George Soros’ War on America: Time to Prosecute the Billionaire's Global Crime Spree
I AM SHOCKED THAT DONALD TRUMP AND THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT HAS NOT ARRESTED THIS MAN.
THE ANTI AMERICAN SPIES... THE ROSENBERGS WERE PUTZES COMPARED TO THIS MAN. THE ENEMY WITHIN. THE TRAITOR. NO ADMINISTRATION HAS DARED TO TAKE THIS MAN DOWN. NO PATRIOT HAS TRIED TO TAKE HIM OUT!
“Not My President! Not My President!” Day after day, in cities from coast to coast, the chanting mobs of rioters have illegally blocked streets and freeways, set fires, thrown Molotov cocktails, injured police officers, destroyed property, and defaced public buildings with graffiti. Portland, Oregon, a bastion of “progressive” Democrats, has been the epicenter of much of the violent action aimed at president-elect Donald Trump. Of course, as we have previously reported, not only did most of the Portland rioters who were arrested fail to register to vote, a large percentage of them appear to be professional, paid protesters.
Many of them, no doubt, were hired in response to the advertisements for paid anti-Trump protesters that appeared on Craigslist and other media in Seattle, Portland, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Boston, Denver, Philadelphia, New York, and elsewhere. Many of these “spontaneous” protests/riots would not have occurred without organized efforts involving hundreds of busses transporting thousands of protesters/rioters, many of whom appear to have travelled across state lines.
Many of the anti-Trump rioters, then, would appear not only to have violated state laws against rioting and inciting to riot, but also federal law against the same crime. Specifically, the rioters could be (and should be) charged under Title 18 U.S. Code § 2101, which provides
(a) Whoever travels in interstate or foreign commerce or uses any facility of interstate or foreign commerce, including, but not limited to, the mail, telegraph, telephone, radio, or television, with intent —
(1) to incite a riot; or
(2) to organize, promote, encourage, participate in, or carry on a riot; or
(3) to commit any act of violence in furtherance of a riot; or
(4) to aid or abet any person in inciting or participating in or carrying on a riot or committing any act of violence in furtherance of a riot....
Shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
The definition section of 18 U.S. Code § 2102 defines the crime of rioting this way:
(a) As used in this chapter, the term “riot” means a public disturbance involving (1) an act or acts of violence by one or more persons part of an assemblage of three or more persons, which act or acts shall constitute a clear and present danger of, or shall result in, damage or injury to the property of any other person or to the person of any other individual or (2) a threat or threats of the commission of an act or acts of violence by one or more persons part of an assemblage of three or more persons having, individually or collectively, the ability of immediate execution of such threat or threats, where the performance of the threatened act or acts of violence would constitute a clear and present danger of, or would result in, damage or injury to the property of any other person or to the person of any other individual.
Obviously, the anti-Trump rioters who were arrested for starting fires and committing other acts of violence and public disturbance should be prosecuted under applicable state laws, and those who traveled interstate to do the same should also be prosecuted under federal law as well. But what about the organizers of the riots, those who hired the rioters and transported the perpetrators across state lines to engage in this criminal activity? Are they not also culpable under the “aid and abet” provisions cited above? Are they not also liable for prosecution under the federal conspiracy statute (18 U.S. Code § 371) which provides:
If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
The Obama Department of Justice had no problem with charging Oregon ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond — respected, hard-working, tax-paying, law-abiding citizens — with terrorism and arson, for accidentally burning a few acres of “public land” while carrying out a controlled burn on their own land. The Obama/Lynch DOJ prosecuted these dangerous “terrorists” and threw them into federal prison. (See here and here).
When supporters of the Hammonds, led by Nevada ranching family members Ammon and Ryan Bundy peacefully occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in protest earlier this year, the Obama administration mobilized all its resources in response, including an ambush that resulted in the shooting death of Hammond supporter Robert LaVoy Finicum.
The Obama administration and its media allies were stunned a few weeks ago when an Oregon jury acquitted the Bundy brothers and their five additional co-defendants of all charges, including charges of conspiracy to use “force, intimidation, and threats” against federal employees. Will the Obama/Lynch DOJ show any similar zeal to prosecute the thugs who carried out the violent riots in Portland, Oregon — or in the many other venues around the country? Will they prosecute the co-conspirators who financed and planned the riots? That is highly unlikely, since the financiers of the “#NotMyPresident” anti-Trump rallies are some of the Democrat Party’s biggest donors. Heading the list of the Rioters-R-Us financiers is top Obama/Clinton fundraiser George Soros (shown at right), the Daddy Warbucks of all causes socialist and subversive.
Over the past couple of decades, the hedge fund billionaire and globalist gadfly has poured hundreds of millions of dollars of his ill-gotten gains into hundreds of organizations and dozens of schemes aimed at empowering global government through the United Nations and destroying our constitutional limitations on government. Here is a short list of the many violent, illegal, and/or unethical rent-a-mob actions and Astroturf “movements” for which “philanthropist” George Soros should be called to account:
• The recent anti-Trump riots have been reliably reported as the handiwork of paid “protesters” organized by MoveOn.org, Planned Parenthood, #BlackLivesMatter, and other groups that have been heavily funded by Soros.
• The violent #BlackLivesMatter riots that have wracked America and fomented racial turmoil since the Ferguson, Missouri police shooting have been funded with tens of millions of dollars from Soros' foundations.
• The WikiLeaks e-mails have exposed the Soros funding of the United Nations/Obama administration scheme for flooding the United States and Europe with unvetted Muslim “refugees.”
• Soros was a principal funder for the August 28, 2016 protest/rally in Washington, D.C. to boost the Obama/UN refugee/migration plan.
• Top Hillary Clinton Campaign and Democratic National Committee operatives have been exposed in the undercover videos by Project Veritas boasting of their illegal activities, including voter fraud, inciting riots, and instigating violence at Trump rallies. Soros’ funding ties to these operations and his past funding of similar illicit activities indicate that, at the very least, he be investigated for possible prosecution regarding these serious crimes as well.
Various organizations, including those funded by Soros, have announced plans for massive demonstrations leading up to, and on, Inauguration Day, January 21. Based upon the rhetoric of the organizers and the recent record of their activities across the country, there is very good reason to believe that these upcoming “protests” will be as violent and lawless as those we have already witnessed.
George Soros has been allowed to operate above the law for too long. It is time that he — and other uber-rich activist financiers like him — be put on notice that they will be held accountable for funding criminal activity. These “Lords of Chaos” must find out that they too are subject to the same rule of law that is binding on the rest of us mere mortals.
New York hedge fund manager George Soros is one of the most politically powerful individuals on earth. Since the mid-1980s in particular, he has used his immense influence to help reconfigure the political landscapes of several countries around the world—in some cases playing a key role in toppling regimes that had held the reins of government for years, even decades. Vis à vis the United States, a strong case can be made for the claim that Soros today affects American politics and culture more profoundly that any other living person.
Much of Soros's influence derives from his multi-billion-dollar personal fortune,1 which is further leveraged by at least another $25 billion in investor assets controlled by his firm, Soros Fund Management.2 An equally significant source of Soros's power, however, is his passionate messianic zeal. Soros views himself as a missionary with something of a divine mandate to transform the world and its institutions into something better—as he sees it.
Over the years, Soros has given voice to this sense of grandiosity many times and in a variety of different ways. In his 1987 book The Alchemy of Finance, for instance, he wrote: “I admit that I have always harbored an exaggerated view of self-importance—to put it bluntly, I fancied myself as some kind of god or an economic reformer like Keynes or, even better, a scientist like Einstein.”3 Expanding on this theme in his 1991 book Underwriting Democracy, Soros said: “If truth be known, I carried some rather potent messianic fantasies with me from childhood,” fantasies which “I wanted to indulge … to the extent that I could afford.”4 In a June 1993 interview with The Independent, Soros, who is an atheist,5 said he saw himself as “some kind of god, the creator of everything.”6 In an interview two years later, he portrayed himself as someone who shared numerous attributes with “God in the Old Testament” — “[Y]ou know, like invisible. I was pretty invisible. Benevolent. I was pretty benevolent. All-seeing. I tried to be all-seeing.”7 Soros told his biographer Michael Kaufman that his “goal” was nothing less ambitious than “to become the conscience of the world” by using his charitable foundations,8 which will be discussed at length in this pamphlet, to bankroll organizations and causes that he deems worthwhile.
“I realized [as a young man] that it's money that makes the world go round,” says Soros, “so I might as well make money.… But having made it, I could then indulge my social concerns.”9 Invariably, those concerns center around a desire to change the world generally—and America particularly—into something new, something consistent with his vision of “social justice.” Claiming to be “driven” by “illusions, or perhaps delusions, of grandeur,”10 Soros has humorously described himself as “a kind of nut who wants to have an impact” on the workings of the world.11 The billionaire's longtime friend Byron Wien, currently the vice chairman of Blackstone Advisory Services, offers this insight: “You must understand [Soros] thinks he’s been anointed by God to solve insoluble problems. The proof is that he has been so successful at making so much [money]. He therefore thinks he has a responsibility to give money away”—to causes that are consistent with his values and agendas.12
GEORGE SOROS'S ROOTS AND DEVELOPMENT
George Soros was born to Tividar and Erzebat Schwartz, non-practicing Jews, in Budapest, Hungary on August 12, 1930. Tivadar was an attorney by profession, but the consuming passion of his life was the promotion of Esperanto—an artificial, “universal” language created during the 1880s in hopes that people worldwide might be persuaded to drop their native tongues and speak Esperanto instead—thereby, in theory at least, minimizing their nationalist impulses while advancing intercultural harmony. In 1936, Tivadar changed his family surname to Soros—a future-tense Esperanto verb meaning “will soar.”13
When the Nazis occupied Budapest in 1944, Tivadar decided to split up his family so as to minimize the chance that all its members would be killed together. For each of them—his wife and two sons—he purchased forged papers identifying them as Christians; paid government officials to conceal his family's Jewish heritage from the German and Hungarian fascists; and bribed Gentile families to take them into their homes. As for George in particular, the father paid a Hungarian government official named Baumbach to claim George as his Christian godson, “Sandor Kiss,” and to let the boy live with him in Budapest. One of Baumbach's duties was to deliver deportation notices to Hungary's Jews, confiscating their property and turning it over to Germany. Young George Soros sometimes accompanied the official on his rounds.14 Many years later, in December 1998, a CBS interviewer would ask Soros whether he had ever felt any guilt about his association with Baumbach during that period. Soros replied: “… I was only a spectator ... I had no role in taking away that property. So I had no sense of guilt.”15
Soros today recalls the German occupation of Hungary as “probably the happiest year of my life.” “For me,” he elaborates, “it was a very positive experience. It's a strange thing because you see incredible suffering around you and the fact you are in considerable danger yourself. But you're fourteen years old and you don't believe that it can actually touch you. You have a belief in yourself. You have a belief in your father. It's a very happy-making, exhilarating experience.”16
In 1947 the Soros family relocated from Hungary to England, where George attended the London School of Economics (LSE). There, he was exposed to the works of the Viennese-born philosopher Karl Popper, who taught at LSE and whom Soros would later call his “spiritual mentor.”17 Though Soros never studied directly under Popper, he read the latter's works and submitted some essays to him for review and comment. Most notably, Popper's 1945 book The Open Society and Its Enemies introduced Soros to the concept of an “open society,” a theme that would play a central role in Soros's thought and activities for the rest of his life.18
The term “open society” was originally coined in 1932 by the French philosopher Henri Louis Bergson, to describe societies whose moral codes were founded upon “universal” principles seeking to enhance the welfare of all mankind—as opposed to “closed” societies that placed self-interest above any concern for other nations and cultures.19 Popper readily embraced this concept and expanded upon it. In his view, the open society was a place that permitted its citizens the right to criticize and change its institutions as they saw fit; he rejected the imposed intellectual conformity, central planning, and historical determinism of Marxist doctrine.20 By Popper's reckoning, a society was “closed”—and thus undesirable—if it assumed that it was in any way superior to other societies. Likewise, any belief system or individual claiming to be in possession of “ultimate truth” was an “enemy” of the open society as well. Popper viewed all knowledge as conjectural rather than certain, as evolving rather than fixed.
Thus, by logical extension, Popper did not share the American founders' confident assertion that certain truths were “self-evident,” and that certain rights—such as the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” as referenced in the Declaration of Independence—were “unalienable” and thus not subject to doubt, because they had been granted to mankind by the ultimate authority, the “Creator.”21 We shall see that George Soros, as he grew to maturity, would likewise reject the founders' premise. Indeed Soros would harbor great disdain for modern-day American political figures who displayed unshakable confidence in their own culture's nobility, and who embraced the tenets of the Declaration and the U.S. Constitution as timeless, immutable truths. To Soros, “Popper's greatest contribution to philosophy” was his teaching that “the ultimate truth remains permanently beyond our reach.”22
After graduating in 1952 from LSE, Soros joined the London brokerage firm Singer and Friedlander, where he became proficient in international arbitrage, which he defines as “buying securities in one country and selling them in another.”23 Four years later, he relocated to New York to work as a stock trader on Wall Street. Because Soros “did not particularly care for” the “commercial, crass” United States, he had no intention of settling permanently in America. Rather, he had devised a “five-year plan” to save some $500,000 and then return to Europe.24 His plan changed, however, when he found work as a portfolio manager at the investment bank Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder Inc., where his career—as if to fulfill the prophecy embedded in the family surname his father had adopted two decades earlier—soared to new heights.
In 1959 Soros moved to Greenwich Village, New York, where early stirrings of the Sixties counterculture were already being felt. In September 1960 he married Annaliese Witschak, who would be his wife until the couple divorced 23 years later.25 In 1961 Soros became a U.S. citizen, and two years later he and Annaliese had their first child, a son. In the Village, it is likely that Soros was exposed to the ideas of the prominent socialist Michael Harrington, who mingled with fellow radicals and socialists almost nightly at a tavern situated barely a stone's throw from Soros's residence.26 In 1962 Harrington wrote The Other America, a book lamenting the fact that a substantial “invisible” underclass continued to exist even as the country at large prospered, and suggesting that a “war on poverty” was needed to rectify this. President Lyndon Johnson read and admired the book, and its ideas greatly influenced his Great Society policies of government-imposed redistribution of wealth.
Another prominent Village personality of the era—the poet, New Left radical, and psychedelic-drug guru Allen Ginsberg—would eventually become a “lifelong friend” of Soros. Though Soros may not have formally met Ginsberg until around 1980—long after his years in the Village—the billionaire today credits Ginsberg for having opened his eyes to the benefits of drug legalization, which has been one of Soros's pet projects throughout his philanthropic career.27
In 1969 Soros established the “Double Eagle Fund” for Bleichroeder with $4 million in capital, including $250,000 of his own money. Four years later, Soros and his assistant at Bleichroeder, Jim Rogers, set up a private partnership called Soros Fund Management. They subsequently changed the Double Eagle Fund's name to The Soros Fund. In 1979 they renamed it again—The Quantum Fund; its value grew to $381 million by 1980, and more than $1 billion by 1985.28
SOROS THE PHILANTHROPIST
It was in 1979 that Soros began testing the proverbial waters of philanthropy. Five years later he launched, in the country of his birth, the first of his many Open Society Foundations—named after the concept advanced by Karl Popper—to help “build vibrant and tolerant democracies whose governments are accountable to their citizens.”29 But it was not until 1987, the year he opened his Moscow office, that Soros began to disseminate truly large amounts of money to various groups and causes. “My spending rose from $3 million in 1987 to more than $300 million a year by 1992,” he said.30 During this period, Soros established a series of foundations throughout Eastern Europe and Central Asia.31 He happily observed that because of his extraordinary wealth, major political figures “suddenly became very interested in seeing me…. [M]y influence increased.”32 Today Soros's Open Society Foundations are active in more than 70 countries around the world.33
In 1993 Soros established the flagship of the Soros foundation network—the New York City-based Open Society Foundations (OSF), which went by the name of the Open Society Institute until 2010. While OSF's philanthropy extends to a number of nations around the world, it is chiefly devoted to injecting capital into American groups and causes. In his book Open Society: Reforming Global Capitalism, Soros explains that the “open society” which he seeks to advance by means of philanthropy, “stands for freedom, democracy, rule of law, human rights, social justice, and social responsibility as a universal idea.”34 But of course, abstract concepts like these, draped in vestments of lofty rhetoric, can mean radically different things to different people.
Entrusted with the task of defining the foregoing terms for the OSF, and for articulating OSF's agendas from the outset, was Aryeh Neier, whom Soros appointed to serve as president not only of OSF, but of the entire Soros Foundation Network. Thirty-four years earlier, Neier had created the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), which became the largest and most important radical group of the 1960s. SDS aspired to overthrow America's democratic institutions, remake its government in a Marxist image, and undermine the nation's war efforts in Vietnam. (A particularly militant faction of SDS would later break away to form the Weather Underground, a notorious domestic terror organization with a Marxist-Leninist agenda.) Following his stint with SDS, Neier worked fifteen years for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)—including eight years as its national executive director. After that, he spent twelve years as executive director of Human Rights Watch (HRW), an organization he founded in 1978.35
THE SOROS AGENDAS
Both the ACLU and HRW have long promoted one of the central contentions of Soros's Open Society Foundations: the notion that America is institutionally an oppressive nation and a habitual violator of human rights both at home and abroad—indeed, the very antithesis of the type of “open society” Soros reveres. Consider first the ACLU, whose advisory board once included the former Weather Underground terrorist Bernardine Dohrn.36 The ACLU has opposed virtually all post-9/11 national security measures enacted by the U.S. government, depicting those measures not only as excessively harsh and invasive generally, but also as discriminatory against Muslims in particular.37 Moreover, the organization has filed numerous lawsuits seeking to limit the government's ability to locate, monitor, and apprehend terrorist operatives. It consistently depicts American society as one that is rife with intractable racial injustice. And it works tirelessly to protect illegal immigrants against “governmental abuse and discrimination.”38 These (and many other) ACLU activities and policy positions are entirely consistent with those of Aryeh Neier and George Soros, as evidenced by the fact that between 1999 and 2008, OSF awarded $8.69 million in grants to the ACLU Foundation.39
Neier's other training ground, Human Rights Watch, has a long history of pointing an accusatory finger at America's allegedly numerous transgressions. Most notably, HRW has derided the U.S. war on terror as a foolhardy endeavor rooted in blindness to the realization that terrorism stems, in large measure, from America's failure “to promote fundamental rights around the world.”40 In a March 2007 speech, HRW executive director Kenneth Roth charged that the United States, by routinely “using torture and inhumane treatment” to deal with its foes, had “severely damaged its credibility when it comes to promoting human rights” in other nations.41 Between 2000 and 2008, the Open Society Foundations awarded grants and other contributions to HRW that collectively totaled $6,386,477.42 Then, in September 2010, Soros announced that he would soon be giving HRW another $100 million.43 Notably, Soros himself once served on HRW's Europe and Central Asia Advisory Committee.44
OSF's total assets today exceed $1.9 billion. Each year, the Foundations award scores of millions of dollars in grants to organizations that—like the ACLU and HRW—promote worldviews and objectives accordant with those of George Soros.45 Following is a sampling of the major agendas advanced by groups that Soros and OSF support financially. Listed under each category heading are a few OSF donees fitting that description.
Organizations that accuse America of violating the civil rights and liberties of many of its residents:
In May 2011, the Media Research Center reported that from 2003-2011, Soros had spent more than $48 million "funding media properties, including the infrastructure of news -- journalism schools, investigative journalism and even industry organizations." Among the beneficiaries of Soros's money were such entities as: ABC, The American Prospect Inc. (the owner and publisher of The American Prospect magazine), the Center for Public Integrity, the Center for Investigative Reporting, the Columbia Journalism Review, the Columbia School of Journalism, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Free Press, the Independent Media Center, the Independent Media Institute, The Lens, the Media Fund, Media Matters For America, the Nation Institute, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, the National Federation of Community Broadcasters, National Public Radio, NBC, the Organization of News Ombudsmen, the New York Times, the Pacifica Foundation, ProPublica, and the Washington Post, . Below are some brief descriptions of a few of these organizations:
Organizations that favor global government which would bring American foreign policy under the control of the United Nations or other international bodies:
SOROS'S POLITICAL CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS
Apart from the more than $5 billion that Soros' foundation network has donated to leftist groups like those cited above, Soros personally has made campaign contributions to such notable political candidates as Joe Biden, Barbara Boxer, Sherrod Brown, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Jon Corzine, Howard Dean, Richard Durbin, Lane Evans, Al Franken, Al Gore, Tom Harkin, Maurice Hinchey, John Kerry, Dennis Kucinich, Patrick Leahy, Barack Obama, Charles Rangel, Harry Reid, Ken Salazar, Charles Schumer, Joe Sestak, and Tom Udall. He also has given large sums of money to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Democratic National Committee Services Corporation, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
SOROS MEETS THE CLINTONS
Around the time that George Soros initially launched his Manhattan-based Open Society Foundations, he established what would prove to be a warm and enduring relationship with Bill and Hillary Clinton, the new American President and First Lady. When the Clintons took office in early 1993, they faced the daunting task of helping the collapsed Soviet empire rise from its ruins and cultivate a harmonious relationship with the United States. To lead this endeavor, President Clinton appointed three men: Treasury Department official Lawrence Summers, Vice President Al Gore, and soon-to-be State Department official Strobe Talbott. Talbott in particular was given a large degree of authority, prompting some observers to dub him as Clinton's “Russian policy czar.”150 It so happened that Talbot had an exceptionally high regard for the financial expertise of George Soros—describing him as “a national resource, indeed, a national treasure”—and thus he recruited the billionaire to serve as a key advisor on U.S.-Russian matters.151
Soros, in turn, had connections with a young economist whom he had been funding—Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Harvard Institute for International Development. The U.S. Agency for International Development assigned Sachs' Institute to oversee Russia's transformation to a market economy after more than seven decades of communism. As a consequence of this assignment, Sachs and his team essentially represented the United States as official economic advisors to Russian President Boris Yeltsin. Soros worked closely with Sachs on this project, and the pair held enormous sway over Yeltsin.152 So great was their influence, in fact, that on one occasion Soros quipped that “the former Soviet Empire is now called the Soros Empire.”153 But before long, members of Sachs's team became involved in massive corruption, exploiting for personal gain their access to Russia's political and economic leaders. Their actions contributed to the collapse of the Russian economy and to the diversion of some $100 billion out of the country.154 Though Sachs himself was not accused of profiting personally from these activities, he resigned as director of the Harvard Institute in May 1999, under a dark cloud of scandal.155 The U.S. House Banking Committee investigated the matter and called Soros to testify. The billionaire denied culpability but admitted that he had used insider access in an illegal deal to acquire a large portion of Sidanko Oil.156 Soros further acknowledged in Congressional testimony that some of the missing Russian assets had made their way into his personal investment portfolio.157 House Banking Committee chairman Jim Leach characterized the entire sordid affair as “one of the greatest social robberies in human history.”158
As the Nineties progressed, it became increasingly evident that Bill and Hillary Clinton embraced virtually all of the values and agendas that George Soros was funding through his Open Society Foundations. “I do now have great access in [the Clinton] administration,” said Soros in 1995. “There is no question about this. We actually work together as a team.”159
Soros and Mrs. Clinton in particular held one another in the highest esteem. In November 1997, when Hillary was in Central Asia for a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the newly built American University of Kyrgyzstan, she delivered a speech in which she lavished praise on Soros's Open Society Foundations, which had financed the school's construction.160 According to Center for American Democracy director Rachel Ehrenfeld, one source close to Mrs. Clinton's inner circle reports that Soros visited Hillary at the White House during the Bill Clinton impeachment proceedings of 1998-99, when the First Lady was receiving only her most trusted confidantes.161 A few years later, at a June 2004 “Take Back America” conference in Washington, Mrs. Clinton introduced Soros as a courageous man who loved his country deeply. “[W]e need people like George Soros,” she said, “who is fearless, and willing to step up when it counts.” Soros, in turn, indicated that he was “very, very proud to be introduced” by someone for whom he had such “great, great admiration.” He described Hillary as someone who had been “more effective than most of our statesmen in propagating democracy, freedom, and open society.”162
9/11, AND SOROS'S DEEPER IMMERSION INTO AMERICAN POLITICS
September 11, 2001 was a watershed moment not only in American history but also in George Soros's philanthropic career. Soros viewed the 9/11 terrorist attacks as confirmation that U.S. foreign policy—particularly under President George W. Bush, who had taken office eight months earlier—was moving in a dangerous direction, giving rise to anti-American hatred in the hearts of people all across the globe. By Soros's reckoning, Bush embodied the very antithesis of the “open society” ideal. Specifically, the billionaire detested what he viewed as the arrogance the President displayed when he publicly branded America's enemies as “evil”; when he unapologetically expressed his faith in the exceptionalism of his own culture; and when he seemed disinclined to consider the possibility that the terrorists may have had something valuable to teach Americans about how the rest of the world perceived the United States. Moreover, Soros considered terrorism to be, in large measure, a consequence of economic inequity and the exploitation of poor countries by their wealthier counterparts.
Reasoning from these premises, Soros—while conceding that the retaliatory U.S. invasion of Afghanistan was justifiable163—maintained that the proper long-term response to 9/11 would be for America to launch a global war on poverty. Such an undertaking would be modeled on the Great Society programs which the Johnson administration had instituted in the 1960s—on the theory that by pouring rivers of taxpayer dollars into the nation's violence-torn ghettos, the presumably justified rage of the rioters could be quelled. In a similar vein, Soros now held that the best way to fight international terrorism would be for the affluent USA to send massive amounts of aid to impoverished regions around the world where the phenomenon tended to originate. Indeed, he had long maintained that the “root causes” of terrorism were “poverty” and “ignorance.”164 Just eight days after 9/11, Soros gave a speech where he said that the “cornerstone” of his “plan” was to “address the social conditions that provide a fertile ground from which [terrorist] volunteers who are willing to sacrifice their lives can be recruited.” This plan would call on “rich countries” to boost their levels of “international assistance,” which—while unlikely to “prevent people like bin Laden from exercising their evil genius”—would “help to alleviate the grievances on which extremism of all kinds feeds.”165
On subsequent occasions, Soros would reiterate his belief that terrorism was caused by a dearth of “international income redistribution” and a “growing inequality between rich and poor, both within countries and among countries.”166 “A global open society,” Soros stressed, “requires affirmative action on a global scale.”167 By contrast, Soros was largely silent on the issue of Islam's longstanding tradition of jihad, which predated by many hundreds of years any potentially objectionable U.S. foreign-policy initiatives. Rather, he called for a “radical reordering” of American “priorities,” where “[i]nstead of devoting the bulk of the budget to military expenditures to implement the Bush doctrine, we would engage in preventive actions of a constructive nature.”168 “The United States cannot do whatever it wants,” he scolded. “... Our nation must concern itself with the well-being of the world.”169
In Soros's calculus, 9/11 represented “an unusual opportunity to rethink and reshape the world.” Observing that the recent attacks had “shocked” Americans “into realizing that others may regard them very differently from the way they see themselves,” Soros posited that his fellow countrymen were “more ready to reassess the world and the role the United States plays in it than in normal times.”170 And acknowledging that “[t]his awareness may not last long,” he said: “I am determined not to let the moment pass.”171
The urgency which Soros felt with regard to seizing the moment was further heightened on the night of January 29, 2002, when George W. Bush delivered his State of the Union address. In that speech, the President made his first controversial reference to Iraq as part of an “axis of evil” that posed a potentially deadly threat to America. Bush intimated that he would soon turn his foreign-policy attention toward Saddam Hussein's regime, which continued to “flaunt its hostility toward America,” “support terror,” and violate its international agreements. As the President pledged not to “wait on events while dangers gather,” nor to “stand by as peril draws closer and closer,” speculation about a possible U.S. invasion of Iraq began to coalesce.172 In Soros's view, such an invasion would be yet another misguided and senseless endeavor, and he was determined to do whatever he could to prevent it.
The very next month, Soros appointed former Clinton administration official Morton Halperin to the post of Open Society Foundations director. Halperin, whom some State Department officials suspected of being a communist agent,173 had been instrumental in derailing America's war effort during the Vietnam era, when President Johnson put him in charge of compiling a classified history of U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia. Halperin's labor ultimately bore fruit—in June 1971—with the publication of the notorious “Pentagon Papers.”174 Thereafter, Halperin went on to serve (from 1975-1992) as director of an ACLU project called the Center for National Security Studies, which sought to slash U.S. defense expenditures and undermine the nation's intelligence capabilities.175 In Target America—James L. Tyson's 1981 exposé of the Soviet Union's elaborate “propaganda campaign designed to weaken and demoralize America from the inside”—the author stated:
By the time the U.S. invaded Iraq in early 2003, Soros's contempt for President Bush's “imperialist vision” had reached a fever pitch.180 Accusing Bush of “deliberately foster[ing] fear because it helps to keep the nation lined up behind the president,” Soros added cynically: “Terrorism is the ideal enemy. It is invisible and therefore never disappears. An enemy that poses a genuine and recognized threat can effectively hold a nation together.”181 In August, Soros warned that the very “fate of the world depends on the United States, and President Bush is leading us in the wrong direction” with his “false and dangerous” doctrine.182 In the fall, Soros referred to Bush administration officials and Republicans generally as “extremists” who “don’t believe in the system of democracy as we know it”; and who embraced “a very dangerous ideology” which held that “the United States … should impose its power, impose its will and its interests on the world.”183
Soros routinely condemned Bush for his “unabashed pursuit of self-interest”;184 for “equat[ing] freedom with American values”; for holding the “simplistic view” that “[w]e are right and they are wrong”;185 and for harboring a “false sense of certitude” that Americans had “right on our side.”186 Each of these transgressions, Soros explained, violated the “principles of open society, which recognize that we may be wrong.”187 “The supremacist ideology of the Bush administration,” he added, “is in contradiction with the principles of an open society because it claims possession of an ultimate truth.”188
As the Iraq War took an increasing toll in terms of both American and Iraqi lives, Soros wrote that the U.S. military response to 9/11 had actually turned out to be a greater moral atrocity than the original “crime” that prompted it, because the war “has claimed more innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq than have the attacks on the World Trade Center.” In short, Soros characterized the Bush administration's “pursuit of American supremacy” as more dangerous than Islamist terror.189
Not only did Soros believe that Bush was following a mindless and perilous policy, but he saw the President's motives as wholly dishonorable. Soros repeatedly accused Bush of using intelligence that had been “exposed as exaggerated or even false” to justify the invasion of Iraq under “false pretenses.”190 He denounced “the exploitation of September 11 by the Bush administration to pursue its policy of dominating the world in the guise of fighting terrorism.”191 He expanded on this theme by accusing Bush of seeking “to justify repressive measures” on the home front while “establish[ing] a secure alternative to Saudi oil” in the Mideast.192 “The other important consideration,” Soros added, “was Israel.” He intimated that Bush, by flexing U.S. muscle in the Middle East, was signaling his readiness to intervene in affairs that could potentially affect America's closest ally in the region. By so doing, said Soros, the President was catering to “the traditional pro-Israel lobby” which included “the evangelical right—and that is the core of the president’s constituency.”193
As Soros saw things, the President's arrogance and corruption had filtered down perceptibly into the ranks of the military personnel who were carrying out Bush's mission. Thus Soros likened the conduct of American troops to that of communist and fascist thugs, asserting that “the picture of torture in Abu Ghraib” was proof that “the way President Bush conducted the war on terror converted us from victims into perpetrators.”194 Soros charged that not only had America “violated international law” by “invading Iraq … without a second UN Resolution,” but that it had “violated the Geneva Conventions” by “mistreating and even torturing prisoners.”195
On numerous occasions, Soros drew parallels between the Bush administration and some of history's most infamous totalitarian regimes. Bush's view that “there is only one model of democracy,” said Soros, was “as false, and potentially as dangerous, as that of the Communists’ belief that there is only one way to organize society.”196 Soros further likened Bush’s “Orwellian” assertion that “[y]ou can have freedom as long as you do what we tell you to do,” to Soviet rhetoric about “people’s democracies.”197 “When I hear President Bush say, 'You're either with us or against us,' it reminds me of the Germans,” Soros stated. “My experiences under Nazi and Soviet rule have sensitized me.”198 “Who would have thought sixty years ago,” asked Soros, “when Karl Popper wrote The Open Society and Its Enemies, that the United States itself could pose a threat to open society? Yet that is what is happening, both internally and internationally.”199
In a September 29, 2003 interview with BBC radio, Soros said it was imperative that there be “a regime change in the United States”—meaning that President Bush must be “voted out of power.”200 In November, Soros said that because “America, under Bush, is a danger to the world,” the outcome of the forthcoming year's presidential race had become “the central focus of my life.” “And I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is,” Soros added, declaring that he would willingly trade his entire multi-billion-dollar fortune if doing so could be “guaranteed” to unseat Bush.201 To his litany of grievances against the President, Soros now added the infamous Florida recount debacle of 2000 and called into question the very legitimacy of Bush's election victory. “President Bush came to office without a clear mandate,” said Soros. “He was elected president by a single vote on the Supreme Court.”202
The types of changes America needed were crystal clear to Soros. Above all else, he wished to steer the country, politically and ideologically, in a direction that was consistent with the agendas of the groups that he had been funding for a decade through his Open Society Foundations. Those agendas could essentially be distilled down to three overriding themes: the diminution of American power, the subjugation of American sovereignty in favor of global governance, and the implementation of redistributive economic policies—both within the U.S. and across national borders. Toward these ends, Soros saw “the forthcoming elections” as “an excellent opportunity to deflate the bubble of American supremacy.”203 He would employ his wealth and his ideological fervor to capitalize on this opportunity, knowing that the best time to implement radical change is during times of upheaval and crisis—i.e., times like the aftermath of 9/11. “Usually it takes a crisis to prompt a meaningful change in direction,” Soros himself had written in his 2000 book Open Society: Reforming Global Capitalism.204
SOROS'S PREVIOUS POLITICAL INTERVENTIONS AROUND THE WORLD
By no means was this the first time that Soros had aimed to engineer the fall of a government which he deemed oppressive. On several previous occasions, he had used his extraordinary wealth to bankroll popular movements seeking to undermine communist and authoritarian regimes in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Specifically, Soros had funded the training, organization and mobilization of many millions of demonstrators who took part in a series of bloodless political revolutions—commonly known as “velvet revolutions” or “color revolutions”205—that ultimately brought down governments in those regions. Typically, these mobilizations consisted of massive street rallies (sometimes with hundreds of thousands of participants) and carefully coordinated acts of civil disobedience such as sit-ins and general strikes. In several instances, such Soros-funded protesters challenged the results of popular elections and accused incumbent leaders of election fraud—charges which were then echoed by Soros-funded exit pollsters and Soros-funded media outlets, thereby greatly amplifying the effect of the accusations. A brief survey of Soros's most noteworthy foreign interventions will be useful at this point.
