29 Jul 2013 BlueGreen Alliance
Introduction
The BlueGreen Alliance is a non-profit group that advocates for green jobs and âsocial justice.â The BlueGreen Alliance has ties to many far-left groups and ideologues, including the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN), the Center for American Progress, the Center on Wisconsin Strategy, the New Party, the Sierra Club, Green for All and billionaire George Soros.[1]
Formerly known as the Apollo Alliance, in 2011, that project joined with the BlueGreen Alliance Foundation to form the BlueGreen Alliance.[2]
History / Mission
Formed in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks on American soil, the BlueGreen Alliance seeks to advance green energy initiatives that “generates and uses energy so profound that it will touch every corner of American life.”[3]Â Using one of the greatest tragedies in American history to launch an anti-capitalist, pro-green energy movement, on its website, the BlueGreen Allaince claims it “advocates the growth in the number and quality of jobs in the clean economy by expanding a broad range of industries, including renewable energy, energy efficiency, the substitution of safer, cleaner chemicals, modern transportation systems and advanced vehicle technology, domestic manufacturing, high-speed Internet and a smart, efficient electrical grid, green schools and other public buildings, improving our nationâs water infrastructure, recycling, and sustainable agriculture.”[4]
According to Ron Arnold of Undue Influence, BlueGreen Alliance members are â[t]rue believers with an absolute belief that government is the solution to all social and economic problems, allied with labor unions, subsidy-seeking companies and global warming / weather control advocates.â[5]
The BlueGreen Alliance operates at both the national and state level. The BlueGreen Alliance forms state level coalitions to promote its green energy message.[6]
Work
On its website, the BlueGreen Alliance has claimed the following accomplishments:
- Secured Bailout Earmarks in 2008: The BlueGreen Alliance â[g]ained inclusion of $25 billion in the 2008 federal economic rescue package for low-interest loans to auto manufacturers who retool their factories to make cleaner vehicles. Apollo worked with Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow to secure the loan provisions and funding.â[7]
- Pushed Green Energy In New Jersey: âOrganizing Newarkâs Green Future Summit in partnership with Newark, NJ Mayor Cory Booker and other national and local partners. The September 2008 summit and the year of planning leading up to it were the products of a commitment we made together at the Clinton Global Initiative last fall to help establish Newark as a national model for clean and efficient energy use, green-collar job creation, and green economic development.â[8]
- Authored Green Energy Book: âWriting and co-publishing Green-Collar Jobs in Americaâs Cities, a guide for urban leaders about ways to expand local green-collar jobs. The guide explains how to link job creation and economic development strategies to methods of reducing CO2 emissions and meeting other energy goals. At the same time, we co-wrote (with the Center on Wisconsin Strategy and the Workforce Alliance) a state version of the report, Greener Pathways.”[9]
Stimulus Bill
In 2009, the BlueGreen Alliance helped shape President Barack Obamaâs $787 billion stimulus bill.[10]Â On its website in 2011, the BlueGreen Alliance bragged about its role in the Stimulus Bill, exclaiming, “[w]hile the clean energy focus of the stimulus was inspired by the Apolloâs vision, the specific content of many of the billâs provisions was influenced by policy proposals that the Apollo Alliance made last year in The New Apollo Program and the Apollo Economic Recovery Act. âThe recovery bill represents the focused work of labor, business, environmental and social justice organizations who developed a clear strategy about where the nation needed to go, and worked together to achieve it.â”[11]
According to Brain Riedl of the Heritage Foundation, the Stimulus Bill was a failure â even by the Obama Administrationâs own standards â because it âwas based on the myth that government spending is a free lunch.â[12]Â The stimulus bill did not reduce unemployment nor did it grow the private sector.[13]Â President Barack Obama and his advisors said that the stimulus would keep the unemployment rate under eight percent.[14]Â In the aftermath of the stimulus, unemployment rose to 10.2 percent.[15]Â And as of July 2011, unemployment remained above 9 percent.[16]
In February 2009, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) acknowledged the BlueGreen Allianceâs efforts in shaping the stimulus bill. Reid said, the BlueGreen Alliance âhas been an important factor in helping us develop and execute a strategy that makes great progress on these goals and in motivating the public to support them.â[17]
The Wall Street Journal called the Stimulus Bill âa political wonder that manages to spend money on just about every pent-up Democratic proposal of the last 40 years.â[18]
Questionable Leadership
Van Jones
