There is now proof that there are very dark forces behind Black Lives Matter, and it’s not just the blatant Marxism of its founders and leaders. The darkness literally includes summoning dead spirits and allowing them to work through BLM leaders. Sound crazy? BLM bosses admit it.

Clues about the true nature of BLM have been available for quite some time. Last month, Black Lives Matter activists terrorized church attendees in Troy, New York, while chanting “hail Satan.” They even shrieked at black families and young mothers trying to get in the building. Just this week in Kenosha, Wisconsin, a church with a “Black Lives Matter” sign on it was torched by BLM activists. In a video that went viral this week, a mob of white BLM activists shout at a couple at a D.C. restaurant for refusing to raise their fists, with one activist asking the confused victims, “Are you a Christian?”

Now, newly released audio recordings reveal the occult practices, ancestor worship, African paganism, and literal witchcraft of at least one of the national group’s co-founders, as well as the founder of BLM’s Los Angeles chapter. Apparently the entire George Soros-funded leadership of BLM is involved in these practices as well.

In the audio, BLM co-founder Patrice Cullors, who boasted in a TV interview of being a “trained Marxist,” revealed that she is also consulting spiritual entities and allowing them to “work through” her. “I’m calling for spirituality to be deeply radical,” she said. “We’re not just having a social justice movement, this is a spiritual movement.”

Of course, Christians, pointing to Ephesians 6:12 and its reference to spiritual warfare, have been making this argument since the fruit of BLM became more clear: destruction, hate, looting, burning, Marxism, division, riots, and more. But until recently, the spiritual nature of the struggle was simply inferred and deduced from the Bible and the news. Now, the proof is available to all.

In a recorded conversation with Cullors, BLM Los Angeles founder and California State University Professor of “African Studies” Melina Abdulla reveals more than she thought she should have. “Maybe I’m sharing too much, but we’ve become very intimate with the spirits that we call on regularly, right.” she explained. “Like, each of them seems to have a different presence and personality, you know. I laugh a lot with Wakisha, you know. And I didn’t meet her in her body, right, I met her through this work.”

Cullors echoes the sentiments of Abdulla. “It’s a very important practice, um, hashtags are for us, are way more than a hashtag, it is, um, literally almost resurrecting a spirit so they can work through us to get the work that we need to get done,” said Cullors, one of the three founders of BLM. “I started to feel personally connected and responsible and accountable to them, both from a deeply political place, but also from a deeply spiritual place.”

“Always, you know, in my tradition you offer things that that your loved one who passed away would want, you know, whether it’s like honey or tobacco, things like that,” the trained Marxist and BLM co-founder continued. “And that’s so important, not just for us to be in direct relationship to our people who’ve passed, but also for them to know we’ve remembered them. Um, I believe so many of them work through us.”

Cullors also admits that the very first thing BLM leaders do when they hear of a “murder” is to pray to the spirits and “pour libation.” Again, she emphasized, this is not just about “racial and social justice.” “At its core, it’s a spiritual movement,” she continued. “You can’t pretend like that work is just organizing work. That’s, you know, that’s some serious stuff.”

The whole “say his name” mantra also has deep spiritual significance, according to Cullors. “When we say the names, right, so we speak their names, we say her name, say their names, we do that all the time that, you kind of invoke that spirit, and then those spirits actually become present with you,” she explained, revealing something that virtually none of the “useful idiots” attending BLM rallies understand.

“Spirituality is at the center of Black Lives Matter, and I think that’s not just for us, I feel like so many, um, leaders and so many organizers, um, are deeply engaged and in a pretty, um, important spiritual practice,” Cullors continued. “I don’t think I could I could do this work without that. I don’t think I could do it as long as I’ve done it, and as consistently. Um, it feels like if I didn’t do that it would be antithetical to this work.”

Talk-show host and Christian attorney Abraham Hamilton, III, first aired the audio recordings on August 19 during his show The Hamilton Corner. His conclusion is that the conversation proves top BLM leaders are involved in witchcraft, “summoning the spirits of the dead,” and engaging in other satanic practices that are firmly condemned and strictly prohibited in the Bible.

“What they are describing is their adherence to the Yoruba religion of Ifa, to where they are summoning dead spirits,” Hamilton explained before getting into more depth about the occult pagan practices. What Cullors revealed, Hamilton continued, is exactly what the Apostle Paul was referring to in Ephesians when he explained that Christians wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual wickedness.

Quoting the Bible, Hamilton also noted the link between those who sacrifice children to demon gods such as Molech (abortion) and summoning spirits (witchcraft). Interestingly, the Yoruba were known for practicing human sacrifice until Christianity became more prevalent in the region.

The Bible is very clear about what is happening here, as consulting spirits of the dead is strictly prohibited. In fact, under the Old Testament law revealed by God for Israel, necromancy — consulting the dead — was punishable by death. All those who do it are described as “detestable” to God. Multiple passages in the Old and New Testaments also suggest that the supposed “spirits” that necromancers and witches believe they are communicating with, or sacrificing things to, are in fact demons.

Professor Abdulla’s voice message machine said she was on sabbatical for the 2019-2020 academic year. Nobody answered any of the other phone numbers listed at the Pan-African Studies department, and messages seeking comment by The New American were not returned. Abdulla did not respond to an e-mail before press time.

Terrorizing Churches

Even before the audio became public, the true nature of BLM was becoming obvious for all to see. Last month, supposedly responding to a church’s giveaway of an AR-15, BLM activists terrorized black and white churchgoers alike in Troy. They literally beat Christian adults and harassed little children while shouting obscenities and chanting “hail Satan.”

A young mother and her very young children, as well as a black family, had to be escorted by church members through the screaming mob of BLM supporters. The mob threatened to call Child Protective Services on parents in the church and started shrieking “save those kids” as families walked by. At least one protester even threatened to torch the church.

While the scenes at Grace Baptist Church were captured on video and made headlines across conservative-leaning independent media, the establishment’s propaganda organs had a virtual black-out on the story. Only the local paper ran an article — a highly biased “article” against the church. No politicians rushed to condone the violence and hatred on display. The government official involved has not been fired.

The mob was angry about a variety of issues, especially the church’s decision to give away an AR-15 rifle. On several occasions over the last decade, the church has given away or raffled off the classic and highly popular AR-15 rifle, partly in response to unconstitutional government attacks on the right to keep and bear arms. The church said on social media that it had no regrets over its decisions.

Much of the barbarism was caught on video. One clip, for instance, shows violent BLM supporters physically attacking church members. At about 1:20 in the video, a protester can be seen grabbing a church attendee and putting him in a headlock after a verbal spat. Another BLM activist then begins savagely beating the victim, throwing punch after punch after punch. A man identified by the church as Alexander Contompasis was seen punching two church members from behind before pushing the pastor. Police eventually show up to stop the physical attacks on churchgoers.

Why is the mob beating church members in Troy, NY for trying to enter church and escort black members through the mob?

“No justice, no peace”
“Peaceful protest” pic.twitter.com/qsE1kUvqnR

— Grace Baptist Church (@realgbctroyny) July 3, 2020

In a statement to The New American, Pastor John Koletas said the church has stood firmly against communism and totalitarianism since it was founded in 1987. “Too many Americans view the church as weak and apathetic to self defense and the biblical command to arm ourselves,” he said, explaining the decision to give away a semi-automatic rifle in light of that and unconstitutional gun-control policies. “We wanted to be an encouragement to lawful gun owners who had been vilified by the anti-Christian, socialist media and fake, phony, and fraudulent religious leaders.”

“When this year’s gun giveaway was announced, it brought out the God haters and devilish forces again,” Koletas continued, adding that the reasons for the attack by the BLM mob included anger over the church continuing to hold services during coronavirus, the preaching, and the promotion of firearms ownership through the AR-15 giveaway. “All were angry that we refused to back down on all accounts.”

Koletas expressed shock about the “screaming” mob of BLM activists who “mocked and jeered” a black missionary family that was attending. Other videos recorded during the attacks showed a man, identified by the church as Lukee Forbes, berating a black man on the steps of the church. The reason: “He dared to stand with the church instead of the communist detractors,” Koletas said, adding that Forbes was a government employee of the City of Albany who did time in prison for nearly beating a homosexual to death after a “Pride” parade.

