konane's Blog

Nobel Winner on Bush's Tax Cuts

"Prized Comments"
   
Last week the Nobel Committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced Edward C. Prescott as the co-winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. Currently the W. P. Carey Chair of Economics at Arizona State University and a senior monetary advisor at the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank, Dr. Prescott is known for his influential work on business cycles and economic development.
 
The Nobel Committee's press release noted that, "Whereas earlier research had emphasized macroeconomic shocks on the demand side of the economy, Kydland [the other co-winner] and Prescott demonstrated that shocks on the supply side may have far-reaching effects." And, a release on Arizona State's website called attention to a recent paper of Dr. Prescott's, which determined, "the reason Americans work longer hours than Europeans is the disincentive effect associated with higher taxes in Europe. Moreover, these disincentives result in a large loss in well being for the average European."
 
Given these statements and his status as the latest Nobel Laureate in Economics, Dr. Prescott's opinion of President Bush's tax cuts, which are coming under withering attack from his Democratic challenger John Kerry, couldn't be timelier.
           
During an interview last week on CNBC financial television, Dr. Prescott told the audience that, "What Bush has done has been not very big, it's pretty small" in terms of bringing down federal income taxes. But Prescott went further, saying, "Tax rates were not cut enough" and noted "Lower tax rates provided an incentive to work."
 
Interestingly the mainstream press has given short shrift to these extraordinary comments; one can't help but wonder if the media response would have been the same had Dr. Prescott been critical of the tax cuts.
 
But Prescott is correct. As a share of Gross Domestic Product, Bush's original 2003 plan would have reduced taxes by an annual average of 0.44 percent over its lifespan (the tax cut that subsequently passed was somewhat smaller). In contrast, John F. Kennedy proposed to slash taxes by 2.0 percent of GDP, and Ronald Reagan by 3.3 percent.
 
Even when taken together, the 2001 tax cut law and Bush's 2003 proposal amounted to a 1.6 percent slice of GDP -- less than half the size of Reagan's cuts and significantly smaller than Kennedy's tax cuts. The trend also held true when examining the tax cuts as a percentage of average revenues collected (total taxes) over the life of the tax cuts. 
 
Nevertheless, self-appointed "experts" continue to gain airtime by blaming the Bush tax cuts for creating the current budget deficits. But tax cuts weren't the wellspring that started the river of red ink flowing from Washington. Look instead to the Administration's four-year spending binge, which helped boost total outlays by 29 percent since 2001. For its part, Congress has only helped to open the floodgates.
 
Dr. Prescott also made a statement that bears directly on the tax-policy bromides peddled by candidate Kerry. Prescott said that, "in the early '90s the economy was depressed by the tax increase in '93 by about four percent, and it's right at that level now." In essence, the Bush cuts in marginal income tax rates basically just got us back to the rates we had right prior to the Clinton tax increase -- a tax increase that slowed America's emergence from the recession at that time.
 
But did the federal revenue boom of the 1990s later prove Prescott wrong? On the contrary. A hard-charging stock market along with major productivity gains helped to fatten federal coffers during those years, but both trends share a common ancestor -- the capital gains and other tax reductions of 1997. Steve Moore, leader of the Club for Growth, found that the lower capital gains rate after the 1997 tax cut yielded 80 percent more revenue over the following four-year period than was projected if the rate had remained at its 1997 level.
 
Prescott's comments are also applicable to more recent economic history. The U.S. has recently gone through a recession that ended up being milder-than-expected, thanks in part to the soft economic landing that the Bush cuts in marginal income and dividend rates provided. However, the economy is still facing difficult challenges including war and increasing oil prices. And astonishingly, John Kerry's solution is a rollback of the President's tax cuts -- a tax increase -- coupled with even more government spending than the Bush administration is advocating (yes, it is possible).
 
Kerry's position is more than just election-year demagoguery -- it is economic nonsense. But don't take my word for it. Don't take President Bush's word for it either. Just ask the latest winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics."
 

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Entry #5

Terrorism and the Mob

"Terrorism and the Mob
 
 By now, everyone in America knows that John Kerry has compared fighting terrorism to prosecuting organized crime figures for gambling and prostitution. The comparison has attracted a lot of criticism. Actually, it's a pretty good analogy -- but it leads to a different lesson than Kerry believes.

