NOTE: Pesky Truth’s Rules and Practices dictate that the word “president” should be capitalized when referring to a U.S. president by name, unless overridden by a lack of respect for the incumbent.

A note from Garnet92: all parts of this series of articles are long. It’s unfortunate, but necessary. The posts could easily be much longer since there is that much worthwhile information available. I have tried to pare the voluminous data down to the most salient points, but some will feel that there is simply too much to read and skip these pieces. In that case, so be it. However, to those who really want to be informed, you will not get the complete picture without expending some effort.

This is the fourth in a series of articles exposing some little known information about the inner workings of our opposition – the liberal left. In the first three articles, Pesky Truth presented the most influential individuals, the funding sources (foundations, etc.) that provide the money for the liberal groups, followed by a post that concentrated on ACORN.

This piece will highlight other liberal groups that seek to overthrow our Constitution and establish a Socialistic government that eliminates capitalism and (supposedly) provides a Utopia for everyone. This installment includes SEIU, The Shadow Party, and HCAN.

Remember that the players are highlighted in bold RED, the funds, organizations, or groups are highlighted in bold BLUE, and big bucks they throw around are in bold GREEN.

Service Employees International Union

Why is the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) leading this group presentation? Because they contributed more to left-leaning 527 groups than any other funding source over the last three elections. Those 527 recipients were political organizations that channeled money to democratic candidates, PACs (political action committees), and other liberal groups. 527s are so named by referring to the section of the U.S. tax code (Section 527) that controls their operation.

Look at these SEIU contributions:

·         2004: $47,695,646

·         2006: $28,212,510

·         2008: $34,534,324

That’s $110,442,480 spent by SEIU over three elections. The SEIU was the top contributor to 527s in 2006 and 2008.

This looks like a bona fide miracle – all of those janitorial members, those healthcare workers, the government employees – hardly the highest paid workers in the country, somehow managed to contribute over $110 million dollars to leftist causes – it’s like the loaves and fishes all over again!

The SEIU story began in 1921, when members of seven small janitor unions dared to dream that they could build their political strength by forming a single organization, the Building Service Employees International Union.  The BSEIU, a union of mostly immigrant workers chartered by the then-AFL, changed its name to Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in 1968. Chicago-based Local 1, SEIU's first local union, is still organizing janitors and security officers today.

SEIU's membership has grown from 625,000 in 1980 to more than 2 million todayacross the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) ranks among the largest and fastest-growing unions in North America. It has more than 300 local affiliates and 25 state councils. Giving voice to its wish to radically transform an American society that it deems rife with inequity, SEIU's mission is "to improve the lives of workers and their families and create a more just and humane society." Classifying Women and minorities as the most aggrieved victims of discrimination and maltreatment, SEIU notes that 56 percent of its members are women and 40 percent are "people of color."

SEIU members work primarily in three service industry "divisions":

Healthcare:As America's largest union of health care workers, SEIU represents more than 900,000 caregivers and hospital employees, including  some 110,000 nurses and 40,000 doctors in public, private, and non-profit medical institutions.

Public Services:The second largest union of public service employees, SEIU represents over 1,000,000 local and state government workers, public school employees, bus drivers, and childcare providers.

Property Services:SEIU is the largest property services union, with 225,000 workers who clean, maintain, and protect commercial and residential office buildings.

The current President of SEIU is the former New Leftist Andrew Stern, who advanced to the Union's top post in 1996 when his predecessor, John Sweeney, became President of the AFL-CIO.  At the outset of his tenure with SEIU, Stern told his members that he expected "every leader at every level of this union - from the international President to the rank-and-file member - to devote five working days this year to political action

In effect, this was a mandate for those union leaders to work in support of the Democratic Party. Stern also sits on the Executive Committee of America Coming Together, a Democratic Party auxiliary funded by George Soros. Moreover, SEIU is a major component of the so-called "Shadow Party," a nationwide network of more than five-dozen unions, nonprofit activist groups, and think tanks whose agendas are ideologically far left, and which are engaged in campaigning for the Democrats. Designated as a "527 organization", SEIU is not required to register as a "political organization" with the Federal Election Commission, and consequently may collect as much ”soft money" as it wishes, with no limits on how much it may receive from individuals or corporations. This money, in turn, is funneled to Democratic candidates, political action committees, and other "527" groups pursuing similar agendas.   

After Howard Dean dropped out of the Presidential race in early 2004, Andrew Stern played a major role in persuading the Democratic presidential nominee, John Kerry, to pick Senator John Edwards as his running mate. As of June 2004, SEIU had already committed $65,000,000  towards defeating incumbent President George W. Bush in that year's November election. The money was used to finance voter registration drives, voter "education" initiatives, get-out-the-vote campaigns, and the efforts of some 2,000 political organizers working full-time against President Bush in 17 key battleground states. Moreover, the Union pledged to supply 50,000 "volunteers" from its membership rolls just prior to, and on, Election Day.

SEIU's membership growth is heavily dependent on the public (i.e., government) sector, where 37.2 percent of employees are currently unionized (as compared to only 8.2 percent of private sector workers). Since the middle of the twentieth century, union membership in the private sector has declined by more than 80 percent. Only in the public sector, have unions grown during this period. Because this is precisely the niche in which SEIU dwells, the Union has a vested interest in helping to elect Democratic leftists who will press to make government ever-larger, so that it can produce an ever-increasing number of union-dues-paying jobs for welfare workers, socialized medicine healthcare workers, Medicare nursing home workers and the like.

SEIU has also taken a stand on matters of national security: In 2004, the Union endorsed the Civil Liberties Restoration Act, which was designed to roll back, in the name of protecting civil liberties, vital national-security policies (such as the Patriot Act) that had been adopted after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. This is clearly an extreme left position since SEIU members would be expected to benefit from a secure America just like any other citizen, regardless of skin color or political affiliation.

Finally, here is an example of the power of the SEIU union. Based on contributing more than $33 million to the Obama campaign, you can imagine the clout that they must have with B. Hussein. Now that you know that, you’re ready to consider the following:

Political retribution? Purchased influence? You be the judge.

And here’s an SEIU-related update (August 2, 2009): as this is written, SEIU Local 1000 in California has authorized a strike if Governor Schwarzenegger doesn’t rescind a monthly three-day furlough that reduces state worker’s pay by 15%. The SEIU has 95,000 members in state government in California. The legislation that includes the furlough closed a $24 billion budget gap.

And a later August 7^th update: Guess who we find “defending” the Obamacare proponents at the Town Meetings? SEIU members sporting their purple SEIU t-shirts. In one case, at Russ Carnahan’s event in St. Louis, the SEIU thugs were allowed entry into the meeting hall through a secondary door before ordinary citizens were allowed in (through the front door). They occupied the front half of the hall which reportedly had a 250-person occupant limit before opening the doors to a crowd of about 1,000 taxpayers who were clamoring to get into the meeting. Obviously, they were there in numbers to offset the citizens who were expected to engage in lively debate with Rep. Carnahan. Over 800 peaceful anti-healthcare-plan protestors were excluded from the meeting.

SEIU thugs were again trying to intimidate citizen protestors. One black conservative man was attacked by four SEIU thugs and sent to the hospital. Three SEIU men, all three were wearing purple SEIU t-shirts and one women attacked Kenneth Gladney for handing out conservative items while black. Here’s a link to the complete story on Hot Air:

http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2009/08/07/photos-and-video-carnahan-event-in-st-louis/

THIS from the Community-Organizer-in-Chief. Isn’t it ironic that he is now against opposition communities organizing?

