Monday, January 31, 2011

George Soros’ 8 Most Despicable Acts (UPDATED AFTER THREAT BY SOROS’ LAWYERS)

Posted By Kathy Shaidle On September 22, 2010 @ 8:00 am
Editor’s Note: This post has been revised since it was first published. Because its author, Kathy Shaidle, is Canadian she is not protected by the same first amendment and libel laws that Americans are. Thus despite the fact that the information she presented has floated around the American blogosphere for years and was published in David Horowitz and Richard Poe’s The Shadow Party, because of where she lives Soros’ goons were able to target her with legal threats. That is the nature of the totalitarian personality we’re dealing with here.
Update 9/23/10: Read Joseph Klein’s legal analysis of this story here.
Roger Simon has written:
…were I a biographer — an occupation for which I have nowhere near the patience or perspicacity — [George] Soros would be my first choice for a subject. He is a paradigmatic figure for our times, a kind of a monster created in the twentieth century, inexorably metastasizing into the twenty-first.
Everyone’s favorite “progressive” billionaire George Soros has been stomping all over us up here in the Not-So-Great White North this week. Even if you’ve followed the Soros saga for years, you’ll be forgiven for being a tiny bit shocked that his generously funded attack dogs are now going so far as trying to shut down a TV channel that hasn’t even aired yet — in a foreign country, no less.
So let’s review “George Soros’ Most Despicable Acts,” and not just in Canada– with help from his extensive entry in Discover The Networks…

As I reported a short time ago, millions of Canadians have been looking forward to the launch of our first ever non-leftist, politically incorrect news channel. Sun TV News, due to hit the airwaves in January 2011, was quickly dubbed “Fox News North” by its legion of hysterical, panic-stricken detractors in the legacy media and their servile minions.
It didn’t take long for something called Avaaz.org to release an embarrassingly error-filled petition to keep Sun TV News from getting a license. As Sun (print) reporter Brian Lilley explained:
Avaaz operates out of the New York offices of Res Publica, a collective of left-leaning church groups. In addition to Res Publica, Avaaz is backed by MoveOn.org a lobby group that has taken millions of dollars from currency speculator George Soros.
Outraged by this Soros-sponsored interference, tireless champion of freedom (and fellow Sun writer) Ezra Levant slammed Soros in a newspaper column:
[EDITOR'S NOTE: THIS EXCERPT FROM LEVANT'S COLUMN HAS BEEN REMOVED AFTER KATHY SHAIDLE RECEIVED CORRESPONDENCE FROM SOROS' LAWYERS. NO WORD YET ON IF SOROS' LAWYERS HAVE CONTACTED MEDIA MATTERS FOR REPRINTING THE EXCERPT TOO AT THEIR WEBSITE HERE.]
As you can see, Levant relied upon Soros’ own chilling words in a famous 60 Minutes interview, as well as upon research conducted by David Horowitz and even information included in Soros’ authorized biography.
Levant also gleaned information from readily available, public domain sources, such as the unauthorized Soros biography by Robert Slater, which contains troubling revelations, such as this one:
“I grew up,” Soros told acquaintances later in life, “in a Jewish, anti-Semitic home.” Because he was blue eyed and blond haired — resembling his mother rather than his dark-featured father — George did not look Jewish. In fact, he beamed when other children would tell him, “You don’t look Jewish.” Nothing made him feel happier than to be told he did not have the appearance of a Jew.
Now: as far as I know, neither CBS or Horowitz or Soros’ biographers were ever served libel notices by Soros’ lawyers.
The Sun chain was, however. (Remember: Canada has different libel laws and no First Amendment.)
Today the Sun issued an apology and retraction for Levant’s column.
The Canadian left is crowing: they’ve claimed a scalp and are now energized for the fight to keep a “conservative” newschannel from polluting Canadian airwaves and minds.
Thanks, George!

OK, so all that is pretty hard to top, but it’s also part of Soros’ long ago past. Let’s move up to the George Soros of the present, and the future.
I’m not a fan of infowars.com, but Roger Simon cites them in a report on George Soros’ support of a new group designed to undermine the Tea Party movement:
Soros and the foundation left have launched a website designed to go after the growing Tea Party movement. Teapartytracker.org will post video interviews and blog entries gathered by folks on the false left who never grow weary of demonstrating their outrage over the very idea of a grassroots political effort overthrowing establishment Democrats and Republicans in the district of corporate criminals.
Teapartytracker.org will be sponsored by the NAACP, Think Progress, New Left Media and Media Matters for America. Think Progress is a George Soros operation connected to John Podesta’s Center for American Progress. Podesta is Clinton’s former chief of staff. Media Matters for America is the brainchild of a MoveOn consultant and Podesta’s Center for American Progress. Soros is a major supporter of MoveOn.

