I hate to say us Republicans told you so, but as much as it pains me I will just come out and say it. We told you so.

People were tired of hearing about Barack Obama’s radical associations throughout the summer and fall. Some said, “What do Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers have to do with Barack Obama?” Republicans warned voters that when judging someone, it is fair to some degree to judge them by the company they keep.

 It wasn’t that Obama knew the anti-American Reverend Wright or started his political career with Bill Ayers – a known terrorist – it was the fact that over and over, Obama was found to be connected with despicable members of our society. Many of you didn’t see it that way. In fact, many of you thought it was a joke that people were even talking about it. Obama even scoffed at John McCain during the third presidential debate for daring to bring it up. “I think the fact that this has become such an important part of your campaign, Senator McCain, says more about your campaign than it says about me,” He said.

Well keep on scoffing liberal know-it-all’s because it hasn’t even been a full year for the president and more radical associations are being exposed in the Obama administration by the day.

Just take a look at some of Obama’s closest advisors, his “czars” as they’ve come to be known. For those of you who don’t know about the czars, they are essentially advisors to Obama that manage various tasks such as the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility or generating “green” jobs. By some estimates, Obama has as many as a few dozen “czars” who advise him.

But there is a major problem with these “czars.” First off, approximately two-thirds of them were not approved by Congress to take the positions granted to them by the president. Normal procedure for a secretary to claim his or her position requires a confirmation hearing from Congress. This is the time when Congress is able to examine the candidates’ resume and determine if they are qualified to take the position the administration has nominated them for.

 But many of these “czars” have been able to skip over that process. They were never looked into by anyone except the people who allowed them into Obama’s inner circle – whomever those people happen to be. This, as you may imagine, is a recipe for disaster. But the fact that Obama’s administration is using devious and potentially unconstitutional moves to get people into government is probably the least of the administration’s problems at this point. That’s because it is obvious that some of these people advising the president of the United States are just straight up communists, socialists, 9/11 “truthers,” anti-capitalists or just any other form of flat-out radical. 

Take, for instance, “green” jobs czar Van Jones, who was recently pressured into resigning. The man is an admitted communist. He is on tape earlier in the year calling republicans “assholes.” In 2004, he signed a petition supporting the “9/11 truther” movement, which suggested that the terrorist attacks of 9/11 on both the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were carried out not by terrorists, but by our own government.

This is astonishing. There are people dumb enough to believe the government is responsible for 9/11. It is incredible that someone that foolish is allowed to speak to, let alone advise, our president. Not to mention he is a self-admitted communist and he is advising the president on job creation. What’s next? Al Davis advising Bill Belichick on how to run a football franchise?

To me, this nonsense just raises a lot more questions. One of which, is why on earth is the president of the United States listening to a communist radical about anything at all? It’s insane, but it doesn’t stop with Van Jones.

John Holdren, the science “czar,” has proposed things in his book, “Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment” such as, “forced sterilization for women after they gave birth to a designated number of children,” and just good old fashion abortion as a method for “population control.”

I don’t remember Obama mentioning that at all during his campaign.

How about Carol Browner? According to Fox News’ Glenn Beck, she is the “global warming ‘czar,’” and was part of Socialist International.

Why is there a socialist advising the president?

Then there’s Ezekiel Emmanuel. According to Beck, he is a health care adviser that is a proponent of a system which puts values on lives based on age and health.

Basically, that’s a way of saying the government should be the ones determining who is fit for health care and who isn’t. Should these people be a part of health care reform?

These are just a few examples of Obama’s current startling associations. If Obama trusts and listens to them it is, at best, an extremely worrisome situation. Clearly, this is no longer a couple of random people in Obama’s life but instead a scary trend that makes it clear Obama wants these people around him. He must agree with their philosophies and ideas to some degree, otherwise why keep them around? It makes me wonder what Obama really envisions when he talks about “change” for America. But most of all, it just makes me wonder what people were thinking when they voted for him. 

Alex Perry is a Collegian columnist.  He can be reached at [email protected].