Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Geoff Altman who wrote (322694)	9/4/2009 5:42:41 PM
From: FJB	1 Recommendation Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 793921

Leading Republican Demands That White House Fire 'Green Collar' Adviser Updated 4:52 p.m. By Garance Franke-Ruta voices.washingtonpost.com White House press secretary Robert Gibbs offered few signs of support at his daily briefing Friday for embattled White House adviser Van Jones, saying only, "He continues to work for the administration." Meanwhile, the chairman of the House Republican Conference, Rep. Mike Pence (Ind.), called on Jones to quit or be fired, saying, "His extremist views and coarse rhetoric have no place in this administration or the public debate." Jones, author of "The Green Collar Economy" and, since March, the special adviser for green jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), has faced withering criticism from conservatives for weeks over his activist background. Fox News host Glenn Beck has been a leading voice in the criticism. (Notably, Beck's advertisers are facing boycott calls from a group Jones helped found.) The blog Gateway Pundit reported Thursday that Jones signed in 2004 a petition from 911Truth.org. The petition questioned whether Bush administration officials "may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war." On Thursday, Jones apologized for signing the petition. "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 that was circulated today, I do not agree with this statement and it certainly does not reflect my views now or ever," he said in a statement issued by the CEQ. It was his second apology of the week. On Wednesday, Jones apologized for labeling Republicans with a vulgarism in a February speech, saying that his comments were "clearly inappropriate." Pence cited "recent revelations concerning the associations and statements of the president's green jobs czar" in calling for Jones's ouster. Gibbs was asked about Jones at Friday's press briefing, and answered, "He continues to work in the administration, and I'll refer you to the statement that CEQ put out last night about this." Questioned further, the White House spokesman added, "I think, if you refer to the statement, he apologizes." Pressed again about how the administration can "tolerate somebody who subscribes to a ... insane conspiracy theory as a senior adviser," Gibbs said, "It's not something that the president agrees with, and again I'd point you to the statement from CEQ." On Friday, Sen. Christopher Bond (Mo.), the ranking Republican on the Green Jobs and the New Economy subcommittee of the Environment and Public Works Committee -- which has oversight of the green jobs effort -- called for a congressional oversight hearing into Jones's "fitness" for his position. In a letter to Sen. Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.), the subcommittee's chair, Bond said he sought the hearing on Jones "to reassure the American people that their government is safe from his divisive, incendiary and ultimately counterproductive sentiments." "I can imagine few sentiments more repulsive to our brave fighting soldiers and the victims of the 9/11 terror tragedy than to think the U.S. government deliberately allowed the events of 9/11 to occur," Bond wrote to Sanders. On Friday, ABC News unearthed a Web posting of a January 2002 prospectus for "A New, Biweekly, Tabloid Newspaper Opposing the 'War on Terrorism'," which listed Jones as part of the organizing committee. The prospectus, which laid out plans for fundraising from foundations, said the paper would "track the development of the war at home and abroad, spotlighting the dire consequences of Bush's program for human beings and the earth" and act as "an entryway for new people into the peace and justice movement." The video of Jones insulting Republicans was published on YouTube by the group DefendGlenn.com. That group is fighting a boycott of the Fox News host by activist group ColorofChange.org, which Jones helped found in 2005. "He is now at the highest levels of power, and is targeting Glenn Beck for exposing his true agenda," the group said on YouTube in posting the video online.