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**CONNECTING THE DOTS…..A recommended reading in its entirety including links (blue lettered titles are links)
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John Podesta:
While reading the above bio on John Podesta at the Center for American Progress, FOCUS on this one statement below. It will be referred to at end of this blog.
He is currently serving on the U.N. Secretary General’s High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda.
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Is John Podesta of the Center for American Progress Inflicting the “Project Podesta” Ideology/Tactic on Obama? What Americans Should Know…..
***Notation added here by Romanticpoet: Does any of the following sound familiar America?****
Podesta’s most lasting contribution to the leftist cause came through his promotion of a strategy that White House aides dubbed “Project Podesta.” This was a system that enabled the Clintons to push through unpopular policies that neither Congress nor the American people wanted. Its implementation marked a dramatic tilt in the balance of power, giving the executive branch an unprecedented ability to force its will on the legislative branch.
Project Podesta enabled the President to bypass Congress through the use of executive orders, presidential decision directives, White-House-sponsored lawsuits, vacancy appointments to high federal office, selective regulatory actions against targeted corporations, and a host of other extra-constitutional tactics.
In short, Podesta showed the Clintons that they could gain by force what they might fail to achieve through legislation. “Stroke of the pen. Law of the land. Kind of cool,” quipped White House aide Paul Begala to The New York Times on July 5, 1998, in response to questions about the Clintons’ growing disdain for the will of Congress.
Project Podesta’s most ambitious exercise was the war on Yugoslavia which Clinton launched by executive order on April 13, 1999, in defiance of the U.S. Congress and the United Nations.
When US News and World Report first revealed the existence of Project Podesta on November 1, 1999, two Congressional hearings convened to investigate the Clintons’ abuse of executive power. But the investigators issued no reports and took no action.
Keep reading here……….
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From the Washington Post:
Sweeping new gun laws proposed by influential liberal think tank
By Philip Rucker,
Published: January 12, 2012
Excerpt:
With President Obama readying an overhaul of the nation’s gun laws, a liberal think tank with singular influence throughout his administration is pushing for a sweeping agenda of strict new restrictions on and federal oversight of gun and ammunition sales.
The Center for American Progress is recommending 13 new gun policies to the White House — some of them executive actions that would not require the approval of Congress — in what amounts to the progressive community’s wish list. [Emphasis added]
CAP’s proposals — which include requiring universal background checks, banning military-grade assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines, and modernizing data systems to track gun sales and enforce existing laws — are all but certain to face stiff opposition from the National Rifle Association and its many allies in Congress.
Obama — as well as Vice President Biden, who is leading the administration’s gun violence task force — has voiced support for many of these measures. Yet it is unclear which policies he ultimately will propose to Congress. Biden is planning to present his group’s recommendations to Obama on Tuesday.
CAP’s recommendations, presented Friday to White House officials and detailed in an 11-page report obtained by The Washington Post, establish a benchmark for what many in Obama’s liberal base are urging him to do after last month’s massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.
Continue reading here…….
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GEORGE SOROS: 13 NEW GUN LAWS NEEDED NOW
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John Podesta, the Center for American Progress, and the Communist-friendly Modern Progressive Movement
by Cliff Kincaid
20 Oct 2011
Center for American Progress (CAP) CEO and President John Podesta, who served as President Clinton’s chief of staff, is a major “progressive Catholic” and member of the ACORN advisory council, and serves as a professor at Georgetown University. Melody Barnes, Obama’s Director of the Domestic Policy Council, was the executive vice president for policy at CAP.
A major recipient of funds from the Soros-funded Open Society Institute (OSI), CAP issued a report on “Islamophobia,” a term suggesting a sickness or mental condition. Indeed, as the tenth anniversary of 9/11 was approaching, the CAP report on “Fear Inc.” purported to examine a conservative network of people and groups guilty of “Islamophobia” toward Muslims. The report seemed deliberately designed to take the attention away from events in the U.S. that were in progress to commemorate the deaths of almost 3,000 Americans killed by radical Muslims on 9/11.