Van Jones was a long-time BlueGreen Alliance board member.[19]Â Jones is a radical and former communist who espouses social and environmental justice claiming that “environmentalism is really all about social justice.”[20]Â In 2009, Jones served as President Barack Obamaâs âgreen jobs czar.â He resigned after many of his extreme comments and views became a public embarrassment for the President. Administration officials admitted Jones was not properly vetted before his appointment.[21]
Jones began his radical agenda in the wake of the 1992 Rodney King riots, when he was arrested.[22] Jones said of his indiscretions, âI was a rowdy nationalist on April 28th, and then the verdicts came down on April 29th⌠By August, I was a communist⌠I met all these young radical people of color â I mean really radical: communists and anarchists. And it was, like, âThis is what I need to be a part of.â I spent the next 10 years of my life working with a lot of those people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary.â[23]
Jonesâ behavior has changed very little through the years. Just weeks after Obama took office, Jones told a group of listeners that Republicans were stonewalling the Presidentâs agenda because theyâre âassholes.â[24]Jones then laughed about his comment and said that he was going to âget a little uppityâ in response to Republican opposition to President Obamaâs policies.[25]Â Jones once thought that then-President George W. Bush knew of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in advance and did nothing to prevent them.[26]Â Jones signed a âthrutherâ petition that stated Bush âmay indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war.â[27]Â After leaving the White House, Jones took a position at the Center for American Progress, a far-left non-profit funded by billionaire George Soros.[28]
Jeff Jones
Another former BlueGReen Alliance leader is Jeff Jones. Jones, a founding member of the Weather Underground, a domestic terrorist group, once led the BlueGreen Allianceâs New York office.[29] As a leader of the Weather Underground, Jones spent much of the 1960s and 1970s on the run from authorities as his group had bombed government buildings.[30] According to Aaron Klein of World Net Daily, âJonesâ Weathermen would take credit for multiple bombings of U.S. government buildings, including attacks against the U.S. Capitol March 1, 1971; the Pentagon May 19, 1972, and a 1975 bombing of the State Department building.â[31]
Joel Rogers
Adding to the list of the two Joneses is another former GreenBlue Alliance board member Joel Rogers.[32]Rogers co-founded the Apollo Alliance and the socialist New Party.[33] Rogers is a professor at the University of Wisconsin. The New Party has endorsed Barack Obama for every political office he has run for since 1996, when he ran for state senate in Illinois.[34] Stanley Kurtz, writing in the National Review,attempts to explain some of Rogersâ political leanings: “The biggest âruleâ and barrier to democracy, of course, is capitalismâprivate ownership of the means of productionâŚand what follows does not seek to change that rule directly.â[writes Rogers]. In this passage, the word âdemocracy,â serves as a virtual synonym for socialism, to the point where capitalism itself is described as the greatest âbarrier to democracy.â What Rogers seems to want to say here is that the entire capitalist system is blocking his ultimate socialist goal.”[35]
So former BlueGreen Alliance leadership is comprised of a former communist, a long-time domestic terrorist, and a socialist â and this is the group President Barack Obama had write portions of a nearly $800 billion financial bill.
Another former Chairman (and still board member as of July 2013) of the BlueGreen Alliance Board is Phil Angelides.[36]Â In July 2009, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) appointed Angelides as Chairman of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission â a commission tasked with examining the causes of the financial crisis that began in 2008.[37]
Funding
The following groups have donated $100,000 or more to the BlueGreen Alliance:[38]
- Energy Foundation
- Kresge Foundation
- Laborersâ International Union of North America
- Nathan Cummings Foundation
- Rockefeller Foundation
- Surdna Foundation
- Western Conservation Foundation
Leadership (as of July 2013)
Leo Gerard, Co-Chairman of the Board (also the International President of the United Steelworkers Union)
Michael Brune, Co-Chairman of the Board (also Executive Director of the Sierra Club)
Phil Angelides, Board Member
Lee Anderson, Senior Policy and Legislative Advocate
Robert Borosage, Board Member (also Director of the Campaign for Americaâs Future)
Contact Information
BlueGreen Alliance
330 Townsend Street
Suite 205
San Francisco, CA 94107
Ph: 415-371-1700
Fax: 415-371-1707
Website:Â http://www.bluegreenalliance.org/
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- ^ Ron Arnold, âApollo Alliance â a Project of the Tides Center,â Undue Influence â Ron Arnoldâs Left Tracking Library, available at http://www.undueinfluence.com/apollo_alliance.htm as of July 1, 2013.
