In this latest report we
will be looking at emails about the influence of George Soros on Hillary
Clinton and her campaign. For the purpose of getting this information out in a
timely fashion I am not going to write commentary in between the emails any
more. I feel it is more important to get the pertinent emails out to the
general public before the election than for me to add my commentary.
Re: NEED QUICK FEEDBACK: Invitation from America Votes
From:Huma@clintonemail.com
To: john.podesta@gmail.com
Date: 2014-10-07 18:31
Subject: Re: NEED QUICK FEEDBACK: Invitation from
America Votes
Checked with her. She doesn't really know her and thus
has no opinion.
Sorry we aren't more helpful.
From: John Podesta [mailto:john.podesta@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2014 04:23 PM Eastern
Standard Time
To: Huma Abedin
Subject: RE: NEED QUICK FEEDBACK: Invitation from
America Votes
Loretta lynch?
On Oct 7, 2014 3:39 PM, "Huma Abedin"
<Huma@clintonemail.com<mailto:Huma@clintonemail.com>> wrote:
talked to john
he agrees with you
________________________________
From:
robbymook@gmail.com<mailto:robbymook@gmail.com>
[robbymook@gmail.com<mailto:robbymook@gmail.com>]
Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2014 11:21 AM
To: Huma Abedin
Cc: Robert Mook (robertmook@gmail.com<mailto:robertmook@gmail.com>);
John Podesta (john.podesta@gmail.com<mailto:john.podesta@gmail.com>)
Subject: Re: NEED QUICK FEEDBACK: Invitation from
America Votes
I would only do
this for political reasons (ie to make Soros happy)
It's very unclear to me how much AV will matter next cycle. And I haven't seen
then adding any value this cycle.
I also worry a little it will cause donor confusion
vis a vis Priorities.
On Oct 7, 2014, at 11:11 AM, Huma Abedin
<Huma@clintonemail.com<mailto:Huma@clintonemail.com>> wrote:
She is having
dinner with George Soros tonight.
Do you know
much about America Votes? As Greg Speed explained to me, they are the
coordinated campaign for various outside groups. Soros is a big supporter of
the group and hes going to ask her tonight if she will come to a fundraiser for
them at his house in December. Thoughts?
________________________________
From: Greg Speed [GSpeed@americavotes.org<mailto:GSpeed@americavotes.org>]
Sent: Tuesday, September 16, 2014 11:42 AM
To: Huma Abedin
Cc: Lona Valmoro
(lvalmoro.hrco@gmail.com<mailto:lvalmoro.hrco@gmail.com>); Evan Kost
Subject: Invitation from America Votes
Hi Huma (and Lona):
It was wonderful to see you last week. Thanks so much
again for making the time in a very, very busy week.
Attached is an
invitation for Secretary Clinton to join us at an evening reception at the home
of George Soros in December. We would be thrilled to have her serve as honored
guest and speaker at this gathering of our top supporters honoring America
Votes’ work over the past 10 years and looking forward to the next decade.
Thanks so much
in advance for your and the Secretary’s consideration of this request. We are
now holding dates at Mr. Soros’ home in the middle of the month (Dec. 15-17)
and hope we can find a mutually agreeable date during that window if possible
or an alternative. Please let us know if we can provide any
further information, address any questions, etc.
Thanks very much again and look forward to talking
again soon.
Best,
GS
Greg Speed
President
America Votes
gspeed@americavotes.org<mailto:gspeed@americavotes.org>
202.962.7251<tel:202.962.7251> direct
202.365.0594<tel:202.365.0594> mobile
1155 Connecticut Ave., NW
Suite 600
Washington, DC 20036
Connect with America Votes!
Facebook<http://www.facebook.com/pages/America-Votes/136180176422660>
| Twitter<http://www.twitter.com/americavotes> |
Website<http://www.americavotes.org/>
______________________________________
NOTICE: This information is intended only for the use
of the individual or entity to which it is addressed and may contain
information that is privileged, confidential and exempt from disclosure under
applicable law. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient,
you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of the
communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication
in error, please notify us immediately by reply e-mail and delete the material
from any computer. Thank you.
Clinton Invitation Soros Event 9.16.14.pdf>
FW: Agenda and Logistical information for the
September 27th NYC Meeting
From:Amy.Dacey@seiu.org
To: john.podesta@gmail.com
Date: 2007-09-22 11:23
Subject: FW: Agenda and Logistical information for the
September 27th NYC Meeting
Do you see a problem with bringing jim?
Sent from my Treo
-----Original Message-----
From: John Sperling [mailto:SperlingJ@exeterls.com]
Sent: Friday, September 21, 2007 10:45 PM Eastern
Standard Time
To: Amy Dacey
Cc: Andy
Stern
Subject: RE: Agenda and Logistical information for the
September 27th NYC Meeting
Amy,
I am bringing Mr. Jim Gonzalez to the noon meeting and
to dinner at 6:00 pm; Mr. McEntee and Mr. Sweeny will join the noon meeting at
4:00 pm and will attend the dinner at 6:00 pm.
Thanks, John
John Sperling, Chairman
Exeter Life Sciences, Inc.
sperling@exeterls.com
________________________________
From: Amy Dacey [mailto:Amy.Dacey@seiu.org]
Sent: Friday, September 21, 2007 7:25 PM
To: Andy
Stern; Anna Burger; pbl@711sx.com; zschwartz@shangrila.us; douglas.york@soros.com; Vachon,
Michael; John Sperling; john.sperling@appollogrp.edu; john.podesta@gmail.com;
Amy Dacey
Subject: Agenda and Logistical information for the
September 27th NYC Meeting
Thank you all for your patience as we have finalized
the agenda and arrangements for the September 27th meeting in NYC.