Soros helped bankroll “Charter 77,” a 1976 document demanding that the Czech government recognize some basic human rights—most notably the freedom to express religious beliefs or political opinions without fear of retributive discrimination—that were already guaranteed by the nation's constitution. This Charter and the political movement that grew from it ultimately culminated in the velvet revolution that brought down Czechoslovakia's Communist regime in late 1989.206
Soros funding played a critical role in promoting other upheavals in the former Soviet bloc as well. “My foundations,” boasts Soros, “contributed to Democratic regime change in Slovakia in 1998, Croatia in 1999, and Yugoslavia in 2000, mobilizing civil society to get rid of Vladimir Meciar, Franjo Tudjman, and Slobodan Milosevic, respectively.”207
Meciar, for his part, was a hardline nationalist whose authoritarian government—characterized by demagoguery, corruption, and hostility toward the Hungarian minority—brought instability and isolation to Slovakia in the mid-1990s.208 Croatian president Tudjman was likewise an autocrat infamous for his brutality, extreme nationalism, indifference to civil rights, and manipulation of electoral processes.209 And Milosevic, who served as president of Serbia and Yugoslavia in the 1990s, was an infamous architect of military aggression, war crimes, and ethnic cleansing.210 British journalist Neil Clark reports that from 1991 to 2000, Soros and his Open Society Foundations methodically laid the groundwork for the movement that ultimately led to Milosevic's resignation, “channel[ing] more than $100m to the coffers of the anti-Milosevic opposition, funding political parties, publishing houses and ‘independent’ media...”211 In a 1996 speech, Croatian President Franjo Tudjman offered a profound insight into how Soros typically injected his influence into the political workings of a given nation by patiently and systematically infiltrating strategic organizations and governmental agencies:
Soros thereafter would go on to fund the “Orange Revolution,” a series of protests and political events that took place in Ukraine from late November 2004 to January 2005, ultimately forcing Moscow's favored candidate, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, to lose a controversial and hotly contested presidential election.221 Also in early 2005, Soros helped finance the “Tulip Revolution”—a massive protest movement that led to the overthrow of President Askar Akayev and his government in the Central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan.222
NEW TARGET FOR "REGIME CHANGE": AMERICA
But right now, in 2003-04, Soros's primary focus was on the United States, whose government he considered to be at least as dangerous and oppressive as those of the aforementioned communist and authoritarian regimes. “I believe deeply in the values of an open society,” Soros said. “For the past 15 years I have focused my energies on fighting for these values abroad. Now I am doing it in the United States.”223 Asserting that he could “do a lot more about the issues I care about by changing the government than by pushing the issues,”224 Soros set out to “puncture the bubble of American supremacy.”225 To accomplish this, he would create a political apparatus of extraordinary influence.
Soros had quietly laid the groundwork for this apparatus during the preceding eight years. Between 1994 and 2002, the billionaire had spent millions of dollars promoting the passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act—better known as the McCain-Feingold Act 226—which was signed into law in November 2002 by President Bush. Soros began working on this issue shortly after the 1994 midterm elections, when for the first time in nearly half a century, Republicans won strong majorities in both houses of Congress. Political analysts at the time attributed the huge Republican gains in large part to the effectiveness of television advertising—most notably the “Harry and Louise” series (which cost $14 million to produce and air) where a fictional suburban couple exposed the many hidden, and distasteful, details of Hillary Clinton's proposals for a more socialized national health-care system. Indeed the 1994 election became, to a considerable degree, a referendum on this attempted government takeover of one-sixth of the U.S. economy—and on the Democratic President who had tacitly endorsed it. George Soros was angry that such advertisements were capable of overriding the influence of the major print and broadcast news media, which, because they were overwhelmingly sympathetic to Democrat agendas, had given Hillary's plan a great deal of free, positive publicity for months. Three weeks after the 1994 elections, Soros announced that he intended to “do something” about “the distortion of our electoral process by the excessive use of TV advertising.”227 That “something” would be campaign-finance reform.
Starting in 1994, Soros's Open Society Foundations and a few other leftist foundations began bankrolling front groups and so-called “experts” whose aim was to persuade Congress to swallow the fiction that millions of Americans were clamoring for “campaign-finance reform.” This deceptive strategy was the brainchild of Sean Treglia, a former program officer with the Pew Charitable Trusts.228 Between 1994 and 2004, some $140 million of foundation cash was used to promote campaign-finance reform. Nearly 90 percent of this amount derived from just eight foundations, one of which was the Open Society Foundations, which contributed $12.6 million to the cause.229 Among the major recipients of these OSF funds were such pro-reform organizations as the Alliance For Better Campaigns ($650,000); the Brennan Center for Justice (more than $3.3 million); the Center For Public Integrity ($1.7 million); the Center For Responsive Politics ($75,000); Common Cause ($625,000); Democracy 21 ($300,000); Public Campaign ($1.3 million); and Public Citizen ($275,000).230
The "research" which these groups produced in order to make a case on behalf of campaign-finance reform was largely bogus and contrived. For instance, Brennan Center political scientist Jonathan Krasno had clearly admitted in his February 19, 1999 grant proposal to the Pew Charitable Trusts that the purpose of the proposed study was political, not scholarly, and that the project would be axed if it failed to yield the desired results:
In addition to its limits on pre-election political advertising, McCain-Feingold also placed onerous new restrictions on the types of donations which candidates, parties, and political action committees (PACs) could now accept. Previously, they had been permitted to take two types of contributions. One of these was “hard money,” which referred to funds earmarked for the purpose of express advocacy. Federal Election Commission (FEC) regulations stipulated that in a single calendar year, no hard-money donor could give more than $1,000 to any particular candidate, no more than $5,000 to a PAC, and no more than $20,000 to any political party.232
The other category of pre-McCain-Feingold donations was “soft-money,” which donors were permitted to give directly to a political party in amounts unlimited by law. But to qualify for designation as “soft money,” a donation could not be used to fund “express advocacy” ads on behalf of any particular candidate. Rather, it had to be used to pay for such things as “voter-education” ads or “issue-oriented” ads—political messages that carefully refrained from making explicit calls to “vote for” or “vote against” any specific candidate. So long as an ad steered clear of uttering such forbidden instructions, there was no limit as to how much soft money could be spent on its production and dissemination.
McCain-Feingold raised the per-donor maximum for certain hard-money donations: A donor could now give up to $2,000 to a candidate, $5,000 to a PAC, and $25,000 to a political party.233 But the new law banned soft-money contributions to political parties altogether.
Historically, Republicans had enjoyed a 2-1 advantage over Democrats in raising hard money from individual donors. Democrats had relied much more heavily on soft money from large institutions such as labor unions.234 Thus it seems counter-intuitive that Soros, who clearly favored Democrats over Republicans, would seek to push legislation whose net effect—the removal of soft money—would be unfavorable to Democratic Party fundraising efforts.
But Soros's motive becomes clear when we look at the types of organizations whose fundraising activities were left unaffected by McCain-Feingold. These were “527 committees”—nonprofits named after Section 527 of the IRS code—which, unlike ordinary PACS, were not required to register with the FEC. Run mostly by special-interest groups, these 527s were technically supposed to be independent of, and unaffiliated with, any party or candidate. As such, they were permitted to raise soft money—in amounts unbound by any legal limits—for all manner of political activities other than express advocacy. That is, so long as a 527's soft money was not being used to pay for ads explicitly urging people to cast their ballots either for or against any particular candidate, the letter of the McCain-Feingold law technically was being followed. Practically speaking, of course, such things as “issue-oriented ads” and “voter-education” ads can easily be tailored to favor one party or candidate over another, while carefully steering clear of “express advocacy.”
Once McCain-Feingold was in place, Soros and his political allies collaborated to set up a network of “527 committees” ready to receive the soft money that individual donors and big labor unions normally would have given directly to the Democratic Party. These 527s could then use that money to fund issue-oriented ads, voter-education initiatives, get-out-the-vote drives, and other “party-building” activities—not only to help elect Democratic candidates in 2004, but more broadly to guide the Democratic Party ever-further leftward and to reject the “closed” society that Bush and the Republicans presumably favored. By helping to push McCain-Feingold through Congress, Soros had effectively cut off the Democrats' soft-money supply and diverted it to the coffers of an alternative network of beneficiaries—which he personally controlled.235 As Byron York observed, “[T]he new campaign finance rules had actually increased the influence of big money in politics. By giving directly to 'independent' groups rather than to the party itself, big-ticket donors could influence campaign strategy and tactics more directly than they ever had previously.... And the power was concentrated in very few hands”—most notably Soros's.236
SOROS'S "SHADOW PARTY" TAKES SHAPE
While Soros's 527s were clearly devoted to Democratic Party agendas and values, they publicly professed to be independent of any party affiliations. Their partisanship was somewhat shrouded in proverbial shadows. Gradually, a number of journalists began to make reference to the emergence of certain pro-Democrat “shadow organizations” that seemed geared toward circumventing McCain-Feingold's soft-money ban. In time, the term “Shadow Party” came into use.237
George Soros set in motion the wheels of this Shadow Party when he gathered a team of political strategists, activists, and Democrat donors at his Long Island beach house on July 17, 2003, to discuss how President Bush could be defeated in the 2004 election. Attendees included such luminaries as OSF director Morton Halperin; EMILY's List founder and abortion-rights activist Ellen Malcolm; former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta; Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope; labor leader and former Clinton advisor Steve Rosenthal; former Clinton speechwriters Jeremy Rosner and Robert Boorstin; and major Democrat donors such as Lewis and Dorothy Cullman, Robert Glaser, Peter Lewis, and Robert McKay.238
The consensus was that voter turnout—particularly in 17 “swing” or “battleground” states239—would be the key to unseating President Bush. Steve Rosenthal and Ellen Malcolm—CEO and president, respectively, of a newly formed but poorly funded voter-registration group called America Coming Together (ACT)240—suggested that voters in those swing states should be recruited and mobilized as soon as possible. Agreeing, Soros told the pair that he personally would give ACT $10 million to help maximize its effectiveness. A few other attendees also pledged to give the fledgling group large sums of money: Soros's billionaire friend Peter Lewis, chairman of the Progressive Corporation, promised to give $10 million; Robert Glaser, founder and CEO of RealNetworks, promised $2 million; Rob McKay, president of the McKay Family Foundation, committed $1 million; and benefactors Lewis and Dorothy Cullman pledged $500,000.241
By early 2004, the administrative core of George Soros's Shadow Party was in place. It consisted of seven ostensibly “independent” nonprofit groups—all but one of which were headquartered in Washington, DC. In a number of cases, these groups shared one another's finances, directors, and corporate officers; occasionally they even shared office space.242 The seven groups were:
1) America Coming Together (ACT): Jump-started by Soros's $10 million grant, ACT in 2004 ran what it called “the largest voter-contact program in history,” with more than 1,400 full-time paid canvassers contacting potential voters door-to-door and by phone.243
2) Center For American Progress (CAP): This entity was established to serve as a think tank promoting leftist ideas and policy initiatives. Soros, enthusiastic about the Center's potential, pledged in July 2003 to donate up to $3 million to help get the project off the ground.244 From the outset, CAP's leadership featured a host of former high-ranking officials from the Clinton administration.245 Hillary Clinton predicted that the organization would provide “some new intellectual capital” with which to “build the 21st-century policies that reflect the Democrat Party's values.”246 George Soros and Morton Halperin together selected former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta to serve as president of CAP. Podesta said his goal was to develop CAP as a “think tank on steroids,” featuring “a message-oriented war room” that “will send out a daily briefing to refute the positions and arguments of the right.”247
3) America Votes: This national coalition coordinated the efforts of many get-out-the-vote organizations and their thousands of contributing activists.248 Soros's support for America Votes would continue well past 2004. Indeed he would donate $2.15 million to this coalition in the 2006 election cycle,249 another $1.25 million in advance of the 2008 elections,250 and yet another $1.25 million in 2010.251
4) Media Fund: Describing itself as “the largest media-buying organization supporting a progressive message” in the United States, this group produced and strategically placed political ads in the print, broadcast, and electronic media.252
5) Joint Victory Campaign 2004 (JVC): This fundraising entity focused on collecting contributions and then disbursing them chiefly to America Coming Together and the Media Fund. In 2004 alone, JVC channeled $19.4 million to the former, and $38.4 million to the latter.253 Soros personally gave JVC more than $12 million that year.254
6) Thunder Road Group (TRG): This political consultancy coordinated strategy for the Media Fund, America Coming Together, and America Votes. Its duties included strategic planning, polling, opposition research, covert operations, and public relations.255
7) MoveOn.org: This California-based entity was the only one of the Shadow Party's core groups that was not a new startup operation. Launched in September 1998, MoveOn is a Web-based political network that organizes online activists around specific issues, raises money for Democratic candidates, generates political ads, and is very effective at recruiting young people to support Democrats.256 In November 2003, Soros pledged to give MoveOn $5 million to help its cause.257
According to Ellen Malcolm of America Coming Together (ACT), the financial commitment which Soros made to these Shadow Party groups in 2003 “was a signal to potential donors that he had looked at what was going on and that this was pretty exciting, and that he was going to stand behind it, and it was the real deal.”258 As Byron York observed, “After Soros signed on, contributions started pouring in.” ACT and the Media Fund alone took in some $200 million—including $20 million from Soros alone. This type of money was unprecedented in American politics.259
Harold Ickes, who served as White House deputy chief of staff in the Clinton White House, had a hand in creating every Shadow Party core group except MoveOn. He was also entrusted with the vital task of making these organizations function as a cohesive entity. In 2004, Democratic strategist Harold Wolfson suggested that outside of the official campaign of presidential candidate John Kerry, Ickes “is the most important person in the Democratic Party today.”260
In addition to its seven core members, the Shadow Party also came to include at least another 30 well-established leftwing activist groups and labor unions that participated in the America Votes coalition. Among the better-known of these were ACORN; the AFL-CIO; the AFSCME; the American Federation of Teachers; the Association of Trial Lawyers of America; the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund; EMILY's List; the Human Rights Campaign; the League of Conservation Voters; the NAACP; NARAL Pro-Choice America; the National Education Association; People for the American Way; Planned Parenthood; the Service Employees International Union; and the Sierra Club.261
New Mexico's then-governor, Democrat Bill Richardson, observed that “these groups” were “crucial” to the anti-Bush effort. “Now that campaign-finance reform is law,” he said, “organizations like these have become the replacement for the national Democratic Party.”262 And no donor was more heavily invested in these organizations—or in defeating President Bush—than George Soros, who contributed $27,080,105 to pro-Democrat 527s during the 2004 election cycle. The second leading donor was the billionaire insurance entrepreneur Peter Lewis ($23,997,220), followed by Hollywood producer Stephen Bing ($13,952,682) and Golden West Financial Corporation founders Herbert and Marion Sandler ($13,007,959).263
FAILURE AND RESILIENCY: BIRTH OF THE DEMOCRACY ALLIANCE
When President Bush won re-election in 2004, George Soros was devastated; his massive financial investments and herculean organizing efforts had all gone for naught. Adding insult to injury, the hated Republicans had retained control of both houses of Congress. As Soros contemplated what course of action he ought to pursue next, the answer came to him—somewhat unexpectedly—in the form of Democrat political operative Rob Stein, former chief of staff to Commerce Secretary Ron Brown during the Clinton administration. For the preceding two years, Stein had been busy devising a strategy by which Democrats might reclaim supremacy in the executive and legislative branches of government. He began working on this strategy shortly after the Republicans had gained eight House seats and two Senate seats in the 2002 midterm elections. Lamenting that he was “living in a one-party [Republican] country,”264 Stein at that point resolved to study the conservative movement and determine why it was winning the political battle. After a year of analysis, he concluded that a few influential, wealthy family foundations—most notably Scaife, Bradley, Olin, and Coors—had spearheaded the creation of a $300 million network of politically influential organizations. Stein featured these facts in a comprehensive PowerPoint presentation—titled “The Conservative Message Machine Money Matrix”—which mapped out, in painstaking detail, the conservative movement's networking strategies and funding sources.265
Next, Stein set out to show his presentation—mostly in private meetings—to political leaders, activists, and prospective big-money donors of the left. He hoped to inspire them to join his crusade to build a new organization—a financial clearinghouse to be called the Democracy Alliance (DA)—dedicated to offsetting the efforts of conservative funders and injecting new life into the progressive movement. At each presentation, Stein asked the viewer to pledge that he or she would keep confidential the substance of the proceedings, so as to give the project a chance to coalesce and gain some momentum without excessive public scrutiny.266
Stein officially filed DA's corporate registration in the District of Columbia in January 2005.267 By that point, he had shown his PowerPoint presentation to several hundred people.268 Stein recalls that during those sessions, he consistently observed “an unbelievable frustration” by big Democrat donors who felt hopelessly unconnected to one another even as they longed to be part of a strategic coalition that could work collaboratively and cohesively.269 This was particularly true of George Soros, thus it was most significant that Soros quickly and enthusiastically embraced Stein's concept. In April 2005, Soros brought together 70 likeminded, carefully vetted, fellow millionaires and billionaires in Phoenix, Arizona, to discuss Stein's ideas and expeditiously implement a plan of action.270 Most of those in attendance agreed that the conservative movement represented “a fundamental threat to the American way of life.”271 And, like Soros, a considerable number of them looked favorably on Stein's analysis and concept. Thus was born the Democracy Alliance.
DA members, called “partners,” include individuals and organizations alike. Partnership in the Alliance is by invitation-only.272 These partners pay an initial $25,000 fee, and $30,000 in yearly dues thereafter. They also must give at least $200,000 annually to groups which the Alliance endorses. Donors metaphorically “pour” these requisite donations into one or more of what Rob Stein refers to as DA's “four buckets” of fundraising: ideas, media, leadership training, and civic engagement. The money is then apportioned to approved left-wing groups from each respective category.273
The Democracy Alliance is known to consist of at least 100 donor-partners but historically has been quite secretive regarding their identities. Nevertheless, the Capital Research Center has managed to compile the names of some of the more significant current and former DA partners (in addition to George Soros and Rob Stein).274 A large percentage of them have significant ties to Soros that extend well beyond their shared membership in the Democracy Alliance. Among these partners are the following:
Since approximately 2006, Democracy Alliance members and staff have been working to establish subchapters of their organization in all 50 states. Their most successful effort to date has been in Colorado, where the local DA has funded such varied enterprises as liberal think tanks, media “watchdog” groups, ethics groups that bring forth so-called public-interest litigation, voter-mobilization groups, media outlets that attack conservatives, and liberal leadership-training centers. The results have been striking: Whereas in 1998 Colorado had a Republican governor, two Republican U.S. senators, and four Republican House members (out of six), by 2009 the state had a Democratic governor, two Democratic U.S. Senators, and five Democratic House members (out of seven).310
RADICALIZING AMERICA, ONE STATE AT A TIME: “PLAN” AND THE SECRETARY OF STATE PROJECT
In August 2005, when the Democracy Alliance was just getting off the ground, George Soros's Open Society Foundations helped establish yet another new organization—the Progressive Legislative Action Network, or PLAN. Furnishing state legislatures with prewritten “model” legislation reflecting leftist agendas, this group was part and parcel of Soros's methodical campaign to shift American politics and public attitudes toward the left—by gaining a foothold inside the corridors of power on a state-by-state basis.311
Then, in July 2006, Democracy Alliance partner Michael Kieschnick collaborated with Becky Bond (who also had affiliations with the New Organizing Institute and Working Assets) and James Rucker (who co-founded Color of Change and formerly served as director of grassroots mobilization for MoveOn.org Political Action and Moveon.org Civic Action) to launch a major new initiative called the Secretary of State Project (SoSP). This “527 committee” was devoted to helping Democrats win secretary-of-state elections in crucial “swing” states—i.e., states where the margin of victory in the 2004 presidential election had been 120,000 votes or less.312 One of the principal duties of the secretary of state is to serve as the chief election officer who certifies candidates as well as election results in his or her state.313 The holder of this office, then, can potentially play a key role in determining the winner of a close election. Numerous Democracy Alliance partners became funders of SoSP. Soros was one of them. In 2008, for instance, he personally gave $10,000 to the Project.314
SOROS HELPS CREATE TWO NEW PRO-DEMOCRAT GROUPS
Just two months after the Democratic Party had won control of both houses of Congress in the November 2006 elections, George Soros and then-SEIU president Andrew Stern created Working For Us (WFU), a pro-Democrat PAC. This group does not, however, look favorably upon Democratic centrists. Rather, it aims “to elect lawmakers who support a progressive political agenda.” Originally proposed by Stern as a way to prevent moderate Democrats from gaining too much influence over the party, WFU publishes the names of what it calls the “Top Offenders” among congressional Democrats who fail to support such leftist priorities as “living wage” legislation, the proliferation of public-sector labor unions, and the provision of government-funded healthcare for all Americans. Targeting congressional Democrats whose “voting records are more conservative than their districts,” WFU warns that “no bad vote will be overlooked or unpunished.”315
In an effort to promote large-scale income redistribution by means of tax hikes for higher earners, WFU advocates policies that would narrow the economic gulf between the rich and poor. The group's executive director is Steven Rosenthal, a longtime Democrat operative with close ties to the Clinton administration and a co-founder of Soros's America Coming Together. According to Rosenthal, WFU “will encourage Democrats to act like Democrats—and if they don't—they better get out of the way.”316
In November 2007, Soros joined fellow Democracy Alliance members Anna Burger and Rob McKay, as well as John Podesta of the Center for American Progress, to help form the Fund for America (FFA), a “527 committee” designed to work on what Roll Call characterized as “media buys and voter outreach in the run-up to the 2008 elections.” The leading early donors to FFA were Soros ($3.5 million), the SEIU ($2.5 million), Hollywood producer Stephen Bing ($2.5 million), and hedge fund executive Donald Sussman ($1 million). But when FFA failed to meet its overall fundraising goals by early 2008, DA donors cut off their contributions and the group was disbanded in June. Among the organizations it had bankrolled before shutting its doors were America Votes, Americans United for Change, ACORN, and the Center for American Progress Action Fund.317
Meanwhile, Soros's regard for President Bush remained as low as ever. “Indeed,” wrote Soros in 2006, “the Bush administration has been able to improve on the techniques used by the Nazi and Communist propaganda machines by drawing on the innovations of the advertising and marketing industries.”318 Soros would elaborate on this theme at the January 2007 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he told reporters: “America needs to ... go through a certain de-Nazification process.”319
SOROS AND OBAMA: QUIET PARTNERSHIP AND SHARED AGENDAS
While George Soros was busy bankrolling his battalion of established activist groups and launching a few new ones of his own, he quite naturally looked toward the upcoming presidential election of 2008 with great anticipation, eagerly awaiting the day when George W. Bush would finally leave office. The question was, who would replace him? In recent years, all indications had been that Soros favored Hillary Clinton above most, if not all, other potential Democratic candidates for President. But now there was a new face on the scene—a young, charismatic U.S. senator from Illinois named Barack Obama—who seemed not only to share virtually all of Soros's values and agendas, but also appeared to be a highly skilled politician who stood a good chance of getting elected to the nation's highest office.
In December of 2006, Soros, who had previously hosted a fundraiser for Obama during the latter's 2004 Senate campaign, met with Obama in Soros's New York office. Just a few weeks later—on January 16, 2007—Obama announced that he would form a presidential exploratory committee and was contemplating a run for the White House. Within hours, Soros sent the senator a contribution of $2,100, the maximum amount allowable under campaign-finance laws. Later that week, the New York Daily News reported that Soros would support Obama rather than Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, though Soros pledged to back the New York senator were she to emerge as the nominee.320 But it was clear that Soros considered Obama to be the more electable candidate of the two. Most importantly, Obama's economic and political prescriptions for America were wholly accordant with those of Soros.
For an in-depth look at the shared agendas of Soros and Obama, click here.
SOROS PURSUES A NEW 'ECONOMIC PARADIGM"
In January 2009, Anatole Kaletsky—a Times of London economics writer who opposed the “noninterventionist model of capitalism” and favored deficit spending and “stimulus packages” as bulwarks against economic depression—discussed with George Soros “the unique opportunity to reshape economics in the wake of the financial crisis.” Eight months later, Soros assembled 25 economists, financiers, and journalists in Bedford, New York to brainstorm the idea. This “Bedford Summit” resulted in a “unanimous agreement that our economic paradigm must change,” and a “recognition of the importance of empowering the young generation of economists to rethink” the field of economics. Toward that end, the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) was created as a nonprofit foundation in October 2009; its initial funding came from a $50 million pledge by Soros's Open Society Foundations.
SOROS AND THE ARAB SPRING
The so-called “Arab Spring,” which began in late 2010, was a momentous series of popular uprisings that swept—in rapid succession and with varying degrees of intensity and effect—through a host of countries in the Middle East and North Africa: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen. By February 2011, Tunisian president Zine al-Abedine Ben Ali had stepped down after 22 years in power, and Egyptian president Hosni Mubarek had abdicated after 30 years. For the most part, the Western media—and the American left in particular—promoted the notion that the events in the Arab world were organic eruptions of rebellion launched spontaneously by oppressed populations who would no longer tolerate political tyranny and economic deprivation, and who longed to quench their own thirst for freedom and democracy.
Over time, it would become apparent that however strong the popular support for the Arab uprisings may have been, the hidden hand of an Islamist movement was also at work in fomenting and sustaining the revolts. This reality was driven home dramatically in the political events that took place where regimes had fallen. In post-Mubarak Egypt, this meant the rising influence of the Muslim Brotherhood—the ideological forebear of both al Qaeda and Hamas, and the spearhead of a movement aiming to establish a worldwide Islamic caliphate (or kingdom) ruled by strict Islamic Law (Sharia). And in Tunisia, the first free elections following the longstanding regime of President Zine al-Abedine Ben Ali resulted in the triumph of the al-Nahda party, an Islamist movement which had opposed, sometimes violently, the existing regime. In short, the Arab Spring evolved into a Muslim Winter.
Notwithstanding these developments, Soros in late 2011 said: "A lot of positive things are happening. I see Africa together with the Arab Spring as areas of progress. The Arab Spring was a revolutionary development."
SOROS AND OCCUPY WALL STREET
In the fall of 2011, Soros denied any connection to the anti-capitalist Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement which was then in high gear, though he said: “I can understand their sentiment.” An October 2011 Reuters report noted that from 2007-09, Soros’ Open Society Foundations had given grants totaling $3.5 million to the Tides Center, which in turn gave more than $309,000 to the Adbusters Media Foundation -- a key organizer of OWS -- between 2001 and 2011. Aides to Soros, however, claimed that the billionaire had never before heard of Adbusters.
SOROS SEEKS TO UNSEAT REP. ALLEN WEST (FLORIDA)
In July 2012, it was reported that Soros was among a group of donors who had already pledged their financial support for "Dump West," a Democratic Super-PAC that planned to raise at least $5 million for the purpose of defeating conservative black Republican Allen West's bid for reelection to the House of Representatives. A key player in"Dump West" was national Democratic operative Charles Halloran, a former aide to President Bill Clinton. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi asked lobbyist Larry Smith (a former U.S. congressman) to help line up initial funding for the Super-PAC.
SOROS GIVES MONEY TO HELP NAACP FIGHT VOTER ID LAWS
In March 2013, Soros pledged to give, through his Open Society Foundations, $1 million to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. This was the largest grant that organization had received from a named donor in recent decades. The purpose of the grant was to help the NAACP fight challenges to the Voting Rights Act and oppose the implementation of Voter ID laws. In a statement, Soros said: “We need bold and courageous civil rights strategies if we are to achieve racial equality in this country.”
SUPPORTING HILLARY CLINTON
In October 2013, Soros signed on to co-chair the national finance council of Ready For Hillary, a political action committee established nine months earlier to lead a nationwide grassroots movement encouraging Hillary Clinton to run for U.S. President in 2016. “George Soros is delighted to join more than one million Americans in supporting Ready For Hillary,” said Soros’s political director, Michael Vachon. “His support for Ready For Hillary is an extension of his long-held belief in the power of grassroots organizing.”
SUPPORTING BILL DE BLASIO
In August 2013 Soros endorsed Bill de Blasio for Mayor of New York City, and he contributed the legal limit of $4,950 to de Blasio's campaign. Soros also gave financial support to Talking Transition, a two-week project launched in early November 2013—immediately after de Blasio's election victory—to "help shape" the latter's "transition" to City Hall. Soros’ relationship with the mayor-elect actually dated back to 2011, when the billionaire had given $400,000 to de Blasio’s Coalition for Accountability in Political Spending.
SUPPORTING GROUPS THAT HELPED LEAD & PROMOTE THE ANTI-POLICE PROTESTS OF 2014 (IN FERGUSON, MISSOURI, ETC.)
In 2014, two separate white-police-vs.-black-suspect altercations that resulted in the deaths of the blacks involved became the focal points of a massive, nationwide protest movement alleging that white officers were routinely targeting African Americans with racial profiling and the unjustified use of force:
EMAIL LEAK REVEALS SOROS'S SUPPORT FOR OPEN BORDERS AND HIS DESIRE TO INFLUENCE FOREIGN POLITICS
Another OSF email made public (in August 2016) by dcleaks.com asserted that the refugee crisis which was causing countless thousands of people from war- and terrorism-ravaged nations in the Middle East and North Africa to relocate to Europe and the United States, should be accepted as “the new normal.” Entitled "Migration Governance and Enforcement Portfolio Review," this memo was written by Anna Crowley, the Program Officer of OSF’s International Migration Initiative, and Kate Rosin, a Program Specialist for the same initiative. These authors wrote how the refugee crisis was not only “opening new opportunities” for "coordination and collaboration" with other wealthy donors, and they praised efforts to “take advantage of momentum created by the current crisis to shape conversations about rethinking migration governance.” They had in mind “institutional reforms to global migration governance.” To that end, their International Migration Initiative helped fund the work of the Columbia Global Policy Initiative, host of the secretariat for Peter Sutherland, the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative on International Migration. (Sutherland is an open-borders fundamentalist who, at a reception held on October 22, 2015 to honor the 70th anniversary of the United Nations, claimed that caps on refugees enforced by certain countries in Europe were “directly reminiscent of the type of caps that took place under the Reich [against] the Jewish population.” In an October 2015 interview with UN News Centre, Sutherland derided the very notion of national sovereignty, saying that governments must “recognize that sovereignty is an illusion ... that has to be put behind us," and that "the days of hiding behind borders and fences are long gone.") Crowley and Rosin praised the “elite-level behind-the-scenes advocacy through Peter Sutherland,” which they believed would influence the outcome of the September 2016 summits on migrants and refugees at the United Nations, one of which was to be led by President Obama.
Yet another leaked memo made it clear that Soros’s group was considering using journalists to push out the narrative on Ukraine that Soros wanted in support of the Kiev regime. It discussed the pros and cons of offering selected journalists “long stay reporting trips in Ukraine” while retaining “a veto on stories we think are counterproductive.” Other leaked documents revealed that Soros, behind the scenes, was simultaneously pushing for the U.S. to provide more lethal weapons to the Kiev government while offering to use his influence to help prop up the country’s finances.
In one draft memo, which Soros signed “George Soros–A self-appointed advocate of the new Ukraine, March 12, 2015,” Soros advocated that “Ukraine’s allies should treat Ukraine as a defense priority.” He also pushed for a “radical reform program,” offering very specific political and economic prescriptions, backed by “the Ukrainian branch of the Soros Foundations.” This Ukrainian branch, known as the Renaissance Foundation, was reportedly paying headhunters to find suitable individuals to work in the Ukrainian government, even if they came from Ukrainian communities as far away as the U.S. and Canada. Soros’s foundation may also have been helping to pay the salaries of some Ukrainian ministers.
