- The Century Foundation Releases New Task Force Report on Strengthening the Nation's Response to Terrorist Threats and Other Emergencies
-- Richard A. Clarke and Rand Beers, Chairs
WHAT: A Discussion/Lunch to mark the release of "The Forgotten Homeland: A Century Foundation Task Force Report"
WHEN: Thursday, June 29, 12 p.m. to 2 p.m.
WHERE: The National Press Club, 529 14th Street, NW at F Street, Washington, D.C.
WHO:
-- Richard A. Clarke, chairman of Good Harbor Consulting, LLC; co-chair of "The Forgotten Homeland" Task Force
-- Rand Beers, president of the Valley Forge Initiative; co- chair of "The Forgotten Homeland" Task Force
-- Jane A. Bullock, a founding partner of Bullock & Haddow, LLC, a risk mitigation and emergency management consulting firm; contributor to the TCF Task Force Report
-- Martin O'Malley, mayor of Baltimore; co-chair, U.S. Conference of Mayors - Homeland Security Task Force; contributor to the TCF Task Force Report
-- Richard C. Leone, president, The Century Foundation (moderator)
RSVP: Laurie Ahlrich, ahlrich@tcf.org or 212-452-7722
"The Forgotten Homeland: A Century Foundation Task Force Report" gathers some of the leading homeland security experts to analyze the nation's most significant vulnerabilities and to propose strategies to reduce them.
The report addresses terrorist as well as nonterrorist threats and offers ideas for strengthening all aspects of our emergency response -- including our ability to respond to natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina.
The participants will discuss key issues addressed in the report such as protecting transportation networks, upgrading "first response" capabilities, confronting the unconventional weapons challenge, and gaining better intelligence. Copies of the Task Force Report will be distributed at the event.
--- The Century Foundation conducts public policy research and analyses of economic, social, and foreign policy issues, including inequality, retirement security, election reform, media studies, homeland security, and international affairs.
The foundation produces books, reports, and other publications, convenes task forces and working groups, and operates seven informational Web sites.
With offices in New York City and Washington, D.C., The Century Foundation is nonprofit and nonpartisan and was founded in 1919 by Edward A. Filene.
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Partner Sites:
Partnership for a Secure America
Security and Peace Initiative
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Security & Peace Iniative- About Us
The Security and Peace Initiative The Security and Peace Initiative (SPI) - a joint initiative of the Center for American Progress and The Century Foundation - works to advance a responsible U.S. foreign policy based on a strong defense, collective security, capable international institutions, and effective promotion of democracy and the rule of law. With offices in New York and Washington, SPI places emphasis on identifying and promoting emerging voices in progressive foreign policy. SPI is ,b>led by Director Morton H. Halperin, and co-chaired by Gary Hart and Madeleine Albright.
Sponsoring Organizations
Center for American Progress- John Podesta, President
The Century Foundation - Richard C. Leone, President
Security and Peace Initiative Coordinators
Morton H. Halperin - Director, Security and Peace Initiative, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress
Jeffrey Laurenti - Senior Fellow, Security and Peace Initiative, Senior Fellow, The Century Foundation
Peter Rundlet - Vice President for National Security and International Affairs, Center for American Progress Security and Peace Initiative Staff
Spencer P. Boyer - Fellow and Conference Director, Security and Peace Initiative
Michael Fuchs - Special Assistant to the Director, Security and Peace Initiative
Assistant to Fellows, Center for American Progress
Lawrence J. Korb - Senior Fellow, Security and Peace Initiative; Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress
Suzanne Nossel- Non-Resident Fellow, Security and Peace Initiative
Leah Pisar - Director of Strategic Planning, Security and Peace Initiative
Carl Robichaud - Program Officer, Security and Peace Initiative; Program Officer, The Century Foundation
Gayle Smith -Senior Fellow, Security and Peace Initiative Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress
Michael Shtender-Auerbach - Associate Press Director, Security and Peace Initiative; Public Affairs Officer, The Century Foundation
Patrick Radden Keefe - Fellow and Program Officer, The Century Foundation
Advisory Board
Madeleine Albright - Co-chairM
Gary Hart - Co-chair
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AND ... all these 'pseudo political think tanks' are just vehicles, probably 527's, all likely with PR links to Fenton Communications and the real wacky radical libs, left in the dust of the swing to a more conservative American view, and desperate to create credibility with these fake organizations by conducting forums, panels, seminars, as if they had a say or mattered.
These fake conglomerations and entities are financed by the meglomaniac, Soros .. who is freely passing billions to any organization wishing to take America away from her traditional roots, and especially to disrupt Pres. Bush at every turn.
