Alabama Right News: Nov 9, 2010

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Iraq did have chemical WMD, WikiLeaks documents reveal - NYPOST.com

Missouri Education Watchdog: Tyranny and Tape Measures Coming Soon to a School ...

Missouri Education Watchdog: Tyranny and Tape Measures Coming Soon to a School ...: "Will the fat police be coming to a school to you soon? They probably will be arriving soon, if they are not there already. Who would have ..."

GM Cutting One More Job: Mr. Goodwrench

http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2010/11/09/gm-cutting-job-mr-goodwrench/

GM Cutting One More Job: Mr. Goodwrench

Published November 09, 2010

| Associated Press

General Motors is asking Mr. Goodwrench to pack up his toolbox.

The mechanic who served as the symbol of GM's dealer service brand for 37 years will be scrapped as of Feb. 1 in favor of "certified service" brands for each of GM's remaining four remaining nameplates, the company said Tuesday.

GM dumped four brands as it went through bankruptcy protection last year and now sells only Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac.

The Detroit automaker has been focusing its marketing efforts for the past year or so on brands rather than the corporate name because customers know the brands better than they know General Motors.

Mr. Goodwrench started in 1974 to give a common identity to service for all of its dealers and brands. The character started out as a friendly looking mechanic in a crisp light-blue shirt and evolved into a drawing of a brawny man in a striped work shirt hoisting the brand's blue G-shaped logo.

Read the Beck TV Background Guide to George Soros

via The Blaze - Stories by Jonathon M. Seidl on 11/9/10

Editor's note: The following outline was obtained by The Blaze from Glenn Beck's TV team. It is the background document they used to produce Tuesday night's George Soros expose. It has been edited for form but not content:

BACKGROUND

"Messianic Fantasies"

"It is sort of a disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out," (The Independent, June 3, 1993)

"I admit that I have always harbored an exaggerated view of self-importance –to put it bluntly, I fancied myself as some kind of god or an economic reformer like Keynes or, even better, a scientist like Einstein," (The Alchemy of Finance, George Soros)

According to friend Byron Wien (now with the Blackstone Group), "You must understand he thinks he's been anointed by God to solve insoluble problems. The proof is that he has been so successful at making so much. He therefore thinks he has a responsibility to give money away," (Time Magazine, Sept 1, 1997)

"If truth be known, I carried some rather potent messianic fantasies with me from childhood which I felt I had to control, otherwise I might end up in the loony bin. But when I made my way in the world I wanted to indulge myself in my fantasies to the extent that I could afford."

George Soros 60 Minutes Interview – 12/20/98 / Transcript:

KROFT: Are you religious?
Mr. SOROS: No.
KROFT: Do you believe in God?
Mr. SOROS: No.
KROFT: (Voiceover) Soros told us he believes God was created by man, not the other way around, which may be why he thinks he can smooth out the world's imperfections.

"THE MAN WHO BROKE THE BANK OF ENGLAND"

"As September 15 wore on, George Soros's confidence that Britain would pull the pound out of the ERM was growing. It had been Stanley Druckenmiller who had thought the time ripe for making a bet against the sterling. He talked to Soros about doing something. Soros gave him the green light but urged his head trader to bet an even larger sum than Druckenmiller had in mind. And so Druckenmiller, acting for Soros, sold $10 billion worth of sterling… The next morning at 7:00, the phone rang at Soros's home. It was Stan Druckenmiller with news… While George Soros had slept, he racked a profit $958 million. When Soros's gains from other positions he took during the ERM crisis were tallied, he racked up close to $2 billion… It was this bet, this single act of placing $10 billion on the fact that Britain would have to devalue the pound, that made George Soros world famous," (SOROS THE UNAUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY, pgs 5-6).

"He famously shorted the British pound in 1992, wagering $10 billion on a drop in its value. In a desperate bid to keep its currency afloat, the Bank of England tried to buy up pounds as fast as Soros could dump them. However, as more and more investors followed Soros' lead and joined his efforts, the Bank of England eventually gave up. The British pound was devalued, launching a tsunami of financial turmoil from Tokyo to Rome. When it was over, millions of hardworking Britons confronted their diminished savings, while Soros counted his gains. He had personally made nearly $2 billion on the catastrophe," (The Shadow Party, pg. 4).

Soros has said of this event: "I had no platform, so I deliberately [did] the sterling thing to create a platform. Obviously people care about the man who made a lot of money…my influence has continued to grow and I do have access to,"(Time Magazine, Sept 1, 1997)

In 1997, during the Asian financial crisis, the then Malaysian Prime Minister, Mahathir bin Mohamad, accused him of bringing down the Malaysian currency, the ringgit, through his trading activities. In Thailand he was branded an "economic war criminal" who "sucks the blood from the people".

REVOLUTIONS

"Just write that the former Soviet Empire is now called the Soros Empire," (The New Republic, Jan 1994)

"I am acting out a fantasy and so is Eastern Europe. A psychiatrist once told me how dangerous it is to act out fantasies and I am beginning to see what he meant," (http://www.osi.hu/oss/postscript.html)

ANTI-SEMITISM

In a 1998 nterview with Steve Kroft, Soros was asked if he felt guilty about confiscating property from Jews as a teenager. He responded, "No."

