Could Obama’s possible Narcissism be interlaced with a Machiavellian style love affair with his ideology?
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The greatest source of Machiavelli’s reputation is, of course, The Prince (1532). The main theme of this short book is that all means may be resorted to for the establishment and preservation of authority — the end justifies the means (italics added)– and that the worst and most treacherous acts of the ruler are justified by the wickedness and treachery of the governed. LINK
Hmm…WHERE have we heard or seen the words….”the end justifies the means”? Ahhh…yes, in “Rules for Radicals” by Saul Alinsky.
“The third rule of ethics of means and ends is that in war the end justifies almost any means….” p.29 Link
When things are going well, it’s all photo-op smiles, hearty handshakes.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, Machiavellianism is “the employment of cunning and duplicity in statecraft or general conduct,” it of course getting its derivation from the Italian diplomat, writer and philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli. In modern psychological parlance, it refers to a duplicitous interpersonal style couple with a pragmatic and narcissistic moral framework.
Some have incorrectly assumed that given their ability to manipulate the crap out of just about anybody, Machiavellian leaders have a relatively high level of intelligence. In fact, many Machiavellian leaders themselves believe this. Not only does research show this isn’t the case at all in regards to IQ, it also shows that folks with more Machiavellian tendencies seem to have lower levels of EQ (emotional intelligence) as well.
Short version of the above: These guys aren’t as smart as they think they are, and probably aren’t as smart as you think they are. Also, they may suck at certain people skills.
In the early 1970s, psychologist Richard Christie and his colleagues identified a distinct personality style that is characterized by manipulativeness, cynicism about human nature, and shrewdness in interpersonal behavior. Named after the
sixteenth-century political philosopher and Italian Prince Machiavelli, this personality style is very nearly synonymous
with being a manipulator. Machiavellian personalities are committed to the proposition that a desired end justifies virtually
any means. Machiavellianism is defined as a manipulative strategy of social interaction and personality style that
uses other people as tools of personal gain.
Machiavellianism derives from the views of Prince Machiavelli that a ruler is not bound by traditional ethical norms.
A prince, therefore, should only be concerned with power and be bound only by rules that would lead to success. Prince
Machiavelli deduced these rules from the political practices of his time:
• Never show humility; it is more effective to show arrogance when dealing with others.
• Morality and ethics are for the weak; powerful people should feel free to lie, cheat, and deceive whenever it suits
their purpose.
• It is better to be feared than loved.
High machs (Machiavellists) tend to constitute a distinctive type. They tend to be charming, confident, and glib; but they also are arrogant, calculating, and cynical, prone to manipulate and exploit. In the context of laboratory experiment games, high
machs display a keen and opportunistic sense of timing, and they appear to capitalize especially in situations that contain
ambiguity regarding the rules.”
This looks like a mixture of Narcissism and Antisocials. Now lets take a look at some of the 48 laws.
Law 3
Conceal your Intentions
Keep people off-balance and in the dark by never revealing the purpose behind your actions. If they have no clue what you are up to, they cannot prepare a defense. Guide them far enough down the wrong path, envelope them in enough smoke, and by the time they realize your intentions, it will be too late.
Law 7
Get others to do the Work for you, but Always Take the Credit
Use the wisdom, knowledge, and legwork of other people to further your own cause. Not only will such assistance save you valuable time and energy, it will give you a godlike aura of efficiency and speed. In the end your helpers will be forgotten and you will be remembered. Never do yourself what others can do for you.
The dark triad is a group of three personality traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy.[1][2][3] The use of the term “dark” reflects the perception that these traits have interpersonally aversive qualities:[4][5][6][7]
Narcissism is characterised by grandiosity, pride, egotism, and a lack of empathy.[8]
Machiavellianism is characterised by manipulation and exploitation of others, a cynical disregard for morality, and a focus on self-interest and deception.[9]
Psychopathy is characterised by enduring antisocial behaviour, impulsivity, selfishness, callousness, and remorselessness.[10]
The dark triad may refer to these traits at only a subclinical level.[11][clarification needed]
All three traits have been associated with a callous-manipulative interpersonal style.[12] Jakobwitz and Egan carried out a factor analysis and found agreeableness strongly dissociated with these traits, and other factors, such as neuroticism and a lack of conscientiousness, associated with some traits.[9]
However, it has been suggested that agreeableness is not relevant to the core of the dark triad, and that instead the common variance is accounted for by callousness and manipulation.[13]
Former baker stirs up secrets corrupting America from within
By Gina Loudon
September 29, 2014
Trevor Loudon used to get up at 2 a.m. each morning to bake dozens of loaves of bread.
