View Full Version : Van Jones
Bill Harsey
03-12-2009, 20:31
Do we have anyone around San Francisco who know who Van Jones is?
The pres just picked him to be the Green Jobs Czar.
Sacamuelas
03-12-2009, 21:31
edited
PM inbound Sir Harsey.
Another community dis-organizer of note.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Jones
Richard's $.02 :munchin
What are the chances an SF candidate would get a clearance with a similar background? :munchin
www.DiscoverTheNetwork.org Date: 8/27/2009 12:29:47 PM
VAN JONES
* Became a Communist in the aftermath of the 1992 "Rodney King riots" in Los Angeles
* Founded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in 1996
* Was active in the anti-Iraq War demonstrations organized by International ANSWER
* Served as a board member of the Rainforest Action Network and Free Press
* In March 2009, President Barack Obama named Jones to be his so-called “Green Jobs Czar.”
Born in 1968 in rural West Tennessee, Van Jones earned a B.A. degree from the University of Tennessee at Martin and then attended Yale Law School. During his years at Yale, Jones served as an intern with the San Francisco-based Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights (LCCR), which views the United States as an irredeemably racist nation and “champions the legal rights of people of color, poor people, immigrants and refugees, with a special commitment to African-Americans.”
Jones says that he first became politically radicalized in the aftermath of the deadly April 1992 Los Angeles riots which erupted shortly after four L.A. police officers who had beaten the infamous Rodney King were exonerated in court. “I was a rowdy nationalist on April 28th,” says Jones, who is black, “and then the verdicts came down on April 29th. By August, I was a communist.”
Jones was arrested during the L.A. riots and spent a short time in jail. “I met all these young radical people of color,” he recalls, “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.”
After earning his Juris Doctorate from Yale in 1993, Jones relocated to San Francisco, where he helped establish Bay Area PoliceWatch, a hotline and lawyer-referral service that began as a project of LCCR. In 1996 he founded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, which, claiming that the American criminal-justice system is infested with racism, seeks to promote alternatives to incarceration. According to the Baker Center:
“Decades of disinvestment in our cities have led to despair and hopelessness. For poor communities and communities of color it’s even worse, as excessive, racist policing and over-incarceration have left people even further behind.”
By the late 1990s, Jones was a committed Marxist-Leninist-Maoist who viewed police officers as the arch-enemies of black people, and who loathed capitalism for allegedly exploiting nonwhite minorities worldwide. He became a leading member of Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM), a Bay Area Marxist-Maoist collective that was staffed by members of various local nonprofits, a number of whom had ties to the Ella Baker Center.
A small but influential radical organization, STORM was founded in 1994 by a group of black anti-war activists who had demonstrated together against the Gulf War three years earlier. STORM became the guiding force behind several notable front groups, one of which was an anti-police collective called Bay Area Police Watch. Another STORM front was the School of Unity and Liberation (SOUL), which was a Marxist training organization; yet another was People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER), which agitated on behalf of the jobless. STORM would grow in influence until 2002, when it disbanded due to internal squabbles.
In the early 2000s, Jones and STORM were active in the anti-Iraq War demonstrations organized by International ANSWER, a front group for the Marxist-Leninist Workers World Party. STORM also had ties to the South African Communist Party and it revered Amilcar Cabral, the late Marxist revolutionary leader (of Guinea-Bissau and the Cape Verde Islands) who lauded Lenin as “the greatest champion of the national liberation of the peoples.” (In 2006 Van Jones would name his own newborn son “Cabral” -- in Amilcar Cabral’s honor.)
During his tenure with STORM, Jones collaborated on numerous projects (including antiwar demonstrations) with local activist Elizabeth “Betita” Martinez, who served as a “mentor” for members of the Ella Baker Center. Martinez was a longtime Maoist who went on to join the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS), a Communist Party USA splinter group, in the early 1990s. To this day, Martinez continues to sit on the CCDS advisory board alongside such luminaries as Angela Davis, Timuel Black (who served on Barack Obama’s 2004 Senate campaign committee), and musician Pete Seeger. Martinez is also a board member of the Movement for a Democratic Society, the parent organization of Progressives for Obama. Martinez and Van Jones together attended a “Challenging White Supremacy” workshop which advanced the theme that “all too often, the unconscious racism of white activists stands in the way of any effective, worthwhile collaboration” with blacks.
In 2005 Jones and the Ella Baker Center produced the “Social Equity Track” for the United Nations’ World Environment Day celebration, a project that eventually would evolve into the Baker Center’s Green-Collar Jobs Campaign -- “a job-training and employment pipeline providing ‘green pathways out of poverty’ for low-income adults in Oakland.”
Soon after attending the Clinton Global Initiative in September 2007, Jones launched “Green For All,” a non-governmental organization “dedicated to building an inclusive green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty … advocating for local, state and federal commitment to job creation, job training, and entrepreneurial opportunities in the emerging green economy – especially for people from disadvantaged communities.”
In 2008 Jones published his first book, The Green Collar Economy, which focused on environmental and economic issues. The book received favorable reviews from such notables as Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi, Laurie David, Winona LaDuke, environmentalist Paul Hawken, and NAACP President/CEO Ben Jealous.
Jones has served as a board member of numerous environmental and nonprofit organizations, including the Rainforest Action Network; Free Press; Bioneers (which accepts the United Nations Millennium Ecosystem Report’s warning that “[h]uman activity is putting such strain on the natural functions of Earth that the ability of the planet’s ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted”); the National Apollo Alliance (which seeks “to catalyze a clean energy revolution that will put millions of Americans to work in a new generation of high-quality, green-collar jobs”); the Social Venture Network (which aims “to build a just economy and sustainable planet”); and Julia Butterfly Hill’s “Circle of Life” environmental foundation.