"I don't deny the Jews their right to a national existence–but I don't want to be part of it."That experience notwithstanding, Soros has chosen to exclude Israel and Jewish causes, by and large, from his massive philanthropy-a decision that has caused comment among one of his colleagues in the financial community, particularly those who are strong supporters of Israel. In Hungary, Soros has been subject to anti-Semitic attacks. Referring to being a target, Soros, in his book "Underwriting Democracy," wrote, "I am ready to stand up and be counted." When I mentioned that rather suggestive line to Soros during one of several extended interviews with him, he responded quickly, "Right. It took me a long time."
He continued, "My mother was quite anti-Semitic, and ashamed of being Jewish. Given the culture in which one lived, being Jewish was a clear-cut stigma, disadvantage, a handicap-and, therefore, there was always the desire to transcend it, to escape it." He confirmed what someone had told me-that his family name had long ago been changed from Schwartz. "So the assimilationist Jews of Hungary had a deep sense of inferiority and it took me a long time to work through that," he said, adding, however, that he succeeded in doing so many years ago… "I am escaping the particular. I think I am doing exactly that by espousing this universal concept"-of open society. "In other words, I don't think that you can ever overcome anti-Semitism if you behave as a tribe… the only way you can overcome it is if you give up the tribalness."
(Source: THE WORLD ACCORDING TO SOROS by CONNIE BRUC, The New Yorker, January 23, 1995,)

"As I looked around me for a worthy cause. I ran into difficulties. I did not belong to any community. As a Hungarian Jew I had never quite become an American. I had left Hungary behind and my Jewishness did not express itself in a sense of tribal loyalty that would have led me to support Israel," (http://www.osi.hu/oss/ch1.html)

INFO ON NAME CHANGE FROM SHWARTZ TO SOROS

Born in Hungary in 1930, Mr. Soros began life as George Schwartz. His father, Tivadar, was from humble origins; his mother, Erzebet, from money. Both were Jews, but nonobservant (she eventually converted to Catholicism). Once married, Tivadar had to work just two hours a day managing some of his wife's family property, which provided a handsome living for them and their two sons, Paul and George. At some point during the boys' childhood, the parents decided to change the family name and chose the Hungarian-sounding but in fact obscure Soros. It means "soar" (in the future tense) in Esperanto, the made-up trans-European language promoted by those who dreamed of a world free of nationality. Tivadar was among its leading proponents. (Source: The Mind of George Soros; Meet the Esperanto enthusiast who wants to save the world from President Bush, 2 March 2004, The Wall Street Journal)

Before the end of the war, however, Soros' upper-middle-class world had inverted. The family posed as Christians and separated to hide from the Germans. They changed their name from Schwartz (considered too Jewish-sounding) to Soros (more reflective of the family's Hungarian roots and because his father liked the palindrome). (The elusive billionaire: An author tries valiantly to capture the essence of philanthropist George Soros, Vancouver Sun, 20 April 2002)

MORE ON TIVADAR SOROS

The other day, George Soros and his older brother Paul, an engineer turned investor-philanthropist, met in the offices of Soros Fund Management to discuss their father. The occasion was the English-language publication of Tivadar Soros's wartime memoir, "Masquerade: Dancing Around Death in Nazi-Occupied Hungary," which was first published in 1965 in Esperanto, one of six languages in which Soros pere was fluent.

"It was his nature, regardless of difficulties, to believe that one must behave like a human being and one must make the most of life," Paul Soros said, explaining the charm and ebullience of his father, who, in the book, is described by his five-year-old son George as "a married bachelor," and who, even when living semi-reclusively under an assumed Christian identity, never missed his daily swim. "I remember during the siege we went to the opera, because at a time when there was no food the opera still served very nice hors d'oeuvres and patisserie. Whether or not it was prudent, the idea was that you should make the most of your circumstances."

George, who, like Paul, has inherited his father's broad face, pointed out that Tivadar's fondness for the comforts of bourgeois life was not accompanied by a docile bourgeois sensibility. "We didn't preserve ordinariness," George said. "He made us very conscious that these were extraordinary times and that the normal rules didn't apply." In the book, Tivadar writes that at one point young George was required by the authorities to deliver notices to certain Jews that they should report to the Rabbinical Seminary with blankets and food. "This was a profoundly important experience for me," George said. "My father said, 'You should go ahead and deliver them, but tell the people that if they report they will be deported.' The reply from one man was 'I am a law-abiding citizen. They can't do anything to me.' I told my father, and that was an occasion for a lecture that there are times when you have laws that are immoral, and if you obey them you perish."

"Masquerade" contains a great deal of black social comedy; a running theme is Tivadar's efforts to convince his recalcitrant mother-in-law that, all things considered, it really would be best if she stopped regarding the occupation as a personal insult. ("I refuse to go anywhere if the people don't know who I am and I have to pretend I'm somebody else all the time," she said of his attempts to find a safe house for her.) Tivadar's own ease with his assumed identity-he grew a mustache, and went by Elek Szabo-led him, one day during an air raid, to tell a neighbor in the shelter about the time he approached the podium on which Hitler was standing at the 1936 Winter Olympics, just to see how close he could get. "Hardly fifteen minutes had passed after my tale when there was suddenly a great commotion," Tivadar wrote. "The shelter commander appeared, surrounded by several officers. . . . It transpired that the air-defense commander, in great excitement that there was someone present who had seen Hitler, had radioed headquarters and a group had come over right away to see this privileged person."

Tivadar's energies, though, were largely devoted to the extremely serious business of procuring papers to save relatives and friends from a new, unimaginable form of terror. "My father was ahead of the curve, because he recognized the moment the Germans came in that this was a different world and one had to act differently," George said. He and Paul agreed that they still try to live by their father's resourceful example. "The funny thing is that in character we probably both inherited a lot more from our mother," George said.

