The Past Week, October 26-November 1: Recaps and Random Thoughts (A Mindblower of a Piece at Logistics Monster on “Obama’s American Socialism”; The Illegal Aunt/Donation Problem; 1995 Video of Obama Praising Rev. Wright; Zogby Polling Race; “A Face in the Crowd”–How Timely!; Fall Harvesting)

~~Posted by InsightAnalytical

Well, as things wind down, the voter problems mount here in NM…surprised? Of course not.   (See story below in the list of posts for the week.)

This has been such a heavy week of activity and news, with Obama’s TV extravaganza the”highlight.” But here are a few things that really caught my eye.

Over at Logistics Monster we found Part 3 of the series on Obama’s background and connections. Part 3 is a mindblower and I urge everyone to read it and get others to read it. It’s called Obama’s American Socialism: Decades In The Making, Part III. I am going to quote extensively from this piece.  Here’s a key passage that will open some eyes about the Democratic Party, ACORN, and Hillary Clinton:

Author’s Note:

Barack Obama, Michelle Obama and their left-wing radical cronies are an ever expanding black hole of negativity, anti-American and anti-Semitic viewpoints, and radical re-education of our children toward socialism.  That being said, it has been almost impossible to go into every single association and relationship these two have had without writing article after article.  In this last article in the series, I am going to try to show the trail of the money; where it came from and where it went.  Follow the money, follow the cover-up; you will find the crime.  This particular article is about who and what are behind Obama.  His ascension to power will be covered as it incorporates into the background of hidden figures.

I have mentioned the Shadow Party; a name given to a group of organizations that have a liberal left agenda.  Let’s bring George Soros into the mix now.  I will get to all the groups he funds later; right now, The Shadow Party; and be warned, HRC supporters are NOT going to like this:

• Nationwide network of non-profit activist groups, whose agendas are ideologically to the left, which are engaged in campaigning for the Democrats
• Consists of more than five-dozen unions, activist groups, and think tanks
• Activities include fundraising, get-out-the-vote drives, political advertising, and covert operations
• Conceived and organized principally by George Soros, Hillary Clinton and Harold McEwan Ickes

The so-called “Shadow Democratic Party,” or “Shadow Party,” is a nationwide network of more than five-dozen unions, non-profit activist groups, and think tanks whose agendas are ideologically to the left, which are engaged in campaigning for the Democrats. Its activities include fundraising, get-out-the-vote drives, political advertising, opposition research, and media manipulation. The Shadow Party was conceived and organized principally by George Soros, Hillary Clinton and Harold McEwan Ickes — all identified with the Democratic Party left.

A political consultancy called the Thunder Road Group (TRG), located on the 7th Floor of the historic Motion Picture Association of America headquarters at 888 Sixteenth Street NW in Washington, DC, serves as the unofficial headquarters of the Shadow Party. Three other Shadow Party groups also lease space in the same building, including America Coming Together (ACT), America Votes, and the Partnership for America’s Families. The clustering of these groups in a building owned by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is significant. The MPAA has long enjoyed a close relationship with the Democratic Party; many high-ranking Democrats have transitioned comfortably from government jobs into glamorous posts in the MPAA’s upper management.

As of August 2004, the husband-wife team of George Soros and Susan Soros had contributed $13,120,000 to Shadow Party groups and operations, second only to Soros’ longtime friend and collaborator, insurance mogul Peter B. Lewis ($14,175,000). The third leading donor was Jane Fonda ($13,085,750), followed by Hollywood producer Stephen Bing in fourth place ($9,869,014). Other major funders of the Shadow Party include the Tides Foundation and the Open Society Institute.

Please make sure to click on the links for the Tides Foundation and the Open Society Institute!

