Dakota Beacon

Who is George Soros? The name George Soros rings a bell with some. To others he is completely unknown. It is to the latter this column is dedicated although the former group is free to enjoy it.

Those who have not heard of George Soros are probably the same who have not heard of UnidosUS (formerly the National Council of La Raza), Antifa (anti-fascist action), and the agitation groups Center for Media and Democracy and Color of Change.

Those who do know something about Soros certainly know that he is associated with exorbitant wealth. Forbes Magazine estimated his net worth in February 2017 to be about $25.2 billion making him the nineteenth wealthiest man in the world.

So, who is George Soros and how did he come to such wealth? Soros was born in Budapest, Hungary 8/12/1930 to Jewish parents. He was saved from the Nazis by posing as a Christian. Later, he fled Communism immigrating to England in 1947. He attended the London School of Economics graduating with a bachelor’s and master’s degrees in philosophy studying under the famed Karl Popper. Soros acquired his wealth first in banking and later as an investor and hedge fund manager.

Soros started his “philanthropic” organization, Open Society Foundations (OSF), in South Africa in 1979. Over the years he has given over $32 billion to fund the OSF using it as a front to dispense donations worldwide to liberal and progressive causes and especially to political causes in America. Multi-issue groups receiving OSF funds include the American Civil Liberties Union, Planned Parenthood, the Brookings Institution, Common Cause, and the Center for American Progress. Causes and groups favored by OSF are anti-Israel, opposed to conservative judicial appointments, opposed to education choice, pro-abortion, and pro-LGBT. Of particular interest is financial support for open-borders, amnesty for illegal aliens, weakening of US ballot integrity, and open voting in US elections to ineligible voters.

Soros put his money to work to defeat George W. Bush’s re-election bid by contributing more than $25 million to a variety of liberal and progressive groups as well as the Democrat Party. Subsequently, he made large personal contributions to Democrat candidates for national office.

Soros has been married three times producing five children. He also had a girlfriend (2011-2014) who sued him for emotional distress, assault, and battery. On appeal the woman’s suit was upheld in part.

In a strategic move, Soros transferred $18 billion of his fortune to OSF in October 2017. That makes his foundation the second largest foundation in the world exceeded only by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Even so, he reserved maybe $8 billion for himself and for his heirs, ex-wives, and kids to fight over.

Here are examples of Soros/OSF funding. Washington Times, 10/5/2017, “NFL Players Union Teamed Up with Soros to Fund Leftist Advocacy Groups.” As beneficiary of Soros’s largess, the NFLPU also served as the conduit for Soros’s money. In 2015 it donated $5,000 to the Center for Community Change, an anti-Trump resistance group. In 2014 the NFLPU donated $5,000 of Soros’s money to Jobs with Justice, a radical left front for “social action.” In 2013 the NFLPU donated $5,000 to Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy.

 Washington Times, 1/14/2015, “George Soros Funds Ferguson [Missouri] Protests, Hopes to Spur Civil Action.” In one year Soros’s OSF gave $33 million to groups that emboldened left-wing activists. One of the largest benefactors was Black Lives Matter.

Soros has been “buying” district attorney seats during elections around the country in an attempt to shape the nation’s criminal justice policies from the ground up. To that end he spent over $9 million in 2015-2017. Soros backed Joe Gonzales who beat incumbent Nicholas LaHood in Bexar County, Texas in the March 6 Democrat primary. LaHood opposed sanctuary cities. Soros spent $70,000 through the Texas Justice & Public Safety PAC. Bexar County is the fourth most populous county in Texas and includes San Antonio.

Soros money ($1.45 million) was behind winner Larry Krasner in the Philadelphia district attorney race. Within days of his win Krasner purged dozens of his prosecutors.

In another instance, Soros money to the tune of $100,000 was behind the win of a leftist attorney in the Portsmouth, Virginia district attorney race last November. Soros’s investment remained out of sight until after the election.

The left-leaning Snopes has done its best to pooh-pooh stories critical of Soros in long winded, convoluted, apologetic rants. The rants are unconvincing. A word to the wise comes from the former editor of National Review, John O’Sullivan. He postulated his First Law that goes like this. If an organization or group is not explicitly and actively conservative and right-wing, it will be subsumed by liberalism over time and become left-wing.

At 87, Soros does not have many years left on earth to work mischief. Although he certainly has arranged for the legal disposition of his wealth, nevertheless his amount of money is certain to trigger wars of greed in both his Open Society Foundations and in his fractured “family.” That should be fun to watch.

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).