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.

~~~

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.

~~~

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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What if you were selling time-share properties, genuine 24-karat gold-clad replica coins, a gizmo to increase gas mileage, or diet plans guaranteed to make fat turn to muscle? Say that your revenue was disappointing and you needed to increase sales. But direct mail, TV spots and in-store demonstrations haven’t done the job - the results have been disappointing.

So you’re pondering your options while walking to your car, and a seedy looking guy whispers from the shadows, “Pssst, over here, pal. I’ve got what you need.”

“And how do you know what I need?”

“I’m psychic, I know these things. You need a new audience, a special audience.”

“And you can help me find this new audience?

“I can. Suppose I told you that there is a vast pool of citizens, millions in fact, who will accept without question whatever they’re told. You say ‘jump,’ they ask ‘how high.’ They’ll buy whatever you’re selling and thank you for hoodwinking them. They will remain loyal no matter what you do or say."   

“There’s no such thing … that would be the Holy Grail to a marketer.”

“There are such people; they’re called the Obama-ites ... the followers of our beloved president, B. Hussein Obama.”

"They'll believe anything he says. Faced with a choice between cold, hard facts and some inane promise from Obama, they’ll believe him every time. They ignore the changes in his positions on fifteen or twenty major issues – no matter. He avoided anything remotely Muslim during the campaign (even his middle name), now he embraces his Muslim brothers and quotes from the Quran. Put plainly, he’s a snake-oil salesman and the Obama-ites have faith that his elixir will cure everything from jock itch to constipation. They're lapping it up as if it was manna from heaven.”

We were tipped to the phenomena when one of our crack journalists watched an old episode of Seinfeld - the one where Kramer was found to be filled with the “Kavorka,” (the lure of the animal) by the Latvian Orthodox church.

We decided to see if such a thing existed. After sessions with Latvian Orthodox church officials and an intensive scientific investigation, our conclusion is that Obama is indeed under the spell of a "vorka." The church is convinced that Obama is filled with the O’vorka vorka (the lure of the half-black, metrosexual).

When you’re filled with the O’vorka, you can say anything and do anything, no matter how outrageous, and your audience will worship you. If someone challenges you or disagrees, your followers will defend you with cries of "racist." And they’ll stand there meekly while you snatch the shirt from their back and say, “Thank you sir, you may have my Jockey shorts too.”

There is a messianic quality that surrounds Obama's O’vorka – the ability to convince his audience that he is talking only to them and he means every word. Barry Obama could put on a blue oxford shirt, grow a dense black beard and bellow “Billy Mays here!” and sell anything “as seen on TV” even better than the guru of pitchmen himself. B. Hussein Obama is indeed an uber-pitchman.

But where did the O'vorka come from? How did he get it?

And perhaps more importantly, what can we do about it?

Pesky Truth is working with a highly-respected lab to develop a gel which, when rubbed on one’s body, will generate a Obama-like ability to speak with a forked tongue, yet be entirely believable. So far, the gel works, but it has the unfortunate side effect of enlarging the ears, turning the skin brown, and smelling like excrement.  

Obama’s Connection.

In attempting to capture the significance of Barack Obama’s radical left connections and his connection to the Cloward Piven strategy, Jim Simpson (American Daughter blog) constructed following flow chart. It is by no means complete. There are simply too many radical individuals and organizations to include them all, but these are perhaps the most significant.

 

 

 

Following the dismissal of a lawsuit by the Department of Justice, an apology was issued to the NBPP by president B. Hussein Obama. “Even though the NBPP defendants were in default and had legally lost the case, I directed the DOJ to drop the suit in the interest of justice.” He continued, “Americans were outraged that the Bush administration intervened in a purely African-American matter and displayed obvious racism in filing suit against the NBPP Voting-right Monitors.”

With encouragement from president Obama, the NBPP has secured a $22 million grant from TARP funds. The NBPP immediately let contracts to refurbish a number of FEMA-surplus trailers to serve as recruitment centers for the NBPP's People's Militia. In addition, Chairman Shabazz said, “The funds will allow the NBPP to purchase other military-surplus equipment to assist in our mandate to make sure that black folks vote the right way.”

He continued, “Making sure that our black brothers and sisters get to the polls is our responsibility and understanding HOW to vote is important. We intend to make sure that they vote the right way. We have been so successful that not a single vote was cast for a Republican candidate in any of our monitored precincts."