GLOBALIZATION

Soros has long been calling for increased globalization. In "The Crisis of Global Capitalism," 1998 he writes: "To stabilize and regulate a truly global economy, we need some global system of political decision-making. In short, we need a global society to support our global economy. A global society does not mean a global state. To abolish the existence of states is neither feasible nor desirable; but insofar as there are collective interests that transcend state boundaries, the sovereignty of states must be subordinated to international law and international institutions. Interestingly, the greatest opposition to this idea is coming from the United States. But there has never been a time when a strong lead from the U.S. and other like-minded countries could achieve such powerful and benign results. With the right sense of leadership and with clarity of purpose, the U.S. and its allies could help to stabilize the global economic system and to extend and uphold universal human values. The opportunity is waiting to be grasped."
(Source: The Crisis of Global Capitalism.(book excerpt), George Soros, 7 December 1998, Newsweek)

During this year he called for greater authority to institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and for an International Credit Insurance Corp. to establish some kind of supervision over national supervisory authorities and stated, "At the same time, there remains the urgent need for Congress to authorise an increase in the capital of the IMF." He admitted that such "radical ideas" could not even be considered until Congress "changes its attitude toward international institutions in general and the IMF in particular." (Source: Soros calls for global credit insurance agency, 15 September 1998, Reuters News)

Soros has said that the United States would cease to be the world's undisputed dominant force. "The veto power that we have in the International Monetary Fund will disappear. We will be downsized. At the same time, hopefully, we will have a better working system and opponents will be more downsized than we will."
(Source: BOSTON, Oct. 29 — Massachusetts Institute of Technology press release via Factiva)

"The Bubble of American Supremacy,": "The disparity between private goods and public goods manifests itself in a number of ways. First, there is a growing inequality between rich and poor, both within countries and among countries. Admittedly, globalisation is not a zero-sum game: its benefits exceed the costs in the sense that the increased wealth produced by globalisation could be used to make up for the inequities and other shortcomings of globalisation and there would still be some extra wealth left over.
The trouble is that the winners do not compensate the losers either within states or between states. The welfare state as we know it has become unsustainable and international income redistribution is practically nonexistent. Total international assistance amounted to $US56.5 billion ($74.4 billion) in 2002. This amount represents only 0.18 per cent of global GDP. As a result, the gap between the rich and the poor continues to grow."
(Source: Edited extract from The Bubble of American Supremacy by George Soros via The Sydney Morning Herald, February 4, 2004)

KARL POPPER

SOROS' PHILOSOPHY

At the London School of Economics, Soros discovered the work of philosopher Karl Popper, whose ideas on open society had a profound influence on his thinking. He was attracted to Popper's critique of totalitarianism, The Open Society and Its Enemies, which maintained that societies can only flourish when they allow democratic governance, freedom of expression, a diverse range of opinion, and respect for individual rights. Later, working as a trader and analyst, he adapted Popper to develop his own "theory of reflexivity," a set of ideas that seeks to explain the relationship between thought and reality, which he used to predict, among other things, the emergence of financial bubbles. Soros began to apply his theory to investing and concluded that he had more talent for trading than for philosophy. In 1967 he helped establish an offshore investment fund; and in 1973 he set up a private investment firm that eventually evolved into the Quantum Fund, one of the first hedge funds. http://www.soros.org/about/bios/staff/george-soros

QUOTES FROM "The Open Society and Its Enemies: Hegel and Marx," by Karl Popper (Vol. 2), by Karl Popper

The development of capitalism has led to the elimination of all classes but two, a small bourgeiouse and a huge proletariat: and the increase of misery has forced the latter to revolt against its exploiters. The conclusions are, first, that the workers must win the struggle, secondly that, by eliminating bourgeiouse, they must establish a classless society, since only one class remains. (pg 151-152)

But all over the earth, organized political power has begun to perform far-reaching economic functions. Unrestrained capitalism has given way to a new historical period, to our own period of political interventionism, of the economic interference of the state. Interventionism has assumed various forms. There is the Russian variety; there is the fascist form of totalitarianism; and their s the domestic interventionism of England, of the United States, and the "Smaller Democracies" led by Sweden where the technology of democratic intervention has reached the highest level so far. (pg 155)

Admittedly, increasing misery must produce resistance, and it is even likely to produce rebellious outbreaks. But the assumption of our argument is that the misery cannot be alleviated until victory has been won in the social revolution. (pg 163)

I am not in all cases and under all circumstance against a violent revolution. (pg 166)

…the working of democracy rests largely upon the understanding that a government which attempts to misuse its powers and to establish itself as a tyranny (or which tolerates the establishment of a tyranny by anybody else) outlaws itself, and that the citizens have not only a right, but also a duty to consider the action of such government a crime, and its members as a dangerous gang of criminals. (pg 167)

MORE ABOUT KARL POPPER

http://www.hoover.org/publications/hoover-digest/article/8018

Although compelled to leave his native Austria in the 1930s (because of his Jewish ancestry), his book is remarkably free from personal bitterness or sadness.

He did not shrink from tracing the sources of those dangerous ideas to Marx, to Hegel, and even to that greatest of all philosophers, Plato. At a time when many intellectuals had lost faith in democracy, Popper offered a spirited defense of democratic principles and outlined a compelling vision of a society grounded in democratic reforms.

Popper was a fallibilist, one who perceives great error and danger in any theory of knowledge—or regime—that claimed to offer certain truth. In such a system, there would be no incentive to establish social and political structures that promote learning or the free exchange of ideas; truth is already at hand. In the name of historical progress, the regime may then justify the squelching of human freedoms and even atrocities on a grand scale.

George Soros, who first encountered The Open Society as Popper's student at the London School of Economics, founded the Open Society Institute to propagate Popper's ideas, particularly in Eastern Europe. Thus the political philosophy Popper first articulated before the start of the Cold War is now being studied and put into practice in countries newly emerging from behind the Iron Curtain.