John Podesta
On cue, another Soros-funded group, Media Matters, ran with excerpts from the report, emphasizing the “role played by right-wing media” such as Fox News in supposedly fanning the flames of “Islamophobia.” But CAP has its own propaganda network, which includes foreign propaganda channels Al-Jazeera and Iranian Press TV. They heavily publicized the CAP report.
In contrast to Fox, a private American network, Al-Jazeera and Press TV are foreign-funded.
The CAP report made much of the claim that seven conservative-oriented foundations gave $42.6 million to “Islamophobia think tanks” between 2001 and 2009. But CAP’s income in one year alone, according to Guide Star, which monitors public policy groups, was $38,600,935. The latest annual income of the Center for American Progress Action Fund was reported as $8,966,943.
So this means that CAP’s money surpassed the think tanks it attacks in the report by about $5 million in one year alone.
This newsworthy fact, which went unnoticed in media coverage of the “Fear Inc.” report, demonstrates how Soros-funded groups now dominate the public policy debate and try to silence voices which disagree with them. CAP plays a key role in this strategy.
Targeting American Catholics
Podesta’s “Catholic” affiliation was undoubtedly a factor in the decision by the OSI to give CAP $150,000 in 2005 for a “Faith and Public Life Resource Center.” Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough, a former Senior Fellow at CAP, was the moderator of a May 10, 2006, CAP event on “How Catholic Progressives View the Role of Faith in Governance.” He has noted that Obama’s work as an organizer on the South Side of Chicago “was funded partly” by the “Catholic Church campaign for human development…” – the CCHD.
Obama was himself trained by top Alinskyian organizers, named for Marxist organizer Saul Alinsky, who said:
“To effect constructive changes in the life of the Back of the Yards Neighborhood (Alinsky’s first organization in Chicago). These two elemental social institutions are, First, The Catholic Church and, second, organized Labor”
One of these organizers was the ex-Jesuit, Greg Galuzzo, lead organizer for Gamaliel. The Developing Communities Project operated under the Gamaliel Foundation, a network of Alinskyian organizations that also received CCHD grants. Gamaliel, which has also received Soros OSI grants, calls Obama a former Gamaliel organizer and boasts of connections to top White House officials such as Obama friend Valerie Jarrett.
The Developing Communities Project, which hired Obama as lead organizer, was an offshoot of the Calumet Community Religious Conference of Alinsky-trained Jerry Kellman. The network of community organizations Alinsky founded, known as the Industrial Areas Foundation, also received CCHD grants.
The grants are being used, however, not just to seize power, but to change the minds of traditional Catholics. Indeed, this is a necessary prerequisite for taking power.
Alinskyian training sessions in the religious context are designed not to develop or cultivate a personal relationship with Christ and promote traditional values and cultural institutions but to engage in Marxist political activity and radical change. Analyst Stephanie Block puts it this way: “Their worldview is marred by visions of class struggle and perpetual revolution. They are systematically trained to renounce moral truth in favor of consensus-based ‘values.’”
What has happened over the years, some of these experts say, is that Catholics trained in Alinskyian thought have become confused about moral issues and problems. They think, for example, that opposition to the death penalty is on the same moral plane as opposition to abortion, even though Catholic moral teaching has never precluded capital punishment. They believe that fighting “global warming” is as important as saving the lives of unborn children or preventing the killing of the elderly. They are trained to fight for abortion and homosexual “rights” in violation of traditional Catholic Church teaching.
Soros is putting significant resources into several official and unofficial Catholic organizations. For example, our analysis finds that Soros money has gone into the Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC), an organization established by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops back in 1988.
Yet, the Soros-funded Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) on September 13, 2011, formally urged the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor to investigate the Vatican for alleged crimes against humanity because of child sex crimes committed by Catholic priests.