Jones also co-founded Color of Change, an organization that views the United states as a profoundly racist country, and whose mission is "to make government more responsive to the concerns of Black Americans and to bring about positive political and social change for everyone."
Jones was a Senior Fellow with the Center for American Progress and a Fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences.
In March 2009, President Barack Obama named Jones to be his so-called “Green Jobs Czar.” Jones’ formal title is “Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation” for the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
In a July 2009 interview with Newsweek magazine, Jones said he could not explain exactly what a “green job” is:
"Well, we still don’t have a unified definition, and that’s not unusual in a democracy. It takes a while for all the states and the federal government to come to some agreement. But the Department of Labor is working on it very diligently. Fundamentally, it’s getting there, but we haven’t crossed the finish line yet."
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2406
Of course. :confused:
One day after the 9/11 attacks, President Obama's "green jobs czar" led a vigil that expressed solidarity with Arab and Muslim Americans as well as what it called the victims of "U.S. imperialism" around the world...
A WND review of the 97-page treatise found a description of a vigil that Jones' group held Sept. 12, 2001, at Snow Park in Oakland, Calif. The event drew hundreds and articulated an "anti-imperialist" line, according to STORM's own description.
The radical group's manual boasted the 9/11 vigil was held to express solidarity with Arab and Muslim Americans and to mourn the civilians killed in the terrorist attacks "as well as the victims of U.S. imperialism around the world."
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=108180
The guy is a garden variety California coconut, I always thought religion and communism were mutually exclusive? This guy changes his stripes a lot.
After listening to Van Jones speak to Powershift 09, I get the impression that he hasn't given up his goal for communist revolution. It has just been re-badged as 'green for all' and the 'green economy.'
Some comments from the speech, in no particular order:
"Coal miners are people too." - He then goes on to slam the coal industry.
(The United States) is "a pollution based economy."
"Green for everybody"
"What about people who come here from all around the world who we're willing to have out in the fields with poison being sprayed on them, poison being sprayed on them because we have the wrong agricultural system." - Referring to immigrant agricultural workers.
"We obviously need some help [from immigrants]. We need some wisdom from some place else. Because what we have come up with here don't make no sense at all." - Referring to the current US economic system.
He also speaks of "...older veterans like myself." Was he in the military? From the context of the speech, he seemed to be referring to himself as a 'veteran' in the fight to change our economic system.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVNtoAiOh1k
A little about Powershift, in their own Words:
Our Demands
We want politicians to stand up to the dirty energy lobby and pass the energy and climate policies we truly need. We expect the politicians we elected in November to listen to what science is telling us and act immediately to reduce emissions, create jobs and re-engage globally to tackle the climate and economic crises.
Goals of Power Shift 09:
o
Push the new administration and Congress to pass bold, comprehensive energy and climate legislation.
o
Prepare our leaders and our movement for the international climate negotiations in December 2009 where we will help build and ratify a strong global climate agreement - one that allows all communities to participate and benefit.
o Develop a comprehensive strategy for continued political pressure and accountability and a shared vision to facilitate the development and implementation of individual and group action plans for local, state and national campaigns.
o Strengthen the bonds between diverse youth constituencies while we train and empower each other with the skills needed to create one movement that tackles climate change, environmental injustice, and economic failure.
o Connect with fellow organizers and build community to build our power and sustain our own involvement for the long-term.
o Understand the magnitude of both the challenges and opportunities presented by the climate crisis and explore our own capacities to create transformative change.
http://www.powershift09.org/about/goals
STORM according to STORM:
'Reclaiming Revolution, history, summation & lessons from the work of Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM)'
http://web.archive.org/web/20070719020533/http://leftspot.com/blog/files/docs/STORMSummation.pdf
No bias here. :rolleyes:
The Van Jones (non) feeding frenzy
By: Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent
09/04/09 11:30 AM EDT
From a Nexis search a few moments ago:
Total words about the Van Jones controversy in the New York Times: 0.
Total words about the Van Jones controversy in the Washington Post: 0.
Total words about the Van Jones controversy on NBC Nightly News: 0.
Total words about the Van Jones controversy on ABC World News: 0.
Total words about the Van Jones controversy on CBS Evening News: 0.
If you were to receive all your news from any one of these outlets, or even all of them together, and you heard about some sort of controversy involving President Obama's Special Adviser for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, your response would be, "Huh?" If you heard that that adviser, Van Jones, had apologized for a number of remarks and positions in the recent past, your response would be, "What?" And if you were in the Obama White House monitoring the Jones situation, you would be hoping that the news organizations listed above continue to hold the line -- otherwise, Jones, who is quite well thought of in Obama circles, would be history.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/The-Van-Jones-non-feeding-non-frenzy-57271402.html
WTF is happening to this country?
incarcerated
09-04-2009, 23:37
In case you missed it:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/04/radicalization-obamas-green-czar/
The Radicalization of Obama's 'Green Czar'
Friday, September 04, 2009
The political radicalization of Van Jones, President Obama's "green jobs" adviser, dates back to 1992, when he and hundreds of others took their anger to the streets of San Francisco in the infamous Rodney King protests.
Jones, a Yale Law School student who was working in the Bay Area as an intern, was part of a mob that stormed the city following the acquittal in Los Angeles of four white police officers who had been charged with beating King, who is black, after a car chase.