Making matters worse is that the police refused to intervene until the mob actually became physically violent, Koletas said. In fact, they even sent some church members away rather than protect their rights to religious liberty, freedom of association, and private property from the angry BLM mob. “A black couple from our church were turned away by the police because of the mob: ‘tonight might not be the best day to go to church,’” he continued.

The pastor responded to the hate and extremism by inviting the mob inside, hoping for peaceful dialogue and that the angry protesters would benefit from hearing about the Bible. Some went in, but when invited to receive salvation, they became disruptive, with some again threatening violence and bearing false witness against the pastor, he explained.

All of that evil should have been evidence enough to understand the reality of what is going on and what BLM is really about. But the true spiritual nature of the BLM mob was even more clearly evident throughout the mob’s rampage. According to Koletas and other witnesses, as well as video evidence, an actual witch stood outside the church with candles and ritual drawings. Cries of “hail Satan” could be heard clearly, too.

The spiritual implications of the billionaire-funded BLM attack on America are becoming clearer. As The New American has been documenting for months, the Marxism and the hatred of the BLM has been beyond dispute for quite some time. Now, the occult connections of the leadership and the spiritual nature of the battle are beyond dispute, too.

BLM is not just an attack on liberty, property, statues of great Americans, history, and Western civilization. It is an attack on Christianity and God, too. Churches must take their rightful place on the front lines.

This article was originally published at TheNewAmerican.com.

Written by Robert Knight

President Trump caused a stir in July when he issued an order terminating some Obama housing policies aimed at killing off the suburbs.

“The [Democrat] plan is to remake the suburbs in their image so they resemble the dysfunctional cities they now govern,” he wrote in a recent Wall Street Journal column jointly authored with Housing and Urban Development Secretary Benjamin Carson. “As usual, anyone who dares tell the truth about what the left is doing is smeared as a racist.”

Outraged Democrats called the president a racist.

The rule he overturned, Obama’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) program, would “abolish single-family zoning, compel the construction of high-density ‘stack and pack’ apartment buildings in residential neighborhoods, and forcibly transform neighborhoods.”

Meanwhile, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are doubling down. Their plan, costing $640 billion over 10 years, would unleash a tsunami of social engineering.

As the Biden website proclaims, “Housing is a right, not a privilege.”

Everybody needs a home, no doubt about it.  The question is how best to ensure liberty and encourage home ownership while still making sure the poorest have a place to live.  America’s “safety net” of welfare and public housing provides minimal needs, but it’s also created a permanent underclass of fatherless families. The Democrats’ war on marriage was tailor-made to create a dependent, Free Stuff Army.

Once-thriving cities have huge areas where it’s not safe to go even in the daytime. Newly elected Democrat district attorneys financed by George Soros have abandoned the “broken windows” method of curbing crime and are reaping the whirlwind.  BLM mobs are still rioting.

It’s no secret why millions of people, including minorities, have moved to the suburbs. They want a safer, better quality of life.  But the Democrats, motivated by extreme environmentalism and political ambitions, want to force urban patterns on the burbs.

Mr. Biden says he is going to ensure that “every American has access to housing that is affordable, stable, safe and healthy, accessible, energy efficient and resilient, and located near good schools and with a reasonable commute to their jobs.”

That’s sweeping. Maybe he should ask the Communist Chinese how to go about achieving this. They move millions of people around to where they want them.

The Biden scheme includes expanding the Community Reinvestment Act.  That was the Bill Clinton/Barney Frank law forcing banks to issue mortgages to people who could not afford them.  It triggered the collapse of the stock market and the Great Recession.

So, now Mr. Biden wants to apply it “to mortgage and insurance companies.”  This would create more ways to pressure lenders to issue toxic mortgages.  If only we had some experience as to how this sort of thing turns out.  Maybe Mr. Biden could get Barney Frank to run it.

The sneakiest part of the Democrat housing plan is to use zoning laws to end suburbia as we know it. “It will be as if America’s suburbs had been swallowed up by the cities they surround,” social anthropologist Stanley Kurtz wrote recently in National Review.

“They will lose control of their own zoning and development, they will be pressured into a kind of de facto regional-revenue redistribution, and they will even be forced to start building high-density low-income housing.”

Are all those suburban moms who supposedly are going to vote Democrat in November listening?

Some jurisdictions are already going down this road.  In January, Minneapolis, where the city council has also decided to disband the police department, became the first major city to ban zoning for single-family homes.

“Our landmark 2040 Comprehensive Plan helps advance those goals by tackling our city’s long history of exclusionary zoning,” Mayor Jacob Frey exulted.

Mr. Frey, if you recall, was shocked that he was shouted down by rioters during his foray into the war zone that BLM and Antifa created in the wake of George Floyd’s death.  He refused to say he would defund the cops, but did bemoan a “systemic racist system.”

This guy is doing his best to turn Minneapolis into a mob-ruled version of Stalingrad. You’d think the mob would show more gratitude.

Minneapolis is not alone.  In 2019, the state of Oregon banned single-family zoning in cities with more than 10,000 residents.

In California, a pending bill would require California cities and counties to permit duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes on residential land zoned for single-family homes.  Take that, Orange County! Wait. Ballot harvesting swept Democrats into power in the formerly conservative bastion. Maybe never mind.

Senate Bill 50, sponsored by San Francisco Democrat Senator Scott Wiener, has been endorsed by the leftist mayors of Oakland, Sacramento, San Jose, and San Francisco.  Wonder if a fourplex will rise someday behind Nancy Pelosi’s mansion?  She could wave to the neighbors while scarfing down some of that $12 a pint ice cream from her giant freezer.

As for the Democrats’ lust for power over housing, letter-to-the-editor writer Roger Ruvolo put it this way in the Wall Street Journal:

In the Democratic vision of the future, antireligious automatons will live in small ‘multifamily’ units stacked sky high next to bus or train stations.

This election is no more about President Trump than it is about Vice President Biden; it’s about freedom, or not.

Robert Knight is a Townhall contributor. You can follow him on Twitter at @RobertKnight17 and his website is roberthknight.com.

As city after city in America is under assault, with buildings on fire and bloodied bodies laying in the streets, we need to unite in our condemnation of these violent riots.

There is nothing righteous about looting. Or bashing someone over the head with a skateboard and pelting him with stones. Or vandalizing the store of a black business owner.

This is chaos. This is anarchy. This is lawlessness. This is wrong.

We can be outraged over the killing of George Floyd and aggrieved over the sin of racism without resorting to this.

Here are four reasons why these race riots do far more harm than good.

First, they came at a time when more and more Americans were willing to talk about apparent racial injustice. As tweeted by the influential black rapper and podcaster, Zuby, “The USA temporarily had a moment where virtually ALL Americans were united in empathy and sympathy, over the pointless, awful killing of a fellow citizen.

“People of ALL colours and ALL political stripes, unanimous on an issue of clear injustice.”

“That’s extremely rare…”

He continued, “Now this unity and sympathy has been divided, diluted and misdirected as people fight on the streets, steal from their neighbours, and torch their own communities.”

“It’s fricking sad to see.”

“I’ll say it again. Some people thrive on division and anger. They don’t want solutions.” (A hat tip to my colleague John Zmirak for these references. He responded to Zuby’s tweets with his own: “The looters in Minneapolis no more represent black Americans than the neo-Nazi thugs in Charlottesville represented me.”)

As I emphasized in my latest article, “Hope for Black Americans,” this was a rare time when law and order conservatives like Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Dan Bongino united with Christian conservatives like Franklin Graham in condemning the killing of a black American by a police officer. Yet the focus has now shifted to the violence and lawlessness of the riots. How on earth is this positive or helpful?

Second, the riots paint a negative picture of black Americans, as if this is what “they” do. As expressed in a May 31 email, conservative Christian activist Scott Lively “contends that the purpose of Black Lives Matter rioting is to INCREASE Racism to justify the Marxist race-war narrative, and laments that too many conservatives and constitutionalists fall into the trap of lumping the innocent majority of Black Americans with the trained thugs of the BLM and the useful idiots who run with them.”