He left school at age sixteen and began auditing lectures at the University of Vienna. Although a Marxist as a teenager, he was repelled in 1919 by the leftist-inspired street violence of postwar Vienna that resulted in the deaths of demonstrators. That same year, he studied Freud's psychoanalysis and worked for a time with psychiatrist Alfred Adler.

In 1922 he matriculated at the University of Vienna. To support himself, he apprenticed himself to a cabinetmaker and took up social work. Pursuing his goal of becoming a schoolteacher, Popper subsequently returned to the university. In 1928, he earned a Ph.D. in philosophy and, in 1929, a teacher's certificate. Beginning in the late 1920s, Popper began interacting with members of the famous Vienna Circle of logical positivists, a group of prominent intellectuals trying to articulate the importance of science for philosophy. Shortly after publishing (in German) a then little-noticed but classic work on the logical foundations of science in 1934, Popper left Austria under the threat of Nazi anti-Semitism. From New Zealand, where he had obtained a university teaching post, he returned to England after World War II as professor of philosophy of science at the London School of Economics, where he remained until his retirement.

SOROS' CURRENT TIES

SOROS AND PRESIDENT OBAMA

In December 2006, Soros met with presidential hopeful Barack Obama in Soros' New York office. Soros had previously hosted a fundraiser for Obama during his 2004 campaign for the Senate.

On January 16, 2007, Obama announce the creation of a presidential exploratory committee and within hours Soros sent a contribution of $2,100, the maximum allowable under campaign finance laws.

Days after Obama was elected in November of 2008, Soros said in an interview "I think we need a large stimulus package which will provide funds for state and local government to maintain their budgets – because they are not allowed by the constitution to run a deficit. For such a program to be successful, the federal government would need to provide hundreds of billions of dollars. In addition, another infrastructure program is necessary. In total, the cost would be in the 300 to 600 billion dollar range." Since then, Congress passed a $787 billion stimulus and Obama very recently introduced a $50 billion plan to improve the country's transportation program, saying "I want America to have the best infrastructure in the world."

In that same interview, Soros called for cap & trade: "I think this is a great opportunity to finally deal with global warming and energy dependence. The US needs a cap and trade system with auctioning of licenses for emissions rights. I would use the revenues from these auctions to launch a new, environmentally friendly energy policy. That would be yet another federal program that could help us to overcome the current stagnation." Since then, Congress has introduced cap & trade legislation. (More info in "going green" section)

Also in that interview, Soros said "In 2010, the Bush tax cuts will expire and we should not extend them." Since then, Obama expressed his opposition to the Bush tax cuts in an interview with ABC on September 9^th: "All those middle class folks who need tax relief hostage right now in order to provide tax breaks for the top two percent wealthiest Americans, who don't need a tax break, aren't asking for a tax break. And you know, if we could afford it, it'd be one thing. But we know that's gonna cost $700 billion over ten years. And so, that is not a smart thing to do for the economy"

Soros is also on board with Obama's proposals to reform the banking system. In an interview with the BBC: Interviewer: Now President Obama last week announced some quite radical proposals to reform the banking system. He wants them out of what he calls "proprietary trading", using their capital to speculate on their own account, and also he wants a limit on their size. Are these constructive measures in your view? Soros: Very much so these are the right … it goes in the right direction. In my opinion, it doesn't actually go far enough because it still leaves the problem of too big to fail. In other words, if you let's say now again Goldman Sachs gives up its banking license, it becomes then an investment bank …

January 2010, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/davos/8485029.stm

Since Obama's been in office, Soros has made four visits to the White House

ALSO IN HIS 2008 INTERVIEW:

Soros: "I think this is a great opportunity to finally deal with global warming and energy dependence. The US needs a cap and trade system with auctioning of licenses for emissions rights. I would use the revenues from these auctions to launch a new, environmentally friendly energy policy. That would be yet another federal program that could help us to overcome the current stagnation.

SPIEGEL: Your proposal would be dismissed on Wall Street as "big government." Republicans might call it European-style "socialism."

Soros: That is exactly what we need now. I am against market fundamentalism. I think this propaganda that government involvement is always bad has been very successful — but also very harmful to our society.

SPIEGEL: Would you advise the new president to say that publicly?

Soros: He has already spoken about changing the political discourse. I think it is better to have a government that wants to provide good government than a government that doesn't believe in government.

WILL ANOTHER FISCAL STIMULUS BE NEXT?

"The simple truth is that the private sector does not employ available resources. Mr. Obama has in fact been very friendly to business, and corporations are operating profitably. But instead of investing, they are building up liquidity. Perhaps a Republican victory would boost their confidence, but in the meantime, investment and employment require fiscal stimulus," (Financial Times, Oct. 4, 2010)

LAUNCHING A WAR AGAINST PRESIDENT BUSH

Soros told the Washington Post: "I have made rejection of the Bush doctrine the central project of my life… America, under Bush, is a danger to the world. And I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is."

Also during that election: "This is the most important election of my lifetime. These aren't normal times. The ends justify every legal means possible."
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/10/18/041018fa_fact3?currentPage=3#ixzz0xAm1jvyV

SOROS AND VAN JONES

Soros has also supported Van Jones – Originally through the Open Society Institute which gave the Ella Baker Center $151,800 in 2006 and $140,000 in 2007. Van Jones was head of the Ella Baker Center during those years. OSI also funded Green for All in 2008 – they received a grant in the amount of $75,000 to "integrate the Civic Justice Corps into Green For All's campaign to create a national Clean Energy Corps." while Van Jones was running it. Van Jones later appeared as a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. Additionally, OSI helped fund TIDES which then started the Apollo Alliance (where Van Jones sat on the board).

CAP & TRADE

Soros is also a huge proponent of cap and trade. The sot below sounds very similar to VAN JONES' "We'renot going to put a new battery in a broken system."