The Shadow Party

The so-called "Shadow Democratic Party," or "Shadow Party," is a nationwide network of more than five-dozen unions, non-profit activist groups, and think tanks whose agendas are ideologically to the left and which are engaged in campaigning for Democrats. Activities include fundraising, get-out-the-vote drives, political advertising, opposition research, and media manipulation. The Shadow Party was conceived and organized principally by George Soros, Hillary Clinton and Harold Ickes -- all identified with the Democratic Party left.

Who first coined the term "Shadow Party?" In the November 5, 2002 Washington Post, writer Thomas B. Edsall wrote of "shadow organizations" springing up to circumvent the McCain-Feingold's soft money ban. Journalist Lorraine Woellert first called the Democrat network a "shadow party" in a September 15, 2003 Business Week article titled, "The Evolution of Campaign Finance?" Other journalists quickly followed suit.

Wall Street billionaire George Soros is the Shadow Party's principal founder and mastermind. Clear hints of Soros' intentions began to appear as early as the 2000 election. It was then that Soros (shouldering about one-third of the cost) sponsored the so-called "Shadow Conventions." Organized by author, columnist, and socialite Arianna Huffington, the Shadow Conventions were media events designed to lure news crews from the real party conventions that year. Huffington held her "Shadow Conventions" at the same time and in the same cities as the Republican and Democratic Conventions, in Philadelphia and Los Angeles respectively, and featured leftwing critics of mainstream politics. The Shadow Conventions promoted Huffington's view that neither Democrats nor Republicans served the interests of the American people any longer. In Huffington's view, U.S. politics needed a third force to break the deadlock.

The Shadow Conventions were purely symbolic affairs. They fielded no candidates for office. However, many of Soros' activities during the 2000 campaign went beyond symbolism. It was during the 2000 election that Soros first experimented with raising campaign funds through Section 527 groups. In preparation for the 2000 election, Soros assembled a team of wealthy Democrat donors to help him push two of his pet issues -- gun control and marijuana legalization. Their donations greatly exceeded the limits on political contributions stipulated by campaign finance laws. Soros therefore laundered their contributions through Section 527 groups - dubbed "stealth PACs," by the media of that time.

As of August 2004, the husband-wife team of George and Susan Soros had contributed $13,120,000 to Shadow Party groups and operations, second only to Soros' longtime friend and collaborator, insurance mogul Peter Lewis ($14,175,000). The third leading donor was Jane Fonda ($13,085,750), followed by Hollywood producer Stephen Bing in fourth place ($9,869,014). Other major funders of the Shadow Party include the Tides Foundation and the Open Society Institute. 

During the 1990s, Soros had grown close to Bill and Hillary Clinton. In Hillary, Soros discovered an ideological soulmate. Mrs. Clinton shared his aversion to U.S. "hegemony." Like Soros, she sought to subordinate U.S. interests to global interests; U.S. sovereignty to global government; U.S. law to global courts; U.S. wealth to global taxation; and U.S. productivity to a scheme for global income redistribution. She also shared Soros' hostility to Israel. Soros and Mrs. Clinton formed a friendship based upon their mutual beliefs. When the Clintons left office, Soros dedicated himself to restoring Hillary to the White House. 

At the heart of the American Shadow Party is the Center for American Progress (CAP). It was launched on July 7, 2003 as the American Majority Institute. The name was changed to Center for American Progress on September 1, 2003. The official purpose of the Center was to provide the left with a new think tank of its own.

Hillary Clinton tries to minimize the depth of her involvement with the Center for American Progress. But persistent press leaks confirm that she - and not its official President, John Podesta - has ultimate authority at CAP. "It's the official Hillary Clinton think tank," an inside source confided to Christian Bourge of United Press International. It's not completely wrong to see it as a shadow government, a kind of Clinton White-House-in-exile - or a White House staff in readiness for President Hillary Clinton."

To develop the Shadow Party as a cohesive entity, Harold Ickes undertook the task of building a 21st-century version of the Left's traditional alliance of the "oppressed," the disgruntled, and the "disenfranchised." He formed a coalition of pro-abortion activists, leftwing minority groups and leftwing labor unions. By the time Ickes was done, he had created or helped to create six new groups, and had co-opted a seventh called MoveOn.org. Together, they constitute the administrative core of the Shadow Party. They are: America Coming Together; America Votes; the Center for American Progress; Joint Victory Campaign 2004; The Media Fund; MoveOn.org; and the Thunder Road Group.

The Thunder Road Group (TRG) is the strategic nerve center of the Shadow Party. Founded in early 2004 by Jim Jordan, an attorney with a long track record as a Democrat "spin doctor," it is headquartered at 888 Sixteenth Street NW in Washington, DC. It coordinates strategy for the Media Fund, America Coming Together (ACT), and America Votes, all of whom lease space in the same building. TRG is a political consultancy that combines the roles of strategic planning, polling, opposition research, covert operations, and public relations. It is through TRG that the Shadow Party formulates its plans, dispatches orders to the network, and presents its public face to the world. "[The Thunder Road Group] is an operation unlike any other in politics, devising strategy, message, and public relations services for the 527s," writes The Boston Globe.

In a November 11, 2003 interview with Laura Blumenfeld of the Washington Post, George Soros described how he had jump-started the Shadow Party in the summer of 2002. The Wall Street billionaire told how he summoned a team of political strategists, activists and Democrat donors to his Southampton beach house in Long Island. According to The Washington Post, attendees included: Morton H. Halperin (Director of Soros' Open Society Institute); John Podesta (Democrat strategist and former Clinton chief of staff); Carl Pope (ACT co-founder, Democrat strategist, environmentalist, and Sierra Club Executive Director); Steve Rosenthal (Labor leader, CEO of America Coming Together, former chief advisor on union matters to Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich, former Deputy Political Director under DNC chairman Ron Brown, and AFL-CIO Political Director from 1996 - 2002); Peter Lewis (major Democrat donor and insurance entrepreneur, and founder and chairman of Progressive Corporation); Rob Glaser (major Democrat donor and Silicon Valley pioneer); Ellen Malcolm (co-founder and president of ACT and founder of Emily's List); Rob McKay (major Democrat donor, Taco Bell heir, and McKay Family Foundation President; Lewis and Dorothy Cullman (major Democrat donors, and founders of the Lewis and Dorothy Cullman Foundation in New York).

At the 2002 meeting, Soros laid out his plan to defeat President Bush. He began implementing his plan even before the meeting had adjourned. Before coffee the next morning, Soros had secured pledges amounting to almost $27,000,000, and the Shadow Party was born.

New groups are constantly being formed in the Shadow Party, while others vanish. To determine how many groups exist in the Shadow Party at any given time is difficult. Even more daunting is trying to determine the purpose of each group. In some cases, groups seem to have no function other than to transfer funds from one 527 to another to obscure the money trail.

