Top Palin aide is on Soros payroll
November 12th, 2010 . by TexasFredTop Palin aide is on Soros payroll
I don’t know how real this is, I know nothing of the author or his reliability, this was sent to me via email, and I have to say, it came as quite a shock. I know that I have heard it said that Salon has a far left tilt, their blog roll in the sidebar tells a lot about their affiliations.
Is this just a moonbat plot to attack Palin?
I am sure that the Palinites will say that it doesn’t matter, it means nothing, Saint Sarah can’t control her employees, and hey, she’s not working for Soros.
But suppose she is? Suppose this has legs? Suppose Palin isn’t doing anything directly, but by her failure to *vet* her people, she has inadvertently given Soros tons of information? Talk about Sleeping with The Enemy. Read on…
Revealed: the surprisingly close link between the liberal billionaire and the Republican superstar
Glenn Beck spent the past week denouncing the liberal billionaire and philanthropist George Soros as a “puppet master” who is orchestrating a coup “to bring America to her knees.”
Given Soros’ alleged role plotting to destroy the United States, Beck and his Fox viewership might be surprised to learn that one of Sarah Palin’s top aides has been on Soros’ payroll for years.
That would be Republican lobbyist Randy Scheunemann, Palin’s foreign policy adviser and a member of her small inner circle. He runs a Washington, D.C., consulting firm called Orion Strategies. Scheunemann and a partner have since 2003 been paid over $150,000 by one of Soros’ organizations for lobbying work, according to federal disclosure forms reviewed by Salon. The lobbying, which has continued to the present, centers on legislation involving sanctions and democracy promotion in Burma.
Scheunemann’s client is the Open Society Policy Center, a DC-based advocacy group founded and funded by Soros. The Open Society Policy Center says on its website that it “encourages Congress and the Administration to press the military dictatorship in Burma to restore political rights and democracy.”
In the course of Beck’s three-day look at Soros’ network of organizations and his links to Democratic politicians, the fact that a top aide to a likely GOP presidential candidate has been retained by a Soros outfit did not come up.
Scheunemann is known as a longtime neoconservative who pushed for the U.S. invasion of Iraq and for support for Georgia. He has been strongly identified with Palin since he met her while working as the chief foreign policy adviser of the McCain campaign in 2008 (see a classic picture of Scheunemann and Palin doing debate prep here). Since then, Scheunemann has taken on an increasingly prominent role in Palin-land. He traveled with her to Hong Kong for a speech in September 2009. In the second quarter of 2010, Scheunemann’s Orion Strategies was paid $30,000 by Palin’s political action committee for consulting on “national and international issues.”
Palin even recommended Scheunemann — along with Orion Strategies staffer and former McCain campaign spokesman Michael Goldfarb — as debate prep coaches to doomed Delaware Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell. They subsequently spent a day helping O’Donnell.
We reached out to Goldfarb Thursday afternoon to see if Orion had any comment about its work for Soros, and we will update this post if we hear back.
Here, finally, is one of the lobbying disclosure forms that shows Scheunemann’s work for Open Society (the rest can be found by searching here):
Full Story Here:
Top Palin aide is on Soros payroll
If ANY of my readers can refute this, WITH SOURCES, not just some heart-felt love for Palin, but with real sources, please do.
I honestly don’t know if Palin has one of her people intentionally working for Soros. I seriously doubt it. This whole story may be a HUGE load of hog-wash. But suppose it’s not. Throughout history we have seen glamorous and seductive women engaged in the game of espionage as *double agents*. Stranger things have happened.
And suppose the guy really IS working for Soros and Palin? What then? Will Palin have the integrity to fire him? I sincerely hope so. It would do a lot for her Conservative credibility, but suppose she doesn’t? Suppose she sees nothing wrong with it, suppose she blows it off with a ‘the guy has a right to work anywhere, and for anyone he wishes’? What then?
This story raises a ton of *what if’s*. I hope some of my readers have an answer, or some further, more in-depth information.
I know you’ll all have an opinion.
A McCain adviser and lobbyist… that’s all I need to hear. This is interesting info on the guy. I think the left is playing games, but… I don’t trust these types to begin with. I don’t think she knows enough to be giving inside into to Soros via this guy. JMHO.
“Randy Scheunemann has been described as John McCain’s Henry Kissinger or Zbignew Brzeniski”.
Now I really don’t trust him. LOL!!!
Who is Randy Scheunemann?
It’s being reported on quite a few sites. This might get interesting.
I thought Palin was a private citizen? Why does she need a foreign policy advisory? Not that she can’t have one but it sounds strange to me that a private citizen would have one.
Fred: Why not contact Sarah and ask the question directly. I for one would be very interested in the response. Straight forward or political gobbuldegook.????
Bob — I was wondering about that *foreign policy advisor* thing myself, maybe he pointed out that Russia was viewable from the Palin residence…
Dick — I really don’t think she’ll answer me, but I can try…
HAM — I have tried to tell people for quite some time, Palin is STILL aligned with McCain, and that is a strong point AGAINST her…
If this Randy Scheunemann really does work for McCain and Palin, as well as Soros, well, I think that speaks volumes…
This gets deeper by the hour!!
I wouldn’t doubt it. Soros is hedging all his bets.
I don’t like or dislike Palin. She is a minor leaguer brought up to the majors way to soon.