SOROS: "work on a better world order where we work together to resolve problems that confront humanity like global warming. And I think that dealing with global warming will require a lot of investment.

SOROS: You see, for the last 25 years the world economy, the motor of the world economy that has been driving it was consumption by the American consumer who has been spending more than he has been saving, all right? Than he's been producing. So that motor is now switched off. It's finished. It's run out of — can't continue. You need a new motor. And we have a big problem. Global warming. It requires big investment. And that could be the motor of the world economy in the years to come…Instead of consuming, building an electricity grid, saving on energy, rewiring the houses, adjusting your lifestyle where energy has got to cost more until it you introduce those new things. So it will be painful. But at least we will survive and not cook.

MOYERS: You're talking about this being the end of an era and needing to create a whole new paradigm for the economic model of the country, of the world, right?

GEORGE SOROS: Yes.

VIDEO: http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/14/george-soros-on-the-green-energy-economy/

MORE ON GREEN INITIATIVES

In 2009, Soros announced the formation of the Climate Policy Initiative to address global warming, and said he would fund it with $10 million a year over 10 years

Friends of the Earth is another group that receives Soros money. In 2008 they received $50,000 from OSI to "build and support an international network of organizations dedicated to improving the environmental, social and developmental impacts of Chinese overseas investments." Friends of the Earth also received $180,000 from Tides Foundation in 2008 to "integrate a climate equity perspective in the presidential transition."

THE OPEN SOCIETY INSTITUTE

Soros started Open Society in 1993

Soros has given away over $7 billion to "support human rights, freedom of expression, and access to public health and education in 70 countries."

Up to $425 million donated annually

Aryeh Neier is the president of the Open Society Institute and Soros foundations network. "Neier personally created the radical group Students for a Democratic Society in 1959… He worked for the American Civil Liberties Union for fifteen years," (The Shadow Party, pg 23).

Open Society Foundations recently pledged its largest donation ever to Human Rights Watch in the amount of $100 million to be distributed over 10 years

Richard Poe writes, "Through his global web of Open Society Institutes and Open Society Foundations, Soros has spent 25 years recruiting, training, indoctrinating and installing a network of loyal operatives in 50 countries, placing them in positions of influence and power in media, government, finance and academia."

Some organizations that have received support from OSI:
- Center for American Progress
- Tides Foundation
- Campaign for America's Future
- National Council of La Raza
- ACORN
- Apollo Alliance
- Center for Community Change
- Free Press
- MoveOn.org
- Top 20 grant recipients in 2008 (the most recent OSI filing)
  - International Crisis Group $5,000,000
  - Ministry of Education Republic of Liberia $4,250,000
  - Drug Policy Alliance $4,000,000
  - Media Development Loan Fund $3,900,000
  - Bard College $3,094,539
  - Proteus Fund Inc $3,000,000
  - The Revenue Watch Institute $3,000,000
  - The Tides Foundation $2,875,000
  - The Mayors Fund to Advance New York City $2,512,415
  - Center on Budget and Policy Priorities $2,107,000
  - Public Interest Projects $1,700,000
  - The Tides Center $1,396,681
  - Center for Community Change $1,362,500
  - Leadership Conference on Civil Rights education$1,320,000
  - Fund for the European University $1,100,000
  - Center for New York City Neighborhoods $1,050,000
  - American Civil Liberties Union Foundation $1,000,000
  - Center for American Progress $1,000,000
  - Foundation to Promote Open Society $1,000,000
  - Link Media Inc $1,000,000

(Source: Open Society Institute, IRS Form 990-PF, 2008)

CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS

Early in 2003, Soros pledged $3 Million over 3 years to the think tank

He awarded $1 Million in grants to Center for American Progress for 2008/2009

The group was largely set up to prevent Bush from gaining re-election in 2004. Soros told the Washington Post: "I have made rejection of the Bush doctrine the central project of my life… America, under Bush, is a danger to the world. And I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is."

The organization is headed by John Podesta

Van Jones is currently a senior fellow

In its first year, CAP took in more than $10 million

In 2006, CAP launched a network of liberal religious leaders called Faith in Public Life to "fuel this burgeoning faith movement with cutting edge strategies and capacity-building resources"

CAP's campus Progress, with a staff of 15 and a large network of student advisers, offers money and guidance to help college activists launch initiatives and newspapers

CAP has a congressional outreach staff and aides dedicated to booking its experts on talk shows. It has a studio that offers daily taped segments and talking points for radio hosts, and it broadcasts liberal radio host Ed Schultz's show when he's in town.

TIDES

2008 funding from Open Society Institute to Tides (latest year for which the OSI has filed a Form 990 document with the IRS):
The Tides Center:       $1.354 million
Tides Foundation:       $2.875 million
Total:                     $4.229 million

Drummond Pike is Founder & CEO of Tides Foundation. He is also Treasurer of Democracy Alliance, a group that was founded with major financial backing from member George Soros.

The Apollo Alliance is a project of the Tides Center.
- Van Jones is a former board member
- Apollo Alliance helped to design and promote the stimulus bill which included $110 billion for "green spending"

SOJOURNERS

Open Society gave Sojourners a $200,000 grant in 2004, $25,000 in 2006, and $100,000 in 2007.

THE QUANTAM FUND

Soros launched the Quantam Fund after immigration to America from London in 1956. It was one of the world's first private hedge funds.

Soros recently passed much of the fund's management to his two grown sons, Robert and Jonathan

The fund, which is registered in the Netherlands Antilles, turned an original investment of six million dollars, in 1969, into five and a half billion dollars by 1999.

