News flash: GOP condemns ‘extremist views, coarse rhetoric’
So Van Jones, Obama’s newly named energy efficiency adviser, had publicly referred to Republicans with an epithet that you creative spellers out there will no doubt find a way to get past our moderation software. That story made me cringe a bit and made Jones a target, but since it occurred before he had taken office, it didn’t seem to carry much longterm significance. It wasn’t that big a deal in a world in which a recent vice president directed an even uglier epithet at a U.S. senator and seemed proud of the fact afterward.
But the fact that Jones had also signed a petition suggesting that President Bush had known beforehand about the attacks of Sept. 11 and allowed them to happen? That’s a little different. Jones now explains that he hadn’t really paid attention to the petition when he signed it back in 2004, but still. It probably does disqualify him from high public office. Acts have consequences.
On the other hand, some of the Republican complaints about Jones are downright laughable given everything else going on in politics these days. Rep. Mike Pence, for example, complained that Jones’ “extremist views and coarse rhetoric have no place in this administration or the public debate.”
Really? Well, if we’re going to eliminate extremist views and coarse rhetoric, those House GOP caucus meetings are going to become so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
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204 comments Add your comment
Rightwing Troll
September 5th, 2009
8:03 am
First!!!! WooHoo!!!
ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
Rightwing Troll
September 5th, 2009
8:08 am
Wingnuts are a nutty bunch… they freak out about the PRESIDENT wanting to address the failing american schoolkids, and wanting to exhort them to do better and challenge themselves… thier BS excuse is that this is something that they should be talking to thier children about, not the PRESIDENT… yet they spend millions and millions of dollars to pursue “creationism” and prayer in public schools… Shouldn’t religion ALSO be something kids learn about at home??? I mean if the PRESIDENT can’t talk to the kids about how and why to be good students, why should any teacher out there be able to talk to my kids about how god made the planet in 7 days???
ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
Carl Engelbert
September 5th, 2009
8:13 am
Van Jones’s statement is one of hate. It cannot even be considered ignorant. Additionally, he states he did not even pay much attention to what he signed his name. Good solid mature thinking and acting. Now he wants to be an advisor! Obviously he is well qualified to be an Obama team player. NOMOBOBS!
Vinny
September 5th, 2009
8:14 am
Jones is a San Francisco extremist who admits to having been “radicalized in jail.” Phil Kerpen of Americans for Prosperity draws the clear parallel between Jones’ communist and environmentalist advocacy:
“I think it’s pretty instructive what his past is… it’s the same sort of philosophy, the idea that government ought to be reordering society in accordance with some utopian vision that failed with communism and socialism, and will fail with this green jobs idea.”
Jones views environmental activism as a means to advance the ultra-left’s Orwellian notion of “justice.” He has referred to himself not only as a “communist,” but as a “rowdy black nationalist.”
Carl Engelbert
September 5th, 2009
8:14 am
Enter your comments here
Edward
September 5th, 2009
8:19 am
Just look at the “extremist views and course rhetoric” coming from the Republican camp these days. You want evidence? Just look at the ridiculous statements about the school speech, the blatant lies about the health-care reform. The GOP’s only weapon is fear and they will foment that fear with every tool they can muster, including outright lies and deception.
Vinny
September 5th, 2009
8:20 am
Here are just a few of Van’s “qualifications” -
-Co-founded a socialist collective, Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement, or STORM, in 1994, which held study groups on the theories of Marx and Lenin and dreamed of a multiracial socialist utopia. The group protested police brutality.
-Co-founded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in 1996 and Color of Change in 2005, which includes Bay Area Police Watch, a group devoted to “protect(ing) the community from police misconduct.” (It’s the police that are the problem, not the crooks according to Jones)
-Was arrested in San Francisco in 1992 after a protest march that followed the acquittal of police officers in the Rodney King beating. Jones was working with the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights in San Francisco.
-Was arrested in the 1999 Seattle protests against the World Trade Organization
Joe Matarotz
September 5th, 2009
8:25 am
If extremist views and coarse rhetoric were eliminated from Washington, DC, there would be nobody left.
@@
September 5th, 2009
8:40 am
Coarse language isn’t the problem, jay. Heck! Dick Cheney’s been known to use coarse language.
The problem with Jones is his past associations with extremist organizations.
Jones is Obama’s problem. It was, after all, Obama that chose him — knowing full-well who and what he was, and most likely still is.
Another problem is Obama thinks Czars (communist) are essential to his administration.
