Van Jones Says We Should All Stand Up and be A**holes

Van Jones, Barack Obama's czar of green jobs, handed in his resignation on a quiet Labor Day weekend, on the eve of two of President Obama's speeches, after talk show host Glenn Beck targeted the civil rights activist for attention.

Jones, an eloquent and charismatic spokesperson who, last year alone, won high profile recognition as one of Times magazine 100 most influential people, considered himself "radical" as a young man. Since then, he adopted a pro-capitalist perspective focused on elevating the working-class poor through the employment in green jobs. Then, in 2004, Jones, along with many other Progressives, signed a petition calling for a public investigation of the events of 9/11. The controversy regarding the petition surrounds the 9/11 Truthers, considered broadly to be a conspiracy group who suspect a degree of federal administration culpability in the attacks of that fateful September.

Using these elements of Jone's life, Beck, with McCarthian hysteria, decried Obama for having "invited" a "radical" "Communist" into the White House. To those of us leaning towards progressive values, terms like "radical," "communist," and "socialist" are not scary, but a part of the glossary of words, including "libertarianism" "patriotism" and "capitalism" with which we can evaluate a government's responsiveness to its people.

In this report, The Young Turks, a progressive news/op ed channel, air a "controversial" piece of video which Fox News and Beck has used to hammer Jones' reputation. While at a public forum, a progressive in the audience asked Jones why Republicans were able to see their policies enacted but Democrats were not able to assert their policies despite holding the majority power in the two houses as well as the executive. Jones' asserted that the Republican party gets its policies through by sheer brute force that Progressives have to stand unyeildingly and that a man named Barack Hussein Obama could not do that for them. He called the Republicans a dirty word but also applied the same term to himself and suggested that we all toughen up.

Referring to the wailing Republicans, Young Turk host, Cenk Uygur said "They're not interested in being polite."

Brave New Nation presents this background interview of Carl Pope, Executive Director of the Sierra Club and Van Jones at the Ella Baker Center. Jones describes the fight he pursues as "not left vs. right but right vs. wrong."


references:
Huffington Post: "Thank you Glenn Beck"
Fox News: "Obama 'Green Jobs' Adviser Van Jones Resigns Amid Controversy"

Bill Moyers Hosts Critics of Cloistered Political Press

Bill Moyers recently interviewed two progressive journalists, Glenn Greenwald and Jay Rosen, who are counting Obama's first days in D.C. with a sharp eye on the political opinion makers who drive so much of the story we all consume. Listen to the full show.

Greenwald suggested that the media's treatment of the Daschle nomination provides an example of how complicitly it perpetuates business-as-usual conduct in Washington D.C.. The media missed the real story. While it focused on Daschle's tax problems, it said nothing of how the retired Congressman has capitalized on his former office by providing legislative consulting to wealthy individuals and large corporations, including those in the health care industry.

“Most people consider that to be corruption. That's what Barack Obama called it when he ran,” said Greenwald. “Yet, to members of the media, who have spent their lives in Washington, who are friends and colleagues of the people who are engorging themselves on this corrupt system, that is just the way of life. It's like breathing air or drinking water.”

Rosen said that the Washington media players are part of a broken system intent upon keeping themselves relevant in order to maintain a career. “I think there's a tendency for Washington journalists to see everything converging towards the political game that they are themselves masters of...The reason you won't see an Amy Goodman of “Democracy Now!” on “Meet the Press” is that it would discredit the narrative that's been building up for a long time.”

Rosen conjectures that Obama was probably a little surprised at the strength of the symbiotic relationship between political opinion makers and the political elite. “He is naturally a compromiser. And I think he's going to be pulled between playing a savvy inside game and trying to mobilize anger from outside of Washington. He's going to seesaw between these two things"

Both journalists optimistically agree that if Obama can hold fast to his early promises, the press corps will eventually adjust its narrative to embrace a more progressive story. However, Obama will not be able to do that without outside force. Citizen journalism and other internet social networks can shame the press corps into changing.

Here's the complete transcript.



Glenn Greenwald is a constitutional lawyer turned journalist. His blog on Salon.com is one of the most influential on the internet. He's written two best sellers: "How Would a Patriot Act?" about President Bush and executive power, and "A Tragic Legacy." His most recent book is "Great American Hypocrites."

Jay Rosen is a founder of the citizen journalism movement and is a professor of journalism at New York University, as well as a widely published writer and media critic. He created the popular blog called PressThink, subtitled "Ghost of Democracy in the Media Machine."

Humor In A Time of Insanity

Coulter Appears in Hot New Movie "Jaws: The Political Blood Bath"

You know the opening scene of Jaws, where the beautiful woman leaves her lover to go for a nude swim in the romantic moonlight. She is suddenly jerked and then spins around like a cherry pit in a whirlpool of blood. Well, in the new film "Jaws: A Political Bloodbath", Ann Coulter plays that briefly romantic character.

It's amazing that's its taken this long, but Ann Coulter is finally going to take a dive and all the sharks, even the one's who don't like to attack, couldn't be happier since she's been splashing around and dripping with blood for years.

thinkprogress.org ran hosts the video and a transcript of the dual between Elizabeth Edwards and Coulter on today's "Good Morning America." Edwards is generally the voice of placid temperment, a nurse shark, if you will. But as her tail has been pulled on just long enough by a particular assailant, she is bound to defend.

Howard Kurtz: Coulter Rips Bush

Oh - how the sharks are circling, killing their own in a frenzy.

Howard Kurtz op-ed today in the Washington Post cites Ann Coulter's comment referring to President Bush:
We're all just waiting for this nincompoop to be gone. I think we're all finally on the same page on that.
Kurtz retorts: If "we're finally all on the same page," didn't it take a helluva long time for her to get there?

This article is a great read and continues to cover the machinations of other pundits and their effects on the public opinion of various Democrat and Republican Presidential Candidates.

Comedy Central's InDecision 2008 Website Arrives A Year Early

Comedy Central's InDecision 2008 Website Arrives A Year Early

Well this is good news for those of us who are looking for a moment of levity in this chaotic time. It's certainly a comment on how the early campaigning of the two major party candidates is monopolozing the conversation. The Daily Report is still the one thing I desperately need to revive the humor of life (read "sanity").