Please review the agenda and logistical information
below.
You will recieve a UPS overnight package on Tuesday
morning with additional information to review prior to the meeting.
We look forward to seeing you on Thursday. If you have
any questions before then, please feel free to email me or contact me on my
cell at 202-528-7492.
Amy
AGENDA FOR NYC MEETING
September 27, 2007
Locations:
Noon to 5:30 pm
Soros Fund
Management
888 Seventh Avenue,
32nd floor.
Enter on 57th, between Broadway and Seventh
Dinner at 6:00 pm
Home of George
Soros
1060 Fifth Avenue
Entrance on 87th Street
Tel: (212) 722 1177
12:00 PM to 4:00 PM: General Meeting
Attending include:
George Soros,
Andy Stern, Anna Burger, Jonathan Soros, Michael Vachon,
Peter Lewis, Jonathan Lewis, Herb and Marion Sandler,
Steve Bing,
John Sperling, John Podesta, and Amy Dacey
12:00 PM to 12:30 PM
Greetings and opening observations
12:30 PM to 1:30 PM
Strategic Goals
What are we trying to achieve in 2008? Do we have the
correct goals? Do we have the right theory of the case and electoral approach?
Are we allocating appropriate weights for the presidential, congressional, and
state-level efforts?
1:30 PM to 2:15 PM
Voter registration:
What is the status of various 501(c)(3) efforts? What are the funding needs?
Voter contact and mobilization:
What is our evaluation of existing and new
organizations planning doing this work? What are funding needs?
2:15 PM to 3:30 PM
Controlling the
dialogue
How do we do
this? What is the structure? Who should be involved and lead this effort? At
what level of funding?
3:30 PM to 4:00 PM
Review of previous agenda
4:00 PM to 5:30 PM
Discussion of Major 2008 Initiatives:
At this time we will be joined by: a Representative from
MoveOn.org, Gerald McEntee President of AFSCME, John Sweeney President of the
AFL-CIO, and Rob McKay.
6:00 PM Dinner
hosted by George Soros
Location: 1060 Fifth Avenue, entrance on 87th Street
The following
are invited to a dinner at the Soros home:
Andy Stern, Anna Burger, Jonathan Soros, Michael
Vachon,
Peter Lewis, Jonathan Lewis, Herb and Marion Sandler,
Steve Bing,
John Sperling, John
Podesta, Gerald McEntee, John Sweeney, Rob McKay and Amy Dacey
Re: Office of
George Soros/ Southampton schedule
From:eryn.sepp@gmail.com
To:
Jacqueline.Carozza@soros.com
Date: 2015-07-21 20:44
Subject: Re:
Office of George Soros/ Southampton schedule
Hi Jacqueline!
Thank you for the reminder. John is unfortunately out
of town Aug 7-10, but we'll check with him about Aug 28-31. Adding in his New
York assistant Milia Fisher for her assistance in tracking as well.
Thanks!
Eryn
Eryn M. Sepp
Cell: 818-456-2881
> On Jul 21, 2015, at 6:24 PM, Carozza, Jacqueline
<Jacqueline.Carozza@soros.com>
wrote:
>
>Dear Mr. Podesta,
>
> I am writing to follow up on my message below.
Please let me know if you are available to join Mr. and Mrs. Soros one weekend at their residence in
Southampton. Weekends that would work well for a visit are August 7th-10th or
August 28th-31st.
>
> Thank you.
>
> Jacqueline
>
> From: Carozza, Jacqueline
> Sent: Monday, May 11, 2015 12:22 PM
> To: 'john.podesta@gmail.com'
> Cc: 'eryn.sepp@gmail.com'
> Subject: Office of George Soros/ Southampton
schedule
> Dear Mr.
Podesta,
> My name is
Jacqueline Carozza, Assistant to George and Tamiko Soros.
> Please
know that I will be the point of contact this summer in Southampton and going
forward for the Soros social calendar.
> With summer quickly approaching Mr. and Mrs.
Soros are starting to plan the 2015 Southampton schedule and would enjoy your
company. Please let me know which dates suit you best to come for a visit and
hopefully we can coordinate a mutually convenient time for your stay. Please
note that Mr. and Mrs. Soros will begin their summer in Southampton the weekend
of July 4th and wrap up Labor Day weekend.
> Many thanks in advance and I do look forward to
your reply.
> Best,
> Jacqueline
> Jacqueline Carozza
> Office of George Soros, Soros Fund Management LLC
> 888 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10106
> Office: 212.320.5512 / Mobile: 646.596.6148 /
Fax: 646.731.5512
Re:
From:john.podesta@gmail.com
To: Anna.Burger@seiu.org
Date: 2008-02-15 18:46
Subject: Re:
I think we can do this thru 527 to groups that are not
mcfl c4's
On 2/14/08, Anna Burger <Anna.Burger@seiu.org>
wrote:
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Andy Stern
> Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2008 4:16 PM
> To: 'John Podesta'; Anna Burger
> Subject: FW: Re:
>
I'm meeting
with McEntee on Friday. Setting up a call with Sperling.
> John, how
do unions contribute to the messaging? Mattzzie's entity
> doesn't
take union money.
> anna
>
> Andy.Stern@seiu.org
>
> Andrew Stern
> SEIU.org
> 202 730 7300
>
> Author of: A Country That Works
> Amazon.com
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vachon, Michael
[mailto:Michael.Vachon@soros.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2008 04:13 PM
Eastern Standard Time
> To: Andy Stern
> Subject: Re: Re:
>
> GS has put 2.5 in so far of 5 commit. Not earmarked assumption was that
> FfA would
make the allocation 50-50. But we are flexible. I agree we
> need to
hit Mc hard, yesterday. Tom feels under-resourced, I know.
