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An influential left-of-center donor’s charity has launched an initiative compelling other philanthropies to pour money into voter-mobilization efforts for this fall’s elections.
Democracy Fund, founded and funded by liberal philanthropist Pierre Omidyar, has rallied 174 organizations and individuals pledging to expedite disbursement of grants related to get-out-the-vote operations and other efforts.
The pledge called on signatories either to make the bulk of their election-related donations by the end of April, to “move up” disbursements scheduled for later in the year, or to streamline grant approval processes.
Alex Soros’ Open Society Foundations, the liberal dark money giant Arabella Advisors, Tides, and Democrat megadonor Susan Pritzker are among the major left-of-center philanthropic players to sign the pledge.
Omidyar, who founded eBay and has become a prolific investor, is worth over $10.9 billion, according to Bloomberg. Omidyar gave roughly $1.2 billion through various charitable arms to an array of primarily left-of-center causes between 2004 and 2020, according to a Capital Research Center report.
In 2020, Omidyar gave the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a sprawling Democrat-aligned political outfit, $45 million to support its Civic Action Fund project, a now-defunct voter-turnout initiative that focused on “empower[ing] those typically underrepresented in our democratic process” by ensuring they voted in 2020. The group collaborated with liberal politicians and activists to organize local get-out-the-vote efforts targeting low-propensity voters, according to Influence Watch.
In explaining his donation to Civic Action Fund, Omidyar cited the importance of “supporting local voter outreach and engagement of young people and people of color.” Young people and minority voters favor the Democratic Party by considerable margins, with voters 18 to 29 and all nonwhite constituencies favoring President Joe Biden by double digits in 2020, according to a CNN exit poll.
Civic Action Fund was active in 14 states, including the key states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, during the 2020 election season, according to its website. The group had staffers with ties to notable Democrats such as former President Barack Obama and former Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, according to Influence Watch.
Many of the signatories of Democracy Fund’s “All by April” pledge have clear ideological slants.
Alex Soros, son of influential liberal financier George Soros, has described himself as “more political” than his father.
Arabella manages a network of nonprofits that pours tens of millions into liberal causes every year.
Tides comprises a variety of organizational arms, including one of the largest pass-through organizations for liberal philanthropists. And Pritzker has donated millions to Democratic and otherwise left-of-center political committees.
Arabella’s nonprofit network and the Soros family’s philanthropic ventures have dropped large sums on election spending.
Arabella’s nonprofits spent more than $62 million on voter registration and mobilization efforts during 2022, a midterm election year.
Much of the Arabella network’s spending also focused on getting Democrat-friendly demographics to the polls. New Venture Fund, one of Arabella’s arms, gave millions to the Voter Registration Project, a group “commissioned” by veteran Democratic operative John Podesta that, according to Influence Watch, “targets African-American, Latino, Native American, low-income, and other voter groups likely to lean left-of-center.”
The Soros philanthropic empire also gave millions to the Voter Registration Project between 2016 and 2022. The project’s efforts in 2020 netted Biden between 1 million and 2.7 million votes, according to a Capital Research Center report.
Open Society Policy Center, part of the broader Soros network, gave $1.4 million to the Voto Latino Action Fund in 2022. The organization focuses on registering Latino voters and loosening voting laws, according to its website.
High voter turnout among Latinos was among the reasons Democrats outperformed expectations during the 2022 midterm elections, according to Politico.
“Voter registration nonprofits are nothing more than a cost-effective way to achieve partisan electioneering results for Democrats while keeping the donors totally anonymous and giving them a tax write-off for their troubles,” Parker Thayer, an investigative researcher at Capital Research Center, previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Democracy Fund, Arabella, Tides, and Open Society Foundations did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.
Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation
The post This Liberal Donor Pushes Left-Leaning Groups to Fund Efforts to Turn Out Voters appeared first on The Daily Signal.
As police finally clear the anti-Israel encampment at the University of Chicago, and Northwestern University appeases its protesting occupiers, the Democratic National Convention set for August in the Windy City ticks ever closer.
Unsatiated protesters may have been cleared from some of their camps at college campuses, but the more lucrative target of national Democrats’ gathering to renominate President Joe Biden has many worried that the protests may only be getting started.
Although the two Chicago universities caved weakly to the strange demands of the anti-Israel protesters, Biden has not been well-received by the pro-Hamas youth.
The agitators’ slapping Biden with the nickname “Genocide Joe” and their joining pro-Israel protesters at UCLA and University of Alabama in chants of “F— Joe Biden” led many to suspect that stormy weather is in store for a left-wing political convention that is little more than three months away.
Biden’s unpopularity with radical groups on the political and cultural Left has been largely attributed to his attempt to “split the baby” by backing Israel in its war against Hamas while criticizing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s methods, placing conditions on aid to America’s biggest Middle Eastern ally, and sympathizing with anti-Israel and pro-Hamas protesters.
Hamas terrorists invaded southern Israel on Oct. 7, slaughtering 1,200, torturing or raping many first, and taking over 200 hostages. Ever since, the Israeli military has targeted the adjacent Gaza Strip—where Hamas is the elected government and uses civilians as shields—with the goal of “eradicating” the terrorist group.
The Biden administration has warned Israel not to invade Rafah, the southern region of the Gaza Strip bordering Egypt, where the last four regiments of Hamas are believed to hold dozens of hostages, including five American citizens.
Anti-Israel protesters have set up encampments on public and private university campuses around the nation, often trespassing and vandalizing on campus as well as intimidating, obstructing, and entrapping Jewish students.