Obviously, Lively’s words are confrontational and even inflammatory, and one can debate his larger thesis. But his overall point is clear: the race riots, allegedly carried out in the memory of George Floyd, play into the worst racial stereotypes of black Americans. I ask again: how on earth is this helpful?

Third, these riots are destructive in their very nature, appealing to our worst instincts. As I tweeted on May 31,

“Peaceful protests can be righteous, godly, and powerful, even reflecting the Spirit of Christ. Rioting and looting are unrighteous, ungodly, and destructive, reflecting the spirit of lawlessness and chaos and murder. Which spirit is that?”

One of my black friends, a historian with a strong social conscience, said to me, “Anything that comes to kill steal and destroy is the enemy” (meaning, from Satan; see John 10:10). Precisely so.

In response to my tweet, someone challenged me, saying, “Forgive me if I’m wrong but didn’t Jesus clear out the temple with a whip?”

I replied,

“1) He acted in perfect harmony with the Lord. We often do not. 2) He did not kill anyone. He did not set the Temple on fire. He did not destroy the businesses of honest, hardworking people. I could go on and on. Surely you must know this.”

Enough said.

Fourth, there appears to be strong evidence that these riots are being aided and abetted by bad players.

Pastor Jim Garlow reported via email on May 31, “A couple of hours ago, some bussed-in protesters were attacking the La Mesa, CA police station only a few miles from where I live.

“A close friend of mine who is black has reported that the Minneapolis Airport was full of people today being flown in to create havoc. Many were being bussed in. And now we are hearing reports of pallets of bricks being dropped off at street corners in cities to give weapons to the anarchists. The George Soros types have found their moment. We pray for our President, governors and mayors.”

This was confirmed by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, himself a liberal Democrat and an African American Muslim:

“We have evidence that outsiders have been present and, in some cases, have played a very negative role. But I’ve been talking with protesters and trying to get a sense of who some of these folks are and I’ve heard mixed things. Some of the negative stuff has come from people in Minnesota and some of it has come from people on the outside. What I’d say is we’ve got enough to handle on our own and that what we really need to do is refocus on justice for Mr. Floyd. And the negative behavior, looting, arson, does not help us achieve that goal.”

Conservative broadcaster (and former NYPD officer) Dan Bongino was even more blunt: “This isn’t a protest anymore, this is a coup,” he said.

He added, “This is an organized internal coup by a small group of agitators acting as a domestic terror group. That’s a fact.”

No wonder that President Trump has now declared Antifa a terrorist organization.

Groups like this rip at the very fabric of our nation, and their goals are vastly different than the goals of the vast majority of Americans.

Let us then work together for equality and justice. One way we can do that is by denouncing these violent riots. Then, we can refocus on the killing of George Floyd and the larger questions of equal treatment under the law.

This article was originally published at Townhall.com.

Written by Cliff Kincaid

Billionaire George Soros was named “Philanthropist of the Year” by Inside Philanthropy magazine for his “…fight for academic freedom in Central Europe, and his resistance to the rising tide of authoritarianism worldwide.”  The former is a reference to gender studies programs and the latter concerns his ongoing campaign to undermine existing governments, causing chaos that makes more money for hedge fund currency manipulators and short-sellers like himself.

In the United States, he is best known for almost single-handedly creating a narco-nation through legalization of marijuana, causing human suffering and environmental devastation on a scale most people do not yet comprehend.

With the nation focused on the opioid danger, and President Donald J. Trump accusing China of pumping fentanyl into the veins of American victims through Mexico, the marijuana problem has gotten less attention. Indeed, liberal politicians and prosecutors, some of them getting Soros money, are treating the dope as a harmless substance and even a money-maker for local and state governments.

For one of the most sensational examples of a notorious pothead, consider Aaron Hernandez, the former NFL star who became a convicted killer and then killed himself in prison. The subject of a new Netflix series, “Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez,” he was a chronic marijuana user throughout college and his NFL career who experienced brain damage from the drug. The case proves a direct link between marijuana, mental illness, and violence.

In California, legal dope was supposed to displace illegal dope. But illicit cannabis cultivation sites are proliferating, offering a cheaper product than the government-approved variety. The Siskiyou County (California) Board of Supervisors voted on a new Declaration of Local Emergency that refers to illegal growers being responsible for “hundreds of pervasive fire hazards, insecticides, pesticides, rodenticides, fertilizers, trash, and unsanitary conditions which severely impact health, safety and quality of life for countless county residents…”

It’s in Barack Hussein Obama’s state of Illinois that we see some of the recent damage being done.

Illinois last year became the first state to legalize the marijuana business through legislation rather than by referendum and placing excise and sales taxes on the “product.” We can already see the predictable result — marijuana-related emergency room visits are on the rise. The local ABC-TV station in Chicago quotes doctors as saying the most common symptoms of the new potheads in Illinois are restlessness, heart palpitations and anxiety, but that “In some cases we are seeing full on psychosis, agitation, hallucinations.”

Incredibly, Illinois Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton was one of the first in line to purchase the dope. She bought clementine-flavored marijuana edible gummies and paid with cash. The scene was captured by CNN as she was pictured among hundreds of early-morning customers at a Chicago marijuana dispensary.  She probably went to the front of the line, but some people waited hours in order to buy their “recreational marijuana” and get “high.”

David E. Smith of the Illinois Family Institute comments, “Not only have lawmakers failed to do their due diligence before passing this marijuana law, but they also failed to heed the compelling research that indicates how regular use of marijuana affects young people, including an increased risk of psychiatric illnesses and a permanent loss of IQ points.”

In fact, this is the plan – dumb people down so they ruin their lives and then have to be dependent on the state for the rest of their lives. The potheads are fast becoming an important new constituency for the socialist-minded.

Before they actually navigate their way to the polls, they can relieve their pain by employing another “hemp” product – CBD or cannabidiol.  CBD is being hawked all over, even on the Rush Limbaugh show, and is being advertised as a treatment for “muscle soreness” and “everyday discomfort.” But many complaints have been filed with the FDA over the false medical claims made about CBD.

Dr. Kenneth Finn comments, “These products are everywhere, but there is little scientific evidence to support the hype that surrounds them.” He says unregulated CBD products hitting the market might be contaminated with heavy metals, pesticides, fungicides, rodenticides, insecticides, molds, E. coli, or fungus.

Official dope distribution is supposed to fill a financial gap. In Illinois, the sixth-biggest state, by population, Politico reporter Theodoric Meyer reports that it has seen its credit rating cut to near-junk status in the decade since the financial crisis. “Its bonds are now considered as risky as those of Russia and Romania,” he notes. “Its pension system is in worse shape than that of almost any other state.”

Writers Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner note that the population of Illinois dropped by 100,000 people between 2010 and 2018 and few of the state’s counties have been spared. “That means that 93 of the state’s 102 counties have shrunk since 2010,” they note. Adam Schuster, Director of Budget and Tax Research at the group, Illinois Policy, reports that 36 percent of the money the state allocates to education will be diverted away from teachers and students to meet required pension payments for retirees.

Former Illinois pension chief Marc Levine is quoted as saying a federal bailout may be required, making this a matter affecting all taxpayers, not just the saps remaining in Illinois.

The “progressive” politicians have virtually bankrupted the state, forcing thousands to flee, and have turned to the cruel exploitation of potheads as a sure-fire money-maker to stave off the final countdown to fiscal oblivion. But legalized dope means more wards of the state who need government help.

Now this is going national. “Once a politically dangerous subject,” notes Trevor Hughes of USA Today, “legal marijuana has become something of a de facto platform plank for the 2020 Democratic candidates: All support either legalizing or decriminalizing its use, and the differences lie in how far the candidates are willing to take it.”

Since 22.2 million people have used marijuana in the past month, this is fertile ground for votes. In a bid for votes, candidate Pete Buttigieg actually toured a “cannabis dispensary” in Las Vegas while commenting that he smoked dope a “handful of times a long time ago.”

President Trump, on the other hand, can just say no. He lost his brother to alcoholism and should consider speaking out against the Soros-funded marijuana craze before more lives are ruined and lost. His Surgeon General, Vice Adm. Jerome M. Adams, is already speaking out about the health risks of marijuana use. He needs the backing of his president.

