George Soros Drops $1M To Stop City of Austin Hiring Police to Combat Rising Crime
On Nov. 2, Austin voters will decide on a ballot initiative requiring the hiring of two officers per 1K residents
America-hating billionaire George Soros is stepping up his efforts to personally increase the violent crime rate in America’s cities. Not content to just sponsor pro-crime DA’s who release and/or fail to prosecute criminals, Soros is now pouring money into defund the police efforts.
As cities, some of them on the down low, have been refunding police they previously defunded or are increasing hiring due to police forces being decimated by low morale fueled by lack of local support, ridiculous pro-crime policies, and various WuFlu-related mandates, Soros is busily shelling out money to keep crime up, criminals on the streets, and fewer police to keep communities safe.
His latest target is reportedly Austin, Texas. Last year, Austin gleefully leapt on the defund the police bandwagon and cut its police budget by nearly a third. “Unexpectedly,” violent crime skyrocketed to the point that the city recently told citizens not to call 911 unless they really really needed to.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week:
Beginning this month, the Austin Police Department has asked the public not to call 911 for “non-emergency situations” if “there is no immediate threat to life or property,” “where crimes are no longer in progress,” and “when the suspect(s) are no longer on scene or in sight.” The directive applies to burglaries, thefts, prostitution, vandalism, and several other crimes. The police urged victims and witnesses to call 311 or file a report online instead.
The police department says this will reduce contact between police and the public amid a pandemic. But the new policy is also in large part “a result of recent staffing challenges that we have had, and as we are working through those, we are looking to see how we can deploy staff in the most appropriate manner” and respond “to those calls that need them the most,” said Chief of Police Joseph Chacon in a news conference in late September.
In fiscal 2020-2021, the Austin police budget was $292.9 million, down from $434.5 million the previous year. The City Council slashed $31.5 million directly from the police budget last year.
It also put $121.7 million in a reserve fund that was intended to “decouple or reimagine some public-safety functions” from the police department but which ended up funding police operations, says Alicia Dean, a spokesperson for the city. The City Council also canceled three cadet classes and cut 150 officers from the budget last year, says City Councilor Mackenzie Kelly, an outspoken supporter of the police.
Apparently, the city tried to hire back at least one officer for a $5k “signing bonus” type deal plus extra benefits. He was livid.
A former Austin, Texas police officer who left the force amid the city’s move to defund the police sent a scathing letter to the department rejecting their offer to hire him back.
“I am personally offended by your offer,” the former officer wrote in a letter obtained by Fox News in response to the city’s offer of $5,000 plus extra benefits for returning to duty. “I did not leave APD for money. I suspect my peers did not either. No amount of money could make me return. The offer from the chief shows just how out of touch he is with his officers. What we crave is leadership. The one thing that has been consistently withheld.”
The former officer, who identified as a military veteran, went on to explain in the letter that failed leadership is the reason for the decision to leave the department.
“The working environment within APD is one of the most dangerous in the nation,” the former officer wrote. “Not because of the hazards each officer faces in the streets, but because of the senior leaders that have no formal professional development leader training, do not value each officer as a person, push all responsibility to the patrol officer level, and holds them to unrealistic expectations.”
As the city of Austin struggles under increased crime and angry citizen backlash, Soros poured $1M into efforts to stop them hiring more police.
The Washington Free Beacon reports:
Left-wing billionaire George Soros is throwing at least a million dollars behind an effort to stop the hiring of hundreds of new police officers in Austin, Texas, according to campaign finance documents reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.
The Hungarian-born political activist gave $500,000 through the Soros-backed Open Society Policy Center to a political action committee in opposition to a ballot initiative that forces the city to employ two police officers per 1,000 residents.
Soros’s donation, made on Oct. 12, is his second of the month and comes as Austin experiences a decades-high spike in violent crime. The city has seen at least 67 homicides this year, the highest since at least 1981. Aggravated assaults are also up at least 10 percent, following a 26 percent spike in 2020.
On Oct. 1, the Open Society Policy Center cut its first $500,000 check to Equity PAC, a Texas-based political organization that backs left-wing causes. The donation is the latest example of Soros’s involvement in various left-wing causes at the local level. In 2020, Soros donated over $600,000 to a Texas-based left-wing group that backed the election of José Garza, who now serves as district attorney for Travis County, where Austin sits.
