George Soros

Obama and Move on Supporter

George Soros (born August 12, 1930, in Budapest, Hungary, as György Schwartz) is a Hungarian-born American financial speculator, stock investor, philanthropist, and political activist.

Currently, he is the chairman of Soros Fund Management and the Open Society Institute and is also a former member of the Board of Directors of the Council on Foreign Relations. According to his own website, Soros claims his support for the Solidarity labour movement in Poland, as well as the Czechoslovak human rights organization Charter 77, contributed to ending Soviet Union political dominance in those countries. His funding and organization of Georgia’s Rose Revolution was considered by Russian and Western observers to have been crucial to its success, although Soros said his role has been “greatly exaggerated.” In the United States, he is known for having donated large sums of money in a failed effort to defeat President George W. Bush’s bid for re-election in 2004. On BookTV, November 12, 2007, he said that he supports Barack Obama for the Democratic candidate in the 2008 election, but says that John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, or Joe Biden are all fine candidates, as well. Soros is famously known for “breaking the Bank of England” on Black Wednesday in 1992. With an estimated current net worth of around $8.5 billion, he is ranked by Forbes as the 80th-richest person in the world.

In April 2008, Soros hosted an event in his apartment that had guests such as David Brock of the self-described progressive watchdog group Media Matters and liberal commentator Paul Begala. Brock described that the plan intends to raise $40 million to run political attack advertisements against the presumptive Republican nominee, Senator John McCain, through a group called The Fund for America and Progressive Media, whose key backer, according to politico.com, is Soros. Commentator Bill O’Reilly, who on numerous occasions has accused Soros of secretly backing what O’Reilly feels are “far-left” political causes, repeated Soros “wants to buy America” after learning about the event.

Source – Wikipedia

(Originally published October 20th, 2008)