Roger Morgan, author of Soros: The Drug Lord. Pricking the Bubble of American Supremacy, notes the elevated levels of mental illness, addiction, suicides, traffic deaths and the unseen mental and physical defects to babies and future generations from the use of marijuana and other mind-altering drugs.  He adds, “America can never be great again if a major percentage of its young people are brain damaged, mentally ill, addicted or dead.”​

This article was originally published at USASurvival.org. Cliff Kincaid is president of America’s Survival, Inc. www.usasurvival.org

Recently, I posted this article: George Soros Gets It: When Will More Wealthy Conservatives?

My goal was to spur wealthy conservatives to increase their giving to organizations like the Illinois Family Institute (IFI) and Illinois Family Action (IFA). While it’s nice for someone to see their name on a building at their alma mater, to be frank, it’s more important to save our state.

And Illinois is in need of emancipation.

Leftist millionaires and billionaires are increasingly showing up in the headlines after writing enormous checks to Leftist causes. George Soros is one who has shown he’s all in when it comes to fundamentally transforming the West, the United States especially.

Not only are billionaires funding Leftist causes but smaller dollar donors are as well. And those dollars add up.

That is certainly the experience of the Illinois Family Institute. Small dollar donations are what fuel most of the work that is accomplished by IFI and IFA. Over the past five years, the average donation was $97 a year.  Last year that number was down a bit to $87 a year.

Those numbers do not lie.

We just passed “Giving Tuesday,” “a global day to give, fueled by the power of social media and collaboration.” (Thank heavens its over: my inbox was inundated with fundraising emails!)

Americans are a generous people. Google it if you doubt that. Every year, hundreds of billions of dollars are given to charitable causes, including to individuals, foundations, and corporations. There are over a million and a half non-profits registered in the United States.

[Note: After this article was published, Robbie Richards from Rawhide Boys Ranch in Wisconsin, brought this interesting article and “charitable giving map” to my attention.]

The reality is that not all non-profits are equal. Some have endowments and budgets that boggle the mind. Some have lists of active donors to die for. Some, like IFI and IFA, are, in my opinion, greatly underfunded.

IFI and IFA’s real bottom line is winning hearts and minds. We’re in this fight because we see the need for more Illinoisans to realize that the pro-family, pro-life and pro-freedom movement is offering solutions to a morally and fiscally sick state.

The IFI team is working hard to engage the battle and would like to do so more aggressively in 2018. But we need your help to be successful.

We must work harder and smarter and engage on more platforms to disseminate conservative principles and precepts.

That is exactly what the Illinois Family Institute is all about: giving the people of Illinois the information they need to make good decisions and to act on those decisions.

We read this in Matthew 5: 13-16:

You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.

You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.

In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

The Illinois Family Institute has the information necessary to equip every person living in our state and elsewhere to be salt and light.

But none of that life-giving information can do any good without your help.

You might be one of those people who read about George Soros-like donations and think that your donation of $25, or $50, or $100 a month to IFI is not important because it’s just a drop in the bucket by comparison, but that bucket is left half empty without smaller dollar donations. They are crucial!

To IFI and IFA’s current donors, we thank you for your continued support.

If you know others who share our vision of upholding and re-affirming marriage, family, life and liberty in Illinois,  please encourage them to visit our websites (Illinois Family Institute, Illinois Family Action) and support the work.

Click here to support Illinois Family Action (IFA). 
Contributions to IFA are not tax-deductible but give us the most flexibility in engaging critical political and partisan issues.

-OR-

Click here to support Illinois Family Institute (IFI).
Contributions to IFI are tax-deductible and support our lobbying, educational and grass-roots efforts.

You can also send a gift to P.O. Box 876, Tinley Park, IL  60477 or call the IFI office at (708) 781-9328.

Recent articles of interest:

Philanthropy Booms In the Trump Era—But It Also Gets Political: Such advocacy fails to provide direct and tangible benefits to individuals in need.

The Billionaire Socialists: Soros, Steyer, Bezos and Bloomberg are the big four antagonists of Liberty. But we’re here to counterpunch.

Here was the headline: “Soros Shifts $18 Billion To Foundation He Uses To Fund Left.” That is not a typo. $18 billion with a B. This guy is serious about seeing Leftism advanced. The facts about that “shift” of dollars are presented by Aly Nielsen at NewsBusters.org.

By now, most people who follow politics are aware of George Soros and his generous funding of radical Leftist issues and organizations around the world.

Here are the opening paragraphs of Nielsen’s article:

Left-wing financier George Soros just nearly tripled the size of his foundation by adding an additional $18 billion in assets. The foundation has funded liberal activism on immigration, abortion, journalism and a myriad of other issues. Its soon-to-be president was also formerly a DNC executive director.

Soros transferred the billions to Open Society Foundations (OSF) from his hedge fund, Soros Fund Management, The Wall Street Journal reported on Oct. 17, 2017. The transfer increased OSF’ assets from $7.3 billion (according to Foundation Directory) to $25.3 billion.

Here are a few details from the article put into bullet points:

• Soros has given away roughly $14 billion throughout his lifetime.

• Soros has also funneled more than $103 million to journalism groups around the world including ProPublica, NPR and Columbia University.

• Soros also gave at least $10.5 million to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

• Media outlets that backed her campaign or policies had received an additional $61 million in prior years.

• OSF operates in seven different global regions including the U.S., Africa, Latin America and Europe.

• Through the various OSF branches, Soros has started revolutions, undermined national currencies and funded radical groups throughout the world.

There are a lot more colorful details in the article, but my focus is the money:

By transferring $18 billion to OSF, Soros has signaled he intends this left-wing agenda to remain well-funded long after his death.

Soros is 87 years old.

At American Thinker, Rick Moran wrote about this news item as well: “Soros transfers most of his wealth to Open Society Foundations.”

Two sentences from the article: “The foundation said it is the second-largest in the world after the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.” “The Wall Street Journal estimates Soros’s net worth at $23 billion.”

Note this good point as well: “Suffice it to say, infusing his foundation with that much cash will free up other resources for partisan campaign donations.”

Soros isn’t the only big money person funding Leftist causes, of course, but he’s the biggest dog. Another big dog is Tom Steyer (read more about him here). Steyer is worth an entirely separate article since he is funding an effort to impeach President Trump. Tech magnates have also made headlines over the past few years as they have written enormous checks to left-wing causes. J.B. Pritzker, another Leftist billionaire, is running for governor in Illinois.

The Lefty titans get it — everything in politics costs money. If you want your political agenda to succeed, it requires money money money.

There are a few good examples on the political right where conservative donors are adding more zeros to the checks they write. But many more of our big dogs need to realize that funding a building with their name on it at their alma mater is not going to save the country from the Leftist agenda.

The only way conservatives save the country is if we have the money to fight. The large PACs and the large think tanks are adequately funded, but the best fighters are many of the small, underfunded groups. I’ll name just two here — the Illinois Family Institute and Illinois Family Action (there are many more here and around the country).

Often the smaller organizations are more aggressive and less concerned with being politically correct. Their effectiveness would greatly increase with more funds to hire more staff to oversee more campaigns and events to reach more people. The decades-old think tanks are happy to operate the same as they always have while expecting a different result.

A few years ago I wrote (and rewrote) a series of articles on this topic — it starts with this one. In one, I included this story:

In August of 1781, our Southern forces had trapped Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis in the little Virginia coastal town of Yorktown. George Washington and the main army and the Count de Rochambeau with his French army decided to march from the Hudson Highlands to Yorktown and deliver the final blow. But Washington’s war chest was completely empty, as was that of Congress. Washington determined that he needed at least $20,000 to finance the campaign.

When Morris told him there were no funds and no credit available, Washington gave him a simple but eloquent order: “Send for Haym Salomon”. Haym again came through, and the $20.000 was raised. Washington conducted the Yorktown campaign, which proved to be the final battle of the Revolution, thanks to Haym Salomon.

“Send for Haym Salomon.” Even the Father of his country needed funding — and he knew where to turn.

