Soros-Backed Activist Group Disbands as Interest Fades
Washington Post ^ | Wednesday, August 3, 2005 | Thomas B. Edsall
A year ago, the liberal group America Coming Together was on the cutting edge of national politics, spending tens of millions of dollars on a massive voter-mobilization project in every presidential battleground state. The dream was that ACT -- heavily funded by billionaire George Soros -- would play a decisive role in getting Democratic nominee John F. Kerry elected president and then remain in business as a permanent force in liberal politics.
Steve Rosenthal, who launched America Coming Together to mobilize voters for Democrat John F. Kerry, said maintaining momentum after the election proved to be harder than expected. Billionaire George Soros's heavy funding of the group ended after the election.
Instead, the group this week began sending e-mails to most of the 28 people who make up the remaining ACT staff warning that their paychecks would stop at the end of August. All the state offices have been, or are soon to be, closed.
To: MEG33 : OK.Explain what you mean by "in Euros"and what this would implicate.I'm feeling dense. Soros was recently convicted of insider trading in France. So the money he's forking over to the Democrats is more than likely ill-gotten foreign gains. (Which is kinda illegal.)30 posted on 11/17/2003 1:12 AM PST by Prime Choice
As it goes, France is part of the European Union; an organization that issues its own currency in "Euros." As for feeling dense...I promise not to breath a word to dense's spouse about it. ; )
One for the road:
JANUARY 28, 2004 : (PARIS : SOROS' APPEALS HEARING IS POSTPONED - See SAMIR TRABOULSI & JEAN-CHARLES NAOURI) A French court on Wednesday postponed until next year the appeals hearing of US financier George Soros, convicted in December 2002 of insider trading and fined 2.2 million euros (2.8 million dollars).
The billionaire and philanthropist was found guilty of using privileged information to speculate in shares of the French bank Societe Generale during a failed takeover bid in 1988.
The Paris appeals court rescheduled the hearing for February 10, 2005 at the request of Soros' defense team, which asked for more time to prepare their case. At the time of his conviction, Soros said he was "astounded and dismayed by the court's ruling" and vowed to appeal "to the highest level necessary".
"Let me repeat now what I have maintained from the start: at no point was I in possession of inside information regarding Societe Generale. The charges against me are unfounded and without merit," he said.
Two of Soros' co-accused -- Lebanese financier and middleman Samir Traboulsi and Jean-Charles Naouri, an aide to the late Socialist finance minister Pierre Beregevoy -- were acquitted.
The Societe Generale affair was widely cited as evidence of a climate of illicit collusion linking the worlds of politics, business and high finance under Francois Mitterrand, France's Socialist president from 1981 to 1995.
-------"FRENCH COURT POSTPONES SOROS APPEAL ON INSIDER TRADING CONVICTION UNTIL 2005," AFP via The Tocqueville Connection, Initially posted Wednesday, 28 January 2004 09:50:00 GMT, http://www.ttc.org/cgi-binloc/searchTTC.cgi?displayZop+15110
Speaking of Samir Traboulsi:
... There was one other document in the package cited by the Daily Telegraph. One month after the successful operation against Indict in Paris, Saddam’s personal office sent a memorandum to the finance ministry, authorizing them to pay $383,439 to undisclosed beneficiaries in France. The subject line read: “Role of Southern France” without further explanation. Some of President Chirac’s most trusted operatives, known for handling delicate matters with his friends in the Arab world, lived and operated in the golden triangle in the south of France, although none was mentioned in the document. Their stomping ground ranged from Grasse – where I met Bernard Guillet and legendary arms brokers Samir Traboulsi, Walid Khoraitem and many others – to the hills above St. Tropez, where Chirac crony Rafic Hariri, a billionaire wheeler-dealer who became Lebanon’s Prime Minister, maintained a vast vacation residence. The point of the triangle jutted out into the Mediterranean at Cap d’Antibes, a wild promontory known for mega-buck estates where uniformed private security guards patrolled the coast with automatic weapons at the ready....
---- "The French Betrayal of America," by Kenneth R. Timmerman, Publisher: Crown Forum (New York), Expected on sale date: March 16, 2004
Thanks for the ping!
ACTION PROJECT
Valerie Plame Wilson donated money to ACT (and to VP Gore) and is in hot water for submitting false information to the FEC. ACT could be shutting down so that all of its records can be shredded prior to the conclusion of Fitzgerald's grand jury....... an old liberal trick.
FReepers need to file an amicus brief requesting a court order against ACT to stay any destruction of documents related to Plame and her husband Joe Wilson.