- ^ âAbout the Project,â BlueGreen Alliance, available at http://www.bluegreenalliance.org/apollo/about-the-project as of July 1, 2011.
- ^ âAbout the Project – History & Achievements,â GreenBlue Alliance, available at http://www.bluegreenalliance.org/apollo/about-the-project/history as of July 1, 2013.
- ^ âAbout Us,â BlueGreen Alliance, available at http://www.bluegreenalliance.org/about as of July 1, 2013.
- ^ Ron Arnold, âApollo Alliance â a Project of the Tides Center,â Undue Influence â Ron Arnoldâs Left Tracking Library, available at http://www.undueinfluence.com/apollo_alliance.htm as of July 1, 2013.
- ^ âOur Work / States,â BlueGreen Alliance, available at http://www.bluegreenalliance.org/work/states as of July 1, 2013.
- ^ âAbout the Project – History & Achievements,â GreenBlue Alliance, available at http://www.bluegreenalliance.org/apollo/about-the-project/history as of July 1, 2013.
- ^ âAbout the Project – History & Achievements,â GreenBlue Alliance, available at http://www.bluegreenalliance.org/apollo/about-the-project/history as of July 1, 2013.
- ^ âAbout the Project – History & Achievements,â GreenBlue Alliance, available at http://www.bluegreenalliance.org/apollo/about-the-project/history as of July 1, 2013.
- ^ Aaron Klein, âObama Czar in âClean Energyâ Corruption?,â World Net Daily, March 12, 2010, available at http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=127742as of July 1, 2013. (Note that the official title of the legislation is H.R. 1 The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.)
- ^ âApollo Weekly Update, 2/20/09: Clean Energy Breakthrough in Stimulus, Next Steps,â Apollo Alliance, February 20, 2009, available at http://apolloalliance.org/apollo-productions/weekly-updates/apollo-weekly-update-22009-clean-energy-breakthrough-in-stimulus-next-steps/ as of August 16, 2011.
- ^ Brian Riedl, âWhy the Stimulus Failed to Create Jobs,â Heritage Foundation, December 12, 2009, available at http://www.heritage.org/research/commentary/2009/12/why-the-stimulus-failed-to-create-jobs as of July 1, 2013.
- ^ Conn Carroll, âMorning Bell: Why Obamaâs Stimulus Failed,â The Heritage Foundation, June 7, 2010, available at http://blog.heritage.org/2010/06/07/morning-bell-why-obamas-stimulus-failed/as of July 1, 2013.
- ^ James Sherk, âUnemployment Spike Defies âStimulusâ Claims,â The Heritage Foundation, July 2, 2009, available at http://blog.heritage.org/2009/07/02/unemployment-spike-defies-âstimulusâ-claims/as of July 1, 2013.
- ^ Iris Somberg, âStimulus Two Years Later, Networks Ignore Obamaâs Failed Job Promise,â Business & Media Institute, February 16, 2011, available at http://www.mrc.org/bmi/biasbythenumbers/2011/Stimulus_Two_Years_Later_Networks_Ignore_Obamas_Failed_Job_Promise.htmlas of July 1, 2013.
- ^Â âThe Employment Situation â July 2011,â Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, August 5, 2011, available at
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit_08052011.pdf as of July 1, 2013. - ^ âApollo Weekly Update, 2/20/09: Clean Energy Breakthrough in Stimulus, Next Steps,â Apollo Alliance, February 20, 2009, available at http://apolloalliance.org/apollo-productions/weekly-updates/apollo-weekly-update-22009-clean-energy-breakthrough-in-stimulus-next-steps/ as of August 16, 2011.