Here is an invitation to those conservatives who can write checks to fund a much-needed communications revolution from sea to shining sea. Wealthy donors need to start exercising a little critical thinking, and stop supporting organizations that don’t have a vision and start funding those that do such as IFI and IFA.

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois!

Click HERE to learn about supporting IFI on a monthly basis.

Let’s see, Planned Parenthood provides age-inappropriate, Leftist dogma packaged as sex “education” to children and kills incipient human life in the womb. Moreover, no Planned Parenthood performs mammograms, and very, very few offer prenatal care. And yet Planned Parenthood is an essential provider of women’s healthcare?

Curiouser and curiouser.

In 2013, Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood (PP), was paid $590,928. In regard to her 2013 income, U.S. News and World Report said “Richards makes about $100,000 more than the typical CEO for a nonprofit similar to the size of Planned Parenthood.” Here’s the kicker, in 2014 Richards was paid $957,952. PP vice president Dawn Laguens pocketed $599, 721 of blood money.

It’s time for the federal government to cease funding Planned Parenthood until such time as they  stop killing humans in the womb; stop providing contraception and abortifacients; and stop peddling a Leftist sexuality ideology to minors.

If Planned Parenthood wants to provide those products and services to minors and women of childbearing age, they should ask George Soros, Madonna, Miley Cyrus, and Ashley Judd to subsidize them.

Taxpayers should not be forced to do so.

The cause of “media activism,” now popular at some American colleges and universities, is taking an ominous and interesting turn. If this trend continues, the moderators of the stacked anti-Republican CNBC presidential debate will look like moderates.

Quite literally, the purpose of this new kind of “media activism” is to make you sick.

A so-called “Media Activism Research Conference” is being held next year in Canada to expand even further the “progressive” causes available to journalists. The event is described as a “Gathering for Grassroots and Transformative Media” at Lakehead University and “an opportunity to develop collaborations and networks among anti-capitalist, feminist, anti-racist, trans, queer and Indigenous alternative media activists and activist-researchers by sharing knowledge, skills and experiences on grassroots and transformative alternative media.”

Brace yourselves for one of the seminars, which concerns “Queer anarchist autonomous zones and publics: Direct action vomiting against homonormative consumerism.”

According to my research, and I may not have gotten to the bottom of this, it seems as if media activists in Canada are exploring vomiting as a form of social protest against capitalism. The concept of “social justice” is taking on very strange and bizarre adventures in academia.

One member of the Anarchist Studies Network defines vomit itself “as emblematic of the unsustainable contradictions inherent in capitalism, and of the body’s rebellion.”

A Lakehead University professor, Dr. Sandra Jeppesen, actually wrote an article entitled, “Projectile: stories about puking.” Apparently, to vomit is to reject the capitalist system.

Jeppesen is the point of contact for this field of study. Identified as a professor in media studies, cultural studies and anarchist theory, she was awarded almost $500,000 in research funding from the federal government of Canada two years ago, in order to “study how social activists are using ‘cutting-edge’ digital technologies to further social causes around the world and what the rest of us can learn from them.”

In fact, this forthcoming media conference is underwritten by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of the government of Canada.

If you are as curious as I am, you may find it interesting that “anti-consumerist vomiting” is described in a broader context, and that “Global anarchist movements and queer politics are integrating in mutually informing ways. The characteristics of this synthesis include liberatory theories and practices of embodied genders and sexualities in private and public, direct actions to visibilize and extend queer publics, and queer intersections with capitalism, the environment, race, disability, public space, private property and citizenship, among others.”

I don’t know how to precisely translate this material, except I did discover that “liberatory pedagogy” refers to “educational theories and practices intended to raise learners’ critical consciousness concerning oppressive social conditions.”

A paper on the topic explains, “As students and educators join the struggles to recognize oppression and domination within the sphere of popular culture, individuals whose voices were once silenced will become heard. For this reason, liberatory pedagogy seeks to empower individuals and encourage them to formulate reflective communities in and outside of the classroom that highlight social justice.”

An entire paper by Jeppesen, entitled, “Queer anarchist autonomous zones and publics: Direct action vomiting against homonormative consumerism,” goes into detail on this. I almost got sick reading it.

Meanwhile, here in the United States, things aren’t too much better. Some of our “progressive” journalists are still recognizing—and being recognized by—Playboy founder and publisher Hugh Hefner, whose Playboy Mansion was a notorious hangout for such personalities as accused serial sex abuser Bill Cosby.

Some “progressives” consider Hefner a champion of the First Amendment.

Malkia Cyril, Executive Director of the Center for Media Justice, was just given a 2015 Hugh M. Hefner Foundation First Amendment Award. We are told that during her acceptance speech, “In a small ceremony that took place beside the Playboy mansion’s infamous grotto, Malkia started off by thanking her mother, a former Black Panther who passed away in 2005, and the nearly 200 organizations that make up the Media Action Grassroots Network.”

In the Playboy Mansion and its “infamous grotto,” a place known for sexual orgies, it appears that the notorious Bill Cosby exercised a lot of power over women, some of whom may have been drugged.

Nevertheless, Cyril seemed proud of the award and proclaimed, “My mother was a member of the Black Panther Party in New York City. She ran the Party’s Breakfast Program and was editor of their national newspaper, but she was my first teacher. I sat on my mother’s shoulders at rallies for undocumented migrants, queer youth rights, women’s reproductive freedom. And I sit on her shoulders today.”

The Black Panther Party was notorious for targeting police officers as “pigs.”

The so-called “grassroots organizations” of the Media Action Grassroots Network include the George Soros-funded Ella Baker Center, formerly headed by Van Jones, the Obama Green Jobs Czar who lost his job when his communist background came to light. He is now a CNN commentator.

The Hefner awards are determined by “judges” from the media, who in the past have included Margaret Carlson, a journalist at Bloomberg News; Laura W. Murphy, Director of the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office, and Katrina Vanden Heuvel, Editor and Publisher, The Nation.

Each award includes $5,000 and a commemorative plaque. The awards represent just some of the millions of dollars over the years that Hugh Hefner has paid to the media and various “progressive groups.”

Taking money from a pornographer and vomiting to protest capitalism are some of the current “progressive” trends in the media.

And you thought media bias couldn’t get any worse?

This article was originally posted at AccuracyinMedia.org.

As the American people prepare to vote on marijuana ballot measures in three states and the District of Columbia, measures which would make the mind-altering substance more freely available, more bad news keeps coming for the well-funded pothead lobby.

In a major terrorism-related case, a participant in the cover-up of the Boston Marathon bombing conspiracy, Robel Phillipos, claimed the drug had so many bad effects on his brain that he lied to federal agents.

The key question, however, is whether the major media will ever start reporting on the substantial evidence linking “cannabis” and mental illness, violence and terrorism.

The “reefer madness” defense for Phillipos, a close friend and associate of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokar Tsarnaev, would be laughable were it not for the fact that the Boston bombings killed three people and injured hundreds. Martin Richard, the eight-year-old boy killed in the bombing, had been photographed holding a sign that said, “No more hurting people. Peace.”

The pothead defense clearly didn’t work out the way his radical left lawyers had planned; Phillipos has now been found guilty by a jury of lying to the FBI, “despite his claim that he was too high to remember what he had done,” as The Atlantic magazine described the unusual defense.

The son of an Ethiopian immigrant, Phillipos knew that two other Tsarnaev friends removed a backpack containing evidence of the terrorist crime from his college dorm room at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth. But he lied about it to federal agents.

His attorney, Susan Church, and her co-counsel, Derege Demissie, had argued that “he smoked marijuana about a half-dozen times that day, and was simply unable to reconstruct his actions during a series of high-pressure interviews with federal agents,” The Boston Globe reported. The Globe said legal analysts were divided over whether the “I forget because of marijuana” defense would work.

Well, it didn’t.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s office, between April 19, 2013 and April 26, 2013, federal investigators interviewed Phillipos five times about the bombing and during each of those interviews Phillipos lied. He blamed marijuana for all of these memory “lapses.”

U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz said, “In the wake of one of the most significant events in this city’s modern history—an event which left two young women and a child dead, and many more injured —thousands of ordinary citizens assisted law enforcement in identifying and locating the perpetrators.” However, she said that Phillipos did just the opposite. “He lied to agents when he could have helped. He concealed when he could have assisted,” she said.