Soros was also looking for the U.S. and the European Union to help bail out Ukraine’s financial system. In a letter dated December 23, 2014 to Ukraine’s president and prime minister, Soros discussed the need to pull together a multibillion dollar commitment from the European Council, which could then be used to persuade the Federal Reserve to extend a three-month swap arrangement with the National Bank of Ukraine. “I am ready to call Jack Lew of the US Treasury to sound him out about the swap agreement,” Soros wrote.
In the meantime, Soros was making sure that he would be in a position to profit from a more stabilized Ukraine. In November 2015, it was announced that Soros’s Ukrainian Redevelopment Fund would be investing in a fund sponsored by Dragon Capital to invest in Ukraine. Through that vehicle, Soros’s Ukrainian Redevelopment Fund invested in Ukrainian software developer Ciklum Holding Ltd. It acquired the stake from Horizon Capital, an investment firm founded by Natalie Jaresko, who was serving at the time as Ukraine's finance minister. Jaresko was a U.S. citizen of Ukrainian descent who had once worked in the U.S. State Department. She became a Ukrainian citizen in December 2014, the same time she became finance minister.
Finally, to bring things around full circle, some leaked emails revealed that Soros saw an opportunity for Ukraine to help the European Union alleviate its refugee crisis by taking in some of the refugees in return for financial aid.
EMAIL LEAK REVEALS SOROS'S DESIRE TO REGULATE THE INTERNET IN A MANNER THAT FAVORED HIS POLITICAL AGENDAS
On August 29, 2016, the The Daily Caller reported: "An internal proposed strategy from George Soros’s Open Society Justice Initiative calls for international regulation of private actors’ decisions on 'what information is taken off the Internet and what may remain.' Those regulations, the document notes, should favor 'those most supportive of open society.'" According to the OSF website, "The Open Society Justice Initiative uses law to protect and empower people around the world, supporting the values and work of the Open Society Foundations." The proposal cited by The Daily Caller was part of a 34-page document titled "2014 Proposed strategy," which spelled out the Initiative's goals for 2014-17.
SOROS PLAYS KEY ROLE IN SUPPORTING "WOMEN'S MARCH ON WASHINGTON"
Soros played a significant role in funding the “Women’s March on Washington” which was held on January 21, 2017 to protest the agendas and policies of the newly elected president, Donald Trump. News outlets like the Guardian characterized the event as a “spontaneous” action for women’s rights, while Vox spoke of a “huge, spontaneous groundswell” behind the demonstration. But in fact, the Women's March was organized and led by a large coalition of leftist groups, many of which have, at various times, received funding from Soros. Former Georgetown University journalism professor and Wall Street Journal reporter Asra Q. Nomani calculated that some 420+ groups were identifiable as "partners" of the Women's March, and that Soros has funded, or had cultivated "close relationships" with, at least 64 of them. The Women's March "partners" that had previously received grants through Soros's Open Society Foundations and its related philanthropies -- or that were otherwise allied with Soros and his foundations -- included the following:
SOROS'S EFFORT TO INSTALL DEMOCRATIC ATTORNEYS GENERAL
In November 2017, journalist Matthew Vadum reported the following:
SOROS TRANSFERS $18 BILLION TO HIS FOUNDATIONS
In October 2017, it was reported that over the preceding few years, Soros had quietly transferred $18 billion of his $24.6 billion in personal assets to OSF, thereby making OSF the second-largest U.S.-based philanthropy (behind only the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation).
NOTES:
1 http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/17/news/george-soros-18-billion-open-society-foundations/index.html
2 http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aEmPzbHtLcUc; http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/47/47147.html; http://mdmandp.com/blog/tag/soros-fund-management-llc/
3 George Soros, The Alchemy of Finance (1994 edition), p. 362
4 George Soros, Underwriting Democracy, p. 3
5 http://www.newswithviews.com/Kincaid/cliff367.htm; http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/george-soross-evangelicals
6 “The Billionaire Who Built on Chaos – George Soros (The Independent: June 3, 1993)
7 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,602163,00.html
8 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4635465
9 Faisal Islam, “Rich Man, Wise Man” (Observer: March 10, 2002)
10 Anthony Gottlieb, “Who Wants To Be A Billionaire?” (The New York Times: March 3, 2002)
11 Michael T. Kaufman, Soros: The Life And Times Of A Messianic Billionaire, 2002, p. 293
12 http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,986919,00.html
13 “The Mind of George Soros; Meet the Esperanto Enthusiast Who Wants to Save the World from President Bush” (The Wall Street Journal: March 2, 2004)
14 Connie Bruck, “The World According to Soros” (The New Yorker: January 23, 1995); Peter Schweizer, Do As I Say (2005), p. 157.
15 http://sweetness-light.com/archive/george-soros-on-helping-the-nazis-during-the-holocaust
16 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,602163,00.html#ixzz19pFJsPwd; Michael Lewis, “The Speculator,” New Republic (January 10-17, 1994).
17 George Soros, Underwriting Democracy (1991), p. 170.
18 http://www.undueinfluence.com/george_soros.htm
19David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), p. 67
20 Nicola Chalton, ed., The Philosophers (2008), p. 159.
21 David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), pp. 67-69; The Philosophers, pp. 158-159; George Soros, Soros on Soros (1995), p. 33.
22George Soros, The Bubble of American Supremacy (2004), p. 193
23 George Soros, The Alchemy of Finance (1994 edition), p. 13; George Soros, Soros on Soros (1995), p. 39.
24 Michael T. Kaufman, Soros: The Life And Times Of A Messianic Billionaire (2002), p. 83
25 http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/biography/S-Z/Soros-George-1930.html
26 http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2000/08/meyerson.htm ; David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), pp. 84-85
27 Michael T. Kaufman, Soros: The Life And Times Of A Messianic Billionaire (2002), p. 180.
28 http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/history2/85/Soros-Fund-Management-Llc.html; Peter Schweizer, Do As I Say (2005), p. 157.
29 http://www.soros.org/about
30 George Soros, The Bubble of American Supremacy (2004), p. 136
31 http://www.soros.org/about/timeline
32 Connie Bruck, “The World According to Soros” (The New Yorker: January 23, 1995)
33 http://www.soros.org/about
34 George Soros, Open Society: Reforming Global Capitalism (2000), p. 120
35 http://www.soros.org/about/bios/staff/aryeh-neier
36 http://www.theacru.org/VadumACLU.pdf
37 http://www.aclu.org/national-security/aclu-slams-draft-dhs-regulations-real-id-says-delay-fails-address-privacy-and-civi ; http://www.theacru.org/VadumACLU.pdf
38 http://www.aclu.org/immigrants-rights ; http://www.aclu.org/immigrants-rights/about-aclus-immigrants-rights-project
39 http://www.americanjusticepartnership.com/pdf/Justice_Hijacked_Report.pdf
40 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6258
41 http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/resources/transcripts/5424.html
42 This figure derives from OSF's IRS Forms 990 for the years 2000-2008.
43 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/07/george-soros-100-million-human-rights-watch
44 http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/HRW.html
45 http://dynamodata.fdncenter.org//990pf_pdf_archive/137/137029285/137029285_200812_990PF.pdf
46 http://www.aaiusa.org/issues/civil-rights-and-civil-liberties/
47 http://www.bordc.org/list.php
48 http://www.maldef.org/about/mission/index.html
49 http://www.lawyerscommittee.org/about?id=0001
50 http://naacpldf.org/about-ldf
51 http://www.nclr.org/index.php/issues_and_programs/
52 http://www.sentencingproject.org/template/page.cfm?id=2
53 http://www.criticalresistance.org/article.php?list=type&type=5
54 http://www.civilrights.org/criminal-justice/
55 http://www.communitychange.org/who-we-are/who-we-are
56 http://www.gamaliel.org/OurWork/TrainingLeaders.aspx
57 http://ruckus.org/section.php?id=71
58 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7581
59 http://institute.ourfuture.org/about-iaf
60 http://www.pfaw.org/rww-in-focus/texas-textbooks-what-happened-what-it-means-and-what-we-can-do-about-it ; http://www.pfaw.org/about-us/our-mission-and-vision
61 http://www.democracyforamerica.com/training
62 Stanley Kurtz, Radical In Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism (2010). (The Midwest Academy received $10,000 from OSF in 1997.)
63 http://zcommunications.org/neoliberalism-comes-unglued-by-mark-weisbrot
64 http://www.cbpp.org/about/
65 http://www.ellabakercenter.org/page.php?pageid=19&contentid=151
66 Maria Puente, “Philanthropist Pledges $50M For Immigrants,” USA Today (October 1, 1996)
67 http://healthcareforamericanow.org/site/content/statement_of_common_purpose
68 http://healthcareforamericanow.org/site/content/about_us/
69 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/30/us/politics/30dems.html; http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/health-care/george-soros-pledges-5-million-to-bankroll-health-care-reform-push-group-says/; http://nation.foxnews.com/george-soros/2009/08/11/soros-gives-5-million-liberal-health-care-group; http://www.newsmax.com/LowellPonte/obama-pelosi-acorn/2009/12/12/id/341854
70 http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1225223330.pdf
71 http://catalist.us/aboutus.html
72 http://www.brennancenter.org/content/section/category/racial_justice/ ; http://www.americanjusticepartnership.com/pdf/Justice_Hijacked_Report.pdf (The Brennan Center received $12 million from OSF from 1999-2008.)
73 http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/07/12/john-lott-senator-al-franken-minnesota-felons-democrat/
74 http://www.progressivestates.org/press/psn_in_the_news?page=6 (PSN was formerly known as the Progressive Action Legislative Network.)
75 http://boldprogressives.org/mission ; http://www.opensecrets.org/527s/527cmtedetail_donors.php?ein=263881408&cycle=2010
76 http://www.prospect.org/cs/about_tap/our_mission
77 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,590506,00.html
78 http://researchguides.library.wisc.edu/content.php?pid=58376&sid=427399
79 http://www.alternet.org/about/ ; http://researchguides.library.wisc.edu/content.php?pid=58376&sid=427399
80 http://www.nationinstitute.org/p/about_us
81 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpZZGTGVePE (OSF poured millions of dollars into the coffers of MoveOn.org, the Center for American Progress, and Democracy Alliance – Soros-funded operations which then funneled some of that money to Media Matters.)
82 http://mediamatters.org/p/about_us/
83 http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/soros-donates-1-million-to-media-matters/
84 http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1204311857.pdf
85 http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1293869054.pdf
86 http://www.afj.org/about-afj/afj-vision-statement.html
87 http://americanconstitutionsociety.blogspot.com/
88 http://www.acslaw.org/about ; http://www.americanconstitutionsociety.org/taxonomy/term/202?page=2
89 http://www.americanjusticepartnership.com/pdf/Justice_Hijacked_Report.pdf ; (This organization received $2.815 million from OSF during 2006-2008.)
90 http://www.americanjusticepartnership.com/pdf/Justice_Hijacked_Report.pdf
91 http://www.catholicsinalliance.org/aboutus.html
92 http://www.examiner.com/political-transcripts-in-national/president-s-spiritual-advisor-obama-feels-he-hasn-t-had-a-chance-video?render=print (Sojourners received $325,000 from OSF during 2004-2007.)
93 http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/08/soros_has_a_pastor_close_to_ob.html
94 http://www.piconetwork.org/about?id=0003
95 http://www.catholicsforchoice.org/topics/abortion/default.asp
96 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6991
97 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7616
98 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6927
99 http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/just-facts/papers-please-eliminating-birthright-citizenship-would-affect-everyone
100 http://www.casademaryland.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=743&Itemid=126%20
101http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/guides/Open%20Borders%20Lobby.pdf
102http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6502
103 http://latinojustice.org/about/history/
104 http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/docs/Solutions_Paper_032310.pdf
105 http://www.immigrationforum.org/policy/update-display/update-the-results-of-the-elections-and-immigration-in-the-112th-congress/
106 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/guides/Open%20Borders%20Lobby.pdf
107 http://spectator.org/archives/2009/11/13/a-constitutional-right-to-publ/1
108 http://ccrjustice.org/illegal-detentions-and-guantanamo
109 http://archive.frontpagemag.com/Printable.aspx?ArtId=21594
110 http://www.constitutionproject.org/manage/file/190.pdf
111 http://old.nationalreview.com/york/york200502170843.asp
112 http://humanrightshouse.org/Articles/5545.html
113 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0526-03.htm
114 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/may/26/usa.guantanamo
115 Robert Patterson, War Crimes: The Left's Campaign to Destroy Our Military and Lose the War on Terror (2007), p. 181.
116 http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/10/aid_and_comfort_how_leading_de.html
117 http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=17849
118 http://afsc.org/project/shaping-just-federal-budget
119 http://www.gsinstitute.org/archives/000020.shtml
120 http://www.tides.org/about-us/history/index.html
121 Jim Freer, “George Soros,” Latin Trade (October 1998); Peter Schweitzer, Do As I Say (2005), p. 167.
122 Gene Marcial, “A Bright Gleam on Apex,” Business Week (June 14, 2004)
123 http://www.spectacle.org/1200/moratorium.html
124 http://feminist.org/welcome/index.html
125 http://ms.foundation.org/about_us
126 http://www.nationalpartnership.org/site/PageServer?pagename=issues_fairness_fairpay
127 http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=33197
128 http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2004/apr/25/20040425-112025-9831r/
129 George Soros, The Crisis of Global Capitalism (2000), p. xxix
130 http://www.unfoundation.org/press-center/press-releases/2010/un-foundation-and-una-usa-announce-alliance.html
131 http://www.iccnow.org/?mod=supporters
132 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9900E3D91730F934A35756C0A9649C8B63
133 George Soros, “A Look At … The Drug War Debate,” The Washington Post (February 2, 1997)
134 George Soros, Soros on Soros (1995)
135 http://www.drugpolicy.org/global/ungass/letter/
136 Joseph A. Califano Jr., “Devious Efforts To Legalize Drugs,” The Washington Post (December 4, 1996)
137 http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/x3770435801.pdf
138 http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/x3770435801.pdf ; http://www.drugpolicy.org/about/
139 http://www.drugpolicy.org/about/keystaff/boardofdirec/
140 http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/11/04/soros-sponsored-candidates-ballot-initiatives-election-day/
141 Peter Schweizer, Do As I Say (2005), p. 169.
142 http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/x3770435801.pdf
143 http://www.soros.org/resources/articles_publications/publications/report_20041122/a_complete.pdf
144 David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), p. 135
145 http://www.deathwithdignity.org/aboutus/
146 http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/x3770435801.pdf
147 http://www.americanjusticepartnership.com/pdf/Justice_Hijacked_Report.pdf
148 http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1217524969.pdf
149 http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/04/20/phil-kerpen-john-paulson-goldman-sachs-center-responsible-lending/
150 David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), pp. 89-90
151 Connie Bruck, “The World According to Soros” (The New Yorker: January 23, 1995)
152 David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), pp. 91-93
153 http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/02/george_soros_and_the_alchemy_o.html
154 http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/02/george_soros_and_the_alchemy_o.html
155 David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), pp. 93-94
156 http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/02/george_soros_and_the_alchemy_o.html
157 http://www.richardpoe.com/2005/05/11/remembering-russiagate/
158 http://www.richardpoe.com/2005/05/11/remembering-russiagate/
159 Interview with George Soros, The Charlie Rose Show, PBS (November 30, 1995)
160 David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), p. 55
161 David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), p. 54
162 David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), pp. 53-54
163 Byron York, The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy (2005), p. 69; George Soros, The Bubble of American Supremacy (2004), p. 42.
164 George Soros, The Crisis of Global Capitalism (1998), pp. 168, 179
165 David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), p. 222
166 George Soros, The Bubble of American Supremacy (2004), p. 94
167 http://www.soros.org/resources/articles_publications/articles/americanprospect_20030527
168 George Soros, The Bubble of American Supremacy (2004), p. 123
169 George Soros, The Bubble of American Supremacy (2004), p. 30
170 George Soros, George Soros on Globalization (2002), p. xi
171 George Soros, George Soros on Globalization (2002), p. 155
172 http://edition.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/01/29/bush.speech.txt/
173 http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=20711
174 These documents were intended to discredit America's war effort as both immoral and unwinnable.
175 David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), p. 24
176 James L. Tyson, Target America (Chicago: Regnery Gateway, 1981), pp. 2, 200
177 David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), p. 11. (Interview with George Soros by Andrew Stevens, “The N.E.W. Show,” CNN (September 19, 2001).
178 George Soros, The Bubble Of American Supremacy (2004), p. 18
179 Byron York, The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy (2005)
180 Greg Pierce, “Inside Politics,” The Washington Times (March 3, 2003)
181 George Soros, “Bush’s Inflated Sense Of Supremacy,” Financial Times (March 13, 2003)
182 http://www.independent.ie/world-news/americas/billionaire-fronts-75m-push-to-oust-bush-208127.html; Thomas Hargrove, “Financier Donates $10M To Defeat Bush,” The Record [Bergen, NJ] (August 10, 2003)
183 “Soros Calls For ‘Regime Change’ In US,” BBC News Website September 30, 2003); http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/04/02/int04012.html
184 George Soros, “Bush’s Inflated Sense Of Supremacy,” Financial Times (March 13, 2003)
185 George Soros, The Bubble Of American Supremacy (2004), p. 12
186 George Soros, The Bubble Of American Supremacy (2004), pp. viii, 10
187 George Soros, The Bubble Of American Supremacy (2004), pp. 12-13
188 George Soros, The Bubble Of American Supremacy (2004), p. 10
189 George Soros, The Bubble Of American Supremacy (2004), p. 4
190 George Soros, The Bubble Of American Supremacy (2004), p. 26; http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=106x3136
191 Mark Gimein, “George Soros Is Mad As Hell,” Fortune (October 27, 2003)
192 George Soros, The Bubble Of American Supremacy (2004), pp. 26, 53
193 George Soros, The Bubble Of American Supremacy (2004), p. 53
194 http://old.nationalreview.com/york/york200406031106.asp; http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=4247
195 George Soros, Remarks At National Press Club (Washington, DC: September 28, 2004)
196 Bernard Besserglik, “Soros Cuts Open Society Aid To Russia, Targets US,” Agence France Presse (June 9, 2003)
197 Mark Gimein, “George Soros Is Mad As Hell,” Fortune (October 27, 2003); http://www.pbs.org/wsw/news/fortunearticle_20031013_02.html
198 Laura Blumenfeld, “Soros’s Deep Pockets vs. Bush,” The Washington Post (November 11, 2003)
199 George Soros, The Bubble Of American Supremacy (2004), p. 13
200 Greg Pierce, “Inside Politics,” The Washington Times (October 1, 2003)
201 Laura Blumenfeld, “Soros’s Deep Pockets vs. Bush,” The Washington Post (November 11, 2003)
202 George Soros, The Bubble Of American Supremacy (2004), p. 9
203 George Soros, The Bubble Of American Supremacy (2004), p. 74)
204 George Soros, Open Society: Reforming Global Capitalism (2000), p. 337
205 The term was derived from the fact that the movements designated specific colors or flowers as their symbols.
206 http://frontpagemag.com/2010/07/06/kgb-yesterday-today-and-tomorrow-2/
207 George Soros, The Bubble Of American Supremacy (2004), p. 132
208 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3636033.stm ; http://www.slovakia.org/history-summary.htm
209 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/294990.stm
210 http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/europe/2000/milosevic_yugoslavia/croatia.stm ; http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/europe/2000/milosevic_yugoslavia/bosnia.stm ; http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5388.htm#history
211 Neil Clark, “NS Profile—George Soros,” New Statesman (June 2, 2003)
212 “President Tudjman Criticizes Foreign Inyerference in Croatia's Media,” BBC (December 11, 1996)
213 In this case and a few others, the rebels identified themselves with a color or a flower.
214 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3257047.stm
215 Mark MacKinnon, “Georgia Revolt Carried Mark of Soros,” Globe and Mail (November 26, 2003)
216 Franklin Foer, “Regime Change, Inc.: Peter Ackerman's Quest to Topple Tyranny,” New Republic (April 25, 2005); David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), pp. 236-237
217 http://www.keywiki.org/index.php/George_Soros
218 David Holley, “Soros Invests in His Democratic Passion: The Billionaire's Open Society Institute Network Is Focusing on Central Asia Now,” Los Angeles Times (July 5, 2004)
219 http://www.boston.com/ae/media/articles/2003/12/02/putting_tons_of_money_where_his_mouth_is/?mode
220 http://www.keywiki.org/index.php/George_Soros
221 http://www.time.com/time/europe/html/041206/story.html
222 http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2005/mar/26/20050326-103550-7473r/
223 Thomas B. Edsall, “Liberals Form Fund to Defeat President: Aim Is to Spend $75 Million for 2004,” Washington Post (August 8, 2003)
224 Mark Gimein, “George Soros Is Mad As Hell,” Fortune (October 27, 2003)
225 http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/19648
226 Laura Blumenfeld, “Soros’s Deep Pockets vs. Bush,” The Washington Post (November 11, 2003)
227 David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), pp. 131-136
228 http://www.richardpoe.com/2005/03/25/pewgate-the-battle-of-the-blogosphere/ ; Ryan Sager, “Buying 'Reform': Media Missed Millionaires' Scam,” New York Post (March 17, 2005)
229 http://www.richardpoe.com/2005/03/25/pewgate-the-battle-of-the-blogosphere/ ; Ryan Sager, “Buying 'Reform': Media Missed Millionaires' Scam,” New York Post (March 17, 2005). (The other seven major contributors were the Pew Charitable Trusts ($40.1 million); the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy ($17.6 million); the Carnegie Corporation of New York ($14.1 million); the Joyce Foundation ($13.5 million); the Jerome Kohlberg Trust ($11.3 million); the Ford Foundation ($8.8 million); and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation ($5.2 million).
230 Byron York, “The Soros Agenda: Free Speech for Billionaires Only,” Wall Street Journal (January 3, 2004); Byron York, “Democrats Throw The Spirit Of Reform Out The Window,” The Hill (November 5, 2003); Byron York, The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy (2005), p. 62.
231 http://www.mrc.org/static/biasbasics/MediaBias101.aspx
232 http://www.fec.gov/press/bkgnd/bcra_overview.shtml
233 http://www.fec.gov/press/bkgnd/bcra_overview.shtml ; David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), pp. 175-176
234 David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), p. 176
235 Republicans, meanwhile, did not build any comparable network of independent fundraising nonprofits to circumvent McCain-Feingold – probably because they historically had been successful at raising hard money.
236 Byron York, The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy (2005), p. 8
237 Richard Poe, “The Shadow Party: History, Goals, and Activities” (http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/Articles/theshadowpartypoe2004.html)
238 http://www.richardpoe.com/2005/10/06/part-1-the-shadow-party/
239 http://www.richardpoe.com/2005/10/06/part-1-the-shadow-party/ (These 17 states were: Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.)
240 http://www.richardpoe.com/2005/10/06/part-1-the-shadow-party/
241 Laura Blumenfeld, “Soros’s Deep Pockets vs. Bush,” The Washington Post (November 11, 2003)
242 David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), p. 182
243 David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), pp. 196-198
244 Laura Blumenfeld, “Soros’s Deep Pockets vs. Bush,” The Washington Post (November 11, 2003)
245 David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), p. 189. (Among these were Clinton's national security speechwriter Robert Boorstin; former head of Clinton's National Economic Council, Gene Sperling; and former senior advisor to Clinton's Office of Management and Budget, Matt Miller.)
246 Matt Bai, “Notion Building,” New York Times Magazine (October12, 2003)
247 http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_American_Progress
248 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6527
249 http://www.opensecrets.org/527s/527cmtedetail_donors.php?ein=204359961&cycle=2006
250 http://www.opensecrets.org/527s/527cmtedetail_donors.php?cycle=2008&ein=204359961
251 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/30/us/politics/30dems.html
252 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6712
253 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/funderprofile.asp?fndid=5342&category=79
254 http://www.opensecrets.org/527s/lookup.php?cycle=2010&donor=george%20soros&page=1
255 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6713
256 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6201
257 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2003/11/11/55615/610
258 Byron York, The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy (2005), p. 61
259 Byron York, The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy (2005), pp. 86-87.
260 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1624 ; Michael Crowley, “Shadow Warriors,” New York Magazine (August 12, 2004).
261 David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), pp. 193-194
262 Jeffrey H. Birnbaum, “The New Soft Money,” Fortune (October 27, 2003)
263 Byron York, The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy (2005), p. 8
264 http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?print=yes&id=8738
265 http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?print=yes&id=8738
266 http://www.capitalresearch.org/news/news.html?id=551%20
267 http://www.capitalresearch.org/news/news.html?id=551 ; http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1198857554.pdf
268 (By August 2005, Stein had shown his PowerPoint presentation to more than 700 key people in private meetings.) http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?print=yes&id=8738
269 http://www.hudson.org/files/pdf_upload/Transcript_2006_11_30.pdf
270 http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/15/fundraiser-seeks-cash-for-his-own-war-chest/print/; http://www.capitalresearch.org/news/news.html?id=551%20. Among the attendees were former Clinton White House aides Mike McCurry and Sidney Blumenthal, and Schumann Center president Bill Moyers.
271 http://www.capitalresearch.org/news/news.html?id=551%20
272 http://www.democracyalliance.org/membership%20 ; http://www.capitalresearch.org/news/news.html?id=551%20
273 http://www.capitalresearch.org/news/news.html?id=551%20
274 http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1228145204.pdf ; http://www.capitalresearch.org/news/news.html?id=551%20
275 http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Albert_J._Dwoskin
276 http://www.capitalresearch.org/news/news.html?id=551%20
277 http://www.gillfoundation.org/about/tim-gill/
278 http://www.campaignmoney.com/political/contributions/davidi-gilo.asp?cycle=08 ; http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7458 ;
279 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2494 ; http://news.cnet.com/Reals-Glaser-named-Air-America-chairman/2110-1025_3-5484133.html
280 http://womendonors.org/bio/view/circle/1/26
281 http://www.undueinfluence.com/media-matters-for-america.htm ; http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/1369
282 http://www.confabb.com/users/profile/rjohnson
283 http://www.WorkingAssets.com/About.aspx
284 http://www.newpolitics.net/node/185
285 http://www.lightspeedvp.com/TeamMember.aspx?m=24
286 http://www.atlanticphilanthropies.org/bio/gara-lamarche
287 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2003
288 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2495 ; http://motherjones.com/authors/robert-mckay ; http://forms.irs.gov/politicalOrgsSearch/search/Print.action?formId=28999&formType=E71 ;
289 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2389
290 http://www.capitalresearch.org/news/news.html?id=551
291 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/guy-t-saperstein
292 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6535
293 http://www.buyingofthepresident.org/index.php/interviews/michael_vachon/
294 http://www.capitalresearch.org/news/news.html?id=551%20
295 http://www.capitalresearch.org/news/news.html?id=551%20 ; http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1228145204.pdf
296 http://www.capitalresearch.org/news/news.html?id=551%20 ; http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1228145204.pdf
297 http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1228145204.pdf
298 http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1228145204.pdf
299 http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1228145204.pdf ; http://www.capitalresearch.org/news/news.html?id=551%20; Unless otherwise specified, information about DA grants made to these entities was furnished by the Capital Research Center.
300 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6968 ; http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1228145204.pdf
301 http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=18899
302 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7309
303 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6344
304 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7538
305 http://www.campaignmoney.com/political/527/new_organizing_fund.asp
306 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6489
307 http://www.usstudents.org/who-we-are
308 http://www.usaction.org/site/pp.asp.103.html
309 http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1228145204.pdf ; http://www.capitalresearch.org/news/news.html?id=551%20
310 http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1228145204.pdf (Note: In the 2010 congressional elections, when Republicans captured more than 60 House seats, two of Colorado's Democratic House members lost to Republicans.)
311 Louis Jacobson, “New Organization to Push Liberal Measures,” Roll Call (June 23, 2005)
312 http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1228145204.pdf
313 http://www.azsos.gov/info/duties.htm
314 http://forms.irs.gov/politicalOrgsSearch/search/Print.action?formId=32217&formType=E72
315 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7342
316 http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x3176510
317 http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1228145204.pdf
318 http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=29359
319 http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2007/01/27/george-soros-backs-obama-but-hedges-his-bets/
320 http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_43/b4055047.htm
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Organizations Funded Directly by George Soros and his Open Society Foundations
By Discover The Networks
Organizations that, in recent years, have received direct funding and assistance from George Soros and his Open Society Foundations (OSF) include the following. (Comprehensive profiles of each are available in the "Groups" section of DiscoverTheNetworks.org):
"Secondary" or "Indirect" Affiliates of the George Soros Network
By Discover The Networks
In addition to those organizations that are funded directly by George Soros and his Open Society Foundations (OSF), there are also numerous "secondary" or "indirect" affiliates of the Soros network. These include organizations which do not receive direct funding from Soros and OSF, but which are funded by one or more organizations that do.
INTRODUCING GEORGE SOROS. AFTER READING THIS LONG DOCUMENTED "RESUME" OF ANTI AMERICA GEORGE SOROS... IF ANY OF YOU QUESTION HIS LONG TERM PLAN YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM.
How this evil man has lived in our midst for so many years untouched is beyond me.
I call on some Patriotic American do do the Patriotic thing. His version of America is not what our Forefathers created as the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. This interloper arrive in America 1959 and has worked on destroying America since then.
Do we let him destroy us or do we Destroy him and his demon seed ? Thats the choice you must make after reading this post.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
New York hedge fund manager George Soros is one of the most politically powerful individuals on earth. Since the mid-1980s in particular, he has used his immense influence to help reconfigure the political landscapes of several countries around the world—in some cases playing a key role in toppling regimes that had held the reins of government for years, even decades. Vis à vis the United States, a strong case can be made for the claim that Soros today affects American politics and culture more profoundly that any other living person.
Much of Soros's influence derives from his multi-billion-dollar personal fortune,1 which is further leveraged by at least another $25 billion in investor assets controlled by his firm, Soros Fund Management.2 An equally significant source of Soros's power, however, is his passionate messianic zeal. Soros views himself as a missionary with something of a divine mandate to transform the world and its institutions into something better—as he sees it.
Over the years, Soros has given voice to this sense of grandiosity many times and in a variety of different ways. In his 1987 book The Alchemy of Finance, for instance, he wrote: “I admit that I have always harbored an exaggerated view of self-importance—to put it bluntly, I fancied myself as some kind of god or an economic reformer like Keynes or, even better, a scientist like Einstein.”3 Expanding on this theme in his 1991 book Underwriting Democracy, Soros said: “If truth be known, I carried some rather potent messianic fantasies with me from childhood,” fantasies which “I wanted to indulge … to the extent that I could afford.”4 In a June 1993 interview with The Independent, Soros, who is an atheist,5 said he saw himself as “some kind of god, the creator of everything.”6 In an interview two years later, he portrayed himself as someone who shared numerous attributes with “God in the Old Testament” — “[Y]ou know, like invisible. I was pretty invisible. Benevolent. I was pretty benevolent. All-seeing. I tried to be all-seeing.”7 Soros told his biographer Michael Kaufman that his “goal” was nothing less ambitious than “to become the conscience of the world” by using his charitable foundations,8 which will be discussed at length in this pamphlet, to bankroll organizations and causes that he deems worthwhile.