“I defended Soros from Republican attacks back in 2003,” writes Reason‘s Matt Welch. Last month, however, he revisited some of Soros’ adventures in the intersection between business and politics, citing a 2004 New Yorker profile of the billionaire activist:
Soros said that he tries to maintain a strict separation between his financial and his philanthropic work. Yet he acknowledged, “There are occasionally symbiotic moments between political and business interests.” He cited one example: an attempt to set up a public-policy think tank in England which had at first looked like a fruitless venture; it had landed him in what promised to be one of the most boring conferences of his life.
But, chatting with British notables, he caught a serendipitous glimpse of a way to break into the closed world of the British bond market, which he soon did. It became “one of the most rewarding weekends of my life,” he said. “I made many millions.”
Soros isn’t known as “the Man Who Broke the Bank of England” for nothing!

According to David Horowitz and co-author Richard Poe, Soros is:
the prime mover in the creation of the so-called “Shadow Democratic Party,” or “Shadow Party,” in 2003. This term refers to a nationwide network of more than five-dozen unions, non-profit activist groups, and think tanks whose agendas are ideologically to the left, and which are engaged in campaigning for the Democrats. This network’s activities include fundraising, get-out-the-vote drives, political advertising, opposition research, and media manipulation.
Soros may be a long-time friend and supporter of Hillary Clinton, but her rival, President Obama, has dutifully carried out at least one of Soros’ prescriptions for the economy. Sounding more like a White House czar or a flaky, low level civil servant than an arch-capitalist, Soros declared in 2008:
“I think we need a large stimulus package which will provide funds for state and local government to maintain their budgets … For such a program to be successful, the federal government would need to provide hundreds of billions of dollars. In addition, another infrastructure program is necessary. In total, the cost would be in the 300 to 600 billion dollar range…. I think this is a great opportunity to finally deal with global warming and energy dependence. The U.S. needs a cap and trade system with auctioning of licenses for emissions rights. I would use the revenues from these auctions to launch a new, environmentally friendly energy policy.”
No wonder Soros wants to keep a close eye on the Tea Party!

George Soros also praised the idea of nationalizing America’s banks. Glenn Beck has been on top of this story and reminded viewers of this CNN transcript on a June 2010 show:
FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST: Are you satisfied with the job Barack Obama has done?
GEORGE SOROS, BILLIONAIRE INVESTOR: No, I’m not satisfied. He should have replaced compulsorily replaced the capital that was lost.
ZAKARIA: Which in effect would have been nationalizing the banks.
SOROS: This is what they call nationalizing the banks.
Glenn Beck has also talked about Soros’ connection to Obama’s actions following the BP oil spill. Remember Soros’ colleague John Podesta, who we mentioned above? Well, here’s Beck, who reveals that John Podesta has a brother named Tony:
Tony and John got together, and they started a lobbying company. Now, Tony just happens to be the lobbyist for BP, OK? Now, this is weird, because he’s helping coordinate BP and John is helping coordinate the attack on BP, and they’re brothers in a company they both formed. It’s almost like there might be a conflict of interest here.
I’m trying really hard not to believe that this whole response to the oil spill is some sort of scripted progressive horror show here. But the more you find out, it’s almost like there might have been a deal before BP — why talk to the CEO? You didn’t need to. John could just call up Tony. Tony could call John. George [Soros] could set up the deal and Obama would execute it.
Oh, I couldn’t say “execution,” should I? I’m just saying.
Tony Podesta has more than one client. Are you ready? NBC Universal.
Wait a minute. Hold it. Who owns NBC Universal? GE.
Wait a minute, wait a minute — this is starting to make sense. Who owns the smart grid technology that I just told you about in California? GE. Isn’t that weird?
Back to the Center for American Progress again. This president either has A, a lot of connections in real spooky and dark places. Or it’s the saddest story I’ve ever heard. Because every time we start to look into President Obama, we either find a Marxist, a communist, or somebody a part of Crime, Inc. who is screwing you, the taxpayer, to the wall.

Being a big-time mogul and all, Soros’ c.v. wouldn’t be complete with a foray into the glamorous world of film.
In 1996 Soros launched the Soros Documentary Fund with a mission to “spur awareness, action and social change.” Over the ensuing decade, this Fund would help finance the production of several hundred documentaries. In 2001, the Fund’s leadership was turned over to Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute with a continuing mission: “to support the production of documentaries on social justice, human rights, civil liberties, and freedom of expression issues around the world.”
According to journalist Rondi Adamson, most of the documentaries that that the Fund supports “are highly critical of some aspect of American life, capitalism or Western culture,” and generally share Soros’ worldview that “America is a troubling if not sinister influence in the world, that the War on Terror is a fraud and terrorists are misunderstood freedom fighters, and that markets are fundamentally unjust.” Films which have been produced with the aid of Soros’ funding include Soldiers of Conscience (2007), An American Soldier (2008), and My Baghdad Family.
(You’d think a guy as good at making millions as Soros could figure out how to produce a Hollywood anti-war movie that made money for once. Maybe he’ll have to work on the nationalization of Hollywood next.)