No one knows who first coined the term “Shadow Party.” In the November 5, 2002 Washington Post, writer Thomas B. Edsall wrote of “shadow organizations” springing up to circumvent McCain-Feingold’s soft money ban. Journalist Lorraine Woellert first called the Democrat network a “shadow party” in a September 15, 2003 Business Week article titled, “The Evolution of Campaign Finance?” Other journalists quickly followed suit. Some journalists refer to the Shadow Party as “the 527s” or “the 527 groups.” These terms derive from the fact that most of the non-profit groups within the Shadow Party are registered under Section 527 of the U.S. tax code. Section 527 groups face weaker regulation and looser disclosure requirements than other types of non-profit groups. Thus they are better suited for operating in the shadows, in areas of dubious legality. Section 527 groups are used for raising “soft money.” For a thorough explanation of Section 527 groups and soft money, click here.

Wall Street billionaire George Soros is the Shadow Party’s principal founder and mastermind. Clear hints of Soros’ intentions began to appear as early as the 2000 election. It was then that Soros (shouldering about one-third of the cost) sponsored the so-called “Shadow Conventions.” Organized by author, columnist, and socialite Arianna Huffington, the Shadow Conventions were media events designed to lure news crews from the real party conventions that year. Huffington held her “Shadow Conventions” at the same time and in the same cities as the Republican and Democratic Conventions, in Philadelphia and Los Angeles respectively, and featured leftwing critics of mainstream politics. The Shadow Conventions promoted Huffington’s view that neither Democrats nor Republicans served the interests of the American people any longer. In Huffington’s view, U.S. politics needed a third force to break the deadlock.

Among the issues highlighted at the Shadow Conventions were racism, class inequality, marijuana legalization and campaign finance reform. Most speakers and delegates pushed a hard-left line, accompanied by “Free Mumia” chants from the crowd and an incendiary tirade by Jesse Jackson. A former conservative, Huffington told reporters, “I have become radicalized.”

The Shadow Conventions were purely symbolic affairs. They fielded no candidates for office. However, many of Soros’ activities during the 2000 campaign went beyond symbolism. It was during the 2000 election that Soros first experimented with raising campaign funds through Section 527 groups. In preparation for the 2000 election, Soros assembled a team of wealthy Democrat donors to help him push two of his pet issues – gun control and marijuana legalization. Their donations greatly exceeded the limits on political contributions stipulated by campaign finance laws. Soros therefore laundered their contributions through Section 527 groups — dubbed “stealth PACs,” by the media of that time.

One of Soros’ stealth PACs was an anti-gun group called The Campaign for a Progressive Future (CPF). This group sought to neutralize the influence of the National Rifle Association (NRA), by targeting for defeat any political candidate, at any level, who the NRA endorsed. Soros personally seeded CPF with $500,000. During the 2000 election, CPF funded political ads and direct-mail campaigns in support of state initiatives favoring background checks at gun shows.

Soros used other 527s to agitate in favor of pro-marijuana initiatives which appeared on the ballot in various states that year. Donors to Soros’ stealth PACs during the 2000 election cycle included insurance mogul Peter B. Lewis and InfoSeek founder Steven Kirsch, both of whom would turn up as major contributors to Soros’ Shadow Party during the 2004 election season.

During the 1990s, Soros had grown close to Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton. Their ascension to power gave him easy entreé to Washington elites of a sort he had long coveted but never enjoyed. Soros became the Clintons’ unofficial envoy to Russia and to other former Communist states. The assignment proved lucrative for him. Soros made a fortune in the so-called “Russiagate” phenomenon – the orgy of backroom “privatization” deals and Russian junk bond issues which Clinton officials such as Strobe Talbot, Al Gore and Lawrence Summers helped foster in the former USSR.

More importantly, Soros discovered in Hillary Clinton an ideological soulmate. Mrs. Clinton shared his aversion to U.S. “hegemony.” Like Soros, she sought to subordinate U.S. interests to global interests; U.S. sovereignty to global government; U.S. law to global courts; U.S. wealth to global taxation; and U.S. productivity to a scheme for global income redistribution. She also shared Soros’ hostility to Israel. Soros and Mrs. Clinton formed a friendship based upon their mutual beliefs. When the Clintons left office, Soros dedicated himself to restoring Hillary to the White House.

