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Posts tagged Van Jones
Glenn Beck up, left down and Van Jones defiant
Sep 7th
By BEN SMITH & NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON
The resignation early Sunday of “green jobs” adviser Van Jones says as much about the Obama White House as it does about Jones – marking the latest sacrifice to the political gods after a long summer of compromises and surrenders highlighted the limits of White House power.
The departure – nominally the choice of a still-defiant Jones, who said he feared distracting from important business – confirmed Obama’s choice of pragmatism over confrontation and a belief that controversies sometimes are better solved by capitulation, a view that infuriates Obama’s allies on the left.
It confirmed that the real opposition party to Obama right now is the conservative grassroots that draws its energy from Fox News, talk radio and the Drudge Report, and often leaves Republican elected officials scrambling to catch up.
And it was a fresh reminder that the White House’s vetting process didn’t fall down only on high-profile nominees like Tom Daschle. It barely touched the lower reaches of the administration – a White House official conceded Sunday that Jones’ past statements weren’t as thoroughly scrubbed due to his relatively low rank. Jones’ selection also was propelled by powerful patrons, who included the first lady and the vice president.
In his statement, Jones was defiant. “On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me,” he said. “They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide.”
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs cast the move the same way.
“What Van Jones decided was that the agenda of this president was bigger than any one individual,” Gibbs said, agreeing with the show’s host, George Stephanopoulos that Obama “doesn’t endorse” Jones’s remarks on race and politics, his apparent flirtation with the “9/11 Truth” movement, and his advocacy for the convicted murderer Mumia Abu-Jamal.
The logic of the departure was clear: A hope of keeping the national conversation where Obama wanted it this week ahead of his health reform speech to a joint session of Congress Wednesday.
“Between Cambridge cops; whether administration officials are or are not for the public option; right wing mobbing at town halls; and the back to school welcome contretemps, the White House has been forced to play defense and loose-ball control over [the summer],” said the former Clinton White House aide Chris Lehane, who noted that a “very important week” could have been consumed by “ a discussion related to an obscure staffer who no one has ever really heard of.”
Read more: politico.com
One Czar Gone, 30 Left to Go
Sep 7th
After the humiliating resignation of “Green Jobs Czar” Van Jones over the weekend, a defiant President Obama named yet another czar for manufacturing policy at a Labor Day picnic on Monday.
Ron Bloom, who was a member of his auto industry task force, was named as senior counselor for manufacturing policy. Bloom was in Cincinnati Monday with Obama for an afternoon announcement at an AFL-CIO Labor Day event.
The Obama czars are generating controversy because, unlike other official government positions, these individual “advisers” do not have to face congressional scrutiny. They are merely named by the president and start work with huge authority over federal departments and policy but no congressional oversight. And unlike many appointees, they have the ear of the president to do his bidding.
Republicans had been calling for Jones to resign and raising concerns about all the czars Obama has appointed –which by some accounts amount to more than 30. Among the most powerful czars are John Holdren, the White House “science czar,” who has espoused controversial theories on climate change and overpopulation; Cass Sunstein, “regulatory czar,” who has sought to ban hunting; and Mark Lloyd, “diversity czar,” who has sought to stymie conservative voices in the media by strictly regulating the public airwaves.
It was some of these individuals that Glenn Beck referenced in his statement Sunday after the midnight resignation of Van Jones. Beck was the leading voice in exposing many of that czar’s more controversial statements and positions.
“The American people stood up and demanded answers,” Beck wrote in a statement. “Instead of providing them, the Administration had Jones resign under cover of darkness. I continue to be amazed by the power of everyday Americans to initiate change in our government through honest questioning, and judging by the other radicals in the administration, I expect that questioning to continue for the foreseeable future.”
Dana Perino, a White House spokeswoman for the Bush administration, told Fox News that presidents like to appoint czars because it can be hard to get political appointees confirmed by an increasingly partisan Congress.
“They have skirted around that process so there is no accountability for the czars,” she said Monday. “Nobody has to go up and testify in front of Congress. They don’t have to go through the process.”
House Republican Mike Pence wants to see background checks on all Obama-appointed ‘czars,’ along with some congressional oversight. Until then, he wants to see suspension of further “czar” appointments.
Pence was the most vocal lawmaker in calling for the resignation of Van Jones after Jones was associated with the 9/11 “truther” movement: a conspiracy fringe that blamed the Bush administration for the World Trade Center attacks.
“I’m suggesting that the administration should suspend immediately any future czar appointments while both the constitutionality of this practice is examined and while the background and qualifications of individuals who’ve been appointed as czars is carefully examined,” Pence said.
The latest czar, Bloom, was a member of his auto industry task force, as senior counselor for manufacturing policy. Bloom planned to travel to Cincinnati with Obama for an afternoon announcement at the AFL-CIO event.
Bloom has already sidestepped congressional approval. He was senior adviser to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner as part of the auto industry task force since February. Bloom, a Harvard Business School graduate, previously advised the United Steelworkers union and worked as an investment banker, according to Fox News.
Bloom will work with the National Economic Council to lead policy development and planning for Obama’s work to revitalize U.S. manufacturing, the White House said.
Perino told Fox she doesn’t object to the White House focusing on revitalizing the battered manufacturing industry.
“The National Economic Council, which is part of the White House with a seat right inside the West Wing, that’s what their job is supposed to be,” she said. “I’m not clear as to why they have to add all these additional layers.”
Newsmax Washington Correspondent Ronald Kessler believes that Obama’s lack of management experience is starting to catch up with him.
