 Van Jones |
Former Obama green jobs czar Van Jones is gone, along with his views about whites directing poisons to minorities, his obscene condemnations of Republicans and his affiliation with the idea the U.S. government was behind 9/11.
Now critics of the cadre of unvetted political appointees charged by the president with “advising” on a broad range of critical issues are looking at some of the other names with White House access.
Jones’ midnight-on-a-holiday-weekend resignation came after pressure over his extremist history first exposed in WND reached critical mass, set off by a tape of him in an expletive-packed rant, directly attacking Republicans in the Senate who he said abused their majority position in the past to push legislation through.
Now czar regime opponents are looking into names such as John Holdren, Cass Sunstein and Mark Lloyd.
Holdren, the science czar, for example, has been described as a population control “zealot” who has stated his belief the Constitution justifies compulsory abortions. His 1977 book with Paul Ehrlich called “Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment,” states: “There exists ample authority under which population growth could be regulated. It has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society.”
The authors created a “Planetary Regime” whose police forces would be able to “enforce” population limits around the globe.
Then there’s Cass Sunstein, the Harvard Law professor named the regulator czar.
He’s also been on the population control bandwagon, advocated animal rights and followed the teachings of Peter Singer devoutly. Singer has argued that abortion should be allowed because killing unborn babies isn’t like homicide.
“Killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living.”
He also discussed outlawing sport hunting and giving animals the legal right to file lawsuits.
“Any animals that are entitled to bring suit would be represented by (human) counsel, who would owe guardian-like obligations and make decisions, subject to those obligations, on their clients’ behalf,” he suggested.
Then there’s Mark Lloyd, the “diversity czar” who has talked about issues such as a 100 percent tax on broadcast outlets in order to collect money to provide alternative viewpoints, mandatory diversity in station ownership and the idea of requiring broadcast businesses to cater to the demands of local activism committees.
Republican Congressman Mike Pence said all such appointees should be reviewed by Congress like those who take various cabinet positions and must be approved by elected legislators.
According to a Fox report, Pence said the czars should be subject to background checks and a vote.
“I’m suggesting that the administration should suspend immediately any future czar appointments while both the constitutionality of this practice is examined and while the background and qualifications of individuals who’ve been appointed as czars is carefully examined,” Pence over the weekend.
While Code Pink activist Medea Benjamin was describing the treatment of Jones as being “swift-boated,” Obama was pushing ahead with the appointment today of Ron Bloom as manufacturing czar, bringing to nearly three dozen the political appointees who wield huge influence but effectively answer only to the president.
A blogger at RedState.com, however, addressed the idea that perhaps there was no breakdown in the vetting process for the candidates with radical ideas out of alignment with mainstream America.
Perhaps, the commentator suggested, the individuals were chosen because of those ideas.
“Over at The Corner at NRO, Andy McCarthy has a different take – one that I believe is quite accurate. McCarthy asserts that Jones was chosen precisely because of his controversial background,” said RedState.com
The blog quoted McCarthey’s statements: “The point, of course, is that Obama vetted Jones just fine. President Obama is not Mr. Magoo – haplessly gravitating to Truther Van and Ayers and Dohrn and Klonsky and Davis and Wright and the Chicago New Party and ACORN, etc. Jones is a kindred spirit. Obama knows exactly who he is. Jones was given a non-confirmation job precisely because that circumvented the vetting process. This isn’t one of those things that just happen.
“The two have the same kinds of backgrounds. They were both community organizers of some ilk. It only makes sense that Obama would seek someone with the same background to pursue one of his pet policies – ‘green jobs,'” he continued.
The RedState blog pointed out that someone – probably someone very high up – had to approve Jones personally – or he never would have been given access to the White House.
“As former Reagan staffer Jeffrey Lord explains at the Spectator, the Secret Service carefully scrutinizes the background of everyone who works at the White House. With his background, Van Jones couldn’t possibly have gotten into the White House, much less had physical access to the president, unless the top echelon of the administration (I’d wager, the very top) overrode any objections,” the blogger said.
“The … likelihood is that the Obama staff simply told them to give him a pass.”
“Conservatives are no doubt emboldened to go after more of Obama’s czars,” the analysis continued, “with the expectation that they, too, are ‘under-vetted.’ Indeed, there are several who appear to have questionable backgrounds – from our perspective. But do they from Obama’s perspective?
