Do you miss Van Jones?

The last time I saw Van Jones speak was in Washington DC early on inauguration day, Jan. 20, 2009, and the world was going to be all right with him in the White House as the "Green Jobs" czar. We remember how the far right hated the very idea of the black lefty firebrand from Oakland with some authority. Glenn Beck raged, and in not too long a time Van Jones was out. It was one of my early disappointments with the Obama era. How could this happen?

So it was good on Friday to have Van Jones giving the post-breakfast keynote at Netroots Nation, the DailyKos-sponsored bloggers' convention. Bittersweet to hear him say, "In the last two years all my dreams came true, and my nightmares, too."

You can see the whole speech at this link from Netroots Nation.

Keep on watching into his interview done by Ari Melber of The Nation, who asked Van Jones whether Big Ed Schultz had been correct in his fierce speech the night before, when he insinuated there was a "sissy room" in the White House. "This is harder than it looks," Jones said of life in the White House. It's one thing to perform strongly in an election campaign, and another much more difficult thing to have won and then have to govern and legislate and face "a toxic and hostile media environment."

Jones also said that what we're dealing with now is "a ferocious backlash." Yet he tries to keep his sunny personality in good order and urges us to be more beautiful, keep the hope alive. "You have the power to do it."

He was introduced in a recorded video statement by Howard Dean. "Our job," Dean said, "is to keep their feet to the fire in Washington."

To quote Van Jones (from a different context), "This is harder than it looks."

Imagine the horror: Glenn Beck is your secret police interrogator

This is about as strange a sight as I have seen in several trips around the globe. Here we have a right-wing talk show flamer wearing ... What IS Glenn Beck wearing on the cover of his book about to hit the foaming-best-seller list? I've had the dubious pleasure of being in East Germany, the old DDR, and have seen their troops in their strut. Der Glenn is wearing an East German army uniform!

What can he possibly have had in mind when choosing this to adorn the cover of his latest attempt to take over the Misleader Sweeps with a book likely co-written by Karl Rove? Something truly convoluted and tear-stained must lie behind the arrogant mug and out-thrust lower lip. There's a perfect little Nazi there, or a perfect little Stasi interrogator -- either way, a perfect little totalitarian practitioner, and it's the guy who's taken down Van Jones, who's taking down ACORN, and who wants to take down Barack Obama.

The question to me is why would he want to portray himself as a totalitarian on the cover of his own book. I can only assume that this is an unaccustomed outbreak of veracity, and he IS a totalitarian. Somewhere between the covers of this misleading book there may lie some alternate explanation, but this is what I'm hearing, and I'm sticking to it: Glenn Beck wants to be your secret police interrogator, with the full range of Bush-approved torture methods at his disposal. And he's gone around the bend.

In case you wonder what an East German army uniform looks like, here's the link. I found it by Googling "east german army uniform." See the identicality? For the record, a Borders bookstore in Miami-Dade County had this display up to be seen first thing upon entering the store.

FL-18: Ros-Lehtinen hosts MoveOn/Dems and enjoys

A little triumph was recorded when five members of the Miami Beach Democratic Club had a meeting with our staunchly Republican member of Congress, U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. It happened Thursday evening in the congresswoman’s Miami office. The occasion was to propose President Obama’s Green Jobs initiative.

Bottom Line: Ros-Lehtinen was pretty enthusiastic about it. And happy to meet a bunch of her constituents, even if they all voted against her, and our leader, Dave Patlak, was the candidate against her in 2006. And your blogger here runs several blogs that sometimes are pretty critical of her. It’s the way things are. No hard feelings.

You can see the video of it here:

This was a joint effort of a vast infrastructure of progressive endeavor, with MoveOn a big player through its current program called Power Up America. A week or so earlier we had met as a MoveOn council drawing in people with interests in green jobs and green business of small scale. Also prominent in the background was Green for All, a grassroots organization whose founder, Van Jones, now is part of the Obama administration as special adviser on green jobs. So we can say an arm of this effort reached up to the White House.

The goal is to help the economy recover as well as to redirect economic activity along environment-friendly lines.

As the congresswoman said at the end of the meeting: “Save the planet and save money too.”

Her overall positive reaction to the presentation still leaves the question of where she will put her vote when it comes down to that. Ros-Lehtinen is famous for being nice to her constituents and as helpful as possible. But then she votes the way the Republican leadership orders. So far she has been a reliable No vote on the Barack Obama programs and budget. Maybe things will be different now that she's met with us and may have a better understanding of Green Jobs as a way to stem a tide of unemployment among her constituents.

(also posted on the Florida Progressive Coalition blog.)