But today, the former baker from Christchurch, New Zealand, is up early to catch communists at work, and the “secret recipes” he’s discovered have already shaken up American politics, exposing politicians, activists and former President Obama advisor Van Jones.
Loudon’s investigative work began after watching the rise of communism in his home country of New Zealand. Worried the same thing might happen in the U.S., he asked a former communist to explain how it happened.
That confidant, Loudon told WND, revealed the big secret of the Marxists is that they make small gains by infiltrating institutions that have political influence ¬– like churches, labor unions and universities – and spread their “yeast” from there. In time, the communists within rise up to infiltrate and control the much larger, mainstream political parties and institutions.
In the United States, Loudon told WND, communists have been following the recipe perfectly, including cooking up a White House candidate.
“I was researching the U.S. Democrats and Communist political parties in 2007, and that’s where I discovered the ties between Barack Obama and the Hawaii Communist Party’s Frank Marshall Davis,” Loudon said.
“I could see that Obama was destined for greatness,” he continued, “so I did a year’s research on Obama (and his Communist Party connections), and I found a bunch of connections. I started to put it up on my website and my blogs, and that’s when I exposed Van Jones, the communist green job czar.”
WND asked Loudon why he, a New Zealander, even cares what happens to America.
Loudon, the former vice president of the ACT Party, the New Zealand version of the Libertarian Party, explained, “If America goes down, every country goes down. Russia, China and Iran are expanding. America is retreating. If this continues, the bad guys will carve up the planet amongst themselves. There is nowhere to run.”
Loudon’s work has exposed Jones, union bosses and former San Diego Mayor Bob Filner, but Loudon warns the recipe never begins at the top.
“You’ve got to realize that communists have been infiltrating the Christian Churches in America for 100 years,” Loudon said. “They have instituted ‘liberation theology’ (Christian Marxism), and they have done the same thing in the Middle East to Islam.”
Loudon told WND that in the 1970s Yuri Andropov, the head of the Soviet KGB, had a meeting with the Romanian head of the KGB and they made a plan to send 4,000 Marxists to the Islamic world with one purpose: to stir up hatred against the US and Israel.
“Islam became a battering ram against the West,” Loudon continued. “Now, that doesn’t mean that every Islamic terrorist understands that, just like every union member doesn’t understand that unions have been taken over by the Marxists, just like every Democrat doesn’t realize that their party has been taken over.”
“The communists,” Loudon said, “will work with the radical gay movement, they’ll work with the feminist movement, the Chicano movement, Buddhists, Hindu, they will infiltrate whatever it takes to get power.”
The former baker even disclosed the Republican Party is not above reproach in its ties to Marxism: “The GOP has been infiltrated to some degree, but because the Marxists have so effectively infiltrated the unions, and the unions are so overwhelmingly Democrat, less Republicans are infected by Marxism today. Dick Lugar, R-Ind., was a hard core, leftist, anti-American. [Jacob] Javitz, the former senator from New York, also had his roots in the Communist Party, for example.”
“I’d say in the Republican Party, you have one third progressives, one third go-alongs-to-get-alongs and one third constitutionalists and patriots,” Loudon said. “The real battle in this country is which faction is going to win? If the progressives win, we’re done. If the real, hardcore conservatives like Ted Cruz, [Trey] Gowdy, [Rand] Paul, [Louie] Gohmert, [Jim] Bridenstein come to ascendance, then this country has a chance of fighting back.”
Loudon further said anyone else who appreciates their First Amendment rights – even liberals, atheists and other groups that might be typically sympathetic to socialist policy – had best be warned of the inherent tyranny associated with the communist agenda.
