Mark America

Who's Behind This?

A friend sent me an interesting Youtube video a couple of days ago, and I’ve been spending some time watching it and thinking about it.  It’s a video from PBS consisting of an interview by Judy Woodruff of Doug Schoen and Elliot Ackerman, two of the principals of this group.  As I listened to them, this all sounded very enticing on its surface, but the longer they spoke, the more I began to wonder about who is behind all of this.  It seems like an effort to circumvent the ordinary electoral process, and when I think of that notion, the first thing that leaps into mind is George Soros and his effort to take over the Secretaries of State who oversee elections in all of our fifty states. I’m always a little wary about third party movements and similar efforts, because I always wonder who is behind them.  Before leaping into any such effort, it’s worthwhile to see what we can learn about such an organization.

Sometimes, it’s quite obvious, like in the case of Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996, but other times requires a good deal of investigating.  This case is not so obvious because they’re not mentioning any particular candidates, but instead a process of direct nomination skipping the two-party system.  Watch this fascinating video:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXPLYCPJnWU]

My curiosity got the better of me, and I immediately went out in search of answers.  I knew a little about Doug Schoen, but not enough to be thorough, and I had never encountered Elliott Ackerman before.  I started by going over to the AmericansElect.org website, and looked for an “About Us” or “Who We Are” page, and I found one.   It’s here:  Who We Are  Study this list.

Now understand that I don’t believe in guilt by association, but I want us to be careful and thorough.  Elliott Ackerman is the son of Peter Ackerman, and Joanne Leedom-Ackerman.  Douglas Schoen is a long time insider.  Also on the list is Carla Hills, former US Secretary of Housing and US Trade Representative.  As you look through the list, there is no shortage of movers and shakers, or those with direct ties to the elite.  This is a rather funny list of people to be working on a well-funded “grass roots” organization, isn’t it?

Speaking of funding, where are they getting all of that money?  Judy Woodruff asked directly, but Elliot Ackerman side-stepped the question.  We can come back to this in due course.

What is curious about this group is the number of connections it has with another group.  Just for the sake of curiosity, I compared the folks listed on the Who Are We page for Americans Elect to another group: The International Crisis Group.  So who what do these two groups have in common?  Well, Douglas Schoen and Carla Hills, but also an interesting tidbit: Joanne Leedom-Ackerman is part of this group.  As we remember from above, that’s Elliot’s mother.   This is a happy coincidence, with father and son working in one group with Doug Schoen and Carla Hills, along with many other elites, and wife and mother working in another group with Doug Schoen and Carla Hills, along with many other global elites.

Now while young Mr. Ackerman wouldn’t tell us who is contributing to the Americans Elect group operations, it could be interesting, for comparison only, of course, to take a look at who is funding ICG.  According to Wikipedia:

“Philanthropist George Soros who is chairman of the Open Society Institute is on the Board of Trustees.”

Isn’t that just the most amazing thing?  Just like clockwork, in walks the villain.  Now of course, since the young Mr. Ackerman declined to tell us who is bankrolling Americans Elect, we’ll have to leave that to our imaginations for the moment.  Ahem.

Now I don’t mean to tell you anything in particular about Americans Elect, but before a single person involves themselves with this organization, I would encourage them to ask the leadership to disclose who has funded their operations to date.  In short, I believe in full disclosure, particularly if an organization’s stated intention is to elect the next President of the United States.  In that spirit, here’s a little more about Pappy[Peter] Ackerman:  Founder of Americans Elect Used Tax Shelter Scheme

Just imagine:  Soros funds Obama.  Soros funds others.  Soros funds all sorts of things.  To be honest, when I heard Doug Schoen say the word “openness” while he and the young Mr. Ackerman refused to disclose the name(s) of donors, my antennae were immediately raised.  Remembering Schoen has urged Obama to decline renomination, I was further intrigued.  This is the signature maneuver of a Soros operation, and while all of this could be simple coincidence, as you know by now, in politics, those are actually damnably rare.  Watch out for this group.  There are a couple of ways this could go, and I’m wary about most of them.  While there is no direct tie to Soros as yet, the single degree of separation for so many of the key people certainly makes me wonder.  I could see this being used to exploit people to the detriment of the country, which is generally the trend with anything in which this elite jet-set is involved.

Thanks to my friend Carl who helped chase down some info for this article!