>
> I would support front loading money to campaign
to defend. So long as we
> did not starve AV. I think money will flow more
easily after primary is
> settled.
>
I don't think
George will have a strong view on the allocation, beyond
> sharing
your general pref for ground--because he doesn't like TV
> advrtsing.
>
> If you ask him to think about additional funds
stress that the message
> operation is multiplatform. Not primarily
broadcast TV.
>
> --------------------------
> Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Andy Stern <Andy.Stern@seiu.org>
> To: Vachon, Michael
> Sent: Wed Feb 13 16:04:16 2008
> Subject: RE: Re:
>
> Good question. Do we reallcate or raise more. We
think need money now
> for McCain
>
>
> Andy.Stern@seiu.org
>
> Andrew Stern
> SEIU.org
> 202 730 7300
>
> Author of: A Country That Works
> Amazon.com
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vachon, Michael
[mailto:Michael.Vachon@soros.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2008 04:00 PM
Eastern Standard Time
> To: Andy Stern
> Subject: Re:
>
> Over and above the five million?
> Is SEIU
going to go beyond that? Bing? Directly to campaign to defend?
>
>
> --------------------------
> Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Andy Stern <Andy.Stern@seiu.org>
> To: Vachon, Michael
> Sent: Wed Feb 13 15:54:43 2008
> Subject: RE:
>
Need to define
MCCain. Where I was more interested in ground-given
> democratic
process can't wait and lwt MCCain define himslef and need
> raise some
money on message not just ground
>
>
> Andy.Stern@seiu.org
>
> Andrew Stern
> SEIU.org
> 202 730 7300
>
> Author of: A Country That Works
> Amazon.com
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vachon, Michael
[mailto:Michael.Vachon@soros.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2008 03:53 PM
Eastern Standard Time
> To: Andy Stern
> Subject:
>
> Andy can you give me any more info on mtg with GS--anything I should
> brief him on? I will be in Colorado.
From:Anna.Burger@seiu.org
To: tmatzzie@gmail.com
Date: 2007-11-28 18:09
Subject: immigration
Drew Weston is
working on messaging on immigration and other issues for
George Soros
Tom you should connect with him at 404 375 6639.
Anna
From:Michael.Vachon@soros.com
To: john.podesta@gmail.com
Date: 2008-05-08 19:13
Subject:
John, please confirm you got email. Not sure I have
right. Address.
--------------------------
Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld
----- Original Message -----
From: Vachon, Michael
To: John Podesta <john.podesta@gmail.com>
Sent: Thu May 08 16:37:25 2008
Subject: FW: Progressive Media USA Breakfast - Monday,
May 19th
John, here you go. I will be in London from the 18th
on
________________________________
From: Jill S. Straus [mailto:jill@strausbaker.com]
Sent: Thursday, May 08, 2008 11:04 AM
To: Vachon, Michael
Subject: Progressive Media USA Breakfast - Monday, May
19th
Dear Michael,
I am writing to ask you to join Paul Begala, David
Brock, Susan McCue, Tom Matzzie and Jamal Simmons - the Leadership Team of
Progressive Media USA - for an important meeting on Monday, May 19th at the St.
Regis Hotel. The meeting will begin promptly at 8:00 am and will end at 9:15.
We have invited a select group of leading New York
progressives to join us for a strategy discussion about the Role of Media in
the 2008 Election. As you well know, despite significant improvements,
progressives still have a tremendous structural disadvantage in this area. And
over the next several months even our best efforts will only reach a fraction
of Americans individually. Most of the information about this election will be
seen through the “lens” of the mainstream media. The bias of the media is well
documented (Eric Alterman’s What Liberal Media or David Brock’s The Republican
Noise Machine). Mitigating this bias is critical to our efforts and doing so
now before the 08 “narrative” has been set is one of the most important tasks
of the weeks ahead.
We invite you to take a look at the Progressive Media
USA website - www.progressivemediausa.org
<http://www.progressivemediausa.org> . In the coming weeks, more of their
work will be showing up online, but in the meantime, you can check out their
latest television advertisement tying together John McCain and George Bush’s
economic policies <http://www.progressivemediausa.org/feature/multimedia/#tv>
. Or you can watch one of our web ads, “Pop-Up DoubleTalk
<http://www.progressivemediausa.org/feature/multimedia/#web> ” which we
just released last week.
I hope you will make every effort to join us for this
discussion. Rsvp is required and the invitation is non-transferable. If you
have any questions, please feel free to call me at (212) 868-4080.
All my best,
Jill
************************
Jill S. Straus
928 Broadway, Suite 505
New York, NY 10010
Phone: (212) 868-4080
Fax: (212) 868-9446
Email: jill@strausbaker.com
RE: FFA
From:Michael.Vachon@soros.com
To: john.podesta@gmail.com
Date: 2008-08-04 11:07
Subject: RE: FFA
I will call you; I am in France.
-----Original Message-----
From: John Podesta [mailto:john.podesta@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, August 03, 2008 11:55 PM
To: Vachon, Michael
Subject: Re: FFA
basically ok. can we talk mondat aft?
On 8/1/08, Vachon, Michael
<Michael.Vachon@soros.com> wrote:
>
> John,
>
> I wanted to bring you up do date on some
developments regarding FFA,
> and to make sure that you are happy with the
direction things are
headed.
>
> I feel it is not a good use of resources to keep
500k in a legal
> reserve fund at FFA. While I believe the chances
of any litigation or
> regulatory action are quite slim, nevertheless, I
understand the
> legitimate concerns of officers and directors
with respect to not
> being left uncovered in the event of the
unforeseen.