Sources tell Pesky Truth that the NBPP has also purchased sixteen Vietnam-era APCs (Armored Personnel Carriers), reputed to be M113s, to tow the information centers to wherever they’re needed. The M113s will also be used to transport voters to polling places in safety, and to act as intimidating symbols of black power. For cold-weather voting, ten M2-2 military flamethrowers were also purchased and will warm the approach to the polling place to welcome white voters.”

“No longer will our Freedom Fighters have to accost voters while standing outside of polling places armed only with police batons. Now, they can intimidate voters from the comfort and safety of our up-armored M113s.”

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Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor said: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life." That statement made during a 2001 speech has contributed to a continuing debate over her judgment.

The president dismissed any concerns about her Latina heritage influencing her decisions. He said, “Part of her job is to see the arguments from someone else’s shoes and Judge Sotomayor has promised to do that. She will wear my Desert Tan Berluti loafers when the court is in session and view the arguments as if she were me – since she will, in fact, be in my shoes.”

The president continued, “Previous court decisions were not always gender blind and that was because most of the justices were seeing things from the shoes of white men.” “In view of that, I have asked the Attorney General to file a brief with the court “in meus pes vestis,” requiring the male justices to wear women’s shoes (with sensible heels) throughout their next session.”

President Obama also cautioned the male justices that if wearing women’s shoes didn’t properly refocus their perspective on gender, he’d propose a change to court rules to force them to undergo “Enhanced Empthy Training” (EET) in the form of chemically-induced menstrual cramps and crankiness. He noted that these procedures would be administered by the CIA. The procedures have been cleared by his legal team and are not prohibited by the Geneva Convention.

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Just a short walk from the White House on W. 15^th St. is a trendy new restaurant fast becoming the talk of DC. Noted for its unusual fare, it is one of the places to see and be seen inside the Beltway.

GOP’s (pronounced “Jops”) is an upscale bistro serving rather expensive sandwiches and fancy desserts. The flagship sandwich is called the Philly-buster and is only served to patrons supporting the out-of-power political party - you can lie, if necessary, to order one. The principal aftereffect of a Philly-buster is the prevention any manner of normal activity. It induces a state similar to paralysis and inhibits any sensible actions - it is said to be a favorite of members of Congress.

Another popular choice is the Demo-cramp Deluxe, with secret ingredients reputed to cause severe gastric distress. Rumor suggests that refried beans and habanero peppers contribute to the gassy bloating and flatulence known to accompany the Demo-cramp. The cook verified that the thought was that anyone who chose a Demo-cramp deserved whatever resulted from that unfortunate choice. It is served with a side order of Rolaids and an admonition to avoid enclosed spaces, especially crowded elevators.

My companion tried a Barney Frank sandwich. A pair of warm toasty buns flanked the centerpiece frankfurter which was reportedly made from salami ground into rump steak. It was tastefully garnished with a pair of fruit twinkies. Keeping with the theme, the waiter even confirmed our order back with a lisph (sic).

I had a PITA Pelosi (our waiter confided that PITA stands for Pain in the A**). It was a very unsatisfying pork-filled flat bread sandwich. The Pelosi's exterior was too crusty and wrinkled for my taste and there was far more pork than was necessary. Three kinds in fact: pulled pork, pushed pork, and yanked pork. How I longed for an old fashioned Gingrich hero.

Our visit was topped off with an Obamnificent soufflé. The golden tan outer crust held a promise of gastronomic delights. But unfortunately, as soon as we penetrated the crust, all of the hot gasses escaped with a "poof." Once deflated, it was found to be empty inside except for a pound or so of thick sliced sandwich "meat." So, our verdict on the Obamnificent soufflé concluded that it was all hot air and baloney, and didn’t deliver on its promise. 

Rated ««, save your money – and your stomach lining, go elsewhere.

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The last airline, Colgan Air, has left the airport and they forgot to turn off the lights.

Faced with no flights to anywhere, critics are questioning the need for a longer runway and a monorail tram to carry passengers between terminals. While there is currently only one terminal, Murtha’s staff said that the representative was a visionary and wanted to be ready for the future international flights out of the facility.