AMERICAN CONSTITUTION SOCIETY

The American Constitution Society is a left-wing legal activist group working to change our nation's laws and approaches towards law enforcement. One of its areas of focus is constitutional interpretation and change.

OPEN SOCIETY INSTITUTE DISCLOSED GRANTS TO ACS

Grants disclosed on George Soros' Open Society Institute's Form 990 tax filings to American Constitution Society for Law and Policy (ACS) going back to 2002 (with the exception of the 2005 filing which could not be searched electronically). Open Society's 2002 filing referenced that the grant was designated for start-up of ACS. Adding all the totals from each year below (excluding 2005) comes to $14,602,850.

2008 funding: $3.65 million

2007 funding: $4.5 million

2006 funding: $5,025,000

2004 funding: $676,800

2003 funding: $251,050

2002 funding: $500,000

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YID With LID: 21 Years Ago We Defeated Tyranny: Now Obama Wants to Give That Win Back

Some Company Retirees Can't Keep Their Health Care Plan After All | The Heritage Foundation

What's the Worst That Could Happen With The New Health Law? | The Heritage Foundation

Bush Defends Tax Cuts, Fiscal Legacy

Bush Calls Into Rush- Says Media Is Making Up Stories About Palin: “I Never ...

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Bush Calls Into Rush- Says Media Is Making Up Stories About Palin: “I Never Said That and Never Would Have Said That” (Video)

via Gateway Pundit by Jim Hoft on 11/9/10

Former President George Bush called into Rush Limbaugh today to talk tax cuts, Sarah Palin and TelePrompters… He says he never dissed Sarah Palin,
"I never said that and never would have said that."

Via FOX Nation:
Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com

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New York Times political cartoonist Ted Rall calls for death of Christians and Tea Partiers

Barack Obama returns to Jakarta and confesses 'I barely recognise it'

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Barack Obama returns to Jakarta and confesses 'I barely recognise it'

via Business: US economy | guardian.co.uk by Toni O'Loughlin on 11/9/10

Vist to capital of Indonesia – home to US president in 1960s – stripped to diplomatic essentials

Struggling to recognise the city of his childhood, Barack Obama today returned to Jakarta on a heavily curtailed trip to Indonesia. The US president, who spent four years living in the Indonesian capital, said it was "wonderful" to return to the city of his boyhood, even if it was unfamiliar.

"I have to tell you that when you visit a place that you spent some time in as a child, as a president, it's a little disorienting," Obama told journalists at the Indonesian presidential palace.

"Much has been made of the fact that this marks my return to where I lived as a boy. I barely recognise it. The landscape has changed completely," he said of Jakarta's radical transformation from a developing city into a global metropolis.

"When I first came here in 1967 everyone rode on becaks [cycle rickshaws], you stood in the back and it was very crowded. Now, as president, I couldn't see any traffic because they had blocked off all the streets."

This is Obama's third attempt to return to Indonesia. Two earlier visits were derailed this year by the controversy over his health reform bill and by the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. But unlike the previous itineraries, which were to have included a visit to the government school he attended in Besuki Street, Menteng, there will be no trip down memory lane.

Indeed the visit, stripped to its diplomatic essentials and crammed into less than 24 hours, continued to be cut as Obama was en route from India. The centrepiece of the tour, Obama's speech to an audience of 25,000 at the University of Indonesia, was moved indoors, restricting the audience to 5,000.

A spokesman for the Indonesian president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, said it was in case of bad weather and the police said it was to improve security. But some have also speculated that the move to a more restricted space is linked to a disagreement between the White House and the Indonesian presidential palace over the speech.

It is also likely he will leave two hours earlier to avoid volcanic ash drifting from Mount Merapi to Jakarta. Soon after arriving, during a rather stilted press conference, Obama expressed "great affection for the people here", but downplayed the sentimental aspect of his visit. "Today I'm here to focus not on the past but on the future," he said.

His visit follows the formation of the US-Indonesia comprehensive partnership in June, aimed at improving bilateral relations between the two countries in trade, investment, education, environment, climate change and security.

In particular, the US is seeking co-operation in Asia to correct global economic imbalances it believes undermine the US economy, such as China's undervalued currency.

"Asia is the fastest growing part of the world," said Obama. "It's the fastest in terms of population and the fastest growing set of economies. There's enormous potential and enormous promise, but only if countries co-operate, if they observe the rules of the road, if potential conflict is to be resolved in a successful fashion." This was an indirect reference to America's currency disagreement with China over the value of the yuan.

But while Obama attempted to diminish his historical attachment, Indonesia's president, popularly known as SBY, said it was important. "It makes it easier for me to express the challenges that Indonesia is facing," he said.

Yudhoyono wooed Obama with an orchestra playing gamelan music and a meal of the Yudhoyono's favourite Indonesian dishes, including meatball soup, spicy rice, goat and Indonesian crackers.

Yudhoyono topped the meal with a presentation of a medal of honour for Obama's mother, Ann Dunham Sutoro, who took the young Obama to Jakarta in 1967 after marrying an Indonesian, Lolo Soetoro.

Dunham was an anthropologist specialising in rural development and wrote a thesis about the role of micro-credit finance in helping women in Indonesian villages.

"I'm proud and I'm humbled … I'm deeply moved," Obama said, accepting the medal on behalf of his mother who died in 1995. "You have honoured her spirit."

But not all Indonesians have welcomed Obama back. The information minister, Tifatul Sembiring, a member of the Islamic Prosperous Justice party, told followers on Twitter that he tried to avoid shaking the first lady, Michelle Obama, by the hand.

A conservative Muslim who avoids contact with women outside his family, Sembiring has a reputation for his provocative religious outbursts. Thousands of Indonesia's more hardline Muslims have also objected to Obama's arrival.

