by WorldTribune Staff, January 22, 2017

Organizers and commentators hailed it as spontaneous and non-partisan, but a little digging by a former Wall Street Journal reporter found that the Women’s March on Washington was just another anti-Trump event.

What set it apart was the extent of the support from leftist billionaire and Hillary Clinton backer George Soros.

“On its website, organizers of the march are promoting their work as ‘a grassroots effort’ with ‘independent’ organizers,” Asra Q. Nomani wrote for New York Times Live on Jan. 21.

But Nomani found that Soros was tied to more than 50 of the march’s partner groups.

“Soros has funded, or has close relationships with, at least 56 of the march’s ‘partners,’ including ‘key partners’ Planned Parenthood, which opposes Trump’s anti-abortion policy, and the National Resource Defense Council, which opposes Trump’s environmental policies,” Nomani wrote.

“The march’s manifesto says magnificently, ‘The Rise of the Woman = The Rise of the Nation.’

“It’s an idea that I, a liberal feminist, would embrace,” Nomani wrote. “But I know — and most of America knows — that the organizers of the march haven’t put into their manifesto: the march really isn’t a ‘women’s march.’ It’s a march for women who are anti-Trump.

“As someone who voted for Trump, I don’t feel welcome, nor do many other women who reject the liberal identity-politics that is the core underpinnings of the march, so far, making white women feel unwelcome, nixing women who oppose abortion and hijacking the agenda.”

“The other Soros ties with ‘Women’s March’ organizations include the partisan MoveOn.org (which was fiercely pro-Clinton), the National Action Network (which has a former executive director lauded by Obama senior advisor Valerie Jarrett as ‘a leader of tomorrow’ as a march co-chair and another official as ‘the head of logistics’). Other Soros grantees who are ‘partners’ in the march are the American Civil Liberties Union, Center for Constitutional Rights, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.”

Nomani also noted that “on the issues I care about as a Muslim, the ‘Women’s March,’ unfortunately, has taken a stand on the side of partisan politics that has obfuscated the issues of Islamic extremism over the eight years of the Obama administration. ‘Women’s March’ partners include the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which has not only deflected on issues of Islamic extremism post-9/11, but opposes Muslim reforms that would allow women to be prayer leaders and pray in the front of mosques, without wearing headscarves as symbols of chastity.”

Nomani continued: “Partners also include the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which wrongly designated Maajid Nawaz, a Muslim reformer, an ‘anti-Muslim extremist’ in a biased report released before the election. The SPLC confirmed to me that Soros funded its ‘anti-Muslim extremists’ report targeting Nawaz. (Ironically, CAIR also opposes abortions, but its leader still has a key speaking role.)”

A spokeswoman for Soros’s Open Society Foundations, said in a statement: “There have been many false reports about George Soros and the Open Society Foundations funding protests in the wake of the U.S. presidential elections. There is no truth to these reports.”

Nomani concluded: “The left’s fierce identity politics and its failure on Islamic extremism lost my vote this past election, and so, as the dawn’s first light breaks through the darkness of the morning as I write, I make my decision: I’ll lace up my pink Nikes and head to the inauguration, skipping the ‘Women’s March’ that doesn’t have a place for women like me.”