Soros-Funded Democratic Idea Factory Becomes Obama Policy Font

[Deff Gordon]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=aF7fB1PF0NPg

Nov. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Three blocks from the White House, on the 10th floor of a sleek glass building, young workers pound at computers, with giant flat-screen TVs overhead. It has the look and feel of a high-tech startup.

In many ways it is. The product is ideas.

Thanks in part to funding from benefactors such as billionaire George Soros, the Center for American Progress has become in just five years an intellectual wellspring for Democratic policy proposals, including many that are shaping the agenda of the new Obama administration.

Much as the Heritage Foundation provided intellectual heft for the Republican Party in the 1980s, CAP has been an incubator for liberal thought and helped build the platform that triumphed in the 2008 campaign.

``What CAP has done is recapture the role of ideas as an important political force, something the Republicans had been better at for 25 years,'' said Walter Isaacson, president of the Aspen Institute, a non-partisan policy-research organization in Washington.

CAP's president and founder, John Podesta, 59, former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, is one of three people running the transition team for president-elect Barack Obama, 47. A squadron of CAP experts is working with them.

Some of the group's recommendations already have been adopted by the president-elect.

Withdrawal of Troops

These include the center's call for a gradual withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and a buildup of forces in Afghanistan, a plan for universal health coverage through employer plans and proposals to create purchasing pools that allow small businesses to spread the cost among a larger group of workers. Obama has endorsed much of a CAP plan to create ``green jobs'' linked to alleviating global climate change.

CAP also is advocating the creation of a ``National Energy Council'' headed by an official with the stature of the national security adviser and who would be charged with ``transforming the energy base'' of the U.S. In addition, CAP urges the creation of a White House ``office of social entrepreneurship'' to spur new ideas for addressing social problems.

To help promote its ideas, CAP employs 11 full-time bloggers who contribute to two Web sites, ThinkProgress and the Wonk Room; others prepare daily feeds for radio stations. The center's policy briefings are standing-room only, packed with lobbyists, advocacy-group representatives and reporters looking for insights on where the Obama administration is headed.

`Premier Progressive'

``The center is the premier progressive think tank in Washington,'' said Mark Green, head of the New Democracy Project, an urban-affairs institute in New York.

Just eight days after the Nov. 4 election, CAP released a 300,000-word volume called ``Change for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President'' that offers advice on issues such as economic revival and fixing the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Work on the book began almost a year ago.

CAP, which has 180 staffers and a $27 million budget, devotes as much as half of its resources to promoting its ideas through blogs, events, publications and media outreach.

The center's future was far from certain in 2003, when wealthy donors such as Soros and film producer Stephen Bing gave $10 million or more to fill what they believed was an intellectual void in the Democratic Party and create a vehicle to produce an agenda for the party's eventual return to power.

Heritage Foundation

Podesta modeled the center on the Heritage Foundation, which became the go-to policy-research organization in 1981 when newly elected President Ronald Reagan embraced its conservative ideas embodied in a book called ``Mandate for Leadership.'' Heritage was just seven years old.

CAP and Heritage have something else in common.

``Others strive to be objective, we don't,'' said Jennifer Palmieri, CAP's vice president for communications.

Podesta likes to say, ``we're not a think tank, we're an action tank,'' said Dan Weiss, an environmental activist who joined CAP last year.

CAP isn't the only Democratic-leaning research organization in Washington with enhanced cachet after Obama's election.

The 92-year-old Brookings Institution, for example, has advisers in Obama's inner circle, including economist Jason Furman and foreign-policy expert Susan Rice. Others are working either part-time or full-time in the Obama transition.

Podesta's center isn't even among the biggest or best- funded. Brookings has a staff of more than 400 and an annual budget of $48 million. Heritage has a staff of 200 and a budget of $60 million. The American Enterprise Institute, which has close ties to the administration of President George W. Bush, has about 140 staffers, including Lynne Cheney, wife of Vice President Dick Cheney, and a budget of $28 million.

Influence

Yet CAP may be the most influential. In addition to Podesta, at least 10 other CAP experts are advising the incoming administration, including Melody Barnes, the center's executive vice president for policy who co-chairs the agency-review working group and Cassandra Butts, the senior vice president for domestic policy, who is now a senior transition staffer.

``John understood that ideas have power in this town, and he brought in super-bright people whose ideas have become essential reading,'' Isaacson said.

CAP's successes offer a lesson for Republican-leaning groups, said James McGann, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia who tracks policy groups.

``They've shown that one has to constantly innovate and be responsible to an ever-changing demographics and electorate, and have policies that are responsive to that,'' McGann said.

[jaesun]

Soros works for Satan. I've seen his work badge. True story.

[PETA]

No Satan works for Soros

[jaesun]

Originally Posted by St. Stalin the Apathetic

No Satan works for Soros

I stand corrected, good sir.

[TheAmazon]

Originally Posted by St. Stalin the Apathetic

No Satan works for Soros

hahaha

[BLAZEN]

so soros works for bush

[I AM EL-NINO]

Follow the money. Sorros is scum and OWNES the Democratic party.
Obama=change=puppet.
Lollzzz.