Tomorrow Obama will visit Jakarta's Istiqlal mosque, the biggest in south-east Asia, as part of his effort to mend America's relations with the Muslim world.

Toni O'Loughlin

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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Mystery missile launch caught on camera off southern California coast - NYPOST.com

Dem Rout Set Modern Record

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Dem Rout Set Modern Record

via Moonbattery by Van Helsing on 11/9/10

Congratulations are in order for the Moonbat Messiah, who has set a modern record with the midterm loses he helped inflict on his party by driving it off a cliff into left-wing extremism. Via RedState:

On a tip from J.

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Auditor: ACORN Owes Government $3.2 Million

Fed's Debt-Buying Unconstitutional?

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Fed's Debt-Buying Unconstitutional?

via FOXNews.com by foxnewsonline@foxnews.com on 11/9/10

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Comrade Atkins Admits Communist Infiltration of Democratic Party

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Comrade Atkins Admits Communist Infiltration of Democratic Party

via New Zeal by Admin on 11/9/10

This blog has long contended that the Communist Party USA and other Marxist groups have heavily infiltrated the Democratic Party.

This has enabled the Communist Party to both influence Democratic Party policy and to choose and promote Democratic candidates at all levels.

Writing on the Party website Political Affairs, comrade C.J. Atkins admits that Communists indeed do work inside the Democratic Party, including on state level policy committees.

Comrade Atkins also admits that Party members work in in Democratic-aligned organizations including Organize for America, Progressive Democrats of America, the Campaign for America's Future or the New York Working Families Party.

The context here is that Atkins believes that the Party is stigmatized by the "communist" label and should drop the name, in order to more easily and effectively work through the Democrats and other "mainstream" organizations.

Forces on the progressive left must organize as currents within the orbit of the Democratic Party, but as elements separate from it. This is the stance taken by the organized labor movement. And, if the CPUSA is honest with itself, we would see that this is an approach which we have already taken for quite some time as well. Our members participate in the Democratic primary process at the local level, volunteer in GOTV (Get Out The Vote) efforts, and many take part in the platform-drafting process in their local Democratic committees. More participate in Democratic-aligned outfits such as Organize for America, Progressive Democrats of America, or the Campaign for America's Future.

However, by not formally affiliating with the Democratic Party organizationally (though many members do individually), the CPUSA and some of these other left formations are able to maintain the independence that allows them to join in the mass coalition efforts to defeat the ultra right without endorsing or accepting the corporate influence and control that prevails among too many top Democratic policy-makers.

All of this is to say, we have to consider the possibility that our current practice, which is broadly in agreement with the understanding of political independence summarized above, may not best be served by our continued adherence to a specifically party-type of organization. I would suggest that we ponder whether it may be appropriate to drop not only the "communist" half of our title, but the "party" half as well.

It is my belief that we could be more effectual operating as a socialist and working-class political organization which does not present itself as a "party" as such. By doing so, we could eliminate the ambiguities and confusion which sometimes arises when CPUSA members run as Democratic or independent candidates. Our members can freely participate in the Democratic Party process, with the Working Families Party or other independent political formations, etc. as appropriate to the circumstances and in accordance with collective judgment of the situation. The details of what such an organization would look like would of course have to be discussed in greater detail by the party as a whole, but it is a transformation worth considering.

So as should be clear, this article is both a call for change as well as a suggestion for the codification of existing practice. The CPUSA has done much to renew itself and join the 21st century. It is now time to move forward with this process and remove any obstacles that still stand in the way of fully participating in the broad democratic upsurge of our times. We are living in an era of change and must do everything to make sure we stay in tune with the movement of history.

The Communist Party USA works closely with the Communist parties of Cuba, China, Russia, and with many Latin America, Africa and Asia.

It's loyalties do not lie with the United States of America, but with a re-energized and growing international communist movement.

The fact that the Communist Party USA has heavily infiltrated the Party of President Barack Obama, a man the Communists call a "friend" should be very big news.

Why isn't it?

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The Effects of the Obama Tax Plan on Indiana | The Heritage Foundation

Irony: Joe Biden Holds Transparency Meeting In Smoke-Filled Back Room Behind Closed Doors... iAGAIN!/i

Side Effects: Obamacare Encourages States to Drop Medicaid | The Foundry: Conservative Policy News.

UN Declares 1,700 Year-Old Rachel’s Tomb a Mosque

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UN Declares 1,700 Year-Old Rachel’s Tomb a Mosque

via Gateway Pundit by Jim Hoft on 11/9/10

Founding Bloggers reported:

UNESCO, has angered Jews around the world by recognizing Rachel's Tomb a mosque.

The Jerusalem Post reported:

On October 21, UNESCO (the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) declared that Rachel's Tomb near Jerusalem is the Bilal ibn Rabah mosque

Rachel's Tomb is located on the northern outskirts of Bethlehem some 460 meters south of Jerusalem's municipal boundary. The site has been identified for over 1,700 years as the grave of the Jewish matriarch Rachel. The copious literature of Jewish, Christian and Muslim pilgrims identifies and documents the spot as the place where Rachel is buried.

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He Just Can’t Help It… Obama Bows to Indian Parliament – THE VIDEO

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He Just Can’t Help It… Obama Bows to Indian Parliament – THE VIDEO

via Gateway Pundit by Jim Hoft on 11/9/10

Barack Obama bowed to the Indian Parliament yesterday after his speech.
Maybe it was written on his TelePrompter?