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The Washington Post puff piece on Soros was sparked by news that the one-world billionaire had given $5-million – the largest "soft money" contribution in American history -- to an organization called MoveOn.org.
It was the first of many such massive Soros contributions to this and other similar "stealth" groups set up after enactment of McCain-Feingold.
But Soros, as an unspeakably wealthy donor, is not alone. He is an enabler, a networker, a fund-raiser sparking huge contributions from other leftist billionaires – personal friends and business associates -- like Peter B. Lewis, chairman of Progressive Corp. (insurance), and Hollywood mogul Stephen Bing. These friends have ponied up millions to fund MoveOn.org, along with other shadowy, under-the-radar political organizations.
Soros -- a self-styled citizen of the world who has spent billions meddling in the internal affairs of many nations -- has been credited with wrecking national currencies and toppling governments.
,b>Soros has compared Bush to Hitler and told a European audience he was seeking "regime change" in the U.S. "America, under Bush, is a danger to the world, and I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is," Soros told the Washington Post.
He told Bill Moyer’s PBS NOW broadcast that his multi-million-dollar gift is "the same kind of grass roots organizing that we did when we helped in Slovakia when Mechar was defeated, in Croatia when Tudjman was defeated and in Yugoslavia when Milisovioc…"
He is widely credited last year with funding the revolution that ousted the elected leader in the former Soviet Republic, Georgia.
How does the infusion of billionaire dollars to MoveOn.org bring about a "regime change" in America?
What Soros’ and his "progressive" billionaire partners are getting from MoveOn.org in return for their breathtaking "soft money" largess is a massive attack-ad campaign – which they believe is immune from BCRA – designed to move radical voters to "take back America." That means "take" the power of the national government – the White House and Congress.
In targeting President Bush, The MoveOn.org Voter Fund website brags, "We will produce convincing anti-Bush TV spots and get them on the air in targeted states. We will buy enough airtime to effectively deliver our message to swing voters in those states.
We will sustain our advertising presence continually throughout the pre-primary and primary periods."
So how is it that MoveOn.org is doing what law-abiding non-profit grass roots organizations cannot do? And how is it that even the "appearance of corruption" that soft money represented doesn’t apply to Soros.
Soros and his fellow billionaire travelers are poster boys for what they once claimed were the evils of soft money. But in Soros’ grand vision of himself, "the corrupting influence of very large donors" (his OSI’s words) doesn’t apply to him or his pure motives.
In his thick Hungarian accent, he told National Public Radio that his massive contributions to affect the November 2004 elections were morally above question.
"I am not motivated by self-interest but by what I believe to be the public interest. So when the Republican National Committee attacks me and distorts my motives… You see, I'm different from their contributors," he said.
In other words, Soros believes he is above the law, above even the question of appearance of corruption, because, in his heart he knows he’s right. Soros indeed believes he is special -- not just in moral purity, but under the law as well.
While the long debate over campaign finance was rife with the use of the pejorative, "loophole," Soros and the handful of "progressive" political activists he funds believe they have found total immunity from the laws Soros paid so heavily to have applied to everyone else.
The loophole they have sought comes not in the BCRA, but in the Federal Tax Code, which covers certain entities known as "527’s."
Since it is now against the law for national parties to receive "soft money" -- which they used in pre-McCain-Feingold days used for get-out-the-vote drives and issue advertising -- the theory is that those functions, along with the unlimited funds from big donors like Soros can be shifted to "527’s".
In essence, "527’s" claim to have immunity from sunshine reporting and all other strictures demanded by the FEC under BCRA, because they were created under the U.S. Tax code.
It’s like a drunk driver saying the traffic laws don’t apply to him because anti-pollution laws in a vehicle cover him.
Hiding under the "527" category are some very inbred Democratic Party operatives – all on the radical left. Their organizations have become stealth political parties – in the case of Soros’ benefaction, stealth ultra-left, anti-gun-rights political parties.
And unlike the Democratic or Republican parties, nobody elects those who control "527" functions, and many of these organizations aided by Soros operate in near total secrecy.
Some – like former Clinton White House operative Harold Ickes’ Media Fund – which scant press reports say will be launching attack ads against President Bush -- can’t be found in a Google Search. Some are merely addresses in nowhere.
The Washington Post, perhaps the only media outlet waking up to the depth of this scam, editorialized on an entity created in Texas called the Sustainable World Corp., incorporated on December 10, 2003.