As of 2004, a partial list of Shadow Party groups included the following:

Air America Radio

America Coming Together 

America Votes

AFL-CIO

Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN)

Association of Trial Lawyers of America

Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence

Center for American Progress

Communication Workers of America

Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee

Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee

EMILY's List

International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers

Media Fund

Media Matters for America 

Million Mom March

Moving America Forward

MoveOn.org

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

NARAL Pro-Choice America

National Education Association (NEA)

People for the American Way

Planned Parenthood

Service Employees International Union (SEIU)

Sierra Club

Thunder Road Group

Note: not all listings contain hyperlinks

Health Care for America Now (HCAN)

Ordinarily, I would not have included this one as it is relatively new among the leftist groups. But, as the name implies, it has been created as an advocacy group to press for “Obamacare.”

What is Health Care for America Now (HCAN)? The following is from HCAN’s website:

“Health Care for America Now (HCAN) is a national grassroots campaign of more than 1,000 organizations in 46 states representing 30 million people dedicated to winning quality, affordable health care we all can count on in 2009. Our organization and principles are supported by President Obama, Vice President Biden, and more than 190 Members of Congress. [Ed note: that is reason enough to distrust this group.]

We are building a national movement to win comprehensive health care reform by helping mobilize people in their communities to lobby their U.S. Senators and Representatives in Congress to stand up to the insurance companies and other special interest groups to achieve quality, affordable health care in 2009.”  

Our Steering Committee includes: ACORN, AFL-CIO, AFSCME, AFT, Americans United for Change, Campaign for America’s Future, Center for American Progress Action Fund, Campaign for Community Change, Children’s Defense Fund Action Council, Communications Workers of America, International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace & Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW), MoveOn.org, NAACP, National Council of La Raza, National Education Association, National Women’s Law Center, SEIU, UFCW, USAction, Women's Voices, Women's Vote and Working America.

Check out their “steering committee,” those like-minded groups form a who’s who of left-wing liberal organizations.

According to Michelle Malkin, HCAN was expected to march on Capitol Hill sometime this August. She notes that they won’t have to march very far since they’re headquartered at 1825 K Street in Washington, DC — smack dab in the middle of Beltway lobby land.

MoveOn, of course, is the recreational political vehicle of radical liberal sugar daddy George Soros. The magnate’s financial fingerprints are all over the HCAN coalition, which includes MoveOn, the action fund of the Center for American Progress (a Soros think tank), and the Campaign for America’s Future (a pro-welfare state lobbying outfit).

Indeed, HCAN includes all of the aforementioned groups, plus the AFL-CIO, ACORN and more. HCAN is conducting a joint campaign with Organizing for America (OFA), the Democratic National Committee-run vestiges of President Obama’s campaign. The astroturf has been on public display at events like Pres. Obama’s healthcare town hall meeting in Northern Virginia, where all of the live questions came from members of SEIU, HCAN, and OFA. Heading into the August recess, the White House and the Congressional Democratic Leadership are working in close coordination with outside groups, including but not limited to, HCAN, Families USA, AFSCME, SEIU, and AARP.

In July, Obama hosted a White House citizen town hall that featured three face-to-face questions. The lucky three? One was a member of HCAN, a second was a worker for the Virginia Organizing Project (which coordinates trips and forums with HCAN), and the third was a woman from SEIU. If they’re green and leafy, they must be plants, eh?

And these people like to call themselves “grassroots.” The more proper term (coined by democrat Lloyd Bensen of Texas in 1985) is “Astroturf.”

~~~

Much of the preceding information was gathered from Discover The Networks – a website that has the most comprehensive gathering of information imaginable about people and organizations that promote liberal causes. Here’s the link: DiscoverTheNetworks.org.

Some additional information is from: http://www.basicsproject.org/american_fifth_column/organizations_agencies/organizations_agencies.htm

http://www.seiu.org/

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/08/04/obamacare-the-grassroots-are-always-greener/

If there’s one quick way to ruin an otherwise positive disposition, it’s reading about the groups, activities, methods, and goals of the left.

While working on the fourth installment of “Connecting the Dots,” I found that I needed to lighten up. Rummaging through my archives of funny stuff, I found a few bits that overcame (at least temporarily), the funk of morose unpleasantness orbiting around me and I laughed. Hallelujah! I’m born again!

See if these few lighthearted moments don’t improve your disposition – at least for a while.

And thanks to Mrs. AL for her contribution (you’ll have to guess which one it is).

 The Epstein Fart

Dr. Epstein was a renowned physician who earned his undergraduate, graduate, and medical degrees in his home town. He then moved to Manhattan, where he quickly rose to the top of his field.

 Soon he was invited to deliver a significant paper at a conference being held in his home town. Proudly, he walked on stage and placed his papers on the lectern, but they slid off onto the floor. As he bent over to retrieve them, at precisely the wrong instant, he let a loud fart escape.

The microphone amplified his flatulent explosion. It reverberated throughout the room and out into the hall. He was quite embarrassed, but somehow he regained his composure just enough to finish delivering his paper. He ignored their resounding applause and raced out the stage door, determined never to be seen in his home town again.

Decades later, when his elderly mother was ill, he returned to visit her. He reserved a hotel room under the name of Levy and arrived under cover of darkness.

 
The desk clerk asked him, "Is this your first visit to our city, Mr. Levy?"

Dr. Epstein replied, "Well, young man, no, it isn't. I grew up here and received my education here, but then I moved away."

Why haven't you visited?" asked the desk clerk.

"Actually, I did visit once, many years ago, but an embarrassing thing happened and since then I've been too ashamed to return."

The clerk consoled him. "Sir, while I don't have your life experience, one thing that I’ve learned is that often what seems embarrassing to me often isn’t even remembered by others. I’ll bet that’s true of your incident too.”

Dr. Epstein replied, "Son, I doubt that's the case with my incident."

"Was it a long time ago?"

"Yes, many years ago."

…

…

The clerk asked, "Was it before or after the Epstein Fart?"

~~~

Playing With Words

Here are the top dogs from an old Washington Post's Mensa Invitational, which again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

The 2006 winners were:

1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying (or building) a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

2. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an a**hole.

3. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize that it was your money to start with.

4. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

5. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

6. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

7. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

8. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

9. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

10. Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.

11. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

12. Karmageddon: It's when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, and then the Earth explodes and it's a serious bummer.

13. Decafalon: (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

14. Glibido: All talk and no action.

15. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly. (sound familiar?)

16. Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

17. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

18. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.

~~~

The Bar Test

A fellow walks into a bar, and notices a very large jar on the counter, and sees that it's filled to the brim with $10 bills. He guesses there must be more than ten thousand dollars in it. He approaches the bartender and asks, 'What's with the money in the jar?'

'Well... you pay $10 and if you pass three tests, you get all the money and the keys to a brand new Lexus.'

The man certainly isn't going to pass this up. And so he asks, 'What are the three tests?'

'You must pay first...Those are the rules,' says the bartender.

So, after thinking it over a while, the man gives the bartender the $10 and the bartender drops it into the jar.

'Okay,' the bartender says, 'Here's what you need to do:

First - You have to drink a whole quart of tequila, in a minute or less, and you can't make a face while doing it.

Second - There's a pit bull chained in the back with a bad tooth. You have to remove that tooth with your bare hands.

Third - There's a 90-year old lady upstairs who has never had sex. You have to have sex with her!'

The man is stunned.  'I know I paid my $10, but I'm not an idiot! I won't do it! You'd have to be nuts to drink a quart of tequila, and then do all those other things.'

'Your call,' says the bartender. 'But, your money stays where it is.' 

As time goes on, and the man has a few more drinks, he finally says, 'Where's the damn tequila?'

He grabs the bottle with both hands and drinks it as fast as he can. Tears stream down both cheeks, but he doesn't make a face, and he did it in fifty-eight seconds!

Next, he staggers out the back door, where he sees the pit bull chained to a pole. Soon the people inside the bar hear growling, biting, and screaming sounds, then nothing but silence! 

Just when they think that the man surely must be dead, he staggers back into the bar, with his shirt ripped open and there are scratches and he's bleeding all over his body. 

He says, 'Now where's that old woman with the bad tooth?'

The moral to the story: Listen carefully to the directions, and don't trust your judgment when alcohol is involved!