Begin with the candidate's own words: 

"As a normer law-enforcement person, I know we're never going to end prostitution. We're never going to end illegal gambling. But we're going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where it isn't on the rise. It isn't threatening people's lives every day, and fundamentally, it's something that you continue to fight, but it's not threatening the fabric of your life." 

When Kerry was a prosecutor in the late 1970s and early 1980s, "organized crime" meant the Mob. Gambling and prostitution were among the many ways Mafia families and similar organizations made money. Prosecutions for those crimes could take down leading crime bosses. That tradition goes all the way back to the 1930s, when then-District Attorney Tom Dewey made a national name for himself by nailing Lucky Luciano on prostitution charges. 

The point of those prosecutions was never to stamp out gambling or prostitution. Gambling is hardly a scourge; most states run lotteries. Prostitution is widely tolerated. To prosecutors like Dewey and Kerry, those crimes were pretexts -- tools for convicting and punishing people like Luciano. Just like prosecuting Al Capone for tax evasion. The focus was on nailing the criminal, not stopping the crime. 

Why not prosecute people like Capone and Luciano for more serious crimes? Mobsters used violence to take over legitimate businesses and labor unions, then looted them. The result was economic strangulation and fear. Why not convict and punish Mafiosi for that? Sometimes, we did. But only sometimes, because proving racketeering and extortion is and always has been both hard and expensive. Local prosecutors like Kerry couldn't afford to do it -- if they had tried, they would have had no time or manpower to go after ordinary street crime. Gambling and prostitution cases were the next best thing. 

Enter terrorism. Prosecutors would like to nail would-be mass murderers for planning to blow up buildings or spread nerve gas or otherwise slaughter innocent men and women. But that is even harder than prosecuting Mafia bosses for racketeering. Proving that Mohamed Atta is guilty of mass murder is easy -- but he's already dead. Proving it ahead of time, before September 11, proving it beyond a reasonable doubt, proving it without disclosing sources the government will need in other investigations -- those things are nearly impossible. 

That is why, when the Justice Department prosecutes would-be terrorists, it usually prosecutes them for something other than terrorism: immigration fraud, lying to government agents, money laundering, and the like. At least in this respect, Al Qaida is like the Mob. Pretext prosecutions are a practical necessity. 

But hardly a solution. Pretext prosecutions are bad public relations -- they make the defendants seem sympathetic, like people who are being hounded by the government for penny-ante crimes. They are often expensive -- proving crime bosses guilty of gambling or prostitution was easier than proving racketeering, but it wasn't a walk in the park. So too, proving money-laundering might be easier than proving attempted mass murder, but it is far from a slam dunk. Finally, pretext crimes rarely generate long sentences. If you want to put someone away for the rest of his life, a prostitution or mail fraud charge is a poor way to do it. 

All of which explains why the criminal justice system was never able to kill off the Mafia. Competition from drug gangs, state-sponsored lotteries, the decline of industrial unions, creative use of other regulatory tools by officials like then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani -- these and other trends killed off old-style organized crime. The criminal justice system didn't, because it couldn't. Proving the relevant crimes was too expensive. 

If we wait long enough, Islamic terrorism will meet the same fate as the Mafia. Long-term political and social forces in the Muslim world will push toward secular democracy, not religious dictatorship. Eventually, terrorism will be "a nuisance," just as Kerry said. But that will take awhile, just as it took awhile for market forces to wear down the Mafia. We can't just wait; we have to do something to speed that happy day along. 

And criminal prosecutions are not a promising option. No one is willing to wait for a nuclear weapon to blow away an American city and then prosecute the conspirators who survived the blast. Nor does it make sense to devote massive resources to building cases for small-potatoes crimes that will put away would-be murderers for a year or two, after which they can resume their homicidal careers. 

Perhaps that is why military and intelligence services have played such a large role in the war on terrorism. Some crime problems are intractable. Seen as a crime problem, terrorism is intractable too. It makes sense to redefine the problem, to look for other tools. This war needs to be fought by the Army and the CIA, not merely the Justice Department.

Therein lies the real problem with Kerry's comments. Kerry thinks America's seventy-year-long battle against the Mafia was a success story. He is wrong. Tolerating Mob bosses (which is what we did for most of those seventy years) was very costly. Tolerating terrorism -- or leaving it to police and prosecutors, which amounts to the same thing -- would be a disaster. 