“Even from a purely secular point of view, this is a battle between good and evil,” Loudon said. “It really comes down to [the writings of John] Milton [ironically, born on Bread Street in London, England] This comes down to the reason Satan left heaven. To Satan, it was better to rule in hell than serve in heaven. This is the motivation of the communists. They want power. They want to rule. They don’t give a d— what this earth turns into as long as they are running things.”
And if freedom falls to communist rule in America, Loudon warned, the rest of the world may fall as well.
In light of the wars and violent turbulence that currently engulf the Middle East and parts of Africa, a coalition of concerned citizens, journalists, and activists are launching a campaign to expose a most infamous and pernicious sponsor of Islamic terror: the Gulf state of Qatar.
Qatar, (pronounced“cutter,” or “gutter”), is, per capita, the richest country in the world ($93,352 in 2013). This is partly due to the fact that they control the third largest natural gas reserves in the world, the North Dome field in the Persian Gulf. It is also because Qatar has a mere 278,000 citizens, with a total population of 2.05 million; the remaining people in Qatar are a mix of well-paid ex-pats from countries such as the United States and Great Britain, and a substantial slave labor population.
A backer of international terror from Nigeria to Gaza to Syria and Iraq, the Qatari ruling family, the al-Thanis, exploit Islamic jihadi groups and their ties to illicit smuggling.
What is being smuggled? Mostly narcotics and people – slaves.
Unfortunately, the United States is integrated into the Qatari “economy” as much as any other developed nation. Doha, Qatar’s capital, is home to two of the largest American military bases in the entire world, as well as familiar companies like ExxonMobil, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin. Doha also hosts a number of campuses for prestigious American universities, such as Georgetown, Carnegie Mellon, and Cornell. Other companies and organizations, ranging from the film production company Miramax to financial behemoths like Bank of America, have accepted significant amounts of investment by the al-Thanis.
Hamas, a Qatari client, launched a war against Israel this summer. There is an ongoing genocide across Iraq and Syria, with mass graves and grisly beheadings of Christians and Shiite Muslims. Boko Haram continues to rampage across Nigeria, threatening the political stability of Africa’s largest economy and population. Qatari fingerprints are on each of crises.
Over the course of the next month, companies, organizations, and individuals with significant investments and activities with and in Qatar will be identified and contacted with the reality of their host country. These letters, once published, will be sent to press outlets around the world.
We call on the parties identified in this campaign to review the evidence, which is all credibly sourced and vetted. In light of the terror, slavery, genocide, and narcotics trafficking, we urge the parties to demand that Qatar immediately cease any and all involvement in these activities.
** Select signatures as of 9/27. The Qatar Awareness Campaign Coalition is comprised of more than 25 journalists, national security experts, publishers, and independent researchers. To view all Coalition participants, please visit the Campaign’s website.
“To the Students for Justice in Palestine, a Letter from an Angry Black Woman”
Chloe Valdary concludes this terrific piece by saying, “It is of course your prerogative to continue to utilize platitudes for your cause. You are entirely within your rights to chant words like ‘equality’ ‘justice’ and ‘freedom fighter.’ You can keep using those words for as long as you like. But I do not think you know what they mean.” Indeed. Or maybe they know full well what they mean, and want to confuse and manipulate people into no longer being sure , so they can more easily claim them for themselves.
“To the Students for Justice in Palestine, a Letter From an Angry Black Woman,” by Chloe Valdary, Tablet, July 28, 2014 (thanks to Linda):
The student organization Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) is prominent on many college campuses, preaching a mantra of “Freeing Palestine.” It masquerades as though it were a civil rights group when it is not. Indeed, as an African-American, I am highly insulted that my people’s legacy is being pilfered for such a repugnant agenda. It is thus high time to expose its agenda and lay bare some of the fallacies they peddle.
• If you seek to promulgate the legacy of early Islamic colonialists who raped and pillaged the Middle East, subjugated the indigenous peoples living in the region, and foisted upon them a life of persecution and degradation—you do not get to claim the title of “Freedom Fighter.”