“I realized [as a young man] that it's money that makes the world go round,” says Soros, “so I might as well make money.… But having made it, I could then indulge my social concerns.”9 Invariably, those concerns center around a desire to change the world generally—and America particularly—into something new, something consistent with his vision of “social justice.” Claiming to be “driven” by “illusions, or perhaps delusions, of grandeur,”10 Soros has humorously described himself as “a kind of nut who wants to have an impact” on the workings of the world.11 The billionaire's longtime friend Byron Wien, currently the vice chairman of Blackstone Advisory Services, offers this insight: “You must understand [Soros] thinks he’s been anointed by God to solve insoluble problems. The proof is that he has been so successful at making so much [money]. He therefore thinks he has a responsibility to give money away”—to causes that are consistent with his values and agendas.12
GEORGE SOROS'S ROOTS AND DEVELOPMENT
George Soros was born to Tividar and Erzebat Schwartz, non-practicing Jews, in Budapest, Hungary on August 12, 1930. Tivadar was an attorney by profession, but the consuming passion of his life was the promotion of Esperanto—an artificial, “universal” language created during the 1880s in hopes that people worldwide might be persuaded to drop their native tongues and speak Esperanto instead—thereby, in theory at least, minimizing their nationalist impulses while advancing intercultural harmony. In 1936, Tivadar changed his family surname to Soros—a future-tense Esperanto verb meaning “will soar.”13
When the Nazis occupied Budapest in 1944, Tivadar decided to split up his family so as to minimize the chance that all its members would be killed together. For each of them—his wife and two sons—he purchased forged papers identifying them as Christians; paid government officials to conceal his family's Jewish heritage from the German and Hungarian fascists; and bribed Gentile families to take them into their homes. As for George in particular, the father paid a Hungarian government official named Baumbach to claim George as his Christian godson, “Sandor Kiss,” and to let the boy live with him in Budapest. One of Baumbach's duties was to deliver deportation notices to Hungary's Jews, confiscating their property and turning it over to Germany. Young George Soros sometimes accompanied the official on his rounds.14 Many years later, in December 1998, a CBS interviewer would ask Soros whether he had ever felt any guilt about his association with Baumbach during that period. Soros replied: “… I was only a spectator ... I had no role in taking away that property. So I had no sense of guilt.”15
Soros today recalls the German occupation of Hungary as “probably the happiest year of my life.” “For me,” he elaborates, “it was a very positive experience. It's a strange thing because you see incredible suffering around you and the fact you are in considerable danger yourself. But you're fourteen years old and you don't believe that it can actually touch you. You have a belief in yourself. You have a belief in your father. It's a very happy-making, exhilarating experience.”16
In 1947 the Soros family relocated from Hungary to England, where George attended the London School of Economics (LSE). There, he was exposed to the works of the Viennese-born philosopher Karl Popper, who taught at LSE and whom Soros would later call his “spiritual mentor.”17 Though Soros never studied directly under Popper, he read the latter's works and submitted some essays to him for review and comment. Most notably, Popper's 1945 book The Open Society and Its Enemies introduced Soros to the concept of an “open society,” a theme that would play a central role in Soros's thought and activities for the rest of his life.18
The term “open society” was originally coined in 1932 by the French philosopher Henri Louis Bergson, to describe societies whose moral codes were founded upon “universal” principles seeking to enhance the welfare of all mankind—as opposed to “closed” societies that placed self-interest above any concern for other nations and cultures.19 Popper readily embraced this concept and expanded upon it. In his view, the open society was a place that permitted its citizens the right to criticize and change its institutions as they saw fit; he rejected the imposed intellectual conformity, central planning, and historical determinism of Marxist doctrine.20 By Popper's reckoning, a society was “closed”—and thus undesirable—if it assumed that it was in any way superior to other societies. Likewise, any belief system or individual claiming to be in possession of “ultimate truth” was an “enemy” of the open society as well. Popper viewed all knowledge as conjectural rather than certain, as evolving rather than fixed.
Thus, by logical extension, Popper did not share the American founders' confident assertion that certain truths were “self-evident,” and that certain rights—such as the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” as referenced in the Declaration of Independence—were “unalienable” and thus not subject to doubt, because they had been granted to mankind by the ultimate authority, the “Creator.”21 We shall see that George Soros, as he grew to maturity, would likewise reject the founders' premise. Indeed Soros would harbor great disdain for modern-day American political figures who displayed unshakable confidence in their own culture's nobility, and who embraced the tenets of the Declaration and the U.S. Constitution as timeless, immutable truths. To Soros, “Popper's greatest contribution to philosophy” was his teaching that “the ultimate truth remains permanently beyond our reach.”22
After graduating in 1952 from LSE, Soros joined the London brokerage firm Singer and Friedlander, where he became proficient in international arbitrage, which he defines as “buying securities in one country and selling them in another.”23 Four years later, he relocated to New York to work as a stock trader on Wall Street. Because Soros “did not particularly care for” the “commercial, crass” United States, he had no intention of settling permanently in America. Rather, he had devised a “five-year plan” to save some $500,000 and then return to Europe.24 His plan changed, however, when he found work as a portfolio manager at the investment bank Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder Inc., where his career—as if to fulfill the prophecy embedded in the family surname his father had adopted two decades earlier—soared to new heights.
In 1959 Soros moved to Greenwich Village, New York, where early stirrings of the Sixties counterculture were already being felt. In September 1960 he married Annaliese Witschak, who would be his wife until the couple divorced 23 years later.25 In 1961 Soros became a U.S. citizen, and two years later he and Annaliese had their first child, a son. In the Village, it is likely that Soros was exposed to the ideas of the prominent socialist Michael Harrington, who mingled with fellow radicals and socialists almost nightly at a tavern situated barely a stone's throw from Soros's residence.26 In 1962 Harrington wrote The Other America, a book lamenting the fact that a substantial “invisible” underclass continued to exist even as the country at large prospered, and suggesting that a “war on poverty” was needed to rectify this. President Lyndon Johnson read and admired the book, and its ideas greatly influenced his Great Society policies of government-imposed redistribution of wealth.
Another prominent Village personality of the era—the poet, New Left radical, and psychedelic-drug guru Allen Ginsberg—would eventually become a “lifelong friend” of Soros. Though Soros may not have formally met Ginsberg until around 1980—long after his years in the Village—the billionaire today credits Ginsberg for having opened his eyes to the benefits of drug legalization, which has been one of Soros's pet projects throughout his philanthropic career.27
In 1969 Soros established the “Double Eagle Fund” for Bleichroeder with $4 million in capital, including $250,000 of his own money. Four years later, Soros and his assistant at Bleichroeder, Jim Rogers, set up a private partnership called Soros Fund Management. They subsequently changed the Double Eagle Fund's name to The Soros Fund. In 1979 they renamed it again—The Quantum Fund; its value grew to $381 million by 1980, and more than $1 billion by 1985.28
SOROS THE PHILANTHROPIST
It was in 1979 that Soros began testing the proverbial waters of philanthropy. Five years later he launched, in the country of his birth, the first of his many Open Society Foundations—named after the concept advanced by Karl Popper—to help “build vibrant and tolerant democracies whose governments are accountable to their citizens.”29 But it was not until 1987, the year he opened his Moscow office, that Soros began to disseminate truly large amounts of money to various groups and causes. “My spending rose from $3 million in 1987 to more than $300 million a year by 1992,” he said.30 During this period, Soros established a series of foundations throughout Eastern Europe and Central Asia.31 He happily observed that because of his extraordinary wealth, major political figures “suddenly became very interested in seeing me…. [M]y influence increased.”32 Today Soros's Open Society Foundations are active in more than 70 countries around the world.33
In 1993 Soros established the flagship of the Soros foundation network—the New York City-based Open Society Foundations (OSF), which went by the name of the Open Society Institute until 2010. While OSF's philanthropy extends to a number of nations around the world, it is chiefly devoted to injecting capital into American groups and causes. In his book Open Society: Reforming Global Capitalism, Soros explains that the “open society” which he seeks to advance by means of philanthropy, “stands for freedom, democracy, rule of law, human rights, social justice, and social responsibility as a universal idea.”34 But of course, abstract concepts like these, draped in vestments of lofty rhetoric, can mean radically different things to different people.
Entrusted with the task of defining the foregoing terms for the OSF, and for articulating OSF's agendas from the outset, was Aryeh Neier, whom Soros appointed to serve as president not only of OSF, but of the entire Soros Foundation Network. Thirty-four years earlier, Neier had created the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), which became the largest and most important radical group of the 1960s. SDS aspired to overthrow America's democratic institutions, remake its government in a Marxist image, and undermine the nation's war efforts in Vietnam. (A particularly militant faction of SDS would later break away to form the Weather Underground, a notorious domestic terror organization with a Marxist-Leninist agenda.) Following his stint with SDS, Neier worked fifteen years for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)—including eight years as its national executive director. After that, he spent twelve years as executive director of Human Rights Watch (HRW), an organization he founded in 1978.35
THE SOROS AGENDAS
Both the ACLU and HRW have long promoted one of the central contentions of Soros's Open Society Foundations: the notion that America is institutionally an oppressive nation and a habitual violator of human rights both at home and abroad—indeed, the very antithesis of the type of “open society” Soros reveres. Consider first the ACLU, whose advisory board once included the former Weather Underground terrorist Bernardine Dohrn.36 The ACLU has opposed virtually all post-9/11 national security measures enacted by the U.S. government, depicting those measures not only as excessively harsh and invasive generally, but also as discriminatory against Muslims in particular.37 Moreover, the organization has filed numerous lawsuits seeking to limit the government's ability to locate, monitor, and apprehend terrorist operatives. It consistently depicts American society as one that is rife with intractable racial injustice. And it works tirelessly to protect illegal immigrants against “governmental abuse and discrimination.”38 These (and many other) ACLU activities and policy positions are entirely consistent with those of Aryeh Neier and George Soros, as evidenced by the fact that between 1999 and 2008, OSF awarded $8.69 million in grants to the ACLU Foundation.39
Neier's other training ground, Human Rights Watch, has a long history of pointing an accusatory finger at America's allegedly numerous transgressions. Most notably, HRW has derided the U.S. war on terror as a foolhardy endeavor rooted in blindness to the realization that terrorism stems, in large measure, from America's failure “to promote fundamental rights around the world.”40 In a March 2007 speech, HRW executive director Kenneth Roth charged that the United States, by routinely “using torture and inhumane treatment” to deal with its foes, had “severely damaged its credibility when it comes to promoting human rights” in other nations.41 Between 2000 and 2008, the Open Society Foundations awarded grants and other contributions to HRW that collectively totaled $6,386,477.42 Then, in September 2010, Soros announced that he would soon be giving HRW another $100 million.43 Notably, Soros himself once served on HRW's Europe and Central Asia Advisory Committee.44
OSF's total assets today exceed $1.9 billion. Each year, the Foundations award scores of millions of dollars in grants to organizations that—like the ACLU and HRW—promote worldviews and objectives accordant with those of George Soros.45 Following is a sampling of the major agendas advanced by groups that Soros and OSF support financially. Listed under each category heading are a few OSF donees fitting that description.
Organizations that accuse America of violating the civil rights and liberties of many of its residents:
- The Arab American Institute impugns many of the “sweeping” and “unreasonable” post-9/11 counterterrorism measures that have unfairly “targeted Arab Americans.”46
- The Bill of Rights Defense Committee has persuaded the political leadership in more than 400 American cities and counties to pledge noncompliance with the anti-terrorism measure known as the Patriot Act, on grounds that the legislation tramples on people's civil liberties.47
- The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund calls itself “the nation’s leading Latino legal civil rights organization.”48
- The Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law provides “legal services to address racial discrimination.”49
- The NAACP and its Legal Defense and Educational Fund uses “litigation, advocacy, and public education” to promote “structural changes” and “achieve racial justice in the United States”50
- The National Council of La Raza charges that “discrimination severely limits the economic and social opportunities available to Hispanic Americans.”51
- The Sentencing Project asserts that prison-sentencing patterns discriminate against nonwhites, and seeks “to reduce the reliance on incarceration.”52
- Critical Resistance contends that crime stems from “inequality and powerlessness,” which can be rectified through wholesale redistribution of wealth.53
- The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights charges that criminal laws “are enforced in a manner that is massively and pervasively biased.”54
- The Center for Community Change is “dedicated to finding the [progressive] stars of tomorrow and preparing them to lead.”55
- The Gamaliel Foundation teaches social-change “techniques and methodologies.”56
- The Ruckus Society promotes “nonviolent direct action against unjust institutions and policies.”57
- The American Institute for Social Justice aims to “transform poor communities” by agitating for increased government spending on social-welfare programs.58
- The Institute for America's Future “regularly convenes and educates progressive leaders, organizations, candidates, opinion makers, and activists.”59
- People for the American Way, founded by television producer Norman Lear to oppose the allegedly growing influence of the “religious right,” seeks “to cultivate new generations of leaders and activists” who will promote “progressive values.”60
- Democracy For America operates an academy that has taught more than 10,000 recruits nationwide how to “focus, network, and train grassroots activists in the skills and strategies to take back our country.”61
- The Midwest Academy trains radical activists in the tactics of direct action, confrontation, and intimidation. Author Stanley Kurtz has described this academy as a “crypto-socialist organization” that was “arguably the most influential force in community organizing from the seventies through the nineties.”62
- The Center for Economic and Policy Research asserts that “the welfare state has softened the impact” of “the worst excesses and irrationalities of a market system” and its “injustices.”63
- The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities advocates greater tax expenditures on such assistance programs as Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, food stamps, and low-income housing initiatives.64
- The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights was founded by the revolutionary communist Van Jones. This anti-poverty organization claims that “decades of disinvestment in our cities,” coupled with America's allegedly imperishable racism, have “led to despair and homelessness.”65
- The Emma Lazarus Fund: In 1996 George Soros said he was “appalled” by the recently signed welfare-reform law that empowered states to limit legal immigrants' access to public assistance. In response to this “mean-spirited attack on immigrants,” he launched an Open Society Foundations project known as the Emma Lazarus Fund and endowed it with $50 million.66
- Health Care for America Now (HCAN) is a vast network of organizations supporting, ideally, a “single-payer” model where the federal government would be in charge of financing and administering the entire U.S. healthcare system.67 During the political debate over “Obamacare” in 2009 and 2010, HCAN’s strategy was to try to achieve such a system incrementally, first by implementing a “public option”—i.e., a government insurance agency to “compete” with private insurers, so that Americans would be “no longer at the mercy of the private insurance industry.”68 Because such an agency would not need to show a profit in order to remain in business, and because it could tax and regulate its private competitors in whatever fashion it pleased, this “public option” would inevitably force private insurers out of the industry. In August 2009, Soros pledged to give HCAN $5 million to promote its campaign for reform.69
- Project Vote is the voter-mobilization arm of the notoriously corrupt ACORN, whose voter-registration drives and get-out-the-vote initiatives have been marred by massive levels of fraud and corruption.70
- Catalist seeks “to help progressive organizations realize … electoral success by building and operating a robust national voter database.”71
- The Brennan Center for Justice aims to “fully restore voting rights following criminal conviction”72—significant because research shows that ex-felons are far likelier to vote for Democratic political candidates than for Republicans.73
- The Progressive States Network seeks to “pass progressive legislation in all fifty states by providing coordinated research and strategic advocacy tools to forward-thinking state legislators.”74
- The Progressive Change Campaign Committee, to which George Soros personally donated $8,000 in 2010, works “to elect bold progressive candidates to federal office … more often.”75
In May 2011, the Media Research Center reported that from 2003-2011, Soros had spent more than $48 million "funding media properties, including the infrastructure of news -- journalism schools, investigative journalism and even industry organizations." Among the beneficiaries of Soros's money were such entities as: ABC, The American Prospect Inc. (the owner and publisher of The American Prospect magazine), the Center for Public Integrity, the Center for Investigative Reporting, the Columbia Journalism Review, the Columbia School of Journalism, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Free Press, the Independent Media Center, the Independent Media Institute, The Lens, the Media Fund, Media Matters For America, the Nation Institute, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, the National Federation of Community Broadcasters, National Public Radio, NBC, the Organization of News Ombudsmen, the New York Times, the Pacifica Foundation, ProPublica, and the Washington Post, . Below are some brief descriptions of a few of these organizations:
- The American Prospect, Inc. is the owner and publisher of The American Prospect magazine, which tries to “counteract the growing influence of conservative media.”76
- Free Press is a “media reform” organization co-founded by Robert McChesney, who calls for “a revolutionary program to overthrow the capitalist system” and to “rebuil[d] the entire society on socialist principles.”77
- The Independent Media Institute aims to “change the world”78 via projects like AlterNet, an online news magazine calling itself “a key player in the echo chamber of progressive ideas and vision.”79
- The Nation Institute operates synergistically with the far-left Nation magazine, which works “to extend the reach of progressive ideas” into the American mainstream.80
- The Pacifica Foundation owns and operates Pacifica Radio, awash from its birth with the socialist-Marxist rhetoric of class warfare and anti-capitalism.
- Media Matters For America: For a number of years, the Open Society Foundations gave indirect funding—filtering its grants first through other Soros-backed operations81—to this “progressive research and information center” which “monitor[s]” and “correct[s] conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.”82 In October 2010, Soros announced that he would soon donate $1 million directly to Media Matters.83
- Sundance Institute: In 1996, Soros launched his Soros Documentary Fund to produce “social justice” films that would “spur awareness, action and social change.” In 2001, this Fund became part of actor-director Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute. Between 1996 and 2008, OSF earmarked at least $5.2 million for the production of several hundred documentaries, many of which were highly critical of capitalism, American society, or Western culture generally.84 In 2009, Soros pledged another $5 million to the Sundance Institute.85
- The Alliance for Justice consistently depicts Republican judicial nominees as “radical right-wing[ers]” and “extremists” whose views range far outside the boundaries of mainstream public opinion.86
- The American Constitution Society for Law and Policy seeks to indoctrinate young law students to view the Constitution as an evolving or “living” document,87 and to reject “conservative buzzwords such as 'originalism' and 'strict construction.'”88
- Justice at Stake89 promotes legislation that would replace judicial elections with a “merit-selection” system where a small committee of legal elites, unaccountable to the public, would pick those most “qualified” to serve as judges. OSF has spent at least $45.4 million on efforts to change the way judges are chosen in many American states.90
- Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good advocates a brand of “social justice” that would counteract the “greed, materialism, and excessive individualism” that are allegedly inherent in capitalism.91
- Sojourners characterizes wealth redistribution as the fulfillment of a biblical mandate.92 Jim Wallis, the founder of this evangelical Christian ministry, has expressed his hope that “more Christians will come to view the world through Marxist eyes.”93
- People Improving Communities through Organizing uses “people of faith” as foot soldiers in its crusade for the “transformation” of “people, institutions, and … our larger culture.”94
- Catholics for Choice—formerly known as Catholics for a Free Choice—is a nominally Catholic organization that “believes in a world where everyone has equal access to … safe and legal abortion services.”95
- The Institute for Policy Studies has long supported Communist and anti-American causes around the world. It seeks to provide a corrective to the “unrestrained greed” of “markets and individualism.”96
- The New America Foundation tries to influence public opinion on such topics as healthcare, environmentalism, energy policy, and global governance.97
- The Urban Institute favors socialized medicine, expansion of the federal welfare bureaucracy, and tax hikes for higher income-earners.98
- The American Immigration Council—formerly known as the the American Immigration Law Foundation—supports “birthright citizenship” for children born to illegal immigrants in the U.S.99
- Casa de Maryland periodically sponsors “know your rights” training sessions to teach illegals how to evade punishment in the event that they are apprehended in an immigration raid.100
- The Immigrant Legal Resource Center belongs to the sanctuary movement that tries to shield illegal aliens from the law.101
- The Migration Policy Institute advocates a more permissive U.S. refugee admissions and resettlement policy, as well as more social-welfare benefits for illegals residing in the U.S.102
- LatinoJustice PRLDF is a legal advocacy group that “protects opportunities for all Latinos … especially the most vulnerable—new immigrants and the poor.”103
- The Immigration Policy Center states that “[r]equiring the 10-11 million unauthorized immigrants residing in the U.S. to register with the government and meet eligibility criteria in order to gain legal status is a key element of comprehensive immigration reform.”104
- The National Immigration Forum opposes the enhancement of the U.S. Border Patrol and the construction of a border fence to prevent illegal immigration.105
- The National Immigration Law Center works to help low-income immigrants gain access to government-funded welfare programs on the same basis as legal American citizens.106
- The Center for Constitutional Rights, founded by four longtime supporters of communist causes,107 has condemned the “immigration sweeps, ghost detentions, extraordinary rendition, and every other illegal program the government has devised” in response to “the so-called War on Terror.”108
- The National Security Archive Fund collects and publishes declassified documents (obtained through the Freedom of Information Act) to a degree that compromises American national security and the safety of intelligence agents.109
- The Constitution Project has supported such notorious figures as Salim Ahmed Hamdan (Osama bin Laden's bodyguard and chauffeur) and Jose Padilla (an American Islamic convert and terrorist plotter). Moreover, the Project contends that it is illegal for the U.S. government to detain terror suspects if the evidence against them was obtained through “torture.”110
- The Lynne Stewart Defense Committee was established to support Lynne Stewart, who is a criminal-defense attorney and an America-hating Maoist. Stewart was convicted of illegally helping her incarcerated client, the “blind sheik” Omar Abdel Rahman, pass messages to an Egypt-based Islamic terrorist organization. In September 2002, the Open Society Foundations gave $20,000 111 to this committee; OSF vice president Gara LaMarche characterized Ms. Stewart as a “human rights defender.”112
- Amnesty International: In 2005, this group's then-executive director William Schulz alleged that the United States had become “a leading purveyor and practitioner” of torture.113 Schulz’s remarks were echoed by Amnesty's then-secretary general Irene Khan, who charged that the Guantanamo Bay detention center, where the U.S. was housing several hundred captured terror suspects, “has become the gulag of our time.”114
- Global Exchange was founded by Medea Benjamin, a pro-Castro radical who helped establish a project known as Iraq Occupation Watch for the purpose of encouraging widespread desertion by “conscientious objectors” in the U.S. military.115 In December 2004, Benjamin announced that Global Exchange would be sending aid to the families of terrorist insurgents who were fighting American troops in Iraq.116
- The American Friends Service Committee, which views America as the world's chief source of international strife, has long had a friendly relationship with the Communist Party USA.117 Lamenting
that “the United States spends 59% of the discretionary federal budget
on military-related expenses,” the Committee seeks to “realig[n]
national spending priorities and to increase the portion of the budget
that is spent on housing, quality education for all, medical care, and
fair wages.”118 In 2000, George Soros himself was a signatory to a letter titled “Appeal for Responsible Security” that appeared in The New York Times. The letter called upon
the U.S. government “to commit itself unequivocally to negotiate the
worldwide reduction and elimination of nuclear weapons,” and to
participate in “the global de-alerting of nuclear weapons and deep
reduction of nuclear stockpiles.”119
(NOTE: OSF is a member of the Peace and Security Funders Group.)
Groups in this category typically oppose mining and logging initiatives, commercial fishing enterprises, development and construction in wilderness areas, the use of coal, the use of pesticides, and oil and gas exploration in “environmentally sensitive” locations. Moreover, they claim that human industrial activity leads to excessive carbon-dioxide emissions which, in turn, cause a potentially cataclysmic phenomenon called “global warming.” Examples of such Soros donees include the Alliance for Climate Protection, Earthjustice, the Earth Island Institute, Friends of the Earth, Green For All, and the Natural Resources Defense Council.Organizations that oppose the death penalty in all circumstances:
Another major recipient of Soros money is the Tides Foundation, which receives cash from all manner of donors—individuals, groups, and other foundations—and then funnels it to designated left-wing recipients. Having given more than $400 million to “progressive nonprofit organizations” since 2000,120 Tides is a heavy backer of environmental organizations, though its philanthropy extends also into many other areas.
George Soros presents himself as an environmentalist of the first order and is quick to condemn industrial corporations for allegedly trampling recklessly over the earth's ecosystems in pursuit of the almighty dollar. But in fact, Soros himself has proven to be quite willing to despoil Mother Nature in exchange for profits of his own. Consider, for example, his involvement in the Argentine beef industry, which environmentalists claim is responsible for massive levels of water pollution and deforestation. Argentina's biggest landowner is none other than George Soros, with some 500,000 hectares of land and 150,000 head of cattle to his name.121 Moreover, Soros is a part owner of Apex Silver Mines, which operates in a remote and ecologically sensitive region of Bolivia.122
In 2000 George Soros co-signed a letter to President Bill Clinton asking for a moratorium on the death penalty, on grounds that it tended to be implemented disproportionately against black and Hispanic offenders.123Organizations that promote modern-day feminism's core tenet—that America is fundamentally a sexist society where discrimination and violence against women have reached epidemic proportions:
Consistent with the billionaire's opposition to capital punishment, his Open Society Foundations have given millions of dollars to anti-death penalty organizations such as New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty, Witness to Innocence, Equal Justice USA, the Death Penalty Information Center, People of Faith against the Death Penalty, and the Fair Trial Initiative.
- The Feminist Majority Foundation “focus[es] on advancing the legal, social and political equality of women with men, countering the backlash to women's advancement, and recruiting and training young feminists...”124
- The Ms. Foundation for Women laments that although “women are more than half the [U.S.] population … they don’t have equal opportunity, voice or power.”125
- The National Partnership for Women and Families asserts that “women today are still paid only $0.77 to a man’s dollar”126—an assertion that is grossly misleading and substantively untrue.127
- Soros donees in this category include the Center for Reproductive Rights, Choice USA, NARAL Pro-Choice America, the National Abortion Federation, and Planned Parenthood.
Organizations that favor global government which would bring American foreign policy under the control of the United Nations or other international bodies:
According to George Soros, “[W]e need some global system of political decision-making. In short, we need a global society to support our global economy.”129 Consistent with this perspective, the Open Society Foundations in 2008 gave $150,000 to the United Nations Foundation, which “works to broaden support for the UN through advocacy and public outreach.”130 Moreover, OSF is considered a “major” funder of the Coalition for an International Criminal Court,131 which aims to subordinate American criminal-justice procedures in certain cases to an international prosecutor who could initiate capricious or politically motivated prosecutions of U.S. officials and military officers.132Organizations that support drug legalization:
Dismissing the notion of “a drug-free America” as nothing more than “a utopian dream,” George Soros says that “the war on drugs” is “insane” and, “like the Vietnam War,” simply “cannot be won.”133 “I'll tell you what I would do if it were up to me,” says Soros. “I would establish a strictly controlled distribution network through which I would make most drugs, excluding the most dangerous ones like crack, legally available.”134 In 1998 Soros was a signatory to a public letter addressed to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, declaring that "the global war on drugs is now causing more harm than drug abuse itself."135 The letter blamed the war on drugs for impeding such public health efforts as stemming the spread of HIV, hepatitis, and other infectious diseases, as well as human rights violations and the perpetration of environmental assaults. Other notable signers included Tammy Baldwin, Rev. William Sloan Coffin, Jr., Walter Cronkite, Morton H. Halperin, Peter Lewis, Kweisi Mfume, and Cornel West.
Soros and his Open Society Foundations have given many millions of dollars to groups supporting drug-legalization and needle-exchange programs. In 1996, former Carter administration official Joseph Califano called Soros “the Daddy Warbucks of drug legalization.”136 According to a Capital Research Center publication, “It’s no exaggeration to say that without Soros there would be no serious lobby against the drug war.”137
A leading recipient of Soros funding is the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), which seeks to loosen narcotics laws, promotes “treatment-not-incarceration” policies for non-violent drug offenders, and advocates syringe-access programs “to help prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.”138 Soros himself formerly sat on the DPA board of directors.139 As recently as 2010, Soros contributed $1 million to support a California ballot measure known as Proposition 19, which would have legalized personal marijuana use in the state; the measure, however, was rejected by voters on election day.140
Peter Schweizer, author of Do As I Say (Not As I Do), speculates on the possible reasons underlying Soros's support for drug legalization:
“One very possible answer is that he hopes to profit from them [drugs] once they become legal. He has been particularly active in South America, buying up large tracts of land and forging alliances with those in a position to mass-produce narcotics should they become legalized in the United States. He has also helped fund the Andean Council of Coca Leaf producers. Needless to say, this organization would stand to benefit enormously from the legalization of cocaine. He has also taken a 9 percent stake in Banco de Colombia, located in the Colombian drug capital of Cali. The Drug Enforcement Administration has speculated that the bank is being used to launder money and that Soros's fellow shareholders may be members of a major drug cartel.”141Organizations that support euthanasia for the terminally ill:
Soros has long promoted the cause of physician-assisted suicide in an effort to change public attitudes about death. Toward that end, in 1994 he began giving money to the (now defunct) Project on Death in America (PDA), whose purpose was to provide “end-of-life” assistance for ailing people and to enact public policy that will “transform the culture and experience of dying and bereavement.”142 Over a 9-year period, the Open Society Foundations gave $45 million to PDA.143
Notably, PDA's mission was congruent with the goals of those who support government-run health care, which invariably features bureaucracies tasked with allocating scarce resources and thus determining who will, and who will not, be eligible for particular medications and treatments. Such bureaucracies generally make their calculations based upon cost-benefit analyses of a variety of possible treatments. Ultimately these decisions tend to disfavor the very old and the very sick, because whatever benefits they might gain from expensive interventions are likely to be of short duration, and thus are not judged to be worth the costs. Soros himself has suggested that “[a]ggressive, life-prolonging interventions, which may at times go against the patient's wishes, are much more expensive than proper care for the dying.”144 Additional pro-euthanasia groups funded by Soros and OSF are the following:
- The Death with Dignity National Center seeks to allow “terminally ill individuals meeting stringent safeguards to hasten their own deaths” by way of lethal drug prescriptions.145
- The Compassion in Dying Federation of America advocates “aid-in-dying for terminally ill, mentally competent adults.”146
- The Greenlining Institute 147—by threatening to publicly accuse banks of racially discriminatory lending practices—has successfully negotiated loan commitments of more than $2.4 trillion from America's financial institutions.148
- The Center for Responsible Lending, according to Americans for Prosperity vice president Phil Kerpen, has “shak[en] down and harass[ed] banks into making bad loans to unqualified borrowers.”149
- The International Crisis Group's (ICG) Mideast director, Robert Malley, has penned numerous articles and op-eds condemning Israel, exonerating Palestinians, urging the U.S. to disengage from Israel to some degree, and recommending that America reach out to negotiate with its traditional Arab enemies such as Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas. Soros himself is a member of ICG's executive committee.
- J Street has cautioned Israel not to be too combative against Hamas, on grounds that the latter “has been the government, law and order, and service provider since it won the [Palestinian] elections in January 2006 and especially since June 2007 when it took complete control.” In the final analysis, J Street traces the Mideast conflict chiefly to the notion that “Israel’s settlements in the occupied territories have, for over forty years, been an obstacle to peace.”
SOROS'S POLITICAL CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS
Apart from the more than $5 billion that Soros' foundation network has donated to leftist groups like those cited above, Soros personally has made campaign contributions to such notable political candidates as Joe Biden, Barbara Boxer, Sherrod Brown, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Jon Corzine, Howard Dean, Richard Durbin, Lane Evans, Al Franken, Al Gore, Tom Harkin, Maurice Hinchey, John Kerry, Dennis Kucinich, Patrick Leahy, Barack Obama, Charles Rangel, Harry Reid, Ken Salazar, Charles Schumer, Joe Sestak, and Tom Udall. He also has given large sums of money to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Democratic National Committee Services Corporation, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
SOROS MEETS THE CLINTONS
Around the time that George Soros initially launched his Manhattan-based Open Society Foundations, he established what would prove to be a warm and enduring relationship with Bill and Hillary Clinton, the new American President and First Lady. When the Clintons took office in early 1993, they faced the daunting task of helping the collapsed Soviet empire rise from its ruins and cultivate a harmonious relationship with the United States. To lead this endeavor, President Clinton appointed three men: Treasury Department official Lawrence Summers, Vice President Al Gore, and soon-to-be State Department official Strobe Talbott. Talbott in particular was given a large degree of authority, prompting some observers to dub him as Clinton's “Russian policy czar.”150 It so happened that Talbot had an exceptionally high regard for the financial expertise of George Soros—describing him as “a national resource, indeed, a national treasure”—and thus he recruited the billionaire to serve as a key advisor on U.S.-Russian matters.151
Soros, in turn, had connections with a young economist whom he had been funding—Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Harvard Institute for International Development. The U.S. Agency for International Development assigned Sachs' Institute to oversee Russia's transformation to a market economy after more than seven decades of communism. As a consequence of this assignment, Sachs and his team essentially represented the United States as official economic advisors to Russian President Boris Yeltsin. Soros worked closely with Sachs on this project, and the pair held enormous sway over Yeltsin.152 So great was their influence, in fact, that on one occasion Soros quipped that “the former Soviet Empire is now called the Soros Empire.”153 But before long, members of Sachs's team became involved in massive corruption, exploiting for personal gain their access to Russia's political and economic leaders. Their actions contributed to the collapse of the Russian economy and to the diversion of some $100 billion out of the country.154 Though Sachs himself was not accused of profiting personally from these activities, he resigned as director of the Harvard Institute in May 1999, under a dark cloud of scandal.155 The U.S. House Banking Committee investigated the matter and called Soros to testify. The billionaire denied culpability but admitted that he had used insider access in an illegal deal to acquire a large portion of Sidanko Oil.156 Soros further acknowledged in Congressional testimony that some of the missing Russian assets had made their way into his personal investment portfolio.157 House Banking Committee chairman Jim Leach characterized the entire sordid affair as “one of the greatest social robberies in human history.”158
As the Nineties progressed, it became increasingly evident that Bill and Hillary Clinton embraced virtually all of the values and agendas that George Soros was funding through his Open Society Foundations. “I do now have great access in [the Clinton] administration,” said Soros in 1995. “There is no question about this. We actually work together as a team.”159
Soros and Mrs. Clinton in particular held one another in the highest esteem. In November 1997, when Hillary was in Central Asia for a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the newly built American University of Kyrgyzstan, she delivered a speech in which she lavished praise on Soros's Open Society Foundations, which had financed the school's construction.160 According to Center for American Democracy director Rachel Ehrenfeld, one source close to Mrs. Clinton's inner circle reports that Soros visited Hillary at the White House during the Bill Clinton impeachment proceedings of 1998-99, when the First Lady was receiving only her most trusted confidantes.161 A few years later, at a June 2004 “Take Back America” conference in Washington, Mrs. Clinton introduced Soros as a courageous man who loved his country deeply. “[W]e need people like George Soros,” she said, “who is fearless, and willing to step up when it counts.” Soros, in turn, indicated that he was “very, very proud to be introduced” by someone for whom he had such “great, great admiration.” He described Hillary as someone who had been “more effective than most of our statesmen in propagating democracy, freedom, and open society.”162
9/11, AND SOROS'S DEEPER IMMERSION INTO AMERICAN POLITICS
September 11, 2001 was a watershed moment not only in American history but also in George Soros's philanthropic career. Soros viewed the 9/11 terrorist attacks as confirmation that U.S. foreign policy—particularly under President George W. Bush, who had taken office eight months earlier—was moving in a dangerous direction, giving rise to anti-American hatred in the hearts of people all across the globe. By Soros's reckoning, Bush embodied the very antithesis of the “open society” ideal. Specifically, the billionaire detested what he viewed as the arrogance the President displayed when he publicly branded America's enemies as “evil”; when he unapologetically expressed his faith in the exceptionalism of his own culture; and when he seemed disinclined to consider the possibility that the terrorists may have had something valuable to teach Americans about how the rest of the world perceived the United States. Moreover, Soros considered terrorism to be, in large measure, a consequence of economic inequity and the exploitation of poor countries by their wealthier counterparts.