- ^ âA 40-Year Wish List,â Wall Street Journal, January 28, 2009, available at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123310466514522309.html as of July 1, 2013.
- ^ Aaron Klein, âObamaâs âGreen Jobs Czarâ Worked With Terror Founder,â World Net Daily, August 13, 2009, available at http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=106653as of July 1, 2013.
- ^ âVan Jones: Environmentalism is Really All About Social Justice,â MRCTV, January 25, 2011, available at http://www.mrctv.org/2011/01/van-jones-environmentalism-is-really-all-about-social-justice as of July 1, 2013.
- ^ Scott Wilson and Garance Franke-Ruta, âWhite House Advisor Van Jones Resigns Amid Controversy Over Past Activism,â Washington Post, September 6, 2009, available at http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/09/06/van_jones_resigns.html as of July 1, 2013.
- ^ Aaron Klein, âObamaâs âGreen Jobs Czarâ Worked With Terror Founder,â World Net Daily, August 13, 2009, available at http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=106653as of July 1, 2013.
- ^ Aaron Klein, âObamaâs âGreen Jobs Czarâ Worked With Terror Founder,â World Net Daily, August 13, 2009, available at http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=106653 as of July 1, 2013.
- ^ âWhite House Green Jobs Advisor Apologizes for Calling Republicans âAssholesâ,â Fox News, September 2, 2009, available at http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/02/white-house-green-jobs-adviser-apologizes-calling-republicans-assholes/as of July 1, 2013.
- ^ âWhite House Green Jobs Advisor Apologizes for Calling Republicans âAssholesâ,â Fox News, September 2, 2009, available at http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/02/white-house-green-jobs-adviser-apologizes-calling-republicans-assholes/as of July 1, 2013.
- ^ Garance Franke-Ruta and Anne E. Kornblut, âWhite House Says Little About Embattled Jones,â Washington Post, September 5, 2009, available at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/04/AR2009090403563.htmlas of July 1, 2013.
- ^ Garance Franke-Ruta and Anne E. Kornblut, âWhite House Says Little About Embattled Jones,â Washington Post, September 5, 2009, available at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/04/AR2009090403563.htmlas of July 1, 2013.
- ^ âVan Jones â Senior Fellow,â Center for American Progress, available at http://www.americanprogress.org/experts/JonesVan.html as of July 1, 2013.
- ^ Aaron Klein, âObamaâs âGreen Jobs Czarâ Worked With Terror Founder,â World Net Daily, August 13, 2009, available at http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=106653as of July 1, 2013.
- ^ Aaron Klein, âObamaâs âGreen Jobs Czarâ Worked With Terror Founder,â World Net Daily, August 13, 2009, available at http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=106653 as of July 1, 2013.
- ^ Aaron Klein, âObamaâs âGreen Jobs Czarâ Worked With Terror Founder,â World Net Daily, August 13, 2009, available at http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=106653 as of July 1, 2013.
- ^ âApollo Board of Directors,â Apollo Alliance â About, available at http://apolloalliance.org/about/board/as of August 16, 2011. (Note that as of July 2013, Rogers is no longer listed as a board member.)
- ^ Aaron Klein, âObama Czar in âClean Energyâ Corruption?,â World Net Daily, March 12, 2010, available at http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=127742as of July 2, 2013.
- ^ Stanley Kurtz, âLife of the New Party,â National Review Online, October 30, 2008, available at http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/226147/life-new-party/stanley-kurtz as of July 2, 2013.
- ^ Stanley Kurtz, âLife of the New Party,â National Review Online, October 30, 2008, available at http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/226147/life-new-party/stanley-kurtz as of July 2, 2013.
- ^Â As of August 2011.
- ^ âDemocrat Appointments to Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission,â Wall Street Journal, July 15, 2009, available at http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/07/15/democrat-appointments-to-financial-crisis-inquiry-commission/ as of July 2, 2013.
- ^ âAbout â Funders â 2010 Apollo Alliance Donors,â available at http://apolloalliance.org/about/funders/as of August 17, 2011.