• If you support a racist doctrine of Arab supremacism and wish (as a corollary of that doctrine) to destroy the Jewish state, you do not get to claim that the prejudices you peddle are forms of legitimate “resistance.”
• If your heroes are clerics who sit in Gaza plotting the genocide of a people; who place their children on rooftops in the hopes they will get blown to bits; who heap praises upon their fellow gang members when they succeed in murdering Jewish school boys and bombing places of activity where Jews congregate—you do not get to claim that you are some Apollonian advocate of human virtue. You are not.
• If your activities include grieving over the woefully incompetent performance by Hamas rocketeers and the subsequent millions of Jewish souls who are still alive—whose children were not murdered by their rockets; whose limbs were not torn from them; and whose disembowelment did not come into fruition—you do not get to claim that you stand for justice. You profess to be irreproachable. You are categorically not.
• If your idea of a righteous cause entails targeting and intimidating Jewish students on campus, arrogating their history of exile-and-return and fashioning it in your own likeness you do not get to claim that you do so in the name of civil liberty and freedom of expression.
• You do not get to champion regimes that murder, torture, and persecute their own people, deliberately keep them impoverished, and embezzle billions of dollar from them—and claim you are “pro-Arab.” You are not.
• You do not get to champion a system wherein Jews are barred from purchasing land, traveling in certain areas, and living out such an existence merely because they are Jews—and claim that you are promoting equality for all. You do not get to enable that system by pushing a boycott of Jewish owned businesses, shops, and entities—and then claim that you are “against apartheid.” That is evil.
• You do not get to justify the calculated and deliberate bombings, beatings, and lynchings of Jewish men, women, and children by referring to such heinous occurrences as part of a noble “uprising” of the oppressed—that is racism. It is evil.
• You do not get to pretend as though you and Rosa Parks would have been great buddies in the 1960s. Rosa Parks was a real Freedom Fighter. Rosa Parks was a Zionist….
Indeed, they and many more men and women signed a letter in 1975 that stated: “We condemn the anti-Jewish blacklist. We have fought too long and too hard to root out discrimination from our land to sit idly while foreign interests import bigotry to America. Having suffered so greatly from such prejudice, we consider most repugnant the efforts by Arab states to use the economic power of their newly-acquired oil wealth to boycott business firms that deal with Israel or that have Jewish owners, directors, or executives, and to impose anti-Jewish preconditions for investments in this country.”
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is considering upgrading the Emergency Alert System so the president can speak to the entire country at the flip of a switch.
I do not if you’ve read George Orwell’s 1984 or saw the movie starring Richard Burton and John Hurt — truly a classic. I remember the “big voice” system that allowed the president to address the public at any time to promulgate any propaganda. It appears Orwell was about 30 years early in his prediction, but right on target nonetheless.
As The Hill reports, “The national Emergency Alert System broadcasts television alert messages to warn people about immediate dangers. The system is often used at the local level to warn people about weather conditions such as tornadoes or flash floods.”
So why does the president need a special code which will give him the immediate ability to “address” the American people? And who in the president’s administration will determine what is an emergency?
Let me see if I understand this correctly. The president can just flip a switch and all TV channels go to him speaking? And what is the intent? Is it to tell Americans we’re dispersing illegal immigrants all across the country? Is the purpose to allow the president to issue whatever ideological propaganda message he desires?
The Hill reports “the current system is not capable of reaching the entire country all at once should the president need to warn the public of something like a terrorist attack or an act of war against the country. Instead, to reach the entire country, each local jurisdiction would have to broadcast the same message — a tedious process that could leave room for gaps if one station misses the broadcast. So the FCC is proposing a national location code that would give the president the ability to broadcast to the entire country with a single message in the event of a nationwide emergency. The proposal will be published in Tuesday’s edition of the Federal Register. The FCC says the update will help with “saving human lives, reducing injuries, mitigating property damage, and minimizing the disruption of the national economy.”