Reasoning from these premises, Soros—while conceding that the retaliatory U.S. invasion of Afghanistan was justifiable163—maintained that the proper long-term response to 9/11 would be for America to launch a global war on poverty. Such an undertaking would be modeled on the Great Society programs which the Johnson administration had instituted in the 1960s—on the theory that by pouring rivers of taxpayer dollars into the nation's violence-torn ghettos, the presumably justified rage of the rioters could be quelled. In a similar vein, Soros now held that the best way to fight international terrorism would be for the affluent USA to send massive amounts of aid to impoverished regions around the world where the phenomenon tended to originate. Indeed, he had long maintained that the “root causes” of terrorism were “poverty” and “ignorance.”164 Just eight days after 9/11, Soros gave a speech where he said that the “cornerstone” of his “plan” was to “address the social conditions that provide a fertile ground from which [terrorist] volunteers who are willing to sacrifice their lives can be recruited.” This plan would call on “rich countries” to boost their levels of “international assistance,” which—while unlikely to “prevent people like bin Laden from exercising their evil genius”—would “help to alleviate the grievances on which extremism of all kinds feeds.”165
On subsequent occasions, Soros would reiterate his belief that terrorism was caused by a dearth of “international income redistribution” and a “growing inequality between rich and poor, both within countries and among countries.”166 “A global open society,” Soros stressed, “requires affirmative action on a global scale.”167 By contrast, Soros was largely silent on the issue of Islam's longstanding tradition of jihad, which predated by many hundreds of years any potentially objectionable U.S. foreign-policy initiatives. Rather, he called for a “radical reordering” of American “priorities,” where “[i]nstead of devoting the bulk of the budget to military expenditures to implement the Bush doctrine, we would engage in preventive actions of a constructive nature.”168 “The United States cannot do whatever it wants,” he scolded. “... Our nation must concern itself with the well-being of the world.”169
In Soros's calculus, 9/11 represented “an unusual opportunity to rethink and reshape the world.” Observing that the recent attacks had “shocked” Americans “into realizing that others may regard them very differently from the way they see themselves,” Soros posited that his fellow countrymen were “more ready to reassess the world and the role the United States plays in it than in normal times.”170 And acknowledging that “[t]his awareness may not last long,” he said: “I am determined not to let the moment pass.”171
The urgency which Soros felt with regard to seizing the moment was further heightened on the night of January 29, 2002, when George W. Bush delivered his State of the Union address. In that speech, the President made his first controversial reference to Iraq as part of an “axis of evil” that posed a potentially deadly threat to America. Bush intimated that he would soon turn his foreign-policy attention toward Saddam Hussein's regime, which continued to “flaunt its hostility toward America,” “support terror,” and violate its international agreements. As the President pledged not to “wait on events while dangers gather,” nor to “stand by as peril draws closer and closer,” speculation about a possible U.S. invasion of Iraq began to coalesce.172 In Soros's view, such an invasion would be yet another misguided and senseless endeavor, and he was determined to do whatever he could to prevent it.
The very next month, Soros appointed former Clinton administration official Morton Halperin to the post of Open Society Foundations director. Halperin, whom some State Department officials suspected of being a communist agent,173 had been instrumental in derailing America's war effort during the Vietnam era, when President Johnson put him in charge of compiling a classified history of U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia. Halperin's labor ultimately bore fruit—in June 1971—with the publication of the notorious “Pentagon Papers.”174 Thereafter, Halperin went on to serve (from 1975-1992) as director of an ACLU project called the Center for National Security Studies, which sought to slash U.S. defense expenditures and undermine the nation's intelligence capabilities.175 In Target America—James L. Tyson's 1981 exposé of the Soviet Union's elaborate “propaganda campaign designed to weaken and demoralize America from the inside”—the author stated:
“Halperin … and his organizations have had a constant record of advocating the weakening of U.S. intelligence capabilities. His organizations are also notable for ignoring the activities of the KGB or any other foreign intelligence organization.... A balance sheet analysis of Halperin's writings and testimonies ... gives Halperin a score of 100% on the side of output favorable to the Communist line and 0% on any output opposed to the Communist line.”176Like Halperin, George Soros stridently counseled against military intervention in Iraq, warning that an invasion “would actually be a victory for the terrorists”—because the inevitable killing of “innocent civilians” would give groups like al Qaeda “the kind of radicalization that they are looking for” in order to justify “a vicious cycle of escalating violence.”177 “War is a false and misleading metaphor in the context of combating terrorism,” said Soros. “Treating the attacks of September 11 as crimes against humanity would have been more appropriate. Crimes require police work, not military action.”178 Moreover, Soros characterized the so-called “Bush doctrine” of preemptive military action against those who may pose a threat to the U.S. an “atrocious proposition.”179
By the time the U.S. invaded Iraq in early 2003, Soros's contempt for President Bush's “imperialist vision” had reached a fever pitch.180 Accusing Bush of “deliberately foster[ing] fear because it helps to keep the nation lined up behind the president,” Soros added cynically: “Terrorism is the ideal enemy. It is invisible and therefore never disappears. An enemy that poses a genuine and recognized threat can effectively hold a nation together.”181 In August, Soros warned that the very “fate of the world depends on the United States, and President Bush is leading us in the wrong direction” with his “false and dangerous” doctrine.182 In the fall, Soros referred to Bush administration officials and Republicans generally as “extremists” who “don’t believe in the system of democracy as we know it”; and who embraced “a very dangerous ideology” which held that “the United States … should impose its power, impose its will and its interests on the world.”183
Soros routinely condemned Bush for his “unabashed pursuit of self-interest”;184 for “equat[ing] freedom with American values”; for holding the “simplistic view” that “[w]e are right and they are wrong”;185 and for harboring a “false sense of certitude” that Americans had “right on our side.”186 Each of these transgressions, Soros explained, violated the “principles of open society, which recognize that we may be wrong.”187 “The supremacist ideology of the Bush administration,” he added, “is in contradiction with the principles of an open society because it claims possession of an ultimate truth.”188
As the Iraq War took an increasing toll in terms of both American and Iraqi lives, Soros wrote that the U.S. military response to 9/11 had actually turned out to be a greater moral atrocity than the original “crime” that prompted it, because the war “has claimed more innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq than have the attacks on the World Trade Center.” In short, Soros characterized the Bush administration's “pursuit of American supremacy” as more dangerous than Islamist terror.189
Not only did Soros believe that Bush was following a mindless and perilous policy, but he saw the President's motives as wholly dishonorable. Soros repeatedly accused Bush of using intelligence that had been “exposed as exaggerated or even false” to justify the invasion of Iraq under “false pretenses.”190 He denounced “the exploitation of September 11 by the Bush administration to pursue its policy of dominating the world in the guise of fighting terrorism.”191 He expanded on this theme by accusing Bush of seeking “to justify repressive measures” on the home front while “establish[ing] a secure alternative to Saudi oil” in the Mideast.192 “The other important consideration,” Soros added, “was Israel.” He intimated that Bush, by flexing U.S. muscle in the Middle East, was signaling his readiness to intervene in affairs that could potentially affect America's closest ally in the region. By so doing, said Soros, the President was catering to “the traditional pro-Israel lobby” which included “the evangelical right—and that is the core of the president’s constituency.”193
As Soros saw things, the President's arrogance and corruption had filtered down perceptibly into the ranks of the military personnel who were carrying out Bush's mission. Thus Soros likened the conduct of American troops to that of communist and fascist thugs, asserting that “the picture of torture in Abu Ghraib” was proof that “the way President Bush conducted the war on terror converted us from victims into perpetrators.”194 Soros charged that not only had America “violated international law” by “invading Iraq … without a second UN Resolution,” but that it had “violated the Geneva Conventions” by “mistreating and even torturing prisoners.”195
On numerous occasions, Soros drew parallels between the Bush administration and some of history's most infamous totalitarian regimes. Bush's view that “there is only one model of democracy,” said Soros, was “as false, and potentially as dangerous, as that of the Communists’ belief that there is only one way to organize society.”196 Soros further likened Bush’s “Orwellian” assertion that “[y]ou can have freedom as long as you do what we tell you to do,” to Soviet rhetoric about “people’s democracies.”197 “When I hear President Bush say, 'You're either with us or against us,' it reminds me of the Germans,” Soros stated. “My experiences under Nazi and Soviet rule have sensitized me.”198 “Who would have thought sixty years ago,” asked Soros, “when Karl Popper wrote The Open Society and Its Enemies, that the United States itself could pose a threat to open society? Yet that is what is happening, both internally and internationally.”199
In a September 29, 2003 interview with BBC radio, Soros said it was imperative that there be “a regime change in the United States”—meaning that President Bush must be “voted out of power.”200 In November, Soros said that because “America, under Bush, is a danger to the world,” the outcome of the forthcoming year's presidential race had become “the central focus of my life.” “And I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is,” Soros added, declaring that he would willingly trade his entire multi-billion-dollar fortune if doing so could be “guaranteed” to unseat Bush.201 To his litany of grievances against the President, Soros now added the infamous Florida recount debacle of 2000 and called into question the very legitimacy of Bush's election victory. “President Bush came to office without a clear mandate,” said Soros. “He was elected president by a single vote on the Supreme Court.”202
The types of changes America needed were crystal clear to Soros. Above all else, he wished to steer the country, politically and ideologically, in a direction that was consistent with the agendas of the groups that he had been funding for a decade through his Open Society Foundations. Those agendas could essentially be distilled down to three overriding themes: the diminution of American power, the subjugation of American sovereignty in favor of global governance, and the implementation of redistributive economic policies—both within the U.S. and across national borders. Toward these ends, Soros saw “the forthcoming elections” as “an excellent opportunity to deflate the bubble of American supremacy.”203 He would employ his wealth and his ideological fervor to capitalize on this opportunity, knowing that the best time to implement radical change is during times of upheaval and crisis—i.e., times like the aftermath of 9/11. “Usually it takes a crisis to prompt a meaningful change in direction,” Soros himself had written in his 2000 book Open Society: Reforming Global Capitalism.204
SOROS'S PREVIOUS POLITICAL INTERVENTIONS AROUND THE WORLD
By no means was this the first time that Soros had aimed to engineer the fall of a government which he deemed oppressive. On several previous occasions, he had used his extraordinary wealth to bankroll popular movements seeking to undermine communist and authoritarian regimes in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Specifically, Soros had funded the training, organization and mobilization of many millions of demonstrators who took part in a series of bloodless political revolutions—commonly known as “velvet revolutions” or “color revolutions”205—that ultimately brought down governments in those regions. Typically, these mobilizations consisted of massive street rallies (sometimes with hundreds of thousands of participants) and carefully coordinated acts of civil disobedience such as sit-ins and general strikes. In several instances, such Soros-funded protesters challenged the results of popular elections and accused incumbent leaders of election fraud—charges which were then echoed by Soros-funded exit pollsters and Soros-funded media outlets, thereby greatly amplifying the effect of the accusations. A brief survey of Soros's most noteworthy foreign interventions will be useful at this point.
Soros helped bankroll “Charter 77,” a 1976 document demanding that the Czech government recognize some basic human rights—most notably the freedom to express religious beliefs or political opinions without fear of retributive discrimination—that were already guaranteed by the nation's constitution. This Charter and the political movement that grew from it ultimately culminated in the velvet revolution that brought down Czechoslovakia's Communist regime in late 1989.206
Soros funding played a critical role in promoting other upheavals in the former Soviet bloc as well. “My foundations,” boasts Soros, “contributed to Democratic regime change in Slovakia in 1998, Croatia in 1999, and Yugoslavia in 2000, mobilizing civil society to get rid of Vladimir Meciar, Franjo Tudjman, and Slobodan Milosevic, respectively.”207
Meciar, for his part, was a hardline nationalist whose authoritarian government—characterized by demagoguery, corruption, and hostility toward the Hungarian minority—brought instability and isolation to Slovakia in the mid-1990s.208 Croatian president Tudjman was likewise an autocrat infamous for his brutality, extreme nationalism, indifference to civil rights, and manipulation of electoral processes.209 And Milosevic, who served as president of Serbia and Yugoslavia in the 1990s, was an infamous architect of military aggression, war crimes, and ethnic cleansing.210 British journalist Neil Clark reports that from 1991 to 2000, Soros and his Open Society Foundations methodically laid the groundwork for the movement that ultimately led to Milosevic's resignation, “channel[ing] more than $100m to the coffers of the anti-Milosevic opposition, funding political parties, publishing houses and ‘independent’ media...”211 In a 1996 speech, Croatian President Franjo Tudjman offered a profound insight into how Soros typically injected his influence into the political workings of a given nation by patiently and systematically infiltrating strategic organizations and governmental agencies:
“[Soros and his allies] have spread their tentacles throughout the whole of our society. Soros … had approval to … gather and distribute humanitarian aid.… However, we … allowed them to do almost whatever they wanted.… They have involved in their network … people of all ages and classes … trying to win them over by financial aid.… [Their aim is] control of all spheres of life … setting up a state within a state.…”212Soros also funded Soviet Georgia's “Rose Revolution,”213 a popular movement that forced Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze to resign in November 2003.214 According to Canada's Globe and Mail, in February of that year Soros “began laying the brick work for the toppling” of Shevardnadze. “That month, funds from his Open Society Foundations sent a … [Georgian] activist … to Serbia to meet with members of the [resistance] movement and learn how they used street demonstrations to topple dictator Slobodan Milosevic.”215 That summer, Soros brought some of those Serbian activists to Georgia to train student activists there. Meanwhile, a Soros-funded television station aired weekly broadcasts of the documentary Bringing Down a Dictator, which presented a step-by-step account of the overthrow of Milosevic and played a crucial role in training Georgian insurgents.216 In the autumn months, Soros spent some $42 million preparing the overthrow movement to mobilize. Then, in mid-November, large-scale anti-government demonstrations spread like wildfire in most of Georgia's major cities. Shevardnadze, able to read the proverbial writing on the wall, resigned within a matter of days.217 Soros later told the Los Angeles Times, “I'm delighted by what happened in Georgia, and I take great pride in having contributed to it.”218 In November 2003, the editor of an English-language daily based in Georgia said, “It's generally accepted public opinion here that Mr. Soros is the person who planned Shevardnadze's overthrow.”219 Notably, some people who worked for Soros' organizations—including two of the Open Society Georgia Foundation's former executive directors—later assumed influential positions in the new Georgian government.220
Soros thereafter would go on to fund the “Orange Revolution,” a series of protests and political events that took place in Ukraine from late November 2004 to January 2005, ultimately forcing Moscow's favored candidate, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, to lose a controversial and hotly contested presidential election.221 Also in early 2005, Soros helped finance the “Tulip Revolution”—a massive protest movement that led to the overthrow of President Askar Akayev and his government in the Central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan.222
NEW TARGET FOR "REGIME CHANGE": AMERICA
But right now, in 2003-04, Soros's primary focus was on the United States, whose government he considered to be at least as dangerous and oppressive as those of the aforementioned communist and authoritarian regimes. “I believe deeply in the values of an open society,” Soros said. “For the past 15 years I have focused my energies on fighting for these values abroad. Now I am doing it in the United States.”223 Asserting that he could “do a lot more about the issues I care about by changing the government than by pushing the issues,”224 Soros set out to “puncture the bubble of American supremacy.”225 To accomplish this, he would create a political apparatus of extraordinary influence.
Soros had quietly laid the groundwork for this apparatus during the preceding eight years. Between 1994 and 2002, the billionaire had spent millions of dollars promoting the passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act—better known as the McCain-Feingold Act 226—which was signed into law in November 2002 by President Bush. Soros began working on this issue shortly after the 1994 midterm elections, when for the first time in nearly half a century, Republicans won strong majorities in both houses of Congress. Political analysts at the time attributed the huge Republican gains in large part to the effectiveness of television advertising—most notably the “Harry and Louise” series (which cost $14 million to produce and air) where a fictional suburban couple exposed the many hidden, and distasteful, details of Hillary Clinton's proposals for a more socialized national health-care system. Indeed the 1994 election became, to a considerable degree, a referendum on this attempted government takeover of one-sixth of the U.S. economy—and on the Democratic President who had tacitly endorsed it. George Soros was angry that such advertisements were capable of overriding the influence of the major print and broadcast news media, which, because they were overwhelmingly sympathetic to Democrat agendas, had given Hillary's plan a great deal of free, positive publicity for months. Three weeks after the 1994 elections, Soros announced that he intended to “do something” about “the distortion of our electoral process by the excessive use of TV advertising.”227 That “something” would be campaign-finance reform.
Starting in 1994, Soros's Open Society Foundations and a few other leftist foundations began bankrolling front groups and so-called “experts” whose aim was to persuade Congress to swallow the fiction that millions of Americans were clamoring for “campaign-finance reform.” This deceptive strategy was the brainchild of Sean Treglia, a former program officer with the Pew Charitable Trusts.228 Between 1994 and 2004, some $140 million of foundation cash was used to promote campaign-finance reform. Nearly 90 percent of this amount derived from just eight foundations, one of which was the Open Society Foundations, which contributed $12.6 million to the cause.229 Among the major recipients of these OSF funds were such pro-reform organizations as the Alliance For Better Campaigns ($650,000); the Brennan Center for Justice (more than $3.3 million); the Center For Public Integrity ($1.7 million); the Center For Responsive Politics ($75,000); Common Cause ($625,000); Democracy 21 ($300,000); Public Campaign ($1.3 million); and Public Citizen ($275,000).230
The "research" which these groups produced in order to make a case on behalf of campaign-finance reform was largely bogus and contrived. For instance, Brennan Center political scientist Jonathan Krasno had clearly admitted in his February 19, 1999 grant proposal to the Pew Charitable Trusts that the purpose of the proposed study was political, not scholarly, and that the project would be axed if it failed to yield the desired results:
"The purpose of our acquiring the data set is not simply to advance knowledge for its own sake, but to fuel a continuous multi-faceted campaign to propel campaign reform forward. Whether we proceed to phase two will depend on the judgment of whether the data provide a sufficiently powerful boost to the reform movement."The stated purpose of McCain-Feingold was to purge politics of corruption by: (a) putting restrictions on paid advertising during the weeks just prior to political elections, and (b) tightly regulating the amount of money that political parties and candidates could accept from donors. Vis à vis the former of those two provisions, the new legislation barred private organizations—including unions, corporations, and citizen activist groups—from advertising for or against any candidate for federal office on television or radio during the 60 days preceding an election, and during the 30 days preceding a primary. During these blackout periods, only official political parties would be permitted to engage in “express advocacy” advertising—i.e., political ads that expressly urged voters to “vote for” or “vote against” a specified candidate. Equally important, major media networks were exempted from McCain-Feingold's constraints; thus they were free to speak about candidates in any manner they wished during their regular programming and news broadcasts. This would inevitably be a positive development for Democrats, who enjoyed the near-universal support of America's leading media outlets.231
In addition to its limits on pre-election political advertising, McCain-Feingold also placed onerous new restrictions on the types of donations which candidates, parties, and political action committees (PACs) could now accept. Previously, they had been permitted to take two types of contributions. One of these was “hard money,” which referred to funds earmarked for the purpose of express advocacy. Federal Election Commission (FEC) regulations stipulated that in a single calendar year, no hard-money donor could give more than $1,000 to any particular candidate, no more than $5,000 to a PAC, and no more than $20,000 to any political party.232
The other category of pre-McCain-Feingold donations was “soft-money,” which donors were permitted to give directly to a political party in amounts unlimited by law. But to qualify for designation as “soft money,” a donation could not be used to fund “express advocacy” ads on behalf of any particular candidate. Rather, it had to be used to pay for such things as “voter-education” ads or “issue-oriented” ads—political messages that carefully refrained from making explicit calls to “vote for” or “vote against” any specific candidate. So long as an ad steered clear of uttering such forbidden instructions, there was no limit as to how much soft money could be spent on its production and dissemination.
McCain-Feingold raised the per-donor maximum for certain hard-money donations: A donor could now give up to $2,000 to a candidate, $5,000 to a PAC, and $25,000 to a political party.233 But the new law banned soft-money contributions to political parties altogether.
Historically, Republicans had enjoyed a 2-1 advantage over Democrats in raising hard money from individual donors. Democrats had relied much more heavily on soft money from large institutions such as labor unions.234 Thus it seems counter-intuitive that Soros, who clearly favored Democrats over Republicans, would seek to push legislation whose net effect—the removal of soft money—would be unfavorable to Democratic Party fundraising efforts.
But Soros's motive becomes clear when we look at the types of organizations whose fundraising activities were left unaffected by McCain-Feingold. These were “527 committees”—nonprofits named after Section 527 of the IRS code—which, unlike ordinary PACS, were not required to register with the FEC. Run mostly by special-interest groups, these 527s were technically supposed to be independent of, and unaffiliated with, any party or candidate. As such, they were permitted to raise soft money—in amounts unbound by any legal limits—for all manner of political activities other than express advocacy. That is, so long as a 527's soft money was not being used to pay for ads explicitly urging people to cast their ballots either for or against any particular candidate, the letter of the McCain-Feingold law technically was being followed. Practically speaking, of course, such things as “issue-oriented ads” and “voter-education” ads can easily be tailored to favor one party or candidate over another, while carefully steering clear of “express advocacy.”
Once McCain-Feingold was in place, Soros and his political allies collaborated to set up a network of “527 committees” ready to receive the soft money that individual donors and big labor unions normally would have given directly to the Democratic Party. These 527s could then use that money to fund issue-oriented ads, voter-education initiatives, get-out-the-vote drives, and other “party-building” activities—not only to help elect Democratic candidates in 2004, but more broadly to guide the Democratic Party ever-further leftward and to reject the “closed” society that Bush and the Republicans presumably favored. By helping to push McCain-Feingold through Congress, Soros had effectively cut off the Democrats' soft-money supply and diverted it to the coffers of an alternative network of beneficiaries—which he personally controlled.235 As Byron York observed, “[T]he new campaign finance rules had actually increased the influence of big money in politics. By giving directly to 'independent' groups rather than to the party itself, big-ticket donors could influence campaign strategy and tactics more directly than they ever had previously.... And the power was concentrated in very few hands”—most notably Soros's.236
SOROS'S "SHADOW PARTY" TAKES SHAPE
While Soros's 527s were clearly devoted to Democratic Party agendas and values, they publicly professed to be independent of any party affiliations. Their partisanship was somewhat shrouded in proverbial shadows. Gradually, a number of journalists began to make reference to the emergence of certain pro-Democrat “shadow organizations” that seemed geared toward circumventing McCain-Feingold's soft-money ban. In time, the term “Shadow Party” came into use.237
George Soros set in motion the wheels of this Shadow Party when he gathered a team of political strategists, activists, and Democrat donors at his Long Island beach house on July 17, 2003, to discuss how President Bush could be defeated in the 2004 election. Attendees included such luminaries as OSF director Morton Halperin; EMILY's List founder and abortion-rights activist Ellen Malcolm; former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta; Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope; labor leader and former Clinton advisor Steve Rosenthal; former Clinton speechwriters Jeremy Rosner and Robert Boorstin; and major Democrat donors such as Lewis and Dorothy Cullman, Robert Glaser, Peter Lewis, and Robert McKay.238
The consensus was that voter turnout—particularly in 17 “swing” or “battleground” states239—would be the key to unseating President Bush. Steve Rosenthal and Ellen Malcolm—CEO and president, respectively, of a newly formed but poorly funded voter-registration group called America Coming Together (ACT)240—suggested that voters in those swing states should be recruited and mobilized as soon as possible. Agreeing, Soros told the pair that he personally would give ACT $10 million to help maximize its effectiveness. A few other attendees also pledged to give the fledgling group large sums of money: Soros's billionaire friend Peter Lewis, chairman of the Progressive Corporation, promised to give $10 million; Robert Glaser, founder and CEO of RealNetworks, promised $2 million; Rob McKay, president of the McKay Family Foundation, committed $1 million; and benefactors Lewis and Dorothy Cullman pledged $500,000.241
By early 2004, the administrative core of George Soros's Shadow Party was in place. It consisted of seven ostensibly “independent” nonprofit groups—all but one of which were headquartered in Washington, DC. In a number of cases, these groups shared one another's finances, directors, and corporate officers; occasionally they even shared office space.242 The seven groups were:
1) America Coming Together (ACT): Jump-started by Soros's $10 million grant, ACT in 2004 ran what it called “the largest voter-contact program in history,” with more than 1,400 full-time paid canvassers contacting potential voters door-to-door and by phone.243
2) Center For American Progress (CAP): This entity was established to serve as a think tank promoting leftist ideas and policy initiatives. Soros, enthusiastic about the Center's potential, pledged in July 2003 to donate up to $3 million to help get the project off the ground.244 From the outset, CAP's leadership featured a host of former high-ranking officials from the Clinton administration.245 Hillary Clinton predicted that the organization would provide “some new intellectual capital” with which to “build the 21st-century policies that reflect the Democrat Party's values.”246 George Soros and Morton Halperin together selected former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta to serve as president of CAP. Podesta said his goal was to develop CAP as a “think tank on steroids,” featuring “a message-oriented war room” that “will send out a daily briefing to refute the positions and arguments of the right.”247
3) America Votes: This national coalition coordinated the efforts of many get-out-the-vote organizations and their thousands of contributing activists.248 Soros's support for America Votes would continue well past 2004. Indeed he would donate $2.15 million to this coalition in the 2006 election cycle,249 another $1.25 million in advance of the 2008 elections,250 and yet another $1.25 million in 2010.251
4) Media Fund: Describing itself as “the largest media-buying organization supporting a progressive message” in the United States, this group produced and strategically placed political ads in the print, broadcast, and electronic media.252
5) Joint Victory Campaign 2004 (JVC): This fundraising entity focused on collecting contributions and then disbursing them chiefly to America Coming Together and the Media Fund. In 2004 alone, JVC channeled $19.4 million to the former, and $38.4 million to the latter.253 Soros personally gave JVC more than $12 million that year.254
6) Thunder Road Group (TRG): This political consultancy coordinated strategy for the Media Fund, America Coming Together, and America Votes. Its duties included strategic planning, polling, opposition research, covert operations, and public relations.255
7) MoveOn.org: This California-based entity was the only one of the Shadow Party's core groups that was not a new startup operation. Launched in September 1998, MoveOn is a Web-based political network that organizes online activists around specific issues, raises money for Democratic candidates, generates political ads, and is very effective at recruiting young people to support Democrats.256 In November 2003, Soros pledged to give MoveOn $5 million to help its cause.257
According to Ellen Malcolm of America Coming Together (ACT), the financial commitment which Soros made to these Shadow Party groups in 2003 “was a signal to potential donors that he had looked at what was going on and that this was pretty exciting, and that he was going to stand behind it, and it was the real deal.”258 As Byron York observed, “After Soros signed on, contributions started pouring in.” ACT and the Media Fund alone took in some $200 million—including $20 million from Soros alone. This type of money was unprecedented in American politics.259
Harold Ickes, who served as White House deputy chief of staff in the Clinton White House, had a hand in creating every Shadow Party core group except MoveOn. He was also entrusted with the vital task of making these organizations function as a cohesive entity. In 2004, Democratic strategist Harold Wolfson suggested that outside of the official campaign of presidential candidate John Kerry, Ickes “is the most important person in the Democratic Party today.”260
In addition to its seven core members, the Shadow Party also came to include at least another 30 well-established leftwing activist groups and labor unions that participated in the America Votes coalition. Among the better-known of these were ACORN; the AFL-CIO; the AFSCME; the American Federation of Teachers; the Association of Trial Lawyers of America; the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund; EMILY's List; the Human Rights Campaign; the League of Conservation Voters; the NAACP; NARAL Pro-Choice America; the National Education Association; People for the American Way; Planned Parenthood; the Service Employees International Union; and the Sierra Club.261
New Mexico's then-governor, Democrat Bill Richardson, observed that “these groups” were “crucial” to the anti-Bush effort. “Now that campaign-finance reform is law,” he said, “organizations like these have become the replacement for the national Democratic Party.”262 And no donor was more heavily invested in these organizations—or in defeating President Bush—than George Soros, who contributed $27,080,105 to pro-Democrat 527s during the 2004 election cycle. The second leading donor was the billionaire insurance entrepreneur Peter Lewis ($23,997,220), followed by Hollywood producer Stephen Bing ($13,952,682) and Golden West Financial Corporation founders Herbert and Marion Sandler ($13,007,959).263
FAILURE AND RESILIENCY: BIRTH OF THE DEMOCRACY ALLIANCE
When President Bush won re-election in 2004, George Soros was devastated; his massive financial investments and herculean organizing efforts had all gone for naught. Adding insult to injury, the hated Republicans had retained control of both houses of Congress. As Soros contemplated what course of action he ought to pursue next, the answer came to him—somewhat unexpectedly—in the form of Democrat political operative Rob Stein, former chief of staff to Commerce Secretary Ron Brown during the Clinton administration. For the preceding two years, Stein had been busy devising a strategy by which Democrats might reclaim supremacy in the executive and legislative branches of government. He began working on this strategy shortly after the Republicans had gained eight House seats and two Senate seats in the 2002 midterm elections. Lamenting that he was “living in a one-party [Republican] country,”264 Stein at that point resolved to study the conservative movement and determine why it was winning the political battle. After a year of analysis, he concluded that a few influential, wealthy family foundations—most notably Scaife, Bradley, Olin, and Coors—had spearheaded the creation of a $300 million network of politically influential organizations. Stein featured these facts in a comprehensive PowerPoint presentation—titled “The Conservative Message Machine Money Matrix”—which mapped out, in painstaking detail, the conservative movement's networking strategies and funding sources.265
Next, Stein set out to show his presentation—mostly in private meetings—to political leaders, activists, and prospective big-money donors of the left. He hoped to inspire them to join his crusade to build a new organization—a financial clearinghouse to be called the Democracy Alliance (DA)—dedicated to offsetting the efforts of conservative funders and injecting new life into the progressive movement. At each presentation, Stein asked the viewer to pledge that he or she would keep confidential the substance of the proceedings, so as to give the project a chance to coalesce and gain some momentum without excessive public scrutiny.266
Stein officially filed DA's corporate registration in the District of Columbia in January 2005.267 By that point, he had shown his PowerPoint presentation to several hundred people.268 Stein recalls that during those sessions, he consistently observed “an unbelievable frustration” by big Democrat donors who felt hopelessly unconnected to one another even as they longed to be part of a strategic coalition that could work collaboratively and cohesively.269 This was particularly true of George Soros, thus it was most significant that Soros quickly and enthusiastically embraced Stein's concept. In April 2005, Soros brought together 70 likeminded, carefully vetted, fellow millionaires and billionaires in Phoenix, Arizona, to discuss Stein's ideas and expeditiously implement a plan of action.270 Most of those in attendance agreed that the conservative movement represented “a fundamental threat to the American way of life.”271 And, like Soros, a considerable number of them looked favorably on Stein's analysis and concept. Thus was born the Democracy Alliance.
DA members, called “partners,” include individuals and organizations alike. Partnership in the Alliance is by invitation-only.272 These partners pay an initial $25,000 fee, and $30,000 in yearly dues thereafter. They also must give at least $200,000 annually to groups which the Alliance endorses. Donors metaphorically “pour” these requisite donations into one or more of what Rob Stein refers to as DA's “four buckets” of fundraising: ideas, media, leadership training, and civic engagement. The money is then apportioned to approved left-wing groups from each respective category.273
The Democracy Alliance is known to consist of at least 100 donor-partners but historically has been quite secretive regarding their identities. Nevertheless, the Capital Research Center has managed to compile the names of some of the more significant current and former DA partners (in addition to George Soros and Rob Stein).274 A large percentage of them have significant ties to Soros that extend well beyond their shared membership in the Democracy Alliance. Among these partners are the following:
- AFL-CIO: This institutional DA partner is the largest labor federation in America and was a member of Soros's Shadow Party in 2004.
- Bauman Foundation co-director Patricia Bauman serves as a board member of the Soros-funded Natural Resources Defense Council.
