President Obama Lied, Jobs Died, He Doesn’t Care: The Continuing Drilling Moratorium Through Permit Process
Hyperbolic headline? I think not. Consider how the Obama administration manipulated scientific findings (remember the promise to be scientific?). This from Politico:
“The White House edit of the original DOI draft executive summary led to the implication that the moratorium recommendation had been peer-reviewed by the experts,” the IG report states, without judgment on whether the change was an intentional attempt to mislead the public.
The six-month ban on offshore drilling installed in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill became a major political issue over the summer, as Gulf State lawmakers and industry groups charged the White House with unfairly threatening thousands of jobs. House Republicans have said they plan on investigating the circumstances surrounding the moratorium when they take power next year.
Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and several other Gulf State members of Congress asked the Interior IG to investigate the moratorium and the peer review claim.
“The inspector general’s finding that the blanket-drilling moratorium was driven by politics and not by science is bitter news for families who, because of it, lost their jobs, savings, and way of life,” Cassidy said Tuesday. “Candidate Obama promised that he would guided by science, not ideology. If that were true, at least 12,000 jobs and 1.8 billion dollars of economic activity would have been saved on the Gulf Coast.”
And as bad as that is, the government underestimated job losses from the moratorium. An analysis Dr. Joseph Mason reveals this:
Using the figures from a report, Dr. Mason re-ran his analysis using the government’s own economic modeling and reveals the White House underestimated total jobs loss by 7,500 to 11,500 jobs in the Gulf states. In fact, based on the administration’s data, Mason finds that that the region stands to lose:
· 19,536 jobs;
· $ 5 billion in economic output;
· $ 1.1 billion in earnings; and
· $ 239 million in state and local tax revenues during the 6-month moratorium.
Clearly, the administration’s study represents another failed attempt to justify new anti-energy policies that will threaten the health of the U.S. economy and could undermine our economic recovery. View Dr. Mason’s full analysis here.
Not only is this unscientific discrimination against an industry hated by this administration, it seems that this abuse is politically motivated-going after heavily Republican states and then harming the job outlook in states that have actually been showing growth.
This news is an abomination.
And worse, the regulations by the EPA have been foot-draggingly awful. So the moratorium lifted before the election for politically expedient reasons, but for all practical purposes, the EPA is still harassing the industry through the coagulated permitting process.
Solution? Defund the EPA. Two can play at this game. Republicans can just pull the money rug out from the EPA and investigate them non-stop. This is something all jobs-focused Americans should be happy about.
Nearly 20,000 jobs lost in the gulf and it’s President Obama’s fault.
Confirmed: Obama job-killlers Salazar, Browner lied about drilling ban rationale
I’ve been covering Loathsome Cowboy/job-killer Ken Salazar’s ongoing corruption of science and environmental policy at the Interior Department for you extensively here. He has largely escaped mainstream scrutiny. But with a new House GOP majority and independent watch dogs on his tail, he may finally get the lasting ass-kicking he deserves.
As you’ll recall, Salazar and his minions were roasted by federal courts in June and July for fudging data and misrepresenting and contradicting what Obama-appointed scientists recommended regarding the administration’s deepwater drilling ban. In September, the courts again rejected the drilling ban before the White House finally relented in an election-season feint.
He refused to acknowledge his deception and instead strolled into a federal oil spill commish meeting and did this:
Undaunted, Salazar conjured up a “revised” moratorium rubber-stamped by oil spill czar Michael Bromwich, who sheepishly admitted that the new ban was “roughly congruent with the original moratorium.”
The sham changes would permit some drilling rigs to re-start operations – but only under onerous, fantasyland testing conditions that industry leaders say would be virtually impossible to meet. In short, Salazar’s “new” moratorium is a lot like Salazar himself: All hat, no cattle.
The Interior Secretary then strode into the first hearing of the presidential oil spill commission this week to tell the panelists that he wanted their work to “inform” his book-cooked deepwater drilling ban. It was, essentially, Salazar guiding the dog-and-pony show participants to bark and neigh on command. The panelists were “stunned” by Salazar’s explicit expectation of policy support, according to hearing observers, because weighing in on the moratorium had not been a part of their original mandate.
