The weird attacks on Van Jones (The view from San Francisco)

The San Francisco Bay Guardian ^ | September 4, 2009 | Tim Redmond

[2ndDivisionVet]

It's no surprise that the right-wing nuts are going after Van Jones, the Bay Area activist who is now Obama's green-jobs advisor. The loonies have picked up on the fact that Jones was one of 100 people (along with Daniel Ellsberg and Paul Hawken) who signed a letter raising questions about the government response to the 9/11 attacks. It's actually not that radical a letter; Indybay has posted it here.

But what amazes me is how quickly people who aren't typically considered wackos have bought into this -- take, for example, the former wife of the mayor of San Francisco, who appeared on Sean Hannity's show to denounce Jones with some bizarre claims:

GUILFOYLE: Well, that' s a problem. When you say, is there a problem with the vetting process? Clearly he wasn't vetted. All they had to do was go and ask a couple of questions in San Francisco about this individual. You know there's a problem when he's not even wanted in the city of San Francisco where I come from. OK? HANNITY: That's a good point.

GUILFOYLE: That's a huge red flag right there. What is this man's qualification besides his anti-American theory? He's far left, radical.

HANNITY: No, he's a communist. I mean avowed.

GUILFOYLE: Yes.

CUPP: Self-avowed. Yes.

GUILFOYLE: Self-avowed communist. Why is he even in the White House? Is that the reward?

He's "not even wanted in San Francisco?" What? Van Jones is an icon in this town. Some people think he gets too much fawning press; nobody I know thinks he's unwanted.

And, um, self-avowed communist? Kimberly, that's so 50s. I know Van Jones, and I know some communists, and I can tell you that Van Jones -- for better or for worse -- is not a communist. Guilfoyle must know that, too -- in fact, there really aren't a whole lot of communists left, even in the Bay Area. In the 1980s, I used to see the Revolutionary Communist Party types at political events, but you hardly ever hear from them any more. Calling someone a communist these days doesn't even qualify as red-baiting; it's just nutty-mouth.

More:

HANNITY: All right. This is back in March of 2008. We examined this. He called on participants to take a pledge of resistance and — "Not in our name will we invade countries, bomb civilians, kill children, letting history take its course over the graves of the nameless."

Now, I mean, we can keep going, look at the comment that he made about white polluters steering poison into black communities.

CUPP: Right.

GUILFOYLE: Well, this is an individual that doesn't have the qualifications to be in the bizarre job that he's in. And it just raises the issue here about these czars gone wild. This is someone who actually just doesn't even like the United States of America, wants to reshape it, remake it into something that we would not even recognize, and what's so wrong with this country that we have an individual like this coming in, meddling in our affairs that has no idea what he is doing, who really is traitorous in his comments against this country.

Actually, I spent several years of my life researching a book on the American environmental movement, which is now available in the remainder bins of finer used books stores here and there, and I can tell you that the question of environmental racism -- in this case, of white-owned companies dumping toxic waste in black communities -- is well settled. In fact, I was surprised to learn that chemical pollution wasn't entirely a class issue -- poor white communities got less poison than middle-class black communities. That's 20-year-old news.

I know these guys need ways to attack Obama, but come on, Kimberly: You know better.

At least, I guess, Newsom can always distance himself; isn't that what ex-wives are for?

[2ndDivisionVet]

It's like we live in a different universe from these people.

[Talisker]

Everything in San Francisco is “well setttled.”

Contrary thought there is, by definition, depraved.

Bt the standards of of peace and social justice, of course.

[unkus]

Yes, we are in a different world. Thank God.

[AmericanInTokyo]

Think of it as a America's red light district.

At least we can confine the perversity in Ameica to that one centralized, concentrated, anything goes area, rather than have it diffused too much around the nation. It needs a fence around it, if you ask me.

[SolidWood]

Whacko? Nuts? They are talking about Van Jones, right?

[crazyhorse691]

Another pathetic defense of the indefensible.

[unkus]

It needs a fence around it, if you ask me.

_________________________________

It can drop off into the Pacific Ocean for goodness sake.

[kabumpo]

so it’s okay to question the attack on 9/11, which we all watched on tv as it happened, but it’s racist to want to see Zero’s birth certificate and school records. What planet are we on?

[jongaltsr]

Whacko? Nuts? They are talking about Van Jones, right?

That is what syphilis does to ones mind. All that free sex in the 60's you know !

[agere_contra]

Calling someone a communist these days doesn't even qualify as red-baiting

Obama explicitly seeks to bring 16% of the nations economy under the direct control, nay ownership of Government - but no, that's not communism.

[TigersEye]

It's like we live in a different universe from these people.

Yes. Reality matters in this universe.

[kik5150]

“in fact, there really aren’t a whole lot of communists left”

That’s because they now call themselves community organizers.

[randomhero97]

Exactly. Different name, same ideology.

[BigCinBigD]

10.0, 10.0, 10.0, 10.0!

[Brugmansian]

And, um, self-avowed communist? Kimberly, that's so 50s.

Yeah...brings up images of rifle butts smashing heads, barbed wire and minefields at borders, torture chambers and mass graves. Wonder why anyone would want to indentify themselves with that. And how anyone who supported that got in the White House.

[kcvl]

Kristinn found this...

Van Jones, Barack Obama's Green Jobs Czar, produced a record album entitled "WarTimes: Reports from the Opposition" a few years ago that was narrated by convicted cop killer Mumia Abu Jamal and featured a clip of an interview Jones did where he slammed the United States and Israel and proclaimed his stand with a "global struggle" against the United States...