- Property-development CEO Albert Dwoskin is the chairman of Catalist, a Soros-funded political consultancy.275
- Manhattan-based child psychologist Gail Furman belongs to the Council on Foreign Relations and is a board member of Human Rights First and the Brennan Center for Justice—all organizations that receive funding from George Soros and OSF.276
- Software entrepreneur Tim Gill is a major funder of gay-rights groups such as the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, which is also supported by Soros.277
- Technology entrepreneur Davidi Gilo has given at least $17,600 to J Street, an organization that is consistently critical of Israel and has close ties to Soros.278
- Media-software mogul Rob Glaser was an early backer of the Soros-funded America Coming Together.279
- “Racial justice organizer” Connie Cagampang Heller works closely with the Soros-funded Tides Foundation.280
- Hyatt Hotel luminary Rachel Pritzker Hunter has served as treasurer of the Soros-funded Media Matters For America.281
- Economist and former banking executive Rob Johnson once served as a portfolio manager for George Soros’s Quantum Fund.282
- Michael Kieschnick founded Working Assets, a long-distance telephone/credit card company that donates a percentage of its profits to leftist groups and causes.283 He is also a board member of the Soros-funded evangelical group Sojourners.284
- Longtime technology executive John Luongo is a former board member of Planned Parenthood and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington—both Soros-funded enterprises.285
- Atlantic Philanthropies president and CEO Gara LaMarche was formerly vice president of Soros's Open Society Foundations. He also served a stint as associate director of Human Rights Watch and held a variety of positions with the ACLU—both organizations that are heavily funded by Soros.286
- Television producer Norman Lear created the Soros-backed group, People for the American Way.
- Progressive Insurance Company chairman Peter Lewis has many close ties to Soros and was a major funder of the Shadow Party during the 2004 election cycle.287
- Taco Bell heir Robert McKay has been a founding board member of America Coming Together, a board member of the Ms. Foundation for Women, and a director of the Fund for America288—all of which are beneficiaries of Soros money.
- Tides Foundation founder and longtime CEO Drummond Pike has close ties to Soros, who is a major funder of Tides.
- Democrat activist Simon Rosenberg founded the New Policy Institute, a project of the Tides Foundation. He also sits on the board of the Soros-funded publication Democracy: A Journal of Ideas. And in 1996 he created the New Democrat Network, a Soros-financed organization committed to pushing the Democratic Party further leftward.289
- Golden West Financial Corporation founders Herb and Marion Sandler are philanthropic allies of George Soros and were heavy funders of Shadow Party organizations in 2004—giving some $13 million to anti-Bush “527 committees.”290
- Trial lawyer Guy Saperstein formerly served as president of the Soros-funded Sierra Club.291
- Service Employees International Union: The longtime former president of this union, Andrew Stern, sat on the executive committee of the Soros-funded America Coming Together.292
- George Soros's son Jonathan is president and co-deputy chairman of Soros Fund Management.
- DA board member Michael Vachon is the director of communications at Soros Fund Management and the overseer of Soros’s political contributions.293
- ACORN: DA founder Rob Stein has called this pro-socialist, notoriously corrupt “community organization” a “tough-minded” and “very responsible” group.300
- Air America Radio: When this left-leaning radio station was on the verge of bankruptcy in early 2006, it received a funding commitment of $8 million from DA.301
- America Votes: This voter-mobilization coalition has received at least $6 million in DA-approved funding commitments from George Soros.
- Center for American Progress: By January 2008, DA grants to this leftist think tank totaled at least $9 million—most of which came from George Soros, Peter Lewis, and the Sandlers.
- Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington: This Soros-funded group brings ethics charges against (mostly conservative) “government officials who … betray the public trust.”302
- Election Administration Fund: Housed at the Tides Foundation in San Francisco, this entity has received at least $2.5 million in DA money for its voter-registration and get-out-the-vote efforts—plus some $1 million from Soros's Open Society Foundations.
- EMILY’s List: This group raises money for Democratic, pro-choice, female candidates.303
- Media Matters For America: By January 2008, DA-approve grants to Media Matters totaled at least $7 million.
- Mi Familia Vota: This group seeks to naturalize new citizens and register them to vote.304
- New Organizing Fund: This group, which “train[s] prospective progressive campaign workers in online campaign and organizing techniques,” has accepted donations directly from DA members George Soros and Deborah Rappaport.305
- Progressive Majority: Working to help “promising progressive candidates” get elected to state and political offices, this group has received at least $5 million in DA grants.306
- United States Student Association: This group is “dedicated to training, organizing, and developing a base of student leaders” who will become “social justice” activists.307
- USAction: This group favors increased government spending on social-welfare programs and public education.308
Since approximately 2006, Democracy Alliance members and staff have been working to establish subchapters of their organization in all 50 states. Their most successful effort to date has been in Colorado, where the local DA has funded such varied enterprises as liberal think tanks, media “watchdog” groups, ethics groups that bring forth so-called public-interest litigation, voter-mobilization groups, media outlets that attack conservatives, and liberal leadership-training centers. The results have been striking: Whereas in 1998 Colorado had a Republican governor, two Republican U.S. senators, and four Republican House members (out of six), by 2009 the state had a Democratic governor, two Democratic U.S. Senators, and five Democratic House members (out of seven).310
RADICALIZING AMERICA, ONE STATE AT A TIME: “PLAN” AND THE SECRETARY OF STATE PROJECT
In August 2005, when the Democracy Alliance was just getting off the ground, George Soros's Open Society Foundations helped establish yet another new organization—the Progressive Legislative Action Network, or PLAN. Furnishing state legislatures with prewritten “model” legislation reflecting leftist agendas, this group was part and parcel of Soros's methodical campaign to shift American politics and public attitudes toward the left—by gaining a foothold inside the corridors of power on a state-by-state basis.311
Then, in July 2006, Democracy Alliance partner Michael Kieschnick collaborated with Becky Bond (who also had affiliations with the New Organizing Institute and Working Assets) and James Rucker (who co-founded Color of Change and formerly served as director of grassroots mobilization for MoveOn.org Political Action and Moveon.org Civic Action) to launch a major new initiative called the Secretary of State Project (SoSP). This “527 committee” was devoted to helping Democrats win secretary-of-state elections in crucial “swing” states—i.e., states where the margin of victory in the 2004 presidential election had been 120,000 votes or less.312 One of the principal duties of the secretary of state is to serve as the chief election officer who certifies candidates as well as election results in his or her state.313 The holder of this office, then, can potentially play a key role in determining the winner of a close election. Numerous Democracy Alliance partners became funders of SoSP. Soros was one of them. In 2008, for instance, he personally gave $10,000 to the Project.314
SOROS HELPS CREATE TWO NEW PRO-DEMOCRAT GROUPS
Just two months after the Democratic Party had won control of both houses of Congress in the November 2006 elections, George Soros and then-SEIU president Andrew Stern created Working For Us (WFU), a pro-Democrat PAC. This group does not, however, look favorably upon Democratic centrists. Rather, it aims “to elect lawmakers who support a progressive political agenda.” Originally proposed by Stern as a way to prevent moderate Democrats from gaining too much influence over the party, WFU publishes the names of what it calls the “Top Offenders” among congressional Democrats who fail to support such leftist priorities as “living wage” legislation, the proliferation of public-sector labor unions, and the provision of government-funded healthcare for all Americans. Targeting congressional Democrats whose “voting records are more conservative than their districts,” WFU warns that “no bad vote will be overlooked or unpunished.”315
In an effort to promote large-scale income redistribution by means of tax hikes for higher earners, WFU advocates policies that would narrow the economic gulf between the rich and poor. The group's executive director is Steven Rosenthal, a longtime Democrat operative with close ties to the Clinton administration and a co-founder of Soros's America Coming Together. According to Rosenthal, WFU “will encourage Democrats to act like Democrats—and if they don't—they better get out of the way.”316
In November 2007, Soros joined fellow Democracy Alliance members Anna Burger and Rob McKay, as well as John Podesta of the Center for American Progress, to help form the Fund for America (FFA), a “527 committee” designed to work on what Roll Call characterized as “media buys and voter outreach in the run-up to the 2008 elections.” The leading early donors to FFA were Soros ($3.5 million), the SEIU ($2.5 million), Hollywood producer Stephen Bing ($2.5 million), and hedge fund executive Donald Sussman ($1 million). But when FFA failed to meet its overall fundraising goals by early 2008, DA donors cut off their contributions and the group was disbanded in June. Among the organizations it had bankrolled before shutting its doors were America Votes, Americans United for Change, ACORN, and the Center for American Progress Action Fund.317
Meanwhile, Soros's regard for President Bush remained as low as ever. “Indeed,” wrote Soros in 2006, “the Bush administration has been able to improve on the techniques used by the Nazi and Communist propaganda machines by drawing on the innovations of the advertising and marketing industries.”318 Soros would elaborate on this theme at the January 2007 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he told reporters: “America needs to ... go through a certain de-Nazification process.”319
SOROS AND OBAMA: QUIET PARTNERSHIP AND SHARED AGENDAS
While George Soros was busy bankrolling his battalion of established activist groups and launching a few new ones of his own, he quite naturally looked toward the upcoming presidential election of 2008 with great anticipation, eagerly awaiting the day when George W. Bush would finally leave office. The question was, who would replace him? In recent years, all indications had been that Soros favored Hillary Clinton above most, if not all, other potential Democratic candidates for President. But now there was a new face on the scene—a young, charismatic U.S. senator from Illinois named Barack Obama—who seemed not only to share virtually all of Soros's values and agendas, but also appeared to be a highly skilled politician who stood a good chance of getting elected to the nation's highest office.
In December of 2006, Soros, who had previously hosted a fundraiser for Obama during the latter's 2004 Senate campaign, met with Obama in Soros's New York office. Just a few weeks later—on January 16, 2007—Obama announced that he would form a presidential exploratory committee and was contemplating a run for the White House. Within hours, Soros sent the senator a contribution of $2,100, the maximum amount allowable under campaign-finance laws. Later that week, the New York Daily News reported that Soros would support Obama rather than Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, though Soros pledged to back the New York senator were she to emerge as the nominee.320 But it was clear that Soros considered Obama to be the more electable candidate of the two. Most importantly, Obama's economic and political prescriptions for America were wholly accordant with those of Soros.
For an in-depth look at the shared agendas of Soros and Obama, click here.
SOROS PURSUES A NEW 'ECONOMIC PARADIGM"
In January 2009, Anatole Kaletsky—a Times of London economics writer who opposed the “noninterventionist model of capitalism” and favored deficit spending and “stimulus packages” as bulwarks against economic depression—discussed with George Soros “the unique opportunity to reshape economics in the wake of the financial crisis.” Eight months later, Soros assembled 25 economists, financiers, and journalists in Bedford, New York to brainstorm the idea. This “Bedford Summit” resulted in a “unanimous agreement that our economic paradigm must change,” and a “recognition of the importance of empowering the young generation of economists to rethink” the field of economics. Toward that end, the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) was created as a nonprofit foundation in October 2009; its initial funding came from a $50 million pledge by Soros's Open Society Foundations.
SOROS AND THE ARAB SPRING
The so-called “Arab Spring,” which began in late 2010, was a momentous series of popular uprisings that swept—in rapid succession and with varying degrees of intensity and effect—through a host of countries in the Middle East and North Africa: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen. By February 2011, Tunisian president Zine al-Abedine Ben Ali had stepped down after 22 years in power, and Egyptian president Hosni Mubarek had abdicated after 30 years. For the most part, the Western media—and the American left in particular—promoted the notion that the events in the Arab world were organic eruptions of rebellion launched spontaneously by oppressed populations who would no longer tolerate political tyranny and economic deprivation, and who longed to quench their own thirst for freedom and democracy.
Over time, it would become apparent that however strong the popular support for the Arab uprisings may have been, the hidden hand of an Islamist movement was also at work in fomenting and sustaining the revolts. This reality was driven home dramatically in the political events that took place where regimes had fallen. In post-Mubarak Egypt, this meant the rising influence of the Muslim Brotherhood—the ideological forebear of both al Qaeda and Hamas, and the spearhead of a movement aiming to establish a worldwide Islamic caliphate (or kingdom) ruled by strict Islamic Law (Sharia). And in Tunisia, the first free elections following the longstanding regime of President Zine al-Abedine Ben Ali resulted in the triumph of the al-Nahda party, an Islamist movement which had opposed, sometimes violently, the existing regime. In short, the Arab Spring evolved into a Muslim Winter.
Notwithstanding these developments, Soros in late 2011 said: "A lot of positive things are happening. I see Africa together with the Arab Spring as areas of progress. The Arab Spring was a revolutionary development."
SOROS AND OCCUPY WALL STREET
In the fall of 2011, Soros denied any connection to the anti-capitalist Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement which was then in high gear, though he said: “I can understand their sentiment.” An October 2011 Reuters report noted that from 2007-09, Soros’ Open Society Foundations had given grants totaling $3.5 million to the Tides Center, which in turn gave more than $309,000 to the Adbusters Media Foundation -- a key organizer of OWS -- between 2001 and 2011. Aides to Soros, however, claimed that the billionaire had never before heard of Adbusters.
SOROS SEEKS TO UNSEAT REP. ALLEN WEST (FLORIDA)
In July 2012, it was reported that Soros was among a group of donors who had already pledged their financial support for "Dump West," a Democratic Super-PAC that planned to raise at least $5 million for the purpose of defeating conservative black Republican Allen West's bid for reelection to the House of Representatives. A key player in"Dump West" was national Democratic operative Charles Halloran, a former aide to President Bill Clinton. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi asked lobbyist Larry Smith (a former U.S. congressman) to help line up initial funding for the Super-PAC.
SOROS GIVES MONEY TO HELP NAACP FIGHT VOTER ID LAWS
In March 2013, Soros pledged to give, through his Open Society Foundations, $1 million to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. This was the largest grant that organization had received from a named donor in recent decades. The purpose of the grant was to help the NAACP fight challenges to the Voting Rights Act and oppose the implementation of Voter ID laws. In a statement, Soros said: “We need bold and courageous civil rights strategies if we are to achieve racial equality in this country.”
SUPPORTING HILLARY CLINTON
In October 2013, Soros signed on to co-chair the national finance council of Ready For Hillary, a political action committee established nine months earlier to lead a nationwide grassroots movement encouraging Hillary Clinton to run for U.S. President in 2016. “George Soros is delighted to join more than one million Americans in supporting Ready For Hillary,” said Soros’s political director, Michael Vachon. “His support for Ready For Hillary is an extension of his long-held belief in the power of grassroots organizing.”
SUPPORTING BILL DE BLASIO
In August 2013 Soros endorsed Bill de Blasio for Mayor of New York City, and he contributed the legal limit of $4,950 to de Blasio's campaign. Soros also gave financial support to Talking Transition, a two-week project launched in early November 2013—immediately after de Blasio's election victory—to "help shape" the latter's "transition" to City Hall. Soros’ relationship with the mayor-elect actually dated back to 2011, when the billionaire had given $400,000 to de Blasio’s Coalition for Accountability in Political Spending.
SUPPORTING GROUPS THAT HELPED LEAD & PROMOTE THE ANTI-POLICE PROTESTS OF 2014 (IN FERGUSON, MISSOURI, ETC.)
In 2014, two separate white-police-vs.-black-suspect altercations that resulted in the deaths of the blacks involved became the focal points of a massive, nationwide protest movement alleging that white officers were routinely targeting African Americans with racial profiling and the unjustified use of force:
(a) On July 17, 2014, a 43-year-old African American named Eric Garner died in Staten Island, New York, after having resisted several white police officers' efforts to arrest him for illegally selling “loosies,” single cigarettes from packs without tax stamps. One of the officers at the scene put his arms around the much taller Garner's neck and took him down to the ground with a headlock/chokehold. While he was being subdued, Garner reportedly told the officers a number of times, "I can't breathe." A black NYPD sergeant supervised the entire altercation and never ordered that officer to release the hold. Garner subsequently suffered cardiac arrest in an ambulance that was taking him to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead approximately an hour after the initial altercation. City medical examiners later concluded that he had died as a result of an interplay between the police officer’s hold and Garner’s multiple chronic infirmities, which included bronchial asthma, heart disease, obesity, and hypertensive cardiovascular disease. "I Can't Breathe" became a popular slogan of demonstrators who later protested Garner's death in rallies across the United States.
(b) On August 9, 2014, a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri shot and killed an 18-year-old black male named Michael Brown in an altercation that occurred just minutes after Brown had perpetrated a strong-armed robbery of a local convenience store. Brown's death set off a massive wave of protests and riots in Ferguson, and eventually grew into a national movement denouncing an alleged epidemic of police brutality against African Americans. The protesters claimed, falsely: (a) that Brown had been shot in the back while fleeing from the officer, and (b) that Brown at one point had raised his hands in the air submissively in an attempt to surrender but was shot anyway. Thus, "Hands Up, Don't Shoot" became a popular slogan of the demonstrators who later protested Brown's death. When compelling ballistic, eyewitness, and forensic evidence eventually (in late October 2014) indicated that Brown in fact had assaulted the officer and had tried to steal his gun just prior to the fatal shooting, the protesters' outrage over the incident was undiminished. A grand jury announced on November 24, 2014 that it would not indict the officer who had shot Brown -- because of overwhelming evidence indicating that the shooting was done in self-defense. This announcement, too, touched off protests and riots.
Through his Open Society Foundations, Soros in 2014 gave at least $33 million to support already-established groups that, as The Washington Times
puts it, "emboldened the grass-roots, on-the-ground activists in
Ferguson" and helped lead the anti-polce protests. "The financial tether
from Mr. Soros to the activist groups gave rise to a combustible
protest movement that transformed a one-day criminal event in Missouri
into a 24-hour-a-day national cause celebre," says the Times.
Among these activist organizations funded by Soros were the Advancement Project, the Center for Community Change, Colorlines, the Don't Shoot Coalition, the Dream Defenders, the Drug Policy Alliance, Equal Justice USA, the Gamaliel Foundation, the Hands Up Coalition, Make the Road New York, Millennial Activists United, Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (the rebranded Missouri branch of ACORN), the Organization for Black Struggle, PICO, and the Samuel Dewitt Proctor Conference (where Jeremiah Wright was a trustee), the SEIU, national LGBT organizations, climate environmentalists, amnesty groups, pro-Palestinian organizations, and Christian social justice groups.
"The plethora of organizations involved," explains The Washington Times, not only shared Mr. Soros' funding, but they also fed off each other, using content and buzzwords developed by one organization on another's website, referencing each other's news columns and by creating a social media echo chamber of Facebook 'likes' and Twitter hashtags that dominated the mainstream media and personal online newsfeeds."
SOROS AGAIN FIGHTS VOTER ID LAWS
In June 2015, the New York Times reported that "a Democratic legal fight against restrictive voting laws enacted in recent years [since 2010] by Republican-controlled state governments is being largely paid for by a single liberal benefactor: the billionaire philanthropist George Soros." Indeed, Soros had already agreed to contribute as much as $5 million to that litigation effort, whose major objectives were to: (a) discredit and overturn Voter ID laws in as many states as possible; (b) eliminate or loosen time restrictions imposed on early voting (prior to Election Day); and (c) change election rules that could nullify ballots cast in the wrong precinct. The attorney spearheading this initiative was Marc Elias, who also served as a lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Describing himself as “proud” to be part of the legal battles, Soros said: “We hope to see these unfair laws, which often disproportionately affect the most vulnerable in our society, repealed.” At the time, Soros was supporting a lawsuit that had been filed the previous year in North Carolina, as well as suits that had been filed in Ohio and in Wisconsin in May 2015.
SOROS SUPPORTS MASS MIGRATION OF MIDDLE EASTERNERS INTO EUROPE
In October 2015—while hundreds of thousands of Middle Easterners were flooding into Europe as “refugees”—Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban warned that this mass influx of foreign Muslims was endangering Europe’s “Christian roots” and creating “parallel societies.” Asserting that Europeans should “stick to our Christian values,” he stated that “Europe can be saved” only if its leaders “take seriously the traditions, the Christian roots and all the values that are the basis of the civilization of Europe.” Moreover, Orban accused Soros—whose charitable foundations support numerous pro-immigration non-governmental organizations (NGOs)—of deliberately encouraging the migrant crisis. “This invasion is driven, on the one hand, by people smugglers, and on the other by those (human rights) activists who support everything that weakens the nation-state,” Orban said. “This Western mindset and this activist network is perhaps best represented by George Soros.”
In response, Soros issued an email statement to Bloomberg Business, claiming that his foundations helped “uphold European values” while Orban (according to Soros) aimed to “undermine those values.” “His [Orban's] plan treats the protection of national borders as the objective and the refugees as an obstacle," said Soros. "Our plan treats the protection of refugees as the objective and national borders as the obstacle.”
EMAIL LEAK REVEALS SOROS'S SUPPORT FOR ANTI-ISRAEL, PRO-ISLAMIST GROUPS
On August 13, 2016, an anonymously-run website (dcleaks.com) released more than 2,500 confidential files from Soros's Open Society Foundations (OSF), containing evidence of
funding that OSF had given to anti-Israel and pro-Islamist
organizations. Among the leaked files was an OSF internal memo from 2011
titled "Extreme Polarization and Breakdown in Civic Discourse," which lamented America's rising "xenophobia and intolerance," and discussed a $200,000 grant that OSF had awarded to the Center for American Progress (CAP)
to "research and track the activities" of groups (like the Middle East
Forum) which contend that radical Islam poses a grave threat to America.
Later in 2011, CAP published a 138-page report, Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America,
whose stated objective was to “expose—and marginalize—the influence of”
the “sinister,” “hateful,” “purposively deceptive,” “bigoted,” and
“racist” individuals and groups that, according to CAP, are part of an
“Islamophobia network in America.” These include
what CAP describes as “misinformation experts,” “anti-Muslim bigots,”
“political players,” “right-wing media,” “religious right” zealots, and
“radical ideologues” who intentionally “mischaracteriz[e] Islam,”
“peddl[e] hate and fear of Muslims,” and “rav[e]” about the “overhyped
dangers” of Sharia Law, so as to “fan the flames of Islamophobia.”Among these activist organizations funded by Soros were the Advancement Project, the Center for Community Change, Colorlines, the Don't Shoot Coalition, the Dream Defenders, the Drug Policy Alliance, Equal Justice USA, the Gamaliel Foundation, the Hands Up Coalition, Make the Road New York, Millennial Activists United, Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (the rebranded Missouri branch of ACORN), the Organization for Black Struggle, PICO, and the Samuel Dewitt Proctor Conference (where Jeremiah Wright was a trustee), the SEIU, national LGBT organizations, climate environmentalists, amnesty groups, pro-Palestinian organizations, and Christian social justice groups.
"The plethora of organizations involved," explains The Washington Times, not only shared Mr. Soros' funding, but they also fed off each other, using content and buzzwords developed by one organization on another's website, referencing each other's news columns and by creating a social media echo chamber of Facebook 'likes' and Twitter hashtags that dominated the mainstream media and personal online newsfeeds."
SOROS AGAIN FIGHTS VOTER ID LAWS
In June 2015, the New York Times reported that "a Democratic legal fight against restrictive voting laws enacted in recent years [since 2010] by Republican-controlled state governments is being largely paid for by a single liberal benefactor: the billionaire philanthropist George Soros." Indeed, Soros had already agreed to contribute as much as $5 million to that litigation effort, whose major objectives were to: (a) discredit and overturn Voter ID laws in as many states as possible; (b) eliminate or loosen time restrictions imposed on early voting (prior to Election Day); and (c) change election rules that could nullify ballots cast in the wrong precinct. The attorney spearheading this initiative was Marc Elias, who also served as a lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Describing himself as “proud” to be part of the legal battles, Soros said: “We hope to see these unfair laws, which often disproportionately affect the most vulnerable in our society, repealed.” At the time, Soros was supporting a lawsuit that had been filed the previous year in North Carolina, as well as suits that had been filed in Ohio and in Wisconsin in May 2015.
SOROS SUPPORTS MASS MIGRATION OF MIDDLE EASTERNERS INTO EUROPE
In October 2015—while hundreds of thousands of Middle Easterners were flooding into Europe as “refugees”—Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban warned that this mass influx of foreign Muslims was endangering Europe’s “Christian roots” and creating “parallel societies.” Asserting that Europeans should “stick to our Christian values,” he stated that “Europe can be saved” only if its leaders “take seriously the traditions, the Christian roots and all the values that are the basis of the civilization of Europe.” Moreover, Orban accused Soros—whose charitable foundations support numerous pro-immigration non-governmental organizations (NGOs)—of deliberately encouraging the migrant crisis. “This invasion is driven, on the one hand, by people smugglers, and on the other by those (human rights) activists who support everything that weakens the nation-state,” Orban said. “This Western mindset and this activist network is perhaps best represented by George Soros.”
In response, Soros issued an email statement to Bloomberg Business, claiming that his foundations helped “uphold European values” while Orban (according to Soros) aimed to “undermine those values.” “His [Orban's] plan treats the protection of national borders as the objective and the refugees as an obstacle," said Soros. "Our plan treats the protection of refugees as the objective and national borders as the obstacle.”
EMAIL LEAK REVEALS SOROS'S SUPPORT FOR ANTI-ISRAEL, PRO-ISLAMIST GROUPS
EMAIL LEAK REVEALS SOROS'S SUPPORT FOR OPEN BORDERS AND HIS DESIRE TO INFLUENCE FOREIGN POLITICS
Another OSF email made public (in August 2016) by dcleaks.com asserted that the refugee crisis which was causing countless thousands of people from war- and terrorism-ravaged nations in the Middle East and North Africa to relocate to Europe and the United States, should be accepted as “the new normal.” Entitled "Migration Governance and Enforcement Portfolio Review," this memo was written by Anna Crowley, the Program Officer of OSF’s International Migration Initiative, and Kate Rosin, a Program Specialist for the same initiative. These authors wrote how the refugee crisis was not only “opening new opportunities” for "coordination and collaboration" with other wealthy donors, and they praised efforts to “take advantage of momentum created by the current crisis to shape conversations about rethinking migration governance.” They had in mind “institutional reforms to global migration governance.” To that end, their International Migration Initiative helped fund the work of the Columbia Global Policy Initiative, host of the secretariat for Peter Sutherland, the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative on International Migration. (Sutherland is an open-borders fundamentalist who, at a reception held on October 22, 2015 to honor the 70th anniversary of the United Nations, claimed that caps on refugees enforced by certain countries in Europe were “directly reminiscent of the type of caps that took place under the Reich [against] the Jewish population.” In an October 2015 interview with UN News Centre, Sutherland derided the very notion of national sovereignty, saying that governments must “recognize that sovereignty is an illusion ... that has to be put behind us," and that "the days of hiding behind borders and fences are long gone.") Crowley and Rosin praised the “elite-level behind-the-scenes advocacy through Peter Sutherland,” which they believed would influence the outcome of the September 2016 summits on migrants and refugees at the United Nations, one of which was to be led by President Obama.
Yet another leaked memo made it clear that Soros’s group was considering using journalists to push out the narrative on Ukraine that Soros wanted in support of the Kiev regime. It discussed the pros and cons of offering selected journalists “long stay reporting trips in Ukraine” while retaining “a veto on stories we think are counterproductive.” Other leaked documents revealed that Soros, behind the scenes, was simultaneously pushing for the U.S. to provide more lethal weapons to the Kiev government while offering to use his influence to help prop up the country’s finances.
In one draft memo, which Soros signed “George Soros–A self-appointed advocate of the new Ukraine, March 12, 2015,” Soros advocated that “Ukraine’s allies should treat Ukraine as a defense priority.” He also pushed for a “radical reform program,” offering very specific political and economic prescriptions, backed by “the Ukrainian branch of the Soros Foundations.” This Ukrainian branch, known as the Renaissance Foundation, was reportedly paying headhunters to find suitable individuals to work in the Ukrainian government, even if they came from Ukrainian communities as far away as the U.S. and Canada. Soros’s foundation may also have been helping to pay the salaries of some Ukrainian ministers.
Soros was also looking for the U.S. and the European Union to help bail out Ukraine’s financial system. In a letter dated December 23, 2014 to Ukraine’s president and prime minister, Soros discussed the need to pull together a multibillion dollar commitment from the European Council, which could then be used to persuade the Federal Reserve to extend a three-month swap arrangement with the National Bank of Ukraine. “I am ready to call Jack Lew of the US Treasury to sound him out about the swap agreement,” Soros wrote.
In the meantime, Soros was making sure that he would be in a position to profit from a more stabilized Ukraine. In November 2015, it was announced that Soros’s Ukrainian Redevelopment Fund would be investing in a fund sponsored by Dragon Capital to invest in Ukraine. Through that vehicle, Soros’s Ukrainian Redevelopment Fund invested in Ukrainian software developer Ciklum Holding Ltd. It acquired the stake from Horizon Capital, an investment firm founded by Natalie Jaresko, who was serving at the time as Ukraine's finance minister. Jaresko was a U.S. citizen of Ukrainian descent who had once worked in the U.S. State Department. She became a Ukrainian citizen in December 2014, the same time she became finance minister.
Finally, to bring things around full circle, some leaked emails revealed that Soros saw an opportunity for Ukraine to help the European Union alleviate its refugee crisis by taking in some of the refugees in return for financial aid.
EMAIL LEAK REVEALS SOROS'S DESIRE TO REGULATE THE INTERNET IN A MANNER THAT FAVORED HIS POLITICAL AGENDAS
On August 29, 2016, the The Daily Caller reported: "An internal proposed strategy from George Soros’s Open Society Justice Initiative calls for international regulation of private actors’ decisions on 'what information is taken off the Internet and what may remain.' Those regulations, the document notes, should favor 'those most supportive of open society.'" According to the OSF website, "The Open Society Justice Initiative uses law to protect and empower people around the world, supporting the values and work of the Open Society Foundations." The proposal cited by The Daily Caller was part of a 34-page document titled "2014 Proposed strategy," which spelled out the Initiative's goals for 2014-17.
SOROS PLAYS KEY ROLE IN SUPPORTING "WOMEN'S MARCH ON WASHINGTON"
Soros played a significant role in funding the “Women’s March on Washington” which was held on January 21, 2017 to protest the agendas and policies of the newly elected president, Donald Trump. News outlets like the Guardian characterized the event as a “spontaneous” action for women’s rights, while Vox spoke of a “huge, spontaneous groundswell” behind the demonstration. But in fact, the Women's March was organized and led by a large coalition of leftist groups, many of which have, at various times, received funding from Soros. Former Georgetown University journalism professor and Wall Street Journal reporter Asra Q. Nomani calculated that some 420+ groups were identifiable as "partners" of the Women's March, and that Soros has funded, or had cultivated "close relationships" with, at least 64 of them. The Women's March "partners" that had previously received grants through Soros's Open Society Foundations and its related philanthropies -- or that were otherwise allied with Soros and his foundations -- included the following:
9 to 5 National Asociation of Working Women; A. Philip Randolph Institute; ACCESS Michigan; Advancement Project; AFL-CIO; American Civil Liberties Union; American Constitution Society; American Federation of Teachers; American Jewish World Services; America's Voice; Amnesty International; Arab American Association of New York; Asian Americans Advancing Justice; Bend The Arc; Breakthrough; Catholics for Choice; Center for American Progress; Center for Constitutional Rights; Center for Reproductive Rights; Color of Change; Communities United for Police Reform; Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance; Demos; Economic Policy Institute; EMILY's List; Every Voice; Gathering for Justice; Green for All; Human Rights Campaign; Human Rights Watch; Interfaith Center of New York; International Women's Health Coalition; Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights; League of Women Voters; Make the Road New York; MoveOn; MPower Change; NAACP; NARAL Pro-Choice America Fund; National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum; National Council of Jewish Women; National Council of La Raza; National Domestic Workers Alliance; National Education Association; National Network for Arab American Communities; National Partnership for Women and Families; Natural Resources Defense Council; PEN America; Planned Parenthood; Presente.org; Psychologists for Social Responsibility; Public Citizen; SEIU; South Asian Americans Leading Together; Southern Poverty Law Center; United We Dream; Voter Participation Center; and Women for Afghan Women.
SOROS'S EFFORT TO INSTALL DEMOCRATIC ATTORNEYS GENERAL
In November 2017, journalist Matthew Vadum reported the following:
George Soros’s push to radically reshape the judiciary and elect extremist district attorneys across the country to weaken law enforcement and protect lawless sanctuary cities is bearing fruit.
Soros has been pouring money into local elections because he supports local efforts to resist U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and wants to cripple police in order to advance the neo-Marxist abstraction known as social justice that simplistically breaks the world down into race, class, and sex or gender....
Soros wants prosecutors to empty prisons and coddle the prisoners who remain, scale back drug prosecutions, lower bail, and eliminate alleged racial disparities in sentencing, among other things.
Getting people who share Soros’s worldview into public office at every level is key to promoting his ugly vision of how America, which he calls “the main obstacle to a stable and just world order,” should look.
Soros’s backing helped elect radical leftist Lawrence (Larry) Krasner (D) as Philadelphia DA this month. Krasner, who quipped that his track record as a civil rights lawyer made him "completely unelectable," somehow managed to best seven other candidates in the primary election.
“Krasner, who has represented Occupy Philadelphia and Black Lives Matter, and has sued the police department more than 75 times, had a major fundraising advantage that was provided almost exclusively by Soros,” the indispensable Joe Schoffstall reported at the Washington Free Beacon.