He faces eight years in prison for each of the two counts of lying, three years of supervised release, and a fine of $250,000 for each charge.

Incredibly, former governor of Massachusetts and 1988 Democratic nominee for president Michael Dukakis testified on his behalf and said he and his wife had taken him to the 2004 Democratic National Convention as a “special guest.” Dukakis said, “We watched him grow up.”

Based on the defense of his crimes offered by his lawyers, it appears that he grew up into a zombie willing to lie about his knowledge of the worst terrorist incident in Boston history because marijuana clouded his memory.

This provocative legal theory came, not surprisingly, from the far-left. His attorney Susan Church previously served as co-chair of the Massachusetts Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, and regularly conducts “know your rights” seminars at community centers and various immigrant advocacy groups.

Her bio neglects to point out that the National Lawyers Guild was once identified as a Communist Party front. Her co-counsel, Derege Demissie, is a member of the board of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts.

Church focuses on “immigration law and criminal defense,” and “advocates for immigrants with criminal convictions facing deportation and immigrants seeking immigration benefits in the United States.” She received the “Detention Panel Attorney of the Year” award from the Political Asylum Immigrant Representation project.

Leave it to the ACLU and the far-left National Lawyers Guild to offer marijuana as a defense for lying about terrorism.

The “high out of his mind” defense, though ultimately unsuccessful, does add to the questions about marijuana’s role in the crime, since Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokar Tsarnaev was a heavy marijuana user and dealer. His older brother, killed in a shoot-out, was implicated in a triple murder involving marijuana being thrown on three dead bodies whose throats were slit.

To add to the intrigue, a sister of the Boston Marathon bombers who goes by the name of Bella Tsarnaeva is also facing a marijuana charge.

The Bergen County, New Jersey, Record reported that Tsarnaeva was arrested after police responded to her home on a domestic violence report and found marijuana. The paper said both Tsarnaeva and her boyfriend, Ahmad Khalil, were indicted on April 10 for possession of marijuana with intent to distribute.

The number of people associated with the bombers and/or the conspiracy has led to speculation that it grew out of a marijuana smuggling operation, possibly with foreign ties. The Tsarnaev brothers were born in the former Soviet Union.

It has long been known that terrorist groups operating in drug-producing regions of the world such as Afghanistan, Colombia and Peru, have been heavily involved in the drug trade.

Despite Phillipos’ failure to blame pot for his lies, Reuters news agency noted that his lawyers called one expert, Dr. Alan Wartenberg, who said that marijuana can “impair memory” and “impair executive functions,” as well as judgment and other brain functions. Wartenberg said younger men’s brains are “more prone to cognitive impairment from marijuana” than those in older men.

Many studies back up the testimony. One study from Northwestern University found that teenagers who were heavy marijuana users had “abnormal changes in their brain structures related to working memory and performed poorly on memory tasks.”

But while the drug can have an extremely negative effect on the brain, the idea that smoking marijuana on a constant basis gets you off the hook for lying about crimes of terrorism has now been rejected by a jury.

Still, how many more “stoners” will be produced if the marijuana ballot measures pass on November 4? The stakes are so high that the Brookings Institution is calling them the “Marijuana Midterms.”

The dope lobby is heavily funded, with much of the money coming from groups associated with billionaires George Soros and Peter Lewis. Other funds are supplied by the marijuana business, which generates repeat customers dependent on the weed.

One analysis shows that in Oregon, the marijuana lobby is spending $2 million on a prime-time TV ad campaign, while opponents have raised a mere $168,000. In Alaska, dopers have raised $867,000 while opponents have only raised $97,000.

In states like California, Washington and Colorado, where marijuana has been legalized, experts are now warning about edible marijuana products disguised as candies, cookies and brownies falling into the hands of kids. The Washington Poison Center warns that, of the reported cases of pediatric marijuana exposures in Washington State, 27 percent were cases involving children from one to three years old.

While drugging kids with marijuana appears to be on the rise, the media seem to be treating these cases as harmless pranks.

The dope lobby, meanwhile, is extremely upset over my previous column examining a connection between high-profile cases of Islamic terrorism and violence and marijuana addiction. One critic called my column “offensive,” saying, “I hope that all TWB readers contact him and let them know what they think of his reefer madness.”

TWB stands for “The Weed Blog,” devoted to all things marijuana-related. It features “marijuana books,” cannabis recipes, and even “grower tips.” It is typical of the consuming passion for the drug that characterizes heavy users.

The editors and administrators are identified by the names “Johnny Green” and “Jay Smoker,” which are obviously pseudonyms for marijuana users and activists. They are determined to portray marijuana addiction in the best possible light.

This is typical of the marijuana mentality that gripped the Boston bombers and their collaborators, until one of them, Phillipos, got caught by the feds and lied. Then he decided he had to blame pot for his mental problems in order to avoid prison.

This article was originally posted at the Accuracy in Media website.

Reporter Charlo Greene of the CBS television affiliate in Alaska used an obscenity on the air, announcing she was quitting her job, and revealed that she had been president of the Alaska Cannabis Club even while reporting on it for station KTVA. She then walked off the set.

Greene announced she was going to openly campaign for passage of ballot measure 2, the Alaska Marijuana Legalization initiative, on the November 4, 2014, Election Day ballot.

In a new development, TMZ reports that Greene allegedly smoked so much pot at home that her next-door neighbor’s kid got sick from the fumes. The neighbor complained, was threatened by Greene, and got a restraining order against her.

Whether Green had simply gone nuts on the air, or else was demonstrating the effects of the use of the weed on her own mental faculties, the lesson was clear: the media can’t be trusted to report fairly and honestly on the marijuana issue. We know the media have a liberal bias. But this case caused us to wonder how many “objective” reporters covering the issue are actually secret tokers.

Kristina Woolston, the Vote No on 2 spokesperson, told Accuracy in Media, “We are shocked and disappointed at what has transpired. Our campaign has twice expressed concern to KTVA about Charlo Greene’s coverage. First, we met with the news director and walked him through our issues about her biased coverage of the marijuana initiative. Then Kalie Klaysmat at the Alaska Association of Chiefs of Police sent a strongly worded email to the news director, again expressing concern about Greene’s biased coverage.”

Calvina L. Fay, executive director of the Drug Free America Foundation, commented, “It is not uncommon to hear such inappropriate language used by the advocates of marijuana legalization.  To have used this type of language while on the air, clearly demonstrates a lack of respect for her employer and for the public. It appears that she has no problem violating the rules in the workplace. I wonder if this problem will be carried over in her management style of her company and result in abuses and violations of Alaska marijuana laws—whatever they will be come November. I hope that the media will shift the attention from her towards covering why this proposal to legalize pot is a very bad idea.”

Having come out of the closet as a pothead, Charlo Greene’s Facebook Page now shows her in a group of marijuana plants. She also changed her profile picture to one showing her lighting up a marijuana cigarette.

As shocking as this case was, less attention has been devoted to the more sensational story of Vladimir Baptiste, a psychotic pot user who drove his truck through the headquarters of WMAR-TV in Towson, Maryland. The Baptiste case demonstrates how marijuana is hardly the benign, or even beneficial, substance depicted by its apologists. He is charged with attempted murder, assault, burglary and malicious destruction of property and theft.

Before he stole a truck and rammed the building, a WMAR reporter said Baptiste had come to the front door screaming that he was God and demanding to be let in.

His mother told WNEW that her son’s behavior began changing when he started smoking marijuana. She said he had been a chronic marijuana user for eight years and needed psychiatric help.

WBAL-TV reported that, in the charging documents, “Baptiste said he was a reincarnation of King Tut and Jesus Christ and lives in a world of multiverses [alternative universes] where bad things happen to people, and they disappear because they are not real. He said the disappearance of Malaysian Flight 370 and the kidnapping of the Nigerian school girls were examples of multiverses in that they never actually happened.”

The case is not as unique as you might think. The link between marijuana and mental illness is well-established in medical literature, but has been mostly ignored by the media.