William J. Stuntz is a Professor at Harvard Law School."

 http://www.techcentralstation.com/102004B.html

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Entry #4

Kerry and Eurabia, a terrorist's best friend

This is the new Europe Kerry wants to align the US government, US policy with by subordinating our sovereignty to both Eurabia and the UN.  

A total eye opener for me, a very worthwhile read and boy does it explain a lot the press and Kerry are NOT telling us!!!!  Several live links embedded which are accessible with Internet Explorer.

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"Eurabia"
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | September 21, 2004

Frontpage Interview's guest today is Bat Ye'or, the world's foremost authority on dhimmitude.

Her latest study is Islam and Dhimmitude. Where Civilizations Collide/SPAN/I. Her forthcoming book, Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, will be published in January 2005.

 

FP: Bat Ye'or, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

 

Bat Ye'or: Thanks for inviting me to your prestigious magazine.

 

FP: First things first, can you explain the term "Eurabia" to our readers?

 

Bat Ye'or: Eurabia represents a geo-political reality envisaged in 1973 through a system of innormal alliances between, on the one hand, the nine countries of the European Community (EC)which, enlarged, became the European Union (EU) in 1992 and on the other hand, the Mediterranean Arab countries. The alliances and agreements were elaborated at the top political level of each EC country with the representative of the European Commission, and their Arab homologues with the Arab League's delegate. This system was synchronised under the roof of an association called the Euro-Arab Dialogue (EAD) created in July 1974 in Paris. A working body composed of committees and always presided jointly by a European and an Arab delegate planned the agendas, and organized and monitored the application of the decisions.

 

The field of Euro-Arab collaboration covered every domain: from economy and policy to immigration. In foreign policy, it backed anti-Americanism, anti-Zionism and Israel's delegitimization; the promotion of the PLO and Arafat; a Euro-Arab associative diplomacy in international forums; and NGO collaboration. In domestic policy, the EAD established a close cooperation between the Arab and European media television, radio, journalists, publishing houses, academia, cultural centers, school textbooks, student and youth associations, tourism. Church interfaith dialogues were determinant in the development of this policy. Eurabia is therefore this strong Euro-Arab network of associations -- a comprehensive symbiosis with cooperation and partnership on policy, economy, demography and culture.

 

Eurabia is the future of Europe. Its driving force, the Parliamentary Association for Euro-Arab Cooperation, was created in Paris in 1974. It now has over six hundred members -- from all major European political parties -- active in their own national parliaments, as well as in the European parliament. The creation of this body and its policy follow the 23 resolutions of the "Second International Conference in Support of the Arab Peoples", held in Cairo in January 1969. Its resolution 15 normulates the Euro-Arab policy and its all-embracing development over thirty years in European domestic and foreign policy.

 

It stated: "The conference decided to norm special parliamentary groups, where they did not exist, and to use the parliamentary platnorm for promoting support of the Arab people and the Palestinian resistance." In the 1970s, pursuant to the wishes of the Cairo Conference, national groups proclaiming "Solidarity with the Palestinian Resistance and the Arab peoples" appeared throughout Europe. These groups belonged to different political families, Gaullists, extreme left or right, communists, neo-Nazis -- but they all shared the same anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism. France has been the key protagonist of this policy, ever since de Gaulle's press conference on 27 November 1967 when he presented France's cooperation with the Arab world as "the fundamental basis of our foreign policy".

 

FP: Is Europe's dependence on Arab oil a predominant factor in its pro-Arab policy?

 

Bat Ye'or: No, I don't think so. Arab leaders have to sell their oil; their people are very dependent on European economic, health and technological aid. America made this point during the oil embargo in 1973. The oil factor is a pretext to cover up a policy that emerged in France before that crisis. The policy was already conceived in the 1960s. It has strong antecedents in the French 19th century dream of governing an Arab empire and the exploitation of antisemitism to strengthen Arab Muslim-French solidarity against a demonized common enemy. Eurabia is not only a web of various agreements covering every field. It is essentially a political project for a total demographic and cultural symbiosis between Europe and the Arab world, where Israel will eventually dissolve. America would be isolated and challenged by an emerging Euro-Arab continent that is linked to the whole Muslim world and invested with tremendous political and economic power in international affairs. The policies of "multilateralism" and "soft diplomacy" express this deepening symbiosis. The Euro-Arab agreements are merely the tools for the creation of this new "continent." Eurabia is also based on the vision of Christian-Muslim reconciliation and has been strongly advocated by religious Christian bodies.