On the campaign trail, Krasner promised never to seek the death penalty in any criminal case and to keep Philadelphia a lawless sanctuary city. A segment of his platform titled “Resist the Trump Administration” spelled out his plan to “protect immigrants,” “reject the drug war,” and “stand up to police misconduct.”
“As District Attorney, he will work to maintain Philadelphia as a ‘sanctuary city’ and protect the Fourth Amendment rights of all residents, cooperating with federal authorities only to the degree required by law,” according to his campaign website.
“Because legal proceedings can affect the status of immigrants and therefore relations between communities and law enforcement, Larry will take those effects into account when making prosecutorial decisions and setting prosecutorial policy. He will oppose renewal of ICE’s access to the PARS database, a city police database used by ICE to identify ‘deportable’ immigrants.”
In April, Soros gave $1.45 million to the Philadelphia Justice and Public Safety PAC, which was created to support Krasner and listed its address as the Democrat law firm Perkins Coie in the nation’s capital. Soros threw another $214,000 the super PAC’s way in May, bringing his pro-Krasner donations to $1.7 million, “an unusual[ly] high [amount] for the average district attorney race.” It was also the first time a PAC had ever backed a candidate for Philly DA....
The Soros modus operandi is the same in almost every locality, Schoffstall observes. “The financier will establish political action committees, pour money into local races, then turn around and shut them down once the election is over.”
Last year Soros bankrolled the Texas Safety and Justice PAC and threw his support behind Morris Overstreet in the Democrat primary for district attorney in Harris County, Texas, which includes Houston.
When Overstreet, a former judge who was the first black elected to statewide office in Texas since Reconstruction, lost to Kim Ogg, a white woman, Soros put his money on Ogg. Soros associates developed her television ads, and with $878,000 from Soros’s custom-made PAC, she took out the GOP office-holder, Devon Anderson, in the general election.
As a Daily Signal article almost a year ago stated: “On Jan. 1, Ogg will begin to try fulfilling the vision she ran on, promising a 'significant culture change' defined by taking a more lenient approach to marijuana possession cases, focusing tax dollars on punishing violent criminals, and making it easier for defendants to get out of jail on bond in a county where 70 percent of inmates cannot afford to free themselves before trial.”
According to a Daily Signal analysis, in the 2016 election cycle Soros shelled out almost $11 million in 12 DA races. Democrat candidates backed by Soros ended up winning in 10 of those dozen contests. Soros has also funded district attorney candidates in Florida, Illinois, Mississippi, Louisiana, and New Mexico.
SOROS TRANSFERS $18 BILLION TO HIS FOUNDATIONS
In October 2017, it was reported that over the preceding few years, Soros had quietly transferred $18 billion of his $24.6 billion in personal assets to OSF, thereby making OSF the second-largest U.S.-based philanthropy (behind only the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation).
NOTES:
1 http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/17/news/george-soros-18-billion-open-society-foundations/index.html
2 http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aEmPzbHtLcUc; http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/47/47147.html; http://mdmandp.com/blog/tag/soros-fund-management-llc/
3 George Soros, The Alchemy of Finance (1994 edition), p. 362
4 George Soros, Underwriting Democracy, p. 3
5 http://www.newswithviews.com/Kincaid/cliff367.htm; http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/george-soross-evangelicals
6 “The Billionaire Who Built on Chaos – George Soros (The Independent: June 3, 1993)
7 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,602163,00.html
8 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4635465
9 Faisal Islam, “Rich Man, Wise Man” (Observer: March 10, 2002)
10 Anthony Gottlieb, “Who Wants To Be A Billionaire?” (The New York Times: March 3, 2002)
11 Michael T. Kaufman, Soros: The Life And Times Of A Messianic Billionaire, 2002, p. 293
12 http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,986919,00.html
13 “The Mind of George Soros; Meet the Esperanto Enthusiast Who Wants to Save the World from President Bush” (The Wall Street Journal: March 2, 2004)
14 Connie Bruck, “The World According to Soros” (The New Yorker: January 23, 1995); Peter Schweizer, Do As I Say (2005), p. 157.
15 http://sweetness-light.com/archive/george-soros-on-helping-the-nazis-during-the-holocaust
16 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,602163,00.html#ixzz19pFJsPwd; Michael Lewis, “The Speculator,” New Republic (January 10-17, 1994).
17 George Soros, Underwriting Democracy (1991), p. 170.
18 http://www.undueinfluence.com/george_soros.htm
19David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), p. 67
20 Nicola Chalton, ed., The Philosophers (2008), p. 159.
21 David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), pp. 67-69; The Philosophers, pp. 158-159; George Soros, Soros on Soros (1995), p. 33.
22George Soros, The Bubble of American Supremacy (2004), p. 193
23 George Soros, The Alchemy of Finance (1994 edition), p. 13; George Soros, Soros on Soros (1995), p. 39.
24 Michael T. Kaufman, Soros: The Life And Times Of A Messianic Billionaire (2002), p. 83
25 http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/biography/S-Z/Soros-George-1930.html
26 http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2000/08/meyerson.htm ; David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), pp. 84-85
27 Michael T. Kaufman, Soros: The Life And Times Of A Messianic Billionaire (2002), p. 180.
28 http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/history2/85/Soros-Fund-Management-Llc.html; Peter Schweizer, Do As I Say (2005), p. 157.
29 http://www.soros.org/about
30 George Soros, The Bubble of American Supremacy (2004), p. 136
31 http://www.soros.org/about/timeline
32 Connie Bruck, “The World According to Soros” (The New Yorker: January 23, 1995)
33 http://www.soros.org/about
34 George Soros, Open Society: Reforming Global Capitalism (2000), p. 120
35 http://www.soros.org/about/bios/staff/aryeh-neier
36 http://www.theacru.org/VadumACLU.pdf
37 http://www.aclu.org/national-security/aclu-slams-draft-dhs-regulations-real-id-says-delay-fails-address-privacy-and-civi ; http://www.theacru.org/VadumACLU.pdf
38 http://www.aclu.org/immigrants-rights ; http://www.aclu.org/immigrants-rights/about-aclus-immigrants-rights-project
39 http://www.americanjusticepartnership.com/pdf/Justice_Hijacked_Report.pdf
40 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6258
41 http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/resources/transcripts/5424.html
42 This figure derives from OSF's IRS Forms 990 for the years 2000-2008.
43 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/07/george-soros-100-million-human-rights-watch
44 http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/HRW.html
45 http://dynamodata.fdncenter.org//990pf_pdf_archive/137/137029285/137029285_200812_990PF.pdf
46 http://www.aaiusa.org/issues/civil-rights-and-civil-liberties/
47 http://www.bordc.org/list.php
48 http://www.maldef.org/about/mission/index.html
49 http://www.lawyerscommittee.org/about?id=0001
50 http://naacpldf.org/about-ldf
51 http://www.nclr.org/index.php/issues_and_programs/
52 http://www.sentencingproject.org/template/page.cfm?id=2
53 http://www.criticalresistance.org/article.php?list=type&type=5
54 http://www.civilrights.org/criminal-justice/
55 http://www.communitychange.org/who-we-are/who-we-are
56 http://www.gamaliel.org/OurWork/TrainingLeaders.aspx
57 http://ruckus.org/section.php?id=71
58 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7581
59 http://institute.ourfuture.org/about-iaf
60 http://www.pfaw.org/rww-in-focus/texas-textbooks-what-happened-what-it-means-and-what-we-can-do-about-it ; http://www.pfaw.org/about-us/our-mission-and-vision
61 http://www.democracyforamerica.com/training
62 Stanley Kurtz, Radical In Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism (2010). (The Midwest Academy received $10,000 from OSF in 1997.)
63 http://zcommunications.org/neoliberalism-comes-unglued-by-mark-weisbrot
64 http://www.cbpp.org/about/
65 http://www.ellabakercenter.org/page.php?pageid=19&contentid=151
66 Maria Puente, “Philanthropist Pledges $50M For Immigrants,” USA Today (October 1, 1996)
67 http://healthcareforamericanow.org/site/content/statement_of_common_purpose
68 http://healthcareforamericanow.org/site/content/about_us/
69 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/30/us/politics/30dems.html; http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/health-care/george-soros-pledges-5-million-to-bankroll-health-care-reform-push-group-says/; http://nation.foxnews.com/george-soros/2009/08/11/soros-gives-5-million-liberal-health-care-group; http://www.newsmax.com/LowellPonte/obama-pelosi-acorn/2009/12/12/id/341854
70 http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1225223330.pdf
71 http://catalist.us/aboutus.html
72 http://www.brennancenter.org/content/section/category/racial_justice/ ; http://www.americanjusticepartnership.com/pdf/Justice_Hijacked_Report.pdf (The Brennan Center received $12 million from OSF from 1999-2008.)
73 http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/07/12/john-lott-senator-al-franken-minnesota-felons-democrat/
74 http://www.progressivestates.org/press/psn_in_the_news?page=6 (PSN was formerly known as the Progressive Action Legislative Network.)
75 http://boldprogressives.org/mission ; http://www.opensecrets.org/527s/527cmtedetail_donors.php?ein=263881408&cycle=2010
76 http://www.prospect.org/cs/about_tap/our_mission
77 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,590506,00.html
78 http://researchguides.library.wisc.edu/content.php?pid=58376&sid=427399
79 http://www.alternet.org/about/ ; http://researchguides.library.wisc.edu/content.php?pid=58376&sid=427399
80 http://www.nationinstitute.org/p/about_us
81 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpZZGTGVePE (OSF poured millions of dollars into the coffers of MoveOn.org, the Center for American Progress, and Democracy Alliance – Soros-funded operations which then funneled some of that money to Media Matters.)
82 http://mediamatters.org/p/about_us/
83 http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/soros-donates-1-million-to-media-matters/
84 http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1204311857.pdf
85 http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1293869054.pdf
86 http://www.afj.org/about-afj/afj-vision-statement.html
87 http://americanconstitutionsociety.blogspot.com/
88 http://www.acslaw.org/about ; http://www.americanconstitutionsociety.org/taxonomy/term/202?page=2
89 http://www.americanjusticepartnership.com/pdf/Justice_Hijacked_Report.pdf ; (This organization received $2.815 million from OSF during 2006-2008.)
90 http://www.americanjusticepartnership.com/pdf/Justice_Hijacked_Report.pdf
91 http://www.catholicsinalliance.org/aboutus.html
92 http://www.examiner.com/political-transcripts-in-national/president-s-spiritual-advisor-obama-feels-he-hasn-t-had-a-chance-video?render=print (Sojourners received $325,000 from OSF during 2004-2007.)
93 http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/08/soros_has_a_pastor_close_to_ob.html
94 http://www.piconetwork.org/about?id=0003
95 http://www.catholicsforchoice.org/topics/abortion/default.asp
96 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6991
97 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7616
98 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6927
99 http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/just-facts/papers-please-eliminating-birthright-citizenship-would-affect-everyone
100 http://www.casademaryland.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=743&Itemid=126%20
101http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/guides/Open%20Borders%20Lobby.pdf
102http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6502
103 http://latinojustice.org/about/history/
104 http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/docs/Solutions_Paper_032310.pdf
105 http://www.immigrationforum.org/policy/update-display/update-the-results-of-the-elections-and-immigration-in-the-112th-congress/
106 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/guides/Open%20Borders%20Lobby.pdf
107 http://spectator.org/archives/2009/11/13/a-constitutional-right-to-publ/1
108 http://ccrjustice.org/illegal-detentions-and-guantanamo
109 http://archive.frontpagemag.com/Printable.aspx?ArtId=21594
110 http://www.constitutionproject.org/manage/file/190.pdf
111 http://old.nationalreview.com/york/york200502170843.asp
112 http://humanrightshouse.org/Articles/5545.html
113 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0526-03.htm
114 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/may/26/usa.guantanamo
115 Robert Patterson, War Crimes: The Left's Campaign to Destroy Our Military and Lose the War on Terror (2007), p. 181.
116 http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/10/aid_and_comfort_how_leading_de.html
117 http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=17849
118 http://afsc.org/project/shaping-just-federal-budget
119 http://www.gsinstitute.org/archives/000020.shtml
120 http://www.tides.org/about-us/history/index.html
121 Jim Freer, “George Soros,” Latin Trade (October 1998); Peter Schweitzer, Do As I Say (2005), p. 167.
122 Gene Marcial, “A Bright Gleam on Apex,” Business Week (June 14, 2004)
123 http://www.spectacle.org/1200/moratorium.html
124 http://feminist.org/welcome/index.html
125 http://ms.foundation.org/about_us
126 http://www.nationalpartnership.org/site/PageServer?pagename=issues_fairness_fairpay
127 http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=33197
128 http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2004/apr/25/20040425-112025-9831r/
129 George Soros, The Crisis of Global Capitalism (2000), p. xxix
130 http://www.unfoundation.org/press-center/press-releases/2010/un-foundation-and-una-usa-announce-alliance.html
131 http://www.iccnow.org/?mod=supporters
132 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9900E3D91730F934A35756C0A9649C8B63
133 George Soros, “A Look At … The Drug War Debate,” The Washington Post (February 2, 1997)
134 George Soros, Soros on Soros (1995)
135 http://www.drugpolicy.org/global/ungass/letter/
136 Joseph A. Califano Jr., “Devious Efforts To Legalize Drugs,” The Washington Post (December 4, 1996)
137 http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/x3770435801.pdf
138 http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/x3770435801.pdf ; http://www.drugpolicy.org/about/
139 http://www.drugpolicy.org/about/keystaff/boardofdirec/
140 http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/11/04/soros-sponsored-candidates-ballot-initiatives-election-day/
141 Peter Schweizer, Do As I Say (2005), p. 169.
142 http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/x3770435801.pdf
143 http://www.soros.org/resources/articles_publications/publications/report_20041122/a_complete.pdf
144 David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), p. 135
145 http://www.deathwithdignity.org/aboutus/
146 http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/x3770435801.pdf
147 http://www.americanjusticepartnership.com/pdf/Justice_Hijacked_Report.pdf
148 http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1217524969.pdf
149 http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/04/20/phil-kerpen-john-paulson-goldman-sachs-center-responsible-lending/
150 David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), pp. 89-90
151 Connie Bruck, “The World According to Soros” (The New Yorker: January 23, 1995)
152 David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), pp. 91-93
153 http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/02/george_soros_and_the_alchemy_o.html
154 http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/02/george_soros_and_the_alchemy_o.html
155 David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), pp. 93-94
156 http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/02/george_soros_and_the_alchemy_o.html
157 http://www.richardpoe.com/2005/05/11/remembering-russiagate/
158 http://www.richardpoe.com/2005/05/11/remembering-russiagate/
159 Interview with George Soros, The Charlie Rose Show, PBS (November 30, 1995)
160 David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), p. 55
161 David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), p. 54
162 David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), pp. 53-54
163 Byron York, The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy (2005), p. 69; George Soros, The Bubble of American Supremacy (2004), p. 42.
164 George Soros, The Crisis of Global Capitalism (1998), pp. 168, 179
165 David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), p. 222
166 George Soros, The Bubble of American Supremacy (2004), p. 94
167 http://www.soros.org/resources/articles_publications/articles/americanprospect_20030527
168 George Soros, The Bubble of American Supremacy (2004), p. 123
169 George Soros, The Bubble of American Supremacy (2004), p. 30
170 George Soros, George Soros on Globalization (2002), p. xi
171 George Soros, George Soros on Globalization (2002), p. 155
172 http://edition.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/01/29/bush.speech.txt/
173 http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=20711
174 These documents were intended to discredit America's war effort as both immoral and unwinnable.
175 David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), p. 24
176 James L. Tyson, Target America (Chicago: Regnery Gateway, 1981), pp. 2, 200
177 David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), p. 11. (Interview with George Soros by Andrew Stevens, “The N.E.W. Show,” CNN (September 19, 2001).
178 George Soros, The Bubble Of American Supremacy (2004), p. 18
179 Byron York, The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy (2005)
180 Greg Pierce, “Inside Politics,” The Washington Times (March 3, 2003)
181 George Soros, “Bush’s Inflated Sense Of Supremacy,” Financial Times (March 13, 2003)
182 http://www.independent.ie/world-news/americas/billionaire-fronts-75m-push-to-oust-bush-208127.html; Thomas Hargrove, “Financier Donates $10M To Defeat Bush,” The Record [Bergen, NJ] (August 10, 2003)
183 “Soros Calls For ‘Regime Change’ In US,” BBC News Website September 30, 2003); http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/04/02/int04012.html
184 George Soros, “Bush’s Inflated Sense Of Supremacy,” Financial Times (March 13, 2003)
185 George Soros, The Bubble Of American Supremacy (2004), p. 12
186 George Soros, The Bubble Of American Supremacy (2004), pp. viii, 10
187 George Soros, The Bubble Of American Supremacy (2004), pp. 12-13
188 George Soros, The Bubble Of American Supremacy (2004), p. 10
189 George Soros, The Bubble Of American Supremacy (2004), p. 4
190 George Soros, The Bubble Of American Supremacy (2004), p. 26; http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=106x3136
191 Mark Gimein, “George Soros Is Mad As Hell,” Fortune (October 27, 2003)
192 George Soros, The Bubble Of American Supremacy (2004), pp. 26, 53
193 George Soros, The Bubble Of American Supremacy (2004), p. 53
194 http://old.nationalreview.com/york/york200406031106.asp; http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=4247
195 George Soros, Remarks At National Press Club (Washington, DC: September 28, 2004)
196 Bernard Besserglik, “Soros Cuts Open Society Aid To Russia, Targets US,” Agence France Presse (June 9, 2003)
197 Mark Gimein, “George Soros Is Mad As Hell,” Fortune (October 27, 2003); http://www.pbs.org/wsw/news/fortunearticle_20031013_02.html
198 Laura Blumenfeld, “Soros’s Deep Pockets vs. Bush,” The Washington Post (November 11, 2003)
199 George Soros, The Bubble Of American Supremacy (2004), p. 13
200 Greg Pierce, “Inside Politics,” The Washington Times (October 1, 2003)
201 Laura Blumenfeld, “Soros’s Deep Pockets vs. Bush,” The Washington Post (November 11, 2003)
202 George Soros, The Bubble Of American Supremacy (2004), p. 9
203 George Soros, The Bubble Of American Supremacy (2004), p. 74)
204 George Soros, Open Society: Reforming Global Capitalism (2000), p. 337
205 The term was derived from the fact that the movements designated specific colors or flowers as their symbols.
206 http://frontpagemag.com/2010/07/06/kgb-yesterday-today-and-tomorrow-2/
207 George Soros, The Bubble Of American Supremacy (2004), p. 132
208 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3636033.stm ; http://www.slovakia.org/history-summary.htm
209 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/294990.stm
210 http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/europe/2000/milosevic_yugoslavia/croatia.stm ; http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/europe/2000/milosevic_yugoslavia/bosnia.stm ; http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5388.htm#history
211 Neil Clark, “NS Profile—George Soros,” New Statesman (June 2, 2003)
212 “President Tudjman Criticizes Foreign Inyerference in Croatia's Media,” BBC (December 11, 1996)
213 In this case and a few others, the rebels identified themselves with a color or a flower.
214 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3257047.stm
215 Mark MacKinnon, “Georgia Revolt Carried Mark of Soros,” Globe and Mail (November 26, 2003)
216 Franklin Foer, “Regime Change, Inc.: Peter Ackerman's Quest to Topple Tyranny,” New Republic (April 25, 2005); David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), pp. 236-237
217 http://www.keywiki.org/index.php/George_Soros
218 David Holley, “Soros Invests in His Democratic Passion: The Billionaire's Open Society Institute Network Is Focusing on Central Asia Now,” Los Angeles Times (July 5, 2004)
219 http://www.boston.com/ae/media/articles/2003/12/02/putting_tons_of_money_where_his_mouth_is/?mode
220 http://www.keywiki.org/index.php/George_Soros
221 http://www.time.com/time/europe/html/041206/story.html
222 http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2005/mar/26/20050326-103550-7473r/
223 Thomas B. Edsall, “Liberals Form Fund to Defeat President: Aim Is to Spend $75 Million for 2004,” Washington Post (August 8, 2003)
224 Mark Gimein, “George Soros Is Mad As Hell,” Fortune (October 27, 2003)
225 http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/19648
226 Laura Blumenfeld, “Soros’s Deep Pockets vs. Bush,” The Washington Post (November 11, 2003)
227 David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), pp. 131-136
228 http://www.richardpoe.com/2005/03/25/pewgate-the-battle-of-the-blogosphere/ ; Ryan Sager, “Buying 'Reform': Media Missed Millionaires' Scam,” New York Post (March 17, 2005)
229 http://www.richardpoe.com/2005/03/25/pewgate-the-battle-of-the-blogosphere/ ; Ryan Sager, “Buying 'Reform': Media Missed Millionaires' Scam,” New York Post (March 17, 2005). (The other seven major contributors were the Pew Charitable Trusts ($40.1 million); the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy ($17.6 million); the Carnegie Corporation of New York ($14.1 million); the Joyce Foundation ($13.5 million); the Jerome Kohlberg Trust ($11.3 million); the Ford Foundation ($8.8 million); and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation ($5.2 million).
230 Byron York, “The Soros Agenda: Free Speech for Billionaires Only,” Wall Street Journal (January 3, 2004); Byron York, “Democrats Throw The Spirit Of Reform Out The Window,” The Hill (November 5, 2003); Byron York, The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy (2005), p. 62.
231 http://www.mrc.org/static/biasbasics/MediaBias101.aspx
232 http://www.fec.gov/press/bkgnd/bcra_overview.shtml
233 http://www.fec.gov/press/bkgnd/bcra_overview.shtml ; David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), pp. 175-176
234 David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), p. 176
235 Republicans, meanwhile, did not build any comparable network of independent fundraising nonprofits to circumvent McCain-Feingold – probably because they historically had been successful at raising hard money.
236 Byron York, The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy (2005), p. 8
237 Richard Poe, “The Shadow Party: History, Goals, and Activities” (http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/Articles/theshadowpartypoe2004.html)
238 http://www.richardpoe.com/2005/10/06/part-1-the-shadow-party/
239 http://www.richardpoe.com/2005/10/06/part-1-the-shadow-party/ (These 17 states were: Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.)
240 http://www.richardpoe.com/2005/10/06/part-1-the-shadow-party/
241 Laura Blumenfeld, “Soros’s Deep Pockets vs. Bush,” The Washington Post (November 11, 2003)
242 David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), p. 182
243 David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), pp. 196-198
244 Laura Blumenfeld, “Soros’s Deep Pockets vs. Bush,” The Washington Post (November 11, 2003)
245 David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), p. 189. (Among these were Clinton's national security speechwriter Robert Boorstin; former head of Clinton's National Economic Council, Gene Sperling; and former senior advisor to Clinton's Office of Management and Budget, Matt Miller.)
246 Matt Bai, “Notion Building,” New York Times Magazine (October12, 2003)
247 http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_American_Progress
248 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6527
249 http://www.opensecrets.org/527s/527cmtedetail_donors.php?ein=204359961&cycle=2006
250 http://www.opensecrets.org/527s/527cmtedetail_donors.php?cycle=2008&ein=204359961
251 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/30/us/politics/30dems.html
252 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6712
253 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/funderprofile.asp?fndid=5342&category=79
254 http://www.opensecrets.org/527s/lookup.php?cycle=2010&donor=george%20soros&page=1
255 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6713
256 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6201
257 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2003/11/11/55615/610
258 Byron York, The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy (2005), p. 61
259 Byron York, The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy (2005), pp. 86-87.
260 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1624 ; Michael Crowley, “Shadow Warriors,” New York Magazine (August 12, 2004).
261 David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (2006), pp. 193-194
262 Jeffrey H. Birnbaum, “The New Soft Money,” Fortune (October 27, 2003)
263 Byron York, The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy (2005), p. 8
264 http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?print=yes&id=8738
265 http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?print=yes&id=8738
266 http://www.capitalresearch.org/news/news.html?id=551%20
267 http://www.capitalresearch.org/news/news.html?id=551 ; http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1198857554.pdf
268 (By August 2005, Stein had shown his PowerPoint presentation to more than 700 key people in private meetings.) http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?print=yes&id=8738
269 http://www.hudson.org/files/pdf_upload/Transcript_2006_11_30.pdf
270 http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/15/fundraiser-seeks-cash-for-his-own-war-chest/print/; http://www.capitalresearch.org/news/news.html?id=551%20. Among the attendees were former Clinton White House aides Mike McCurry and Sidney Blumenthal, and Schumann Center president Bill Moyers.
271 http://www.capitalresearch.org/news/news.html?id=551%20
272 http://www.democracyalliance.org/membership%20 ; http://www.capitalresearch.org/news/news.html?id=551%20
273 http://www.capitalresearch.org/news/news.html?id=551%20
274 http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1228145204.pdf ; http://www.capitalresearch.org/news/news.html?id=551%20
275 http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Albert_J._Dwoskin
276 http://www.capitalresearch.org/news/news.html?id=551%20
277 http://www.gillfoundation.org/about/tim-gill/
278 http://www.campaignmoney.com/political/contributions/davidi-gilo.asp?cycle=08 ; http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7458 ;
279 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2494 ; http://news.cnet.com/Reals-Glaser-named-Air-America-chairman/2110-1025_3-5484133.html
280 http://womendonors.org/bio/view/circle/1/26
281 http://www.undueinfluence.com/media-matters-for-america.htm ; http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/1369
282 http://www.confabb.com/users/profile/rjohnson
283 http://www.WorkingAssets.com/About.aspx
284 http://www.newpolitics.net/node/185
285 http://www.lightspeedvp.com/TeamMember.aspx?m=24
286 http://www.atlanticphilanthropies.org/bio/gara-lamarche
287 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2003
288 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2495 ; http://motherjones.com/authors/robert-mckay ; http://forms.irs.gov/politicalOrgsSearch/search/Print.action?formId=28999&formType=E71 ;
289 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2389
290 http://www.capitalresearch.org/news/news.html?id=551
291 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/guy-t-saperstein
292 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6535
293 http://www.buyingofthepresident.org/index.php/interviews/michael_vachon/
294 http://www.capitalresearch.org/news/news.html?id=551%20
295 http://www.capitalresearch.org/news/news.html?id=551%20 ; http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1228145204.pdf
296 http://www.capitalresearch.org/news/news.html?id=551%20 ; http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1228145204.pdf
297 http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1228145204.pdf
298 http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1228145204.pdf
299 http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1228145204.pdf ; http://www.capitalresearch.org/news/news.html?id=551%20; Unless otherwise specified, information about DA grants made to these entities was furnished by the Capital Research Center.
300 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6968 ; http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1228145204.pdf
301 http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=18899
302 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7309
303 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6344
304 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7538
305 http://www.campaignmoney.com/political/527/new_organizing_fund.asp
306 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6489
307 http://www.usstudents.org/who-we-are
308 http://www.usaction.org/site/pp.asp.103.html
309 http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1228145204.pdf ; http://www.capitalresearch.org/news/news.html?id=551%20
310 http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1228145204.pdf (Note: In the 2010 congressional elections, when Republicans captured more than 60 House seats, two of Colorado's Democratic House members lost to Republicans.)
311 Louis Jacobson, “New Organization to Push Liberal Measures,” Roll Call (June 23, 2005)
312 http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1228145204.pdf
313 http://www.azsos.gov/info/duties.htm
314 http://forms.irs.gov/politicalOrgsSearch/search/Print.action?formId=32217&formType=E72
315 http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7342
316 http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x3176510
317 http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1228145204.pdf
318 http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=29359
319 http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2007/01/27/george-soros-backs-obama-but-hedges-his-bets/
320 http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_43/b4055047.htm
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Organizations Funded Directly by George Soros and his Open Society Foundations
By Discover The Networks
Organizations that, in recent years, have received direct funding and assistance from George Soros and his Open Society Foundations (OSF) include the following. (Comprehensive profiles of each are available in the "Groups" section of DiscoverTheNetworks.org):
- Advancement Project: This organization works to organize "communities of color" into politically cohesive units while disseminating its leftist worldviews and values as broadly as possible by way of a sophisticated communications department.
- Air America Radio: Now defunct, this was a self-identified "liberal" radio network.
- Al-Haq: This NGO produces highly politicized reports, papers, books, and legal analyses regarding alleged Israeli human-rights abuses committed against Palestinians.
- All of Us or None: This organization seeks to change voting laws -- which vary from state to state -- so as to allow ex-inmates, parolees, and even current inmates to cast their ballots in political elections.
- Alliance for Justice: Best known for its activism vis a vis the appointment of federal judges, this group consistently depicts Republican judicial nominees as "extremists."
- America Coming Together: Soros played a major role in creating this group, whose purpose was to coordinate and organize pro-Democrat voter-mobilization programs.
- America Votes: Soros also played a major role in creating this group, whose get-out-the-vote campaigns targeted likely Democratic voters.
- America's Voice: This open-borders group seeks to promote “comprehensive” immigration reform that includes a robust agenda in favor of amnesty for illegal aliens.
- American Bar Association Commission on Immigration Policy: This organization "opposes laws that require employers and persons providing education, health care, or other social services to verify citizenship or immigration status."
- American Bridge 21st Century: This Super PAC conducts opposition research designed to help Democratic political candidates defeat their Republican foes.
- American Civil Liberties Union: This group opposes virtually all post-9/11 national security measures enacted by the U.S. government. It supports open borders, has rushed to the defense of suspected terrorists and their abettors, and appointed former New Left terrorist Bernardine Dohrn to its Advisory Board.
- American Constitution Society for Law and Policy: This Washington, DC-based think tank seeks to move American jurisprudence to the left by recruiting, indoctrinating, and mobilizing young law students, helping them acquire positions of power. It also provides leftist Democrats with a bully pulpit from which to denounce their political adversaries.
- American Family Voices: This group creates and coordinates media campaigns charging Republicans with wrongdoing.
- American Federation of Teachers: After longtime AFT President Albert Shanker died in in 1997, he was succeeded by Sandra Feldman, who slowly “re-branded” the union, allying it with some of the most powerful left-wing elements of the New Labor Movement. When Feldman died in 2004, Edward McElroy took her place, followed by Randi Weingarten in 2008. All of them kept the union on the leftward course it had adopted in its post-Shanker period.
- American Friends Service Committee: This group views the United States as the principal cause of human suffering around the world. As such, it favors America's unilateral disarmament, the dissolution of American borders, amnesty for illegal aliens, the abolition of the death penalty, and the repeal of the Patriot Act.
- American Immigration Council: This non-profit organization is a prominent member of the open-borders lobby. It advocates expanded rights and amnesty for illegal aliens residing in the U.S.
- American Immigration Law Foundation: This group supports amnesty for illegal aliens, on whose behalf it litigates against the U.S. government.
- American Independent News Network: This organization promotes "impact journalism" that advocates progressive change.
- American Institute for Social Justice: AISJ's goal is to produce skilled community organizers who can “transform poor communities” by agitating for increased government spending on city services, drug interdiction, crime prevention, housing, public-sector jobs, access to healthcare, and public schools.
- American Library Association: This group has been an outspoken critic of the Bush administration's War on Terror -- most particularly, Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, which it calls "a present danger to the constitutional rights and privacy rights of library users."
- The American Prospect, Inc.: This corporation trains and mentors young leftwing journalists, and organizes strategy meetings for leftist leaders.
- Amnesty International: This organization directs a grossly disproportionate share of its criticism for human rights violations at the United States and Israel.
- Applied Research Center: Viewing the United States as a nation where “structural racism” is deeply “embedded in the fabric of society,” ARC seeks to "build a fair and equal society" by demanding “concrete change from our most powerful institutions."
- Arab American Institute Foundation: The Arab American Institute denounces the purportedly widespread civil liberties violations directed against Arab Americans in the post-9/11 period, and characterizes Israel as a brutal oppressor of the Palestinian people.
- Aspen Institute: This organization promotes radical environmentalism and views America as a nation plagued by deep-seated “structural racism.”
- Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now: This group conducts voter mobilization drives on behalf of leftist Democrats. These initiatives have been notoriously marred by fraud and corruption.
- Ballot Initiative Strategy Center: This organization seeks to advance “a national progressive strategy” by means of ballot measures—state-level legislative proposals that pass successfully through a petition (“initiative”) process and are then voted upon by the public.
- Bend The Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice: This organization condemns Voter ID laws as barriers that “make it harder for communities of color, women, first-time voters, the elderly, and the poor to cast their vote.”
- Bill of Rights Defense Committee: This group provides a detailed blueprint for activists interested in getting their local towns, cities, and even college campuses to publicly declare their opposition to the Patriot Act, and to designate themselves "Civil Liberties Safe Zones." The organization also came to the defense of self-described radical attorney Lynne Stewart, who was convicted in 2005 of providing material support for terrorism.
- Black Alliance for Just Immigration: This organization seeks to create a unified movement for “social and economic justice” centered on black racial identity.
- Blueprint North Carolina: This group seeks to “influence state policy in North Carolina so that residents of the state benefit from more progressive policies such as better access to health care, higher wages, more affordable housing, a safer, cleaner environment, and access to reproductive health services.”