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Repealing Obamacare: A Guide for the New Congress | The Heritage Foundation

Video: Mysterious Missile Launches Off Coast Of Southern California, Pentegon Clueless

Awesome: Rush interviews George W. Bush

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Awesome: Rush interviews George W. Bush

via The Right Scoop by therightscoop on 11/9/10

Rush had former President George W. Bush on during the second hour of his show today, and might I say what a great interview! I know you probably watched Matt Lauer's interview with Bush last night, and you might be thinking that you've heard it all, but I assure you this interview is quite different. [...]

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FDA Says it Will Take Vending Machine Owners an Extra 14 Million Hours a Year to Comply with Obamacare Calorie Mandate

De Facto Shariah Law in America

Let’s Kill Some Christians and Tea Partiers -leftist calls for violence

California is not the "Lindsay Lohan of States," it is Courtney Love

Nutrition professor loses 27 pounds on Twinkie diet

Obama Lashes Out at Israel During Visit to Muslim Indonesia

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Obama Lashes Out at Israel During Visit to Muslim Indonesia

via Gateway Pundit by Jim Hoft on 11/9/10

US President Barack Obama answers a question from a journalist during a joint press conference with Indonesian counterpart Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in Jakarta on November 9. Israeli plans to build new settler homes in occupied east Jerusalem are not helpful for the Middle East peace process, Obama told reporters during a trip to Indonesia. (AFP/Bay Ismoyo)

American President Barack Obama lashed out at Israel today while visiting Indonesia, the world's most populated Muslim country.
The New York Times reported:

President Obama, stepping into an Israeli-Palestinian dispute during a homecoming visit to the world's largest Muslim majority nation, criticized Israel on Tuesday for its decision to advance the approval of some 1,000 new housing units in East Jerusalem during a sensitive time in the peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

"This kind of activity is never helpful when it comes to peace negotiations, and I'm concerned that we're not seeing each side make the extra effort involved to get a breakthrough," Mr. Obama said during a joint news conference with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono here. He added, "Each of these incremental steps end up breaking trust."

Mr. Obama arrived here Tuesday afternoon from New Delhi on a long-awaited visit that is now being cut short by a cloud of volcanic ash headed toward Jakarta. The ash is expected to interfere with air travel on Wednesday, forcing the president to leave several hours ahead of his scheduled departure for Seoul, where he will attend the G-20 conference of world leaders.

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Report: W.H. edited to favor drilling ban By: Dan Berman November 9, 2010 08:39 PM EST
The White House rewrote crucial sections of an Interior Department report to suggest an independent group of scientists and engineers supported a six-month ban on offshore oil drilling, the Interior inspector general says in a new report. In the wee hours of the morning of May 27, a staff member to White House energy adviser Carol Browner sent two edited versions of the department report’s executive summary back to Interior. The language had been changed to insinuate the seven-member panel of outside experts – who reviewed a draft of various safety recommendations – endorsed the moratorium, according to the IG report obtained by POLITICO. “The White House edit of the original DOI draft executive summary led to the implication that the moratorium recommendation had been peer-reviewed by the experts,” the IG report states, without judgment on whether the change was an intentional attempt to mislead the public. The six-month ban on offshore drilling installed in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill became a major political issue over the summer, as Gulf State lawmakers and industry groups charged the White House with unfairly threatening thousands of jobs. House Republicans have said they plan on investigating the circumstances surrounding the moratorium when they take power next year. Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and several other Gulf State members of Congress asked the Interior IG to investigate the moratorium and the peer review claim. "The inspector general's finding that the blanket-drilling moratorium was driven by a politics and not by science is bitter news for families who, because of it, lost their jobs, savings, and way of life,” Cassidy said Tuesday. “Candidate Obama promised that he would guided by science, not ideology. If that were true, at least 12,000 jobs and 1.8 billion dollars of economic activity would have been saved on the Gulf Coast.” Interior spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff said the changes were part of the normal editing and consulting process. “There was no intent to mislead the public,” Barkoff said in a statement to POLITICO. “The decision to impose a temporary moratorium on deepwater drilling was made by the secretary, following consultation with colleagues including the White House.” A White House official said the report "only reinforces that there was no wrongdoing," noting that three experts the IG interviewed and included in the report "agreed that it was a misunderstanding." Steve Black, energy counselor to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, was the department’s point man for the safety report, which Obama requested to review deepwater drilling practices and make recommendations for improvements. On May 26, one day before the report was released, Black said he was directed to “begin working closely with a member of Carol Browner’s staff at the White House to draft the executive summary to include the moratorium.” According to Black, Browner’s staff drafted some of the text to be included in the executive summary because she was concerned the document from Interior did not summarize the recommendations and associated timetables well enough. “At 2:13 a.m. on May 27, 2010, Browner’s staff member sent an e-mail back to Black that contained two versions of the executive summary,” the IG report states. “Both versions sent by the staff member contained significant edits to DOI’s draft executive summary but were very similar to each other. “Both versions, however, revised and re-ordered the executive summary, placing the peer review language immediately following the moratorium recommendation causing the distinction between the secretary’s moratorium recommendation – which had not been peer-reviewed – and the recommendations contained in the 30-Day Report – which had been peer-reviewed – to become effectively lost.” Interior’s draft safety report discussed peer review on the second page, following a summary list of safety recommendations. As completed and eventually released, the suggestion of a moratorium immediately precedes the discussion of peer review. Black said he didn’t have any issues with the White House edit; he and his staffer both told the IG it never occurred to them that an objective reader would conclude that peer reviewers had supported the six-month moratorium. Nevertheless, Interior apologized to the peer reviewers in early June after some of them complained they were used to support the controversial ban. Salazar also held a conference call with the peer reviewers and met personally with some of them. “As the report makes clear, the misunderstanding with the reviewers was resolved with the June 3rd letter and a subsequent conference call with the experts we consulted,” Barkoff said. Robin Bravender contributed to this report.

HEADLINES

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

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