I Report/ Vast White Wing Conspirator :-) You Whine :-(
September 5th, 2009
8:43 am
Van Jones: Only ‘Suburban White Kids’ Shoot Up Schools
Trash like this is best left in the cesspool from whence it came but if bookman so chooses to defend it….
Eddy
September 5th, 2009
8:45 am
C’mon Jay! Even Stevie Wonder can see that Van Jones has no place in the Obama Administration except for the fact that he is black!! Aren’t there any blacks left that could easily fill such a critical (sarcasm on) job….the green Czar. Obama chooses those whose views most closely align with his;ie, Jones. So your faux sarcasm about Repubs is a reflection upon you not the Repubs. Oh yes, haven’t read your blog calling for Rangel’s resignation. I’m sure it is just an oversight.
AmVet
September 5th, 2009
8:47 am
An extremist? But what exactly does that mean these days? That includes seemingly everyone.
And is that necessarily a bad thing?
I contend that with reasonable moderation it is not.
Extremists have created the crucible for innumerable dramatic improvements in this nation.
Notwithstanding some egregious verbal gaffe, the man speaks to the truth about environmental racism.
This president is the antithesis to a threatening black man, and is in most ways in my opinion, just a line from a famous Who song, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss”.
But I am glad he is actually employing one. With the caveat that if this guy really is a conspiratorial loon, that is a problem.
But as the country realizes, trusting any ecological matters to the anti-environmental extremists in the corporate owned GOP is simply not tolerable in this day and age.
We’ve just endured eight years of the gleeful enabling of these enviro-rapers and a science free White House.
No more…
Normal
September 5th, 2009
8:57 am
Come on Guys and Gals…It’s Labor Day Week End, for Gawdssake. We should be thinking about grilling, being with the kids and grandkids, maybe going somewhere cool. We are going to Chattanooga for the day. Let the world take care of itself this weekend and Tuesday we can roll up our sleeves and start swatting at each other again…relax, enjoy…
TaxPayer
September 5th, 2009
8:59 am
Well. When I listen to the reasoned and calm voice of this guy, I can understand why the Republicans would want to quash the extremist views and coarse rhetoric. It’s just so much easier to exchange facts and opinions when people are calm and not toting guns and such. Maybe it’ll be contagious. I especially liked that bit about Minnesota getting over 90 cents of every dollar going to patients versus 70 to 80 cents return in other states. And, I see he also brought up that example of McAllen, Texas. Good one.
Kayaker 71
September 5th, 2009
9:05 am
If Jones was a Republican, appointed by the evil Bush, all of these liberal opinions would be against him and his boss. The inexperience of Bozo and his minions is very evident in his failure to vet this jerk prior to appointing him to fill a position that would open the door to spending vast sums of taxpayer dollars with little to no supervision. An avowed Communist with a jail record and an extremist of the worst sort. No wonder the American electorate doesn’t trust Bozo and his crowd of clowns to make decisions for us. Again, if Jones was a Republican, you would be yelling your head off about the same things. Jones is just a bad choice and it’s just one more thing that has driven the Independent side of the electorate (the segment that wins elections) to a 66% disapproval rating of Bozo and his plans for America. We’ll see about who has gone down the drain in the 2010 elections. Reid is behind his Republican opponent by a factor of 48 to 38%. And this is just the beginning. Worried libs…. just a little bit?
jconservative
September 5th, 2009
9:16 am
AJC Story – “Allowing people to check a box on their federal tax returns asking that any refund be sent as a savings bond. More than 100 million U.S.households receive refund checks each year…”
A lot of retail businesses will object to this – income tax refund time is a major season for a lot of retail businesses.
TnGelding
September 5th, 2009
9:17 am
Rightwing Troll
September 5th, 2009
8:08 am
Clinton was the chief law enforcer to the GOP. Does that make Obama the top educator? Yesh!
Normal
September 5th, 2009
9:18 am
Hitting the road now…thought I’d continue last night one more song…This old hippie says, Love on each other, people
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg4MaZ0-p-E&feature=related
TnGelding
September 5th, 2009
9:21 am
I Report/ Vast White Wing Conspirator
You Whine 
September 5th, 2009
8:43 am
Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Jay say he needed to go?
“It probably does disqualify him from high public office. Acts have consequences.”
Michael H. Smith
September 5th, 2009
9:21 am
The Marxists, Socialists and Communists Obumer has choosen as his Czars – a.k.a. advisers – are being maliciously targeted and attacked in a Representative Republic by a bunch of stinking liberty loving Capitalists who refuse to be transformed – changed – into the image of the People’s Republic of Obamerica – a.k.a. the U.S.S.A. … or is that the U.S.S.O?
Who would have thunk it, Comrade Bookman?