- Brennan Center for Justice: This think tank/legal activist group generates scholarly studies, mounts media campaigns, files amicus briefs, gives pro bono support to activists, and litigates test cases in pursuit of radical "change."
- Brookings Institution: This organization has been involved with a variety of internationalist and state-sponsored programs, including one that aspires to facilitate the establishment of a U.N.-dominated world government. Brookings Fellows have also called for additional global collaboration on trade and banking; the expansion of the Kyoto Protocol; and nationalized health insurance for children. Nine Brookings economists signed a petitionopposing President Bush's tax cuts in 2003.
- Campaign for America's Future: This group supports tax hikes, socialized medicine, and a dramatic expansion of social welfare programs.
- Campaign for Better Health Care: This organization favors a single-payer, government-run, universal health care system.
- Campaign for Youth Justice: This organization contends that “transferring juveniles to the adult criminal-justice system leads to higher rates of recidivism, puts incarcerated and detained youth at unnecessary risk, has little deterrence value, and does not increase public safety.”
- Campus Progress: A project of the Soros-bankrolled Center for American Progress, this group seeks to "strengthen progressive voices on college and university campuses, counter the growing influence of right-wing groups on campus, and empower new generations of progressive leaders."
- Casa de Maryland: This organization aggressively lobbies legislators to vote in favor of policies that promote expanded rights, including amnesty, for illegal aliens currently residing in the United States.
- Catalist: This is a for-profit political consultancy that seeks "to help progressive organizations realize measurable increases in civic participation and electoral success by building and operating a robust national voter database of every voting-age American."
- Catholics for Choice: This nominally Catholic organization supports women's right to abortion-on-demand.
- Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good: This political nonprofit group is dedicated to generating support from the Catholic community for leftwing candidates, causes, and legislation.
- Center for American Progress: This leftist think tank is headed by former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta, works closely with Hillary Clinton, and employs numerous former Clinton administration staffers. It is committed to "developing a long-term vision of a progressive America" and "providing a forum to generate new progressive ideas and policy proposals."
- Center for Community Change: This group recruits and trains activists to spearhead leftist "political issue campaigns." Promoting increased funding for social welfare programs by bringing "attention to major national issues related to poverty," the Center bases its training programs on the techniques taught by the famed radical organizer Saul Alinsky.
- Center for Constitutional Rights: This pro-Castro organization is a core member of the open borders lobby, has opposed virtually all post-9/11 anti-terrorism measures by the U.S. government, and alleges that American injustice provokes acts of international terrorism.
- Center for Economic and Policy Research: This group opposed welfare reform, supports "living wage" laws, rejects tax cuts, and consistently lauds the professed achievements of socialist regimes, most notably Venezuela.
- Center for International Policy: This organization uses advocacy, policy research, media outreach, and educational initiatives to promote “transparency and accountability” in U.S. foreign policy and global relations. It generally views America as a disruptive, negative force in the world.
- Center for Reproductive Rights: CRR's mission is to guarantee safe, affordable contraception and abortion-on-demand for all women, including adolescents. The organization has filed state and federal lawsuits demanding access to taxpayer-funded abortions (through Medicaid) for low-income women.
- Center for Responsible Lending: This organization was a major player in the subprime mortgage crisis. According to Phil Kerpen (vice president for policy at Americans for Prosperity), CRL “sh[ook] down and harass[ed] banks into making bad loans to unqualified borrowers.” Moreover, CRL negotiated a contract enabling it to operate as a conduit of high-risk loans to Fannie Mae.
- Center for Social Inclusion: This organization seeks to counteract America's "structural racism" by means of taxpayer-funded policy initiatives.
- Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: Reasoning from the premise that tax cuts generally help only the wealthy, this organization advocates greater tax expenditures on social welfare programs for low earners.
- Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS): Aiming to redistribute wealth by way of higher taxes imposed on those whose incomes are above average, COWS contends that "it is important that state government be able to harness fair contribution from all parts of society – including corporations and the wealthy."
- Change America Now: Formed in December 2006, Change America Now describes itself as "an independent political organization created to educate citizens on the failed policies of the Republican Congress and to contrast that record of failure with the promise offered by a Democratic agenda."
- Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington: This group litigates and brings ethics charges against "government officials who sacrifice the common good to special interests" and "betray the public trust." Almost all of its targets are Republicans.
- Coalition for an International Criminal Court: This group seeks to subordinate American criminal-justice procedures to those of an international court.
- Color Of Change: This organization was founded to combat what it viewed as the systemic racism pervading America generally and conservatism in particular.
- Common Cause: This organization aims to bring about campaign-finance reform, pursue media reform resembling the Fairness Doctrine, and cut military budgets in favor of increased social-welfare and environmental spending.
- Constitution Project: This organization seeks to challenge the legality of military commissions; end the detainment of "enemy combatants”; condemn government surveillance of terrorists; and limit the President's executive privileges.
- Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund: Defenders of Wildlife opposes oil exploration in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It condemns logging, ranching, mining, and even the use of recreational motorized vehicles as activities that are destructive to the environment.
- Democracy Alliance: This self-described "liberal organization" aims to raise $200 million to develop a funding clearinghouse for leftist groups. Soros is a major donor to this group.
- Democracy 21: This group is a staunch supporter of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, also known as the McCain-Feingold Act.
- Democracy Now!: Democracy Now! was created in 1996 by WBAI radio news director Amy Goodman and four partners to provide "perspectives rarely heard in the U.S. corporate-sponsored media," i.e., the views of radical and foreign journalists, left and labor activists, and ideological foes of capitalism.
- Democratic Justice Fund: DJF opposes the Patriot Act and most efforts to restrict or regulate immigration into the United States -- particularly from countries designated by the State Department as "terrorist nations."
- Democratic Party: Soros' funding activities are devoted largely to helping the Democratic Party solidify its power base. In a November 2003 interview, Soros stated that defeating President Bush in 2004 "is the central focus of my life" ... "a matter of life and death." He pledged to raise $75 million to defeat Bush, and personally donated nearly a third of that amount to anti-Bush organizations. "America under Bush," he said, "is a danger to the world, and I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is."
- Demos: This organization lobbies federal and state policymakers to “addres[s] the economic insecurity and inequality that characterize American society today”; promotes “ideas for reducing gaps in wealth, income and political influence”; and favors tax hikes for the wealthy.
- Drum Major Institute: This group describes itself as “a non-partisan, non-profit think tank generating the ideas that fuel the progressive movement,” with the ultimate aim of persuading “policymakers and opinion-leaders” to take steps that advance its vision of “social and economic justice.”
- Earthjustice: This group seeks to place severe restrictions on how U.S. land and waterways may be used. It opposes most mining and logging initiatives, commercial fishing businesses, and the use of motorized vehicles in undeveloped areas.
- Economic Policy Institute: This organization believes that “government must play an active role in protecting the economically vulnerable, ensuring equal opportunity, and improving the well-being of all Americans.”
- Electronic Privacy Information Center: This organization has been a harsh critic of the USA PATRIOT Act and has joined the American Civil Liberties Union in litigating two cases calling for the FBI "to publicly release or account for thousands of pages of information about the government's use of PATRIOT Act powers."
- Ella Baker Center for Human Rights: Co-founded by the revolutionary communist Van Jones, this anti-poverty organization claims that “decades of disinvestment in our cities” -- compounded by “excessive, racist policing and over-incarceration” -- have “led to despair and homelessness.”
- EMILY's List: This political network raises money for Democratic female political candidates who support unrestricted access to taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand.
- Energy Action Coalition: Founded in 2004, this group describes itself as “a coalition of 50 youth-led environmental and social justice groups working together to build the youth clean energy and climate movement.” For EAC, this means “dismantling oppression” according to its principles of environmental justice.
- Equal Justice USA: This group claims that America's criminal-justice system is plagued by “significant race and class biases,” and thus seeks to promote major reforms.
- Fair Immigration Reform Movement: This is the open-borders arm of the Center for Community Change.
- Faithful America: This organization promotes the redistribution of wealth, an end to enhanced interrogation procedures vis a vis prisoners-of-war, the enactment of policies to combat global warming, and the creation of a government-run heath care system.
- Families USA: This Washington-based health-care advocacy group favors ever-increasing government control of the American healthcare system.
- Feminist Majority: Characterizing the United States as an inherently sexist nation, this group focuses on "advancing the legal, social and political equality of women with men, countering the backlash to women's advancement, and recruiting and training young feminists to encourage future leadership for the feminist movement in the United States."
- Four Freedoms Fund: This organization was designed to serve as a conduit through which large foundations could fund state-based open-borders organizations more flexibly and quickly.
- Free Exchange on Campus: This organization was created solely to oppose the efforts of one individual, David Horowitz, and his campaign to have universities adopt an "Academic Bill of Rights," as well as todenounce Horowitz's 2006 book The Professors. Member organizations of FEC include Campus Progress (a project of the Center for American Progress); the American Association of University Professors; theAmerican Civil Liberties Union; People For the American Way; the United States Student Association; theCenter for Campus Free Speech; the American Library Association; Free Press; and the National Association of State Public Interest Research Groups.
- Free Press: This "media reform" organization has worked closely with many notable leftists and such organizations as Media Matters for America, Air America Radio, Global Exchange, Code Pink, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, the Revolutionary Communist Party, Mother Jones magazine, and Pacifica Radio.
- Funding Exchange: Dedicated to the concept of philanthropy as a vehicle for social change, this organization pairs leftist donors and foundations with likeminded groups and activists who are dedicated to bringing about their own version of "progressive" change and social justice. Many of these grantees assume that American society is rife with racism, discrimination, exploitation, and inequity and needs to be overhauled via sustained education, activism, and social agitation.
- Gamaliel Foundation: Modeling its tactics on those of the radical Sixties activist Saul Alinsky, this group takes a strong stand against current homeland security measures and immigration restrictions.
- Gisha: Center for the Legal Protection of Freedom of Movement: This anti-Israel organization seeks to help Palestinians "exercise their right to freedom of movement."
- Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect: This group contends that when a state proves either unable or unwilling to protect civilians from mass atrocities occurring within its borders, it is the responsibility of the international community to intervene -- peacefully if possible, but with military force if necessary.
- Global Exchange: Established in 1988 by pro-Castro radical Medea Benjamin, this group consistently condemns America's foreign policy, business practices, and domestic life. Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Global Exchange advised Americans to examine "the root causes of resentment against the United States in the Arab world -- from our dependence on Middle Eastern oil to our biased policy towards Israel."
- Grantmakers Without Borders: GWB tends to be very supportive of leftist environmental, anti-war, and civil rights groups. It is also generally hostile to capitalism, which it deems one of the chief "political, economic, and social systems" that give rise to a host of "social ills."
- Green For All: This group was created by Van Jones to lobby for federal climate, energy, and economic policy initiatives.
- Health Care for America Now: This group supports a “single payer” model where the federal government would be in charge of financing and administering the entire U.S. healthcare system.
- Human Rights Campaign: The largest "lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender" lobbying group in the United States, HRC supports political candidates and legislation that will advance the LGBT agenda. Historically, HRC has most vigorously championed HIV/AIDS-related legislation, “hate crime” laws, the abrogation of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, and the legalization of gay marriage.
- Human Rights First: This group supports open borders and the rights of illegal aliens; charges that the Patriot Act severely erodes Americans' civil liberties; has filed amicus curiae briefs on behalf of terror suspect Jose Padilla; and deplores the Guantanamo Bay detention facilities.
- Human Rights Watch: This group directs a disproportionate share of its criticism at the United States and Israel. It opposes the death penalty in all cases, and supports open borders and amnesty for illegal aliens.
- I'lam: This anti-Israel NGO seeks "to develop and empower the Arab media and to give voice to Palestinian issues."
- Immigrant Defense Project: To advance the cause of illegal immigrants, the IDP provides immigration law backup support and counseling to New York defense attorneys and others who represent or assist immigrants in criminal justice and immigration systems, as well as to immigrants themselves.
- Immigrant Legal Resource Center: This group claims to have helped gain amnesty for some three million illegal aliens in the U.S., and in the 1980s was part of the sanctuary movement which sought to grant asylum to refugees from the failed Communist states of Central America.
- Immigrant Workers Citizenship Project: This open-borders organization advocates mass immigration to the U.S.
- Immigration Advocates Network: This alliance of immigrant-rights groups seeks to “increase access to justice for low-income immigrants and strengthen the capacity of organizations serving them.”
- Immigration Policy Center: IPC is an advocate of open borders and contends that the massive influx of illegal immigrants into America is due to U.S. government policy, since “the broken immigration system […] spurs unauthorized immigration in the first place.”
- Independent Media Center: This Internet-based, news and events bulletin board represents an invariably leftist, anti-capitalist perspective and serves as a mouthpiece for anti-globalization/anti-America themes.
- Independent Media Institute: IMI administers the SPIN Project (Strategic Press Information Network), which provides leftist organizations with "accessible and affordable strategic communications consulting, training, coaching, networking opportunities and concrete tools" to help them "achieve their social justice goals."
- Institute for America's Future: IAF supports socialized medicine, increased government funding for education, and the creation of an infrastructure "to ensure that the voice of the progressive majority is heard."
- Institute for New Economic Thinking: Seeking to create a new worldwide "economic paradigm," this organization is staffed by numerous individuals who favor government intervention in national economies, and who view capitalism as a flawed system.
- Institute for Policy Studies: This think tank has long supported Communist and anti-American causes around the world. Viewing capitalism as a breeding ground for "unrestrained greed," IPS seeks to provide a corrective to "unrestrained markets and individualism." Professing an unquestioning faith in the righteousness of the United Nations, it aims to bring American foreign policy under UN control.
- Institute for Public Accuracy: This anti-American, anti-capitalist organization sponsored actor Sean Penn’s celebrated visit to Baghdad in 2002. It also sponsored visits to Iraq by Democratic Congressmen Nick Rahall and former Democrat Senator James Abourezk
- Institute for Women's Policy Research: This group views the U.S. as a nation rife with discrimination against women, and publishes research to draw attention to this alleged state of affairs. It also advocates unrestricted access to taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand, stating that "access to abortion is essential to the economic well-being of women and girls."
- International Crisis Group: One of this organization's leading figures is its Mideast Director, Robert Malley, who was President Bill Clinton's Special Assistant for Arab-Israeli Affairs. His analysis of the Mideast conflict is markedly pro-Palestinian.
- J Street: This anti-Israel group warns that Israel’s choice to take military action to stop Hamas' terrorist attacks “will prove counter-productive and only deepen the cycle of violence in the region”
- Jewish Funds for Justice: This organization views government intervention and taxpayer funding as crucial components of enlightened social policy. It seeks to redistribute wealth from Jewish donors to low-income communities “to combat the root causes of domestic economic and social injustice.” By JFJ's reckoning, chief among those root causes are the inherently negative by-products of capitalism – most notably racism and “gross economic inequality.”
- Joint Victory Campaign 2004: Founded by George Soros and Harold Ickes, this group was a major fundraising entity for Democrats during the 2004 election cycle. It collected contributions (including large amounts from Soros personally) and disbursed them to two other groups, America Coming Together and the Media Fund, which also worked on behalf of Democrats.
- Justice at Stake: This coalition calls for judges to be appointed by nonpartisan, independent commissions in a process known as “merit selection,” rather than elected by the voting public.
- LatinoJustice PRLDF: This organization supports bilingual education, the racial gerrymandering of voting districts, and expanded rights for illegal aliens.
- Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law: This group views America as an unremittingly racist nation; uses the courts to mandate race-based affirmative action preferences in business and academia; has filed briefs against the Department of Homeland Security's efforts to limit the wholesale granting of green cards and to identify potential terrorists; condemns the Patriot Act; and calls on Americans to "recognize the contribution" of illegal aliens.
- Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights: This organization views the United States as a nation rife with racism, sexism, and all manner of social injustice; and it uses legislative advocacy to push for “progressive change” that will create “a more open and just society.”
- League of United Latin American Citizens: This group views America as a nation plagued by "an alarming increase in xenophobia and anti-Hispanic sentiment"; favors racial preferences; supports the legalization of illegal Hispanic aliens; opposes military surveillance of U.S. borders; opposes making English America's official language; favors open borders; and rejects anti-terrorism legislation like the Patriot Act.
- League of Women Voters Education Fund: The League supports taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand; supports "motor-voter" registration, which allows anyone with a driver's license to become a voter, regardless of citizenship status; and supports tax hikes and socialized medicine.
- League of Young Voters: This organization seeks to “empowe[r] young people nationwide” to “participate in the democratic process and create progressive political change on the local, state and national level[s].”
- Lynne Stewart Defense Committee: IRS records indicate that Soros's Open Society Institute made a September 2002 grant of $20,000 to this organization. Stewart was the criminal-defense attorney who was later convicted for abetting her client, the "blind sheik" Omar Abdel Rahman, in terrorist activities connected with his Islamic Group.
- Machsom Watch: This organization describes itself as "a movement of Israeli women, peace activists from all sectors of Israeli society, who oppose the Israeli occupation and the denial of Palestinians' rights to move freely in their land."
- MADRE: This international women's organization deems America the world's foremost violator of human rights. As such, it seeks to "communicat[e] the real-life impact of U.S. policies on women and families confronting violence, poverty and repression around the world," and to "demand alternatives to destructive U.S. policies." It also advocates unrestricted access to taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand.
- Malcolm X Grassroots Movement: This group views the U.S. as a nation replete with racism and discrimination against blacks; seeks to establish an independent black nation in the southeastern United States; and demands reparations for slavery.
- Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition: This group calls for the expansion of civil rights and liberties for illegal aliens; laments that illegal aliens in America are commonly subjected to "worker exploitation"; supports tuition-assistance programs for illegal aliens attending college; and characterizes the Patriot Act as a "very troubling" assault on civil liberties.
- Media Fund: Soros played a major role in creating this group, whose purpose was to conceptualize, produce, and place political ads on television, radio, print, and the Internet.
- Media Matters for America: This organization is a "web-based, not-for-profit … progressive research and information center" seeking to "systematically monitor a cross-section of print, broadcast, cable, radio, and Internet media outlets for conservative misinformation." The group works closely with the Soros-backed Center for American Progress, and is heavily funded by Democracy Alliance, of which Soros is a major financier.
- Mercy Corps: Vis a vis the Arab-Israeli conflict, Mercy Corps places all blame for Palestinian poverty and suffering directly on Israel.
- Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund: This group advocates open borders, free college tuition for illegal aliens, lowered educational standards to accommodate Hispanics, and voting rights for criminals. In MALDEF's view, supporters of making English the official language of the United States are "motivated by racism and anti-immigrant sentiments," while advocates of sanctions against employers reliant on illegal labor seek to discriminate against "brown-skinned people."
- Meyer, Suozzi, English and Klein, PC: This influential defender of Big Labor is headed by Democrat operativeHarold Ickes.
- Midwest Academy: This entity trains radical activists in the tactics of direct action, targeting, confrontation, and intimidation.
- Migration Policy Institute: This group seeks to create "a North America with gradually disappearing border controls ... with permanent migration remaining at moderate levels."
- Military Families Speak Out: This group ascribes the U.S. invasion of Iraq to American imperialism and lust for oil.
- Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment: This group is the rebranded Missouri branch of the now-defunct, pro-socialist, community organization ACORN.
- MoveOn.org: This Web-based organization supports Democratic political candidates through fundraising, advertising, and get-out-the-vote drives.
- Ms. Foundation for Women: This group laments what it views as the widespread and enduring flaws of American society: racism, sexism, homophobia, and the violation of civil rights and liberties. It focuses its philanthropy on groups that promote affirmative action for women, unfettered access to taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand, amnesty for illegal aliens, and big government generally.
- Muslim Advocates: Opposed to U.S. counter-terrorism strategies that make use of sting operations and informants, MA characterizes such tactics as forms of “entrapment” that are inherently discriminatory against Muslims.
- NARAL Pro-Choice America: This group supports taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand, and works to elect pro-abortion Democrats.
- NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund: The NAACP supports racial preferences in employment and education, as well as the racial gerrymandering of voting districts. Underpinning its support for race preferences is the fervent belief that white racism in the United States remains an intractable, largely undiminished, phenomenon.
- The Nation Institute: This nonprofit entity sponsors leftist conferences, fellowships, awards for radical activists, and journalism internships.
- National Abortion Federation: This group opposes any restrictions on abortion at either the state or federal levels, and champions the introduction of unrestricted abortion into developing regions of the world.
- National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty: This group was established in 1976 as the first "fully staffed national organization exclusively devoted to abolishing capital punishment."
- National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy: This group depicts the United States as a nation in need of dramatic structural change financed by philanthropic organizations. It overwhelmingly promotes grant-makers and grantees with leftist agendas, while criticizing their conservative counterparts.
- National Committee for Voting Integrity: This group opposes "the implementation of proof of citizenship and photo identification requirements for eligible electors in American elections as the means of assuring election integrity."
- National Council for Research on Women: This group supports big government, high taxes, military spending cuts, increased social welfare spending, and the unrestricted right to taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand.
- National Council of La Raza: This group lobbies for racial preferences, bilingual education, stricter hate-crime laws, mass immigration, and amnesty for illegal aliens.
- National Council of Women's Organizations: This group views the United States as a nation rife with injustice against girls and women. It advocates high levels of spending for social welfare programs, and supports race and gender preferences for minorities and women in business and academia.
- National Immigration Forum: Opposing the enforcement of present immigration laws, this organization urges the American government to "legalize" en masse all illegal aliens currently in the United States who have no criminal records, and to dramatically increase the number of visas available for those wishing to migrate to the U.S. The Forum is particularly committed to opening the borders to unskilled, low-income workers, and immediately making them eligible for welfare and social service programs.
- National Immigration Law Center: This group seeks to win unrestricted access to government-funded social welfare programs for illegal aliens.
- National Lawyers Guild: This group promotes open borders; seeks to weaken America's intelligence-gathering agencies; condemns the Patriot Act as an assault on civil liberties; rejects capitalism as an unviable economic system; has rushed to the defense of convicted terrorists and their abettors; and generally opposes all U.S. foreign policy positions, just as it did during the Cold War when it sided with the Soviets.
- National Organization for Women: This group advocates the unfettered right to taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand; seeks to "eradicate racism, sexism and homophobia" from American society; attacks Christianity and traditional religious values; and supports gender-based preferences for women.
- National Partnership for Women and Families: This organization supports race- and sex-based preferences in employment and education. It also advocates for the universal "right" of women to undergo taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand at any stage of pregnancy and for any reason.
- National Priorities Project: This group supports government-mandated redistribution of wealth -- through higher taxes and greater expenditures on social welfare programs. NPP exhorts the government to redirect a significant portion of its military funding toward public education, universal health insurance, environmentalist projects, and welfare programs.
- National Public Radio: Founded in 1970 with 90 public radio stations as charter members, NPR is today a loose network of more than 750 U.S. radio stations across the country, many of which are based on college and university campuses. (source)
- National Security Archive Fund: This group collects and publishes declassified documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act to a degree that compromises American national security and the safety of intelligence agents.
- National Women's Law Center: This group supports taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand; lobbies against conservative judicial appointees; advocates increased welfare spending to help low-income mothers; and favors higher taxes for the purpose of generating more funds for such government programs as Medicaid, food stamps, welfare, foster care, health care, child-support enforcement, and student loans.
- Natural Resources Defense Council: One of the most influential environmentalist lobbying groups in the United States, the Council claims a membership of one million people.
- New America Foundation: This organization uses policy papers, media articles, books, and educational events to influence public opinion on such topics as healthcare, environmentalism, energy policy, the Mideast conflict, global governance, and much more.
- New Israel Fund: This organization gives support to NGOs that regularly produce reports accusing Israel of human-rights violations and religious persecution.
- NewsCorpWatch: A project of Media Matters For America, NewsCorpWatch was established with the help of a $1 million George Soros grant to Media Matters.
- Pacifica Foundation: This entity owns and operates Pacifica Radio, awash from its birth with the socialist-Marxist rhetoric of class warfare and hatred for capitalism.
- Palestinian Center for Human Rights: This NGO investigates and documents what it views as Israeli human-rights violations against Palestinians.
- Peace and Security Funders Group: This is an association of more than 60 foundations that give money to leftist anti-war and environmentalist causes. Its members tend to depict America as the world's chief source of international conflict, environmental destruction, and economic inequalities.
- Peace Development Fund: In PDF's calculus, the United States needs a massive overhaul of its social and economic institutions. "Recently," explains PDF, "we have witnessed the negative effects of neo-liberalism and the globalization of capitalism, the de-industrialization of the U.S. and the growing gap between the rich and poor ..."
- People for the American Way: This group opposes the Patriot Act, anti-terrorism measures generally, and the allegedly growing influence of the "religious right."
- People Improving Communities Through Organizing: This group uses Alinsky-style organizing tactics to advance the doctrines of the religious left.
- Physicians for Human Rights: This group is selectively and disproportionately critical of the United States and Israel in its condemnations of human rights violations.
- Physicians for Social Responsibility: This is an anti-U.S.-military organization that also embraces the tenets of radical environmentalism.
- Planned Parenthood: This group is the largest abortion provider in the United States and advocates taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand.
- Ploughshares Fund: This public grantmaking foundation opposes America's development of a missile defense system, and contributes to many organizations that are highly critical of U.S. foreign policies and military ventures.
- Prepare New York: This group supported the proposed construction of a Muslim Community Center near Ground Zero in lower Manhattan – a project known as the Cordoba Initiative, headed by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf.
- Presidential Climate Action Project: PCAP's mission is to create a new 21st-century economy, completely carbon-free and based largely on renewable energy. A key advisor to the organization is the revolutionary communist Van Jones.
- Prison Moratorium Project: This initiative was created in 1995 for the express purpose of working for the elimination of all prisons in the United States and the release of all inmates. Reasoning from the premise that incarceration is never an appropriate means of dealing with crime, it deems American society's inherent inequities the root of all criminal behavior.
- Progressive Change Campaign Committee: This organization works “to elect bold progressive candidates to federal office and to help [them] and their campaigns save money, work smarter, and win more often.”
- Progressive States Network: PSN's mission is to "pass progressive legislation in all fifty states by providing coordinated research and strategic advocacy tools to forward-thinking state legislators."
- Project Vote: This is the voter-mobilization arm of the Soros-funded ACORN. A persistent pattern of lawlessness and corruption has followed ACORN/Project Vote activities over the years.
- Pro Publica: Claiming that “investigative journalism is at risk,” this group aims to remedy this lacuna in news publishing by “expos[ing] abuses of power and betrayals of the public trust by government, business, and other institutions, using the moral force of investigative journalism to spur reform through the sustained spotlighting of wrongdoing.”
- Proteus Fund: This foundation directs its philanthropy toward a number of radical leftwing organizations.
- Psychologists for Social Responsibility: This anti-capitalist, anti-corporate, anti-military, anti-American organization “uses psychological knowledge and skills to promote peace with social justice at the community, national and international levels.”
- Public Citizen Foundation: Public Citizen seeks increased government intervention and litigation against corporations -- a practice founded on the notion that American corporations, like the capitalist system of which they are a part, are inherently inclined toward corruption.
- Public Justice Center: Viewing America as a nation rife with injustice and discrimination, this organization engages in legislative and policy advocacy to promote "systemic change for the disenfranchised."
- Rebuild and Renew America Now (a.k.a. Unity '09): Spearheaded by MoveOn.org and overseen by longtime activist Heather Booth, this coalition was formed to facilitate the passage of President Obama’s "historic" $3.5 trillion budget for fiscal year 2010.
- Res Publica: Seeking to advance far-left agendas in places all around the world, RP specializes in “E-advocacy,” or web-based movement-building.
- Roosevelt Institute: Proceeding from the premise that free-market capitalism is inherently unjust and prone to periodic collapses caused by its own structural flaws, RI currently administers several major projects aimed at reshaping the American economy to more closely resemble a socialist system.
- Secretary of State Project: This project was launched in July 2006 as an independent "527" organization devoted to helping Democrats get elected to the office of Secretary of State in selected swing, or battleground, states.
- Sentencing Project: Asserting that prison-sentencing patterns are racially discriminatory, this initiative advocates voting rights for felons.
- Social Justice Leadership: This organization seeks to transform an allegedly inequitable America into a "just society" by means of "a renewed social-justice movement."
- Shadow Democratic Party: This is an elaborate network of non-profit activist groups organized by George Soros and others to mobilize resources -- money, get-out-the-vote drives, campaign advertising, and policy iniatives -- to elect Democratic candidates and guide the Democratic Party towards the left.
- Sojourners: This evangelical Christian ministry preaches radical leftwing politics. During the 1980s it championed Communist revolution in Central America and chastised U.S. policy-makers for their tendency "to assume the very worst about their Soviet counterparts." More recently, Sojourners has taken up the cause of environmental activism, opposed welfare reform as a "mean-spirited Republican agenda," and mounted a defense of affirmative action.
- Southern Poverty Law Center: This organization monitors the activities of what it calls “hate groups” in the United States. It exaggerates the prevalence of white racism directed against American minorities.
- State Voices: This coalition helps independent local activist groups in 22 states work collaboratively on a year-round basis, so as to maximize the impact of their efforts.
- Talking Transition: This was a two-week project launched in early November 2013 to “help shape the transition” to City Hall for the newly elected Democratic mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio.
- Think Progress: This Internet blog "pushes back, daily," by its own account, against its conservative targets, and seeks to transform "progressive ideas into policy through rapid response communications, legislative action, grassroots organizing and advocacy, and partnerships with other progressive leaders throughout the country and the world."
- Thunder Road Group: This political consultancy, in whose creation Soros had a hand, coordinates strategy for the Media Fund, America Coming Together, and America Votes.
- Tides Foundation and Tides Center: Tides is a major funder of the radical Left.
- U.S. Public Interest Research Group: This is an umbrella organization of student groups that support leftist agendas.
- Universal Healthcare Action Network: This organization supports a single-payer health care system controlled by the federal government.
- Urban Institute: This research organization favors socialized medicine, expansion of the federal welfare bureaucracy, and tax hikes for higher income-earners.
- USAction Education Fund: USAction lists its priorities as: "fighting the right wing agenda"; "building grassroots political power"; winning "social, racial and economic justice for all"; supporting a system of taxpayer-funded socialized medicine; reversing "reckless tax cuts for millionaires and corporations" which shield the "wealthy" from paying their "fair share"; advocating for "pro-consumer and environmental regulation of corporate abuse"; "strengthening progressive voices on local, state and national issues"; and working to "register, educate and get out the vote ... [to] help progressives get elected at all levels of government."
- Voter Participation Center: This organization seeks to increase voter turnout among unmarried women, "people of color," and 18-to-29-year-olds -- demographics that are heavily pro-Democrat.
- Voto Latino: This group seeks to mobilize Latin-Americans to become registered voters and political activists.
- We Are America Alliance: This coalition promotes “increased civic participation by immigrants” in the American political process.
- Working Families Party: An outgrowth of the socialist New Party, WFP seeks to help push the Democratic Party toward the left.
- World Organization Against Torture: This coalition works closely with groups that condemn Israeli security measures against Palestinian terrorism.
- YWCA World Office, Switzerland: The YWCA opposes abstinence education; supports universal access to taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand; and opposes school vouchers.
"Secondary" or "Indirect" Affiliates of the George Soros Network
By Discover The Networks
In addition to those organizations that are funded directly by George Soros and his Open Society Foundations (OSF), there are also numerous "secondary" or "indirect" affiliates of the Soros network. These include organizations which do not receive direct funding from Soros and OSF, but which are funded by one or more organizations that do.
- Center for Progressive Leadership: Funded by the Soros-bankrolled Democracy Alliance, this anti-capitalist organization is dedicated to training future leftist political leaders.
- John Adams Project:This project of the American Civil Liberties Union was accused of: (a) having hired investigators to photograph CIA officers thought to have been involved in enhanced interrogations of terror suspects detained in Guantanamo, and then (b) showing the photos to the attorneys of those suspects, some of whom were senior al-Qaeda operatives.
- Moving Ideas Network (MIN): This coalition of more than 250 leftwing activist groups is a partner organization of the Soros-backed Center for American Progress. MIN was originally a project of the Soros-backed American Prospect and, as such, received indirect funding from the Open Society Institute. In early 2006, The American Prospect relinquished control of the Moving Ideas Network.
- New Organizing Institute: Created by the Soros-funded MoveOn.org, this group "trains young, technology-enabled political organizers to work for progressive campaigns and organizations."
- Think Progress: This "project" of the American Progress Action Fund, which is a "sister advocacy organization"of the Soros-funded Center for American Progress and Campus Progress, seeks to transform "progressive ideas into policy through rapid response communications, legislative action, grassroots organizing and advocacy, and partnerships with other progressive leaders throughout the country and the world."
- Vote for Change: Coordinated by the political action committee of the Soros-funded MoveOn.org, Vote for Change was a group of 41 musicians and bands that performed concerts in several key election "battleground"states during October 2004, to raise money in support of Democrat John Kerry's presidential bid.
- Working Families Party: Created in 1998 to help push the Democratic Party toward the left, this front group for the Soros-funded ACORN functions as a political party that promotes ACORN-friendly candidates.
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