Quick Takes: <i>News You May Have Missed</i>

Quick Takes: News You May Have Missed

By: Aaron Klein

Published: July 7th, 2011

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PA Explores Alternatives Sources Of Funding

The Palestinian Authority is studying the possibility of relying on Arab money instead of regular financial aid from the U.S. and Europe should it persist with its plan of unilaterally declaring a state at the United Nations in September.

Sources close to PA President Mahmoud Abbas told this column the Palestinian leader even is willing to give up his job as a result of backlash regarding his drive to declare a state at the UN.

“Abu Mazen [Abbas] wants to go down in history as the one who led this UN process. He doesn’t mind giving up his role in office, leaving his job as a consequence,” said one PA official.

PA officials said that at Abbas’s behest, the PA leader’s chief of staff, Mohammed Shtayyeh, established a committee to investigate the possibility of giving up financial aid from the U.S., European Union, and Russia as a result of the UN drive.

The officials said the immediate results of Shtayyeh’s commission were not encouraging.

Revealed one official: “The conclusion so far is not encouraging, but still we are studying the possibility of looking for independent and Arab money and other sources to replace U.S. and Western money if the PA faced sanctions.”

Currently, the vast majority of all aid to the PA comes from the U.S. and EU. According to figures released by the PA, only 22 percent of the $530,000,000 received since the beginning of 2010 came from Arab donors.

The PA fears financial sanctions if it persists with its UN unilateral declaration plan.

Last week, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution threatening to suspend financial assistance to the PA if its leaders “persist in efforts to circumvent direct negotiations by turning to the United Nations or other international bodies.”

More White House Ties

To Soros-Funded Organization

Still more White House officials, including Attorney General Eric Holder, have ties to an effort funded by billionaire George Soros to push for a new, “progressive” U.S. Constitution.

This column previously reportedthat President Obama’s regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein, maintained extensive ties to Soros’s funding, particularly with regard to a movement that openly seeks to create a “progressive” consensus on what the U.S. Constitution “should” provide by the year 2020.

Now, it has emerged that Lisa Brown, Obama’s staff secretary, served as executive director of the Soros-funded American Constitution Society, ACS, a progressive legal organization that was behind the Constitution scheme.

Also, Holder has been closely tied to the ACS, serving on the group’s board of directors and even keynoting its 10th anniversary national convention earlier this month.

In 2008, Holder also keynoted its convention. At that event, he reportedly urged young lawyers to get involved in the liberal legal network, saying America would soon be “run by progressives.”

In April 2005, Sunstein opened up a conference at Yale Law School entitled “The Constitution in 2020,” which sought to change the nature and interpretation of the Constitution by that year.

The event was sponsored by Soros’s Open Society Institute and the Center for American Progress, which is led by John Podesta, who served as co-chair of Obama’s presidential transition team. Podesta’s center is said to be highly influential in helping to craft White House policy.

The Yale event on the Constitution was also sponsored by the ACS, which has received more that $2.2 million from Soros’s Open Society since 2002.

Sunstein himself has been pushing for a new socialist-style U.S. bill of rights that, among other things, would constitutionally require the government to offer each citizen a “useful” job in the farms or industries of the nation.

According to Sunstein’s new bill of rights, the U.S. government can also intercede to ensure every farmer can sell his product for a good return. It also is granted power to act against “unfair competition” and monopolies in business.

All this and more is contained in Sunstein’s 2004 book, The Second Bill of Rights: FDR’S Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need It More than Ever.

In the work, Sunstein advanced the idea that welfare rights, including some controversial inceptions, be granted by the state.

Van Jones Launches New Leftist Movement

A new movement led by communist revolutionary group founder Van Jones seeks to counter the Tea Party while petitioning for a progressive agenda that includes “making Wall Street and the super-rich pay their fair share.”

The organization, dubbed “The American Dream Movement,” is partnered with a slew of radical groups funded by billionaire George Soros.

Last Thursday, Jones officially launched his “American Dream Movement” at a New York City event co-sponsored by MoveOn.

The movement has been described as a grassroots progressive group seeking to emulate the success of the Tea Party. The movement, however, is anything but grassroots. It is already partnered with two of the nation’s largest unions, the AFL-CIO and the SEIU, who boast an army of millions of public employees.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka recorded a web video for the campaign.

Also signed on to the movement are the Soros-funded groups, Campaign for America’s Future and the Center for Community Change.

Campaign for America’s Future was co-founded in 1996 chiefly by Robert Borosage, who previously served as director of the Marxist-oriented Institute for Policy Studies.

The CCC boasts a board filled with radicals, including socialist activists.

Aaron Klein is Jerusalem bureau chief and senior reporter for WorldNetDaily.com. He is also host of an investigative radio program on New York’s 770-WABC Radio, the largest talk radio station in the U.S., every Sunday between 2-4 p.m.

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About the Author: Aaron Klein is Jerusalem bureau chief and senior reporter for WorldNetDaily.com. He is also host of an investigative radio program on New York's 770-WABC Radio, the largest talk radio station in the U.S., every Sunday between 2-4 p.m (CHANGE TO 7-9 p.m.). His website is KleinOnline.com

Quick Takes: News You May Have Missed

More White House Ties

Van Jones Launches New Leftist Movement

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