Posted on 04/03/2012 4:54:09 AM PDT by SJackson
A serious internal schism has developed that threatens to destroy the Democracy Alliance, George Soros’s financial clearinghouse that funds groups and projects aimed at turning America into a European-style socialist state.
The preeminent funder of the Left in the United States, Soros favors American decline and has said that European-style socialism “is exactly what we need now.” The radical, anti-American philanthropist praises Red China effusively, saying the totalitarian nation has “a better-functioning government than the United States.”
The conflict within Soros’s group has created two factions.
On one side are Democracy Alliance members who believe in the original mission of the donors’ collaborative. Created after Democrats failed to reclaim power in the 2004 election, the group started out funding left-wing political infrastructure – think tanks, activist groups, leadership schools, and media outlets— to help the Left gain and keep power. The idea was to focus on long-term organizational issues as opposed to helping Democrats get elected every election cycle.
Soros doppelganger Peter B. Lewis, who helped to found the group with Soros, believes the Democracy Alliance has become far too partisan. In a crushing blow to the club-for-billionaire-radicals, the Progressive Insurance magnate who spent $25 million in 2004 in a failed attempt to defeat President George W. Bush, reportedly resigned from the Democracy Alliance in disgust weeks ago.
“Peter’s focus since 2004 has been on scaling up the progressive infrastructure, as opposed to election or political candidates,” a source told the Politico newspaper last month.
Although Lewis donated $200,000 last summer to a super PAC approved by the Democracy Alliance, a source close to him told the Politico that he probably won’t give any more cash to super PACs and is not happy with the Democracy Alliance’s newfound focus on them.
Trial lawyer Guy Saperstein said he quit the Democracy Alliance because he believed the group’s mission had shifted. “All of us were political donors going in, and the DA was sold to us as an effort to build infrastructure that was different from campaign politics. But that promise has been something that they’ve moved away from,” he said. Saperstein said he donated more than $1 million through the Democracy Alliance.
Saperstein, who regards Obama as “a failure from a progressive point of view,” said the group was now “more devoted to short term election tactics than it ever had been.”
On the other side of the divide are those Democracy Alliance members who want the group to more closely align itself with groups close to the Obama White House such as Media Matters for America and the Center for American Progress in order to help Democrats in the approaching election.
Right now this faction appears to have the upper hand. The Democracy Alliance has officially dumped several of the more ideologically oriented groups as recommended grantees. Among the dropped groups are Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), documentary filmmaker Brave New Foundation, and the Campaign for America’s Future which has repeatedly attacked Democrats for taking insufficiently left-wing stances.
Trust fund baby Rob McKay, the Taco Bell heir who chairs the Democracy Alliance’s board, is going all out to make sure President Obama wins a second term. McKay, who also sits on the board of the pro-Obama Priorities USA Action super PAC, helped organize a $35,800-a-plate fundraiser for Obama earlier this year.
McKay complains that election-focused groups have taken in just a small fraction of the “hundreds of million dollars” that the group has funneled to Democracy Alliance-approved grant recipients since it was formed in 2005.
The Democracy Alliance funds many key institutions on the Left. One of them is Catalist, formerly known as Data Warehouse. The company was created by Clinton aide Harold Ickes and Democratic operative Laura Quinn to help leftist groups get out the Democratic vote. It describes its mission as providing “progressive organizations with the data and services needed to better identify, understand, and communicate with the people they need to persuade and mobilize.” The chairman of Catalist is Democracy Alliance member Albert J. Dwoskin, a Virginia-based real estate developer.
The Democracy Alliance has also funded People for the American Way, EMILY’s List, ACORN, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Progressive States Network, Center for Community Change, Sierra Club, U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) Education Fund, and the Secretary of State Project which has helped elect left-wingers as chief electoral officials in at least nine states.
SEIU and the AFL-CIO are institutional members of the Democracy Alliance. As I note in my book Subversion Inc., among the group’s individual members are subprime mortgage hucksters Herb and Marion Sandler, Tides Foundation founder Drummond Pike, Warner Music Group CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr., Goldman Sachs banker Lawrence Linden, Congressman Jared Polis (D-Colo.), former Congressman Bob Clement (D-Tenn.), and Livingston Kosberg, CEO of U.S. Physical Therapy Inc.
