A left-wing lobbying organization tied to influential Hungarian-American investor George Soros spent its highest quarterly amount ever in the period ending on June 30, according to recent financial statements.
As The Washington Free Beacon reported, the Open Society Policy Center shelled out more than $10 million during the second quarter of this year in pursuit of various policy and legislative goals around the world.
The organization took on several new causes during this period in addition to its generally elevated lobbying levels in recent years, particularly since President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Some of the added expense was related to lobbying efforts on behalf of nominating Donald Lu and David B. Cornstein as the United States ambassadors to Kyrgyzstan and Hungary, respectively. – READ MORE
[divider][/divider]On Tuesday, The New York Times ran a profile of George Soros, calling him “a full-time philanthropist, political activist and freelance statesman.” As The Washington Free Beacon writes, “The piece celebrates the virtuous goals of his political spending, works to humanize him, and attempts to discredit critics of some of his controversial moves.”
Despite the fact that the positive profile of Soros ran nearly 10,000 words, one small piece of information managed to remain unsaid: Soros invested $3 million in the Times earlier this year, which had been reported by the Free Beacon‘s Joe Schoffstall last month.
It’s not as though the Times interviewed Soros after the investment had been acknowledged; Soros Fund Management LLC announced the purchase of New York Times Company stock in a May 15 filing; the Times interviewed Soros two weeks later, then again in July. – READ MORE
[divider][/divider]Soros, 87, said in a New York Times article published Tuesday that Obama was his “greatest disappointment.”
But he immediately walked back the diss a bit — after an aide prompted him to do so.
Prompted by an aide, he immediately qualified himself, saying that he hadn’t been disappointed by Obama’s presidency but felt let down on a professional level. While he had no desire for a formal role in the administration, he had hoped that Obama would seek his counsel, especially on financial and economic matters. Instead, he was frozen out.
After Obama was elected, “he closed the door on me,” Soros said. “He made one phone call thanking me for my support, which was meant to last for five minutes, and I engaged him, and he had to spend another three minutes with me, so I dragged it out to eight minutes.” He suggested that he had fallen victim to an Obama personality trait. “He was someone who was known from the time when he was competing for the editorship of The Harvard Law Review to take his supporters for granted and to woo his opponents,” Soros said.
He said his main goal as a political activist was to see a return to bipartisanship, a surprising claim in light of his lavish support for the Democrats. It was the extremism of the Republican Party that had prompted him to become a major Democratic donor, he said; he wanted the Republican Party to reform itself into a more moderate party. He said he was not especially partisan himself: “I don’t particularly want to be a Democrat.” – READ MORE
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