~~~

This following one is NOT a joke, it acknowledges that our geezer vets are one of most potent weapons in America’s arsenal.

Vets over 60!

I am over 60 and the Armed Forces thinks I'm too old to track down terrorists. You can't be older than 42 to join the military.

They've got the whole thing backwards. Instead of sending 18-year olds off to fight, they ought to take us old guys. You shouldn't be able to join a military unit until you're at least 35.

For starters: Researchers say 18-year-olds think about sex every 10 seconds.

Old guys only think about sex a couple of times a day, leaving us more than 28,000 additional seconds per day to concentrate on the enemy.

Young guys haven't lived long enough to be cranky, and a cranky soldier is a dangerous soldier. 'My back hurts! I can't sleep, I'm tired and hungry' We are impatient and maybe letting us kill some a**hole that desperately deserves it will make us feel better and shut us up for a while.

An 18-year-old doesn't even like to get up before 10 a.m. Old guys always get up early to pee. Besides, like I said, 'I'm tired and can't sleep and since I'm already up, I may as well be up killing some fanatical person.

If captured we couldn't spill the beans because we'd forget where we put them. In fact, name, rank, and serial number would be a real stretch.

Boot camp would be easier for old guys. We're used to getting screamed and yelled at and we're used to soft food. We've also developed an appreciation for guns. We've been using them for years as an excuse to get out of the house, away from the screaming and yelling.

They could lighten up on the obstacle course however. I've been in combat and didn't see a single 20-foot wall with rope hanging over the side, nor did I ever do any pushups after completing basic training.

Actually, the running part is kind of a waste of energy, too. I've never seen anyone outrun a bullet.

An 18-year-old has the whole world ahead of him. He's still learning to shave, to start up a conversation with a pretty girl. He still hasn't figured out that a baseball cap has a brim to shade his eyes, not the back of his head.

These are all great reasons to keep our kids at home to learn a little more about life before sending them off into harm's way.

Let us old guys track down those dirty rotten coward terrorists. The last thing an enemy would want to see is a couple of million mad old farts with attitudes and automatic weapons who know that their best years are already behind them.

When did we stop being “We the People” and become “we the pawns”? Or maybe it should be “we the patsies,” or “we the marks”?

We (the People) elect 536 representatives to conduct the business of our United States, 435 members of the House, 100 Senators, and a President. They represent us, the 300,000,000 citizens of America.

We hired them – they’re supposed to work for us. Shouldn’t they answer to us when things go wrong? Looked at your 401(k) lately? What about the value of your home? Laid off or out of a job?

Aren’t things wrong enough now to take action?

The OMB recently revised the deficit figure, which now is expected to surpass $1,800,000,000,000 (that’s TRILLIONS, friends and neighbors). How’d we get here? Did YOU screw something up? Or was it ME? Nope, not even Hugo Chavez or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. They didn’t do it … our own representatives did it.

Isn’t it high time that we review the job performance of our representatives? From Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid on down to the rookies in Congress. It is time to objectively assess the job they’ve done. Remember 2006 when the democrats were swept into a majority in Congress?

“The days of the do-nothing Congress are over,” declared Democrat Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, adding that Americans spoke “clearly and decisively in favor of Democrats leading this country in a new direction.”

Well, Harry was right about one thing – the democrats have been anything but “do nothing.” The problem is, a few more years of their “new direction” will turn the United States into a Socialist state and bankrupt it at the same time.

On election day, November, 2008, only 17%of poll respondents approved of Congress’ job, 74% disapproved. That was TWO YEARS after Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, et al were given their opportunity to make things better. They didn’t – practically everything they did has made life in America more difficult.

Now, after the public opted to give them yet another chance in 2009, the approval numbers are falling again. Now, only 30% approve of the job being done by congress and 60% disapprove. This only points out that it’s time that we the people ask questions of our representatives. For example:

Have you noticed that every election, the politicians tell us that they are going to pay for [fill in blank] by correcting inefficiencies in the [fill in blank] system. Have they EVER made ANYTHING more efficient? Have any cost savings EVER resulted? We need to ignore any “anticipated cost savings” in ANYTHING they propose – it ain’t gonna happen.

If both Democrats and Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits amounting to $1.8 Trillion dollars?

Have you ever wondered, if all of the politicians are against high taxes, WHY do we have high taxes now, with even higher taxes to come?

You and I don’t have the authority to vote on appropriations and spending, the House of Representatives does.

We don’t write the tax code, Congress does.

We don’t set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don’t propose a federal budget, the President does.

Why does Congress exempt themselves from legislation that affects other citizens? The “healthcare” bill is a perfect example. If the healthcare that you’re pushing on us is good enough for the rest of the country, then By God, it is good enough for Congress.

Who is to blame for the $787,000,000,000 “economic stimulus” bill that isn’t working. THEM is to blame, US will pay for it. What about the “Cap and Trade” bill? And have you heard about the “America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009?” Does it sound like Congress is spending OUR money wisely?

What kind of ‘bang” are we getting for our buck – our taxes? How can Congress expect we the people to sit idly by and accept spending BILLIONS of OUR money without even reading the bill specifying how OUR money will be spent?

If congresspersons won’t read bills spending BILLIONS of OUR money, that is prima facie evidence of several things:

• They are NOT doing the job for which they were elected
• The bills are purposely too complex to understand
• The resultant laws will be too complex to work and unintended consequences will be rampant
• The complexity and excessive length of bills provide easy ways to hide pork spending and political payoffs from public scrutiny
• The complexity, length, and speed of passage of bills removes any chance for the public to know what congress is spending OUR money on
• We can no longer trust our representatives to HONESTLY tell us how and why they’re spending OUR money. Lies, misdirection and obfuscation have become tools of their trade for our representatives in Washington, DC.

Seems to me that those who are tasked with managing our federal government have been looking out for themselves and their political party – not for we the people. Reelection, retaining power is their raison d'être. They have not taken seriously their responsibility to be careful stewards of OUR funds.

We cannot allow this political ponzi scheme to continue. How many times have our “representatives” sold us on a plan that will benefit us today but will be paid for by our children? Plans that are supposed to fix the problems INITIALLY CREATED by those same 536 “representatives”? We are being played for fools. We have become patsies and marks. We have been hustled. But even worse, our children and grandchildren are being saddled with an unmanageable level of debt and an increasingly shrinking level of freedom. Is this the legacy that we want to leave our children?

We have a great deal of history on many of our members of Congress. For a lot of them, it’s the only job they’ve ever held. Eighty-seven members of congress have been in their job for over twenty years. These are the very individuals who bear the most responsibility for the nation’s woes. They’re in a position to control legislation; they hold leadership positions in Congress. The majority of them couldn’t manage a donut store. How’s their “leadership” working out for us?

