Van Jones is out. SOB resigns

[variablebinary]

So what will Glenn Beck's ratings be next week :p

Let's see MSNBC and Commie News Network ignore this story. That will teach that prick to arrange boycotts


Obama 'green jobs' adviser quits amid controversy
Email this Story

Sep 6, 2:06 AM (ET)

By WILL LESTER

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.

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."

---

Associated Press writer Philip Elliott contributed to this report.

---

[SWATcop556]

......................and so many more to go!

[wild_wild_wes]

NOTHING on the news tonight.

But how do they cover the story now....seeing as how they ingnored it all week?

F*cking MSM.

[Cold Zero]

Best news I heard today.:eek:

[stipilot]

CNN is apparently ignoring the guy's own words and actions and simply blaming Glen Beck.

[Nathan_Bell]

CNN is apparently ignoring the guy's own words and actions and simply blaming Glen Beck.

SRM is dumber than I thought. Why would you credit your competition with having the pwer to run a Precidential appointee out of town?
If they try to paint him as being racist, GB has firm footing to throw that back at them.
Dumb move for the SRM, they should have simply regurgitated what ever Van Jones used as his reason and dropped it.

[BSHNT2015]

Van Jones AKA as Anthony Van Jones is well known here in California, he help started numerous community groups which represents hostile views against anyone not like him or his group's view. His group is well known for baiting you into a heated debate and secretly video taping, editing it and then releasing it to the local press. They are also known for lawsuits and playing the "system".

Jones is ego driven and loves the spotlight, for a person with a "green view", he sports well made tailored suits. Beneath all that groomed public makeover, he'll stab you and let you bleed out. And of course if you speak badly of him, you lied and distored his truth.

Why does mainstream media loves him, he speaks very well, looks good on camera, wrote a NY Times best seller, hangs with the elite from Hollywood and
is on the fast track to some elite position. Jones's friends from the left will march with him and give him money. Jones will re-invent himself and come back demanding more-watch for it, he's far from gone. Be safe.

Some local artices about Jones.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...type=printable

Police Watchdog Honored
He played key role in S.F. cop's dismissal
KEN GARCIA

Thursday, March 12, 1998

(03-12) 04:00 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- Bad cops have a way of leaving calling cards around: broken bones, lawsuits, repeat complaints. Sometimes a dead suspect.

So it was that police watchdog Anthony Van Jones saw some familiar signs when he picked up a newspaper nearly three years ago and read that a black crime suspect had died in the custody of San Francisco police. And then he came across a name that stopped him in his tracks: Marc Andaya.

``At the time I read that story, I had a file several inches thick sitting in my cabinet on Marc Andaya, and when I saw his name in connection with the Aaron Williams death, I made a commitment to myself that I was not going to rest until people knew about this police officer and his record,'' Van Jones told me this week.

A few things have happened since Van Jones picked up The Chronicle that day.

Marc Andaya is no longer on the police force. And in New York yesterday, Van Jones was one of four activists from around the world to receive the prestigious Reebok Human Rights Award for his work in the campaign to increase awareness about police brutality -- and for his key role in bringing public pressure on the city's police leaders to boot Andaya off the force.

Van Jones' honor notwithstanding, the Williams/Andaya case was a classic lose-lose situation for almost everybody involved.

Williams was a burglary suspect arrested on the evening of June 4, 1995, after a violent struggle with numerous police officers. At a Police Commission disciplinary hearing, a number of witnesses testified that they saw Andaya kick Williams in the head after he was subdued and pepper-sprayed by officers on the scene.

Williams stopped breathing and died in a police van while being driven to the Richmond Police Station. Medical examiner Dr. Boyd Stephens concluded that Williams died, not from his beating, but from a drug-induced heart attack. Williams was a notorious crack cocaine abuser, and cocaine had been found in his system.

The Police Commission became the target of outraged criticism from the African American community for dismissing brutality charges against Andaya, even though it wasn't until later that his lengthy record of excessive force complaints and lawsuits during his prior tenure in the Oakland Police Department was made known.

That's where Van Jones, a Yale- trained lawyer and founder of Bay Area PoliceWatch, first came across him. In 1993, the Oakland Police Citizens Review Board found that Andaya had used excessive force against a black man and used racial slurs. In 1985, Andaya was suspended from the Oakland department for 30 days for choking a handcuffed suspect.

And the previous year, Andaya shot to death a person Jones described as a ``mentally ill, unarmed black man.'' Jones said Andaya shot him nine times. But Andaya was cleared of the charges.

Yet despite more than a dozen misconduct complaints, Andaya was hired by the San Francisco Police Department in 1994. His attorneys said the department was aware of his past record, but was hired anyway. And, his attorneys insist, he became nothing less than a political pawn when the African American community demanded his firing.

``One of the problems in these cases was that at each point, the disciplinary boards were not aware of the previous complaints,'' Van Jones said. ``So after the Williams case came out, I was determined to put his record before the public.''