 

FP: For a moment, France looked like it was totally lost. But it seems to have adopted a new foreign policy, more oriented toward Europe. What is your view of this?

 

Bat Ye'or: France and the rest of Western Europe cannot change their policy anymore. Their future is Eurabia. Period. I don't see how they can reverse the movement they set in motion thirty years ago. Nor do Eurabians want to modify this policy. It is a project that was conceived, planned and pursued consistently through immigration policy, propaganda, church support, economic associations and aid, cultural, media and academic collaboration. Generations grew up within this political framework; they were educated and conditioned to support it and go along with it. This is the source of the strong anti-American feeling in Europe and of the paranoiac obsession with Israel, two elements that norm the cornerstone of Eurabia. The new French orientation toward Europe indicates that France will work within Europe, and particularly with the new Eastern member states of the European Union, to convince them to forgo their Atlanticist vision and reorient their alliances toward the Arab Muslim world. This was French policy in the 1960s when Paris became the advocate of the Arab cause in the European Community. Until 1971, France had been isolated in the EC in its anti-Israel stance. European Community critics accused it of bias toward the Arab world. Faced with the oil crisis, the nine EC countries -- under French and German leadership -- unified their views regarding the Middle East conflict and this generated the Euro-Arab Dialogue's overall development.

 

FP: Tell us about the Prodi project where Tariq Ramadan and others have collaborated.

 

Bat Ye'or: Prodi's project is the fulfillment of Eurabia. It is called  the Dialogue between Peoples and Cultures in the Euro-Mediterranean Area.

 

It was requested by Romano Prodi, the President of the European Commission, and accepted at the Sixth Euro-Mediterranean Conference of Foreign Affairs Ministers in Naples on 2-3 December 2003. It represents a strategy for closer Euro-Arab symbiosis to be implemented by a Foundation that will control, direct and monitor it. Last May the European ministers of foreign affairs accepted the creation of the  Anna Lindh Foundation for the Dialogue of Cultures with its seat in Alexandria, Egypt. Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh, murdered by an insane man, was a key advocate of the Palestinian cause and the boycott of Israel. Lindh was known for her  criticism of Israeli and American policies of self-defense against terror. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana was a close friend,  calling her a true European.

 

The Foundation will endeavor through numerous means to reinforce links of mutuality, solidarity and "togetherness" between the Northern and Southern shores of the Mediterranean, that is, Europe and the Arab countries. The authors of the project carefully avoid such characterizations since -- in the spirit of Edward Said -- they are judged anathema and racist. This is explained in the  report s text, but I use them for clarification. It is the Eurabian context, representing a totally anti-American and anti-Zionist culture and policy, that explains the strong reaction against the war in Iraq -- itself integrated into the war against Islamic terrorism. A terrorism that Eurabia has denied, blaming Israel's "injustice and occupation" and America's "arrogance" instead. Eurabia has transnormed Islamic terrorism into a cliche: "America is the problem" in order to consolidate the web of alliances that support its whole geostrategy.

 

FP: What is the significance of Solana's declaration?

 

Bat Ye'or: Solana is strongly implicated in the EU Arabophile and pro-Palestinian policy conducted intensively under Prodi as a European self-protective reaction to the American war against terror. If one examines the EC/EU declarations since 1977 on the Arab-Israeli conflict, one notices that they espouse Arab League decisions and positions: the 1949 armistice lines imposed on Israel, although never recognized as international boundaries; the creation on those boundaries of a Palestinian state not mentioned by UN resolution 242; the acknowledgement of the PLO as the sole representative of the Palestinian people, and of Arafat as its leader, with the obligation for Israel to negotiate exclusively with him; and initially the refusal of separate peace treaties. The EU adopted all these Arab League requests as well as repeated threats of  economic and cultural boycott against Israel, constantly demanded by the Europeans' close Arab allies and their powerful lobby, the  Parliamentary Association for Euro-Arab Cooperation. On 3 March 2004, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, when asked about U.S. proposals to requested democratic renorms in Arab states, declared:

 

"The peace process always has to be at the center of whatever initiative is in the field. . . ­Any idea about (renorm of) nations would have to be in parallel with putting a priority on the resolution of the peace process, otherwise it will be very difficult to have success." (Reuters, "Solana: Mideast peace vital for Arab renorms"; see also Neil MacFarquhar "Arab states start plan of their own Mideast", International Herald Tribune, March 4, 2004.)

