Even as Democrats publicly and loudly decry corporatist political “dark money,” billionaire Democrats and other donors funnel hundreds of millions to radical and violent causes.

Barely a week had passed after Donald Trump’s historic upset in the November 8 presidential election, but some of the world’s richest individuals were already launching a counteroffensive. George Soros and his fellow deep-pocket funders of the Democratic Party and left-wing causes gathered with a lineup of party activists and luminaries from Hollywood, K Street, and Wall Street for a three-day “investment conference” (November 15-17) at the luxurious Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington, D.C. The conference was entitled “2016-2018-2020: Seizing Opportunity & Building Power.” These are folks who know a thing or two about seizing power — political, economic, and social. They are the “partners” of the Democracy Alliance, an elite invitation-only club of uber-rich donors who are credited with dumping hundreds of millions of dollars into political campaigns and radical movements in recent years.

While much of what Soros and the Democracy Alliance donors are doing is perfectly legal, a considerable portion of their cash is sluiced into a network of “pass through” foundations and organizations that fund illegal — and even violent — activities. The WikiLeaks e-mails and the undercover video “interviews” by Project Veritas, featuring boastful admissions of criminal acts by Bob Creamer, Scott Foval, Cesar Vargas, Zulema Rodriguez, and Aaron Black, have confirmed the worst concerns of critics regarding “dark money” flowing through the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Hillary Clinton campaign.

In one video, Foval actually connects the dots, noting that the illegal funding goes through the Clinton campaign to the DNC, to Creamer’s group and on to Foval, who then, says Foval, “executes the sh*t on the ground.” Bob Creamer, a top Democratic operative, tells the hidden camera that Clinton’s campaign “is fully in it.... Hillary knows through the chain of command what’s going on.” New York lawyer Cesar Vargas, a key DNC operative helping to get illegal aliens into the voting stream, tells Project Veritas: “Yeah, and for me I totally get it, this is illegal; this is something that can be done.” Clinton campaign staff member Zulema Rod­riguez is recorded on video taking credit for organizing the March 2016 anti-Trump riots in Chicago that resulted in police officers being injured and caused Trump to cancel his rally.

A thorough congressional investigation of these criminal activities and the dark money channels that fund them is absolutely essential if our elections are to have continued relevance and our constitutional Republic is to survive.

Trump’s victory has stoked the Left’s fears and fervor like no other event. An entry on the agenda for the closed Democracy Alliance (DA) meeting at the Mandarin described President-elect Trump’s plan for America as “a terrifying assault on President Obama’s achievements — and our progressive vision for an equitable and just nation.”

Gara LaMarche, the president of DA, told the mega-donors gathered at the Mandarin for a pre-conference welcome dinner that their stunning loss on November 8 showed the need for some serious reassessment. The press was not invited to the event, but according to prepared remarks he provided to Politico, he said, “You don’t lose an election you were supposed to win, with so much at stake, without making some big mistakes, in assumptions, strategy and tactics.”

A big part of the DA strategy over the next four years will be to focus on congressional races, as well as putting their people into office in state and local races. An e-mail LaMarche sent to DA partners before the event said they would be assessing “what steps we will take together to resist the assaults that are coming and take back power, beginning in the states in 2017 and 2018.”

One of the vehicles for pressing that agenda will be the State Innovation Exchange, headed by Nick Rathod, a community organizer, former special assistant to President Obama, former staffer at the Soros-Clinton-Podesta Center for American Progress, and former leader in Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s national gun-control campaign. A big part of the plan is to boost Democrats into state legislatures in time to be able to control redistricting efforts after the 2020 census. Another likely part is to expand DA donor giving to local political campaigns, such as the recently successful defeat of combative Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio (which cost Soros a mere $2 million!). Soros’ “Safety & Justice” PACs have also funneled more than $3 million into seven local district attorney races in six states. “Criminal justice reform” groups supported by Soros and DA are targeting many more similar races around the country.

