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 Soros’s 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 don’t know where George Soros gets his money. I don’t 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, that’s what he’s been for a number years — George Soros has been for legalizing drugs in this country. So, I mean, he’s got a lot of ancillary interests out there. … I’m saying I don’t know where groups — could be people who support this type of thing. I’m saying we don’t 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 Soros’s 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 I’m 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 Shakespeare’s “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, he’s a pirate capitalist, and he’s a reckless man” in an interview on Fox News.
Democrats were quick to criticize Hastert’s latest suggestion. “That’s 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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Nice deconstruction.
So sinking to the level of the opposition is now a good conservative thing to do? I can't agree.
Actually, drug criminalization is in the interest of drug dealers, as it keeps profit margins sky-high. I'm saying I don't know whether Hastert accepts campaign contributions from drug dealers.
I do wonder if Soros has been thoroughly investigated; seems like they could find some reason to pick up a few of his computers; he really is a dangerous 'citizen-at-large'.
>>>I can tell you with your attitude you will never make a good Socialist and should they take over
BUMP!!!!
I'm one of the reasons they won't take over.
Dealing with me is not an experience they want to contemplate.
....but, but.....Soros is so "tolerant and compassionate".....(gag).......
Soory but they willhave to execute before I get into the boxcar. I am too stupid to re-educate....lol
So that sort of thing is wrong only when Democrats do it?
Heheh.....cute.
After Nov 2.
I thought my considerations could be misconstrued - or maybe you are on target. . .
. . . but given the impact of Soros; given his intentions; his 'MODUS OPERANDI' and world-wide; I find it hard to believe that this man does not operate below sea-level in many instances.
I was only wondering if Soros has, in fact, been checked out to see just if he counters the law and without constraint.
If there is 'no reason' to be 'too late smart'; then 'why be' too late smart?
Democrat's approach may be similar; but their targets are those who 'legally and self-rightiously', stand in the way of their agenda; as opposed to what I am suggesting; verifying that someone is not disregarding national or international legal constraints; for a self-serving agenda.
For any freeper who does not realize the danger of $orea$$ to the America we love and he hates. The FR thread below should scare the hell out of them!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1217634/posts
SOROS' $$ TOPPLES DA IN WAR OVER DRUGS (This Is Gettin' Scary)
New York Post ^ | September 16, 2004 | KENNETH LOVETT
Posted on 09/16/2004 5:04:47 AM PDT by publius1
SOROS' $$ TOPPLES DA IN WAR OVER DRUGS By KENNETH LOVETT Post Correspondent September 16, 2004 -- ALBANY —
In an unusual infusion of big money into local upstate politics, billionaire George Soros poured cash into the Albany County district attorney's race — and engineered a stunning defeat of the incumbent because the DA supports the strict Rockefeller drug laws.
The Soros-founded Drug Policy Alliance Network — which favors repeal of the Rockefeller laws — contributed at least $81,500 to the Working Families Party, which turned around and supported the successful Democratic primary campaign of David Soares.
Trying to become Albany's first black DA, Soares on Tuesday unexpectedly trounced his former boss, incumbent Albany DA Paul Clyne, who has opposed changing the drug laws. The victory was overwhelming: Soares took 62 percent of the Democratic vote.
"This was more than a local race, that's what the [Soros] funding shows," said Assemblyman John McEneny, who supported the challenger's candidacy.
Soros, an international financier and philanthropist who says he is dedicating his life to defeating President Bush, favors legalizing some drugs.
Clyne backers claim that the Working Families Party, using the Soros money, illegally involved itself in the Democratic primary. They charge the Soros cash was used to target Democratic voters with mass mailings and phone calls labeling Clyne as the reason the drug laws were not reformed, as well as highlighting his anti-abortion stance.
MisLead sounds like a great nick name for $oreA$$.
Mislead $oreA$$!
What should concern us is the monstrous hatred Soros has developed toward the President of the United States--hatred shared by others in his social circle.
Little by little, the truth emerges about the real source of our adversaries obsessions, a truth I've been preaching for ages. People like Soros and his liberal gangs, are motivated not by principle -- except that they worship abortion -- but a deep and abiding hatred for all things Christian and conservative, personified by President Bush.
We must begin to place Soros and his cohorts' actions in their proper context: We need to wake up America to the hate crimes he is pepertrating on us and GWB.
Individuals like these salivate over removing religious symbols and prayer from the Nation----our Christian Nation. They are hate-filled bigots. They hate religion. They hate religious people. They are law-breakers who are infringing on American citizens' rights.
The hidden agenda of these religio-phobic haters despite their high-sounding legal arguments, is to decimate all references to morality, and people who espouse moral principles, b/c in their hate-filled, inferior, insular minds morality equates to dreaded sectarian religious beliefs.
How very successful they have been.
Everyday we see the results of the moral relativists,as we experience the unimaginable crimes, and the collapse of a once-thriving culture's moral underpinnings.
The haters are getting what they wanted: destruction of the moral bulwark of Western Civilization.
I can't support making someone the target of an investigation solely because of his views and the legal ways in which he promotes them. It was wrong when the Klintoons did it and it would be wrong now.
The anti-First Amendment ideas in that thread scare the hell out of me.
Soros wants to take away our 1st and second amendment rights. Then you know what he wants for us in his next phase.
A fairly stupid comment by Speaker Hastert.
The LAST thing drug cartels want is legalization. When your illegal contraband product becomes legal and cheap, you're outta business.
The WOsD warriors and the drug cartels have exactly parallel interests - keep drugs illegal and expensive !
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