In an essay he wrote soon after the rioting and republished in The Huffington Post in May 2007, Jones said he "just marched around and chanted slogans" as other protesters set trash cans afire, smashed car windows and threw rocks at passing motorists. But he clearly reveled in the protest.
"Our moment had finally come! We were righteous, fired up, weren't takin' no more!" Jones wrote. "We were one thousand strong on Market Street, with the Bay Bridge shut down in rush hour traffic and the grounds around the state building swarming with angry mobs! Our rallying cry was for justice; our demand was that the System be changed!"
Jones continued, "Yes, the Great Revolutionary Moment had at long last come. And the time, clearly, was ours! So we stole stuff. Y'know, stole stuff. Radios, tennis shoes. Well, not everybody, of course."
Days after he wrote the essay, Jones was arrested along with hundreds of participants in a "peaceful protest" march.
Charges against him ultimately were dropped, and he says he received a "small" settlement.
"I was arrested simply for being a police observer," he later said.
Jones, in the piece he wrote for The Huffington Post, said his essay "captures the pain, frustration and aspirations of a much younger person. But I think it speaks well to the thought process of many young activists at the time."
"But the incident deepened my disaffection with the system and accelerated my political radicalization," he wrote. "The political agenda I articulated for myself and my generation in this essay remains largely undone and incomplete."
Indeed, Jones' "disaffection with the system" appeared to continue. In a June 2008 speech to the National Conference for Media Reform, Jones blasted a proposed prison in Memphis that he compared to a "huge slave ship on dry land."
"You don't have to call somebody the n-word if you can call them a felon," Jones said in the speech, which can be seen on YouTube . "The fight against this new Jim Crow, this punishment industry, where for-profit prison companies are now being traded on the stock exchange ... that struggle is being met as it was 40 years ago."
In his 2007 reflection on the aftermath of King's beating, Jones said he was among those who chanted "no justice, no peace" during the "understandable, unavoidable, even necessary" riots.
"These riots were not revolution; without revolutionary values and revolutionary organization, they were merely sharp outcroppings of the systemic chaos that social injustice breeds," Jones wrote. "But flashpoints of rage can never substitute for radical social vision or grassroots coordination."
Jones, the founder of Green for All, which focuses on creating environmentally friendly jobs in poor areas, continues to be a focus of President Obama's critics after video surfaced of him referring to Republicans as "assholes" and it was revealed that he once joined the "9/11 truther" movement, which contended that the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks might have been an inside job by the Bush administration.
In 2004 Jones signed a statement calling for then-New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and others to launch an investigation into evidence that suggests "people within the current administration may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war."
The statement asked a series of critical questions hinting at Bush administration involvement in the attacks and called for "deeper inquiry." It was also signed by former Georgia Rep. Cynthia McKinney and Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans.
Jones distanced himself from the position on Thursday, saying, "In recent days some in the news media have reported on past statements I made before I joined the administration -- some of which were made years ago. If I have offended anyone with statements I made in the past, I apologize. As for the petition [9/11 statement] that was circulated today, I do not agree with this statement and it certainly does not reflect my views now or ever."
An aide to Jones told FOX News he "did not carefully review the language in the petition." The aide did not say when Jones signed the petition or when he became aware of the controversy.
Thursday's apology followed Jones' mea culpa on Wednesday, when he expressed his remorse for "offensive words" he uttered in February, when he called Republicans "assholes." He said those remarks "do not reflect the views of this administration" and its bipartisan aims.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs limited his remarks about Jones on Friday, saying only that he "continues to work in this administration." As to the Sept. 11 conspiracy theorists, Gibbs said, "It's not something the president agrees with."
At least one congressman, U.S. Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., has called for Jones' resignation.
Democratic strategist and FOX News contributor Bob Beckel predicted that Jones would be out of a job by Labor Day, and he wondered how Jones got the "czar" post in the first place.
"He's got every right in the world to be a self-avowed communist, but the Secret Service would no more allow a self-avowed communist into the White House as they would Charlie Manson, so that's what I don't get," Beckel said.
"There's something more in here about the breakdown of the system. Yes, it broke down with the Obama administration, but it also broke down with those people who are responsible for doing the background check," he added.
It was on CBS News last night.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5289525n&tag=contentMain;contentBody
And so it goes...:confused:
Richard's $.02 :munchin
This Guy doesn't know what he believes in or what to follow . To me it's simple, he's an IDIOT. The clip of the Whit House Spokes person bragging about having Van Jones as part of the White House Team says it all.
It was on CBS News last night.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5289525n&tag=contentMain;contentBody
And so it goes...:confused:
Richard's $.02 :munchin
The time the search was conducted by Mr. York:
09/04/09 11:30 AM EDT
Defender968
09-05-2009, 10:19
What's amazing to me about Mr. Jones is not that he is a radical racist and self avowed communist, those are a dime a dozen surrounding this administration, but with all of his history either the secret service completely failed in conducting the background check when vetting him (and I have a hard time buying that as they would have had to simply not do it to miss all his skeletons) or that the one knew all of Mr. Jones background, and when the secret service said this guys bad ju-ju the one said he's in regardless because he believed it was ok for Mr. Jones to be a czar even with his background. How bad can his judgment be, I mean really, I'm not the super politician uber wise savior of the world, but I could have told him, no matter how much you want a commie in the Whitehouse with you, your opponents, and the general populace isn't going to go for this guy with his background and it will come up and it will drastically hurt your credibility and your ability to get things done, and it will be used as a spring board to attack your character, judgment, values, and motives.
