Farewell to Van Jones and His Green Jobs Agenda

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Straight from the Huffington Post: “Saturday night’s surprising resignation of Van Jones and the controversy leading up to to it reveals all that is good and great about our political system. It also reveals all that is bad and sad about it.

In the good and great column: Jones’s rise from a community activist to an advisor to President Obama. Also here, Glenn Beck and FOX News, regardless of fairness, for engaging in political discourse to bring down someone who they did not believe was fit for public service.

In the bad and sad column: Jones’ mission to promote green jobs being unfairly and inaccurately labeled part of a central planning agenda akin to communism. That few people rose to defend Jones and prevent his sudden resignation (over Labor Day weekend no less). That solutions to environmental challenges will be painted socialist. And finally: Jones’ past is going to become part of the conversation around healthcare reform.”

Lockerbie Bomber Receives Standing Ovation From African Union Officials

Sept. 9: Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi appeared frail as he received a standing ovation at Tripoli's medical center.

The Lockerbie Bomber Victory Tour continues!

Straight from Fox News: “Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi received a rousing welcome in his first public appearance — as warm as the hero’s welcome he enjoyed after returning to his native Libya.

Megrahi, looking frail behind a surgeon’s mask and being pushed in a wheelchair, received a standing ovation from a group of African parliamentary members who had gathered in the hospital where Megrahi is receiving cancer treatment, the BBC reported.

A small stage was constructed in Tripoli’s medical center. As many as 40 African MPs — who are in Libya to mark the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the African Union — greeted the convicted Lockerbie bomber, congratulating him on his freedom and expressing their “solidarity,” the BBC reported.

“He is the victim of international injustice and a policy of double standards,” Speaker of the African Union parliament Idriss Ndele Moussa told the BBC.

Megrahi’s release by Scottish authorities in August on “compassionate grounds” sparked international outrage.

Megrahi is the only person convicted of blowing up Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie in December 1988, killing 270 people.”

Justice Department Opens Inquiry Into New Black Panther Case

Black Panther Thugs

Straight from Fox News: “The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility has begun an official inquiry into the dismissal in May of a civil complaint against the New Black Panther Party and two of its members who disrupted a Philadelphia polling place during the November general elections, the Washington Times reported.

The inquiry is disclosed in an Aug. 28 letter to Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee who first raised questions about the dismissal in May and asked unsuccessfully that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. make available the head of the department’s Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division for a closed-door briefing on the decision.

In the letter, Mary Patrice Brown, acting OPR counsel, told the veteran congressman from Texas that the office had “initiated an inquiry into the matter” and that it would “contact you with the results of our inquiry once it is completed.” A copy of the letter was obtained by The Washington Times.

“I am pleased that someone at the Justice Department is finally taking the dismissal of the New Black Panther Party case seriously,” Smith said Wednesday. “The Justice Department’s decision to drop a case against political allies who allegedly intimidated voters on Election Day 2008 reeks of political interference.”

Smith said the department’s refusal to provide Congress with an explanation for the dismissal “only further raises concerns that political favoritism played a role in this case.”"

ACORN Officials Videotaped Telling ‘Pimp,’ ‘Prostitute’ How to Lie to IRS

ACORN

Straight from Fox News: “Officials with the controversial community organizing group ACORN were secretly videotaped offering to assist two individuals posing as a pimp and a prostitute, encouraging them to lie to the Internal Revenue Service and providing guidance on how to claim underage girls from South America as dependents.

The videotape was made public Thursday on BigGovernment.com, a political blog launched by Andrew Breitbart as a companion site to his BigHollywood.breitbart.com blog.

In the videotape, made on July 24, James O’Keefe, a 25-year-old independent filmmaker, posed as a pimp with a 20-year-old woman named “Kenya” who posed as a prostitute while visiting ACORN’s office in Baltimore. The couple told ACORN staffers they wanted to secure housing where the woman could continue to maintain a prostitution business.

