The particularly unsavory left-wing pressure group Color of
Change has an axe to grind with Glenn Beck -- and it's personal.
The extremist racial grievance group isn't happy that
Beck did several news packages on
Van Jones, President Obama's controversial green jobs czar
who describes himself as a communist. (Green really is the
new red.)
Jones is a founding board member of Color of Change, but
Color of Change doesn't want you to know that. Maybe having an
avowed America-hating radical on the group's board is bad public
relations.
The group deleted references to Jones on its "about" page. That
page used to say, "James Rucker and Van Jones came together in
the wake of [Hurricane] Katrina to use the organizing power of
the Internet to give Black Americans and our allies a renewed and
strengthened political voice."
But now it doesn't.
The old page still exists in the
Google cache. (The cache will eventually be cleared,
so for safekeeping, I made a PDF of the page
here.) The 501(c)(4) group's 2006
and
2007 tax returns (IRS Form 990) show Jones as a director.
Jones was also on the board of the
Apollo Alliance, a hard-left environmentalist group that is
now running large chunks of the Obama administration. Beck pounded
away at the Apollo Alliance and Jones on a recent show.
On its website, Color of Change invited people to sign a petition
to spare the life of convicted multiple murder Stanley Tookie
Williams. From the petition:
Stanley Tookie Williams has become a true asset to our
community. As a co-founder of the Crips, Tookie created untold
suffering and death. There is nothing romantic or glamorous
about the kind of violence the Crips unleashed. But Williams
has taken responsibility for the harm he's done. And since
then, he has saved the lives of countless young Black males. He
will continue to do the same-but only if he's allowed to live.
It would be senseless for the State of California to kill a man
who is working every day to stop the madness of gang violence.
Mass murderers don't usually get clemency. Williams
was executed in 2005.
The race-baiting conspiracy theorists of Color of Change appear
to be enjoying some success in their campaign to convince
advertisers to boycott the "Glenn Beck Program," which airs at 5
p.m. Eastern time on weekdays.
The group's co-founder James
Rucker gloats in an op-ed at the
Huffington Post that Progressive Insurance and several
other advertisers have dropped Beck's show since Color of Change
started promoting a boycott. Of course it's not all that
surprising that Progressive Insurance dropped Beck. After all,
the company was founded by left-wing philanthropist
Peter B. Lewis.
Rucker is a former MoveOn.org organizer. He is also a co-founder
of the Secretary
of State Project, the group that helped to elect Minnesota
Secretary of State Mark Ritchie. Ritchie, a former community
organizer who has worked hand in hand with ACORN,
helped set the stage for Sen. Al Franken (D-ACORN) to steal the
2008 Senate election in Minnesota.
(Hat tip as to the existence of the boycott: Jeff Poor @
NewsBusters)