>
> So I proposed to Rob, the remaining officer that my boss indemnify
> FFA and
through FFA the funds officers and board for any legal costs
up to the amt.
> now
reserved for that purpose.
>
> Rob was comfortable with this. I was able to
speak with Stocks and
> Anna and Amy, all of who were also comfortable
with such an
arrangement.
>
> I want to make check that you are also
comfortable.
>
> The funds now on reserve at FFA would be
transferred to AV as part of
> our outstanding commitment to that organization.
I had hoped to free
> up the funds for distribution to other efforts,
but George felt that
> others had
not met their full commitments as agreed and so did not
> feel
obliged. In the end, he'll have put 4.5 into FFA and about twice
that into other
efforts.
>
> Please let me know if you are okay with this.
>
> All best,
>
> Michael
FYI
From:mpbonner@bonnergrp.com
To: john.podesta@gmail.com, amy@fundforamerica.net,
burgera@seiu.org, rmckay@mckayfund.org
Date: 2007-12-21 19:15
Subject: FYI
I just wanted to give you a quick update on the
contributions.
Lee Fikes $300,000 IN
George Soros
$2,500,000 IN
Rob McKay $250,000 sending check today
Danny Abraham $250,000 in process
Elen Tsakopoulos $250,000 in process
Please let mek now if you have any questions.
Mary Pat
Fwd: Silberstein Foundation: the truth finally comes
out
From:hms@sandlerfoundation.org
To: john.podesta@gmail.com
Date: 2014-07-04 02:52
Subject: Fwd: Silberstein Foundation: the truth
finally comes out
Sent from my iPad
Begin forwarded message:
From: Steve Silberstein
<stevesilberstein@hotmail.com<mailto:stevesilberstein@hotmail.com>>
Date: July 3, 2014 at 8:28:10 PM PDT
To: Herb Sandler
<hms@sandlerfoundation.org<mailto:hms@sandlerfoundation.org>>
Subject: Silberstein Foundation: the truth finally
comes out
FYI, they left out my contributions to Pro Publica,
the ACLU, HRW, J street.and the self-hating anti-Israel Jew, etc so don't
believe every single word of this.
http://beforeitsnews.com/opinion-conservative/2014/07/the-stephen-m-silberstein-foundation-california-dreamin-of-social-democracy-2873872.html?currentSplittedPage=0
and at
http://capitalresearch.org/
The Stephen M. Silberstein Foundation: California
Dreamin’ of Social Democracy<http://capitalresearch.org/2014/07/fw/>
By CRC
Staff<http://capitalresearch.org/author/crc-staff/>
July 1, 2014
By Jonathan Hanen
Foundation Watch
Summary: Stephen M. Silberstein, a member of George
Soros’s far-left Democracy Alliance, sheds light on the extent of Soros’s
socialist agenda for America. Silberstein’s foundation backs a panoply of
leftist groups that fight for higher taxes on the rich, wealth redistribution
schemes, single-payer socialized medicine, burdensome regulation of energy
markets, judicial activism designed to advance a radically egalitarian agenda,
and the replacement of the linchpin of federalism, the Electoral College, with
a national popular vote.
George Soros’s secretive donor consortium, the
Democracy Alliance, has been making news lately in the wake of a new plan set
forth at its four-day conference entitled “A New Progressive Era?” which took
place in Chicago at the end of April 2014. According to the Washington Post,
“The plan, being crafted in private by a group of about 100 donors that
includes billionaire hedge fund manager George Soros and San Francisco venture
capitalist Rob McKay, seeks to give Democrats a stronger hand in the redrawing
of district lines for state legislatures and the U.S. House.” More
specifically, the newspaper reports that “keeping Democratic control of the
Senate” was of paramount concern to the donors. “There’s a lot of anxiety about
the midterms,” admitted McKay, the outgoing chairman, “who said substantial
investment this year will go to local and state minimum-wage campaigns that can
help drive turnout for federal races.” The new plan would shift significant
resources away from the Alliance’s typical focus on donating to left-wing media
outlets and think tanks, such as Media Matters for America and the John
Podesta-founded Center for American Progress. Assuming the reported shift
occurs, the Alliance will try to engage in ground-level political campaigning
by in effect acting as a bundling super PAC—an über super PAC—in order to
prevent the expected GOP takeover of the Senate.
Over time it has leaked out that more than 100
billionaires and multi-millionaires belong to this shadowy philanthropic
collective that Markos Moulitsas, founder of the influential leftist blog Daily
Kos, has called “a vast left-wing conspiracy.” Membership in Democracy Alliance
comes by invitation only and requires donating a minimum of $200,000 per year
to left-wing activist groups and think tanks endorsed by the Alliance. In
addition to Soros and McKay, the Washington Post reports that hedge fund
manager Tom Steyer of San Francisco (who is most famous in conservative circles
for his self-interested opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline) and the trial
lawyers Steve and Amber Mostyn from Houston are relatively new members (for
more on Steyer, see Green Watch, January 2014). Other notable figures from the
world of business have recently joined the ranks of this elite group: Adam
Abram (insurance and real estate), Rick Segal (financial services), Paul
Boskind (mental health services), Amy Goldman (real estate), and Henry van
Ameringen (manufacturing). New School Professor Philip Munger, son of Berkshire
Hathaway vice chairman Charles Munger, also became a member.
There has been a sizeable influx of labor leaders into
Democracy Alliance. This may help to explain the group’s strategic shift to
make the minimum wage an issue in the 2014 mid-terms. Of course union contracts
often have automatic salary increases triggered by increases in the minimum
wage. New Alliance members include Noel Beasley, president of Workers United, a
textile union affiliated with SEIU (Service Employees International Union), and
Keith Mestrich, president of the union-owned Amalgamated Bank. Other new
members are Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America
(CWA); Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers; CWA
senior director George Kohl; and Michelle Ringuette, Weingarten’s assistant.