“With a median net worth of $746,000, most members of Congress have a comfortable financial cushion to ride out any recession,” said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which conducted a study on congressional pay. The 535 members of Congress, who earn average annual salaries of $169,000 (now $174,000), had a total net worth of $3.7 billion in 2007. Their average net worth soared by 61 percent from 2004 to 2007. DID YOURS? Median net worth for senators was $1.7 million. "Obama ranked as one of the biggest financial winners, with his net worth increasing from $800,000 in 2006 to $4.7 million in 2007, thanks mainly to royalties from his two best-selling books.

The point is, these people that we elect are given positions of power; most of them live a life of privilege and most of them become wealthy. They have lost touch with ordinary Americans and the things that affect our everyday life. They are “the elite” and they act like it.

And what are we receiving in return for their pampering? Scorn and deceit.

Their fingerprints and DNA are all over the failed policies, the excessive spending, the political payoffs to campaign contributors, etc. They have PROVEN that they cannot or will not be efficient managers of OUR MONEY. Are we the people stupid enough to let this rush to oblivion continue without abatement? Are we supposed to wait until recovery is impossible?

The status quo is simply strangling our country. We need a transfusion – a transfusion of new representation. Please note that my solution is not a partisan one. Regardless of political party, most have proven that they cannot be trusted with OUR money.

It is time to … THROW THE BUMS OUT.

There was a time, not long ago, when my faith was shaken. I became concerned that there would never be a factually accurate resolution to the “birth certificate” brouhaha. Obviously, I am a skeptic and I really worry that Obama will ride off into the sunset having fooled American citizens. The few real facts that we know, coupled with Obama’s absolute refusal to release personal documents that the American public has a right to see, requires me to be skeptical. True, there may not be a legal requirement to show his records, but there certainly is a moral one on Obama’s part. “The most transparent administration ever,” my arse.

But over the past several days, it is beginning to look like the issue isn’t going to die a quiet death. There is major “buzz” across the Internet and some TV news programs have recognized that the issue does exist. Even the obsolete media (formally known as “newspapers” and “magazines”) are at least mentioning it. The conservative talk shows are banging the drum relentlessly and the “Where’s the Birth Certificate” movement is building momentum.

My perception was that the references to Obama’s BC issue were more numerous in recent days.

To quantify the level of exposure being enjoyed by the BC issue, I decided to do an informal survey of websites to see if my perception was accurate, so here’s what I did:

I visited Fox, CBS, MSNBC, and ABC among the “mainstream” news sites. I also visited Internet political sites, including: Hot Air, Drudge, RealClearPolitics (RCP), Newsmax, Politico, Breitbart, and Michelle Malkin. I also checked on the lefty sites Huffington Post and DailyKos.

I purposely excluded WorldNetDaily since they are the prime mover of the issue and the numerous articles there would skew the results.

I found 26 articles that had a reference to the birth certificate issue in the title. That was my only criteria for counting a “hit.” I only counted items referenced on the main (home) page of the site and didn’t click down into any of the articles looking for additional references.

Only three sites contained no reference to the issue, they were: Michelle Malkins, RCP, and MSNBC. The sites with the most articles were Drudge, Breitbart, and Huffington Post.

While it is undeniable that my survey was informal and unscientific, it does show that there is interest in the issue. At least it establishes a baseline against which we can measure an increase or decrease in exposure in the coming weeks. Wish I’d done this months ago.

There is little reason to include television or radio references. It is too time-consuming to test the network TV news sites and I know what I hear from Rush, Hannity, Levin, Davis, Ingraham, etc. on talk radio.

Obama had best consider the old political adage: “It’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up” that brings the most grief to a politician.

The plot thickens.

Here’s an update from the HonoluluAdvertiser.com as of Monday the 27^th:

Hawai’i's Health Department confirmed yesterday that it has President Obama's original Aug. 4, 1961, birth certificate in storage, but the announcement is unlikely to satisfy conspiracy theorists who insist Obama was born in Kenya. "We don't destroy vital records," Health Department spokeswoman Janice Okubo said. "That's our whole job, to maintain and retain vital records."

The Health Department's director reiterated yesterday that she has seen Obama's birth records.

 "I, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, director of the Hawai'i State Department of Health, have seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawai'i State Department of Health verifying Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawai'i and is a natural-born American citizen," Fukino said in a statement. "I have nothing further to add to this statement or my original statement issued in October 2008, over eight months ago."

This was a more definite statement than the one Dr. Fukino made in October. This time, she states that she has seen the birth certificate and it verifies that Obama was born in Hawai’i. Previously, she had only said that she had seen his “original” birth certificate – with no mention of its origin – or his.

While the doctor’s statement does take some wind from our (birthers) sail, color me unconvinced. I can’t get past the fact that Obama is still using teams of attorneys to prevent the public from seeing his background records – why? To paraphrase, there’s a “skeleton in the woodpile” somewhere.

CNN's president, Jon Klein told staffers of Lou Dobbs Tonight that the controversy regarding the legitimacy of Mr. Obama's birth certificate now appeared to be a "dead" story.

In an email, he said that CNN researchers had determined that Hawaiian officials discarded paper documents in 2001. Because of that, Obama's long-form birth certificate no longer exists and the shorter certificate of live birth that has been made public is the sole official record.

[This brief pause for a “WTF?” moment]

State officials destroyed original legal documents? At least they would have scanned or microfiched the documents, wouldn’t any competent document handler? Would any government be so inept as to actually destroy legal papers like birth certificates, leaving only an abbreviated variation – a variation that doesn’t even contain all of the data that was resident on the hard-copy original. I find that impossible to believe, not even Chicago politicians would do anything that stupid.

But apparently Mr. Klein is wrong. Here is a statement from Hawaii Dept. of Health Director Dr. Chiyome Fukino, issued on October 31, 2008:

“I as Director of Health for the State of Hawai‘i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawaii State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures," Fukino said.

Fukino said she and the registrar of vital statistics, Alvin Onaka, have personally verified that the health department holds Obama's original birth certificate. Oh? The one that CNN says was destroyed?

Note that she refers to Obama’s “original” birth certificate (note that she didn’t say that they’d seen Obama’s “Hawaii” birth certificate, only the “original” birth certificate). Ever since Bill Clinton, I’ve learned to parse bureaucrat’s words for how they could be interpreted. If the birth certificate was from Kenya (or anywhere else, for that matter), Director Fukino’s statement would still be true, wouldn’t it? Why didn’t she refer to a Hawaii birth certificate? Her statement would be interpreted by Obama supporters as referring to a Hawaii document – but she didn’t say that, did she?

Now, if the original hard-copy certificate had been destroyed in 2001, what did the Director and the Registrar see? If all that remains is a digital image of the Certification of Live Birth, why would Obama spend close to a million dollars hiding something that has already been released?

Connect the Dots: (3) ACORN

A note from Garnet92: all parts of this series of articles are long. It’s unfortunate, but necessary. The posts could easily be much longer since there is that much worthwhile information available. I have tried to pare the voluminous data down to the most salient points, but some will feel that there is simply too much to read and skip these pieces. In that case, so be it. However, to those who really want to be informed, you will not get the complete picture without expending some effort.

This is the third in a series of articles exposing some little known information about the inner workings of our opposition – the liberal left. In the first two articles, Pesky Truth presented the most influential individuals  and the funding sources (foundations, etc.) that provide the money to the actual working organizations.

This piece will highlight ACORN, one of the organizations that supports liberal causes, the source(s) of their funds, and some of the activities that identify this organization.