Soros is trying to buy off or put the squeeze on the Catholic Church because he sees it as a global competitor for power. An atheist committed to the “right to die,” he opposes its emphasis on the right to life from conception to natural death and fears that its global power could undermine his vision of the “open society.”
The Podesta Brothers
In regard to the Middle East, CAP foreign policy expert Brian Katulis had argued that the U.S. ought to pull the plug on the Hosni Mubarak government in Egypt and deal with the pro-terrorist Muslim Brotherhood. This was the policy adopted by the Obama Administration. The International Crisis Group (ICG), which is in the top 20 organizations funded by OIS, issued a 2008 report urging Egyptian government acceptance of the Muslim Brotherhood. One key ICG member is Robert Malley, a former adviser to Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign. Malley resigned after it was exposed he had communicated with Hamas, a Muslim Brotherhood off-shoot. His father, Simon Malley, was an important figure in the Egyptian Communist Party.
Writing on the website of CAP, journalist Pratap Chatterjee hjad noted that Tony Podesta, “the brother of a former White House chief of staff,” joined with Toby Moffett, a former Democratic Congressman, and Bob Livingston, a former Republican Congressman, to create a lobbying organization, the PLM Group, to represent Egypt in Washington.
Keep reading here………
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The Center for American Progress’ connection to the United Nations:
THE SECRETARY-GENERAL’S HIGH-LEVEL PANEL OF EMINENT PERSONS ON THE POST-2015 DEVELOPMENT AGENDA
In July 2012, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced the 27 members of a High-level Panel to advise on the global development framework beyond 2015, the target date for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The Panel is co-chaired by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, and Prime Minister David Cameron of the United Kingdom, and it includes leaders from civil society, private sector and government.
The Panel is part of the Secretary-General’s post-2015 initiative mandated by the 2010 MDG Summit. UN Member States have called for open, inclusive consultations involving civil society, the private sector, academia and research institutions from all regions, in addition to the UN system, to advance the development framework beyond 2015.
The work of the Panel will reflect new development challenges while also drawing on experience gained in implementing the MDGs, both in terms of results achieved and areas for improvement.
The Panel’s work will be closely coordinated with that of the intergovernmental working group tasked to design Sustainable Development Goals, as agreed at the Rio +20 conference. The reports of both groups will be submitted to Member States for their further deliberations.
The Panel will submit a report containing recommendations to the Secretary-General in May 2013.
Framing Questions for the Panel’s Work- Press statement on meeting of the High-level Panel, London, 2 November 2012
- Communiqué on the Secretary General’s High Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda
- Press release: UN Secretary-General Appoints High-level Panel on Post-2015 Development Agenda
- Terms of Reference for the High-level Panel
LINK
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UNITED NATIONS PRESS RELEASE , 31 July 2012
Press contact:
Charlotte Scaddan, UN Department of Public Information, scaddan@un.org, +1-917-367-9378 UN SECRETARY-GENERAL APPOINTS HIGH-LEVEL PANEL
ON POST-2015 DEVELOPMENT AGENDA
Civil society, Private sector and Government leaders named to 26-member advisory Panel
United Nations, New York, 31 July 2012 – United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today announced the members of a High-level Panel to advise on the global development agenda beyond 2015, the target date for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The Secretary-General has appointed three co-chairs: President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia; President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia; and Prime Minister David Cameron of the United Kingdom. The full list of Panel members is available below.
“I have asked my High-level Panel to prepare a bold yet practical development vision to present to Member States next year,” said the UN chief. “I look forward to the Panel’s recommendations on a global post-2015 agenda with shared responsibilities for all countries and with the fight against poverty and sustainable development at its core.”
The Panel will hold its first meeting at the end of September in the margins of the annual high- level debate of the UN General Assembly. It is expected to submit a report to the Secretary- General in the first half of 2013.