Other individuals previously reported as members with ties to organized labor
include former SEIU executive Anna Burger and National Education Association
executive director John C. Stocks. SEIU President Mary Kay Henry is vice chair
of the Alliance’s board of directors. SEIU and the AFL-CIO are institutional
members of the Alliance. (Around press time, the Alliance’s website was updated
to reflect that Stocks of the NEA has been named chairman of the group’s
board.)
Beyond the names listed in media coverage of Democracy
Alliance, there are many rank-and-file dark money generals in this elite club
who have not received much media scrutiny. The DA website says its mission is
“a stronger democracy and more progressive America.” It identifies four goals:
“an open, vibrant democracy,” “an opportunity-driven economy,” “a dignity-based
foreign policy,” and “an independent judiciary.” But the Alliance has been
vague about the meaning of these terms. This report will profile a
representative donor among the few known illuminati inside the group and
examine his giving and political activities in order to see how he understands
and pursues the Alliance’s goals. Only then will we be in a position to surmise
the full extent of the Alliance’s social-democratic vision for America’s
future.
History
Stephen M. Silberstein, the founder of the private
foundation that bears his name, is a key member of the Democracy Alliance.
According to his bio at the website of the University of California Berkeley’s
Goldman School of Public Policy, where he sits on the board of advisers with
U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Silberstein earned a bachelor’s degree
in economics and a master’s degree in library science from U.C. Berkeley, as
well as a master’s in econometrics from the University of Stockholm.
Silberstein began his career as a computer programmer in the library at U.C.
Berkeley, where he was responsible for the library’s “total automation
program,” the project to computerize the entire card catalog which began in the
early 1970s. The bio further states “Steve Silberstein co-founded Innovative
Interfaces in 1978 and served as its first President. The company develops
automated systems for libraries and now includes as its customers more than
1500 library systems around the world, including most of the campuses of the
University of California and the California State University System, as well as
large and small public city and county library systems.”
Silberstein’s computer company presumably generated
the wealth that he used to found the Stephen M. Silberstein Foundation in
Belvedere, Calif., in May 1998. It is not easy to research the foundation’s
activities. The foundation has no website, and a Google search reveals few to
no publications or public speeches from Mr. Silberstein. The paper trail is
almost non-existent.
One personal hobbyhorse does appear: Silberstein has
in recent years jumped on the “inequality” bandwagon, urging higher taxes. As
one law professor summarized Silberstein’s idiosyncratic idea, Silberstein
“would adjust the corporate tax rate based on the ratio of CEO pay to the
average worker. A company with a ratio at the 1980 level of 50:1 would pay tax
at the current rate of 35%, with the rate rising for companies with a higher
ratio and lower for those with a narrower pay gap.”
It is a bad idea for several reasons. It
disincentivizes growth, thus hurting both job creation and the overall economy.
It limits the profit motive, and therefore leads the best quality CEOs to look
to other countries for work while simultaneously putting American companies at
a disadvantage with their foreign competitors. Having no legal ceiling on CEO
pay is the primary reason why the U.S. has the best CEOs in the world — along
with our comparatively strong rule of law, private property, and free markets.
But as part of this crusade, Silberstein last year
supported a documentary, Inequality for All, described in a friendly review as
a “thorough, user-friendly documentary” in which “UC Berkley professor and
columnist Robert Reich, aka the Conscience of Liberal America, restages the
highlights of his ‘Wealth and Poverty’ class to explain how and why economic
inequality is hurting everyone in the country…. One of the very best Outrage
Docs, sure to galvanize debate among believers and detractors alike.” Silberstein
is credited as the movie’s executive producer, which likely means he helped
underwrite production.
Silberstein has also signed up with Patriotic
Millionaires, a group formed in the 2010 electoral cycle and still active,
which publicly asks that its members’ taxes be raised. On its website it brags
it has staged a debate with tax-reduction advocate Grover Norquist, “delivered
a press conference with the President, and worked shoulder-to-shoulder with the
White House to pass the 2012 American Taxpayer Relief Act.” The group was set
up by the Agenda Project, founded by Erica Payne, a political consultant,
former senior official at the Democratic National Committee, and a speaker at
the first organizational meeting of donors that led to the Democracy Alliance.
Agenda Project is best known for producing the 2011 commercial that attacked
Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wisc.) budget by showing a grandmother being thrown off a
cliff. With greater subtlety, it also launched a project, “F*ck Tea,” to attack
the Tea Party movement.
Perhaps the best way to gain insight into
Silberstein’s thinking is to review the publicly available financial record and
the spending pattern of his foundation, along with his political donations in
California and nationally. From these data we can glean something of his vision
of the role of government in a liberal democratic political order, and the
extent to which he would extend the scope of government regulation into the
free operation of markets and autonomous social institutions in order to
advance the progressive agenda of subordinating the traditional American notion
of justice—the equality of all citizens before the law—into the
social-democratic ideal of justice as equality of results.
Finances and Spending
In its most recent reporting year ending December
2012, the Silberstein Foundation reported assets of $89,947,653 (book value)
and net investment income of $2,540,027, with $4,877,175 paid out in gifts,
grants, and charitable donations. In 2011, the foundation reported slightly higher
assets of $91,609,664 and net investment income of $7,683,604, with total
giving at $3,246,970. In 2010, it listed total assets of $86,577,155 and net
investment income of $1,992,094 with total giving at $4,327,345. In a nutshell,
the foundation fits the pattern of being a small, self-regenerating wellspring
of cash that donates roughly as much as it earns each year to far-left causes.