This is just a short rant that bubbled up as I read about B. Hussein Obama, George Soros, Peter Lewis, Steven Bing, and so many other wealthy people who, now that they’ve become successful, want to dismantle the capitalistic system that allowed (even helped) them to become rich and powerful.

Why is that?

Is it an ego trip? Could it be that they don’t want any additional “rich people” to compete with them? Do they simply want to remain as one of a small percent who achieved success? Or, are they simply so far above we ordinary folks that they deserve their own country (made in their image)?

In the end, it really doesn’t matter what their reason is – they are still hell-bent on trashing the very capitalistic tenets that they embraced, that enabled them to succeed – until they reached the top.

Doesn’t it just make you want to puke, that these ungrateful S.O.B.s aren’t supportive and thankful that they were given the opportunities that America provides? Suppose they had grown up in Hungary, or Iran, or Kenya?

A note from Garnet92: all parts of this series of articles are long. It’s unfortunate, but necessary. The posts could easily be much longer since there is that much worthwhile information available. I have tried to pare the voluminous data down to the most salient points, but some will feel that there is simply too much to read and skip these pieces. In that case, So be it. But to those who really want to be informed, you won’t get the complete picture without expending some effort.

This is the second in a series of articles exposing some little known information about the inner workings of our opposition – the liberal left. In the first post, Pesky Truth presented four of the most influential individuals among those who fund the leftist groups.

This piece will highlight four of the organizations that fund liberal causes, the source(s) of their funds, and some of the interrelationships that are designed to insulate donors from the far left causes that they choose to support..

Remember that the players are highlighted in bold RED, the funds, organizations, or groups are highlighted in bold BLUE, and big bucks they throw around are in bold GREEN.

The Ford Foundation

The Ford Foundation? That may come as a surprise to you; it did to me. But based on the value of their assets and the value of grants awarded, they dwarf the competition.

The Ford Foundation was chartered on January 15, 1936 by Edsel Ford and two Ford Motor Company executives "to receive and administer funds for scientific, educational and charitable purposes, all for the public welfare."

After the deaths of Edsel Ford in 1943 and his father Henry Ford four years later, Henry Ford II (Edsel's son and Henry's grandson) assumed leadership of the Foundation's Board of Trustees.

When Henry Ford II eventually resigned from the Foundation's Board of Trustees in 1977, he expressed his profound disgust with how the institution and most of its trustees had drifted so radically to the political left over time.

The degree to which the Ford Foundation's values and ideals have continued to move leftward since Henry Ford II wrote his resignation letter is reflected in the objectives and worldviews of the organizations it currently supports.

These objectives and worldviews include:

All are consistently far left positions on the issues.

With Assets of $11,615,906,693 (2005) and grants totaling $511,847,276 (in 2005), the Foundation  contributes to literally hundreds of causes.

A small sampling of Ford Foundation donees include:

Note: not all listings contain hyperlinks

Some notable contributions by the Foundation are $7 million to the ACLU and $25 million to the Mexican American Legal and Education Fund (MALDEF).

The Ford Foundation also gives large sums to fund various projects, programs, and academic departments in universities across the United States. The Foundation contributes funds for studies primarily in the areas of: black history, ethnicity, feminism and women’s studies, Islamic studies, poverty and diversity.

Open Society Institute (OSI)

Established in 1993, the Open Society Institute (OSI) is the most prominent of the numerous foundations belonging to the international billionaire financier George Soros, its founder and Chairman. In the U.S., OSI is set up as a 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable organization. OSI’s assets were reported to be $858,935,162 in 2005.

Claiming to be “a nonpartisan, nonpolitical entity” whose funding agendas are “wholly separate” from “George Soros’s private political activities,” OSI describes itself as “a private operating and grant-making foundation."

In the last twenty-five years, Soros’ foundations have dispensed nearly $7,000,000,000 (billion) dollars to a multitude of organizations whose objectives are consistent with those of Soros. The OSI network of national foundations in 29 countries spent approximately $500 million in 2008 alone to “help people around the world.”

The President of OSI and the Soros Foundation Network is Aryeh Neier, who worked for the American Civil Liberties Union from 1963 to 1978, serving as its Director for the last eight of those years. Then, from 1978 to 1990, he was the Executive Director of Human Rights Watch.

OSI’s Director of U.S. Advocacy is Morton Halperin (President of John Podesta’s Center for American Progress, and a longtime affiliate of the Institute for Policy Studies and the National Lawyers Guild).

PBS broadcaster and Schumann Center for Media and Democracy President Bill Moyers is a former trustee of the Open Society Institute.

According to the European Foundation Center (EFC), OSI had assets of $1.319 billion as of February, 2009. OSI alone donates scores of millions of dollars annually to groups whose activities cover all of the usual liberal causes.

OSI supports a wide array of leftist organizations. The following list, although lengthy, is still only a part of the full list:

Note: not all listings contain hyperlinks

·     American Immigration Law Foundation

·         Immigrant Legal Resource Center

·         League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC)

·         Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF)

·         National Immigration Law Center

·         National Immigration Forum

·         National Council of La Raza

August 16, 2005, OSI (in collaboration with the Center for American Progress, the AFL-CIO, the Service Employees International Union, AFSCME, and the United Steelworkers Union) launched a new organization called the Progressive Legislative Action Network (PLAN). Led by Democratic activists David Sirota and Steve Doherty, PLAN’s mission is to seed state legislatures with prewritten "model" legislation reflecting leftist visions of justice.

In additionto funding by Soros and his friends, between 1998 and 2003, OSI received more than $30 million from U.S.government agencies.

In an effort to present itself in the most positive light to the American people, OSI uses the services of the public relations firm Fenton Communications.

The Tides Foundation

Established in 1976 by California-based activist Drummond Pike, the Tides Foundation was set up as a public charity that receives money from donors and then funnels it to the recipients of their choice. Because many of these recipient groups are quite radical, the donors often prefer not to have their names publicly linked with the donees. By letting the Tides Foundation, in effect, "launder" the money for them and pass it along to the intended beneficiaries, donors can avoid leaving a "paper trail."

Such contributions are called "donor-advised," or donor-directed, funds. Through this legal loophole, nonprofit entities can also create for-profit organizations and then funnel money to them through Tides thereby circumventing the laws that bar nonprofits from directly funding their own for-profit enterprises. 

Pew Charitable Trusts, for instance, set up three for-profit media companies and then proceeded to fund them via donor-advised contributions to Tides, which (for an 8 percent management fee) in turn sent the money to the media companies.

The Tides Foundation promotes a multitude of leftist agendas, as evidenced by its assertion: "We strengthen community-based organizations and the progressive movement by providing an innovative and cost-effective framework for your philanthropy."

Among the crusades to which Tides contributes are:

The Foundation is also a member organization of the International Human Rights Funders Group, a network of more than six-dozen grant-makers dedicated to financing leftwing groups and causes.

Immediately after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Tides formed a "9/11 Fund" to advocate a "peaceful national response." Tides later replaced the 9/11 Fund with the "Democratic Justice Fund," which was financed in large measure by the Open Society Institute of George Soros, who has donated more than $7 million to Tides over the years. Reciprocally, the Tides Foundation is a major funder of the Shadow Party, a George Soros-conceived nationwide network of several dozen unions, non-profit activist groups, and think tanks whose agendas are ideologically to the left, and which are engaged in campaigning for the Democrats.