In Florida, meanwhile, a pro-marijuana initiative known as Amendment 2, is backed by famous trial lawyer John Morgan, who was recently caught on camera at a local bar cursing and appearing drunk, while praising “reefer” and urging young people to turn out to pass the ballot measure. The video carries the title, “Unplugged and Uncensored.”

Morgan is the “Yes on 2” campaign chairman. His side calls it the “United for Care” measure, designed to create the impression that it is all being done for sick people who need pot.

In this case, some in the media aren’t buying it. The Tampa Tribune said Morgan’s rant proves that the measure was not intended to help sick people, and noted that the crowd howled at Morgan’s profanity. People could be heard screaming “Smoke weed,” and “Where’s the cocaine?”

Charlie Crist, the former Republican governor of Florida, was a lawyer at Morgan’s firm. He’s now running for governor as a Democrat.

In response to the antics of Morgan and others, the “Don’t Let Florida Go to Pot coalition” has been formed.

The Charlo Greene case, however, is getting the headlines, and the bizarre incident has backfired on the pro-pot forces treating the former reporter as a heroine.

In this context, the Alaska Association of Chiefs of Police has posted “14 Reasons Against Marijuana Legalization,” including the argument that marijuana contributes to psychosis and schizophrenia, addiction for one out of six kids who ever use it once, and it reduces IQ among those who started smoking before age 18.

The IQ problem was clearly evident in the Charlo Greene fiasco.

Dumbed-down marijuana users have been praising Greene for coming out of the marijuana closet. But a liberal website called the Inquisitr said she is “every bad stereotype of the pot community rolled into one.” It explained, “She starts a cannabis club and campaigns for ‘medical marijuana legalization’ yet she shows in a short 30-second clip that she has no tact, no sense of professionalism and no concern for what her future might hold.”

The column went on, “What is so irksome about Charlo Greene and those like her is this: they hide behind the ‘medical marijuana’ argument when all they really want is to get high.”

Where did this pothead reporter come from? She says she graduated cum laude from the University of Texas. She also worked for WOWK, the CBS affiliate for Charleston-Huntington, West Virginia, and WJHL in Johnson City, Tennessee.

Bert Rudman of KTVA-11 News in Anchorage posted a “Dear Viewers” note after her outburst, saying, “We sincerely apologize for the inappropriate language used by a KTVA reporter during her live presentation on the air tonight. The employee has been terminated.”

Perhaps some drug tests are in order for his employees.

As bizarre as it was, the Greene episode could help derail the George Soros-funded campaign to legalize dope in Alaska.

The pro-pot side in Alaska is represented by the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, whose top contributors are the Marijuana Policy Project and the Soros-funded Drug Policy Alliance.

But the group also has backers with Republican and Democratic credentials.

The spokesman for the pro-marijuana group is Taylor Bickford, who previously worked for the Republican National Committee, and says he got his start in politics interning for Alaska Republican U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski. Bickford is director of Alaska operations for the Seattle-based marketing firm known as Strategies 360.

The group’s senior vice president is Ethan Berkowitz, the 2010 Democratic nominee for governor of Alaska.

Bickford is quoted by the AP as saying, “he hopes Alaska voters look beyond Greene’s salty language” because she has an “important” message about legalizing dope.

At the same time, a relatively new group, Republicans Against Marijuana Prohibition, was active at the recent Ron Paul-sponsored Liberty Political Action Conference. The group was founded by Ann and Bob Lee, parents of Richard Lee of “Oaksterdam University” fame. Oaksterdam University in Oakland, California, is also known as “America’s First Cannabis College.” It teaches people how to grow high-quality dope.

Is this America’s future?

This article was originally posted at the Accuracy in Media website.

NYT columnist says she was ‘curled up in a hallucinatory state’ for eight hours

Maureen Dowd of The New York Times has attracted attention with her column about eating a marijuana candy bar and remaining in “a hallucinatory state for the next eight hours,” as she began “panting” and becoming “paranoid.” Some commentators are laughing about it. Not so funny are the reports of deaths from ingesting marijuana that Dowd cites in her column about marijuana legalization in Colorado.

“In March,” she noted, “a 19-year-old Wyoming college student jumped off a Denver hotel balcony after eating a pot cookie with 65 milligrams of THC. In April, a Denver man ate pot-infused Karma Kandy and began talking like it was the end of the world, scaring his wife and three kids. Then he retrieved a handgun from a safe and killed his wife while she was on the phone with an emergency dispatcher.”

The Wyoming college student, 19-year-old Levy Thamba Pongi, was an exchange student from Congo. Richard Kirk is the Denver man who killed his wife, Khristine Kirk, with a gunshot to her head.

“Two Denver deaths tied to recreational marijuana use” was the headline over an Associated Press story. It didn’t take long for the claim that marijuana never killed anybody to be debunked.

Regarding her own experience with the drug, Dowd said, “As my paranoia deepened, I became convinced that I had died and no one was telling me.”

I discussed both of the deaths cited in the Dowd column in my May 1^st column, “Colombians Move into Colorado Marijuana Business.” On March 27th, we ran the column, “Media Continue Cover-up of Marijuana-induced Mental Illness.”

Nevertheless, the U.S. House of Representatives recently voted 219-189 to block Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) raids on so-called “medical marijuana” businesses. The Marijuana Policy Project reports that U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), its “longtime ally,” led the charge to protect the marijuana businesses in Colorado and other states. It passed mostly with liberal Democratic votes.

“Already in Colorado, there is evidence of Colombian cartel involvement in the legal medical marijuana industry,” notes the group called Smart Approaches to Marijuana, whose co-founder, drug policy expert Kevin A. Sabet, recently authored the book, Reefer Sanity: Seven Great Myths About Marijuana.

But now that liberal columnist Maureen Dowd has tackled the subject in a serious manner, connecting the dots between marijuana and mental problems, others in the media may follow suit and the rush to legalize the drug may encounter difficulties.

Most of the media reaction to Dowd, at least so far, has been amusement. On the NBC Today Show, the hosts joked and laughed about marijuana’s effects as the words, “All the pot fit to eat,” were featured on the TV screen. It was a play on words from the Times’ slogan, “All the news that’s fit to print.”

Dr. Christine Miller, who has written about the relationship between marijuana and mental illness, says, “What’s so funny about it? She [Dowd] was out of her mind.”

“I was saddened to see Matt Lauer and The Today Show crew make light of Maureen Dowd’s experience, particularly in view of the fact that the symptoms she experienced were not dissimilar to those that prompted the young college student to jump off a Denver hotel balcony after eating a pot-laced brownie,” Miller told AIM. “Matt or his co-hosts really should interview the Congolese family of that student, who must be devastated that their efforts to offer their young man a more promising future were dashed in such a manner. That would be a story worthy of our national attention.”

A powerful new book, A Voice out of Nowhere, takes the controversy to another level and may change some minds about marijuana being a so-called “soft” drug. It tells the true story of Bruce Blackman, a 22-year-old man who murdered six members of his family while under the influence of marijuana. Psychiatrists said Blackman’s marijuana addiction was a contributing factor in his psychotic break from reality and mass murder spree.

The author, Janice Holly Booth, predicts violence will increase as a result of legalization. “Once legally available, the temptation to try it is no longer tempered by concerns about breaking the law,” she says. “I think we’ll see an increase in the number of young people with as-yet undiagnosed mental illness using and abusing marijuana, and—unfortunately—a subsequent rise in violent crimes committed by them.”

Jack Healy, the Rocky Mountain correspondent for The New York Times, wrote a June 1 piece, “After 5 Months of Sales, Colorado Sees the Downside of a Legal High,” that looked at several problems caused by legalization.

But he also reported that violent crime was down. He said, “Marijuana supporters note that violent crimes in Denver—where the bulk of Colorado’s pot retailers are—are down so far this year. The number of robberies from January through April fell by 4.8 percent from the same time in 2013, and assaults were down by 3.7 percent. Over-all, crime in Denver is down by about 10 percent, though it is impossible to say whether changes to marijuana laws played any role in that decline.”

Miller believes the city of Denver is giving out misleading statistics to many news outlets, including the Times. She says there is a discrepancy in the data reported by the city and what is online from the police department.