Plans include extending the principal concrete runway (RW 33/15) to a length of 15,000 feet to serve as another alternative runway for landing the Space Shuttle. The plans also contain provisions for a Pep Boys-operated maintenance facility to accomplish shuttle repairs, should they become necessary. Pep Boys has agreed to honor their “buy 17, get 1 free” tire promotion for Boeing 747 aircraft.

The monorail system is another sore spot for Murtha’s critics. Some say that he is jealous of Sen. Harry Reid’s monorail and wants one of his own. Murtha was quoted as whining, “Why does Reid get one and I don’t?” An architect’s rendering shows a monorail spanning the 77 ft. from the ticket counter to the Men’s restroom.

Representative Murtha (D-PA), also announced that if he is reelected, he will secure additional funds that will be earmarked for a duty-free shop, separate customs areas to process foreign passengers, and a two-mile, banked, white-only NASCAR track to satisfy his redneck, racist constituents.

Okay flyover country, now’s your chance to repay the Liberal Elitists in California for the disdain with which they’ve referred to your inconsequential terrain nestled in between the coasts.

Have you noticed the condescension and sarcasm dripping from their comments while they chastise those supposedly less intellectually gifted than they? Over the years, they’ve taken every opportunity to demean the plebian populace living outside of the Promised Land. After all, California leads the nation, don’t they?

WELL, IF THEY’RE SO DAMN SMART, WHY IS CALIFORNIA IN SUCH CRAPPY FINANCIAL SHAPE?

It’s not so difficult for us ignerunt (sic) clods in the insignificant part of the country to figure out. While too dumb to comprehend any logic more complicated than “water is wet,” we somehow just stumbled onto the solution. Granted, we can’t possibly be as smart as the intellectual elites out there, but most of us CAN balance a checkbook, and apparently they can’t.

California is currently boasting a 21 billion dollar DEFICIT (that’s a minus for those of you in Rio Linda).

Using a formula even a simpleton can understand, it means that spending is expected to exceed revenue by $21,000,000,000. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that there are only three ways to fix the problem: raise revenue, reduce spending, or some combination thereof. A newsflash: when outgo exceeds income, your business model needs fixing.

So, on May 19, 2009, the voters of California had an opportunity to address the state’s deficit by raising revenue (one of their options). And what did they do? They chose to DO NOTHING; they took a page from the Obama playbook and voted “PRESENT.”

Did you get that? These paragons of superior brainpower and existential empathy voted to do NOTHING. Doing nothing is NOT one of the options that will fix California’s budget problems.

But hey, it’s not the voter’s fault – they assumed that their elected representatives would govern responsibly. Right? But WHO put those elected representatives in their government jobs? Those same voters.

It’s like that old Bible passage, “What Ye Vote, So Shall Ye Reap,” or something like that.

When every hair-brained, social feel-good scheme is enacted without regard to costs, someone’s head should roll. They’ve finally hit lint in that bottomless taxpayer pocket.

But wait! These California voters have a solid track record. These are the same voters who elected outstanding folks to represent California at the federal level: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, and Representatives Barbara Lee, Henry Waxman, and Maxine Waters (to name a few). That gaggle of ne’er-do-wells couldn’t get elected to city council jobs in most of flyover country. And yet, California keeps sending them back. It just shows to go you.

California is an excellent example of how liberal policies “feel good” but (1) historically never work, (2) are unrealistic, and (3) are fiscally irresponsible.

So now the only apparent option left is to cut expenses. But before Californians take those draconian measures, they will pray to Obama. They’ll pray for a miracle – a bailout miracle.

Now, apparently something akin to bankruptcy is not an option for a state with the eighth largest economy in the world. The federal government (Obama, Pelosi and Reid, oh my) will have to come to California’s rescue. And that means that OUR tax money would be used to bail out the irresponsible, tax and spend liberals who have run their state into the ground.

It’s time for us to say N.O.D. – Not One Dime. 

A study by the Federation for American Immigration Reform estimated that in 2004 the annual uncompensated cost of medical care for illegal immigrants in California was $1.4 billion. Total uncompensated educational, health care and incarceration costs for “illegal immigrants” in California were estimated to be 10.5 billion – and that’s in 2004 dollars.  What are the chances that the cost of illegals in California is more than half of their budget deficit by now?