The Panel is part of the Secretary-General’s post-2015 initiative mandated by the 2010 MDG Summit.
The work of the Panel will reflect new development challenges while also drawing on experience gained in implementing the MDGs, both in terms of results achieved and areas for improvement.
Member States have called for open, inclusive consultations involving civil society, the
private sector, academia and research institutions from all regions, in addition to the UN system,to advance the development agenda beyond 2015.
The Panel’s work will be closely coordinated with that of the intergovernmental working group tasked to design Sustainable Development Goals, as agreed at the Rio +20 conference. The reports of both groups will be submitted to Member States for their further deliberations.
The Secretary-General’s High-level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post 2015 Development Agenda
H.E. Mr. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, President of Indonesia
Co-Chair
H.E. Ms. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of Liberia
Co-Chair
H.E. Mr. David Cameron, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Co-Chair
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Fulbert Gero Amoussouga (Benin)
Mr. Gero Amoussouga heads the Economic Analysis Unit of the President of the Republic of Benin, current chair of the African Union. He is also the Director of the Graduate School of the Faculty of Economics and Management at the University of Abomey, where he specialises in research on African economic development.
Vanessa Petrelli Corrêa (Brazil)
Ms. Petrelli Corrêa is President of Brazil’s Institute for Applied Economic Research, a public federal foundation linked to the Secretariat for Strategic Studies of the Presidency of Brazil. The Institute conducts research to support the design and implementation of governmental policies and development programs in Brazil, and is responsible for technical coordination of Brazil’s follow-up process for the MDGs.
Yingfan Wang (China)
Mr. Yingfan is a current member of the Secretary-General’s MDG Advocacy Group, a group of eminent personalities who have shown outstanding leadership in promoting the implementation of the MDGs. He is a career diplomat. In 1995, he served as Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs until the year 2000, when he became the Permanent Representative of China to the UN in New York. From 2003 to 2008, he served as Vice-Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Chinese National People’s Congress.
Maria Angela Holguin (Colombia)
Ms. Holguín is the current Foreign Minister of Colombia. Her career spans two decades of activity in the private and public sectors, including senior positions in the Office of the President of the Republic, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Office of the Inspector General of the Nation. She previously served as Permanent Representative of Colombia to the United Nations.
Gisela Alonso (Cuba)
Ms. Alonso is the current President of the Cuban Agency of Environment. Ms. Alonso has been an active advocate for the sustainable development of Small Island Developing States.
Jean-Michel Severino (France)
Mr. Severino was the Director General of the French Development Agency. He worked for the French Ministry of Finance and Economy in several capacities, including adviser of the Minister for Development, leader of the Development Ministry’s geographical coordination, and Director of the Ministry’s Development Programs. In the period 1996 – 2000 he was at the World Bank, first as Director for Central Europe, and then Vice-President for Asia.
Horst Kohler (Germany)
Mr. Kohler is a former President of the Federal Republic of Germany (2004-2010). He previously served as Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, and President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
Naoto Kan (Japan)
Mr. Kan is a former Prime Minister of Japan, Minister of Health and Welfare, and Chairman of Japan’s Foreign Affairs Committee. He is currently an advisor on renewable energy for Japan’s Technical Committee on Renewable Energy. As Prime Minister, Mr. Kan lead Japan’s emergency response to the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident.
H.M. Queen Rania of Jordan (Jordan)
Queen Rania Al Abdullah is the wife of H.M. King Abdullah of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. An advocate and a humanitarian, Queen Rania serves as an Eminent Advocate for UNICEF and Honorary Chairperson for the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI). The Jordan River Foundation (JRF) is Queen Rania’s NGO that focuses on the disadvantaged in Jordan.
Betty Maina (Kenya)
Ms. Maina is the Chief Executive of Kenya’s Association of Manufacturers, one of the country’s leading business associations with some 700 members. Ms. Maina was previously at the Institute of Economic Affairs, the Center for International Private Enterprise, and the Kenya Leadership Institute, among others. She served on Denmark’s Africa Commission and currently sits on various boards in the public sector.