ACORN — the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now — bills itself as the nation’s largest community of low- and moderate-income families “working together for social justice and stronger communities,” according to its Web site. The organization has been accused by Republicans and conservative activists with fraud in voter registration drives around the country and has been under fire since last year for its support of President Obama and for its planned participation in next year’s census.

A spokesman for ACORN, Scott Levenson, when asked to comment on the videotape, said: “The portrayal is false and defamatory and an attempt at gotcha journalism. This film crew tried to pull this sham at other offices and failed. ACORN wants to see the full video before commenting further.”

On the videotape, “Kenya” can be seen telling an ACORN staffer that she earns roughly $8,000 a month. The ACORN employee then suggests to “Kenya” that ACORN could submit a tax return for 2008 showing that she made $9,600 for the entire year — instead of $96,000 — and that ACORN would charge “Kenya” $50 instead of the usual $150 fee for preparing her taxes.

ACORN offers tax preparation and benefits application services free of charge during tax season; it charges nominal fees during non-tax season.

The ACORN staffer can also be seen suggesting that the prostitute list her occupation as a freelance “performing artist.”

“It’s not dancing, trust me,” the “pimp” says.

“But dancing is considered an art,” the ACORN staffer replies. “[Exotic dancers] usually go under performing artists, or yeah, they usually go under performing arts, which will be what you are — a performing artist.”

The “pimp” later says that he and “Kenya” plan to bring up to 13 “very young” girls from El Salvador to work as prostitutes. Although an ACORN staffer points out their plans are illegal, she also suggests that the girls can be claimed as dependents.

“What if they are going to be making money because they are performing tricks too?” the pimp says.

“If they making money and they are underage, then you shouldn’t be letting anybody know anyway,” the ACORN staffer says, and laughs. “It’s illegal. So I am not hearing this, I am not hearing this. You talk too much. Don’t give up no information you’re not asked.”

The “pimp” then asks ACORN staffers to “promise” not to discriminate against his sex worker because of “who she is and what she does,” according to the audiotape.

“If we don’t have the information, then how are we going to discriminate?” the ACORN staffer replies. “You see what I am saying?”

If the girls are under age 16, the ACORN staffer says on the tape, then they are not legally allowed to work in the state, regardless of what they do.

“So it’s like they don’t even exist?” “Kenya” asks.

“Exactly,” the ACORN staffer replies. “It’s like they don’t even exist.”

The staffer goes on to suggest that as many as three of the underage girls can be listed as dependents at the home, but a “flag” will be raised if as many as 13 are listed.

“You are gonna use three of them,” the staffer says. “They are gonna be under 16, so you is eligible to get child tax credit and additional child tax credit.”

The ACORN workers also appear to be promoting the group’s services to the “pimp” and “Kenya.”

A second ACORN employee can be heard on the audiotape suggesting that the couple join the organization for an annual cost of $120 prior to attending one of its first-time homebuyer seminars, which are underwritten with taxpayer funds.

Later, when the “pimp” asks what would happen if the organization is somehow connected to the scheme, the ACORN staffer replies, “First of all, it’s not gonna damage us because we not gonna know. And with your girls, you tell them, ‘Be careful.’ Train them to keep their mouth shut.”

“These girls are like 14, how can we trust them?” the pimp asks.

“Just be very, very careful,” the ACORN staffer says. “Whatever you do, always keep your eyes in the back of your head.”

Reached by FOX News, O’Keefe said he was “shocked” at the level of assistance provided by ACORN staffers.

“I was prepared for them to call the police, throw me out of the office and be hostile,” he said. “Without hesitation, they helped me every way they could with evading taxes and setting me up with a brothel, with getting around federal tax laws — doing everything they could to help us. I was completely shocked.”

House Republicans issued a report in July accusing ACORN of engaging in a scheme to use taxpayer money to support a partisan political agenda. California Rep. Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, called for a criminal investigation into the group, which dismissed the report as a “partisan attack job.”"