The foundations ranks 1,321st in the FoundationSearch
top 10,000 U.S. foundations by assets, and 173rd in the top foundations by
assets for the state of California. It is on the lower end of the mid-range in
terms of assets. What makes it of interest to conservatives is that it is a
private foundation that reflects the aims and interests of one man who happens
to be a member of Soros’s Democracy Alliance. So let’s examine what the
foundation has tried to accomplish with its giving in recent years.
Far Left Media
Since 2003 the Silberstein Foundation has made five
donations since 2003 totaling $117,590 to Media Matters for America. MMfA is
perhaps the most influential nonprofit left-wing media watchdog group.
According to The Daily Caller’s now famous exposé, MMfA had a direct line in to
MSNBC in 2008 and had inside contacts that were capable of directly placing
content in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post, as well
as online media such as Huffington Post, Daily Kos, and Salon. Since its
founding by erstwhile journalist David Brock in 2004, MMfA has been pushing the
ludicrous notion that the mainstream media has a monolithically conservative
bias. Since its inception, MMfA has been in a constant state of war, aiming to
defame and defund Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, and Lou
Dobbs, to name only a few. Anyone familiar with MMfA’s tendentious presentation
of facts can empathize with the late Christopher Hitchens who, in reviewing
Brock’s 2002 memoir, wrote “I would say without any hesitation that he [Brock]
is incapable of recognizing the truth, let alone of telling it. The whole book is
an exercise in self-love, disguised as an exercise in self-abnegation.”
In both 2013 and 2014 Silberstein made identical
donations of $200,000 to American Bridge 21st Century, a super PAC devoted to
opposition research and tracking Republican candidates that was founded by
Brock in 2010. Other notable donors to MMfA in 2013 include Soros ($500,000),
longtime Clinton ally Susie Buell ($400,000), American Federation of Teachers
($100,000), AFSCME ($100,000), SEIU COPE (Committee on Political Education, a PAC)
($100,000), the Boston law firm of Ropes and Gray ($25,000), and the Democratic
Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) ($46,500). American Bridge 21st Century
created a project called Correct the Record (CTR), a media and rapid response
outfit that is dedicated to defending Hillary Clinton from criticism of her
handling of the Benghazi scandal and the progress of Iran toward acquiring
nuclear weapons that occurred on her watch as Secretary of State. Former
Clinton White House special counsel Lanny Davis announced on Fox News that he
will lead a “truth squad” under the auspices of CTR to counter the findings of
Rep. Trey Gowdy’s (R-S.C.) select committee investigation of Benghazi.
Since 2008 the Silberstein Foundation has donated
$650,000 to the American Prospect, a left-wing magazine whose columnists
regularly argue for the standard progressive agenda: single-payer healthcare,
amnesty for illegal immigrants, same sex marriage, coal-killing environmental
regulations, and card-check legislation to take away the right to a private
ballot when workers decide whether to unionize.
Since 2002 the philanthropy has donated $800,000 to
“Democracy Now,” a far-left radio news program that features anti-American
radical Amy Goodman, among others. “Democracy Now” also receives substantial
funding from Soros, Tides, and the Ford Foundation. This giving can truly be
called philanthropic because left-wing talk radio has never been able to garner
a large enough audience to sustain itself by selling advertisements.
Far-left Activist Groups and Think Tanks
Since 2005 the Silberstein Foundation has given
$55,000 to the Tides Foundation, apparently at the request of the Democracy
Alliance. Tides was founded in 1976 by far-left activist Drummond Pike, and
along with its sister philanthropy, the Tides Center, it is second only to
Soros’s billion-dollar Open Society Foundations (formerly known as Open Society
Institute) as the preeminent funder of far-left activist groups over the past
20 years. To appreciate the magnitude of the far left’s advantage in so-called
“dark money,” consider that Open Society’s net assets were $1,007,665,737 in
2011 and that year it awarded $33,616,565 in grants. Net assets for the Tides
Foundation were $135,525,497 in 2011 and grants awarded came to $91,939,822,
while net assets for the Tides Center were $75,030,551 in 2011 and grants
awarded came to $19,341,827.
Compare these 2011 figures to the larger 2012
presidential year figures for the Charles Koch Foundation (assets:
$276,881,787; total giving: $14,920,448) and David Koch Charities (assets:
$60,567,797; total giving: $10,500,000). In short, Tides alone outspends the
Kochs, while at the same time Soros is making them look poor, and the money
from the Ford Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts, and many others constitutes a
torrent of money for left-wing 501(c)(3)s, 501(c)(4)s, 527s, and super PACs.
The mainstream media simply chooses to ignore the Left’s vast advantage in dark
money, in favor of echoing repeated over-the-top attacks on the Kochs made on
the floor of the Senate by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).
The Silberstein Foundation has given $1,150,000 to the
Center for American Progress (CAP) since 2001. With Soros as a key initial
funder, CAP was launched in 2003 in the hope of creating a progressive think
tank to rival conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation, the American
Enterprise Institute, and the Cato Institute. With former Clinton White House
Chief of Staff John Podesta at the helm, CAP has been staffed by a large number
of Clintonistas and is often referred to as the Clinton White House in exile.
(At the beginning of 2014, Podesta left behind his active leadership role at
CAP to become a senior adviser in the Obama White House.) In recent years, CAP
has served as an echo chamber for the Obama White House. There is little to no
daylight between CAP and the Obama administration on the issues of Keynesian
economic “stimulus,” tax increases, comprehensive immigration reform, gun
control, and EPA’s destruction of the coal industry. (CAP was profiled in the
May 2007 and February 2011 issues of Organization Trends.)