It’s all news to me…I don’t know the guy except for his attachment to McCain…but I do know this, Sarah Palin is an advocate for the Law Of The Sea Treaty and that’s a big “No, No” in my book!
Lobbyists go anywhere for anyone for cash. That is their only true allegiance and faith.
This could go either way; truth or not.
BZ
This could get interesting. I wouldn’t vote for her for president anyway, but this alone should disqualify her in the minds of most conservatives if it is true. Of Course, I wouldn’t put it past the left to make something like this up because they know eventually the media will run with it whether it is true or not.
Just some thoughts, not arguing against or for any particular point:
~ Lobbyists and PR folks work for who pays them and may have no other allegiance to their clients, as BZ said.
~ If you remember, Sarah Palin was thrust on the national political scene in a hurry, and was noticeably unprepared for the big time. If she’s seriously considering another political run, it’s smart to hire a foreign policy advisor to get her up to speed and keep her there.
Personally, I don’t see Palin as a double-agent. Qualified for POTUS or not, I think she’s a genuine “what you see is what you get” chick.
Soros’s tentacles extend all over the place.
The above statement by me is not to be taken as any kind of endorsement or excusing of Palin if anything in this story turns out to be true.
I’m with Texas Fred on the following:
McCain is in, so many ways, a RINO and a liberal. Palin’s continued association with him makes me extremely wary of her.
James — Palin as a genuine “what you see is what you get” chick is what scares me.. I see a shrill voiced cheerleader, not too bright, money oriented, followed by drama, and not a hell of a lot of *stick to it* other than her allegiance to McCain and Perry, RINOs of the 1st order.
The *Palinites* can scream and cry all the day long about Palin being Conservative and a gun person, until she cuts her ties with the GOP, she is a RINO with a pretty face…
Wouldn’t surprise me at all. Hell the system is so corrupt from top to bottom that if you followed the money you’d find:
Obama’s campaign had a lot of money from Hamas, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Iran.
You’d also likely find the same donations to GWB and McLame.
China donates to both party’s like any good corporation does….
Palin, if this is true will probably make a statement saying she didnt know or something…Too early to form an opinion but anything Sorros is involved can’t be good for our country.
Fred,
I see Palin’s allegiance to McCain as “loyalty,” and there’s something to be said for being loyal. How far that should go, I’m not sure. McCain certainly did not deserve our support, except that no better alternative existed after the party conventions in 2008. Sad.
Palin is overexposed, a “rock star,” and is suffering the maladies of all those who are overcome with themselves.
The only defense I would offer for folks like Palin and Christine O’Donnell is that they are “common folk,” not polished, skilled politicos. We have too damned many of those already.
I wonder if Palin or O’Donnell in Congress could be worse than what we have now?
And point taken and agreed with that she shouldn’t have quit as governor.
James — I guess we’ll have to see how well Palin can express herself as time goes on, personally, I see a manufactured personality, and one that can change at will…
She’s totally different in her presentation NOW than she was when running, you betcha by golly doggoneit ya just know she is, you betcha…
As to McCain and the RINOs of the GOP, be it misplaced loyalty, allegiance, whatever, it doesn’t sit well with Conservatives, REAL Conservatives…
Some in the TEA Party worship her, and they are, in MY opinion, wrong and/or misled…
If Palin is a Conservative, WHY does she not fully disavow RINOs like McCain and Perry?
I am afraid that Palin has far too many people fooled, and that IF the USA actually falls for this woman in 2012, one of 2 things will happen;
1. Obama will beat her like a rented mule, or.
2. We get her as a POTUS and then wish that WE had beat her like a rented mule…
If Palin is the answer, this nation is screwed…
Fred,
I understand your point about her manufactured personality, but I wonder if that isn’t progress of a sort. When she was thrust upon the national scene, she was, to be charitable, rough around the edges. She looked like a rookie, which she was. But having moved past that, she seems to have wised up, perhaps through steps like getting a foreign policy adviser, and now looks less like a rookie, at least to me.
Not that I would entertain her as a candidate for POTUS, mind you, but smoother, more “professional” (read “less objectionable” to her critics) and I don’t see how that can hurt. That could be a hint that she wants to run again, or it might simply be a move to do a better job of helping attract votes to those she campaigns for.
I see her appeal to Tea Partiers as “common people liking a common person.” She has become a sympathetic figure to sensible people who object to the way she was treated by the Democrats and the media.
I think there are more than enough strong conservative potential candidates that we won’t have to worry about her winning the nomination, so long as “conservatism/libertarianism” is the operational concept. And, I would hope the Tea Partiers will be able to discern that there are a few others better suited to the job than she.
However, I can’t get past thinking she would a better Veep than Joe Biden.
As for her failure to distance herself from the McCains and Perrys, beats me. Unless she becomes a for-real candidate, that doesn’t matter. I guess time will tell.
True or not, it still doesn’t change my opinion of Palin. That is: I really like her on a personal level. She’s a strong woman with many admirable qualities, including a firm grip on reality when it comes to family. Sadly, she is far too tainted now by her association with McCain to ever be elected to the office of POTUS. VP, maybe.
What we Constitution-loving Conservatives need most is an ELECTABLE candidate!
Now, who that is remains to be seen. IMNSHO, go young. There are some fine ‘matured’ guys out there, but we’re going to be fighting more against B.H. Obama’s IMAGE than his accomplishments. Northerner or Southerner? I have my preferences, but I’ll follow either if he/she is a TRUE American.
Bull, out.