Just my .02
incarcerated
09-05-2009, 14:19
....How bad can his judgment be, I mean really, I'm not the super politician uber wise savior of the world, but I could have told him, no matter how much you want a commie in the Whitehouse with you, your opponents, and the general populace isn't going to go for this guy with his background and it will come up and it will drastically hurt your credibility and your ability to get things done, and it will be used as a spring board to attack your character, judgment, values, and motives.
This has turned out to be a theme of his administration.
I'm chalking it up to Leftist narcissism.
Team Sergeant
09-05-2009, 14:45
The racist will not be there much longer, even the left is calling for his resignation.
I wonder if he blames obama's "white" half for forcing him to resign ?;)
The racist will not be there much longer, even the left is calling for his resignation.
I wonder if he blames obama's "white" half for forcing him to resign ?;)
No, he is probably too concerned that Obama's white half is trying to poison Obama's black half.:p
If I have offended anyone with statements I made in the past, I apologize.
IMO, an apology beginning with "If" is not an apology.
The Reaper
09-05-2009, 22:34
FoxNews is reporting that Van Jones has resigned.
TR
Source is here (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/06/raw-data-text-resignation-letter-van-jones/).
Resignation letter from Obama adviser Van Jones, sent to Council on Environmental Quality Chair Nancy Sutley.
Sunday, September 06, 2009
I am resigning my post at the Council on Environmental Quality, effective today.
On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me. They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide.
I have been inundated with calls - from across the political spectrum - urging me to "stay and fight."
But I came here to fight for others, not for myself. I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past. We need all hands on deck, fighting for the future.
It has been a great honor to serve my country and my President in this capacity. I thank everyone who has offered support and encouragement. I am proud to have been able to make a contribution to the clean energy future. I will continue to do so, in the months and years ahead.
But he's not bitter.
As the saying goes: "NEXT!" <<LINK (http://pageslap.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/obama_poster_soup_nazi.gif)>>
incarcerated
09-06-2009, 00:18
One for the WIN column.
TS called it yesterday at 15:45 (see post #17 above).
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/sep/06/green-jobs-czar-van-jones-resigns/
Green jobs czar Van Jones resigns
Sunday, September 6, 2009
By Christina Bellantoni (Contact)
Van Jones, President Obama's green jobs czar, has resigned amid furor over his past statements regarding the Bush administration and the September 11 terrorist attacks.
In a resignation letter released by the White House just after midnight on Sunday, Mr. Jones said he was the victim of a smear campaign.
....The holiday weekend release has been used by many politicians to attempt to lessen bad publicity.
If he quit where's he working now??????
'.......Jones issued an apology on Thursday for his past statements. When asked the next day whether Obama still had confidence in him, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said only that Jones "continues to work in the administration." .............."
Divemaster
09-06-2009, 05:07
Nothing bad that has ever happened to Van Jones has been his fault. He is being oppressed. Of course his resignation will come as a shock to those who never watch Fox News.
In a related story, Czars have never been this nervous since 1917.
If he quit where's he working now??????
'.......Jones issued an apology on Thursday for his past statements. When asked the next day whether Obama still had confidence in him, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said only that Jones "continues to work in the administration." .............."
I'd beat he is still on the phone tree of O's Blackberry.
Utah Bob
09-06-2009, 05:25
And another one sails into the sunset...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32712017/ns/politics-white_house
Washington - AP
President Barack Obama's adviser Van Jones has resigned amid controversy over past inflammatory statements, the White House said early Sunday.
Jones, an administration official specializing in environmentally friendly "green jobs" with the White House Council on Environmental Quality was linked to efforts suggesting a government role in the 2001 terror attacks and to derogatory comments about Republicans.
The resignation comes as Obama is working to regain his footing in the contentious health care debate.
Story continues below ↓advertisement | your ad here
Jones issued an apology on Thursday for his past statements. When asked the next day whether Obama still had confidence in him, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said only that Jones "continues to work in the administration."
'Vicious smear campaign'
The matter surfaced after news reports of a derogatory comment Jones made in the past about Republicans, and separately, of Jones' name appearing on a petition connected to the events surrounding the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. That 2004 petition had asked for congressional hearings and other investigations into whether high-level government officials had allowed the attacks to occur.
"On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me," Jones said in his resignation statement. "They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide."
Jones said he has been "inundated with calls from across the political spectrum urging me to stay and fight."
But he said he cannot in good conscience ask his colleagues to spend time and energy defending or explaining his past.
Jones flatly said in an earlier statement that he did not agree with the petition's stand on the 9/11 attacks and that "it certainly does not reflect my views, now or ever."
As for his other comments he made before joining Obama's team, Jones said, "If I have offended anyone with statements I made in the past, I apologize."
'Extremist views'
Despite his apologies, Republicans demanded Jones quit.
Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana said in a statement, "His extremist views and coarse rhetoric have no place in this administration or the public debate." Missouri Sen. Christopher Bonds said Congress should investigate Jones's fitness the job.
Fox News Channel host Glenn Beck repeatedly denounced Jones after a group the adviser co-founded, ColorofChange.org, led an advertising boycott against Beck's show to protest his claim that Obama is a racist.
James Rucker, the organization's executive director, has said Jones had nothing to do with ColorofChange.org now and didn't even know about the campaign before it started.
Jones, well-known in the environmental movement, was a civil-rights activist in California before shifting his attention to environmental and energy issues. He is known for laying out a broad vision of a green economy.
Nancy Sutley chair of the council, said in a statement released early Sunday that she accepts Jones resignation and thanked him for his service.