Although the published rationale for these protests varies from encampment to encampment, most center on the rage of left-wing students that their university is doing business with businesses that do business with (or appear to do business with) Israel.
Protesters at the University of Chicago and Northwestern demanded full-ride scholarships for Palestinian students, HIV tests, medical supplies for treating combat wounds, dental dams, Plan B, and other contraceptives.
Northwestern reportedly “paid off” some protesters by agreeing to give scholarships to five Palestinian students and special pay to Palestinian staff for two years. School administrators also agreed to reestablish an Advisory Committee on Investment Responsibility that would allow students and staff to shame the university officially for accepting “Israeli or Israel-adjacent endowments,” and to allow protesters to continue their encampment until at least June 1.
Now Northwestern is facing a lawsuit and two civil rights complaints over concessions to the leaders of the anti-Israel encampments. The plaintiffs claim that Northwestern failed to “fulfill a modest core promise” to students that all “student peers and faculty will be governed by rules” by looking the other way when certain groups participated in antisemitic harassment.
Although the encampment at the University of Chicago was cleared by police Tuesday morning, students and faculty members have proclaimed their willingness to be arrested while “protesting for Palestine.”
Given the inflammatory support for these anti-Israel protests from far-left House Democrats such as Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Andre Carson of Indiana, and Pramila Jayapal of Washington, it’s unlikely that organizers of the Democratic National Convention would be able to discourage these anti-Israel protesters from setting up camp outside United Center for the duration of the convention Aug. 19 to 22.
One need not look back too far to recall the upheaval at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, when Vietnam War protesters tangled with police was upheaved by protesters against the Vietnam War.
At the time, 56 years ago, Illinois Gov. Samuel Shapiro, a Democrat, honored a request from Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, also a Democrat, to deploy the Illinois National Guard to help provide convention security. It is unlikely that today’s mayor, Democrat Brandon Johnson, would ask for the Guard to be deployed.
In a press conference Friday, Johnson told reporters that “individuals who wish to demonstrate … work within parameters.” But the mayor declined to outline what “parameters” meant, or whether he would request police or Guard assistance.
If such a protest turned out to be as violent as the “Summer of Love” in 2020, in which entire city blocks were burned by Black Lives Matter-inspired rioters, then this Democratic National Convention could turn very nasty very quickly.
Last month, representatives of 75 organizations gathered in Chicago to plan disruptions at August’s convention.
Joe Iosbaker, a leader of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, told a screaming crowd: “This is Chicago, [expletive] it, we’ve got to give them a 1968 kind of welcome!”
The post Nightmares at Chicago Universities Set Stage for Nuclear Democrat Convention appeared first on The Daily Signal.
House Democrats released an agenda Thursday that includes a vow to codify a right to so-called gender-affirming care—transgender surgeries, hormones, and puberty blockers.
The promise came within the Congressional Progressive Caucus’ agenda, which House Democrats first shared with NBC News. That agenda includes a slew of left-wing interests, including promises of a higher minimum wage and stronger antitrust laws.
“If the progressive base is not excited and enthusiastic—and if they don’t feel like we are trying to earn their votes and that they are important—then I think the horrific idea of a second Donald Trump presidency could become reality,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., who chairs the progressive caucus, told NBC News in an interview. “We cannot afford to let that happen. And we won’t.”
Although NBC claims that the agenda goes “lighter on cultural issues,” under the category “advancing justice,” it promises to “codify the rights of transgender, nonbinary and intersex people, including gender-affirming care and health care.”
Jayapal did not respond to requests for comment for this article explaining what, exactly, codifying a right to “gender-affirming care” would entail.
In March 2023, she joined with other Democrats in introducing a “Trans Bill of Rights,” citing the rise in parental rights laws, laws protecting kids from gender transitions, and laws prohibiting boys from participating in girls and women’s sports.
“Day after day, we see a constant onslaught of anti-trans rhetoric and legislation coming from elected officials. Today, we say enough is enough,” Jayapal said at the time. “Our Trans Bill of Rights says clearly to the trans community across the country that we see you, and we will stand with you, to ensure you are protected and given the dignity and respect that every person should have.”
That legislation would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include gender identity as “protected characteristics.” It would also amend federal education laws to say that they protect kids from being discriminated against based on gender identity.
The Trans Bill of Rights also called for ensuring that “every child has the right to grow up in a supportive environment by having their authentic identity respected in the classroom, ensuring they can participate in school sports with their peers, and ensuring access to an inclusive curriculum.”
It further called for “expanding access” to trans surgeries, hormones, and puberty blockers and codifying rights to abortion and contraception.
Jayapal told NBC News that progressive Democrats assume “this is an agenda for a Democratic president with a Democratic Senate and a Democratic House.”
She added: “We have to excite our base. We have to show them what the path forward is—not just say, ‘This is the most important election of your life, and we expect you to vote.’ I don’t think that’s going to turn people out. And so, I think this agenda, really, speaks to the needs of poor people, working people, progressives across the country who want us to make that case to them.”
“We are not seeing the momentum that we would like to see,” she told NBC. We’re going to have a tough election. … We know we’re going to have to put together that progressive coalition. And I think this is the thing that allows us to say, “‘Look, here’s what we’re fighting for.’”
The post House Democrats Vow to Codify ‘Rights’ to Trans Surgeries, Hormones, Puberty Blockers appeared first on The Daily Signal.
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