George Soros, arch gun-grabber finances “A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President”.

[jody]

Soros-Funded Democratic Idea Factory Becomes Obama Policy Font

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.

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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.

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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.

The NRA has a biased view of Soros’ efforts to ban firearms, see George Soros: Anti-Gunner Who Would Remake America

George Soros has made an immense fortune manipulating international stock and currency markets. Over the past few years the Hungarian-born billionaire has used that fortune to become a preeminent funding source for global gun control. Directly and through his organization Open Society Institute (OSI), he has funneled cash to various anti-gun groups, such as the Tides Foundation, the HELP Network and SAFE Colorado. He and seven rich friends founded their own political committee--Campaign for a Progressive Future--and spent $2 million on political activities in 2000, including providing the prime financial backing for the Million Mom March. OSI has supported UN efforts to create international gun control regulations and has singled out the United States for failing to go along with the international gun-prohibitionists.

Soros has worked to combine with other wealthy activists and foundations to provide funding for numerous anti-gun projects. Soros and the Irene Diamond Foundation made equal $5 million contributions to form the Funders` Collaborative for Gun Violence Prevention. This organization has provided funding to the anti-gun Harvard Injury Control Center and has helped bankroll reckless lawsuits designed to cripple the firearms industry. OSI and the Funders` Collaborative (using money largely supplied by Soros) was the primary funding source for the plaintiffs in Hamilton v. Accu-tek and in NAACP v. ACUSPORT Inc. OSI provided $300,000 to the plaintiffs` lawyers in the Hamilton case and provided a grant identified as between $100,000 and $499,000 in the NAACP case.

When Soros and OSI decided to start spending great sums of money on anti-gun research and advocacy, they went in search of an experienced activist to guide the effort. Soros came up with Rebecca Peters, a central figure in disarming the people of Australia, and a leader in the effort to ban all handguns and most long guns. Under Peters` direction, OSI soon released "Gun Control in The United States." This strikingly simplistic evaluation of gun laws in the 50 states purposefully ignored federal firearms laws and arbitrarily awarded various point values to each state that has imposed gun control restrictions favored by the group.

Such restrictions include, for example, compact handgun prohibitions, gun registration and gun owner licensing, various gun sale regulations and gun storage requirements. States that do not allow local jurisdictions to impose gun laws more restrictive than state law are penalized in the Society`s point system. States that prohibit the filing of junk lawsuits against the firearm industry are also penalized, as are states that do not duplicate the federal age requirement for possessing a handgun.

Has anyone scanned CAP’s proposal ”A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President” to see how much of Soros’ gun-control ideas are included?

[Xela]

1. Would be interesting to know of findings.

In my mind, Soros=globalized disarmament.

Right up there with Rebecca Peters and IANSA.

Would be interesting to know what's actually been published/written.

Xela

[flamingdem]

2. Does anyone have good background links on Soros and Center for American Progress

I'd like to learn more about both. Soros funded the medical marijuana campaign in Arizona and I think he does some funding for Move On but I could be wrong. I am guessing he is consulting with the Obama team on various topics. Maybe he can educate Holder about medical marijuana.

[SteveM]

3. Supports my observation that gun-control is going "international"...

Having been defeated on the domestic front, the gun-controllers are taking the battle to the international sphere. One of these areas is through the Peters' effort; the other, Mexico, where the virtual civil war between the government and drug cartels is being framed as a "gun problem" where arms are smuggled in over the border to fuel the war.

If Soros and others really cared about the war resulting from drug prohibition, he would spin more time doing something about ending one prohibition scheme before he starts to build another.

[old mark]

4. Yeah, the "war on drugs" is working out so well.....nt

[iverglas]

5. not quite up on our George Soros, are we?

I'm certainly no expert. Just a bit of googling. There are obviously points on which I would take serious issue with him (I could see what Poland's Solidarity movement was going to lead to, and I would have had no part of it), but the fact that he is solidly in the Democratic Party camp, solidly in the opposition to Bush and his policies, well, it means nothing, I guess.

But on that drug war thang ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros
(citations omitted)

Drug liberalization

Soros has funded worldwide efforts to promote Drug liberalization. In 2008, Soros donated $400,000 to help fund a successful ballot measure in the state of Massachusetts known as the Massachusetts Sensible Marijuana Policy Initiative which decriminalized possession of less then 1 oz of marijuana in the state. Soros has also funded similar measures in California, Alaska, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Nevada and Maine. Among the drug decriminalization groups that have received funding from Soros are the Lindesmith Center and Drug Policy Foundation.

Soros donated $1.4 million to publicity efforts to support California's Proposition 5 in 2008, a failed ballot measure that would have expanded drug rehabilitation programs as alternatives to prison for persons convicted of non-violent drug-related offenses.

Huh, eh?