Front: Acumen Fund

Andrea Soros Colombel, daughter of George Soros and his first wife, Annaliese Soros (née Witschak), is a founding partner and board director of the Acumen Fund. In 1993, she established the Trace Foundation, an organization dedicated to preserving and advancing Tibetan culture, economy, and environment. The foundation’s initial efforts included emergency grants to aid groups responding to severe snowstorms in Tibet. Over time, its major initiatives included funding scholarships for Tibetans pursuing overseas education with the goal of teaching at secondary and university levels. Additionally, the foundation significantly supported Latse, a New York City-based library and nonprofit that houses a collection of Tibetan cultural works and hosts public programs on Tibetan culture. In 2000, Soros Colombel co-founded the Tsadra Foundation, which provides grants to Tibetan Buddhist organizations.

Acumen Fund (partners):

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Front: Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF)

Strengthening the Financial Independence of Independent Media Organisations

The key findings of the literature review with regard to international donor assistance and private funding for independent media are as follows:

  • The United States and Germany are the largest contributors of international media assistance (Myers & Juma, 2018); China is emerging as a large donor for media and communications infrastructure projects although it is less interested in freedom of the media (Myers & Juma, 2018);
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Billionaires fight for control of Wisconsin Supreme Court

by Tina Antonis

Despite getting significant financial assistance from outside parties, Conservative Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel maintains that he is not for sale. Schimel’s opponent, liberal candidate Susan Crawford, has also benefited from outside funding, including a $1 million contribution from George Soros to the Wisconsin Democratic Party. Just this week, an Elon Musk-backed group spent $1.5 million on airtime in Wisconsin to support conservative Supreme Court nominee Brad Schimel over the next few weeks.

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Fico sees coup plot behind protests, but Slovaks take to the streets anyway

Fico sees coup plot behind protests, but Slovaks take to the streets anyway

Prime Minister Robert Fico keeps claiming that Slovakia is facing an orchestrated attempt to destabilise his government, alleging that opposition-linked NGOs are plotting a “Slovak Maidan” as part of a broader, foreign-backed strategy. Citing a secret service (SIS) report he described as evidence-based, Fico issued a stark warning during a press conference on Wednesday, following a cabinet meeting.

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A Socialist, Feminist, and Transgender Analysis of “Sex Work” (2020)

The question of women’s liberation is central to any revolutionary project, and thus so is the question of “sex work.” Esperanza Fonseca’s contribution, although coming from a Maoist political orientation with which we often have differences, [1] makes the stakes of this debate crystal clear, as she combines personal experience, public policy research, and historical materialism to argue that Marxists cannot uphold what she calls “sex-trade-expansionary feminism.”

Content Warning: Descriptions of rape.

The right of the subordinated classes of men to buy access to women’s bodies has been used historically to break class solidarity in order to maintain the dominant social relations of the time. This was true in feudal Europe and remains true today: when proletarian and petit bourgeois men get to buy women too, they develop a false consciousness and build solidarity with bourgeois men of their own gender rather than aligning with women of their own class. And because the overthrow of capitalism is only possible by the overthrowing of the bourgeoisie, prostitution serves two great purposes: (1) allows bourgeois men access to a reserve army of women for their pleasure, and (2) prevent class consciousness and thus helps stop the proletariat from organizing as a class.

A Socialist, Feminist, and Transgender Analysis of “Sex Work” (2020)

Trump Treasury pick Scott Bessent could become highest-ranking openly LGBTQ+ person in US history

The Pink Palace (Wikimedia Commons)

Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, who lives in Charleston, South Carolina with his husband and family, could become first Senate-approved LGBTQ+ member in a Republican cabinet.

Trump Treasury pick Scott Bessent could become highest-ranking openly LGBTQ+ person in US history