Organizations Funded Directly by George Soros and his Open Society Institute

(Photo: Michael Edwards)

Here’s the story to go with the picture:-

Money Chooses Sides

In a barn-burning, record-smashing fund-raising campaign season, Barack Obama tapped a new breed of Manhattan donors and won the expectations game. But because of the new primary schedule, excess is barely enough.
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By John Heilemann Published Apr 15, 2007

Obama at fund-raiser at Steven and Judy Gluckstern’s home, April 9, 2007. George Soros is seated to the right of the stairs.

The investment banker Robert Wolf first met Barack Obama one afternoon in December in a midtown conference room. Obama was in town to deliver a speech at a charity dinner for children in poverty at the Mandarin Oriental—but also to pursue another, less high-minded, but more momentous, objective: to begin the process of attempting to pick Hillary Clinton’s pocket.

The conference room belonged to George Soros, the billionaire bête noire of the right. After talking to Soros for an hour about his prospective bid for the White House, Obama walked down the hall and found assembled a dozen of the city’s heaviest-hitting Democratic fund-raisers: investment banker Hassan Nemazee, Wall Street power Blair Effron, private-equity hotshot Mark Gallogly, hedge-fund manager Orin Kramer. Most had been big-time John Kerry backers in 2004. Most had a connection to the Clintons. All were officially uncommitted for 2008.

Comparatively speaking, Wolf, now the CEO of UBS Americas, was a buck-raking neophyte. But his prodigious recent efforts (first for Kerry, then for House and Senate Democrats in 2006) had established him as a rising star in the fund-raising firmament. Until a few weeks earlier, the presidential horse he’d planned to ride in 2008 was former Virginia governor Mark Warner. But with Warner’s decision to forgo the race, Wolf was up for grabs—and in the sights of every Democrat in the field.

What Wolf, 45, was looking for was a candidate who could change the tenor of our politics. “I’d like my children to soon see a president give a State of the Union address and have both parties applaud,” he tells me. But Wolf was looking, too, for a campaign where his presence would be “impactful,” for a candidate who would take his calls, listen to his ideas. He wanted to feel the love. And while Wolf refuses to speak ill of Clinton, it’s clear he doubted that, no matter how much dough he raised, he’d ever be feeling it from her.

Wolf was wowed by Obama that afternoon: his straightforwardness, his “bold and impressive” early stance against the Iraq war. He handed Obama his card and said, “I’d like to get to know you more.” Obama phoned the next day. “When we hung up, he said, ‘I’ll call you after the holidays,’ and I’m thinking, Yeah, right, he’s gonna call me,” Wolf says. But call Obama did. The next week, they had dinner in Washington, just the two of them, on the night that George W. Bush gave his speech announcing the surge of additional troops into Iraq. “I felt so honored to be sitting down with him for two hours on an occasion like that,” Wolf recalls, “knowing that he was going off to be interviewed on television later.”

Within ten days, Obama had announced his intention to run and Clinton was officially in. A story in the Times reported that Obama had nailed two A-list New York donors: Soros and Wolf. But though Soros’s backing was a symbolic coup, it’s Wolf who has emerged as Obama’s most copious cash collector in the city so far—hosting two high-dollar cocktail parties, making countless calls, harvesting more than $500,000. As Wolf tells me about the soirées he’s hosted, he reaches into a meticulously organized scrapbook, takes out a photograph of him and Obama grinning madly, and tells me that I can keep it. “The way Barack has taken this nation with his rock-star status,” he says, “it’s very exciting!”

The courtship of Robert Wolf is, of course, part of a larger story: How Obama, from a standing start three months ago, built a fund-raising apparatus as powerful as Clinton’s. How Obama’s people, tapping a national hunger for something new and fresh, along with the unease of many Democrats about Clinton, ginned up more money for use in the primaries than she did. How they kicked her ass on the Internet and tapped twice as many donors overall. How they even held their own against the Clinton machine in New York. How Obama, that is, won the money primary—or, at least, its first installment—and arguably turned himself into the race’s co-front-runner.

New Yorkers have long understood the money primary and its importance in signaling a candidate’s plausibility. In a deep-blue city where the Democratic primary has traditionally taken place too late to matter, the battle for cash is the one contest in which New Yorkers (a certain class of New Yorkers) have been able tangibly to influence the selection of the party’s nominee. As Julius Genachowski, a high-tech player and law-school friend of Obama’s, puts it, “Other states vote; New York invests.”