Speakers, presenters, and panelists at the DA soirée included such standard fixtures of the establishment Left as Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Representative Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), Gara LaMarche, and Van Jones, as well as leaders of the AFL-CIO, Service Employees International Union (SEIU), American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), and other labor unions. But the A-List of attendees, around 100 DA “Partners,” are those who can write the big checks, and have been known for giving millions to fund radical “progressive” causes. Although a complete list of this year’s attendees has not been made available, the DA partners include such financial heavyweights as Donald Sussman, Peter Lewis, Herb and Marian Sandler, Tom Steyer, Norman Lear, Rob McKay, Amy Goldman, Philip Munger, Adam Abram — and, of course, the Soros family (George and sons Jonathan and Alex). Not surprisingly, a number of the activist foundations were also listed on the DA agenda as “hosts”: Rockefeller Family Fund, Surdna Foundation, Solidago Foundation, Tides Foundation, JK Irwin Foundation, Arca Foundation, and Wyss Foundation.

Besides George Soros himself, listed presenters at the DA’s 2016 Mandarin confab included Center for Community Change President Deepak Bhargava; Demos President Heather McGhee; Freedom to Marry founder Evan Wolfson, “the architect of the movement that led to a nationwide victory at the U.S. Supreme Court in 2015 affirming marriage rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered Americans”; Media Matters for America founder David Brock; and National Center for Transgender Equality executive director Mara Keisling.

Between the time of its founding in 2005 and the 2014 election cycle, Democracy Alliance reportedly funneled $500 million into “progressive” left-wing organizations. “While the Democracy Alliance requires that its members pay $30,000 in yearly dues, the group itself does not collect and distribute funds to other organizations,” explains Ballotpedia. “Instead, according to the Washington Post, the alliance occupies a unique position as an ‘accreditation agency for political advocacy groups,’” Ballotpedia continues. “DA staff members advise partners by closely monitoring the work and finances of approved organizations, allowing some of the country’s wealthiest progressive donors to coordinate their giving and make long-term, sustained investments in political infrastructure. The Democracy Alliance derives its influence from this accreditation process, as a number of major political donors become more or less off-limits for groups that do not receive the DA stamp of approval.”

DA Stamp of Approval

So which groups have passed the “accreditation process” and won access to the coveted DA gravy train? Ballotpedia reports that a confidential document from 2015 recovered by Politico included a list of 39 recommended organizations that form the Democracy Alliance’s “core portfolio.” A confidential report to DA partners in 2014 listed 172 organizations that form the DA’s “Progressive Infrastructure Map.” These are some of the organizations favored by the DA’s mega-donors: 350.org, Alliance for Justice, American Bridge 21st Century, Brennan Center for Justice, Center for American Progress, Center for Community Change, ColorOfChange.org, Demos, Planned Parenthood, People for the American Way, Rebuild the Dream, Priorities USA Action, Progressive Campaign Change Committee, Progressive Congress, Progressive Majority, Progressive States Network, ProgressNow, Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Working America, Working Families Party, and many, many more.

Let’s examine just a few of these groups:

350.org — Founded by radical environmentalist and global-warming ultra-alarmist Bill McKibben, 350.org is funded by DA partners, as well as the Soros, Rockefeller, and Ford Foundations, and the Global Greengrants Fund. According to McKibben’s “terrifying new math,” we must cut our energy from fossil fuels to “zero” — immediately — to avoid “catastrophic warming.”

Blue Green Alliance (BGA) — Founded to unite “America’s largest labor unions and its most influential environmental organizations,” BGA has partnered with Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection and advanced the “greening” of school curricula throughout the country.

ColorOfChange.org (COC) — Co-founded by CNN commentator Van Jones, a “former” communist devotee of mass-murderer Mao Tse-tung, and briefly President Obama’s green jobs czar, COC is one of many groups that exist largely to smear political conservatives with false charges of racism. The Soros network is especially fond of Comrade Jones, showering his various efforts, such as the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Green for All, and Rebuild the Dream, with millions of dollars.

The Nation magazine — The oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States, The Nation (founded 1865) is also one of the most reliably “progressive,” if one understands that term to mean pro-socialist, pro-communist, anti-capitalist, and militantly anti-anti-communist. During the 20th century, there were few (if any) communist regimes that The Nation’s extreme-left writers and editors could fail to praise, let alone condemn. And there have been few leftist causes — abortion, population control, gun control, LGBTQ rights, climate change, open borders, atheism, etc. — they have failed to champion.