Since 2015, Soros has spent more than $17 million on various local races, including donations to left-wing prosecutors and state legislators. Virtually every candidate backed by Soros and the Open Society Foundations has supported a dramatic reduction in or elimination of cash bail and other policies critics say lead to higher crime.
. . . . Voters will decide on the ballot initiative at the polls on Nov. 2 or via early voting from Oct. 18 through Oct. 29. Estimates for the cost of hiring new officers range from $54 million to $120 million a year, per the city’s chief financial officer.
It’s not clear how the vote will go, but Austin is blue. Really really blue. It’s chock full of tech and other industries that fled California after their leftist voting choices made the state an uninhabitable hellhole. They’re voting the same way in Austin. Go figure.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
What’s their end game in creating this level of crime?
I dunno. I can’t discount that they are just really stupid true believers.
I think the Soros-level people want instability, to replace good cops with crappy thug cops, or maybe to federalize local police.
They want chaos and disorder to distract you.
Democrats say “Never let a good crisis go to waste” – meaning use any pretext you can get to forward your agenda.
Maybe the natural disasters and crises are not happening fast enough for them. They figure they can create disorder which is a stream of crises. And then use that as a pretext for federal control.
In every case – it is about increasing government power and retaining Dem control over that power.
#1- good thinking, but you all can see that conservatives are not 100% sure of the end game. We are playing checkers while Soros is actually playing chess. Understanding the end game is important. Sadly most of our side can’t even admit they have declared war. I was not surprised to see a Soros prosecutor go after the dad in Virginia.
#2- I have to admire Soros. He’s getting a great bang for his buck. It’s pure evil, but lets just acknowledge that this take down was freaking brilliant.
#3 We (conservatives) are pathetic and weak in our response to this. These bastards have been running craigslist ads for years for violent agitators. Hell we can’t even get a decent defense for people standing on the same corner with someone labeled a Proud Boy when SHTF.
If we want to win this- we’d better be coming at it with James OKeefe level of smarts. The deck is stacked against us big time.
I have suspected all along that they are promoting vigilante-ism so that they can then crack down on it. It is becoming more and more like “A Clockwork Orange” every day.
The placement of federal storm troopers to replace the defended state paid police force thereby bypassing the um 10th amendment I believe.
Defended. Anyway federalizing police.
Gah de fund ed. So there spellcheck.
Your problem is not spellcheck but auto-“correct”. Turn the damn thing off. Let spellcheck suggest changes to you, but you need to be the one to decide whether to accept its suggestions. Because no matter how poor your spelling might be, you know what you meant to write, and it doesn’t.
Their end game is chaos everywhere, so they can get most of us to back them moving in and ‘solving’ the chaos, destroying our civil rights, and seizing permanent power over all of us.
Pete Butthead and Kamala Harris and the like might be stupid, but their handlers are not. In fact, they’re brilliant just alone by corupting the Republican Party.
What’s happening is analogous to Anthony Burgess’ novel, “A Clockwork Orange” (and movie of same): Antifa and BLM goons will supplant the police.
https://www.amazon.com/Clockwork-Orange-Anthony-Burgess/dp/0393312836
We’re getting a taste of it now with a corrupt psycho like Merrick Garland in charge of the “Justice” department.
They want to have an incident where civilians take up arms against criminals. They will then attempt to use that as a pretext for gun confiscations.
Except that millions of gun owners are sitting back and doing nothing because they’re “being patient” and “they haven’t crossed my line yet.” Gun confiscations is the one line that the vast majority of them will not handwave away.
I think of the snap-back being like that big boulder in Raiders of the Lost Ark. It isn’t going to stop until those who started if resemble waffles.
They crave to hold power over other people …
Pure evil.
Well, it is his money. Shouldn’t he be allowed to spend it on things that make him happy?
If you spend your money on hiring an assassin should you be allowed to spend it just to make yourself happy?
It’s true he’s doing nothing illegal, but your argument is specious and that is my point.
We have every right to call him out for his actions and “investments”. I’m pretty sure the left does that all of the time.
It’s hard to believe no government has had Soros assassinated.
His son is just as bad
Idiot. Governments like him.
And yes, Alex is worse.
Not all governments. Poland and Hungary.
Well, their budgets probably don’t run to assassins.
I think the campaign finance reform we need/needed was to prohibit political contributions to anybody/any item that won’t appear on your ballot. That just seems so hard to enforce.
Huh? What does that even mean? What kind of political spending doesn’t go to persuading people how to vote?