Tides and the organizations it supports interact closely with one another on a regular basis. For example, Drummond Pike sits on the Board of the Environmental Working Group along with David Fenton, founder of Fenton Communications.

A selected list of recent recipients of Tides Foundation grants include:

Between 1993 and 2003, more than 91 foundations made grants to the Tides Foundation.

One particularly notable donor to the Tides entities is Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of Senator John Kerry. From 1994 to 2004, the Heinz Endowments, which Mrs. Kerry heads, gave the Tides Foundation and Center approximately $8.1 million in grants. Until February 2001, Mrs. Kerry also served as a trustee of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, which has given Tides numerous six-figure grants.

The Tides Foundation and Tides Center also receive grants from the U.S. federal government. Between 1997 and 2001, these grants included the following:

(Total is $7,670,124)

The Tides Center

In 1996 the Tides Foundation created a separate but closely related entity called the Tides Center, also headed by Drummond Pike. The Foundation funded the Center creation with a $9 million seed grant. The Tides Center functions as a legal firewall insulating the Tides Foundation from potential lawsuits filed by people whose livelihoods or well-being may be harmed by Foundation-funded projects. (These could be, for instance, farmers or loggers who are put out of business by Tides-backed environmentalist groups.) In theory the Foundation's activities are restricted to fundraising and grant-making, while the Center focuses on managing projects and organizations; in practice, however, both entities do essentially the same thing.

The Tides Center's Board Chairman is Wade Rathke, who is also a member of the Tides Foundation Board. Rathke, a protégé of the late George A. Wiley, serves as President of the New Orleans-based Local 100 of the Service Employees International Union, and is the founder and chief organizer of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).

Maya Wiley, daughter of George A. Wiley, sits on the Tides Center's Board of Directors.

Chip Berlet sits on the Board of the Campaign to Defend the Constitution, a Tides Center project formed in 2005 to combat "the growing power of the religious right" and to "fight for the separation of church and state." Berlet is a senior analyst for Political Research Associates, and has had affiliations with the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Friends Service Committee, the Christic Institute, the Socialist Workers Party, the National Lawyers Guild, and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

~~~

Many recipients of foundation money today are the immensely influential activist organizations popularly known as Section 527 committees. Dedicated to promoting political candidates and agendas, 527s are, by definition, private, nonprofit groups that are less regulated and require less disclosure than other types of nonprofit groups engaged in electioneering. They need not register with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) as "political organizations." Consequently, they need not observe the FEC's strict limits on political contributions. The 527 committees may collect as much "soft money" as they like from individuals or corporations.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks 527 data, liberal organizations have amassed nearly $80 million in donations compared to a mere $8 million for their conservative counterparts in 2004. Groups are categorized as 527s for the section of tax code that regulates them. Even though this data is five years old, it points out the disparity between the democrats and the Republicans when it comes to utilizing the 527 groups.

~~~

Most of the preceding information was gathered from Discover The Networks – a website that has the most comprehensive gathering of information imaginable about people and organizations that promote liberal causes. Here’s the link: DiscoverTheNetworks.org.

This is the first in a series of articles exposing little known information about the inner financial workings of our opposition – the liberal left. In this initial post, Pesky Truth will present four of the most influential individuals among those who fund the leftist groups. There are more to be sure, but these men are among the “heavy hitters” when it comes to enabling liberal candidates and causes.

The next article will highlight several of the most active liberal organizations, how they are funded, and relationships with other groups.

Remember that the players are highlighted in bold RED, the funds, organizations, or groups are highlighted in bold BLUE, and big bucks they throw around are in bold GREEN.

George Soros

George Soros is one of the most powerful men on earth, and one of the most reliably liberal. A New York hedge fund manager, he has amassed a personal fortune estimated By Forbes (March, 2009) at about $11 billion, placing him as the 29^th richest among the world’s billionaires. His management company controls billions more in investor assets.

George Soros was born on August 12, 1930 in Budapest, Hungary. His father, Teodoro Schwartz, was an Orthodox Jew who, in 1936, changed the family surname from Schwartz to Soros in order to enable his family to conceal its Jewish identity. In 1947 Soros' family relocated from Hungary to England. Five years later, George graduated from the London School of Economics. 

Since 1979, his foundation network - whose flagship is the Open Society Institute (OSI) - has dispensed an estimated $5,000,000,000 (billion) dollars to a multitude of organizations whose objectives are consistent with those of Soros.

According to the European Foundation Center (EFC), OSI had assets of $1.319 billion as of February, 2009. OSI alone donates scores of millions of dollars annually to various groups, whose major agendas cover all of the usual liberal causes. OSI currently has operations in 29 countries.

Following is a partial list of organizations funded directly by Soros and OSI. A more comprehensive list will be found under the OSI group in the upcoming Groups article.

• ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now)
• America Coming Together
• America Votes
• American Civil Liberties Union
• Amnesty International
• Brookings Institution
• Center for American Progress
• Democracy Alliance
• Gay Straight Alliance Network
• Human Rights Watch
• League of Women Voters
• Media Matters for America
• Million Mom March
• MoveOn.org
• NARAL Pro-Choice America
• NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
• National Abortion Federation
• National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
• National Lawyers Guild
• National Organization for Women
• Natural Resources Defense Council
• People for the American Way
• Planned Parenthood
• Project Vote
• Tides Center
• Tides Foundation
• Urban Institute
• Violence Policy Center

A key funder of the open borders movement, OSI also supports:

• American Immigration Law Foundation
• Immigrant Legal Resource Center
• League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC)
• Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund
• National Immigration Law Center
• National Immigration Forum
• National Council of La Raza

 
In addition to funding by Soros and his friends, between 1998 and 2003, OSI received more than $30 million from U.S. government agencies.

OSI was a signatory to a November 1, 2001 document characterizing the 9/11 attacks as a legal matter to be addressed by criminal-justice procedures rather than military retribution. Suggesting that the hijackers were motivated chiefly by a desire to point out global injustices perpetrated by the United States.

A strong advocate of gun control, OSI funds the Network on Small Arms, which has lobbied the United Nations to pass a measure outlawing private gun ownership and effectively overturning the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment.

OSI funded the multi-year United Nations Millennium Development Project. In 2005 this Project culminated in a recommendation for a massive wealth-redistribution, foreign-aid program whose provisions, if adopted, would impose more than $150 billion in annual costs on Americans.

On August 16, 2005, OSI (in collaboration with the Center for American Progress, the AFL-CIO, the Service Employees International Union, AFSCME, and the United Steelworkers Union) launched a new organization called the Progressive Legislative Action Network (PLAN). Led by Democratic activists David Sirota and Steve Doherty, PLAN’s mission is to seed state legislatures with prewritten "model" legislation reflecting leftist visions of justice.

Soros and his friend Peter Lewis (Progressive Insurance) each gave $10 million to Americans Coming Together (ACT) and Soros also contributed:

$3 million to the Center for American Progress

$5 million to MoveOn.org.

And finally, take note of this:

In a November 2008 interview with Spiegel, Soros made the following comments that accurately outlined precisely the course that President Obama's administration is pursuing in 2009:

"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 [in addition to the $700 billion bailout which the government already had given to the financial industry]…. I think this is a great opportunity to finally deal with global warming and energy dependence. The U.S. 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."