I always love how we mask nefarious intents under the guise of helping, warning, protecting, and preparing the American people. We have 24-hour news and weather channels that inform the American people. And a terrorist attack? Here we go with fear-mongering in order to expand government control. Didn’t we just hear the same about the NSA surveillance program of Americans?
And once again, something is being added to the Federal Registry under the ever-expanding bureaucratic regulatory state — and not by legislative process. So much for protecting, warning and informing the American people.
The FCC estimates the new technology and testing would cost the industry between $7 million and $13.6 million in compliance costs. So whom do you think will actually have to pay for these update costs? Yep, you and me, Joe and Jane Doe American consumer.
The last thing anyone in America should want is a president with the ability to flip a switch and broadcast directly into your home.
We, the public have 30 days to comment on the proposed rules — go to the Federal Registry and review the document. Hey, there you go. Why do we need an update to the system? I just warned you of an eminent danger — more government intrusion — and it didn’t cost you anything.
**Article attributed to Allen B. West in its entirety**
Timed for release in August 2015, “The Enemies Within” will be like no other film ever released in America.
Production standards will be Hollywood quality.
Guiding values however, will be 100% American.
The Enemies Within will name names and go where no one has gone in modern times in its quest to awaken Americans to the enemies within their own government.
Help restore America by exposing its internal enemies.
Our goal is to raise $400,000 minimum, partially from investors and partially from our grassroots support base through crowd sourcing.
Many in the beginning called him the “One”, the “Messiah” bringing the message of “Hope” and “Change”
Has this POTUS made your life better in the past 5 years? Do YOU see it improving over the next year?
Has your food bill decreased?
Your electric bill?
Your gas bill?
The POTUS lauds the fact he has created jobs? Where? Only Federal Jobs have been created. The greatest housing boom has been in the “Beltway” of Washington, D.C.
Failed Green Jobs and BILLIONS of dollars wasted in promoting this policy.
Does this POTUS worry about jobs, the economy, our debt, our security? Seems his only concerns are Climate Change and Gun Control.
Currently there are ILLEGAL aliens flooding our Southern Border. Granted some are children, however a majority of them are young adults and what are classified as “Other Than Mexicans” (Hamas, Hexbollah). Drug cartels and Gang members from Mexico view our current situation as a “green light”. And what is our POTUS doing? Pairing up the illegals with LAWYERS and requesting BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars to fund care for these invaders. This past week while border over-run, our POTUS is fund-raising. Fund-raising? Really?
No matter what you may believe, the Republicans are NOT the Obstructionists about creating jobs in our Legislative Branch. The only TRUE obstructionist is Senator Harry Reid. Over THIRTY PLUS jobs bills have been passed by the House only to be “tabled” to collect dust in the Senate. Senator Harry Reid WILL NOT even bring the bills to the floor for discussion.
The Tea Party is NOT a political party; it is a grassroots movement consisting of different chapters nationwide that consists of Republicans, Democrats and Independents. They believe in SMALL government and a government that doesn’t restrict your freedom to create/own a business without strangulating government regulations.
Yet Progressives and yet our own POTUS and VP use “tea baggers”as a slur for Tea Party Conservatives. AND THAT is acceptable?
So YOUR choice heading into 2014 and 2016. Is NOT Democrat vs. Republican….
YOUR choice is liberty and freedom to CHOOSE vs. the Paternalism of the Progressive Democrats.
Harry Reid, the Progressives and their cohorts love to mention the Koch Brothers, yet fail to admit their cause is funded by George Soros, Tom Steyer, the Rockefellers, R$obert McKay (Taco Bell), Bill and Melinda Gates, etc.
Yes, the Koch Brothers donate to Republican campaigns.
What you may not know is this:
Philanthropy: Koch gave $100 million to MIT in 2007 to create the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. Other multi-million-dollar donations have gone to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins Anderson Cancer Center and the Hospital for Special Surgery.
Koch family foundations and philanthropy are grounded in the belief that free societies are the greatest generators of social progress, sustainable prosperity and well-being.
=============================
That being said, let’s look at the Progressive Left and their financial ties….shall we?