Soros has long experience in effecting “regime change.” He helped fund the 1989 “Velvet Revolution” that brought Vaclav Havel to power in the Czech Republic. By his own admission, he has helped engineer coups in Slovakia, Croatia, Georgia and Yugoslavia. When Soros targets a country for “regime change,” he begins by creating a shadow government — a fully formed government-in-exile, ready to assume power when the opportunity arises. The Shadow Party Soros has built in America greatly resembles those he has created in other countries, prior to instigating a coup.

At the heart of the American Shadow Party is the Center for American Progress (CAP). It was launched on July 7, 2003 as the American Majority Institute. The name was changed to Center for American Progress on September 1, 2003. The official purpose of the Center was to provide the left with a new think tank of its own. Regarding the new think tank proposed by Soros and Halperin, Hillary Clinton told Matt Bai of The New York Times Magazine on October 12, 2003, “We need some new intellectual capital. There has to be some thought given as to how we build the 21st-century policies that reflect the Democrat Party’s values.” Expanding on this theme, Mrs. Clinton later told The Nation’s Robert Dreyfuss, “We’ve had the challenge of filling a void on our side of the ledger for a long time, while the other side created an infrastructure that has come to dominate political discourse. The Center is a welcome effort to fill that void.”

Hillary Clinton tries to minimize the depth of her involvement with the Center for American Progress. But persistent press leaks confirm that she — and not its official President, John Podesta — has ultimate authority at CAP. ”It’s the official Hillary Clinton think tank,” an inside source confided to Christian Bourge of United Press International. As Robert Dreyfuss notes in The Nation, “In looking at Podesta’s center, there’s no escaping the imprint of the Clintons. It’s not completely wrong to see it as a shadow government, a kind of Clinton White-House-in-exile — or a White House staff in readiness for President Hillary Clinton.”

Dreyfuss notes the abundance of Clintonites on the Center’s staff, among them Clinton’s national security speechwriter Robert Boorstin; Democratic Leadership Council staffer and former head of Clinton’s National Economic Council Gene Sperling; former senior advisor to Clinton’s Office of Management and Budget Matt Miller; and more. Dreyfuss writes: “[T]he Center’s kickoff conference on national security in October [2003], co-organized with The American Prospect and the Century Foundation, looked like a Clinton reunion, featuring Robert Rubin, Clinton’s Treasury Secretary;  William Perry, his Defense Secretary;  Sandy Berger, his National Security Adviser; Richard Holbrooke and Susan Rice, both Clinton-era Assistant Secretaries of State; Rodney Slater, his Transportation Secretary; and Carol Browner, his EPA administrator, who serves on the Center’s board of directors.” Hillary Clinton also attended the event, Dreyfuss reports.

To develop the Shadow Party as a cohesive entity, Harold Ickes undertook the task of building a 21st-century version of the Left’s traditional alliance of the “oppressed,” the disgruntled, and the “disenfranchised.” He formed a coalition of pro-abortion activists, leftwing minority groups and leftwing labor unions. By the time Ickes was done, he had created or helped to create six new groups, and had co-opted a seventh called MoveOn.org. Together, they constitute the administrative core of the Shadow Party. They are: America Coming Together; America Votes; the Center for American Progress; Joint Victory Campaign 2004; The Media Fund; MoveOn.org; and the Thunder Road Group.