The interviewer then said: "Your proposal would be dismissed on Wall Street as 'big government.' Republicans might call it European-style 'socialism.'" Soros replied:

"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…. I think it is better to have a government that wants to provide good government than a government that doesn't believe in government…. At times of recession, running a budget deficit is highly desirable. Once the economy begins to recover, you have to balance the budget. In 2010, the Bush tax cuts will expire and we should not extend them. But we will also need additional revenues."

George Soros is a man that can exert considerable influence on life in our United States. He uses his fortune to fund groups that support his extreme liberal views and encourages his wealthy friends to contribute to them as well.

When George’s money talks, people (especially politicians) listen.

Peter Lewis

Lewis was born in 1933 and graduated from Princeton University in 1955. A decade later, he took over the reins of Progressive Insurance from his father. Overseeing 100 employees and $6 million in revenues when he began, Lewis eventually grew the company to the point where it employed 14,000 people and boasted sales in excess of $4.8 billion annually. Progressive is now the third largest auto insurance company in the U.S.

According to Forbes magazine, Peter Lewis today possesses a fortune worth an estimated $1.1 billion. A strong supporter of the Democratic Party and its agendas, Lewis first became active in politics when he served as the Ohio finance chairman for George McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign. Over the years, Lewis has used his immense wealth to fund a host of leftist political campaigns, organizations, and causes.

In February 2008, Lewis contributed money to the presidential campaign of Barack Obama. He is also a close friend of Billionaire Financier George Soros and Democrat Senator Ted Kennedy.

Lewis’ Peter B. Lewis/Progressive Corp. foundation contributed $22,645,000 to 527 organizations in 2004 and only $1,624,375 in 2006. An amount for 2008 was not listed.

In addition to lesser amounts to other groups, Lewis contributed:

$5 million to the American Civil Liberties Union

$16 million to the Joint Victory Campaign

$10 million to America Coming Together

$2.5 million to Move On.Org

Along with George Soros, Lewis is a key financial supporter of Democracy Alliance and Media Matters for America.

Drummond Pike

Born in San Rafael, California in 1948, Drummond Pike has served as a leading official of a number of leftwing philanthropic organizations, most notably the Tides Network, which he founded in 1976. Today he is Tides’ chief executive officer.

Pike earned a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of California at Santa Cruz, and a master’s degree in that same field from the Eagleton Institute at Rutgers University. During his college years, he gained notoriety as an anti-Vietnam War protester.

In 1970 Pike was associate director of the Youth Project (YP). Initially organized by activists from the Center for Community Change, YP was a funding group through which wealthy donors could finance the activities of young activists engaging in anti-business community organizing.

Pike and Arca Foundation president Jane Bagley Lehman co-created the Tides Foundation as a public charity that could facilitate the anonymous transfer of funds to leftwing recipients.

Pike also heads the Tides Center, which was created in 1996 by the Tides Foundation. The Tides Center functions as a legal firewall insulating the Tides Foundation from potential lawsuits.

The Tides Center distributed nearly $66 million in grants in 2002 alone. In all, Tides has distributed more than $300 million for the Left. These funds went to rabid antiwar demonstrators, anti-trade demonstrators, domestic Islamist organizations, pro-terrorists legal groups, environmentalists, abortion partisans, extremist homosexual activists and open borders advocates.

In addition to his duties with Tides, Pike serves as a director of the Environmental Working Group (EWG) and as a board member of such activist groups as: Democracy Alliance; the Solidago Foundation; the Institute for Policy Studies; the Endswell Foundation, an environmental group in British Columbia; and Working Assets. Other organizations in which Pike has held leadership positions include Island Press, Network for Good, the Sage Centre, the Threshold Foundation, the Charity Projects Entertainment Fund, the Social Venture Network, the Sierra Fund, and America’s Charities.

Pike founded the website Egrants.org (now Groundspring.org) to facilitate online charitable contributions to leftwing causes. He also created the Tsunami fund, an anti-capitalist, anti-gun ownership lobbying group. Both organizations have strong ties to the Tides Foundation.

Viewing the United States as a nation infested with "structural racism" that limits opportunities for nonwhites, Pike favors a highly progressive tax structure (i.e., one that taxes the rich at much higher rates than the poor) as a necessary means of redistributing wealth. Pike also supports socialized medicine.

Later in 2008, Pike's close ties to the community organization ACORN surfaced after it was learned that Dale Rathke, the brother of ex-ACORN president Wade Rathke, had embezzled nearly $1 million from ACORN and its affiliated groups in 1999 and 2000.

Drummond Pike personally repaid the embezzled amount to ACORN for Dale Rathke.

Pike is a great admirer of ACORN's founder and longtime leader Wade Rathke, who has been a Tides Foundation director since its inception.

Wade Rathke

Wade Rathke founded the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), for which he served as Chief Organizer from 1970 to 2008. He is also the co-founder and Chairman of the Tides Center; a Board member of the Tides Foundation; an Executive Board member of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU); and Chairman of the AFL-CIO’s Organizers Forum. Rathke describes himself as someone who is dedicated to “winning social justice, workers' rights, and a democracy where ‘the people shall rule’”; i.e., socialism.

The Service Employees International Union (Rathke is an Executive Board member) gave $53,315,273 to 527 groups in 2004, $32,929,734 in 2006, and $34,534,324 in 2008.

Rathke hails from a family of prosperous orange ranchers in Orange County, California. During the late 1960s he attended Williams College in Massachusetts but dropped out before graduating. He thereafter became a draft-resistance organizer for the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), and an organizer for George Wiley’s National Welfare Reform Organization (NWRO). He is a proponent of the “Cloward-Piven Strategy.”

In 1970, Rathke formed a new organization called Arkansas Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). He enlisted civil rights workers and trained them in a program (at Syracuse University) patterned after Saul Alinsky’s activist tactics. The group’s name was later changed to Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, but the acronym ACORN remained the same.

Rathke and ACORN thereafter pushed into high gear their efforts to help Democrat candidates win political elections at any cost. Toward that end, ACORN's mass campaigns of voter-registration fraud would reach unprecedented heights in subsequent election cycles. ACORN’s paid workers, tasked with registering as many pro-Democrat voters as possible, submitted many tens of thousands of fraudulent voter-registration cards in key voting districts around the United States. By 2008, federal authorities were investigating voter fraud by ACORN in 15 separate states.

On June 2, 2008, Rathke stepped down from his role as ACORN’s President. 

A month after his departure, the organization publicly acknowledged that Dale Rathke -- Wade’s brother -- had embezzled nearly $1 million from ACORN and its affiliated groups in 1999 and 2000. Tides Foundation founder and president Drummond Pike personally repaid the embezzled amount toACORN.

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According to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks 527 data, liberal organizations have out-solicited their conservative counterparts by a factor of TEN; nearly TEN TIMES more donations going to liberal organizations than to conservative groups in 2004.

Groups are categorized as 527s for the section of tax code that regulates them. Even though the 2004 data noted above is five years old, it still points out the disparity between the democrats and the Republicans when it comes to utilizing the 527 groups.

Overall, 527 groups received over $250,000,000 in contributions in 2004, over $80,000,000 in 2006, and over $100,000,000 in 2008.

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Be on the lookout for the next article in the series that begins to explore some of the organizations that are doing their best to transform our United States into a European-style Socialistic society. You'll find organizations mentioned in this post presented in more detail in "Connecting The Dots - (2) The Funds."

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