BTW, socialists, thanks for the holiday and in celebration of it I shall being manually laboring this labor day.
Oops… almost forgot… the socialist in Obamerica will have to correct the month and date of celebration for Labor Day to May 1st. Perhaps that is what has Comrade Cynthia all worked-up into such a sentimental tizzy?
Yankee
September 5th, 2009
9:23 am
As for the President address to school age kids; those of you parent who are withdrawing your kids and using your children as pawn for your political hang-ups I say SHAME ON YOU !
Normal
September 5th, 2009
9:25 am
Geez, y’all…well if you really have to try to change the world…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUvyJ1ALWWw&feature=related
Bye
Yankee
September 5th, 2009
9:26 am
I don’t think that the Republi-CANTS can sink any lower.. This party is now a regional party of HATEFUL, TEA-BAGGERS, BIRTHERS AND SOUTHERN RACISTS.
anon
September 5th, 2009
9:32 am
“Oooh. Van Jones, alright! So, Van Jones. We were so delighted to be able to recruit him into the White House. We were watching him, uh, really, he’s not that old, for as long as he’s been active out in Oakland. And all the creative ideas he has. And so now, we have captured that. And we have all that energy in the White House.”
http://blip.tv/play/hJNRgZzkVgI%2Em4v
AmVet
September 5th, 2009
9:35 am
Not my genre, but that WJ was nice. Who doesn’t dig a little pedal steel, fiddle and banjo now and then?
You’re good ‘un Normal, have a blast in Chattanooga – a fun town.
I’m off to a mammoth party in oHIo (high in the middle and round on both ends) to reconnect with hundreds of friends from around the globe for an epic weekend.
For RW:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AIszddHZEs
and their magnum opus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGbgqTUm1lw&feature=related
TnGelding
September 5th, 2009
9:35 am
TaxPayer
September 5th, 2009
8:59 am
Great contribution, thanks. Maybe Obama had better let him do the talking.
TnGelding
September 5th, 2009
9:37 am
Kayaker 71
September 5th, 2009
9:05 am
If frogs had wings….
Kayaker 71
September 5th, 2009
9:39 am
It is increasingly evident throughout the American political spectrum that an increasing number of the electorate does not trust Bozo and those who surround him. If most American voters trusted him, health care would not be an issue and would have already passed. Each time he brings up a solution to a problem, it involves spending more money…. more money than any president has spent in our collective memories. And we are supposed to like this? We are not supposed to protest this madness?
It is also interesting how true narcissists act when they discover that a large segment of the population does not like them and is critical of their decisions. As each bad decision is made, the protests get louder and louder. Interpret this as “wingnut” rhetoric all you want…. America is waking up and none too soon.
TnGelding
September 5th, 2009
9:40 am
Good point, that’s probably why it hasn’t been done before. I suggested it here recently and to the WH. We need to start financing our own debt so the interest payments stay here, and China doesn’t have to.
Kayaker 71
September 5th, 2009
9:41 am
Gelding,
They do. And we will see tonight how Auburn’s new coach will handle his football season. Sort of wish they had kept Tubbs.
TnGelding
September 5th, 2009
9:43 am
Michael H. Smith
September 5th, 2009
9:21 am
Will you be building a bomb shelter?
TaxPayer
September 5th, 2009
9:48 am
BOISE, Idaho — A federal appeals court delivered a stinging rebuke Friday to the Bush administration’s post-Sept. 11 detention policies, ruling that former Attorney General John Ashcroft can be held liable for people who were wrongfully detained as material witnesses after 9/11.
Ouch! That’s just so, what’s the word I’m looking for, extremist? No, that’s not it. Course? No, no, not that. Justified! Why, yes! That will do. I wonder where Dick and George are when their underlings need them the most. Don’t they care about protecting the little guy that was just following orders. Their orders.
TnGelding
September 5th, 2009
9:52 am
Kayaker 71
September 5th, 2009
9:39 am
Half the country doesn’t even know health care reform is on the table. He’ll get this right or it won’t pass. Be patient. If not for the previous 8 disastrous years he’d still be in the senate.
josef nix
September 5th, 2009
9:52 am
YANKEE–and “Southern racists…” ain’t got no Yankee ones? You was supposed to have left your sheet on the bed ’stead of puttin’ it on in sanctimonious robe…
TnGelding–left a poorly worded comment for you downstairs on your a.m. post…
NORMAL–”…pardon me, boys, is that the Chattanooga choo-choo…?” Have a ball. Spending some time this weekend doing some Indian things with the grandbabies…
TnGelding
September 5th, 2009
9:57 am
Well, there are extremists on both sides that need to be relegated to the smoked filled back rooms, not the inter-workings of the WH. This guy is probably competent and has probably moderated but has attracted too much attention and needs to resign for the good of the administration and the country.
getalife
September 5th, 2009
9:59 am
Czars are not American.
