A great many people would probably answer that his goal is to do evil. But of course, that’s not the way he would conceptualize it. He’s also supported some causes that, objectively, seem inarguably good, such as the end of Communism in the eastern European countries. So, what gives?

One hint is the name of his philanthropic foundation: Open Society. What does that mean?:

Under George Soros’s leadership, the Open Society Foundations support individuals and organizations across the globe working to advance human rights, equity, and justice.

So far, it sounds like basic leftist boilerplate.

More:

Starting in Hungary in the mid-1980s, George Soros used his fortune to build a philanthropic network that became the Open Society Foundations—the name reflecting the influence of the philosopher Karl Popper, whom Soros first encountered as a student at the London School of Economics. In his book Open Society and Its Enemies, Popper argues that no philosophy or ideology is the final arbiter of truth, and that societies can only flourish when they allow for democratic governance, freedom of expression, and respect for individual rights—an approach at the core of the Open Society Foundations’ work.

Except for the “no final arbiter of truth” part, that sounds more like classical liberalism or libertarianism.

He started with efforts that weren’t expressly leftist:

George Soros began his philanthropy in 1979, giving scholarships to Black South Africans under apartheid. In the 1980s, he helped promote the open exchange of ideas in Communist Hungary by funding academic visits to the West and supporting fledgling independent cultural groups, as well as other initiatives. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, he created Central European University as a space to foster critical thinking—which at that time was an alien concept for most universities in the former Communist bloc.

With the Cold War over, he gradually expanded his philanthropy to Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the United States, supporting a vast array of new efforts to create more accountable, transparent, and democratic societies.

He then segued into libertarian efforts to end restrictions on drugs and same-sex marriage, the latter of which is certainly a more conventional leftist cause but could also be considered libertarian. The website explains his “evolving causes” this way:

Though his causes have evolved over time, they continue to hew closely to his ideals of an open society.

I suppose that he would consider anything traditional to be non-open – that is, closed. Which brings us to things such as this:

Since 2016, Soros has been donating sums exceeding $1 million to the campaigns of progressive criminal justice reform proponents through the Safety and Justice PAC in local district attorney elections. In many districts, such large contributions were unprecedented and the campaigning strategy was “turned on its head” with a focus on incarceration, police misconduct and bail system, according to the Los Angeles Times.

There’s nothing more “closed” than a prison, right?

Soros also has promoted “death with dignity” euthanasia and assisted suicide efforts; also basically a libertarian and/or leftist cause. He’s become persona non grata in his native Hungary, because (among other things) he backs lots of “migration” from third-world countries into Europe – again, that seems a very “open” and boundary-free cause.

I’ve written about Soros many times before; see this. For post about his Jewishness, please see this, this, and this. Soros was born an ethnic Jew but had zero education in Judaism and in fact he has said the following:

With Soros there’s also the fact that, that although he was born a Jew by the Nazis’ definition—in other words, he was born in Hungary to parents of Jewish ancestry—he was never given any instruction in Judaism and his parents had actually repudiated Judaism. They weren’t just non-practicing Jews (although they were indeed that), they were actually anti-Jewish, according to Soros himself, who said that he “grew up in a Jewish, anti-Semitic home,” and called his parents “uncomfortable with their religious roots.”

So one wouldn’t expect him to support Israel. What he’s said on that subject is this:

“I don’t deny Jews the right to a national existence – but I don’t want to be a part of it”. According to hacked emails released in 2016, Soros’s Open Society Foundation has a self-described objective of “challenging Israel’s racist and anti-democratic policies” in international forums, in part by questioning Israel’s reputation as a democracy. He has funded NGOs which have been actively critical of Israeli policies including groups that campaign for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel

Typical leftist stuff and quite unsurprising.

I’ve probably barely scratched the surface on this, but I think the basic template is Soros’ opinion that whatever he sees as “open” is good, and what he sees as “closed” is bad.

[NOTE: Here’s a summary of Popper’s book about “open societies.” His definition doesn’t seem exactly the same as that of Soros.]

The post What are the goals of George Soros? appeared first on The New Neo.

Soros, 94, was among the 19 people chosen to receive the nation’s highest civilian honor at the White House, a group that included U2 frontman Bono, actor Denzel Washington and former senator Hillary Clinton — who also was panned as a recipient.