 

Solana just repeated the opinion of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak after his meeting with him. Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa shared this opinion and refused to consider any renorms in Arab countries before the settlement of the Arab-Palestinian conflict, a settlement whose overall conditions imply Israel's destruction. Hence, any democratization and change of Arab societies demanded by the West are linked by the Arabs to its participation in Israel's demise. This link was rejected by Senior U.S. State Department official Marc Grossman when visiting Cairo on 2 March 2004. He said that the democracy plan should not depend on a settlement of the Middle East conflict. But Egypt's foreign minister, Ahmed Maher, answered him:

 

"Egypt's position is that one of the basic obstacles to the renorm process is the continuation of Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people and the Arab people." 

 

According to Reuters, Amr Moussa, speaking at the opening session of a regular ministerial meeting, declared: 

 

"The Palestinian cause...is the key to stability or instability in the region, and this issue will continue to influence in all its elements the development of the Arab region until a just solution is reached."

 

Eurabian notables, whether Chirac, de Villepin, Solana, Prodi, or others, have continuously stressed the centrality of the Palestinian cause for world peace, as if more European vilification of Israel would change anything in the global jihad waged in the US, in Asia, and from Africa to Chechnya the latest horrendous tragedy in Ossetia is but one example. In such a view, Israel's very existence, not this genocidal jihadist drive, is a threat to peace. The Euro-Arab linkage of Arab/Islamic renorms to Israel's stand is spurious and only demonstrates, once more, Europe's subservience to Arab policy. Numerous Arab and Islamic Summits have imposed the centrality of their Palestinian policy on the world and requested that all political problems should be subordinated to it. The EU likewise.

 

FP: You often refer to a Euro-Arab Palestinian cult. What do you mean by it?

 

Bat Ye'or: It means precisely this Palestinian centrality that's promoted in Europe as a key to world peace. However, the Euro-Arab Palestinian cult goes much deeper than a political tool used for a Euro-Arab Partnership policy against America and Israel. It is linked to theological currents of Judeophobia and a replacement theology based on the Palestinization of the Bible and the rejection of its Jewish roots in order to delegitimize Israel's history and rights on its land. The Euro-Arab Palestinian cult symbolized the redemption of Christianity and Islam and their reconciliation on the ashes of Israel, the work of Satan -- a belief propagated by the media's continuous demonization of Israel, and Palestinian victimization. This cult brings together neo-Nazis, Judeophobes, anti-Americans, communists and jihadists. It is a revival of Nazi anti-Jewish and anti-Christian trends, particularly in its hatred of Christian Bible believers and America, the country that was determinant in the defeat of Nazism and Communism. In the 1930-40s, the Nazis had strong links with Palestinians, and those sympathies and alliances continued throughout the years after World War II, thriving in the Euro-Arab Palestinian cult that submerged Western Europe under the umbrella of the gigantic Euro-Arab Dialogue apparatus.

 

FP: But what does the public in Europe think about their Eurabian future? Are they aware of it? Do they go along with it?

 

Bat Ye'or: The public ignores this strategy, its details and functioning, but there is a strong awareness, anxiety and discontent over the current situation and particularly the antisemitic trends. This Eurabian policy, expressed in obscure wording, is conducted at the top political level and coordinated over the whole EU, spreading an anti-American and antisemitic Euro-Arab sub-culture in every social, media and cultural sector. Oriana Fallaci has given voice to this general opposition. But there are also many others. They are boycotted, sometimes fired from their jobs, victims of a type of totalitarian "correctness" imposed mainly by the academic, media and political sectors.

 

FP: What have you to say about the French journalists taken hostage and France's reactions?