Yet the context in which the money primary is taking place this year is radically different from before. With some two dozen states, including ours, now planning to hold primaries on February 5, the ability to raise vast quantities of early cash is seen by many operatives as essential—not just to create a perception of strength but to build a viable organization. “I say this all the time: It’s over on February 5,” argues Terry McAuliffe, Clinton’s campaign chairman. “To raise money to compete in Texas, California, Florida, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, and Michigan, all on one day—extraordinary!”...
CONTINUED -
http://nymag.com/news/politics/30634/

A very interesting read especially after the fact...

Robert Wolf - ...”In addition to his roles at UBS, Robert was appointed as a member of President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board chaired by former Fed Chair Paul Volcker.”...
http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/perab/members/wolf

The skelton in Obama’s money closet -

(Robert Wolf) ...”In 2001, UBS had signed a formal “qualified intermediary” agreement with the US Treasury. Under this program, it agreed either to withhold taxes against American clients who had Swiss accounts and owned US stocks, or disclose their identities. However, when UBS’s American clients refused to go along with these arrangements, the bank just caved in and lied to the U.S. government. Eventually, it concealed 19,000 such clients, partly by helping to form hundreds of offshore companies. This cost the US Treasury an estimated $200 million per hear in lost taxes.”...
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/4088

Did svuartz bankroll the nathans hot dog eating contest this year? Sounds like the guy at the roulette table that covers all the #’s somethins gotta win

Also mentioned in the article -

Hassan Nemazee - Obama and Clinton Fundraiser Indicted For $292 Million Dollar Bank Fraud

By Shannon Bell

As he was attempting to board a flight to Italy, Hassan Nemazee was arrested by U.S. officials who have charged the Obama, Clinton donor with bank fraud. Hassan Nemazee allegedly defrauded Bank of America, Citibank and HSBC out of more than $290 million dollars.

Hassan Nemazee donates about $100,000 dollars annually to democratic candidates at various state and national levels, including former President Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama. Nemazee defrauded Bank of America, Citibank, and HSBC in order to gain access to hundreds of millions in loans from the three banks.

Another interesting twist to the story is that Hassan Nemazee sat on the board of the American-Iranian Council, a group that has supported lifting sanctions on Iran, he resigned after just one year. Nemazee also helped found IAPAC, the Iranian-American Political Action Committee.

One question might be why would an influential lobbyist in the Iranian-American community go through such great lengths to defraud banks and face jail time just to be able to support Democratic candidates? Could it possibly be that those candidates look more favourable on the current Iranian regime?

According to the U.S. Attorney’s office in New York and the FBI, Hassan Nemazee defrauded Bank of America for over $140 million dollars, while he took Citibank for almost $75 million; more than enough to remain a huge political fundraising player.

Nemazee used forged documents stating that he had assets and accounts that did not exist, the fake accounts and assets gave Hassan Nemazee a net worth in the hundreds of millions of dollars. He used this information to defraud the banks, garnering loans from the institutions.

Hassan Nemazee served as the national finance chairman for Hillary Clinton as well as John Kerry in his failed run at the Presidency in 2004. After Clinton lost in the primaries, Nemazee donated $50,000 dollars to President Barack Obama’s inauguration committee as well as raising almost $500,000 dollars for the President.

Anybody remember how much grief the Republicans took after the Jack Abramoff scandal? I’m sure nobody in the MSM will think twice about another tainted fundraiser/lobbyist since it happens to be on the other foot now.

Those who Hassan Nemazee raised money for including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden have feverishly been trying to return the money donated.
Embedded Video at site -
http://www.rightpundits.com/?p=4782

So much for Hassan...

Soros-Hassan was a friend of Al Gore, Terry McAuliffe...
http://www.muckety.com/Query?SearchResult=4166&SearchResult=6815&graph=MucketyMap?_r=2D

Soros was invested in ultra deep water drilling via his investment in Petrobras, the deep-drilling world leader.
He sold his entire Petrobras stake and some gold holdings to finance his purchase of 4% in Bombay Stock Exchange.

What’s up with that...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2577926/posts?page=23#23 - FR, 2010 August 26.