“George Soros spent millions electing soft-on-crime politicians that let criminals wreak havoc in our major cities,” Montana Senator Tim Sheehy told The Post. “Hillary Clinton abandoned our Navy SEALs in Libya.”

To the left those things are features, not bugs. And still another feature is outraging the right.

The post Honoring George Soros and Hillary Clinton appeared first on The New Neo.

Musk has been falsely accused of antisemitism because of his criticism and mockery of George Soros. …

Soros is Jewish by heritage. Musk is not. But their religious backgrounds should play no role in evaluating the charges and counter-charges. The facts and history of both men should be evaluated. …

No single person has done more to damage Israel’s standing in the world, and especially among so-called progressives, than George Soros. Without his support, the two major organizations that have done the most to shift the left-wing paradigm against Israel, would not have the pernicious influence they currently possess.

Human Rights Watch was founded by publisher and human rights advocate Robert Bernstein. For years it critiqued the denial of human rights by all countries based on two criteria: the seriousness of the human rights violations in any particular nation; and the inability of the citizens of that nation to protest and remedy such violations. Then a Soros-funded radical anti-Israel zealot named Kenneth Roth took over the organization and turned it into an organization that specialized in demonizing Israel without regard to the previously outlined criteria. The Israel bashing became so one-sided and extreme that Bernstein wrote:

“As the founder of Human Rights Watch, its active chairman for 20 years and now founding chairman emeritus, I must do something that I never anticipated: I must publicly join the group’s critics. Human Rights Watch had as its original mission to pry open closed societies, advocate basic freedoms and support dissenters. But recently it has been issuing reports on the Israeli-Arab conflict that are helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state.”

Soros gave the organization a hundred million dollars as well.

The other organization is J Street; Dershowitz also describes Soros’ contribution there.

The idea that any criticism of Soros is anti-Semitic is absurd – but useful to the left – and it’s an old topic that I discussed at some length in a two-parter back in 2018. Part I is here and Part II is here.

I wrote in Part I:

Remember when every type of criticism of Obama was called racist? Of course it wasn’t actually racist if you were criticizing his behavior. You were criticizing the man and the president, Barack Obama, not his race.

Same with Soros and being a Jew. With Soros there’s also the fact that, that although he was born a Jew by the Nazis’ definition — in other words, he was born in Hungary to parents of Jewish ancestry — he was never given any instruction in Judaism and his parents had actually repudiated Judaism. They weren’t just non-practicing Jews (although they were indeed that), they were actually anti-Jewish, according to Soros himself, who said that he “grew up in a Jewish, anti-Semitic home,” and called his parents “uncomfortable with their religious roots.”

So Soros’ heritage could more properly be called anti-Semitism. It is absolutely possible for people of Jewish heritage to be anti-Jewish. In fact, given the prevalence and longevity of anti-Semitism, being of Jewish origin and yet trying to give out the message “I’m not one of those Jews, and I’ll prove it by hating them and working against them” is actually not all that unusual.

However, Soros was not a Nazi collaborator, although that’s a favorite accusation against him on the right (see this post of mine on that).

I’m very much in agreement with Dershowitz on Soros.

NOTE: In addition, in 2022 I wrote this post entitled, “It occurs to me that Elon Musk is somewhat the anti-Soros.” This was prior to any dust-up between them.

The post Soros and Israel appeared first on The New Neo.

But it’s not true that he was a Nazi collaborator. At best, it’s an exaggeration so extreme as to effectively be a lie. I’ve written about this topic before at some length, and I’m about to reiterate some of that information in this post. But that’s not really what prompted me to write about it The larger question that interests me is one I often wonder about: how much the right can fight fire with fire before becoming a version of what it hates.

No, we shouldn’t play by Marquis de Queensberry rules when the left is playing so dirty. Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight, and all that. The left lies incessantly, and with the full backing and cooperation of the MSM. So what should the right do in response? Correcting the lies of the left doesn’t really work very well, because a lie really does get halfway around the world before the truth has time to put its pants on. And by then it’s too late.

Plus, lies are usually simple to assimilate and understand. Truth tends to be more complex, and a lot of people figure TL;DR.

