Although Wyss appears to have been largely unknown to the mainstream media until recently, RANGE magazine’s plucky investigative reporter, Dave Skinner, has written numerous articles, beginning in the Winter of 2014, tracking Wyss’ enormous donations and dubious activities.
Loyal RANGE readers will be alarmed that Wyss is currently poised to take the helm of one of the largest media organizations in the world. In an article dated March 27, the Chicago Tribune reports:
“An octogenarian Swiss billionaire who makes his home in Wyoming and has donated hundreds of millions to environmental causes is a surprise new player in the bidding for Tribune Publishing, the major newspaper chain that until recently seemed destined to end up in the hands of a New York hedge fund.
Hansjörg Wyss (pronounced Hans-yorg Vees), the former CEO of medical device manufacturer Synthes, said in an interview Friday that he had agreed to join with Maryland hotelier Stewart W. Bainum Jr. in a bid for Tribune Publishing, an offer that could upend Alden Global Capital’s plan to take full ownership of the company.
Wyss, who has given away some of his fortune to help preserve wildlife habitats in Wyoming, Montana and Maine, said he was motivated to join the Tribune bid by his belief in the need for a robust press.
‘I have an opportunity to do 500 times more than what I’m doing now,’ he said.'”
If Wyss becomes the owner of Tribune Publishing, doing “500 times more” than he is doing now portends badly for American ranchers, farmers, and small towns throughout the West.
Dave Skinner’s Winter 2014 article, “Patterns on the Landscape” revealed Wyss’ involvement with a number of anti-grazing, anti-resource development individuals and NGO’s working in concert to radically remake the West, including the now-defunct Western Progress, John Podesta’s Center for American Progress, the Soros-connected New Venture Fund and countless Democrat candidates. Skinner reports:
“Federal Elections Commission records show Wyss made about $38,000 in political contributions between 1998 and 2002, all to wilderness-friendly Democrats or PACs. However, as a Swiss citizen, Wyss cannot legally make direct political contributions to either parties, PACs or politicians without a green card and permanent U.S. residence. Today at age 78 and $12.4 billion net worth (according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index), Wyss is either Pennsylvania’s biggest billionaire, or Switzerland’s second biggest.”
Skinner continues:
“After Western Progress closed its doors, in 2009 the Wyss Foundation donated $400,000 to “public charity” CAP [Center for American Progress].
Alongside the CAP funding went an even $1 million to the Tides Foundation.
But there’s more. In 2011, the Hansjorg Wyss Foundation donated $1.325 million to CAP, and $1 million to New Venture Fund.”
Throughout his reporting on Wyss and other dark money types, Dave Skinner has made the case that massive funding and political activism, aka “astroturfing,” are driving the policies that are hurting Western agriculture and property rights. See “Identify Your Enemies” (Winter 2015).
“The Green Insiders” (Spring 2015) details Wyss’ entanglement in medical malpractice through his medical company, Synthes. Synthes was found to be responsible for deaths related to the off-label and experimental use of his products on patients. And there’s more, Skinner writes:
“In July, Washington Examiner reporter Richard Pollock found a mysterious line item in the disclosure forms for White House special adviser John Podesta: $87,000 in consulting from “HJW Foundation”—HJW being Mr. Wyss, of course. Bottom line: A small affair involving illegal human experimentation, deaths, federal prosecution, four jail sentences, and a fine of $23.8 million, as well as after-the-fact malpractice settlements.”
Subsequently, Johnson & Johnson purchased Synthes in a deal that produced “almost $10 billion in assets” for Wyss.
And, it turns out, the extremist Center for Biological Diversity is one of Wyss’ pet beneficiaries. Skinner reports:
“CBD director Kieran Suckling told the Inquirer that Hans Wyss ‘liked that we were both nimble and aggressive.’”
"Money Talks, Freedom Walks" (Summer 2015) connects the dots between Wyss, Bill Gates and a gaggle of NGO's bent on the destruction of Western resource development. Skinner gives an accounting of the astonishing donations Wyss has given to the likes of Trout Unlimited, Western Rivers, The Nature Conservancy and many others.
In “Hans-n-Harry’s Garden of Astroturf” (Fall 2015) Dave Skinner brought to light Wyss’ sizeable donations to national monuments campaigns in Nevada. Wyss’ generous “sprinkling” of dollars was used to create the illusion of popular support for national monument land grabs, where there was in fact significant grassroots opposition from the people of Nevada.
In "Monumental Megabucks" (Winter 2017)Dave Skinner explored the machinations behind a political battle that, like a recurring nightmare, has returned to southeastern Utah in the form of a massive national monument. Biden recently reignited the war of “Bears Ears” with his promise not simply to “restore” it to Obama’s designation of 1.3 million acres, but to expand it to nearly 2 million acres—or more if the greens get their way. And Wyss has been in the fray all along. Skinner writes:
“Although you probably have never heard, seen or read of him, this man, Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss, has done more to encourage the creation of new national monuments than any person on Earth. How? He opened his wallet, giving untold and mostly unknown millions to environmental groups for a spin campaign in support of President Obama’s use of the Antiquities Act.”
Philanthropist, zealot or monster? The deeper you dig into the mystique of Hansjorg Wyss, the more monstrous he appears. In May of 2018, Truth in media reported an incident that has been otherwise buried by mainstream media. It reads:
“Victim advocates are slamming Harvard University, the Clinton Foundation and John Podesta’s think-tank for their silence over an ongoing investigation by New Jersey prosecutors for the brutal sexual assault that a woman alleges was committed by their donor, Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss.
Wyss, who contributes millions to many high-profile liberal causes, is a financial donor to Harvard, the Clinton Foundation and Podesta’s Center for American Progress. Last fall, prosecutors in Morris Township, New Jersey, opened an investigation into an alleged brutal 2011 sexual assault of Jacqueline Long, then an employee of Wyss’ foundation.”
RANGE has taken great strides in warning the public about Hansjorg Wyss, his tainted activities, radical alliances, and intention to do “500 times more” than he has already done. Exposed by RANGE magazine’s deep diving reporter, Dave Skinner, this “green” Swiss billionaire is on the verge of becoming a media mogul with even greater power to “remake” America and the West. Now is the time for all who love the American Cowboy and the Western way of life, to sound their own alarms.
1 comment:
Gee, I guess I'm not such a rotten journalist after all?
Thank you, Frank.
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