Abhijit Banerjee (India)
Mr. Banerjee is currently the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2003, he co-founded the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab. Mr. Banerjee is a past president of the Bureau for the Research in the Economic Analysis of Development. His areas of research are development economics and economic theory.
Andris Piebalgs (Latvia)
Mr. Piebalgs is the current Commissioner for Development for the European Commission. He was previously European Commissioner for Energy (2004-2009), Deputy Secretary of State, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia (2003-2004), Minister of Finance of Latvia (1994-1995) and Minister of Education of Latvia (1990-1993).
Patricia Espinosa (Mexico)
Ms. Espinosa is the current Secretary of Foreign Affairs for Mexico. From June 2001 to 2006, she served as Ambassador to Austria, Slovenia, Slovakia, and Germany, and as Permanent Representative to the International Organizations in Vienna. Previously, she was Director General of Regional Organizations of the Americas at the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs.
Paul Polman (Netherlands)
Mr. Polman is the Chief Executive Officer of Unilever. Prior to joining Unilever, Mr. Polman was Chief Financial Officer of Nestlé S.A.. He serves as President of the Kilimanjaro Blind trust and Chairman of Perkins International Advisory Board. He is also a member of the International Business Council of the World Economic Forum, the Swiss American Chamber of Commerce, and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (Nigeria)
Ms. Okonjo-Iweala is the Minister of Finance for the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Prior to this appointment, she was the Managing Director of World Bank and Foreign Minister of Nigeria. Prior to her ministerial career, Ms. Okonjo-Iweala was Vice-President and Corporate Secretary of the World Bank Group.
Elvira Nabiullina (Russian Federation)
Ms. Nabiullina is currently the Economic Adviser to Russian President, Vladimir Putin. She is a former Minister of Economic Development and Trade and Deputy Minister of Economy.
Graça Machel (South Africa)
Ms. Machel is a current member of The Elders, an independent group of global leaders who work together for peace and human rights which she co-founded with her husband, former President Nelson Mandela of South Africa. She is also a UN independent expert on the impact of armed conflict on children, international advocate for women’s and children’s rights, former freedom fighter and Education and Culture Minister of Mozambique.
Sung-Hwan Kim (Republic of Korea)
Mr. Kim is the current Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade for the Republic of Korea. He has held a number of ministerial posts including and senior diplomatic posts representing the Republic of Korea to international organizations, the United States of America, the Russian Federation, Uzbekistan and India.
Gunilla Carlsson (Sweden)
Ms. Carlsson is the current Minister for International Development Cooperation of Sweden. She has held a number of senior posts in the Swedish Government in the areas of foreign affairs, EU affairs and education and is a former member of the European Parliament.
Emilia Pires (Timor-Leste)
Ms. Pires is the Minister of Finance of Timor-Leste. Ms. Pires has a background in development, and senior experience in planning, public finance management, development and aid policies.
Kadir Topbaş (Turkey)
Mr. Topbaş is the current Mayor of Istanbul and President of United Cities and Local Governments, and an expert in urban rehabilitation, social transformation and the management of the urban challenges faced by fast-growing cities.
John Podesta (United States of America)
Mr. Podesta is Chair of the Center for American Progress. He previously served as Co-Chair of the Obama-Biden Transition and as White House Chief of Staff to President William J. Clinton. He served in the president’s cabinet and as a principal on the National Security Council.
Tawakel Karman (Yemen)
Ms. Karman is a young Yemini journalist, human rights activist and politician who was awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize for her role in promoting the “non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work” during the 2011 Yemeni uprising.
Amina J. Mohammed (ex officio)
Ms. Mohammed is the Special Advisor of the Secretary-General on Post-2015 Development Planning.
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