Also, this question of how far the right should go to counter the left isn’t just about lies. It’s about tactics in general. It’s about things like – just to take one current example – indicting one’s political opponents for crimes that would ordinarily not be prosecuted at all. Once the left starts and the right responds in kind (which it hasn’t yet), where does this thing end?

I yield to no one in my criticisms of Soros and especially of what he’s done in backing far leftist prosecutors in the US. His actions have been exceptionally destructive. Actually, though, I don’t think it’s even necessary to lie about him; the truth will suffice because the truth is bad enough.

There’s just something that sticks in my craw when I read lies, and lies discredit – in my opinion, anyway – those who write them. Your mileage may differ.

So here I am in the position, not of defending George Soros in general, but of attempting to set the record straight on this particular detail once again. Why bother? I’m not sure anymore, but let’s just say I’ve always tried to follow the truth wherever it leads me.

I refer you to this previous (2018) post of mine. Here’s a relevant excerpt:

With Soros there’s also the fact that, that although he was born a Jew by the Nazis’ definition—in other words, he was born in Hungary to parents of Jewish ancestry—he was never given any instruction in Judaism and his parents had actually repudiated Judaism. They weren’t just non-practicing Jews (although they were indeed that), they were actually anti-Jewish, according to Soros himself, who said that he “grew up in a Jewish, anti-Semitic home,” and called his parents “uncomfortable with their religious roots.”

I want to clear one thing up at the outset, however. There’s a lot of vilification of Soros for what he supposedly did during WWII in Hungary (as a child and young teenager), but the bulk of these accusations don’t appear to be true, or at least they are greatly exaggerated and built on only a small kernel of truth. On the other hand, Soros was mostly protected during World War II and didn’t seem to suffer, by his own admission. Soros himself has described WWII as an exciting period of life for him because his father seemed to have everything under control (Soros managed to masquerade as a non-Jew during this time) and “we managed not only to survive but to emerge victorious…”.

The allegations about Soros being a Nazi collaborator are based in great measure on an interview he gave with “60 Minutes” in 1998. The story is told in great detail in a 2002 Soros biography (let it be noted, by the way, that Soros was nine years old when the Second World War began and 14 years old when it ended):

Shortly after George went to live with Baumbach (who was a wealthy Hungarian; George was in hiding and concealing his Jewish identity in order to survive the Holocaust), the man was assigned to take inventory on the vast estate of Mor Kornfeld, an extremely wealthy aristocrat of Jewish origin. The Kornfeld family had the wealth, wisdom, and connections to be able to leave some of its belongings behind in exchange for permission to make their way to Lisbon. Baumbach was ordered to go to the Kornfeld estate and inventory the artworks, furnishings, and other property. Rather than leave his “godson” behind in Budapest for three days, he took the boy with him. As Baumbach itemized the material, George walked around the grounds and spent time with Kornfeld’s staff. It was his first visit to such a mansion, and the first time he rode a horse. He collaborated with no one and he paid attention to what he understood to be his primary responsibility: making sure that no one doubted that he was [his assumed non-Jewish identity] Sandor Kiss…

In a separate autobiography written by Soros’ father, his father adds that Soros the younger “even helped with the inventory.” That seems to have been on this one occasion, when Soros was around thirteen years old. He only stayed with Baumbach for a few weeks and then went to live with his mother, who had also assumed a false (non-Jewish) identity. Hardly the sort of thing people understand to mean by the term “Nazi collaborator.”

There’s much more at the link, including a discussion of other similar allegations against Soros. Each allegation seems to be based on the enormous exaggeration of a very very small truth about something Soros did as a child and young teen during the war. They don’t seem to be based on anything other than the testimony of both Soros and his father.

So, although you’ll read plenty of strong condemnation of Soros on this blog, it won’t include the charge “Nazi collaborator.” Why not stick with the very real things he’s done as an adult that are worthy of condemnation and opposition?

Whether or not Soros is called a Nazi collaborator, it doesn’t answer the larger question of what tactics the right should use in the very intense and bitter fight we’re in. I think it’s an important question.

The post No, George Soros wasn’t really a Nazi collaborator appeared first on The New Neo.

Now there’s a new and preposterous round, consisting of the claim that George Soros endorsed DeSantis. Kari Lake seems to be instrumental in spreading the rumor, although Soros said nothing of the sort.