"Over the last six months, he had been a strong voice for creating jobs that improve energy efficiency and utilize renewable resources," she said. "We appreciate his hard work and wish him the best moving forward."
BMT (RIP)
09-06-2009, 06:03
Now that he is gone.
What kind of spin will Gibbs put on this story?
BMT
However - getting 'sacked' from this administration might be something that is seen as a positive on a future resume'. ;)
And so it goes...
Richard's $.02 :munchin
In a resignation letter released by the White House just after midnight on Sunday, Mr. Jones said he was the victim of a smear campaign.
Smear Campaign! Did Fox News doctor those videos in some way. Just another example of someone pulling out the Victim card and not taking responsibility for their actions. Wonder if he will get a million dollar book deal out of this. I'm sure he speaking fee has doubled.
Hell, I wish someone would do a Smear campaign on me, I could use the money. Wait, my ex Wife did:D
Plutarch
09-06-2009, 06:46
If he quit where's he working now??????
GM? Just a guess.
Utah Bob
09-06-2009, 08:48
"Over the last six months, he had been a strong voice for creating jobs
He hadn't created any of course, but he had been a "strong voice".:rolleyes:
wow... wow quit on a saturday night.
I wonder if alcohol was involved?
Team Sergeant
09-06-2009, 10:21
You know I don't have a problem with van jones, he's an idiot and will always be an idiot.
My probelm is with the left-wing democrats (socialists) that think van jones actions and behavior is just fine.......
obama and his "staff" in my opinion, are incompetent.
I'm beginning to wonder if there will be a "third" impeachment process in the near future.....
Team Sergeant
Dean: Jones' Resignation a 'Loss for the Country'
The former presidential candidate vigorously defends Van Jones, who resigned in the wake of criticism over his past statements and associations.
FOXNews.com
Sunday, September 06, 2009
Former Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean said Sunday that the resignation of White House green jobs adviser Van Jones is a "loss for the country."
The outspoken Democrat and former presidential candidate vigorously defended Jones, who resigned in the wake of criticism over his past statements and associations -- including his past support for a group that believes the Bush administration may have been involved in the Sept. 11 attacks.
"I think he was brought down," Dean told "FOX News Sunday," saying he just spoke to Jones. "I think it's a loss for the country."
Dean pointed to Jones' credentials as a Yale Law School graduate and best-selling author.
Though Jones signed a 2004 statement calling for an investigation into possible Bush administration involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks, Dean said Jones didn't realize what he was signing at the time.
"I don't think he really thinks the government had anything to do with causing 9/11," he said.
But 911Truth.org spokesman Mike Berger, whose group sponsored the statement, earlier told FOX News that Jones knew what he was signing.
Republicans swiftly called for Jones' resignation following the discovery that he signed the petition.
Former Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean said Sunday that the resignation of White House green jobs adviser Van Jones is a "loss for the country."
Jeeeez! was Alcohol involved in that statement as well
Roguish Lawyer
09-06-2009, 10:45
Just got this e-mail:
CNN BREAKING NEWS: As part of its new "Straight Talk" initiative, the White House announced today that President Obama has appointed Van Jones to the new cabinet-level position of Kommisar of Red Jobs.
"Comrade Jones personifies the new look of my Administration," the President said in a morning press conference. "He gonna go medieval on dem capitalist runnin dogs, yo."
...at least he didn't try to hop a train on his way out of town.
Do we have anyone around San Francisco who know who Van Jones is?
The pres just picked him to be the Green Jobs Czar.
I know who he is and I personally know of good cops who felt the wrath and hatred of him. Most of these cops to include me worked in the Ghetto. I personally think I was not targeted due to my race. Most of the cops who were targeted in the ghetto were white felony cops where other non white felony cops were not picked on.
Utah Bob
09-06-2009, 20:50
Former Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean said Sunday that the resignation of White House green jobs adviser Van Jones is a "loss for the country."
Jeeeez! was Alcohol involved in that statement as well
He didn't say which country.
incarcerated
09-07-2009, 04:18
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/07/MNT319JJCF.DTL
Progressives decry resignation of Van Jones
Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, September 7, 2009
The middle-of-the-night resignation Sunday of longtime Bay Area activist Van Jones as a White House environmental adviser left many progressives angry at the Obama administration for buckling to conservative criticism of Jones' controversial past comments and actions.
The administration is losing not only one of the nation's leading environmentalists, progressives say, but one of the few liberal voices with President Obama's ear.
Jones resigned amid a furor over his signature on a 2004 petition questioning the government's actions around the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Supporters say the administration surely knew his background when they appointed Jones, the first African American to write a best-selling environmental book, as special adviser for green jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. In fact, agents interviewed at least one of his former supervisors in San Francisco - Eva Paterson - when the FBI vetted his appointment.
This year, Time magazine named Jones one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Former Vice President Al Gore is a fan, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said his best-selling book, "Green Collar," showcased his "sparkling intelligence, powerful vision and deep empathy."....
but one of the few liberal voices with President Obama's ear.
What they hell are they smoking? :rolleyes:
TrapLine
09-07-2009, 08:39
I'm beginning to wonder if there will be a "third" impeachment process in the near future.....
Team Sergeant
I hope this proves to be as prophetic as post #17 by the Team Sergeant in this thread;).
incarcerated
09-07-2009, 12:35
I hope this proves to be as prophetic as post #17 by the Team Sergeant in this thread;).