[kcvl]

This should tell us all we need to know about the integrity and honesty of Tim Redmond.

The Daily Kos creeps got upset because Redmond said this in an article: "The fact that Kos, who is a professional political consultant, was on the Dean payroll for a while was hardly a secret". Then he apologized for it.

Tim Redmond (ponytail)

TIM REDMOND, editor of the San Francisco Bay Guardian. The Guardian says it has lost hundreds of thousands of dollars due to unfair competition for ads since the two competing alt-weekly chains merged. How can the little guy compete when the "alternative" press is corporate controlled?

Tim Redmond says he is a fan and supporter of the Daily Kos.

"Before the folks in the blogosphere go and savagely attack someone who is your friend and supporter --- and I am a friend and supporter"

The truth is, as I wrote, I like DailyKos. My entire piece was about defending Markos and the site. I am on your side.

Tim Redmond
Tredmond@sfbg.com

Press Here

******

Proof of Marcos Moulitsas' Involvement with the CIA After Forming Daily Kos

Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas says in fact he was speaking to the CIA up until 2003 about employment and long after he started Daily Kos in May of 2002.

He states that in 2001 "I was underemployed, between jobs so I applied to the CIA" and later in reference to ANOTHER POINT IN TIME ...he made a decision to work for Howad Dean instead of working for the CIA. That decesion could only have taken place in 2003. That is when he went to work for Howard Dean.

Moulitsas discloses to the Daily Kos community that he had decided to work for the Dean Campaign in June of 2003 http://www.dailykos....

In January 2003 he formed a political consulting partnership with Jerome Armstrong. Sometime later in 2003 he joined the Dean campaign.

Moulitsas says he talked to the CIA about his website. His website was begun in May of 2002.

By his own account, Marcos Moulitsas at least interviewed with the CIA AFTER he formed Daily Kos, not (only) before.

He says he went "all the way to the end". Does this mean he had compeleted training? If he started a 6 month interview process in 2001 it would have long ended by late June of 2003 when he made his decision to work for the Dean campaign.

He formed his partnership as a political consultant in January 2003 with Jerome Armstrong.

In January of 2003, Markos Moulitsas joined Jerome Armstrong in a political consulting partnership called Armstrong Zuniga, before being formally dissolved in December 2004. Howard Dean hired them for a time as technical consultants in 2003.

It would be interesting to know more about Jerome Armstrong ( he was indicted for securities fraud). He went to work for Dean after forming the partnership...so it must be at THAT point that he made the decision he discusses to work not for the CIA but for Howard Dean and that occurs in June 2003.

Therefore, according to his own statements, we can conclude that while Markos Moulitsas was proprietor of Daily Kos, he was also involved in at least discussions with the CIA for employment.

Press Here

[kcvl]

Wall Street Journal. The Journal’s lede: “Howard Dean’s presidential campaign hired two Internet political ‘bloggers’ as consultants so that they would say positive things about the former governor’s campaign in their online journals, according to a former high-profile Dean aide.” The “high-profile aide” is Zephyr Teachout, the former head of Internet outreach for Dean. Teachout earlier this week blogged on the subject of “Financially Interested Blogging.” She wrote, in part, “In this past election, at least a few prominent bloggers were paid as consultants by candidates and groups they regularly blogged about.”

Teachout named two prominent bloggers in particular: Jerome Armstrong of myDD.com and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Daily Kos. “On Dean’s campaign, we paid Markos and Jerome Armstrong as consultants, largely in order to ensure that they said positive things about Dean. We paid them over twice as much as we paid two staffers of similar backgrounds, and they had several other clients,” Teachout wrote. “While they ended up also providing useful advice, the initial reason for our outreach was explicitly to buy their airtime. To be very clear, they never committed to supporting Dean for the payment—but it was very clearly, internally, our goal.” In the past, Teachout has also fingered Matthew Gross for writing about Erskine Bowles while Gross was on the candidate’s payroll.

The New York Times Magazine’s cover story on the liberal blogosphere discussed Moulitsas’ awkward place in “the established machinery of the Democratic Party” and noted that the Dean campaign “in fact employed Moulitsas for several months.” In April 2004, the Weekly Standard called him “a Democratic political consultant on the make.” In December 2003, USA Today noted that “some candidates have hired him as their Web consultant.” Despite all this, the Times Mag somehow convinced itself that Moulitsas was one of the “amateurs” on Dean’s “thrill ride.” NBA ballers get to play in the Olympics now, but calling Moulitsas an amateur shows how far the standards have fallen since the days of Jim Thorpe.

Moulitsas took money from other, undisclosed, political clients. And while he may have disclosed—in 2003—that he wouldn’t disclose them, that’s not good enough. DailyKos raised money for a dozen congressional candidates this past election. Which, if any, of them paid Moulitsas for the honor of directing his grassroots minions to part with their wallets? If you gave one of Moulitsas’ preferred candidates money, wouldn’t you like to know if Moulitsas’ endorsement was purchased?

Political campaigns and consultants are becoming increasingly skillful at manipulating the mainstream press by planting stories in the blogosphere.

http://tinyurl.com/lnz58s

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

Never knew that Kimberly Guilfoyle was married to mayor Gavin Newson. Strange bedfellows and all that.

[Philo1962]

Mary Matalin and James Carville?

One of the peculiarities of the female mind is that a woman can meet a man and think, “I can change him.”