MAGA is becoming everything it said it hated. From taking a picture and insinuating wrongdoing from it to saying that Soros "endorsed" DeSantis.

It's "Trump with Jeffrey Epstein" and "David Duke endorsed Trump" but from those who used to oppose such nonsense.

— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) February 17, 2023

I disagree with the contention that this is “MAGA.” Most Trump supporters are not bashing DeSantis with lies. But there is a small and very vocal core who are, and unfortunately Trump is hardly discouraging them.

The post The continuing war on DeSantis – waged by elements of the right appeared first on The New Neo.

The hoax was plagiarized from several earlier sources, some not antisemitic in nature. It was first published in Russia in 1903, translated into multiple languages, and disseminated internationally in the early part of the 20th century. It played a key part in popularizing belief in an international Jewish conspiracy.

Distillations of the work were assigned by some German teachers, as if factual, to be read by German schoolchildren after the Nazis came to power in 1933, despite having been exposed as fraudulent by the British newspaper The Times in 1921 and the German Frankfurter Zeitung in 1924. It remains widely available in numerous languages, in print and on the Internet…It has been described as “probably the most influential work of antisemitism ever written”.

The Russian Revolution was supported by many Jews who believed the revolutionaries’ promises of an end to anti-Semitism, but over time that promise became a cruel joke as the Soviets persecuted Jews. The Putin government now seems to think it’s a great idea to call the Jewish president of Ukraine a Nazi, and to say that Israel – a country that has tried to remain neutral during the Ukraine War although its sentiments lie with Ukraine – is pro neo-Nazi. Because the Putin propaganda machine rests on the idea that what it’s doing in Ukraine is an anti-Nazi cleanup, it must put out this sort of tripe:

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov extended an argument he made on Sunday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Jewish roots don’t preclude him from being a neo-Nazi. Israel was infuriated by the comments, saying the attack was “unforgivable.”…

In a statement on Tuesday, Russia said Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid’s response was “anti-historical” and that Israel’s response “large explain why the current Israeli government supports the neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv.”

The statement went on to cite “examples of cooperation between Jews and the Nazis” during the Holocaust, according to the Times of Israel.

Those examples of “cooperation,” according to Russia, were coerced during the Holocaust, but Zelensky participates in crimes “quite consciously and quite voluntarily,” the statement continued.

Lavrov’s comments on Sunday were aimed at criticizing Ukraine but drew ire from Israel, a country that has maintained relative neutrality in the conflict between the two countries.

It’s ironic to note – as I’m sure Lavrov did not – that it was actually Russia (the USSR at the time) that allied itself with the Nazi regime and cooperated with it in invading Poland in order to gain territory. Funny that – and I don’t mean funny ha-ha. It was only when the Nazis turned on Russia itself that the Soviets broke off with the Nazis.

If your memory needs refreshing, speaking of territory:

Soon after the pact [between Germany and the USSR], Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin ordered the Soviet invasion of Poland on 17 September, one day after a Soviet–Japanese ceasefire came into effect after the Battles of Khalkhin Gol. After the invasions, the new border between the two countries was confirmed by the supplementary protocol of the German–Soviet Frontier Treaty. In March 1940, parts of the Karelia and Salla regions, in Finland, were annexed by the Soviet Union after the Winter War. That was followed by the Soviet annexation of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and parts of Romania (Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina and the Hertsa region). Concern for ethnic Ukrainians and Belarusians had been used as pretexts for the Soviets’ invasion of Poland. Stalin’s invasion of Bukovina in 1940 violated the pact since it went beyond the Soviet sphere of influence that had been agreed with the Axis.

The territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union after the 1939 Soviet invasion east of the Curzon line remained in the Soviet Union after the war ended and are now in Ukraine and Belarus. Vilnius was given to Lithuania. Only Podlaskie and a small part of Galicia east of the San River, around Przemy?l, were returned to Poland. Of all the other territories annexed by the Soviet Union in 1939 to 1940, those detached from Finland (Western Karelia, Petsamo), Estonia (Estonian Ingria and Petseri County) and Latvia (Abrene) remain part of Russia, the successor state to the Russian SSR after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The territories annexed from Romania had also been integrated into the Soviet Union (as the Moldavian SSR or oblasts of the Ukrainian SSR). The core of Bessarabia now forms Moldova. Northern Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina and the Hertsa region now form the Chernivtsi Oblast of Ukraine. Southern Bessarabia is part of the Odessa Oblast, which is also in Ukraine.