None of the panelists, conveniently enough, has actual technical expertise in deepwater drilling. So on what, exactly, can they “inform” Salazar? No doubt Salazar and his superiors at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue have soaked up the online anti-drilling rants of prominent oil spill panelist Frances Beinecke. She’s a leading official at the rabidly anti-corporate Natural Resources Defense Council, where she publicly called for offshore drilling bans five times over the past two months before snagging a seat on Obama’s “expert” panel. NRDC was one of the leading environmental lobbying voices pushing for the commission in the first placde. The eco-tail is wagging Team Obama’s dog.
Now, the Interior Department inspector general has officially confirmed what whistle-blowing scientists exposed this summer. Salazar and the Obama eco-radicals doctored their moratorium report to mislead the public. Whose fingerprints were all over the lies?
Carol Browner, again.
The White House rewrote crucial sections of an Interior Department report to suggest an independent group of scientists and engineers supported a six-month ban on offshore oil drilling, the Interior inspector general says in a new report.
In the wee hours of the morning of May 27, a staff member to White House energy adviser Carol Browner sent two edited versions of the department report’s executive summary back to Interior. The language had been changed to insinuate the seven-member panel of outside experts – who reviewed a draft of various safety recommendations – endorsed the moratorium, according to the IG report obtained by POLITICO…
…Interior spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff said the changes were part of the normal editing and consulting process.
“There was no intent to mislead the public,” Barkoff said in a statement to POLITICO. “The decision to impose a temporary moratorium on deepwater drilling was made by the secretary, following consultation with colleagues including the White House.”
Longtime readers of this blog know about Browner’s sordid history of doctoring evidence, evading transparency, and abusing public office in pursuit of her radical environmental agenda. I wrote in December 2008:
If fiscal conservatives, sound science advocates, and businesses don’t raise a stink about Browner’s crooked background, they deserve everything that’s coming to them.
Unfortunately, American workers whose jobs have been destroyed by these green power-grabbers didn’t deserve the punishment they’ve suffered.
Let’s hope the House GOP majority turns up the heat and holds Salazar/Browner responsible.
***
The White House claimed some vindication, saying that the IG had stopped short of accusing the administration of a deliberate deception, and called it “a misunderstanding.” That seems like a bit of a stretch, especially since the supposed mistake didn’t exactly occur in a vacuum. Opponents of oil drilling, usually among Obama’s allies on the Left, had demanded an end to drilling in the region at least until the investigation into the disaster was completed. The White House version of the report gave Obama political cover to order the six-month moratorium — at least until those involved in its peer review cried foul after the White House publicly used them to defend the action.
But even if it was just a “misunderstanding,” an artifact of some guileless editorial tweaking that inadvertently put a paragraph ahead of or behind an important qualifier, it was at the very least incompetence. Why was the staff of energy “adviser” Carol Browner allowed to edit a report issued by the Department of Interior’s blue-ribbon panel in the first place? Why did no one review those changes at Interior to determine whether the edits were justified, especially since the IG report indicates that the edits took place because the staffer or Browner didn’t think it summarized the findings properly? Why not just ask the report’s authors to rewrite it themselves?
Kirk: Bush official ‘lied’ on Iraq
I was in Chicago tonight for the final debate in one of the nation’s closest Senate races in which Mark Kirk is doing what he can to show he’s not a traditional Republican.
My full story is here, but one interesting moment:
Kirk also used unusually harsh language for the Bush administration’s drive to Iraq, describing secret briefings in which he was shown centrifuges and designs for unmanned aerial vehicles that CIA officials said in the run-up to war proved that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction.
“I think we were lied to, in the end,” said Kirk, specifically blaming the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence – at the time, John McLaughlin —for the falsehoods.
After the debate, he associated himself with Gen. Colin Powell’s complaints about the administration’s handling of intelligence, and to what Kirk called “A breakdown in the integrity of the intelligence chain of command.”
CNN: Sink lied about debate cheating
Sinking in the polls, too.
