muslim beliefs.
• His friend, Louis Farrakhan, is head of Nations of Islam.

• You learn that the candidate’s pastor met with global terrorist Mohmmar Gaddafi in Libya, along with their mutual friend and anti-American Louis Farrakhan.
• You receive printed transcripts of his pastor’s anti-White, anti-American “sermons” and are advised your candidate has been close personal friends with this “pastor” for two decades.
• Your candidate has referred to this radical pastor as his “personal spiritual advisor,” and in fact, the title of one of your candidates memoirs was inspired by a line from this pastor’s “sermons.”

In your fax machine on the sixth morning is a file on one Tony Rezko:

His friendship, associations and business transactions with your candidate, as well as high level “people” of middle eastern origin, and his federal conviction.

You will spend most of day seven compiling TheObamaFile – complete with footnotes and cross references.

1. Additional information is arriving regarding the candidate’s friends and acquaintances during college.
2. You learn that he did not run with a mainstream crowd, but chose radicals and communist agitators for his social group.

The morning of the eighth day has arrived and you and your assistant have placed a small mountain of background information into manageable “piles” - including photographs of the candidate’s family in Africa, he and George Soros (including a brief file on the Soros “Open Society Institute”), photos of the candidate and Louis Farrakhan and anti-Israel Arafat advisor Edward Said.

You begin to outline and write your “Summary Evaluation” to the Chairman of the Board of Directors:

1. This candidate has a tissue thin work experience resume.
2. He has not managed large groups of personnel, departments, material, or P&L statements.
3. This candidate’s own writing exhibits a deep-seeded anger and resentment towards people of the Caucasian race over the issue of slavery.
4. His emotional gravitas is centered upon his African heritage, and his belief that the white man is responsible for global poverty and unequal sharing of wealth.
5. The candidate’s personal associations since childhood have been mostly with radical African Americans, Muslims, and communists; those who harbor anger towards The United States of America.
6. Particularly disturbing is his lengthy relationship with Bill Ayers, an unrepentant Weatherman radical who bombed government buildings and abdicated the overthrow of the United States.
7. Given the current global situation of nearly twelve thousand Muslim acts of terrorism since 911, it is disturbing to find his close associations with Muslim groups, MAFO2008.com.
8. I have highlighted passages in both books and find one particularly disturbing: “Should the political winds shift in an ugly direction I will side with the Muslims.”
9. The candidate has surrounded himself with anti-American grievance mongers, and appears to manipulate “typical white people” by appealing to their guilt about slavery.
10. He is a socialist, and totally disenfranchised from the history of “root America.”
11. The candidate refuses to discuss his years at Columbia University, although he lived off campus and made few friends.
12. He will not release his application to the state bar notes which raises questions on several issues including the use of drugs.
13. Very little is available about his experience with the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a foundation that spent $100 million with no discernable benefit for the schools and students that it was putatively designed to help.

It is therefore my strongest recommendation this candidate not be considered for any position within the corporation.

© Rich Carroll 2008
crossedrifles@hotmail.com

T.O.T.U.S. (Teleprompter of the United States) exposed as nitwit: The question that flummoxed the great orator

John Crace

John Crace
The Guardian, Friday 3 April 2000 / guardian.co.uk

Barack Obama, the World’s Greatest Orator (™all news organisations), didn’t exactly cover himself in glory when the BBC’s political editor Nick Robinson asked him a question about who was to blame for the financial crisis. Normally word perfect, Obama ummed, ahed and waffled for the best part of two and a half minutes. Here,John Crace decodes what he was really thinking …

The Interview

Nick Robinson: “A question for you both, if I may. The prime minister has repeatedly blamed the United States of America for causing this crisis. France and Germany both blame Britain and America for causing this crisis. Who is right? And isn’t the debate about that at the heart of the debate about what to do now?” Brown immediately swivels to leave Obama in pole position. There is a four-second delay before Obama starts speaking

[THANKS FOR NOTHING, GORDY BABY. REMIND ME TO HANG YOU OUT TO DRY ONE DAY.] Barack Obama: “I, I, would say that, er …pause

[I HAVEN'T A CLUE] … if you look at … pause

[WHO IS THIS NICK ROBINSON JERK?] ... the, the sources of this crisis ... pause

T.O.T.U.S. ~ Teleprompter of the United States

[JUST KEEP GOING, BUDDY] … the United States certainly has some accounting to do with respect to . . .pause

[I'M IN WAY TOO DEEP HERE] … a regulatory system that was inadequate to the massive changes that have taken place in the global financial system ... pause, close eyes

[THIS IS GOING TO GO DOWN LIKE A CROCK OF SHIT BACK HOME. HELP]. I think what is also true is that … pause

[I WANT NICK ROBINSON TO DISAPPEAR] … here in Great Britain … pause

[SHIT, GORDY'S THE HOST, DON'T LAND HIM IN IT] … here in continental Europe … pause

[DAMN IT, BLAME EVERYONE.] … around the world. We were seeing the same mismatch between the regulatory regimes that were in place and er … pause

[I'VE LOST MY TRAIN OF THOUGHT AGAIN] … the highly integrated, er, global capital markets that have emerged … pause