In spite of (or is that “because of”?) his first-hand experience of fascist anti-Semitism, Soros labors under the preposterous and potentially fatal illusion that the “resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe” is the fault of… then-President George W. Bush. He told a group of Jewish philanthropists in 2003:
“There is a resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe. The policies of the Bush administration and the [Israeli prime minister Ariel] Sharon administration contribute to that…. I’m critical of those policies…. If we change that direction, then anti-Semitism also will diminish.”
Soros is right about the resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe. Like many secular, progressive Jews, he is wrong about its cause. It has nothing to do with the usual boogeyman — the mostly mythical gun-toting, Jew-hating “born again” gentile personified by George Bush — and everything to do with the growing Muslim population abroad. Of the sick, twisted manifiestations of Muslim anti-semitism that are on increasing display in Europe, Soros is silent, stubbornly focusing his immeasurable wealth and power on precisely the wrong target.

And so the story comes full circle. As even this brief overview reveals, George Soros, for all his money and power, hasn’t won all the fights he has taken up. George Bush moved back into the Oval Office in 2004, and Hillary Clinton didn’t take his place in 2008. And those anti-war movies Soros bankrolled have bombed.
Perhaps we need to focus our attention on the causes Soros declines to fund — such as the fight to prevent the further growth of Eurabia — as much as those he does.
Update 9/23/10: Read Joseph Klein’s legal analysis of this story here.
What Is George Soros Afraid Of?
Posted By Joseph Klein On September 23, 2010 @ 12:25 pm In Email,Feature,Leftists Criticize/Mock Conservatives | 12 Comments