Do you mean spending aimed at getting people/items off the ballot, such as by persuading people not to sign the necessary petitions? Why would you want to prevent that? Surely that’s exactly the same as doing so once they’re on the ballot.
Or do you mean general contributions to political parties, for their operating expenses that aren’t directly related to campaigns? Why would you want to prevent that? Usually reform advocates regard those as the most benign type of contributions. And how else are parties to fund themselves?
Please explain.
Also, there’s a limit to the extent to which money can influence the outcome of elections. Plenty of big budget movies get aggressively marketed, but still flop at the box office, because they’re just not good movies. It’s the same with political candidates. Money will get your message to voters, but at the end of the day you still need a candidate people want to vote for. Back in 2016 Jeb Bush was the Republican candidate with the most cash, but I’m pretty sure somebody else got the nomination.
Enough money will allow you to smear your opponent, indict your opponent, or get him dropped from the ballot for technical reasons — like Obama was fond of doing. Then you no longer need a candidate people want to vote for — you have the only candidate left that people can vote for.
P.S. Just to point out that the spending we are currently discussing is very much about something that is on the ballot.
Plus, it unduly hobbles the voter. When Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer flex their enormous power, it doesn’t oppress the voters in only their district. We should retain the same ability to cancel them as they retain to cancel us.
De-Foley-Ate wasn’t accomplished through the efforts of only Washington voters.
Yes Dennis, he can spend his money however he wishes… and I can wish he rots in Hell!
He can spend himself broke trying to fill the hole in his soul where happiness should have been.
Successfully ruining America, though, won’t make him happy, and will make millions miserable.
So he needs to fail.
Whether it makes him happy is immaterial.
Of course he’s allowed to do this. I hope nobody here is suggesting he should be forcibly prevented from doing his best to persuade people to vote as he likes. That’s the essence of democracy, it’s the very core of the freedom of speech, it’s what the first amendment is for, and for us to abridge it would turn us into him.
But that doesn’t change the fact that the policies he’s advocating are wrong and harmful, and must be condemned and fought. Ideally by democratic means; by making people realize how bad they are, so they will vote against them. But if push ever comes to shove, elected governments that agree with his policies must be prevented from implementing them. In the last resort, that’s what the 2A is for; it reminds us that liberty is more important than democracy.
He’s a crook and protected by the crooks running the government.
Someday there may be an accounting.
I know of no evidence that he is less than 100% honest in his business dealings. He’s certainly honest about what he wants for this country and the world; he doesn’t hide his intentions. As far as I know he is a True Believer in these things, and Means Well ™, which makes him more dangerous than a mere crook.
Yes, he can donate his cash to any political cause he wants. All the bitching about who Soros gives his money to is extremely counter-productive.
Where are the conservative billionaires willing to fund conservative political causes?
Where are the billionaires willing to fund campaigns against neo-racist teaching in public schools? For that matter, what do the books of the various conservative PACs look like? Most important, where are the high-level strategy sessions for a concerted effort against the left? We’ve got lots of individuals bitching constantly but no organization, evidently, other than the weak Libertarian party. Don’t even start about the Republican will to struggle against the left. The 2-party system is a deterrent to any sort of meaningful political action. Conservatives never do shit but complain, anyway.
Michael malice is right about conservatives; they’re “progressives driving the speed limit.”
The Kochs. And others, but the Kochs were our side’s equivalent of Soros, in the sense that they attracted the enemy’s fury as he attracts ours.
Except the Kochs are also open-borders activists.
They’re on the side of liberty. They’re on the side of making it easier to come here legally. And they’re right, it should be far easier. But as far as I know they’re not on the side of illegal entry.
And we should be allowed to criticize him for his choices, as loudly as we can manage.
James Dick of Annapolis made himself happy with his money by importing tea from England. It didn’t work out well for him. The same could be done for Soros.
@Dennis
His money and influence is reducing your freedom, your safety and increasing control over your life. But evidently you’re OK with pleasing your master at your expense.
He’s long been an enemy of the state and should have been declared that long ago.
Evil, vile man. He admitted himself that he likes to act like God.
And why not? He gets away with it.
Maybe GOP Chairwoman Rona Romeny will come to the rescue… /sarc… That woman is a useless as Pete Butthead.
Huh? To be an enemy of the state is a wonderful thing. Surely all of us are enemies of the state, or should be. And what does it mean to “declare” him such? There is no such legal title.