While I do not relish the thought of a President Biden or, worse, a President Pelosi, a lengthy impeachment process would certainly derail the Left's agenda, as well as their chances in 2010 and 2012. ;)
......a lengthy impeachment process would certainly derail the Left's agenda, as well as their chances in 2010 and 2012. ;)
Never Happen
The House will never vote for it.
Charlie the Rental House Rangler still has his committie chair.
The Dems will never vote for impeachment of the President. Even if the Republicans took the House in 2010 they would never do it either.
Praetorian
09-07-2009, 12:50
What they hell are they smoking? :rolleyes:
The answer is simple. Its relative.
Liberals don't see themselves as liberal. Liberals see and characterize themselves as "moderate" or "normal". They have shifted the goal posts a full position to the left, so traditional Republicans are the "extreme right" and rabid leftists and Marxists are the new "liberals" compared to their normal middle of the road ideas.
The Reaper
09-07-2009, 13:53
Never say never.
TR
incarcerated
09-07-2009, 14:19
The answer is simple. Its relative.
No, I think they're smoking something.
:D
He was smart enough to quit before his entire past was exposed by the MSM, so I give him credit for that much.
And that's about all the credit he's gonna get from me.
incarcerated
09-07-2009, 18:11
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203440104574398924037940810.html?m od=googlenews_wsj
Obama and the Left
The lesson of the rise and fall of Van Jones.
REVIEW & OUTLOOK SEPTEMBER 7, 2009, 7:53 P.M. ET
The abrupt resignation of White House aide Van Jones, deep in the news hiatus of Labor Day weekend, will probably be forgotten in a few days. But it's a story that still deserves elaboration for what it says about the political coalition that helped to elect President Obama and whose demands are leading him into a cul-de-sac.
As a candidate, Barack Obama was at pains to offer himself as a man of moderate policies, and especially of moderate temperament. He said he would listen to both the right and left, choosing the best of each depending on "what works." He sold himself as a center-left pragmatist. When his radical associations—Reverend Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers—came to light, Candidate Obama promptly disavowed them. Now comes Mr. Jones, with a long trail of extreme comments and left-wing organizing, who nonetheless became the White House adviser for "green jobs." This weekend he too was thrown under the bus.
However, Mr. Jones wasn't some unknown crazy who insinuated himself with the Obama crowd under false pretenses. He has been a leading young light of the left-wing political movement for many years. His 2008 book—"The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems"—includes a foreword from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and was praised across the liberal establishment.
Mr. Jones was a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, which was established, funded and celebrated as the new intellectual vanguard of the Democratic Party. The center's president is John Podesta, who was co-chair of Mr. Obama's transition team and thus played a major role in recommending appointees throughout the Administration. The ascent of Mr. Jones within the liberal intelligentsia shows how much the Democratic Party has moved left since its "New Democrat" triangulation of the Clinton years.
Mr. Jones's incendiary comments about Republicans and his now famous association with a statement blaming the U.S. for 9/11 had to have been known in some White House precincts. He was praised and sponsored by Valerie Jarrett, who is one of the two or three most powerful White House aides and is a long-time personal friend of the President.
Our guess is that Mr. Jones landed in the White House precisely because his job didn't require Senate confirmation, which would have subjected him to more scrutiny. This is also no doubt a reason that Mr. Obama has consolidated so much of his Administration's governing authority inside the White House under various "czars." Mr. Jones was poised to play a prominent role in disbursing tens of billions of dollars of stimulus money. It was the ideal perch from which he could keep funding the left-wing networks from which he sprang, this time with taxpayer money.
This helps explain why the political left is so upset about Mr. Jones's resignation. Listen to David Sirota, another left-wing think-tank denizen and activist, who wrote the following Sunday on the Huffington Post Web site:
"Finally, the Jones announcement will inevitably create a chilling effect on the aspirations of other movement progressives. Van is a fantastic person who has done fantastic work. He's kept his advocacy real and didn't compromise his principles. And so when he was appointed to a high-level White House job, it seemed to validate that you could, in fact, keep it real and also advance in American politics and government. That is to say, his story seemed to prove that an outsider could also succeed on the inside—and that outside advocacy doesn't automatically prohibit you from one day working on the inside."
Mr. Sirota is speaking for many on the movement left who believe they helped to elect Mr. Obama and therefore deserve seats at the inner table of power. They are increasingly frustrated because they are discovering that Mr. Obama will happily employ "movement progressives," but only so long as their real views and motivations aren't widely known or understood. How bitter it must be to discover that the Fox News Channel's Glenn Beck, who drove the debate about Mr. Jones, counts for more at this White House than Mr. Sirota.
No President is responsible for all of the views of his appointees, but the rise and fall of Mr. Jones is one more warning that Mr. Obama can't succeed on his current course of governing from the left. He is running into political trouble not because his own message is unclear, or because his opposition is better organized. Mr. Obama is falling in the polls because last year he didn't tell the American people that the "change" they were asked to believe in included trillions of dollars in new spending, deferring to the most liberal Members of Congress, a government takeover of health care, and appointees with the views of Van Jones.
No, I think they're smoking something.
:D
Either that or their heads are so far up their fourth point of contact they've suffocated themselves to the point of brain damage.
incarcerated
09-07-2009, 21:01
Either that or their heads are so far up their fourth point of contact they've suffocated themselves to the point of brain damage.
Or both.
Why all the hate for Van? He was just trying to keep it real, yo.
