Van Jones has founded several organizations within the last decade, including The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and Green For All. The mission is to help build an inclusive, green economy - strong enough to lift millions of people out of poverty.

Van has worked to combine solutions to America's two biggest problems: social inequality and environmental destruction. He explains,

"The chief moral obligation of the 21st Century is to build a green economy that is strong enough to lift people out of poverty. Those communities that were locked out of the last century's pollution-based economy must be locked into the new, clean and renewable economy. Our youth need green-collar jobs, not jails."

First, historians and archivists complained about censorship. Next, professors and scholars objected. Now, pastors and church leaders have joined the protest against Bush's presidential library.

Southern Methodist University (SMU) is slated to host the George W. Bush Presidential Library on its campus in Dallas, Texas. SMU's leaders are warmly welcoming Bush's library. The Bush library foundation has formally approved SMU as the location. They've hired an architect and are already aggressively seeking donations and funding.

But all is not well. The United Methodist Church's (UMC) Quadrennial General Conference is the UMC governing body. Earlier this month, that governing body voted overwhelmingly - 844 to 20 - to refer a petition to its South Central Jurisdiction, urging it to reject Bush's presidential library, preventing it from being housed at SMU. Signed by 844 Methodist leaders, the petition reads...

Sen. John McCain's weeklong overseas trip to Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Britain and France was tricky for him, in regards to accuracy. For example, while in Israel during a news conference with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, McCain likened the Jewish holiday of Purim to "their version of Halloween." Other than the fact that some use costumes in celebrating Purim, there's no similarity between the two at all.

More troubling, during a press conference in Jordan last week, John McCain brought up the charge that Iran was training al Qaeda operatives and sending them to Iraq. McCain adjusted his story after Senator Joseph Lieberman whispered a recommended correction in his ear. It was handy that he had Sen. Joe Lieberman for a traveling companion.

It was the fourth time in a little over three weeks, however, that McCain had made the same charge. He had made the same (grossly incorrect) assertion during a radio interview with Hugh Hewitt the day before.

Sure, there were numerous gaffes and goofs. Yet, we should ask, were these just harmless and accidental goof-ups? Are they just funny little blips in the news - or - could some of them be harbingers of more serious and coordinated propaganda attempts? If so, why? What's the end game?

Obama fell behind Clinton on March 14 and stayed there until today. The March 14th Gallup poll had New York Sen. Hillary Clinton besting Obama by 7 percentage points (49-42) in a national poll of Democratic-leaning voters. The recent Reuters/Zogby poll charted Obama losing to GOP presumptive nominee John McCain by 6 percentage points in a head-to-head race.

The ever talkative pundits, of course, are manufacturing explanations, since no one really understands Obama's favorability roller coaster. Some say that Obama is just now coming out of his "honeymoon" period and is being tested and vetted for the first time...

As you read my blog post today, I cannot know whether your skin is black, brown, yellow, pink or purple. I can't know anything about you! Imagine that I'm not writing a blog post, but instead that I am authoring a paragraph describing the purpose of my church for my church's website. Let's say that I'll place the important paragraph on my church's "about us" webpage. Then, you, dear reader, whom I still know nothing about, will stumble upon this page in your search for a relationship with God...

We are a congregation which is Unashamedly Caucasian and Unapologetically Christian... Our roots in the White religious experience and tradition are deep, lasting and permanent. We are a European people, and remain "true to our native land," the mother continent, the cradle of civilization... It is God who gives us the strength and courage to continuously address injustice as a people, and as a congregation. We constantly affirm our trust in God through cultural expression of a White worship service and ministries which address the White Community.

Tell me, honestly, how would that make you feel about my church?

After all the twists and turns in the government surveillance debacle, we are finally down to the wire. I know that the presidential primaries, debates and caucuses are dominating the air waves and preoccupy most medial outlets. But right now, it is absolutely essential that the voice of freedom be heard throughout the halls of Congress.

By Wednesday night of this week, the debate on Capitol Hill over government eavesdropping will probably end in the Senate.

