1.  Green Jobs Czar Resigns

Well, this certainly isn't going to convince Van Jones that Republicans aren't "assholes." After enduring days of right-wing rage over his affiliation with radical leftist groups, the Obama administration's "green jobs czar" announced his resignation early Sunday. Jones found himself in conservatives' crosshairs after it was revealed that he signed a petition in support of 9/11 "truther" conspiracy theorists and called Republicans "assholes" in a video taped before he was tapped to head up the White House's green jobs program. The revelations prompted not only calls for Jones' head but criticism of the czars that Obama has deployed to head up various White House initiatives. Unlike Cabinet members, czars don't have to be approved by the Senate. But before his resignation, Jones had certainly attracted the Senate's attention. Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., was calling for a congressional inquiry into Jones' past (which included membership in a group ominously titled STORM: Standing Together To Organize a Revolutionary Movement) and questioning his present leadership of the green jobs program, which Bond called "increasingly erratic and unstable."

Read original story in Politico | Sunday, Sept. 6, 2009