:rolleyes:
Listen to David Sirota, another left-wing think-tank denizen and activist, who wrote the following Sunday on the Huffington Post Web site:
"Finally, the Jones announcement will inevitably create a chilling effect on the aspirations of other movement progressives. Van is a fantastic person who has done fantastic work. He's kept his advocacy real and didn't compromise his principles. And so when he was appointed to a high-level White House job, it seemed to validate that you could, in fact, keep it real and also advance in American politics and government. That is to say, his story seemed to prove that an outsider could also succeed on the inside—and that outside advocacy doesn't automatically prohibit you from one day working on the inside."
Praetorian
09-07-2009, 22:03
Times are tough.... I wonder if now that hes unemployed he's applying to Wendy's?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUCjQrZsvjo
You're assuming they have a brain.
Or both.
See I thought both too, but actually Brush Okie makes a good point. :D
incarcerated
09-08-2009, 17:25
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,548041,00.html
Don't Congratulate Me for Van Jones' Resignation
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
By Glenn Beck
In case your only source of news is ABC, CBS, NBC and/or The New York Times or, as the White House was hoping, you were out doing things with your family this long weekend and didn't check the news (which was released after midnight Sunday so it wouldn't be in any papers) the green jobs "czar," special adviser to the president, Van Jones has resigned.
But here's The One Thing: My phone, e-mail and Twitter were hammered all weekend with people offering congratulations. First, let me say I'm not the one to congratulate. I can go on and on about this stuff, but if you don't care and it doesn't connect with the American people, what I say doesn't matter.
So let me start with the good news: You still have power and clout in Washington. In many cases, your representatives in Washington knew nothing about Van Jones. You were educating them and it wasn't until late last week that a few brave political people began to speak out.
But here's the bad news: When this came out and people started to say congratulations, my first response was: You still don't get it. This was a victory of sorts, but only for those playing political games. I'm not doing that and I don't think you are either.
You are trying to protect and defend the Constitution. President Obama was hoping that this would go away. One of the headlines from the Politico this weekend was: "Beck Up, Left Down."
I read the article a couple of times. Van Jones said this was a vicious smear campaign. Van Jones was able to resign, not be fired. And, during his resignation, he placed the blame on others, not himself.
What Van Jones doesn't understand is that I didn't bring down Van Jones; you didn't bring down Van Jones; Van Jones brought down Van Jones.
Is it a smear campaign to quote Van Jones' own words?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
VAN JONES, FORMER SPECIAL ADVISER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA: This movement is deeper than a solar panel! Deeper than a solar panel! Don't stop there! Don't stop there! We're going to change the whole system! We're going to change the whole thing. We want a new system. We want a new system!
JONES: And our Native American sisters and brothers who were pushed and bullied and mistreated and shoved into all the land we didn't want, where it was all hot and windy. Well, guess what? Renewable energy? Guess what, solar industry? Guess what wind industry? They now own and control 80 percent of the renewable energy resources. No more broken treaties. No more broken treaties. Give them the wealth! Give them the wealth! Give them the dignity. Give them the respect that they deserve. No justice on stolen land. We owe them a debt.
JONES: The white polluters and the white environmentalists are essentially steering poison into the people of color communities.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
The media got all worked up because Van Jones called Republicans a rude name:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: How were the Republicans able to push things through when they had less than 60 senators, but somehow we can't?
JONES: Well, the answer to that is they're a—holes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
But listen to the rest of that quote — this is what makes him in many ways more dangerous; he is no longer restricted in what he can say or do:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JONES: And Barack Obama is not an a—hole. So, um, now I will say this: I can be an a—hole. And some of us who are not Barack Hussein Obama are going to have to start getting a little bit ugly.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
This isn't about Van Jones. This is about the president and his policies:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
THEN-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE BARACK OBAMA: Let me tell you who I associate with. On economic policy, I associate with Warren Buffett and former Fed chairman, Paul Volcker. If I'm interested in figuring out my foreign policy, I associate myself with my running mate, Joe Biden, or with Dick Lugar, the Republican-ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, or General Jim Jones, the former supreme allied commander of NATO. Those are the people, Democrats and Republicans, who have shaped my ideas and who will be surrounding me in the White House.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
incarcerated
09-08-2009, 17:30
Pt. 2
Let's go back and look the Politico article. They say in the article that they didn't scrub Van Jones. What does that mean? That the White House should have cleansed the Internet of his prior positions?
The other thing the media didn't report was that Michelle Obama has a big fan of Van Jones. More importantly, if you look at the language of Robert Gibbs, the White House doesn't endorse these things:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERT GIBBS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: What Van Jones decided was that the agenda of this president was bigger than any one individual. The president thanks Van Jones for his service in the first eight months in helping coordinate renewable energy jobs that are going to lay the foundation for our future economic growth...
(CROSSTALK)
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, 'THIS WEEK' HOST: Did the president want him to go?
GIBBS: Well, the president and the CEQ ultimately accepted his resignation, because Van Jones, as he says in his statement, understood that he was going to get in the way of the president, and ultimately this country, moving forward on something as important as creating jobs in a clean-energy economy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
That's is a far cry from rejecting Van Jones' beliefs.
Communism, radicalism, black nationalism, racism is not something you just tolerate or don't endorse. Those are the things that this administration must reject.
This isn't a victory, this is a diversion. I'm not going to play their game. This isn't about me and Van Jones, even if that's what they want to make it. This is about taking Obama at his word when he said to judge him by the people he surrounds himself with.