[I'M REALLY WINGING IT NOW]. So at this point, I’m less interested in … pause [YOU] ... identifying blame than fixing the problem. I think we’ve taken some very aggressive steps in the United States to do so, not just responding to the immediate crisis, ensuring banks are adequately capitalised, er, dealing with the enormous, er … pause

[WHY DIDN'T I QUIT WHILE I WAS AHEAD?] … drop-off in demand and contraction that has taken place. More importantly, for the long term, making sure that we’ve got a set of, er, er, regulations that are up to the task, er, and that includes, er, a number that will be discussed at this summit. I think there’s a lot of convergence between all the parties involved about the need, for example, to focus not on the legal form that a particular financial product takes or the institution it emerges from, but rather what’s the risk involved, what’s the function of this product and how do we regulate that adequately, much more effective coordination, er, between countries so we can, er, anticipate the risks that are involved there. Dealing with the, er, problem of derivatives markets, making sure we have set up systems, er, that can reduce some of the risks there. So, I actually think ... pause

[FANTASTIC. I'VE LOST EVERYONE, INCLUDING MYSELF] … there’s enormous consensus that has emerged in terms of what we need to do now and, er …pause

[I'M OUTTA HERE. TIME FOR THE USUAL CLOSING BOLLOCKS] … I’m a great believer in looking forwards than looking backwards.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2009

Prez Obama without his teleprompter.

Obama wants to control the banks

Who is Stuart Varney and why should we listen when he speaks?

Stuart Varney is a British economic journalist, currently working for the Fox News Channel and the Fox Business Network in the United States. Varney joined Fox News in January 2004 as a business contributor on many shows, such as Your World with Neil Cavuto. Varney will also occasionally serve as guest host for Your World and the shows on the Cost of Freedom business block.

Hat tip to Kurt Vangsness

Varney graduated from the London School of Economics. In 1980 he joined CNN, and hosted shows like Business Day and Business Asia. From 1999 to 2001, he hosted CNN’s Moneyline with Willow Bay. Varney has also worked for CNBC.

It’s reported that Varney quit CNN after he failed to get great control of Moneyline. Varney, an Episcopalian, is believed to have been outraged by CNN founder Ted Turner, who allegedly referred to employees who wore ashes on their heads on Ash Wednesday as “Jesus freaks.” When he was hired at Fox News Varney said, “I’m from that side of the fence that says there is such a thing as a liberal establishment, and it is alive and well in American media outlets.” He also said Fox News “moves everyone back toward the center.” [1]

Varney is also a regular panel member on the FOX business analysis and stock trade investment program “Cashin’ In.”

By STUART VARNEY

Suart Varney

I must be naive. I really thought the administration would welcome the return of bank bailout money. Some $340 million in TARP cash flowed back this week from four small banks in Louisiana, New York, Indiana and California. This isn’t much when we routinely talk in trillions, but clearly that money has not been wasted or otherwise sunk down Wall Street’s black hole. So why no cheering as the cash comes back?

My answer: The government wants to control the banks, just as it now controls GM and Chrysler, and will surely control the health industry in the not-too-distant future. Keeping them TARP-stuffed is the key to control. And for this intensely political president, mere influence is not enough. The White House wants to tell ‘em what to do. Control. Direct. Command.

It is not for nothing that rage has been turned on those wicked financiers. The banks are at the core of the administration’s thrust: By managing the money, government can steer the whole economy even more firmly down the left fork in the road.

If the banks are forced to keep TARP cash — which was often forced on them in the first place — the Obama team can work its will on the financial system to unprecedented degree. That’s what’s happening right now.

Here’s a true story first reported by my Fox News colleague Andrew Napolitano (with the names and some details obscured to prevent retaliation). Under the Bush team a prominent and profitable bank, under threat of a damaging public audit, was forced to accept less than $1 billion of TARP money. The government insisted on buying a new class of preferred stock which gave it a tiny, minority position. The money flowed to the bank. Arguably, back then, the Bush administration was acting for purely economic reasons. It wanted to recapitalize the banks to halt a financial panic.

Fast forward to today, and that same bank is begging to give the money back. The chairman offers to write a check, now, with interest. He’s been sitting on the cash for months and has felt the dead hand of government threatening to run his business and dictate pay scales. He sees the writing on the wall and he wants out. But the Obama team says no, since unlike the smaller banks that gave their TARP money back, this bank is far more prominent. The bank has also been threatened with “adverse” consequences if its chairman persists. That’s politics talking, not economics.

Think about it: If Rick Wagoner can be fired and compact cars can be mandated, why can’t a bank with a vault full of TARP money be told where to lend? And since politics drives this administration, why can’t special loans and terms be offered to favored constituents, favored industries, or even favored regions? Our prosperity has never been based on the political allocation of credit — until now.

Which brings me to the Pay for Performance Act, just passed by the House. This is an outstanding example of class warfare. I’m an Englishman. We invented class warfare, and I know it when I see it. This legislation allows the administration to dictate pay for anyone working in any company that takes a dime of TARP money. This is a whip with which to thrash the unpopular bankers, a tool to advance the Obama administration’s goal of controlling the financial system.

After 35 years in America, I never thought I would see this. I still can’t quite believe we will sit by as this crisis is used to hand control of our economy over to government. But here we are, on the brink. Clearly, I have been naive.

Mr. Varney is a host on the Fox Business Channel.