Alex Sink’s fortunes appear to be falling in Florida after getting caught cheating in a debate against Republican Rick Scott. She may have made matters worse by attempting to spin it later. Rather than just admit that she checked a message from a staffer when the debate rules clearly prohibited it, Sink claimed that she […]
CNN’s John King Says Alex Sink Lied About Debate Cheating Incident
(note if you cannot see videos below (click here)
It was the text seen round the world. During the final Florida gubernatorial debate, Democratic Candidate Alex Sink got caught getting a text message with debate advice from her staff, which was against debate rules. Her GOP opponent, Rick Scott called her out on the cheating incident when the debate resumed.
Yesterday she told Chris Matthews that when she was handed the message she was worried that it was from her daughter who is out of town:
“Well, uh, what happened was, Chris, last night that the makeup artist held up her phone and said I just got this message, I don’t know who it’s from. I looked at it because, you know, I’m a mom, my instinct is my daughter’s in Europe. I don’t know who this message is from. I glanced at it. I didn’t understand even what it was, and I just ignored it.”
Sink didn’t know that the folks at CNN had listened to the tape carefully. A little while later John King shows up on CNN, directly contradicting her, saying,
“Today she said she wasn’t sure what it was when the makeup artist handed her the phone. She thought it might have been a message from a daughter who she said was in college in [England]. But we listened very closely to the audio, and the makeup artist, when she approached Alex Sink, said I have a message from the staff. And at that point they looked, it was on a cell phone, it was two sentences. It was essentially advice after the last segment of the debate telling her if that question comes up again, remember this, and be more aggressive when Rick Scott questions you. It was two sentences.”
In politics, the cover-up is worse than the crime. Alex Sink may have been easily forgiven if she simply said, “we screwed up, but lying about cheating in the debate is really going to damage her support. She will be seen as a political hack and a dishonest politician.
Republican Rick Scott already had a lead in the tight campaign, but look for lead to significantly widen before next week’s election.
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Harry Reid aide lied to FBI, INS, but faces no charges
Enabling a terror suspect to get a resident visa, lying to authorities and no charges? Something’s very wrong
American Thinker Blog
SCANDAL? Harry Reid Aide Lied To FBI About Fake Marriage to Alien With Possible Terrorist Ties
Fox News uncovered a scandal involving Harry Reid’s Press Secretary to the Hispanic Community.
Diana Tejada, (the Reid aide) admitted she took payment for “some of her expenses” in exchange for fraudulently marrying Bassam Mahmoud Tarhini in 2003 so he could obtain permanent U.S. residency, according to court documents.
Apparently the fake groom was under investigation for terrorist ties,
Following Tarhini’s arrest in 2009, he was interviewed by FBI agents who sources say asked about his ties to extremists groups. Some sources said they determined he did not have ties to any terror group, but other sources close to the case said that could not be ruled out.
“Not all of my cases involve the FBI,” said Tarhini’s immigration attorney, Timothy Lee Cook. “Certainly, there was something out there that caught their attention.”
Also strange was the fact that Tejada was never charged for her role in the crime, did the majority leader “get her off?”
“We did not charge the woman, and of course we don’t discuss the reasons we don’t charge people,” said Bob Troester, spokesman for the Western District of Oklahoma U.S. Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted the case, which began as an FBI investigation out of the Oklahoma City Joint Terrorism Task Force.
“There’s multiple factors that go into charging decisions. She wasn’t charged and we can’t go beyond that.”
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement would not comment on why it took five years to investigate the couple’s marriage.
Tejada was still employed by Reid, at the end of September, on Sept. 21, 2010, she appeared as a guest on a Spanish-language radio program in her official capacity as a spokeswoman for Harry Reid. But when Fox called Reid’s spokesman today about the impending story, Jim Manley said Tejada was no longer employed by Reid’s. When asked when Tejada left Reid’s services, the spokesman had no comment (but a good guess would probably be 15 minutes before the phone call).
