De Blasio has been accused by critics, including New York police officers, of helping to fuel racial tension between police and protesters.
One of the major anti-police protests in New York that received media attention was an attempt to shut down Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue shopping district before Christmas.
The protest was led by the group Act Now To End War & Stop Racism Coalition, or ANSWER, together with Occupy Wall Street and at least 10 other so-called economic justice and pro-Palestinian groups.
ANSWER has worked with ACORN and has led protests in the past with MoveOn.org, a group with which de Blasio previously worked.
During the mayoral race last year, New York City media reported that billionaire George Soros had endorsed de Blasio. But the reports failed to disclose the billionaire’s major financial donation to de Blasio’s nonprofit as well as the candidate’s cozy working relationship with Soros-funded activist groups. De Blasio worked with some of those groups to stir protests.
In 2011, using his position of public advocate, de Blasio launched a nonprofit called the Coalition for Accountability in Political Spending, or CAPS. The group received its primary launch donation of $400,000 from Soros’s Open Society Institute.
De Blasio used his group and his public office to organize with other Soros-funded groups.
In 2011, Chris Bragg at CityAndStateNY.com reported that de Blasio pursued a case against the Minnesota-based Target Corporation after it contributed $150,000 to an organization that promoted a local politician, Tom Emmer, for governor. Emmer had drawn controversy for reportedly opposing a law that sought to combat the bullying of homosexual youth.
De Blasio’s office responded by organizing a protest with MoveOn.org, which is funded directly by Soros as well as by the Soros-funded Tides Foundation.
De Blasio also worked with other Soros-funded groups, noted Bragg, including Common Cause, the advocacy group Public Citizen and the D.C.-based Center for Political Accountability.
De Blasio, meanwhile, has a long history with the controversial ACORN, once even steering public funds to an ACORN front group.
De Blasio spent $43,000 to hire N.Y. Citizens Services Inc., an affiliate of ACORN, to run canvassing, consulting, and field work for his public advocate campaign.
As a councilman, de Blasio steered $115,000 in taxpayer dollars directly to ACORN as well as to the organization’s affiliate, the New York Agency for Community Affairs.
De Blasio’s 2010 public advocate campaign was also endorsed by the ACORN-founded Working Families Party, with which the politician demonstrates a larger working relationship.
As a councilman, de Blasio was hired as a consulate by a group called the Progressive America Foundation, which reportedly paid him $33,000 to lobby for election regulations that would ease restrictions on third parties such as the Working Families Party, or WFP. The foundation is closely tied to WFP.
De Blasio then spent $67,740 to hire WFP’s for-profit branch, Data and Field Services, for canvassing and election consulting. The organization was run from the same office as New York ACORN.