“You hear it more and more, sometimes spoken in code, sometimes spelled out as clearly as a neon sign. We have reached the tipping point. The enemy has been identified. It’s not left versus right it’s democracy versus greed. This realization sits there like an unexploded bomb. We stare at it, waiting only for someone to light the match.”
Larry Flint and Ariana Huffington gets it.
“For now, remember: The corporations do not control our government; they are our government.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-flynt/does-anybody-really-know_b_276849.html
josef nix
September 5th, 2009
10:01 am
Jay makes his best point in pointing out how we creative spellers will be finding a way around the Moderator. Public discourse once had a moderator called “civility.” Polite manners, though, seems to have been banished to the privacy of our own homes, some quaint custom no longer acceptable in the marketplace of ideas…
TnGelding
September 5th, 2009
10:02 am
josef nix
September 5th, 2009
9:52 am
Good morning. Ok, thanks. I found it looking for something else, but decided to use it instead.
Kamchak
September 5th, 2009
10:03 am
If Mr. Jones is a citizen of The United states of America, then he is entitled to express his opinion–no matter how unpopular. Ironic that those who have shouted “political correctness” for a decade and a half, are now employing those same tactics to excoriate him.
Kile Anderson
September 5th, 2009
10:04 am
Van Jones has admitted that he is a communist. Why do we need to say anything else? Not only is he a communist, he’s a racist. But I guess those are his two biggest qualifications from the viewpoint of the Obama administration.
TnGelding
September 5th, 2009
10:05 am
getalife
September 5th, 2009
9:59 am
The drug czar should be the first to go! Talk about pouring money down a rat hole. I would feel differently about it if Obama had been the first to use that term.
TnGelding
September 5th, 2009
10:07 am
Kamchak
September 5th, 2009
10:03 am
Yes, he can, but in doing so radically he is eliminating himself from sensitive public positions.
Kile Anderson
September 5th, 2009
10:07 am
Kamchak, nobody has said he doesn’t have a right to express his opinions. He absolutely has every right to do that. What we are saying is, his opinions prove that he is a communist and a racist who hates the USA. In short, he is the enemy of freedom and a very dangerous man. I’m just glad that he was stupid enough to express his true feelings. Obama on the other hand, hangs out with racists and communists and America haters, but he doesn’t speak about it in public. He expects us all to believe that he can sleep every night in a room full of flea infested mongrels and not have one flea on himself. It simply defies reason.
josef nix
September 5th, 2009
10:09 am
K’chak is right. This is America. Jones has every right to be a “communist and a racist.” As Mama would say, “Equality. Ain’t it grand?”
getalife
September 5th, 2009
10:10 am
TnGelding,
Czars are separate from established government and do not need Congressional approval or oversight.
It’s not American.
Kamchak
September 5th, 2009
10:13 am
TnGelding
Agreed. Using the literal definition of “political correctness” Mr. Jones effectively ended his plitical career–but using the pop-culture definition of “political correctness,” Mr Jones is being silenced by a group of individuals who find his comments offensive.
I Report/ Vast White Wing Conspirator :-) You Whine :-(
September 5th, 2009
10:24 am
TN- And so he did, I am out in the woods hanging the deer stand and clearing the shooting lanes, I plan on slaughtering every thing that ventures within range, I just glanced at the extreme partisan headline earlier.
See how that works, when you want your real message to get out, put it in the headline.
@@
September 5th, 2009
10:25 am
Just checked out the music thread downstairs to find Dylan was jay’s selection. Kudos to jay for finally acknowledging that Bobby’s Christmas album is in the interest of charity — something that liberals SHOULD support but research has found they don’t.
It’s amazing to me that I’m the only conservative who appreciates Bobby. Conservatives have no problem with Johnny Cash’s voice…Willie Nelson’s voice — just Bobby’s.
jay comes in to tell us that he has to ply his bride with liquor?!!? Like I didn’t know that already…
thanks for sharing anyway.
josef nix
September 5th, 2009
10:36 am
@@
“Candy is dandy,
but liquor is quicker”
josef nix
September 5th, 2009
10:45 am
Hey, folks…could use y’all’s input here if you’re interested in educating our little ones. Our first graders are studying folk heroes and our teachers decided it would be a good thing to use real people who have become folk heroes with an emphasis on the world at large and not just the USA. Any suggestions?