My fellow NewsReal blogger Kathy Shaidle, who resides in Canada where protection of free speech is weak to say the least, has unfortunately run right into the George Soros’ legal buzz saw. Threatened with a lawsuit by Soros’ Canadian counsel for referencing and excerpting from an article in the Toronto Sun which claimed that George Soros, as a teenager in his native land of Hungary, had “collaborated with the Nazis,” Kathy revised her post and removed the reference.
Ironically, the main thrust of Kathy’s post was an ongoing effort by Avaaz.org, a left-wing organization that is supported by the George-Soros- funded MoveOn.org, to suppress free speech in Canada . Avaaz filed a petition to keep Sun TV News from getting a license for the rarest of phenomena in Canada – a non-leftist, politically incorrect news channel.
Part of the rationale given by Soros’ legal counsel for demanding that Kathy take down the portion of her post referring to Soros’ alleged behavior as a teenager in Hungary was that the Toronto Sun had retracted the claim and apologized. However, it turns out, the Toronto Sun did so only after having received the same threat of legal action in Canada from Soros’ legal counsel.
Soros and his legal-eagle bullies are exploiting Canada’s defamation laws to suppress free speech, something they know would not work in the United States. It’s the legal counterpart to the political bullying being used to keep a conservative voice off the Canadian airwaves.
By way of background, under Canadian common law, defamation covers any communication that tends to lower the esteem of the subject in the minds of ordinary members of the public. Statements that are probably true but considered harmful are not excluded, nor are political opinions. Intent is always presumed, and it is not necessary to prove that the defendant intended to defame.
Canada even goes further in its criminal law.  The crime of defamatory libel is punishable by up to two years in prison. Defamatory libel is defined as
“matter published, without lawful justification or excuse, that is likely to injure the reputation of any person by exposing him to hatred, contempt or ridicule, or that is designed to insult the person of or concerning whom it is published.”
Fortunately, in the United States, Soros cannot hide as easily behind such legal barriers to free speech. He would be considered what the U.S. Supreme Court has defined as a “public figure.” Therefore, under the “actual malice” legal test protecting things said or written about public figures established by the landmark 1964 U.S. Supreme Court case New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, Soros could win a libel or defamation suit only if he could demonstrate the publisher’s “knowledge that the information was false” or that the information was published “with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.”
How can anyone know with reasonable certainty what Mr. Soros did or believed as a teenager in Nazi-ruled Hungary unless we are forced to take his own word for it - expressed years after the fact – as the undisputed version of what happened?
The whole issue of Soros’ teenage experiences would not likely have come up but for Soros’ own tendency to throw the Nazi epithet at policies he decides are threatening his vision of the ideal society. For example, Soros was quoted as saying this about President Bush’s war on terrorism:
We are working with a very false frame when we talk about a ‘war on terror,’ and yet it is universally accepted.  President Bush is exploiting it even further ahead of these elections. I would voice my concerns about the similarities between this administration and the Nazis and communist regimes.”
Soros also related the Bush administration to his own early years living under Nazi and Soviet rule.
When I hear Bush say, ‘You’re either with us or against us’, it reminds me of the Germans. My experiences under Nazi and Soviet rule have sensitized me.
Are those experiences under Nazi rule which Soros invokes fair game to examine? Is it legitimate for reporters to question Soros’ account of those experiences, particularly when Soros has chosen to speak about them himself as providing him with some sort of unique moral authority to denounce policies that he disagrees with?
Consider Soros’ own admission on 60 Minutes that he felt no remorse for whatever role, if any, he may have played in connection with the confiscation of Jewish property as he accompanied his Christian godfather on his rounds. Here is an extended excerpt from the 60 Minutes transcript.
KROFT: My understanding is that you went out with this protector of yours who swore that you were his adopted godson.
Mr. SOROS: Yes. Yes.
KROFT: Went out, in fact, and helped in the confiscation of property from the Jews.
Mr. SOROS: Yes. That’s right. Yes.
KROFT: I mean, that’s–that sounds like an experience that would send lots of people to the psychiatric couch for many, many years. Was it difficult?
Mr. SOROS: Not–not at all. Not at all. Maybe as a child you don’t–you don’t see the connection. But it was–it created no–no problem at all.
KROFT: No feeling of guilt?
Mr. SOROS: No.
KROFT: For example that, ‘I’m Jewish and here I am, watching these people go. I could just as easily be there. I should be there.’ None of that?
Mr. SOROS: Well, of course I c–I could be on the other side or I could be the one from whom the thing is being taken away. But there was no sense that I shouldn’t be there, because that was–well, actually, in a funny way, it’s just like in markets–that if I weren’t there–of course, I wasn’t doing it, but somebody else would–would–would be taking it away anyhow. And it was the–whether I was there or not, I was only a spectator, the property was being taken away. So the–I had no role in taking away that property. So I had no sense of guilt.?  (George Soros, 60 Minutes interview transcript, December 20, 1998)
Years after his searing childhood experience in Nazi-occupied Hungary, and while living as a mature adult  in the United States, Soros admitted that he felt not the slightest bit of guilt knowing that his savior was busy confiscating the property of Jews who were not so lucky as Soros was. He said he was just a “spectator.” That’s his story and he is sticking to it, using the threat of lawsuits where he can to knock down any other version.
As a teenager living in fear in Nazi-ruled Hungary, George Soros did what he believed he had to do to survive, which is perfectly understandable. But what is highly disturbing to many people is the amoral detachment with which he looks at that experience today. Soros’ casual comparison of what he witnessed being taken away from Jews in Nazi-ruled Hungary to the “markets” is beyond comprehension.
Soros’ amoral detachment from the consequences of his actions also permeates his financial dealings in the market. Here is an excerpt from Soros’ 2003 interview on PBS with David Brancaccio
BRANCACCIO: Does it worry you, for instance, that maybe some of your actions in the past would have hurt some people, when you withdrew capital from certain countries?
SOROS: Yes. No, you see you can’t… as a market participant, if you want to be successful, I think you just have to look out for your own interests.
BRANCACCIO: It sounds amoral.
SOROS: Pardon?
BRANCACCIO: It sounds amoral.
SOROS: It is amoral. Now, it’s very often understood and understood as immoral. And that is a very different, being immoral. If you hurt people deliberately or you know, that’s immoral. If you break the law, that’s immoral. If you play by the rules, that is the market itself is amoral.
If you impose morality on it, it means that you are actually with your hands tied behind your back and you’re not going to be successful. It’s extremely hard to be successful.
George Soros conducts his political interventions with the same attitude as he does his market interventions -  he is not going to be successful in achieving his goals if his hands are tied behind his back. Thus, he feels entitled to go after, in any manner he chooses, any individuals or organizations whom he personally believes are a threat to his notion of a democratic society.
Yet George Soros seeks to tie his opponents’ hands behind their backs by unleashing his legal team and his Media Matters attack dogs to threaten and smear anyone who dares question his credibility.
What is George Soros afraid of?
Joseph A. Klein is the author of a new book entitled Lethal Engagement: Barack Hussein Obama, the United Nations and Radical Islam.

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Article printed from NewsReal Blog: http://www.newsrealblog.com/
URL to article: http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/09/23/what-is-george-soros-afraid-of/

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Article printed from NewsReal Blog: http://www.newsrealblog.com/
URL to article: http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/09/22/george-soros-8-most-despicable-acts-1/

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