 

Bat Ye'or: Chirac hoped that they would be liberated as a favor to French Arabophile and pro-Palestinian militancy, a dhimmi service for Arab policy that deserves a favor not granted to others. This tragedy has revealed France's good relations with terrorist organizations such as Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and others. It has also uncovered France's dependency on its considerable Muslim population for its home and foreign policies, as it appeared earlier that their advocacy would determine the liberation of the hostages. But the incredible conditions subsequently put by the terrorists prove that Islamist terrorists apply the same rules to all infidels. It also demonstrates the inanity of a policy of collusion and denial that has always whitewashed Islamic terrorism to avoid confronting it and has constantly transferred its evils onto its victims.

 

France's situation illustrates, in fact, what threatens the whole of Europe through its demographic and political integration within the Arab-Muslim world, as promoted now by the Anna Lindh Foundation. France with Belgium, Germany and perhaps Spain is ahead of the rest of Europe. Britain, Italy and to some extent the East European countries are less marked by the subservience syndrome of dhimmitude which consists in submission and compliance to Muslim policy or face jihad and death. Dhimmitude is linked to the jihad ideology and sharia rules pertaining to infidels and represents the complex historical process of Islamization of the Judeo-Christian, Buddhist, Hindu civilizations across three continents.

 

America has the choice of forgoing its liberty and adopting the European line of dhimmitude and supplication, or maintaining its resolve to fight the war against terrorism for freedom and for universal human rights values.

 

FP: John Kerry has stated repeatedly that he will 'rebuild alliances' with Europe, which he maintains President Bush has disrupted, particularly with nations such as France and Germany. Can you discuss how your scholarship on 'Eurabia' may affect the validity of this claim by Senator Kerry?

 

Bat Ye'or: Anti-Americanism was very popular from the late 1960s onward, when European communist and extreme-leftist parties then represented powerful political forces. It was a decisive factor in the Gaullist pursuance of a strong united Europe, and a major and essential pillar of the Euro-Arab policy and alliances in the 1970s. De Gaulle opposed Britain's participation in the European Community in 1961 and 1967 because of its Atlantic leanings. The Euro-Arab Dialogue construct, which determined the whole European policy toward the Arab-Muslim world, was basically anti-American already in the 1970s. Europe is a sinking continent and the rebuilding of alliances will be at the price of America's security and freedom.

 

The violent European anti-Bush trends are linked to a European internal situation. Bush's declared war on Islamic terrorism unveiled a reality carefully hidden in Europe and has exposed its extreme fragility -- a situation that was compensated by an explosion of anti-Americanism and antisemitism organized by Eurabian networks. Senator Kerry's declaration is inaccurate given the Euro-American context of cultural, political and economic rivalries preceding Bush's election, and especially the emergence of a new and complex situation that the European and American public have not yet fully understood. This is the threat of a global jihad, with its ideology, strategy and tactics, coordinated with its cells worldwide. The difference between Europe and America is that Europe denies it because it cannot nor does it wish to fight for certain values already forfeited. We see here the collision of two radically opposed strategies.

 

FP: Is there any optimism that we can have for Europe? How about to win this war against Islamism?

 

Bat Ye'or: Maybe the recent developments revealing France's failed policy and the horrendous ordeals of children and parents in Ossetia will induce Europeans to bring their politicians and media to accountability. The war against a global jihadist terrorism can be won only if the civilized world is united against barbarity. Until now European democracies supported Arafat, the initiator of jihadist terrorism, hostage-taking and Islamikazes. The war will be won if we name it, if we face it, if we recognize that it obeys specific rules of Islamic war that are not ours; and if democracies and Muslim modernists stop justifying these acts against other countries. The policy of collusion and support for terrorists in order to gain self-protection is a delusion.

 

FP: Bat Ye'or, thank you, our time is up. We'll see you soon.

 

Bat Ye'or: Thank you Jamie.

http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=15044

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Entry #3

Kerry-Soros plans for America

"The Soros-Kerry Nexus" 
 
"While George Soros and John Kerry were vacationing in neighboring mansions in Sun Valley, Idaho, the two men chatted on the phone but avoided a personal meeting, "because," as Soros told USA Today, "of how it would be interpreted."  

For Soros, who has put down at least $18 million to defeat Bush this year, keeping up appearances is essential. Coordination between the 527 groups Soros has been raining money down upon and the Kerry campaign, after all, is strictly verboten in the age of McCain-Feingold. Is it plausible the Dems' billionaire benefactor and the candidate avoided talk of the election campaign strategy entirely? The facts on the ground suggest otherwise.

