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| Van Jones, Czar of the Undefinable |
Avowed Communist and Barack Obama Administration "Green Jobs Czar" Van Jones late yesterday released via the White House press office a statement apologizing for offending anyone with any of a series of inflammatory and indeed ridiculous things he has said in the (very recent) past.
The latest bit of Jones inanity news was in fact not something he said, but rather something on to which he signed. That would be an October 26, 2004 "Truth Statement" that asserts amongst other things that President George W. Bush had a hand in the September 11th terrorist attacks.
Making Jones a 9-11 "Truther" (sort of like a "Birther," but with a lot less media coverage), i.e. a conspiracy-addled doofus. (He is addled by other conspiracy theories as well, but for now this will do.)
In said apology statement, Jones uttered the following:
In recent days some in the news media have reported on past statements I made before I joined the administration - some of which were made years ago. If I have offended anyone with statements I made in the past, I apologize. As for the petition that was circulated today, I do not agree with this statement and it certainly does not reflect my views now or ever.
My work at the Council on Environmental Quality is entirely focused on one goal: building clean energy incentives which create 21st century jobs that improve energy efficiency and use renewable resources.
That last sentence is interesting. After all, he is the"Green Jobs Czar," right? We are asked to forget that (amongst other things) he thinks the previous President and the government for which he now works had a hand in murdering nearly 3,000 of its citizens, and allow him get back to creating those "green jobs."
But there is a problem. As we originally highlighted, Jones is unable to define what a "green job" is. In fact, no one is. From our July 29th effort:
President Obama devoted nearly $60 billion of his stimulus package to building a new green-based economy rich in renewable energy and strategies to cut carbon. But despite the price tag, not one green job yet exists. It comes down to a problem of etymology. No one can yet agree on what a green job actually is.
Good thing we allocated $60 billion to allegedly create a numbers of something no one can define. Newsweek would have done well to ask for said clarification in, say, January.
The working definition paints a broad stroke: a job that's good for the economy while simultaneously healing the earth. But that leaves lots open to interpretation-natural gas is technically a cleaner fuel than crude oil, but it's still unsustainable-making it difficult, if not impossible, to measure whether eco-based jobs are being created and whether, as the administration has claimed, they're the saviors of a sagging economy.
Since no one can define a green job, it is impossible to know whether we've created any. There's also probably no way of telling how many have been saved, either.
Again, why hadn't Newsweek sought this clarification while the plan was being considered, rather than after it has become law?
In large part, the very idea behind a green job ensures there will never be a full definition, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics agreed in April to start measuring data on them. (Critics, in response, quickly suspected that the BLS, an agency supposed to measure objective data, could soon help carry water for an administration eager to show the stimulus is working.) Several environmental advocates polled by Newsweek defined green jobs the way Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously defined obscenity: I'll know it when I see it.
By the by, the Leftist group The Apollo Alliance claimed credit for helping to write the stimulus bill, which steered $60 billion towards developing "green jobs." Which coincidentally is their mission:
The Apollo Alliance is a coalition of labor, business, environmental, and community leaders working to catalyze a clean energy revolution that will put millions of Americans to work in a new generation of high-quality, green-collar jobs.
Again, they can't define what "green jobs" are. Again, no one can.
On The Apollo Alliance Board is (or was; regardless, he was there) - Van Jones, who got the "Green Jobs Czar" gig overseeing the $60 billion.
Will Jones direct any of that copious coin back to his current/former pals at The Apollo Alliance to help not create any undefinable "green jobs?" 'Twould be nice were Newsweek, or anyone in the media, to ask.
He apparently warranted some coverage then; he definitely warrants some (more) now.