“You’re seeing a White House in disarray,” Kessler told Fox, citing the contentious debate over health care reform and the decision to close the Guantanamo Bay prison without finding a place to send the detainees. “He is not exactly a model CEO.”
For a White House trying to fight through health care reform, and encourage bipartisan cooperation in the face of unabashed GOP obstruction and baseless personal attacks, the latest overblown controversy had terrible timing.
As Press Secretary Robert Gibbs explained, “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.”
Perino said she was “curious how he (Jones) made it that far into the administration when a Google search could have told you he believed that the Bush administration had allowed 9/11 to happen. It’d be like the Bush White House having a former Klansman or Holocaust denier in the West Wing.”
Read Original Article at : NewsMax.com
How Van Jones Happened and What We Need to Do Next
Sep 6th
Phil Kerpen – FOXNews.com
Now that Jones has resigned, we need to follow through with two critical policy victories. First, stop cap-and-trade, which could send these groups trillions, and second repeal the unspent portion of the stimulus bill, which stands to give them billions.
The Van Jones affair could be an important turning point in the Obama administration if we use it as a window to understand the structure of the left and to stop the huge power-grab now taking place in the name of green jobs. It’s also one of the most significant things I’ve ever had the honor of being involved in. Here’s how, from my perspective, it happened and what it means.
I was an unlikely Van Jones expert. It started July 9, when “FOX & Friends” asked me if I’d come on the show the morning of July 10 to explain what “green jobs” are. It meant an early morning the next day, but I was glad to do it, because exposing the green jobs scam is critical to fight cap-and-trade, my top legislative priority for the year. The producer asked me if I knew anything about green jobs “czar” Van Jones. I didn’t but said I would find out.
I e-mailed a friend who follows the green groups and he said he thought Jones was socialist. — I doubt he had any idea how deep it went. A couple Web searches later, I couldn’t believe what I found in an article from the alternative San Francisco newspaper the East Bay Express. The man was a self-professed communist, with ties to ACORN and a radical Maoist group called STORM. His real name was Anthony, with “Van” made up in college because he thought everyone cool has a one-syllable name.
There was so much material there, but what really stood out is what I used the next day on F&F: the “green jobs” concept was merely a new face on the old ideology of central economic planning and control, an alternative and a threat to free market capitalism.
As soon as I got back to the office, I e-mailed the East Bay Express article to one of Glenn Beck’s producer, saying: “Please share with Glenn this article about green jobs czar Van Jones, a self-described communist who was radicalized in jail. Confirms “watermelon” hypothesis.” (I was referring to an explanation we had offered on his show of the cap-and-trade bill as a “watermelon,” green on the outside but Communist red to the core.)
The rest is history. I spent the next two weeks researching everything I could find about Jones and the Apollo Alliance (much of which is still to be published, including a forthcoming paper from the Capital Research Center next month), the national umbrella organization for coordinating between the environmentalists, the labor unions, and the social justice street organizers that Jones has served as a board member and a primary national spokesman for. Beck had me on his show to explain Apollo on July 28, and several more times thereafter, while he began pounding away.
Two days later, the stakes got higher when another Jones-founded organization, Color of Change, called for a boycott of the Beck show. Amazingly, many in the mainstream media would report the fiction that Beck’s coverage of Jones was retaliation for the boycott, even though coverage of Jones started first. Given the chronology, if there is any connection we should consider whether the boycott was retaliation for the coverage.
The mainstream media completely ignored the controversy, but the Internet kicked into high gear, with so many people doing great work that it was hard to keep track of. This week, when Gateway Pundit the broke story that Van Jones actually blamed George Bush for the 9/11 terrorist attacks, some of the mainstream media (but only some) finally began paying attention. Rep. Mike Pence stepped up and called for his resignation. And early today Jones made his exit.
Now Van Jones has left the administration, but we can’t afford to stop thinking about him and what he represents. Clearly, he was far less cautious than many of the left-wing radical currently influencing the direction of policy in this country. Less cautious but not ideologically distinct.
Read More: Fox News
More czars on conservative hit list
Sep 6th
With the resignation of green jobs adviser Van Jones, the conservative firing squad is setting its sights on other White House czars.
The resignation of Jones — who stepped down from his post as the White House green jobs adviser early Sunday morning, citing a “vicious smear campaign” waged against him by “opponents of reform” — was a win for conservative politicians and pundits who waged a months-long campaign hammering him for comments he made in his previous post as an environmental activist for poor and minority communities.
Jones’ admission that he signed a petition implying a government role in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — a document circulated by right-wing bloggers — was the final, inflammatory straw for the White House.
Now, right-wing politicians and pundits are looking for other White House czars with controversial pasts. “Van Jones is the tip of the Iceburg. As VJ has said: “personnel is policy”" conservative pundit Glenn Beck twittered on Friday. Attacking Obama’s advisers, conservatives believe, will raise questions about the judgment of their popular boss.
Here’s some of other the czars on the conservative hit list:
John Holdren, science czar
Conservatives took shots at Holdren, formerly a professor at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, earlier this year for a 1977 environmental science textbook he co-authored that surveyed policy options to curb overpopulation.
In a chapter on “population policies,” the authors mentioned involuntary fertility control methods like mandatory abortions, mandating family size and adding sterilants to drinking water or staple foods.
Read more at: politico.com
Obama ‘green jobs’ adviser quits amid controversy
Sep 6th
By WILL LESTER
Associated Press Writer
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 asObama is working to regain his footing in the contentious health care debate.
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.”
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.”
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.”
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Associated Press writer Philip Elliott contributed to this report.
Read More At: BreitBart