In a November 11, 2003 interview with Laura Blumenfeld of the Washington Post, George Soros described how he had jump-started the Shadow Party in the summer of 2002. The Wall Street billionaire told how he summoned a team of political strategists, activists and Democrat donors to his Southampton beach house in Long Island. According to The Washington Post, attendees included: Morton H. Halperin (Director of Soros’ Open Society Institute); John Podesta (Democrat strategist and former Clinton chief of staff); Jeremy Rosner (Democrat strategist and pollster, ex-foreign policy speechwriter for Bill Clinton, and former special advisor to Secretary of State Madeline Albright on NATO; Robert Boorstin (Democrat strategist and pollster, ex-national security speechwriter for Clinton, and former advisor to Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin); Carl Pope (ACT co-founder, Democrat strategist, environmentalist, and Sierra Club Executive Director); Steve Rosenthal (Labor leader, CEO of America Coming Together, former chief advisor on union matters to Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich, former Deputy Political Director under DNC chairman Ron Brown, and AFL-CIO Political Director from 1996 – 2002); Peter Lewis (major Democrat donor and insurance entrepreneur, and founder and chairman of Progressive Corporation); Rob Glaser (major Democrat donor and Silicon Valley pioneer); Ellen Malcolm (co-founder and president of ACT and founder of Emily’s List); Rob McKay (major Democrat donor, Taco Bell heir, and McKay Family Foundation President; Lewis and Dorothy Cullman (major Democrat donors, and founders of the Lewis and Dorothy Cullman Foundation in New York).

At the meeting, Soros laid out his plan to defeat President Bush. He began implementing his plan before the meeting had adjourned. Blumenfeld writes: “Standing on the back deck, the evening sun angling into their eyes, Soros took aside Steve Rosenthal, CEO of the liberal activist group America Coming Together (ACT), and Ellen Malcolm, its president. They were proposing to mobilize voters in 17 battleground states. Soros told them he would give ACT $10 million. … Before coffee the next morning, his friend Peter Lewis, chairman of the Progressive Corp., had pledged $10 million to ACT. Rob Glaser, founder and CEO of RealNetworks, promised $2 million. Rob McKay, President of the McKay Family Foundation, gave $1 million, and benefactors Lewis and Dorothy Cullman committed $500,000. Soros also promised up to $3 million to Podesta’s new think tank, the Center for American Progress.”

The Shadow Party had been born, and by late 2003 Soros issued an open call for “regime change” in the United States. “America under Bush is a danger to the world,” Soros told Laura Blumenfeld in that same November 11, 2003 interview. Toppling Bush, said Soros, “is the central focus of my life… a matter of life and death. And I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is.”

New groups are constantly being formed in the Shadow Party, while others vanish. To determine how many groups exist in the Shadow Party at any given time is difficult. Even more daunting is try to determine the purpose of each group. In some cases, groups seem to have no function other than to transfer funds from one 527 to another, perhaps in order to obscure the money trail. On December 10, 2003, for instance, a 527 group called the Sustainable World Corporation suddenly sprang into existence in Houston, Texas. Within days of its birth, it gave $3.1 million to the Joint Victory Campaign 2004, which in turn disbursed half of the payment to Harold Ickes’ Media Fund.

If you have actually read all the way through that, you are probably as amazed and shocked as I was the first time I read it.  But it tracks.  Hillary Clinton started out as Goldwater Republican, met Alinsky and became a left leaning democrat.  There is always two sides to every story, and I know that the truth is somewhere in the middle.

And, there is so much more to this series!  Please take a look!

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If you  want to get a good summary of the story swirling about Obama’s aunt living in Boston illegally, check out Truthteller at No Quarter.  Truthteller asks a series of pertinent questions in the piece:

Obama Relegates Aunt Who Resides Illegally in US to the Shadows While Taking Her Campaign Contributions [Updated]

Zeituni Onyango’s status as illegal immigrant begs a few questions.

• How did she contribute a total of $260 to her nephew’s campaign in a series of small donations from her South Boston address if she is not a United States citizen?
• Are many illegal immigrants and foreigners submitting small donations to the Obama campaign in order to avoid scrutiny by the FEC?
• How does she qualify for public housing if she is not a United States citizen?
• How is Obama to be trusted to reform the immigration system if his relatives are breaking immigration laws and living illegally in this country?
• And why did the Senator not file a form I-130, a Petition for Alien Relative, on behalf of his aunt after her request for political asylum was rejected? As a United States Senator, he certainly could expedite the adjudication of such a petition.

When do we get the answers to these questions? Don’t hold your breath…

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Via Sugar N Spice, who found this gem at Newsbusters, we have a video of Obama praising Rev. Wright from 1995…snd also talking about the mistake of politicians organizing around “race.”  Definitely worth a look!