Manley provided this statement to FoxNews.com:
“Our office was not previously aware of these allegations and, following an internal investigation, the staffer at issue is no longer with our office. The conduct alleged, which took place several years before the staffer worked for Senator Reid, was clearly wrong. But the bottom line remains that this story was a desperation measure by partisan Republicans, who have stooped to slinging mud about junior staffers to score points in the waning days of her campaign.”
In court documents, Tejada, who was also the Press Secretary of Hispanic Media for the Senate Majority Conference Committee, is referred to as “an uncharged coconspirator in the crime of perjury, filing false immigration documents, the crime of sham marriage.”
According to interviews and court records obtained by FoxNews.com, Tejada knowingly filed false documents with the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services; lied in in-person interviews with ICE and FBI agents; and submitted fraudulent visa application affidavits and marriage license documents — all in attempt to use her status as an American citizen to get Tarhini permanent residency.
As a result of her actions, according to court documents, Tarhini was able to obtain a work permit.
“I don’t honestly know the reason why they chose to prosecute Bassam and not her,” said Jeffrey Byers, Tarhini’s criminal attorney.
Maybe because her boss was the majority leader?
A Justice Department source familiar with the investigation said:
“As exhibited in the court documents, the case prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Oklahoma City was a straightforward case involving two individuals who entered into a fraudulent marriage during college in order for one to evade immigration laws and obtain lawful residence.”
Tarhini entered the U.S. in 2000 on a student visa to attend Oklahoma City University, where Tejada was also a student. They became friends and married in September 2003 so he could avoid compulsory service in the Lebanese National Army, Tejada later told officials. She was 21 years old at the time; he was 30.
Court records show that Tejada signed numerous affidavits fraudulently representing her marriage, including forms documenting her financial and employment information along with a signed obligation to support Tarhini.
As part of the process, documents show, she and Tarhini attended an August 31, 2004, meeting at Citizenship and Immigration Services in Oklahoma City, where they misrepresented their marriage to immigration officials.
The next year, Tarhini stayed in Oklahoma while Tejada moved to Washington D.C., where she began working as a spokeswoman for the National Council of La Raza, court and public records show.
In 2008, five years after he filed his visa application, Tarhini filed a suit against ICE officials to force a decision regarding the application — a strategy commonly employed when visa decisions appear to be taking an inordinate amount of time.
In 2008, members of the Oklahoma City Joint Terrorism Task Force, sent what’s called a collateral request to ICE, asking them to track down Tejada to interview her about Tarhini. When Tejada was interviewed by ICE and FBI agents in Washington, and she maintained that her marriage was legitimate.
On Nov 3, 2008, ICE and FBI agents re-interviewed Tejada in Washington, according to documents and interviews. This time, sources said, agents presented a slew of evidence against her and Tarhini, and Tejada broke down and confessed that her marriage was a lie, carried out to get Tarhini U.S. residency.
According to court records, she also told authorities that she and Tarhini had never dated nor consummated their marriage.
The highest level of management inside the Department of Homeland Security was aware that she worked for Reid, multiple sources confirmed, and following protocol, the majority leader should have been informed of the investigation through those channels, as well.
But in July 2009, when an ICE agent testifying at Tarhini’s preliminary deportation hearing was asked specifically about Tejada’s employer, the agent did not say it was the U.S. Senate.
ICE Special Agent Rebecca Perkins: “Currently she is employed with the — a Hispanic center organization.”
Tarhini’s Defense Counsel, Jeffrey Byers: “Is that La Raza? Does that sound familiar?”
Perkins: “I don’t know.”
Byers: “It’s a — it’s a — it’s something that is a public service group for the Hispanic community. Is that a fair statement, or something to that degree?”
Perkins: “Yes”
Why would ICE lie about Tejada’s employer? They knew it was Reid and by protocol they were to have told Reid. Were they asked by the Majority leader to commit perjury to protect his ass-ets?
According to sources with knowledge of the November 2008 meeting, Tejada also told ICE and FBI agents that she was concerned about some of Tarhini’s associates, including the best man at her wedding, a Pakistani national named Amer Awli, whom she described as “very secretive.” Awli’s current whereabouts are unknown.