An ultra-secretive left-wing money machine for super rich radicals is bringing more representatives of Big Labor into the fold in order to prevent the likely Republican takeover of the U.S. Senate this November. Thanks to a Democracy Alliance member’s oversight, Americans are getting a sense of what the nation’s wealthy left-wingers have in store for the fall elections and beyond. As Lachlan Markay of the Washington Free Beacon reported, leftist billionaire George Soros’s son Jonathan left behind a partial membership list of the Democracy Alliance at a meeting in a fancy Chicago hotel last week. The names on the document suggest that organized labor is becoming increasingly influential within the left-wing plutocrats’ invitation-only club. New Democracy Alliance members from the labor movement include Noel Beasley, president of Workers United, a textile union affiliated with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and Keith Mestrich, president of the union-owned Amalgamated Bank. Other new members from Big Labor include Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America, and Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. CWA senior director George Kohl and Michelle Ringuette, Weingarten’s assistant, also secured memberships in the Democracy Alliance. But not all new members are professional parasites. Business people joining the Democracy Alliance recently include Adam Abram (insurance and real estate), Rick Segal (financial services), and Paul Boskind (psychology, behavioral health). The Alliance has also added a slew of limousine liberals to its membership ranks. Heirs and heiresses to get the nod from the gold-plated leftist piggybank include Amy Goldman (real estate) and Henry van Ameringen (manufacturing). Trust fund baby and New School professor Philip Munger, son of Berkshire Hathaway vice chairman Charles Munger, became an Alliance member. The group’s leadership was not pleased. Former George Soros lieutenant Gara LaMarche, now president of the Democracy Alliance, whinedthat some members were “not wild about” their names being published. Those donors are “determined not to be distracted by sideshows,” and they “knew the Free Beacon was sniffing around at our conference, and they are under no illusions about what kind of ‘journalism’ they practice. It’s annoying, but unfortunately that’s the world we live in.” Meanwhile, there seems to be an effort underway to depict the scores of billionaires and multi-millionaires of the Democracy Alliance as underdogs struggling heroically against the Koch brothers, the billionaire siblings who fund conservative and libertarian causes. The Washington Post misleadingly observes:
“The [Democracy Alliance] has pumped an estimated $500 million into an array of organizations on the left over the past nine years, according to the alliance. The group’s leaders had originally hoped the sums would be larger by now. By comparison, a network of politically active nonprofits backed by the Kochs and other conservative donors raised $400 million just in the 2012 elections.”
The problem is we have no way of knowing if the $500 million figure, which sounds low — the Democracy Alliance has been batting that number around for years — is accurate or meaningful. It (probably) does not include its members’ personal contributions to candidates and causes. So much money may not appear in the final tally because it wasn’t the subject of a formal giving recommendation from the Alliance. Shouldn’t it count as well? When George Soros gave $1 million Media Matters for America, was that sum included in Democracy Alliance totals? Nobody outside the group knows because the Alliance is not transparent. We have no idea what the numbers they provide actually mean. And then there’s the weaselly wording of the Washington Post article that suggests that the comparison between the Kochs and the Democracy Alliance is apples and oranges. There is no entity comparable to the Democracy Alliance on the Right, yet the article speaks of “a network of politically active nonprofits backed by the Kochs and other conservative donors” that raised $400 million for the 2012 elections. The Democracy Alliance is a consortium of donors. This phantom conservative “network” that is referenced is apparently a group of grant recipients. You can’t compare the two sets of actors — unless you’re a political propagandist. Besides, it is well established that the Right is severely outgunned on the philanthropic battlefield. The collective assets of liberal-progressive grant-making foundations are in fact 10 times the size of the assets of conservative foundations. Left-wing nonprofit groups vastly outspend conservative groups, which tend to rely more on grassroots donations. Leftist organizations operate with almost complete impunity nowadays, unimpeded as they influence and pervert American politics in an effort to fundamentally transform our republic. The Left is Goliath; the Right, David. The Democracy Alliance itself is a collection of more than 100 socialist venture capitalists, spoiled brat rich kids, heirs and heiresses, Hollywood moguls, and unethical bankers that funds left-wing groups that aspire to smash the American system. It was created following the 2004 elections, which brought stinging defeats to the Left in battles for the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives — long before most in the media had even heard of the Koch brothers. Leftist blogger Markos Moulitsas has called the Alliance “a vast, Vast Left Wing Conspiracy to rival” the conservative movement. George Soros, the preeminent funder of the Left in the United States, was a huge player in the formation of the Democracy Alliance. His financial contributions to left-wing groups dwarf what the Kochs have given to right-leaning groups. Quite appropriately, “Saturday Night Live” has mocked the octogenarian Gordon Gekko as the “owner” of the Democratic Party. Soros openly favors American decline and has said European-style socialism “is exactly what we need now.” The radical philanthropist praises Communist China effusively, saying the totalitarian nation has “a better-functioning government than the United States.”