A few days later it split $3.1 million between a "527" called Joint Victory Campaign 2004 and the Ickes Media Fund. The Post noted that the only public information available on the Sustainable World Corp. is a Houston post office box, and that its registered agent refused to identify the principals of his client.
Another "527" listed on the IRS website called "Campaign for a Progressive Future" (CPF) has expenditures tied to the Million Mom March.
It has an address in the tiny town of Washington, Virginia. Among its donors are George Soros and Soros Fund Management and the Irene Diamond Fund, which helped bankroll the NAACP anti-gun lawsuit. Each Fund gave the CPF $500,000. A Google Search on the CPF produces nothing but an information page under the heading "Silent Partners" from the Center for Public Integrity, which lists the group as an "organization that supports candidates opposed by the National Rifle Association." (The NRA-ILA Website provides a good but necessarily sketchy a fact sheet as well.)
In his NPR NOW interview, Soros claimed, "I am contributing to independent organizations that are by law forbidden to coordinate their activities with political parties or candidates." That is what he sees as the only restriction on his obscene soft money largess.
But a search on the Democratic National Committee Website for the words "MoveOn.org" produces a few paragraphs that raise instant questions for Soros.
One item says, "The DNC is also conducting a major petition drive in partnership with MoveOn.org. More than 310,000 Americans have signed the petition to protect our courts - with more than 172,000 of those signatures coming in the past 36 hours.
The petition calls on Bush and the Republicans to stop nominating judges that are out of step with mainstream Americans and praising the Democrats for standing up for their rights." The DNC website links the petition.
The other announcement involved what the DNC called "a massive public mobilization" in which "The Democratic Party is partnering with MoveOn.org…" to fight President Bush’s tax cuts.
But this is just the beginning of obvious coordination of this "527" and the DNC. A December 9, 2003 In These Times magazine cover-story described the work of a small network of radical "527’s" including MoveOn.org Voter Fund which were "created after McCain-Feingold to circumvent the ban on soft money.
Named for the section of the tax code that regulates them, these progressive 527s -- nearly all funded and organized by traditional Democratic allies such as labor, environmental and reproductive rights groups -- can raise huge sums of unregulated money for voter education and registration so long as they do not advocate for a specific candidate."
As for their source of "huge sums of unregulated money," the article says, "So far the 527’s haven't had much of a problem finding cash, thanks in no small part to billionaire financier George Soros, who has donated $12 million so far to 527’s and has pledged millions more."
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We've gotta realize how powerful and vicious they are. The only way their billions and diabolical mission can succeed is if we don't GET ACTIVE AND SUPPORT THE CANDIDATES AMERICA NEEDS MORE THAN EVER.
http://www.aim.org/special_report/4557_0_8_0_C/
Post Reporter Dana Priest's Troubling Connections
By Jennifer Verner | May 9, 2006
---snip---
In the world where the left-wing media and the press meet, it's apparently enough to make charges without evidence. Such was the case with a well-publicized December 5, 2005 letter of support to Senator John McCain, promoting his amendment to the Defense Appropriations Bill "reinforcing the ban on cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment by all U.S. personnel around the world." The implication, without evidence, was that the torture allegations being recklessly thrown around at U.S. soldiers were all true.
Among the 33 who signed the document were Richard Clarke, a close partner of Mary O. McCarthy in the Clinton Administration's NSA; Melvin Goodman, CIP's senior fellow; Ray McGovern, a close working ally of Goodman who has written for publications associated with conspiracy theorist and former Marxist Lyndon LaRouche; and Larry Johnson, a long-time friend and defender of Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson. (Careful media observers will also note that McGovern and Johnson were the mainstream media's "go to" experts on the CIA in the wake of the Mary McCarthy firing.)
All of this has been accomplished without any major media scrutiny. Consider, however, that when the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth came forward with damning, factual allegations against John Kerry, questioning his anti-war activity and dubious claims about alleged U.S. atrocities in the Vietnam War, the New York Times produced a front-page story that included an elaborate chart supposedly "connecting the dots" of a Bush-friendly anti-Kerry conspiracy. Yet not a single mainstream media outlet has examined the documented histories and hard connections of money and political interest shared by Dana Priest, William Goodfellow, Mary McCarthy, Joe Wilson, Fenton Communications, Melvin Goodman and other vocal enemies of the Bush Administration. These relationships cannot be chalked up to random "inside the beltway" webs of acquaintance. They pose obvious and deeply troubling questions for anyone who values a free and independent press. The evidence suggests that Priest is part of a Democratic Party influence operation designed not only to politically damage the Bush Administration but to subvert U.S. foreign policy.
Those groups should be required to disclose their donors in the same way political parties are.