Ultimately, Andaya was fired for lying on his police application about his previous police record in Oakland -- not for anything having to with the charges in the Williams case.

The case sparked the resignations of a number of respected police commissioners and stalled the process for reforming the Police Department's disciplinary system, which has been criticized by residents as well as rank-and-file cops.

Officials of the Police Officers Association were widely criticized for steadfastly supporting Andaya. And the Office of Citizen Complaints was tarnished because the case added to its long list of cases in which wayward officers were rarely disciplined.

For his part, Van Jones was accused by Andaya's attorneys of using political pressure to oust the officer after the evidence failed to sway police commissioners that Andaya's actions had anything to do with Williams' death.

``The Aaron Williams case was a miscarriage of justice,'' said Katherine Mahoney, the former Police Officers Association in- house counsel. ``They couldn't get him on excessive force. They couldn't get him another way. So they just kept trying to find a way to fire him. It was a case of the relentless pursuit of one officer.''

Van Jones does not deny that political pressure played a key role in Andaya's firing. Indeed, he said the biggest thing that happened in the case was that ``ordinary people got involved for the first time, and they were saying that they wanted good policing in San Francisco.''

There is wide disagreement over whether the events in the Aaron Williams case have made for a better police force in San Francisco or a more rigorous disciplinary process for officers accused of wrongdoing.

But Van Jones said he believes more people are concerned about the mechanisms of oversight and accountability in police departments around the country, and he now has an award that suggests a lot of people agree with him.

Got a story to tell? You can reach Ken Garcia at (415) 777-7152, fax him at (415) 896-1107, or send him a note at garciaksfgate.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...12/MN83052.DTL


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...type=printable

Rights award for S.F. crusader
Eric Brazil, OF THE EXAMINER STAFF

Wednesday, March 11, 1998

(03-11) 04:00 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- Anthony "Van" Jones, the San Francisco attorney who spearheaded a high-profile police misconduct case that put the department's disciplinary system on trial and resulted in the firing of a controversial officer, was honored Wednesday with a $25,000 Reebok human rights award.

Jones, 29, director of Bay Area Police Watch, attorney for the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and creator of the first misconduct referral service in Northern California, is the first American to win one of the awards in the 10 years that they have been made.

The presentation was made at Columbia University in New York.

Jones, a graduate of Yale University School of Law and a San Franciscan since 1994, played a leading role in the aftermath of the Aaron Williams case, which embroiled the Police Department in controversy for more than two years.

Williams died in June 4, 1995, after being roughed up by several police officers during the course of his arrest as a suspect in a pet store burglary.

The San Francisco coroner said Williams died of heart failure brought on by acute cocaine poisoning. But a pathologist hired by Williams' family listed 18 injuries he suffered in his struggle with police that contributed to his death.

In November 1996, after a series of volatile public hearings, the San Francisco Police Commission dismissed departmental charges against Officer Marc Andaya of using unnecessary force against Williams. Andaya was the lead officer in the arrest.

The commission's vote was 2-2, and the result was unpopular with Williams' family supporters and San Francisco's African American community. Five other officers faced misconduct charges in connection with Williams' death.

Last June, the Police Commission found Andaya guilty of lying on his job application and fired him.

In an article written shortly after the commission's action, Jones said the lesson to be learned from the Williams case is that "the existing police system does not work. But we have seen what does work: ordinary people searching out the facts, telling the truth, mobilizing broad community concern and refusing to give up."

Also honored with Reebok awards were peace activists Abraham Gebreyesus of Eritrea and Dydier Kamundu of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Jordanian journalist Rana Husseini.

Award winners were selected by a committee headed by former President Jimmy Carter and including Olympic decathlete Rafer Johnson, Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, founder of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, and Michael Posner, executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights.<

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...1/NEWS8091.dtl


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/09/05/national/w212338D34.DTL&type=printable

Back to Article

Controversy over fiery remarks fells Obama adviser
By WILL LESTER, Associated Press Writer

Sunday, September 6, 2009

(09-06) 06:56 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) --

President Barack Obama's environmental adviser Van Jones, who became embroiled in a controversy over past inflammatory statements, has resigned his White House job after what he calls a "vicious smear campaign against me."

The resignation, disclosed without advance notice by the White House in an e-mail minutes into Sunday on a holiday weekend, came as Obama is working to regain his footing in the contentious health care debate.

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.

After the resignation, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama did not endorse Van Jones' comments but thanked him for his service.

"What Van Jones decided was that the agenda of this president was bigger than any one individual," said Gibbs. The president thanks Jones for his work and accepted his resignation, Gibbs said, adding that Jones "understood he was going to get in the way," by becoming a liability to the administration. Gibbs spoke Sunday on ABC's "This Week."

Jones issued an apology on Thursday for his past statements.