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will introduce liberal megadonor George Soros at an open forum on Tuesday, the latest evidence of the billionaire using his political connections to benefit his investments and foreign policy goals, critics say.
Kerry will introduce Soros at the 1:30 p.m. forum on May 13 at the George C. Marshall Center, the Germany-based security and defense studies institute jointly operated by the U.S. Department of Defense and German Defense Ministry, according to a State Department event notice.
Soros will discuss “strengthening civil society, democracy and the world economy” with Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Douglas Frantz following Kerry’s introduction.
Soros, a New York City hedge fund manager who amassed great wealth through his company Soros Fund Management, has used his foundation network—known as the Open Society Foundations (OSF)—to dispense more than $11 billion to groups abroad as well as numerous left-leaning U.S. groups in the last three decades.
He is perhaps the Democratic Party’s most famous donor, contributing almost $24 million to advocacy groups that supported Kerry’s failed presidential bid in 2004, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. He also donated $1 million to the Priorities USA Action Super PAC that helped reelect President Barack Obama in 2012.
Critics say Soros leverages his political connections to increase the returns on his investments.
While Soros has increased his multi-million dollar investments in both U.S. and foreign companies that extract shale oil and gas, the Obama administration has championed natural gas as a less carbon-intensive bridge fuel toward a “clean-energy future.” The administration’s proposalto offer incentives to companies that use trucks powered by natural gas would benefit Westport Innovations, a company that converts diesel engines for natural gas use and is partially owned by Soros’ hedge fund.
Soros’ political advocacy also tends to blend with his investments. He proposed in 2009 that developed countries create a “green fund” to combat climate change in developing countries by directing billions from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) toward forestry, land-use, and agricultural projects. Soros’ fund controlsmore than a $200 million stake in Adecoagro, a Luxembourg-based company that owns hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland in South America and would benefit from the IMF cash infusion.
Soros told the New Yorker in a 2004 interview that “there are occasionally symbiotic moments between political and business interests” that occur during his efforts to influence American policy.
A list of new members of the Democracy Alliance offers a revealing look into the secret group of liberal billionaires
**Includes list of donors and new participants. Click on link above**
Excerpt:
It lists new Democracy Alliance “partners,” individuals who every year must pay $30,000 in dues and contribute at least $200,000 to the groups that DA supports. It also reveals names of DA “advisers,” foundation participants, and individuals getting a “sneak peek” at the group’s activities. Among its new partners are top labor union bosses, financial and business leaders, and heirs to billion-dollar fortunes who have made names for themselves as high-dollar Democratic donors. [Emphasis added]
[…]
The Democracy Alliance does not actually accept donations. Instead, it solicits contributions from left-wing millionaires and billionaires, and serves as a “pass through” between those donors and top liberal advocacy groups, including the Center for American Progress, Media Matters for America, and Democratic Super PAC Priorities USA. [Emphasis added] The group emphasizes secrecy in all of its operations, even as its members and the DA “favored organizations” to which they donate decry the role of “dark money” in American politics. DA does not disclose details of any of the transactions it facilitates, and its members and donation recipients are prohibited from speaking publicly about the organization and its operations.
***Note at 1:00 to 1:40 min., Pelosi, in 2012 mentions… the President’s PAC… Priorities USA…..WHO is mentioned as part of recipients of funds from the Democracy Alliance.
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