I’ve lived in Austin for close to 20 years. I grew up with guns and was a soldier. I never felt the need to own a gun here until June of last year. I’ve had some very liberal friends of mine ask about purchasing one, though I don’t know that any have at this point.
Mackenzie Kelly – The only conservative member on the Austin City Council. Elected last November with the endorsement of the previous Democrat Mayor Lee Leffingwell. That is how much crazy town has changed in the last 5 years (and it was crazy town before, but safe). She is a huge proponent of the police and had their support in her election. She voted against confirming Joseph Chacon as the new police chief a few weeks ago. Of the three finalists for the police chief position, Chacon received the lowest support from the Austin Police Association at 10%.
Joseph Chacon – 90% of his employees wanted to work for someone else.
Jose Garza – The new Soros funded DA in Travis County. When he took office last January he prioritized prosecuting police officers over criminals. A man who was being held for aggravated assault since 2019 was released by him last March. That man was recently arrested for murders in May and June. He has also secured a grand jury indictment against Daniel Perry, the active duty military Uber driver that had an AR-15 like weapon pointed at him when he took a wrong turn into a BLM protest. SGT Perry was armed and pulled the trigger first. I know I have seen articles here on this, and hope that Mr. Branca can provide coverage when the trial starts.
I will say one thing about the California companies and people moving here. It is not as bad as you think. They know why they are coming here. Overall, the homegrown residents are worse. I’m not saying that the majority of the newcomers are conservative, but they are more conservative than the homegrown folks.
Sorry, one more thing. The APD has not been responding to the calls mentioned in the article for over a year now. They have just now made it official, providing a list of things you can get away with without a timely response from law enforcement.
People who assume California refugees will vote ultra-blue need to look at refugees from former Communist countries.
Who is more anti-Communist than a Cuban who fled Castro?
Isn’t there already clear indications that large numbers do stay blue?
There’s a big difference between those who fled and those who merely emigrated. Also between those who directly and consciously fled the government, and those who merely fled “circumstances”, for which they didn’t necessarily blame the government.
My grandparents left everything behind, spent everything they had on forged papers, and got out of the USSR by posing as foreign citizens. They never forgot what communism is, and did not vote for it in their new homes. But many Eastern European emigrants were never refugees, just economic migrants, looking for a better life. They know that the west is better off than their former countries, but not why. And they still believe in the socialist principles they were brainwashed with as children.
The same is surely true of many/most emigrants from California. They don’t blame socialism for the state’s woes. They may not even realize it has woes, thinking instead that they merely moved because they found a better opportunity elsewhere, and might move back one day. And they will work to turn their new homes into California.
Amen.
People streaming over the southern border are NOT voting Republican.
Neither are people fleeing NY for FL.
There’s an old insult: “Why don’t you leave our neighborhood for some other named neighborhood, and raise the average IQ of both places?”
But this is precisely what’s happening today — the people moving from blue state X to red state Y are increasing the average leftism of both places.
“I never felt the need to own a gun here until June of last year. I’ve had some very liberal friends of mine ask about purchasing one”
Liberal friends?
I usually advise them to travel to a large gun show over the state line (tough to do from Austin, more’s the pity) and use the “gun-show loophole” to buy whatever they desire.
Because the learning experiences you live yourself are the ones that make the most lasting impressions.
I live in Round Rock, right outside of Austin, we use to be solid conservative, very purple leaning blue now because of the cost of living in Austin and recent building of row houses.
Austin is a hell hole, homeless everywhere, violence up unbelievable. I loved Austin and worked in it for 30 years. Being young and living here then, the music, the lakes, life was good. Now it’s such a shame…
Shame on all those that have turned Austin into a hellhole.
Shame on all
Of you
The same PAC that forced the city to reinstate the homeless camping ban is fighting this bigly.
https://www.saveaustinnowpac.com
The homeless ha ent gone anywhere despite the ban
They’ve cleaned up a bunch of the encampments, but the city is definitely ‘slow walking’ the enforcement, and it’s like a ‘whack-a-mole’ game at this point. Save-Austin-Now has filed a suit against them because of this. And the staffing problems at APD are definitely not helping with the cleanup of the vagrant shanty towns.
Early voting starts today… if you’re in Austin get out and vote for Prop A!
Encouraging to see some grassroots conservative activism for a change.