The pact was terminated on 22 June 1941, when Germany launched Operation Barbarossa and invaded the Soviet Union, in pursuit of the ideological goal of Lebensraum.

So Russia still retains some of that territory gained from its alliance with the actual real-life Nazis.

NOTE: As far as coerced Jewish collaboration with the Nazis goes, I have written about that at length. Here’s a piece I wrote about kapos; I suggest you read it because most people don’t understand much about kapos and throw the word around in ignorance. I also have a draft about the Judenrat that I’ve never finished and published (here’s an article someone else wrote, however). Suffice to say that what people do for survival when plunged into a nightmare situation at the hands of others – and the fact that they sometimes were forced to make decisions in which some were sacrificed in order (they believed) to save a greater number – cannot be judged in the usual ways and constitute a moral “gray area” as Holocaust survivor and author Primo Levi wrote.

And while we’re at it, now may be as good a time as any to state that although George Soros is many abominable things, “Holocaust collaborator” isn’t one of them, although that’s often an accusation made against him. I dealt with that question and several others here, and in greater detail here and here.

The post Russia: we’re bravely fighting those Jewish Nazis here, there, and everywhere appeared first on The New Neo.

Elon Musk filed a new disclosure on his Twitter Inc. stake with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday, admitting that he invested in the company with the goal of effecting change and that his stock purchases began months ago.

Musk disclosed Monday morning that he had purchased 9.2% of Twitter’s TWTR, -0.88% outstanding stock, but he did so on a 13G form suggesting the investment was passive, meaning he would not seek change at the company. Tuesday afternoon, he filed a form 13D, more often used by activist investors, that detailed an agreement the Tesla Inc. TSLA, -3.93% chief executive has reached with the social-media company that was disclosed by Twitter earlier in the day.

More here:

Now, it is becoming more clear why Musk did not officially declare passive status, as if his intense passion about how Twitter should be run, his recent outcry about free speech, and his frustration that right-wing zealots have been banned didn’t make that clear enough.

“They know he can buy the whole company,” Ives said. “It’s rare that someone has $300 billion in cash or net worth. That’s why they did that. If they didn’t embrace it, he would just go and buy another 10 % and get more and more control.”

Musk has already shown how he can agitate for change at the company. He recently asked his 80 million-plus followers whether they wanted an edit feature on Twitter. In late March, he had asked whether or not Twitter adheres to free speech, leading right-wing users to clamor for Musk to reinstate the banned Donald Trump to the platform. Users responded with a resounding no to the free-speech question, and a yes to an edit feature.

“Right-wing zealots” – how is that defined, exactly? That’s sarcasm on my part, because of course it’s not defined exactly.

And sacré blue, an edit feature!

We’ll see what happens with Trump and Twitter.

But back to my original contention about Musk being the anti-Soros – as in matter and anti-matter. Soros is supposedly worth 8 billion dollars and is heavily involved in political change, in recent years most particularly changing (that is, destroying, IMHO) our criminal justice system with so-called “Soros DAs,” whom he sponsors and promotes with large donations of money. Musk makes Soros look like a piker, with Musk’s net worth estimated to be somewhere near 300 billion (mostly in stocks, though).

Soros was born in Hungary in 1930 and became a US citizen in 1961. Musk was born in South Africa in 1971 and became a US citizen in 2002, making an interesting parallel in the age at which they both became citizens. They are on different sides of the political spectrum, but Musk does not identify as being on the right:

Politically, Musk has described himself as “half Democrat, half Republican” and “I’m somewhere in the middle, socially liberal and fiscally conservative.” In 2018, he stated that he was “not a conservative. I’m registered independent [and] politically moderate.”

My sense of things is that he leans more to the libertarian side of things, although not the fanatical libertarian side. As such, it makes sense that his Twitter dealings have as a goal the expansion of freedom of expression there.