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Article printed from FrontPage Magazine: http://frontpagemag.com
URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/04/03/leftist-war-chest-on-the-verge-of-collapse/
hardly a collapse, just rearranging donors
Like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic? LOL.
These guys are the seat sniffers in Soro’s crowed. They no nothing about the average democrate, they only hate America.
No more Taco Bell for me.
Glad my son loves Chick-Fil-A.
Mr. George Soros is actually correct with this statement. First, the ChiComs know what they want and have zero scruples in implementing what they want. American Liberals are in cloud-cukoo-land, not realizing that what they want to do, takes brutal force. The ChiComs have no such illusions.
Second, the US Government was inefficient, fractious and not capable by DESIGN. Because that leaves the greatest amount of freedom left for the citizens.
Tyranny can often, but not always, be a well-functioning government. Not a good thing, unless you love totalitarianism like the felonious Mr. Soros.
Unfortunately, it appears that America is the Titanic.
Same here - no Taco Bell.
What we need is something in the line of a Judicial Watch who can sue Lewis and Soros day after day, week after week and tie up their finances in court.
This is how the left got to Palin. I would find a friendly court where the left’s lawyers will spend their days fighting off lawsuit after lawsuit.
And not just Soros and Lewis. I would go after ACORN, SEIU, PETA, Emiliy’s list and on and on and on. Force them to use their financial resources and take them out of the game.
It is so Alinsky and would be so fun to watch them whine and moan that the evil Conservatives are taking their money away.
That is how you beat the left. It is how Reagan beat the Soviets and we need to take a page out of Reagan’s playbook for this election.
Isn’t it amazing how leftism attracts those who never worked for their own wealth or to make a living,
and also those who don’t want to.
Miserable Atheist, Leftest, Marxist, Democrats. They despise the greatest economic engine ever conceived, and are doing all they can to dismantle it and enslave us all.
“Same here - no Taco Bell.”
Don’t think she has any interest in Taco Bell anymore. It would be more accurate to say that her family made its fortune through Taco Bell (and hard work), and she is just a trust funder riding off that.
I believe Taco Bell is now owned by Pepsico. If so, that means she either cashed out or now holds her share as Pepsico stock. (Mind, there are other reasons I avoid Pepsico stuff, but it is mainly due to the sins of the current, rather than past management.)
If the former, avoiding Taco Bell is like a liberal avoiding Snapple because Rush advertises it. If the latter, you should be avoiding all Pepsico products, not just Taco Bell.
Sadly, you’re right. If we don’t get that POS out of the White Crib in Nov, we’re gone.
If only I had the right gear and training . . .
The problem is the government, us, is one of the biggest funders of leftist causes.
Chick-Fil-A uses Coke products. Just an observation on my part. I tend to frequent establishments that offer Coca-Cola, as I much prefer Coke to Pepsi.
In today's world of corporate conglomerates, one does what one can. For example, I'm fairly certain that the Wal-Mart brand of instant oatmeal is actually made by Quaker Oats.
But I'm not going to drive myself batty when I buy groceries, or other products.
Maybe they will have a “Tower of Babel” moment and be rendered ineffective. . . we can hope.
Soros does not understand why the Chinese government works better then the US government. First in order to become a government official, everyone must take a civil service exam to make sure they can read, write, understand the rudimentary function of gov and its bylaws. Despite Communism, this is a holdover from Confucious Chinese culture. Try this in the US for anyone who plans to run for office, and the inner city blacks/Hispanics would be screaming such tests favor whites and Asians. Second when one enters the Chinese gov you are given an assignment and you must meet the goals given by the upper gov officials. Fail and your career ends, succeed and you will be promoted upward. How many US Congressmen break promises (ie fail to meet promised objectives)? This is why Americans have low opinion of their elected officials as well as gov workers and officials. GWB had a former horse auctioneer in charge of FEMA, God knows who Obama has in charge of various agencies as a poltical payback for campaign contributions and etc. Is Soros prepare to give all that up if he wants the US gov be more like the Chinese he admires?
I thought the latest Progressive Insurance commercial where Flo is in bed having a dream sort of smacked of Occupy Wall Street.
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