Mother Jones magazine — Named for militant socialist labor organizer Mary Harris “Mother” Jones (1837 - 1930), this radical-left magazine is a relative newcomer compared to The Nation. Launched in 1976 by the Foundation for National Progress, a spin-off group of the pro-Castro, pro-Soviet Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), Mother Jones stalwartly follows the “progressive” line, which usually means being virulently anti-American, anti-Christian, and anti-capitalist. Among the current writers at the magazine are Al Gore, former president of the violent Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) Todd Gitlin, Communist China propagandist Orville Schell, former State Department official and Carnegie Endowment president Morton Abramowitz, and veteran IPS Marxists Robert Borosage and Phyllis Bennis.

Demos — Posturing as a progressive think tank, this 501(c)(3) nonprofit has been involved in many fights over voter registration, income inequality, minimum wage, campaign finance reform, and global governance. It is one of the many groups funded by DA partners where hard-left radicals and establishment globalists collaborate to undermine American sovereignty and independence. Demos cofounder and current board chair is Amelia Warren Tyagi, the daughter of Senator Elizabeth Warren. Former Demos President (and current trustee emeritus) Miles Rapoport was a leader of the Students for a Democratic Society in the 1960s. Rapoport is a veteran collaborator with the hardcore Marxists of the Institute for Policy Studies and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Also sitting on the Demos board of trustees are Van Jones and Stephen Heintz, president of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

Heintz is particularly noteworthy, since he is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the dominant globalist organization that has operated as the “power behind the throne” in America for much of the past century. Over at The Nation, editor/publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel is a CFR member, as have been a number of its writers over the years. Current CFR-member writers include Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) and Hendrick Hertzberg. At Mother Jones, prominent CFR members include Orville Schell, Morton Abramowitz, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Daniel Yankelovich.

Top-down/Bottom-up Control

The CFR connection is crucial to understanding the dynamic of simultaneous “pressure from above and below” that has been responsible for moving the political/social dials continually leftward over the past decades, so that yesterday’s left is today’s center. The CFR globalists in the suites provide the cash, direction, and media support for the radical activists in the streets who create the appearance of popular support for more centralization of power. It is a squeeze play, in which the faux populists are merely paid agents and rent-a-mob dupes delivering more and more control to the crony “capitalists” they claim to detest and oppose.

George Soros is a leading member and funder of the Council on Foreign Relations. His son Jonathan Soros is also a member, as are key individuals who are (or have been) operatives in the Open Society Foundations and other Soros-funded organizations. Aryeh Neier, who served as president of the OSF for nearly a decade, from its founding in 1993 to 2012, is also a CFR member. (Incidentally, and worthy of note, Neier was one of the ’60s radicals who founded the riotous, Marxist SDS. He subsequently went on to lead the ACLU, which, like the SDS, invokes “democracy” while doing everything possible to undermine our constitutional Republic.) Democracy Alliance itself is run by CFR member Gara LaMarche. Like Aryeh Neier, LaMarche was also a professional rabble-rouser/revolutionary for the ACLU before being promoted to director of U.S. programs for the Open Society Foundations. He then got bumped up to CEO of the Atlantic Philanthropies, where he oversaw the foundation’s grant-making avalanche of funds to “social justice” activists, prior to taking over the top post at DA.

The CFR connection is also crucial to understanding George Soros’ position in the power elite matrix. Because of his enormous wealth, activism, and narcissistic craving of the limelight, Soros has become the bogeyman nonpareil for conservatives. However, the mogul’s real power stems from his membership in the elite organizations promoting a “new world order” (i.e., world government), such as the CFR, Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg Group, and International Crisis Group.

It is CFR globalists who always shield the Soros types from the death rays of genuine public scrutiny: “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain”; “These are not the droids you’re looking for.” Wielding their power in the media, as well as their influence in political, business, and financial spheres, the CFR elites killed the congressional investigations in the 1950s that were threatening to expose the funding of socialist and communist subversion by the big tax-exempt foundations. They will run out the same playbook once more when (and if) official efforts are again launched to expose the schemes of Soros, Democracy Alliance, and other new world order mega-donors. If they succeed in quashing these efforts, it is unlikely we will ever get another chance. That is why it is absolutely necessary for citizens to press their senators and representatives to investigate — and, where appropriate, for state attorneys general to prosecute — funders of chaos and bring them to justice.