What will they do? Will the senators protect our rights to privacy, free speech and due process - or will they throw our constitution and us under the oncoming bus? In less than three days, we will know who stood up for civil liberties and who failed freedom. Today and tomorrow, we need to put our senators on notice before they vote. We need to call and write to our senators and tell them what our demands are simple and unwavering:

Senators, stay true to your oath to protect the Constitution. Senators, stand up against an overreaching executive branch. And, don’t grant blanket immunity to huge corporations that sold out Americans’ privacy. We need you to stand firm on your commitment to the American constitution. Stand up to the administration and pass a bill that gives priority to the constitutionally protected privacy interests of all Americans. As citizens, we demand that you not expand FISA. We demand that you protect our rights.

President Bush this week declared that he has the power to bypass four laws, including a prohibition against using federal funds to establish permanent US military bases in Iraq, that Congress passed as part of a new defense bill.

Inappropriately behaving as a unitary executive, President Bush is thumbing his nose at our representative government. If he does not wish to abide by a law, of course he has the right to veto the law. However, once he signs the legislation, according to our constitution, he must abide by it. To sign the law and then refuse to follow the law is not an option. No president is above the law. We all know this. Even so, George Bush has consistently made "signing" statements whereby he proclaims that he is signing a legislation but will not follow it completely. Is this dangerous to our democracy? Why do we put up with it? Can we stop it?

This past Monday, President Bush signed the National Defense Authorization Act of 2008, which included a statute forbidding the Bush administration from spending taxpayer money "to establish any military installation or base for the purpose of providing for the permanent stationing of United States Armed Forces in Iraq."

But Bush quietly attached a signing statement to the law, asserting a unilateral right to disregard the ban on permanent bases in addition to three other measures in the bill. "Provisions of the act...could inhibit the president's ability to carry out his constitutional obligations...to protect national security," the signing statement read.

Check this out; here's what Bush actually said while signing the legislation...

The economic rationale for more a progressive stimulus package, which we hear now several times a day, is that the poor and the freshly unemployed will spend whatever money they get. Give them more money in the form of food stamps or unemployment benefits and they’ll drop more at the mall.

Money, it has been observed, sticks to the rich but just slides off the poor, which makes them the lynchpin of stimulus. After decades of hearing the poor stereotyped as lazy, stupid, addicted, and crime-prone, they have been discovered to have this singular virtue: They are veritable spending machines.

You don't want to miss what Barbara Ehrenreich is saying now about working in America...

Something's happening right now in Congress that you might want to watch closely.

In recent years, the feds, under George Bush's direction, have returned to the bad old days of unchecked spying on ordinary Americans, as part of a broad pattern of executive abuses that use "national security" as an excuse for encroaching on our privacy and free speech rights without adequate - or any - judicial oversight. For five years, on presidential orders, the National Security Agency has been reading email and tapping phones without a warrant - actions explicitly forbidden by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA).

A recent poll shows that the vast majority of American voters want Congress to reinstate our protections and to stop allowing George Bush, the FBI, the NSA and the Pentagon to spy on Americans without warrants. Don't let this escape your attention! Right now, lots of things are brewing in Congress.

Lawmakers are poised to create brand new laws. Are they listening to you? And, what in the heck are they trying to do?

Unfortunately, some of the presidential candidates seem satisfied with the current state of the economy. For example, Mitt Romney says that he doesn't see that there are "two Americas" and he sees that things are favorable for everyone. What? What planet is Romney from?

John McCain spent last week in Michigan (the state with the highest unemployment rate in the U.S.) telling Michiganders that the jobs that they have lost will not come back. He wanted points and accolades. He seemed to think that by delivering this dismal news that he would be seen as a trustworthy straight shooter. When asked what he could do to help Michigan with its economic problems, McCain recommended that the unemployed people go to community colleges and study science and math. What?

McCain wants 40-somethings and 50-somethings to go study math and science? I ask you, are there jobs in Michigan in math and science for people with a couple years of community college who previously had a successful careers in the auto business, a manufacturing business or other fields? Does he think that we're happy that all the good jobs have moved to China and India under his watch in the Senate? Which solar system is McCain living in?