The matter surfaced after news reports of a derogatory comment Jones made in the past about Republicans, and separately, of Jones's 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."

Howard Dean, former head of the Democratic National Committee, told "Fox News Sunday" that he thought Jones "was brought down" and that his resignation was "a loss to the country."

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 Sept. 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 "Kit" Bond said Congress should investigate Jones's fitness for 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. Conservatives have harshly criticized him for having left-wing political views.

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."

Associated Press writer Philip Elliott contributed to this report.


http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/09/05/national/w212338D34.DTL

[Ick]

This jerk is claiming that he is a victim.... yeah, right. Everything Beck said is true, they cannot refute it.

Sarah Palin on the other hand is slapped with malicious lawsuits that are all "thrown out".... and yet that is perfectly acceptable behavior.

So truth revealed about someone in the Obama administration is harassment... yet malicious unfounded accusations to destroy a conservative is "free press"?

[PRGGodfather]

Good riddance. Just a few more czars to go...

If we don't clean house in 2012, we deserve what we get. The indies are already falling away from him, but the progressives are staying in the fight.

When BHO won, it seemed only right to give him a chance. Now that we have seen what he really is, there is little anyone can say and reveal, which would cause me to despise him any more.

What happened to our freedom?

[variablebinary]

The really jacked up part is this clown said outright he is a communist.

A FREAKING COMMUNIST

And he's in the White House. That's how far America has fallen.

[mmike87]

This jerk is claiming that he is a victim

What else is new? Aren't all liberals victims?

[rickrock305]

What else is new? Aren't all liberals victims?


speaking of victims...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZWiStJ47Ek&feature=player_embedded

[variablebinary]

speaking of victims...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZWiStJ47Ek&feature=player_embedded


Beck says he's a clown, and a joke, and a nobody all the time.

He say's how not special he is. Though if that were true assholes on the huffington post would be trying to get his personal address.

What's you're point?

[BSHNT2015]

This morning's local newspaper, the spin on it;



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." Little backing
But few stepped up to protect Jones during the past few weeks.

"He was swift-boated," said Medea Benjamin, a co-founder of the anti-war group Code Pink and a San Franciscan who has known Jones for 15 years. She spoke to him recently and said he was "very conflicted" about whether to resign.

But with Obama facing an uphill battle to gain bipartisan support on health care, as Jones said in his resignation statement Sunday, "I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past."

"The timing was hideous for Van," said Paterson, a San Francisco civil rights attorney who hired Jones, a Yale Law School graduate, at her Equal Justice Society organization in the early 1990s and has remained close to him.

"Still, I find it very disturbing that real progressive people with a track record of lots of speeches and actions will find it difficult to speak out," Paterson said. "That's going to have a chilling effect on anyone like that who may some day want to serve in public office."

Some feel that the White House caved too quickly to pressure from conservative activists and commentators - particularly Fox New Channel's Glenn Beck - who have hammered on Jones' mid-1990s Marxist affiliations and liberal activism. In the mid-1990s, after he co-founded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, an Oakland group focusing on police brutality, Jones became known for headline-grabbing statements like "Willie Brown's Police Commission is killing black people." Regarding the 2004 petition calling for a congressional investigation into the actions of the Bush administration surrounding the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Jones issued a statement last week saying, "I do not agree with this statement and it certainly does not reflect my views now or ever."

Jones also drew conservative fire for calling Republicans "- holes" during a speech in February in Berkeley. In the speech, Jones used the same term to describe himself and the political resolve needed to move legislation.

Even though Jones apologized, the campaign to oust him gained steam Friday when conservative legislators like Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., called for an inquiry into his comments.

Often, an administration will send a representative to the Sunday morning TV talk shows to defend an embattled appointee. But none came Sunday. On ABC's "This Week," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs only thanked Jones "for his service to the country" and said that Obama does not agree with his views.

Increased pressure Beck first criticized Jones earlier this summer on his radio show and recently increased the pressure. An online Berkeley organization that Jones co-founded but no longer is associated with, Color of Change, called on advertisers to boycott Beck after he said in late July that Obama "has a deep-seated hatred for white people." A few dozen companies responded by pulling their ads from Beck's show.

"Van's resignation is the tragic result of a retaliatory witch-hunt by Glenn Beck and Fox News Channel," Color of Change co-founder James Rucker said Sunday. "Beck's attacks against Van Jones haven't been about finding the truth, they've been about changing the subject from his bigoted comments and continued race-baiting."

In response, Fox News Channel referred to Beck's statement to the New York Times Sunday that "instead of providing (answers about Jones' background) the administration had Jones resign under cover of darkness," and Beck's promise to focus on other "radicals" in the Obama White House.

E-mail Joe Garofoli at jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/07/MNT319JJCF.DTL

[The_War_Wagon]

What else is new? Aren't all liberals victims?

Stupidity is SELF-inflicted. Only John Kerry gets medals for THOSE kinda wounds... :rolleyes: