Posted on 09/16/2004 5:06:19 AM PDT by Liz
Billionaire demands public apology from the House Speaker
George Soros, the billionaire financier who has given millions of dollars to liberal and Democratic-leaning advocacy groups, launched a blistering counterattack on Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) yesterday, saying he should be ashamed of allegations he made Sunday.
Hastert had suggested that Soross wealth came from criminals, and in a letter Soros challenged the Speaker to substantiate his claims or publicly apologize.
In a tartly worded demand faxed to Hastert, Soros wrote: Your recent comments implying that I am receiving funds from drug cartels are not only untrue, but also deeply offensive. You do a discredit to yourself and to the dignity of your office by engaging in these dishonest smear tactics. You should be ashamed.
I must respectfully insist that you either substantiate these claims which you cannot do because they are false or publicly apologize for attempting to defame my character and damage my reputation.
The spat began in an interview on Fox News with anchor Chris Wallace, in which Hastert said, You know, I dont know where George Soros gets his money. I dont know where if it comes overseas or from drug groups or where it comes from.
Asked if Soros had earned money from drug cartels, Hastert added, Well, thats what hes been for a number years George Soros has been for legalizing drugs in this country. So, I mean, hes got a lot of ancillary interests out there. Im saying I dont know where groups could be people who support this type of thing. Im saying we dont know.
Soros, a Hungarian Jewish immigrant, earned billions from investments and currency speculation. In 1992, he bet $10 billion that the British central bank would devalue the pound. The gamble paid off and Soros earned $650 million that year. Soros Fund Management LLC was hammered in the late 1990s and Soros has since retired, although he remains chairman.
In 1993, he started the Open Society Institute, which promotes democracy in Eastern Europe and around the world. He began funding programs to reform the U.S. justice system several years later. As part of that effort, he has funded marijuana-legalization referendums in California and Arizona. Besides the Open Society Institute, Soros is also a major contributor to the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based operation that monitors violence in global hot spots.
But he is most widely known in this election season as a big contributor to MoveOn.org, the Center for American Progress, a Democratic think tank, and America Coming Together, a so-called 527 political outfit that is exempt from limits on campaign contributions.
John Feehery, a spokesman for Hastert, said, George Soros has an agenda. He supports the legalization of drugs, and the statement stands. [Hastert] has been fighting Soros on this for years because it is a character flaw. The Speaker thinks legalizing drugs is wrong.
Soros was unavailable for comment.
Documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) say that no company official in Soross investment fund is involved in a criminal proceeding or a party to a civil proceeding.
Feehery cited no evidence and would not comment on whether Hastert would ask law enforcement to investigate.
Soros told The Washington Post last year: America, under Bush, is a danger to the world. And Im willing to put my money where my mouth is.
Conservatives have sought to discredit Soros by attacking his foreign and Jewish roots and his support of liberal causes, and by saying that his currency speculation actually hurt the very people he claims to want to help.
No other single person represents the symbol and the substance of globalism more than this Hungarian-born descendant of Shylock. He is the embodiment of the Merchant from Venice, wrote GOPAC, an organization that helps elect GOP candidates, on its website last year.
In William Shakespeares Merchant of Venice, Shylock was the Jewish banker whose venality would not stop him from cutting human flesh to repay loans.
Tony Blankley, the editorial-page editor of The Washington Times, said Soros is a robber baron, hes a pirate capitalist, and hes a reckless man in an interview on Fox News.
Democrats were quick to criticize Hasterts latest suggestion. Thats totally absurd. It fits a pattern of simply throwing out whatever slander occurs to them, the Republicans, said Matt Bennett, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee in New York. This is what the Republican leadership does. They lie about people.
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Go play with your money, Soros, and leave our government alone. Stop buying our elections, and what's more, if you don't like it, get the hell out of our country.
Doesn't that mean that Soros is a Libertarian?
"You know, I dont know where George Soros gets his money. I dont know where if it comes overseas or from drug groups or where it comes from.
"
Hastert said, "I don't know," so what is Soros suing?
It's about time the Republicans used the same word games against the opposition.
Hey Rather! Investigate Soro's involvement in Kosovo, now!
Is Soros even an American citizen?
I saw this interview with Frist and Hastert. Hastert was refering to people who want to legalize drugs in this country, not drug cartels. Chris Wallace brought up drug cartells and Hastert fumbled a little trying to explain what he meant.
Soros won't sue, that would cause an investigation into where his money is coming from. UNFORTUNATELY, he is smarter than that.
Soros is an American citizen.
If I remember correctly, the Russians have had a warrant for his arrest for a few years, but we refuse to extradite him.
Seems that georgie-porgie was playing with Russian money and the Rouble plummetted to one-sixth its value in just a few months.
Georgie was selling the rouble short, of course.
The Russians raided his offices and arrested a number of his Moscow cronies, but they would love to get their hands on him.
It seems that some of georgie-porgie's money has also found its way into the coffers of the Chechen terrorists.
What a nice man.
On Bill O'Reilly's show two nights ago he had a Democrat from the Congressional Black Caucus on that made allegations that Rush Limbaugh was a drug dealer and that Mr. O hung around with Rush therefore he was associating with drug dealers..
Methinks a swift FBI raid and a fast extradition to Mother Russia is in order. If we are to take the WoT seriously, a chief financier like Sorea$$ MUST GO!
So wonder what little money scam Soros and Hillry have planned for us next month.
Amazing how "rich" liberals make their money ripping off the masses, then accuse the conservatives of a "right wing conspiracy"....
Some pigs are just more equal, under what ever it takes.
Conservatives haven't attacked his jewish roots- and that's all there is to them is dried out 'roots' since he's more interested in promoting Islam. He's more of a threat to judaism.
BACKSTORY HEADER: BILLIONAIRE BUSH BASHER SOROS CONVICTED OF INSIDER TRADING THREAD Tuesday Nov. 11, 2003
Billionaire Bush-basher George Soros has gotten a lot of press, mostly over his comments when he likened President Bush to Adolf Hitler, then reiterated his promise to spend whatever it takes to defeat Bush at the polls.
But none of the reports mentioned one salient fact: the Democratic Party's great rich hope was convicted of insider trading circa 2002.
Before Soros announced his intention to bankroll the Dems' bid to topple Bush, press accounts were a lot more candid about his checkered background.
The Washington Post had a piece on the Democrats' Daddy Warbucks five months before he surfaced as an election spoiler.
In Soros, we have an international criminal, a billionaire who is trying to singlehandedly manipulate American elections through shady, unregulated "527" organizations.
The American voter does not appreciate the shady tycoon's attempts to manipulate our elections.
Criminal mastermind Soros better be worried. We got some of our best FRreepers on his tail.
Actually it is a very good move to draw the crazy Soros and his money out into daylight as often as possible between now and the election. The more Soros appears on TV repeating his loony leftist stuff and how he will bring Bush down using all his billions, the more most voters will be repusled with him and linked his desire to control the US to Kerry.
And what about all those people that were reduced to poverty because of Soros, when he was playing with the money of their countries. Do not forget how he got his billions - playing the currency market and bringing some to ruin.
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