Here’s more from Musk:

Musk has described the United States as “[inarguably] the greatest country that has ever existed on Earth,” describing it as “the greatest force for good of any country that’s ever been.” Musk believes democracy would not exist any longer if not for the United States, saying that it prevented this disappearance on three occasions through its participation in World War I, World War II, and the Cold War. Musk also stated that he thinks “it would be a mistake to say the United States is perfect, it certainly is not. There have been many foolish things the United States has done and bad things the United States has done.”

In September 2021, in response to Texas Governor Greg Abbott saying that Musk supported Texas’ “social policies”, Musk tweeted “In general, I believe government should rarely impose its will upon the people, and, when doing so, should aspire to maximize their cumulative happiness” and “That said, I would prefer to stay out of politics

His opinions re Trump have been somewhat mixed. He’s also on record as being against short-selling, whereas Soros is one of the leading and most successful practitioners of short-selling (see this). There’s tons more about Musk’s politics at this link.

Whatever is going on, the left isn’t happy about Musk and Twitter.

The post It occurs to me that Elon Musk is somewhat the anti-Soros appeared first on The New Neo.

Bragg took over on January 1. On January 4, Bragg promised to instill new rules similar to those in San Francisco and Philadelphia, both of which have DAs backed by Soros.

Just contemplate that for a moment. It’s one thing for voters to have elected people who espouse this philosophy when it was just a fantasy of some sort – although it still was profoundly stupid even as an idea. But now, to try to implement what’s already happening to destroy San Francisco and Philadelphia? Do Bragg (who is black, by the way) and his supporters want law-abiding black central city residents to suffer at the hands of criminals who are predominantly black as well?

Apparently, they do.

Bragg was running against other “progressive” DA candidates anyway in the Democratic primary (the winner of which would be virtually guaranteed to win the election), and apparently he was one of the less extreme of the lot. But here’s a recent statement of his plans:

In his first memo to staff on Monday, Alvin Bragg said his office “will not seek a carceral sentence” except with homicides and a handful of other cases, including domestic violence felonies, some sex crimes and public corruption.

“This rule may be excepted only in extraordinary circumstances…

“Carceral” means pretty much what you’d think it does: prison. Well, that’s one way to empty out the prisons – elect a DA who doesn’t believe in imprisoning the vast majority of criminals.

More details include the following: no prison sentences over 20 years without the possibility of parole, even in the worst cases. Sadistic mass murderer? No biggee, I guess. And except in extraordinary cases there will be no pretrial incarceration.

(Bragg is in charge of the office trying to prosecute Donald Trump, by the way.)

More here:

Armed robbers who use guns or other deadly weapons to stick up stores and other businesses will be prosecuted only for petty larceny, a misdemeanor, provided no victims were seriously injured and there’s no “genuine risk of physical harm” to anyone. Armed robbery, a class B felony, would typically be punishable by a maximum of 25 years in prison, while petty larceny subjects offenders to up to 364 days in jail and a $1,000 fine…

Convicted criminals caught with weapons other than guns will have those felony charges downgraded to misdemeanors unless they’re also charged with more serious offenses…

Drug dealers believed to be “acting as a low-level agent of a seller” will be prosecuted only for misdemeanor possession. Also, suspected dealers will only be prosecuted on felony charges if they’re also accused of more serious crimes or are actually caught in the act of selling drugs.

I wonder if New York will see a lot of resignations in the DA office of prosecutors who didn’t sign up for this sort of thing. And I wonder if a liberal backlash – such as I’ve witnessed from several liberal friends in other blue cities with Soros-backed prosecutors – will occur in New York, and whether it will ever result in a rejection of Democrat/progressive politics.

I doubt whether that last bit – a more general rejection of Democrat/progressive politics – will be occurring in more than a handful of people.

I used to visit New York several times a year. I haven’t been there for two years now, and I doubt I’ll be going back any time soon.

The post New York may have gotten rid of de Blasio and installed a tougher-on-crime mayor, but… appeared first on The New Neo.

Here’s a NY Times article from last October:

“In the first 90 days, I’m going to give you a plan to end mass incarceration,” said John Creuzot, a former judge who hopes to unseat Ms. Johnson in November [as Dallas DA].

In the past, candidates running to be district attorney — if they were challenged at all — touted their toughness on crime. But now district attorneys’ races have become more competitive, attracting large donations and challengers running on pledges to transform the criminal justice system.