“This was not a mistake by Obama,” he continued. “The appointments of Jones, Mark Lloyd, and other ‘Czars of the Obama Underworld’ were quite intentional. … He is a socialist ideologue who has a mission to transform America into a weath-redistributing, big-government nanny state – and has built the team (without oversight that would expose their backgrounds and ideology) that he believes can help him accomplish that objective.”
One of the participants in the RedState forum page expressed the idea of Obama throwing liberals at a wall to see if they stick.
“If they stick (read: stay) they are free w/o congressional approval/oversight to do the radical agenda bidding.”
At Politico.com, there was agreement with the assessment.
“With the resignation of green jobs adviser Van Jones, the conservative firing squad is setting its sights on other White House czars,” wrote Lisa Lerer. “The resignation of Jones – who stepped down from his post as the White House green jobs adviser early Sunday morning, citing a ‘vicious smear campaign’ waged against him by ‘opponents of reform’ – was a win for conservative politicians and pundits who waged a months-long campaign hammering him for comments he made in his previous post as an environmental activist for poor and minority communities.”
Lerer specifically cited Holdren for his “involuntary fertility control methods like mandatory abortions, mandating family size and adding sterilants to drinking water…”
Also identified was Sunstein, who “supported taking people’s organs ‘against their will.'”
Lloyd was mentioned again, too.
It was in April when Aaron Klein, Jerusalem bureau chief for WND.com, broke the first major story on Jones who was identified as a self-described radical communist and “rowdy black nationalist” who said his environmental activism was actually a means to fight for racial and class “justice.”
Succeeding revelations by WND included:
- Jones
previously served on the board of an environmental activist group at
which a founder of the Weather Underground terrorist organization is a
top director.
Jones was co-founder of a black activist organization that has led a
campaign prompting major advertisers to withdraw from Glenn Beck’s
top-rated Fox News Channel program. The revelation followed Beck’s
reports on WND’s story about Jones’ communist background.- That Jones and other White House appointees may have been screened by an ACORN associate.
One day after the 9/11 attacks, Jones led a vigil that expressed
solidarity with Arab and Muslim Americans as well as what he called the
victims of “U.S. imperialism” around the world.- Just
days before his White House appointment, Jones used a forum at a major
youth convention to push for a radical agenda that included spreading
the wealth and “changing the whole system.” - Jones’
Maoist manifesto while leading the group Standing Together to Organize
a Revolutionary Movement, or STORM, was scrubbed from the Internet
after being revealed by WND. - Jones
was the main speaker at an anti-war rally that urged “resistance”
against the U.S. government – a demonstration sponsored by an
organization associated with the Revolutionary Communist Party.
In a 2005 conference, Jones characterized the U.S. as an “apartheid
regime” that civil rights workers helped turn into a “struggling,
fledgling democracy.”
Jones signed a petition calling for nationwide “resistance” against
police, accusing them of using the 9/11 attacks to carry out policies
of torture.
While talk radio and some cable television shows such as Glenn Beck picked up WND’s reporting and increased the pressure on the administration to cut Jones loose, there was no significant press coverage of the scandal by the major U.S. news media until late last week.
Lawyer and conservative political analyst Phyllis Schlafly notes there are other possible questions to be raised for members of the czar corps.
“So far, Obama has appointed 34 czars. Just listing them is enough to scare anyone who believes in constitutional and representative government: Afghanistan czar, AIDS czar, border czar, car czar, climate czar, copyright czar, cyberspace czar, drug czar, economic czar, education czar, energy czar, executive pay czar, faith-based czar, Great Lakes czar, green jobs czar, Guantanamo closure czar, health reform czar, infotech czar, intelligence czar, Iran czar, Middle East peace czar, non-proliferation czar, Persian Gulf/Southeast Asia czar, regulatory czar, science czar, stimulus accountability czar, Sudan czar, TARP czar, terrorism czar, urban czar, war czar, and WMD and terrorism czar,” she wrote.
“At least one Obama pal is functioning in a similar capacity without the awesome Russian title of czar. Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, who publicly withdrew from his appointment as secretary of health and human services because of non-payment of income taxes, is providing ‘outside advice’ to the president inside the Oval Office and to top White House officials, while continuing as a highly paid policy adviser to hospital and pharmaceutical clients of a law and lobbying firm,” she said.