[ManWithNoName]

Is George Soros the Emperor Palpatine of Politics?

Close

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[Typofile]

So, how about some information?

Soros is Satan, or whatever.

CAP's successes offer a lesson for Republican-leaning groups, said James McGann, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia who tracks policy groups.

``They've shown that one has to constantly innovate and be responsible to an ever-changing demographics and electorate, and have policies that are responsive to that,'' McGann said.

Seems a little antithetical to the conservative arguments presented here in this thread, if you would even call them that. Simply referring to him as Satan, with no factual information, just reiterates the idea that the GOP has lost the abbility to innovate.

Interestingly enough, comparing Soros with Satan sounds a little like liberal craziness.

Please include some information. Honestly, I am not too familiar with who he is, so perhaps, you guys could include some actual information that would lead us to conclude that Soros is indeed Satanistic, or whatever.

[I AM EL-NINO]

Originally Posted by dbdesign

So, how about some information?

Soros is Satan, or whatever.



Seems a little antithetical to the conservative arguments presented here in this thread, if you would even call them that. Simply referring to him as Satan, with no factual information, just reiterates the idea that the GOP has lost the abbility to innovate.

Interestingly enough, comparing Soros with Satan sounds a little like liberal craziness.

Please include some information. Honestly, I am not too familiar with who he is, so perhaps, you guys could include some actual information that would lead us to conclude that Soros is indeed Satanistic, or whatever.

Ehehe...ya cause we are all so much a part of the GOP.
Im sure the comment wasnt made to be taken so literally.

[Deff Gordon]

Originally Posted by dbdesign

So, how about some information?

Soros is Satan, or whatever.



Seems a little antithetical to the conservative arguments presented here in this thread, if you would even call them that. Simply referring to him as Satan, with no factual information, just reiterates the idea that the GOP has lost the abbility to innovate.

Interestingly enough, comparing Soros with Satan sounds a little like liberal craziness.

Please include some information. Honestly, I am not too familiar with who he is, so perhaps, you guys could include some actual information that would lead us to conclude that Soros is indeed Satanistic, or whatever.

soros is a hungarian jew (that claimed to the nazis he was christian) that amassed his fortune at a young age from pilfering the other jews that were taken into the concentration camps. every time a jewish family was sent off to their deaths, it put money in the pocket of George Soros.

[I AM EL-NINO]

Originally Posted by Deff Gordon

soros is a hungarian jew (that claimed to the nazis he was christian) that amassed his fortune at a young age from pilfering the other jews that were taken into the concentration camps. every time a jewish family was sent off to their deaths, it put money in the pocket of George Soros.

. Damn .

[J. Fees]

Originally Posted by I AM EL-NINO

. Damn .

and you didn't even take time to actually see if what he said was true. he was 15 when WWII was over.

Soros was thirteen years old in March 1944 when Nazi Germany took military control over Hungary[8]. Soros worked for the Jewish Council for two days[5], which had been established during the Nazi occupation of Hungary to forcibly carry out Nazi and Hungarian government anti-Jewish measures. Soros later described this time to writer Michael Lewis:
The Jewish Council asked the little kids to hand out the deportation notices. I was told to go to the Jewish Council. And there I was given these small slips of paper...It said report to the rabbi seminary at 9 a.m....And I was given this list of names. I took this piece of paper to my father. He instantly recognized it. This was a list of Hungarian Jewish lawyers. He said, "You deliver the slips of paper and tell the people that if they report they will be deported.[9]
To avoid his son's being apprehended by the Nazis, Soros's father paid a Ministry of Agriculture employee to have Soros spend the summer of 1944 living with him and posing as the godson. Young Soros had to hide his Jewishness even as the official was overseeing the confiscation of Jewish property.[10]
In the following year, Soros survived the battle of Budapest in which Soviet and Nazi forces fought house-to-house through the city. Soros first traded currencies during the Hungarian hyperinflation of 1945–1946.
In 1946, Soros escaped the Soviet occupation by participating in an Esperanto youth congress in the West.[citation needed]
Soros emigrated to England in 1947 and graduated from the London School of Economics in 1952. While a student of the philosopher Karl Popper, Soros funded himself by taking jobs as a railway porter and a waiter at Quaglino's restaurant where he was told that with hard work he might one day become head waiter. He also worked in a mannequin factory, but was fired for being too slow at putting on the heads. He eventually secured an entry-level position with London merchant bank Singer & Friedlander.

[Deff Gordon]

lol feez-

that's the sugar-glazed over wiki version of his bio and considering he funds a few of the top blog/thinktank sites, it would be very easy for the "articles" in wiki on him be smoothed over.

side note: Rape of Europa in on PBS right now!!!

[I AM EL-NINO]

Originally Posted by J. Fees

and you didn't even take time to actually see if what he said was true. he was 15 when WWII was over.

you missed the point.
But still...... SOROS BLOWS DONKEY COCKS AND OBAMA BLOWS HIS WHILE HE IS DOING IT!