The wonks at CAP have helped to propagate the false
and destructive class warfare narrative of extreme income inequality in
America, in spite of the unprecedented surge in the standard of living for the
poor in America over the last century, and the creation of a large and affluent
middle class, and the greatest social mobility in human history. Numerous
studies have shown that the distribution of income earners by quintile over the
20th century remained stable.
Moreover, economist Thomas Sowell regularly makes the
point that, if one looks at individuals instead of categories, a person born in
the poorest fifth of the income distribution (the bottom quintile) has a 50
percent chance of getting to the middle of the middle quintile in his or her
own lifetime. No society has ever achieved anything like this level of social
mobility, but the Left will let nothing stand in the way of its ugly,
envy-laden class warfare narrative.
The Silberstein Foundation has donated $300,000 to the
Campaign for America’s Future since 2001. CAF is a 501(c)(4) led by Sixties
radicals Robert Borosage and Roger Hickey that was founded in 1996. It
currently advocates higher taxes, increased social spending, and single
payer-health care (for more on the group and its leaders, see Organization
Trends, March 2013).
The foundation has donated $471,000 to Demos since
2004. Demos is a nonprofit that presses state and federal legislators to
increase taxes on the rich, especially on the top 1 percent, and to hike
corporate taxes as a strategy to strengthen the middle class. Demos also
advocates for “redistribution” through increased transfer payments in Social
Security, disability, and Medicare, and through legislating the “Buffet rule”
on income taxes and tax credits targeted to the poor. The policy wonks at Demos
are unfazed by the fact that the top 2 percent of income earners pay 40 percent
of income taxes, the top 6 percent pay 60 percent of the taxes, the top 20
percent pay over 80 percent and about half of all Americans pay no income taxes
at all. On the legislative front, Demos works to promote measures to establish
same-day voter registration, to block voter ID laws, and to grant felons the
right to vote. Demos staff generally favor expanding global governance, e.g.,
by supporting efforts like the job-killing Kyoto Protocol on carbon dioxide
emissions and the UN Millennium Project to cajole rich countries to boost their
developmental assistance donations to 0.7 percent of yearly GNP (the current
issue of Organization Trends profiles Demos in depth.)
Common Cause, a Soros-funded group that focuses on
campaign finance reform, gutting the military to increase welfare and
environmental spending, and the “fairness doctrine” that would force privately
owned radio stations to take a loss by mandating equal time for liberal talk
shows, received $100,000 in 2007 from the Silberstein Foundation. The group
continues to disparage the Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United case.
This is because it allows corporations to donate unlimited amounts anonymously
to super PACs that advocate on behalf of causes or candidates while barring
them from coordinating with campaigns (the May 2014 Organization Trends
profiles Common Cause).
Judicial Activism
The Silberstein Foundation has donated $3.45 million to
the Alliance for Justice (AfJ) since 2010. AfJ’s mission is to promote the
appointment and confirmation of liberal judges who practice judicial activism
in order to achieve social outcomes, i.e., so-called social justice and
equality of results. It also works to block conservative judicial nominees who
believe it is possible to discern the original content and principles of the
Constitution, who support the Madisonian principle of limited federal
government, and who believe in the general principle of justice as equality
before the law. The AfJ is best known for assisting in the organized publicity
campaign to “bork” Justice Robert Bork’s nomination in 1987, for supporting
Anita Hill in her attempt to slander Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas
during his confirmation hearings in 1991, and for helping to block dozens of
President George W. Bush’s nominees to the federal bench.
The Silberstein Foundation donated $200,000 in 2002 to
the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University and has continued to make
five-figure grants to it. The Center is a hotbed of activism for the promotion
of the doctrine of the “living” Constitution. It advances the kind of activist
jurisprudence that was first outlined in President Woodrow Wilson’s “What is
Progress?” speech, in which Wilson explicitly subordinates both the individual
rights elaborated in the Declaration of Independence and the system of checks
and balances in the Constitution, to the criteria of present economic needs and
arbitrarily chosen social goals that are deemed vital to the general welfare by
government administrators–with or without consent of the duly elected
representatives of the people. (Organization Trends profiled the Brennan Center
in April 2014.)
Green Energy
The Silberstein Foundation gave $500,000 in 2003,
$250,000 in 2007, and occasional five-figure grants thereafter to the Apollo
Alliance, an extreme environmentalist group that grew out of the Tides network
and the Campaign for America’s Future. The group uses the green agenda to mask
its push to expand the welfare state and increase government regulation of the
economy and civil society. The group claims, “Working with our coalition of
labor, business, environmental and community leaders we will reduce carbon
emissions and oil imports, spur domestic job growth and position America to
thrive in the 21st Century economy.”
Apollo Alliance was responsible for drafting the $86
billion green jobs portion of the $787 billion so-called stimulus package known
as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. This stimulus didn’t
manage to stimulate anything, except the $17 trillion national debt, and
participation in the labor force remains stuck at its lowest point since the
Carter administration. The Left’s fantasy of a competitive green energy sector
invariably leads either to mass layoffs or a wave of multi-million dollar
bankruptcies in green companies like Solyndra, many of which were linked to
high-value donors to Obama’s 2008 campaign. Heritage Foundation research cites
1,900 waste, fraud, and abuse investigations into all the stimulus energy
projects, green or not, with 600 criminal convictions as of Oct. 18, 2012. (For
more on the Apollo Alliance, see Green Watch, November 2012.)
Political Activity
The Center for Responsive Politics currently lists
Silberstein as number 15 on the list of the top individual donors to “Federally
Focused 527 Organizations” in the current election cycle. The $115,000 he has
given consists of donations to EMILY’s List ($75,000), Emerge America ($20,000),
and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee ($20,000). EMILY’s List is a
group that funds female Democratic political candidates who oppose any and all
limits on abortion; the acronym stands for “early money is like yeast.”