Would you want Van Jones anywhere near American policy? A man who says things like this:
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
JONES: Human rights has [sic] no borders. Wherever there are human beings, it's important for human rights activists to show support, show solidarity. What we want to see, at this point, is the rights of the Palestinian people being respected. And, at this point, the end of the occupation, the right of return for Palestinian people. These are the critical dividing lines — global dividing lines — questions of human rights. We have to be here.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
Where did that audio come from? Let me play you the introduction to that clip:
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
MUMIA-ABU JAMAL: This is Mumia Abu-Jamal, voice of the voiceless. And you're listening to "War Times: Reports From the Opposition," presented by Freedom Fighter Music and Hard Knock Radio.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
That was Mumia Abu Jamal, who murdered a police officer — with some witnesses claiming he murdered Daniel Faulkner execution-style.
You must remain focused. You are fighting for the Constitution of the United States and we're not even finished with round one of this fight.
As I told you, this fight is not going to be fought with guns; this fight is going to be fought with questions and answers. I didn't ask for Van Jones to resign. If Americans want the version of America as Van Jones sees it, OK, but I think we at least need a discussion. This can't be done under the cover of darkness. There need to be questions and answers.
Without publicly rejecting Van Jones, do you want me to believe that he has no influence or access to you? Van Jones is a community organizer of the worst kind.
What have we learned about community organizations like ACORN? A year ago, nobody knew what a "community organization" was. Now, we've gotten a pretty good look at what some of these organizations, like ACORN, do. What we've found is that ACORN is a terrible organization. They are nearly — if not a full-fledged — criminal organization.
Now comes Van Jones building an army of community organizers: disenfranchised, communists, anarchists, prisoners. The worst of the worst are attracted to him. Where does he go now? Will he be selling clothes at JC Penny? Filling up slurpees for you at 7/11?
I don't think so.
Does the influence of Van Jones and people like him have any bearing on the Cambridge incident — where Obama concedes he doesn't have all the facts, but appears to make statements that presuppose the police were wrong?
Like Van Jones, this president didn't reject, but merely commented that he didn't endorse his views. I am confused because the people Obama surrounds himself with seem to help me make sense of his policies, but only if I look at those policies as nefarious to our founders' Constitution.
The people that the radical left has been embracing should shock 95 percent of Americans. Michael Moore's new movie calls capitalism "evil." Is that how you feel about our system? One of the books that Michael Moore just told an interviewer he recently read was the book I've been warning you about for months: "The Coming Insurrection," a radical, communist how-to manual.
Let me go back to the beginning where I shared the good news with you: It wasn't me that did this, it was you. And here's why that's even better news than what you thought: If it were just me, through back channels, blogs and articles, the left and uber-left — not Democrats, but the radical left — has decided that they will try to destroy me any way they can.
That's OK.
I'm a recovering alcoholic and I did some pretty bad things in my life. But I've owned up to them. Read my books; watch my videos. I fired a guy who brought me the wrong pen once. But I had a "pivot point" — a place in my life where I reached bottom and realized I couldn't go any lower: Sitting at the table with my kids and having them ask me to share the story I had just told them the night before when I was drunk. I couldn't remember the story, so I had to pretend. I had to lie to my kids. That hit me hard.
That was in 1995. It took me four years to really make the changes in my life that I needed and wanted to make. In November 1999, I began to change my life. I still make mistakes, but I try my hardest not to make the same mistakes and things that would bring dishonor to me and my family.
The left has doctored photos, documents and Web sites which frankly only dishonor them and hurt my children. But as I said to my kids this week, there is more to come. Because some people want to make it about politics and money and not the truth.
I will always tell you the truth, even when it hurts me personally. You do the same thing. It was just over 225 years ago that 56 men said with firm reliance on divine providence we mutually pledge our lives, our fortune and our sacred honor.
They won't even give honest answers to honest questions. I will give up everything. While we're waiting for those honest answers, perhaps we should have a debate about what kind of change America wants — out in the open, not under the cover of darkness.
— Watch "Glenn Beck" weekdays at 5 p.m. ET on FOX News Channel
Team Sergeant
09-08-2009, 20:25
I hope this proves to be as prophetic as post #17 by the Team Sergeant in this thread;).
Two words, Charles Krauthammer.
On a battlefield I will go toe to toe with anyone in the world, but even I have limits.
I attempt to read, a lot and watch those I think are much more versed in politics than I.
Charles Krauthammer made that prediction, not me.
IMO Mr. Krauthammer has no equal.
TS
rltipton
09-08-2009, 20:58
This is a very scary time for our country indeed.
incarcerated
02-24-2010, 10:15
Uh, do we have Barf Alerts here?
http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S26/69/64O70/index.xml?section=topstories
Former White House adviser Van Jones appointed visiting fellow
Posted February 24, 2010; 10:00 a.m.
Van Jones, former adviser at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, has been appointed distinguished visiting fellow in the Center for African American Studies and in the Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.
An environmental activist and social entrepreneur, Jones will hold a one-year appointment for the 2010-11 academic year and teach a course in the spring semester focusing on environmental politics, with a special emphasis on policies that create green economic opportunity for the disadvantaged. Fellows in the Center for African American Studies engage in scholarly work for one semester and teach for the other semester.
"We understand that universities are wonderful places for diverse voices to engage in conversation," said Eddie Glaude, the chair of the Center for African American Studies and the William S. Tod Professor of Religion. "The appointment of Van Jones represents our commitment to this value, especially in the context of difficult discussions about environmental challenges and African Americans. We're looking forward to a year of intense engagement with Van. We hope to model the give-and-take that is a hallmark of a genuine learning environment."
Jones is a globally recognized pioneer in human rights and the clean-energy economy. He was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2009, and is the best-selling author of "The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems," which explores the social, economic and political implications of the creation of green jobs....