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As I write this, I’m tuned in to “A Face in the Crowd” the 1957 classic starring Andy Griffith and Patricia Neal. Talk about the manipulation of a gullible public…complete with celebrity coaching a Presidential candidate.  The Pat Neal character, Marcia Jeffries, pulls the plug on the demagogue she helped create by deliberately opening up a mike so that the world here’s what he really thinks of “his public” –“idiots,” “morons,” “guinea pigs.”  The Walter Matthau character, Mel Miller,  tells Marcia at the end that “getting wise to them is our strength”  as “Lonesome Rhodes” goes nuts screams “Don’t leave me!”  over and over again.  Very appropriate these days, don’t you think?  For more info on and quotes from this awesome film see here.

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Got a Zogby Interactive post late today…very short, about the Presidential race, of course.  The last question asked respondents to rate on a scale of 1-5 white, blacks, and Hispanics in terms of TRUSTWORTHINESS. There was a “Refuse” answer and that’s what I chose.  I’m just so sick of this crap and how the “data” is then used!  Grail Guardian’s piece on race (see below) touches on polling and race as well.

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Onto some more pleasant news about what’s happening in the garden!

I harvested some collards Friday night and wilted them for a great stir fry.  The mustard, planted from seed only a few weeks ago (on October 3) is now ready for the start of harvesting as well, with some leaves already 5 inches high. I made up another 5 jars of tomato preserves, too!  Had so many tomatoes of varying ripeness sitting in the refrigerator that I just said, “What the heck!”  I’ve been using the Ball’s No-Sugar pectin and have been cutting down the sugar way down.  The labels I still had on the jars from last time used the regular Sure Jell pectin…5 cups of sugar?  This time 2.5 cups!  With really sweet fruit, you can skip the sugar entirely with this Ball pectin. So, I’ve got 10 jars of tomato preserves and 5 of prickly pear jelly.  It’s going to be a good winter as I reach in to my “private stock” and bring back memories of the summer…

I saw a robin today…usually there are very few at 4400 feet…They come through in January and keep going north.  Some stay down in the valley. We’ve had a couple of pairs linger through the last couple of winters, but I don’t know if the robin I saw today will be staying. It’s so different from New Jersey where robins abound!

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THIS WEEK’S POSTS

*By Grail Guardian

**By American Lassie

***By kenosha Marge

BREAKING: El Paso Man Commits Suicide, Leaves Note to Obama “Take Care of My Family”; Other NM News–VOTING Problems, Giuliani in So. NM Tonight (Saturday)

*Late in the Race…Race.

The Queen of 2008’s Sell-Out Pundits…Meet the REAL Peggy Noonan, My High School Classmate (with HS Yearbook Pic)

Zogby Saturday: McCain Outpolls Obama on Friday, 48-47%

JUST FOR LAUGHS! Our Own Grail Guardian Hits the Big Time on CNNBC! Blamed for Obama Loss! See Video!! LOL!!!!!

Shocking! AP Writer Does Fact Check on Obama’s TV Infomercial! (UPDATE 1X)

Post-Obama TV Orgy OPEN THREAD for Watchers/Non-Watchers and THE CHICKEN BUTTON

MORE TO KNOW–MICHELLE OBAMA’S THESIS–LINK TO FULL TEXT HERE

*“I Demand More Than Your Vote–I Want Your Mind!!”–A Call to Boycott Obama’s Media Buy (10/29) (UPDATE 1X–Verdict: Infomercial a Flop)

**The Story Unfolds 2: Obama, Biden, Brzezinski, Carter…and the Trilateral Commission?

***Only People With a Penis Need Apply

The Past Week: Recaps and Random Thoughts, October 19-25 (McCain Rally in Mesilla, NM (with pics) (Updated 1X including Clinton Rally–”Optimistic but not yet confident”); Ayers circa 1974; “Pre-Counts”–the New Horse Pucky; Messing with Military Votes; Bill Clinton, Even You’re Irritating Me Now; “Grieving”)