Usually their pledges have to do with drug offenses, and this attracts some conservatives as well, who aren’t interested in prosecuting what is considered “minor” drug offenses (what should be classified that way is another issue, one I won’t deal with in this post). But the new DAs—and Creuzot won the election, so he’s one of them—often go far beyond that.

Which is part of the original plan—going far beyond that, although the more popular drug sentencing reform is often what’s emphasized. Here’s an article about more recent doings by Ceuzot in his new job:

“When I ran to become your district attorney, I promised you that I would bring changes to our criminal justice system,” Creuzot wrote in an open letter about the new policy. “The changes that I promised will be a step forward in ending mass incarceration in Dallas County, and will make our community safer by ensuring that our limited resources are spent where they can do the most good.”

In response, Creuzot is taking heat from police organizations, Attorney General Ken Paxton and Gov. Greg Abbott.

“Reform is one thing,” Abbott and Paxton said in a joint letter to Creuzot. “Actions that abandon the rule of law and that could promote lawlessness are altogether different.”

How was Creuzot elected? The effort was very organized and well-funded:

The Texas Organizing Project estimates that organizers had 75,,000 “conversations” with voters to advance the cause of criminal justice reform. The group knocked on 6,000 doors a day, paying workers $15 an hour and giving them paid sick time. The effort produced 115,000 new midterm voters, Brown said.

“Brown” is Brianna Brown, deputy director of the Texas Organizing Project, “a progressive group pushing to end mass incarceration in America.”

What is this phrase, “mass incarceration”? It conjures up the idea of a group of people—a la Jews during World War II, for example—being put in camps, which is a favored leftist image these days to use against the right.

And here’s an even more recent editorial about Dallas (June, 2019) in the Dallas Morning News:

The district attorney, John Creuzot, is passionate about criminal justice reform and about reducing the numbers of incarcerated people in the county jail.

He has drawn headlines for his assurance that he won’t prosecute minor marijuana crimes or thefts of less than $750 for what he called items of necessity.

We appreciate Creuzot’s passion for seeing fewer people incarcerated. But we are concerned with reforms that place less burden for a crime on the person responsible than they do on society at large.

That is what was so disturbing about Police Chief U. Renee Hall’s misstatement during a news conference Monday about the increase in murders in the city.

Hall said, people in Dallas “who have returned from prison who can’t find a job, who are not educated so in those instances” have been “forced to commit violent crimes.”

The chief quickly clarified her comment and promised justice for the killers. And she shouldn’t be condemned for a single extemporaneous statement under the camera lights.

But she also emphasized that the city “can’t arrest its way out of crime.”

This is a common phrase in criminal justice reform that has some validity insofar as a society has to build up opportunity for all people.

But the phrase also risks becoming a warped cliche that excuses law enforcement from its most important role. People who do bad things need to be held accountable, both as justice for society and victims and as a deterrence to potential criminals.

Another article on the subject can be found here.

But I don’t want to focus on Creuzot or Dallas, because he is by no means the most extreme case. To go back to that Times article, which sheds some light on how the Texas Organizing Project (note the neutral-sounding name) and other “progressive” groups pushing that “end mass incarceration!” theme get their financial backing. Three guesses, and the first two don’t count:

The push to overhaul prosecutors’ offices was pioneered by the billionaire George Soros, who in recent years has backed more than 20 candidates, including Larry Krasner in Philadelphia, vowing to upend the way prosecutors have traditionally approached their jobs.

In Dallas, Mr. Soros has given more than $46,000 worth of polling to Mr. Creuzot’s campaign through the Texas Justice & Public Safety PAC. And the Texas Organizing Project, a grass-roots economic and racial justice organization that Mr. Soros also funds, has donated more than $190,000 worth of canvassing.
The effort aims to achieve a single overarching goal, said Whitney Tymas, who heads Mr. Soros’s prosecutor initiative, which is separate from his philanthropic work.

“We want to end mass incarceration. That’s our North Star,” she said. “We’ve won twice as many races as we’ve lost. We’re not going to win them all. But we’re really trying to, because that’s the difference between people unjustly sitting in jail or not.”

This is one of those things that’s happening under the radar of most people.

[NOTE: Ace describes how it’s been operating in Boston recently.]

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