Following Tarhini’s arrest in 2009, he was interviewed by FBI agents who sources say asked about his ties to extremists groups. Some sources said they determined he did not have ties to any terror group, but other sources close to the case said that could not be ruled out.
“Not all of my cases involve the FBI,” said Tarhini’s immigration attorney, Timothy Lee Cook. “Certainly, there was something out there that caught their attention.”
When asked what that might be, Cook said: “FBI’s not going to tell anybody that. And believe me, I asked.”
FBI spokesman Paul Bresson told Fox News.com via email, “We have no comment.”
Of course they don’t have a comment. There are a lot of holes in this story, lots of unanswered questions. Look for the folks at FOX to keep on it. We will soon find out who is involved getting Tejada off, and why it was done.
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Shovel Ready Obamacare: Barack Hussein Obama … HE LIED! Obama Said that Premium Costs Will Go Down 14% … They Did Not
America, how’s that Obamacare “hopey, changey” stuff working out for you? Welcome to “SHOVEL READY” Obamacare reduced premiums … they don’t exist either!!!
Remember when President Barack Hussein Obama tried to lecture Republicans and WE THE PEOPLE on Obamacare stating that the cost would go down 14%? When confronted with the truth, Obama’s response was … “that is just not factually accurate”. Guess what America, it is chose your new health care benefits time at work, just ahead of the 2010 midterm election and did you notice something about your health care benefits? They did not go down as Obama stated, in fact they increased.
As the Gateway Pundit reminds us of the following, “during the White House Summit on health care, Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, and President Obama argued that the Democratic health care bill would cause premiums to decrease.”
Guess who was telling the truth and it was not Barack Obama. According to CNN, employees’ share of premiums for a family plan is up an average 14%, to $ 3,997. So now we know that Obama stated that the $ 787 billion stimulus money was to go to “shovel ready” jobs when now he admist there was no such thing and your health care reduced premiums under Obamacare also appear to be shovel ready was well.
It’s that time of year when employers deliver bad news about next year’s benefits.
Chances are you’ll learn that your 2011 health insurance tab will be sharply higher, as companies continue to shift the burden of rising costs onto their workers.
Employees’ share of premiums for a family plan is up an average 14%, to $ 3,997, vs. just a 3% rise in the total bill, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
And it’s not just premiums that are spiraling higher. You’re also likely to be hit with higher deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums as well as bigger bills for doctor’s visits and drugs.
“Increasingly, employees have to be thoughtful about not just the cost of the plan, but the cost of the services they use,” says Michael Thompson, a principal with Pricewaterhouse-Coopers’ human resources practice.
1 million to lose out on better coverage
It seems people are doing that, but not in the way experts recommend: Recent data suggest that many insured Americans are now forgoing care because of the cost. Rather than sacrificing your health, keep expenses.
It would appear that Nancy Pelosi was correct in that the only way to know what was in Obamacare was to pass it. We are learning that terrible and expensive lesson every day. Thank you Barack, Nancy, Harry and the rest of the Democrats … REMEMBER IN NOVEMBER!
About Those Kennedy-Nixon Debates: JFK Lied, Cubans Died
Recently in the New York Times, JFK speechwriter and adviser Ted Sorensen commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy/Nixon debates: “When Kennedy Met Nixon: The Real Story,” reads the op-ed’s title.
Turns out, however, that the “real story” as “revealed” by Sorensen is identical to the one filtered through the MSM for the past fifty years: Kennedy, we’re given to understand, trounced Nixon—and not just in style—mainly in substance. Sorensen also laments what “now passes for political debate in our increasingly commercialized, sound-biteTwitter-fied culture, in which extremist rhetoric requires presidents to respond to outrageous claims.”
Nothing of the sort, we’re given to understand, marred those heady and substantive debates of yore. Take Kennedy’s claim that President Eisenhower had fallen asleep (or gone golfing) during his command and allowed a perilous “missile gap” to grow between the U.S. and the Soviets. In fact a huge gap had grown (roughly six thousand for us, three hundred for the Soviets.)