Soros major anti-Bush donations have gone to MoveOn.org, the group infamous for its over the top, hate-laden ads; and to normer Clinton chief of staff John Podesta's new think tank, the Center for American Progress (CAP); and to America Coming Together, a get-out-the-Democratic vote operation headed by normer AFL-CIO political director Steve Rosenthal and Ellen Malcolm, president of the pro-abortion EMILY's List.

ACT steadfastly denies it is violating federal law by coordinating with the Kerry campaign, but brags on its website that it is currently, "laying the groundwork to defeat George W. Bush and elect Democrats." Maybe the group is thinking of some Democrat other than John Kerry? Perhaps, but then the fact that normer ACT staffer Rodney Shelton is now Kerry's Arkansas state director seems a bit odd. Isolated incident? Nope. Kerry's normer campaign manager Jim Jordan is now on staff at ACT. And techno-whiz Zach Exley left the upper echelons of MoveOn.org to work for Kerry.

 

"It's inevitable that Exley is going to be using MoveOn folks and innormation for the Kerry campaign. The guy was their opposition research guy," a Bush campaign staffer told the Washington Prowler. "The RNC has been saying all along that these guys have been working together, so now the guy responsible for all those anti-Bush ads on TV and the Web is essentially doing the same thing for the Kerry camp? Soros probably has an office in Kerry campaign headquarters by now."

 

Harold Ickes, the widely acknowledged driving force behind Americans Coming Together and the Media Fund, is also a member of the executive committee of the Democratic National Committee. Ickes recently admitted to Business Week that "he occasionally tells the Kerry camp what he's up to." That magazine also noted that ACT and The Media Fund were briefing journalists just down the hall from the DNC Finance Committee's hospitality suite at Boston's Four Seasons Hotel during the Democratic National Convention. These are activities that Soros's vast resources clearly made possible.


So was Soros being facetious when he signed off on a 2000 Open Society Institute report that claimed one of the group's major goals was to get, "states to experiment with various approaches to reduce the pressure of money on elections and legislation, ranging from improved disclosure to full public financing of campaigns"? His 1995 book Soros on Soros contains a clue as to what he may be thinking: "I do not accept the rules imposed by others...I am a law-abiding citizen, but I recognize that there are regimes that need to be opposed rather than accepted. And in periods of regime change, the normal rules don't apply." Clearly, Soros considers himself as someone who is able to determine when the "normal rules" should and shouldn't apply.

Democrats, hungry for a 2004 win, don't much care whether George Soros is following the "normal rules" these days or not. One "Democratic operative" told U.S. News & World Report, "[Republicans] don't accept the legitimacy of political opposition. These people will do anything to gain and hold power. So I'm not exactly feeling full of ethical scruples as we fight for survival."


Aside from desperately attempting to make John Kerry president, what other cause has George Soros bankrolled?
One joint venture between the Tides Foundation, one of potential first lady Teresa Heinz-Kerry's favorite charities, and Soros's Open Society Institute is the Democratic Justice Fund, which FrontPage Magazine's Ben Johnson has noted, "seeks to ease restrictions on Muslim immigration to the United States, particularly from countries designated by the State Department as `terrorist nations.'"

 

Long term, if Soros has his way, the United States won't even remain territorially intact. He funds both the National Council of La Raza and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, two groups that want to essentially eliminate America's borders. In a much hailed 1997 speech to the National Council of La Raza, normer Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo said that he "proudly affirmed that the Mexican nation extends beyond the territory enclosed by its borders and that Mexican migrants are an important - a very important - part of this." As FrontPage Magazine reported earlier this year, OSI has likewise contributed $65,000 to the Malcolm X Grassroots movement, which wants to establish an all-black homeland in the Southeastern United States, from South Carolina to Louisiana. It would be communist, of course.


In September 2003 Soros was invited to speak at one of the State Department's Open Forums, where he laid out his hyper-internationalist aspirations for American society, including his proposed "modification of the concept of sovereignty" which is needed because "sovereignty is basically somewhat anachronistic."

 

Someone ought to ask John Kerry where he stands on all of this. We deserve to know what these two fabulously wealthy power brokers have been planning for us over these vacation phone calls."

http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=15575

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Entry #2