Oh: Cap'n Bill Kristol Took Millions from Democrats to Spend on Behalf of Electing Democrats; He Took Ten Million Plus from the Democrat Dark Money Group the Sixteen Thirty Fund, Which George Soros Donates To

#MuhPrinciples.

Mollie @MZHemingway

Breathtaking how much NeverTrump movement has personally profited off of its "principled" (ha!) service to the left. Of course, neocons like Kristol have always helped the left, adopting their narratives and getting GOP to adopt a politically toxic and disastrous foreign policy.

Sorry, Mollie, you give him too much credit: This isn't even a squabble about a legitimate foreign policy disagreement. This is about the fact that the neocons have always -- A L W A Y S -- been strongly aligned with the cultural left, and they are horrified that they've lost control of the GOP they formerly owned and that it is no longer as reliable a part of the cryptoleft as it had been.

It's also about the fact that these lazy, obese luxuriants always need to find the next hand feeding them their daily slop.

Byron York @ByronYork

New NYT analysis shows former Weekly Standard founder/editor Bill Kristol has become deeply involved in the Democratic money machine. His group, Defending Democracy Together, spent nearly $40 million on behalf of Democrats in last cycle.

NYT article on Bill Kristol and the rest of the leftwing culture warriors spending the Democrat Dark Money here.

The article notes that the Democrats used to criticize Dark Money, but now love it, and used it to "win" in 2020.

InfluenceWatch.com has this to say about the Sixteen Thirty Fund, among other things:

The Sixteen Thirty Fund (sometimes styled "1630 Fund") is a left-of-center lobbying and advocacy organization founded in 2008.[1] Sixteen Thirty Fund often operates alongside its charitable "sister" nonprofit New Venture Fund, which provides similar funding and fiscal sponsorship services to center-left organizations. Both groups, along with the Hopewell Fund and Windward Fund, are administered by Arabella Advisors, a Washington, D.C.-based philanthropy consulting firm that caters to left-leaning clients.

According to its founding documents, the Sixteen Thirty Fund was created with seed funding from Americans United for Change (AUFC), ACORN, USAction, the Sierra Club, and Working America. [2]

Both Sixteen Thirty Fund and New Venture Fund have been criticized as "dark money" organizations by left-leaning news outlets, including the New York Times, for serving as a way for left-wing groups to anonymously funnel money toward various advocacy issues, such as attacking vulnerable Republicans or pushing state-level environmental restrictions. [3] [4]

In April 2021, the New York Times criticized Arabella's "system of political financing, which often obscures the identities of donors," as "dark money," calling the network "a leading vehicle for it on the Left." [5] In May 2021, the New York Times identified Sixteen Thirty Fund as one of the "leading dark money spenders on the Left" for quietly supporting Democrats with more than $63 million in super PAC donations that hurt Republicans in the 2020 election, as well for "help[ing] create and fund dozens of groups, including some that worked to block Mr. Trump's nominees and push progressive appointments by Mr. Biden." [6]

The Atlantic, a left-leaning magazine, has called the Sixteen Thirty Fund "the indisputable heavyweight of Democratic dark money" which funneled "roughly $61 million of effectively untraceable money to progressive causes," making it the "second-largest super-PAC donor in 2020." Of Arabella Advisors, the Atlantic noted that the "mothership" company runs a "massive progressive dark-money group you've never heard of." It added: "Democrats have quietly pulled ahead of Republicans in untraceable political spending. One group helped make it happen." [7]

Left-leaning Politico has called the Sixteen Thirty Fund a "massive 'dark money' network" responsible for "boost[ing] Democrats" in the 2018 midterm elections, a "liberal dark-money behemoth," a "secretly funded nonprofit," and "one of the Left's financial hubs" responsible for "attacking Republican senators" in 2019. [8] [9] [10]

The Sixteen Thirty Fund has also been characterized as one of the "key groups founded to resist Trump" by the left-leaning Atlantic. [11] Politico noted in late 2021 that the Sixteen Thirty Fund "exploded in size during the Trump administration," doling out "a whopping $410 million in 2020" and "aiding Democratic efforts to unseat then-President Donald Trump and win back control of the Senate" for Democrats. [12].

...

Arabella and its nonprofit network have been criticized as "dark money" funders both for channeling hundreds of millions of dollars to left-wing organizations and for hosting hundreds of "pop-up groups"--websites designed to look like standalone nonprofits that are really projects of an Arabella-run nonprofit. [15]

More at the link.

And yes, of course, George Soros is a big contributor to the Sixteen Thirty Fund. He gave a lot of money to the "Fix Our Senate" group, which is another dark-money fund created by the Sixteen Thirty Fund to end the filibuster:

Fix Our Senate has existed as a "project" of the leftist "Sixteen Thirty Fund, a nonprofit incubator managed by the D.C.-based consulting firm Arabella Advisors." Soros's Open Society Policy Center (OSPC) gave the Sixteen Thirty Fund $16,568,483 between 2016 and 2019 alone. "As a subsidiary of the Sixteen Thirty Fund, Fix Our Senate does not have to register as a standalone nonprofit with the IRS. This allows the group to operate largely in secret," The Beacon noted. Fix Our Senate "does not have to disclose its donors or file tax forms that would shed light on its financial activity, board members, or contractors," according to The Beacon.

The Beacon broke down the scheme by Fix Our Senate to dramatically overhaul the Senate's legislative process. The campaign has used racism as its pivot point[.]

"Fix Our Senate" seems to be one of those "pop-up groups" designed to appear to be a "stand-alone group" but which is really just another tentacle of the Sixteen Thirty Group.

And Cap'n Bill took at least ten million from them.

Who else do you think is taking their money on the low-low that we don't even know about?

posted by Ace at 05:49 PM

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