I agree, and shocking, really. Although it is actually a bi-partisan effort. The republican co-founder was smart to recognize that a purely conservative-led initiative would be DOA in Austin, and at this point there are plenty of dumpster-fires that both republicans and traditional democrats can get behind together.
Unfortunately the biggest part of this story is that a substantial possibly majority of Austin thinks police are SS hunting down black people instead of Jews and went through with the defund the police movement in the first place.
George Soros is an outlier among the leftist billionaires in that he is the stereotype America hating radical. I am noting this because it is comforting to think that if your community isn’t getting George Soros money it will be fine but the left doesn’t really need Soros.
I do not think the Soros money changes the votes. It provides cover for the voter fraud by claiming the money changed the vote. It does bribe a lot of key people too. This $$ tells me that they need some serious voter fraud to pull this off.
He’s been pulling it off for years. Does anyone really thing the LA DA Gascon was elected honestly? No one in LA ever heard of him until suddenly, he was elected DA!!
I’ve said before, and I’ll say it again, most democrats don’t know who they are voting for, and a lot of them don’t even know they voted
does anyone think *any* election in #Failifornia isn’t rigged these days?
That’s BS. Yes, Gascon was elected honestly. He won the primary because people voted for him. Not because of any fraud. And people voted for him, in large part, because he was able to reach them and persuade them, thanks to all the resources Soros provided him with. Which of course he had every right to do, but that doesn’t make the outcome any better.
You have to be a complete tool to believe there is no fraud in the blue states. They leave nothing to chance. They cheat in every election.
The same is true in the red states.
Of course there’s fraud. Now show me even one smidgen of evidence that any of that fraud helped Gascon, or that terrorists’ brat in San Francisco, or any of Soros’s other pro-crime DAs. They all won in Democrat primaries, which means their opponents were Dems too, which in turn means they were just as likely to be the ones using fraud.
Voter fraud isn’t free. Somebody has to pay for it. Phony ballots don’r print themselves, and vote harvesters don’t harvest because they like the smell of old people in the morning.
Time to clean house and the best way to do that is to stop voting for incumbents after decades of office.
That assumes an honest voting process – only legally authorized voters casting only one ballot with an accurate count.
Soros is a conspirator who sponsor’s anarchy the world over. He should be arrested, tried and hanged. Like some villain from a James Bond movie is minions are destroying our Nation and the world. When he’s done with that he (I have little doubt) intends to be the wizard concealed behind the curtain.
Tried for what? He has not done anything wrong. He has not committed any crime. He merely has poisonous ideals, and the means to carry them out. If we were to become the kind of country that punishes him for that, then we would become him, and would therefore have no right to condemn him.
If we were to become the kind of country that punishes him for that, then we would become him, and would therefore have no right to condemn him.
_________________________________________________________________
you’re bailing water off the ass-end of the titanic–have you considered that the only reason he’s still alive is that he’s spending his OWN money? he aids and abets marxist/socialist/fascist people/policies worldwide at NO COST to the progs–of course they’re going to welcome his efforts which are free of charge–his game/purpose/pleasure is(as has been established for many years)to destabilize/disrupt/limit/deny civil liberties/freedoms to millions of people world-wide–like you, am not a lawyer so the finer “legal points” of his activities are irrelevant to me–do know what he does and where he spends his money–perhaps he sees himself as some great catalyst for “change” or, like morgan in our own country, he believes in “the divine right of money” or maybe he likes to torment those who disagree with him or perhaps those who he simply dislikes/envys–regardless, he actively supports people/organizations worldwide that seek to limit freedom and legitimate civil liberties and that, to my mind, is criminal
In the city of Atlanta they just put you on hold no matter what. Response times are measured in days, not minutes. #LetsGoBrandon
I love the indignant response to the re-hiring offer, by the former officer. His outrage is righteous and totally legitimate. The vile, police-hating, criminal-loving, Dhimmi-crat totalitarians and apparatchiks, believe that, after spending decades denigrating and vilifying police officers — rhetoric that was sharply amplified during vile narcissist-incompetent Obama’s tenure, continuing up to the present time — they can dangle a few thousand dollars in front of a recruit’s face, as a carrot incentive.
The officer is totally right — this is about respecting and supporting law enforcement officers, something that the vile Dhimmi-crats are manifestly and intrinsically incapable of doing.
Let Austin burn to the ground along with every other leftist shithole in this country. The sooner the better.