Might this qualify as an “outrageous claim” by Kennedy? Not if your source is Ted Sorensen and the New York Times. In fact, prior to the debates, CIA director Allen Dulles had briefed Kennedy on the genuine missile numbers. But rather than respond to this genuinely outrageous claim, Nixon bit his tongue. Disclosing the real number (that JFK knew perfectly well) in public would alert the Soviets to how we got their number, and jeopardize U.S. national security. Which is to say, to blindside his Republican opponent Kennedy relied on that opponent’s patriotism. Let’s face it, Republicans are at a woeful disadvantage here.
“The Republicans have allowed a communist dictatorship to flourish eight jet minutes from our borders,” Kennedy charged during the second debate. “We must support anti-Castro fighters. So far these freedom fighters have received no help from our government.” Here again JFK’s “extremist rhetoric” was a pre-meditated lie. Unlike the John Lovitz character on “Saturday Night Live,” JFK lied expertly and with a straight face.
Short weeks before the debates Allen Dulles (on Ike’s orders) had also briefed Kennedy about Cuban invasion plans (what became the Bay of Pigs invasion). So the “Real Story” (as you well know, Mr. Ted Sorensen) is that Kennedy was again lying through his teeth. He knew damn well the Republican administration was training Cuban freedom fighters. And since the plans were secret, he knew damn well Nixon couldn’t rebut. So Nixon bit his tongue again. He could easily have stomped Kennedy on it. But to some candidates, national security trumps debating points.
Four months later, 1,500 of those very Cuban freedom-fighters that “we must support” were slugging it out with 51,000 Castro troops, squadrons of Stalin tanks, and his entire Air Force at a beachhead now known as the Bay of Pigs.
JFK was no longer a candidate. He was now commander in chief. It was time to put up or shut up. He’d already done plenty of putting up by forcing the CIA and military planners to change the landing site. Then by holding up his approval of an invasion a year in the making till 24 hours before the planned D-day. Then by canceling 80 percent of the pre-invasion air strikes. This last was a vital element of the invasion as planned under Eisenhower.
The Cuban invasion was born under a Republican administration, with Vice President Nixon its main booster. The man who saw through Alger Hiss was also the first to see through Fidel Castro. Then it landed in Camelot’s lap.
“Where are the PLANES?” kept crackling over the invasion ships’ radios. That was their commander, Pepe San Roman, roaring into his radio from the beachhead between hundreds of artillery concussions from huge 122 mm Soviet Howitzers. “Send planes or we can’t last!” San Roman yelled while watching the Soviet tanks close in and his casualties pile up.
The pleas made it to Navy Chief Admiral Arleigh Burke in Washington, D.C., who conveyed them in person to his commander in chief.
“Two planes, Mr. President!” Admiral Burke sputtered into his commander in chief’s face. The fighting admiral was livid, pleading for permission to allow just two of his jets to blaze off the carrier deck and support the desperately embattled freedom-fighters on that heroic beachhead.
“Burke, we can’t get involved in this,” replied JFK.
“WE put those Cuban boys there, Mr. President!” the fighting admiral exploded. “By God, we ARE involved!”‘
Interesting match here. In one corner, the man who blasted almost half the Imperial Japanese fleet to fiery rubble and sent it to the bottom of the Pacific at the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
In the other, the man who managed to get his PT boat Karate-chopped in half by a Japanese destroyer, a feat of nautical ingenuity that still has naval men scratching their heads – and one that almost got him court-martialed. Only some heavy political pressure saved John F. Kennedy in 1944.
Alas, politics prevailed again that night in April ‘61. JFK refused to help the freedom fighters. The election was over, you see.
“Can’t continue,” crackled the final message from San Roman a day later. For three days his force of mostly volunteer civilians had battled savagely against a Soviet-trained and led force 10 times their size, inflicting casualties of 20 to 1. To this day their feat of arms amazes professional military men. Morale will do that to a fighting force. And there’s no morale booster like watching Fidel Castro and Che Guevara ravage your homeland and families, believe me.
Ammo finally ran out. “Russian tanks overrunning my position,” San Roman on his radio again, “destroying my equipment… How can you people do this to us?” Finally the radio went dead.