Nowhere else is the coddling of illegals more evident than the Golden State. That’s one of the reasons for their fiscal condition. They won’t say no. The left wields majority power there and it shows. Their left-wing “leadership” has made them the center of the gay universe, home base for Code Pink and other anti-military groups, the Promised Land for Mexican illegals, and heaven for tax and spend liberals.

They’ll say “not in my back yard,” when talking about offshore drilling, but won’t take the same stance when it comes to illegal aliens. Their back yard has a welcome mat at the gate for them.

In October, 2007, Californians for Population Stabilization (a nonprofit public interest organization) presented the following low, medium and high estimates of that state’s illegal population: a range of 2.47 million to 4.8 million, with a median figure of 2.8 million - up from 1.7 million in 1994. The 4.8 million "high" estimate, is based on California's assumed 24% share of the overall illegal population, and implies a national illegal population of 20 million.

Just an FYI, that median figure of 2.8 million is a population greater than 17 of our 50 states (or should that be 57 states?). The illegals in California, by themselves would place 33^rd among the states ranked by population (most to least).

Now, there are a lot of other issues where California has overspent, and they’re easily identifiable, but spending on illegals is the most egregious.

In our never-ending quest to bring our readers the real stories behind the headlines, our journalists have secured behind-the-scenes details that our readers can find nowhere else.

President B. Hussein Obama announced today that he has successfully negotiated an agreement with three countries to accept Guantanamo detainees. With the addition of these new participants, the grand total of countries joining in the President’s initiative increases by 100%.

“This agreement is evidence that entire civilized world repudiates the immoral and inhumane treatment of the detainees previously housed at Guantanamo, and is eager to partner with the United States in bringing rehabilitation to those disadvantaged and mistreated souls.”

“Andorra, Tuvalu and Kiribati have each agreed to take one (1) detainee who is an “articulate, bright, clean and a nice-looking guy.” In exchange, the United States will provide foreign aid in the amount of $33.33 billion dollars to each of the countries.”

“The previous administration’s policies were abhorrent and repugnant, and these countries have assured us that they will provide humane assistance to the detainees consisting of housing, clothing, medical care, and seventy-two virgins to each of their new citizens to help them to integrate into their respective societies. Each will also be gainfully employed by serving as Ambassador to the United States with full diplomatic privileges.”

Obama continued, “In addition, we have committed to building a Mosque, a Medrassa, and a training camp in each country to help the immigrants continue their religious education.”

President B. Hussein Obama took a firm stand today against the recent nuclear testing by North Korea. “I strongly disapprove of Kim Jong-il’s actions and will hold my breath until he relents and says he’s sorry,” were the harsh words used by the President to describe his disapproval.

White House insiders, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that the President was livid (a trendy shade of grayish-blue) when told of North Korea’s successful test. “Darn that Kimmie-Jong … he broke his promise … he's making me look like an inexperienced, incompetent egotist.”

The President’s advisors were hurriedly assembled to define his formal response. They reportedly went through a multitude of possible diplomatic actions, ranging from feigned indignation to severe tongue-lashing, and even considered the imposition of a time-out.

After an all-night session, the consensus was that an embargo was in order. While it would be an escalation of the United State’s position vis-à-vis the recalcitrant little dude, it would send a strong and necessary message.

The decision was made to embargo the shoe lifts that enable the altitudinally-challenged Kim to soar to a height of five feet. “Send him a DVD of my speeches in the wrong format, that’ll show him,” chuckled a self-satisfied Obama. "And if that doesn't work, we'll send him an Ipod loaded with rap music."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had challenged President B. Hussein Obama to a debate on global issues, expected  to be held at the United Nations.

The initial response from President Obama was enthusiasm, as he welcomed the opportunity to meet anywhere, anytime to debate the Iranian leader. He expected to confront the Iranian strongman and after rhetorically emasculating him, would offer him an olive branch of foreign aid if he would just cooperate.

Pursuant to the debate, both party’s representatives met to negotiate the details, but the U.S. negotiator, Dr. Hu Flung Poo walked out of the session when his Iranian counterpart refused to allow Obama to prescreen questions or to use a teleprompter.

The Iranian negotiator, Ali bin Pasta al-Dante expressed concern that Dr. Poo had taken such an inflexible position on the teleprompter issue. “Can he not talk without his Satanic devil helping him?”