In 2013, Silberstein donated $100,000 to the House
Majority PAC, and gave $32,400 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign
Committee, along with $32,400 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
in 2014. In 2013, he donated $25,000 to the Ready for Hillary PAC, and gave
smaller sums to a slew of candidates in 2013-2014, including U.S. Sens. Cory
Booker (D-N.J.), Kay Hagan (D-N.C.), and U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.).
In a manner of speaking, Silberstein has provided his
own data on his political giving in the state of California through the agency
of the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR). He has donated $505,000 to the
CIR since 2008. The CIR manages the Data Center and produces the
CaliforniaWatch.org<http://CaliforniaWatch.org> website, which provides
information on political donations in the Golden State.
Silberstein’s California donations since 2001 total
$1,335,000. About half ($625,000) went to the Democratic Party of California
between 2006 and 2011. Gov. Jerry Brown has received donations totaling $29,500
since 2009, while Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom received $5,000 in 2010. The far-left
Attorney General Kamala Harris has received $11,500 since 2009.
Breaking the Constitution’s Electoral Machinery
Perhaps what best reveals Silberstein’s political
intentions is his significant donation of $500,000 since 2009 to the National
Popular Vote Institute and the fact that he, though publicity shy, sits on its
board. The Institute is part of the Left’s forceful attempt to abolish the
Electoral College without amending the U.S. Constitution. The Institute’s
objective is to achieve direct popular election of the president by
establishing an interstate compact between the roughly 11 large states that
would be needed for presidential candidates to win 270 electoral votes. The
compact, it is believed, would then force the remaining states to comply with
the compact without any say in the matter. Not surprisingly, this
unconstitutional compact has only been ratified in the state legislatures of
the bluest states: California, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New
Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington, along with the
District of Columbia.
As Hans von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation observes,
the compact clearly violates the Compact Clause of the Constitution, which
provides, “No State shall, without the Consent of Congress … enter into any
Agreement or Compact with another State.” He argues the change would lead to
narrower margins of victory in presidential elections, decreased presidential
legitimacy, more recounts, increased voter fraud, and more frequent electoral
litigation. More importantly, candidates would campaign only in large
population centers—where, by coincidence, the Left’s electoral strength is
greatest—leaving small and medium states to have no say in the election of the
president.
Spakovsky explains that the Framers of the
Constitution didn’t establish a national popular vote for president because
they wisely wanted to balance power between the federal government, headed by
the president, and the state governments. That is why the Framers blended the
proportional representation of citizens and the direct representation of states
in the Electoral College, which assigns each state electors equal to the number
of representatives and senators it has in Congress.
The Left’s campaign for a national popular vote is an
attempt to let a majority faction utterly dominate the sovereignty of the
individual states and the rights of minorities, and thus to transform the
American polity from a representative republic into a direct democracy under a
centralized administrative state.
Conclusion
The philanthropic and political donations of the
Stephen M. Silberstein Foundation demonstrate how one significant member of
George Soros’s Democracy Alliance understands the four stated goals of this
secretive organization. This will allow us to decode the group’s leftist
Orwellian doublespeak.
To judge from the Silberstein Foundation’s spending patterns,
“an opportunity-driven economy” means bankrolling think tanks like Center for
American Progress and Demos that support higher taxes on the rich, schemes of
wealth redistribution, single-payer socialized medicine, and unduly burdensome
regulatory control of energy markets designed to kill the coal industry (and
natural gas next). “A dignity-based foreign policy” entails supporting Media
Matters’ Correct the Record campaign to obfuscate the findings of the House
select committee on the cover-up of the Benghazi attack, leaving the families
of four dead Americans without justice and the American public without an
explanation.
It appears from the foundation’s support for the
Alliance for Justice and the Brennan Center, that in its view “an independent
judiciary” means adopting a jurisprudence based on the concept of “the living
Constitution,” according to which the nation’s founding principles and the
Constitution’s system of checks and balances are outdated and optional unless
they can be harnessed to achieve “the common task and purpose” of the evolving
social organism. In this view, the Constitution just means whatever judges
claim is in the economic or social interest of the country. The radically
egalitarian goal is to invoke the General Welfare Clause and the rhetoric of
the common good in order to legitimate government regulation of markets, social
institutions, and individual freedoms. Traditional due process is to be
replaced by what leftist scholars euphemistically call “substantive due
process.”
Lastly, supporting “an open, vibrant democracy” means
bankrolling the national popular vote movement in order to do away with
federalism and the legitimate authority of the states. The national popular
vote is an unconstitutional attempt by the Left to transform America from a
representative republic into a direct democracy that fits the original ancient
Greek notion of democracy, i.e., demokrateia meaning mob rule, as opposed to a
politeia which enjoys constitutional government. For populist demagogy and undiluted
majoritarianism are the only means by which the Left can complete the
assimilation of the state governments into an all-encompassing socialized state
along the lines of European social democracies.
It is not surprising that a member of George Soros’s
Democracy Alliance runs a foundation that backs the full spectrum of leftist
groups striving to implement extreme Keynesian spending and regulatory
policies, to pervert the original meaning and manifest tenor of the
Constitution, and to exploit a national popular vote as an extra-constitutional
means to secure permanent Democratic Party control of the presidency. Stephen
M. Silberstein has joined the ranks of the leftist establishment, but the
Marxist-inspired students of Berkeley in the 1960s can be rightfully proud of
their fellow alumnus.
Jonathan Hanen is a freelance writer and political
consultant based in Washington, D.C. A native of Connecticut, he earned his
Ph.D. in philosophy from Boston University.
FW