“Tears filled my eyes,” writes CIA man Grayston Lynch, a multi-decorated WWII and Korea vet who took that final message. “I broke down completely. For the first time in my 37 years I was ashamed of my country.”
BREAKING: Fake Pro-Israel Lobby Group J-Street LIED About George Soros Connection.
Until the election of Barack Obama J-Street was generally ignored by mainstream Israel advocates because its views generally did not take into consideration the safety of Israel. Indeed many (including me) have called the group anti-Israel. President Obama gave the group legitimacy, because he agrees with their anti-Israel/ appease terror positions. When the President started inviting Jewish leaders to the White House, he took the head of the Zionist Organization of America off the list and added J-Street. In a report filed today by Eli Lake (with some research help from yours truly), we find that one of the reasons that the President may be trying to legitimize J-Street is that its receiving major funding from George Soros.
J-Streets leader, Jeremy Ben-Ami has always claimed that Soros gave the group some start-up money, but has not received any money since. That was a lie.
Soro’s contributions represent a third of the group’s revenue from U.S. sources during the period. Another dono, named Consolacion Esdicul. provided nearly half of J-Streets revenues during the period.
Jeremy Ben Ami, J Street’s executive director, said in an interview that the $ 245,000 was part of a $ 750,000 gift from the Soros family to his organization made over three years. Mr. Ben Ami also said that in this same period he had raised $ 11 million for J Street and its political action committee.
Last year it was revealed that many of the donations for the J-Street political action committee come from Arab sources
Mr. Soros made billions as a hedge fund manager and currency speculator, founding the Quantum hedge fund that, until the early 1980s, was based in an offshore tax haven in the Dutch Antilles Islands. Both his business success and his subsequent patterns of charitable giving in support of favored political and social causes have made him a figure of immense controversy both in the United States and around the world.
Mr. Soros uses has vast financial resources to fun many progressive organizations which dictate much of the progressive agenda, the Center For American Progress, MoveOn and Media Matters for America.
Mr. Ben Ami in past interviews has described J Street as President Obama’s “blocking back” in Congress, with the group billing itself as the lead Jewish-American group supporting elements in the Israeli political spectrum who favor negotiating a lasting two-state peace deal with the Palestinians.
What he doesn’t tell you that all major pro-Israel groups support those negotiations. The difference is they also support Israel’s right to defend itself. During the conflict with Hamas at the end of 2008 which was a response to thousands of missiles sent into Israeli civilian areas. J Street called Israel’s “escalation in Gaza counterproductive” and was “disproportionate.” It also made a moral equivalency argument between the policies of Israel and Hamas, stating they found difficulty in distinguishing “between who is right and who is wrong” and “picking a side.”
J-Street also fought the Congressional move to place additional sanctions on Iran:
J Street has sent out a mass e-mail opposing a bipartisan push in Congress for tougher sanctions on Iran. Here’s the relevant passage:
On Iran, the President is promoting tough, direct diplomacy to address concerns over their nuclear program, support for Hamas and Hezbollah, and threats against Israel. The President has made clear that the diplomatic road ahead will be tough — but the chances of success won’t be helped by Congress imposing tight timelines or a new round of sanctions at this moment.
Last year, at the urging of the President, Congressman Steve Israel chose to put aside his support of the Jewish State, trading it for support of J-Street, allowing them to use his name to give the group some “street cred” in the pro-Israel community.
In a section of the website called “myths and facts,” the group until this week included a section that read: “George Soros very publicly stated his decision not to be engaged in J Street when it was launched — precisely out of fear that his involvement would be used against the organization.”
After Mr. Ben Ami spoke with The Times, the website was abruptly amended Thursday night to read: “J Street has said it doesn’t receive money from George Soros, but now news reports indicate that he has in fact contributed.”
J-Street is a fraud, It says it is pro-Israel while taking anti-Israel positions, it said it gets no money from George Soros, until I happened to download their form 990. But like many groups associated with both George Soros and President, for J-Street truth only complicates their story.
The rest of Eli Lake’s article in the Washington Times can be found here.
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