Miller speculates that the city of Denver “wants to put its best foot forward now that the summer tourist season is just taking off.” Miller, who lives in Baltimore, Maryland, added, “It reminds me of how a certain mayor of Baltimore, Martin O’Malley, restructured the categories for reporting of murder rates here, showing a nice decline after he took office.” O’Malley went on to become governor.

“In fact,” Miller says about Denver, “overall crime has gone up. You will also see that crimes against persons have gone up 26.6 percent (particularly note the disorderly conduct arrests, up 10-fold and trespassing charges up 5-fold!). It is important to keep in mind that legalization of recreational marijuana possession and use was enacted on January 1, 2013, and murder rates jumped 50 percent during the first quarter of that year. Legalization of recreational sales was enacted January 1, 2014. If the murder rate and other violent crimes have fallen in the first quarter of 2014, they were falling from a higher point. Only more time will tell what the real trends will prove to be.”

The drug legalization movement has been mostly funded by “dark money” leftist billionaires such as George Soros. However, the libertarian Cato Institute has emerged as a big part of the campaign.

Jeffrey Miron of the Cato Institute thinks that marijuana is harmless and dismisses Kevin Sabet’s claim that people can become addicted to marijuana bysaying, “…who cares? Addiction is not, per se, a problem for society or an individual; just think about how many people are addicted to caffeine.”

The 2012 annual report of the Cato Institute (page 19) continues to show financial support from the Soros-funded Open Society Foundations, as well as the Marijuana Policy Project, BB&T, Facebook, Google and Whole Foods.

Interestingly, Cato once published a pro-drug legalization report by Glenn Greenwald, the columnist who would later became a mouthpiece for NSA leaker Edward Snowden. Cato has also distributed a podcast with Greenwald about his anti-NSA campaign.

Some of Cato’s more conservative funders may not be aware of how the organization got into bed with the Soros-funded left.

This article was originally posted at the Accuracy in Media website.

One of the major speakers at last week’s “New Populism” conference was Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America (CWA), a labor union which represents  on-line writers, reporters, editorial assistants, editorial artists and correspondents at major news organizations.

Cohen gave his speech after returning from the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) conference, where Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, was announced as winner of the title of “the world’s worst boss” for trying to keep prices low for consumers and opposing union control of his workplace.

Bezos, the new owner of The Washington Post, will have to negotiate with The Newspaper Guild, which merged with the CWA in 1995 and represents nearly 900 editorial and newsroom workers at the Post.

“Amazon has successfully fended off U.S. labor unions since its founding in 1994,” notes Time magazine.

Bezos has been described as a libertarian, but the Post was known as a liberal Democrat newspaper under its previous owners, the Grahams.

It will be interesting to see if he cuts this union down to size. The survival of the paper, with declining revenue and readers, may depend on it.

As the “populism” conference indicates, the progressives—once called liberals—are now calling themselves something else, in order to fool the electorate.

Don’t look for the media to blow the whistle on themselves.

Whatever they call themselves, they are in control of much of the news and editorial content of major news media organizations.

We look forward to the Post, under its new owner, telling the truth about how the CWA functions as a major component of the progressive movement, and how liberal bias is killing the appeal of the so-called mainstream media.

In addition to the Post, the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild represents employees at such news organizations as The Baltimore Sun and Bloomberg-BNA. Not surprisingly, CWA says thousands of its members also work for public broadcasting entities.

A partisan political operative who serves as a member of the Democratic National Committee and endorsed Obama in 2008, Cohen is a regular guest on the MSNBC cable channel.

Cohen’s tone last week was desperate, as the “progressives,” or “populists,” apparently understand that their President’s popularity is declining, and that their base is becoming increasingly demoralized and less likely to turn out to vote in November’s elections.

One member of the audience openly griped that she was being forced to liquidate her retirement fund in order to pay for her Obamacare plan.

The CWA’s “Education Department” has published a 38-page document entitled “Building a Movement for Economic & Democracy,” which describes in detail how various components of the progressive movement are said to make up more than 71 million people, enough to create a working majority of the voting population, and guarantee victory in national elections.

This might be news to the Republicans who think they will retain the House and take the Senate in this year’s national elections.

Holding up a copy of his “Building a Movement” booklet, Cohen told the “populism” conference that the political left needs to push a “common narrative” and “common collective action.” It is a message of “economic justice,” he said.

But it’s really more of the same Marxist agitation and propaganda about such issues as “inequality.”

“CWA is working to build a movement of progressive organizations to win progressive changes,” the CWA website says. “A founder of The Democracy Initiative, CWA works with labor and worker groups like Jobs with Justice, American Rights at Work, the AFL-CIO, and Change to Win, but also civil rights and consumer groups, such as the NAACP, Alliance for Justice, the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Blue Green Alliance, and Common Cause.”

The endorsers of the Democracy Initiative are a who’s who of the political left.

One key to the group’s success is preventing the media, which they essentially control, from reporting on their plans.

But another factor is money.

CWA rails against “big money” in politics, but spends a lot of its members’ money on candidates for office through the CWA Political Action Fund.

Equally significant, Cohen is in bed politically with some of the “big money” he supposedly abhors.

The conservative Washington Free Beacon reports that Cohen is a “partner” of the Democracy Alliance, a group co-founded by billionaire hedge fund operator George Soros, that funnels money to various liberal groups. Lachlan Markay, of the Washington Free Beacon, said Democracy Alliance “partners” are individuals who every year must pay $30,000 in dues and contribute at least $200,000 to the groups that DA supports. Markay reports that George Kohl, senior director of the Communications Workers of America, is also a partner of the Democracy Alliance.

Members of the Democracy Alliance, including Soros, have helped finance influential national liberal groups such as Media Matters for America.

So the CWA, through its Newspaper Guild affiliate, produces much of the material we see in the media, while Media Matters puts pressure on those in the media who attempt to bolt the Democratic Party line. It’s a strategy of pressure from above and below.

Gara LaMarche, President of the Democracy Alliance, previously served as Vice President and Director of U.S. Programs for the Soros-funded Open Society Foundations.

There’s no doubt that Soros, a convicted inside-trader, is calling the shots.

“Membership in the Alliance is by invitation-only,” the Democracy Alliance says. “We provide you [the big money liberal donor] with personalized products and services to help you navigate the progressive landscape and make the most of your philanthropy.”

But the “progressive landscape” also benefits from taxpayer dollars.

One of CWA’s coalition partners is CASA de Maryland, a taxpayer-funded entity described by writer Jim Simpson in an AIM special report as “the illegals’ ACORN.” On June 5, CASA de Maryland is hosting a “Justice Awards Night” fundraiser featuring Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, Secretary of Labor Tom Perez, and Tefere Gebre, Executive Vice President of the AFL-CIO. The Master of Ceremonies is Erika Gonzalez, an anchor for NBC 4 in Washington, D.C.

“All proceeds from the event will benefit CASA’s services for immigrant families and its grassroots advocacy for social justice,” the group says.

Its CASA in Action affiliate claims more than 50,000 members and issues endorsements for political office, virtually all of them liberal Democrats. It is financially supported by the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Labor, agencies of the Maryland State Government, and private liberal funders such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the Open Society Foundation.

It seems the left has its own sources of “big money.” But don’t look for the CWA to expose that in the media.

This article was originally posted at the Accuracy in Media website.

George Soros has been blamed by the pro-Russia crowd for sparking the anti-communist revolution in Ukraine. That was never the case, since Soros funded a small and largely ineffective non-governmental organization in Ukraine, the Renaissance Foundation. Now, a major Soros-funded group has come out with its prescription for resolving the crisis—accepting Russia’s demand that the country stay out of NATO.

Soros, the political left’s leading “dark money” donor, has shown his true colors.

NATO is hardly the anti-communist alliance it once was, but it still remains the largest pro-American group of nations on earth. That’s why the Russians hate it so much.

Ahead of the scheduled elections on May 25, the International Crisis Group (ICG) has just released a report saying Ukrainian leaders should “declare that they do not desire NATO membership.” The ICG receives a significant amount of funding from Soros’s Open Society Institute, and Soros sits on its board.

This follows former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s statements on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS” show on May 11, during which he argued that Putin should be accommodated in his drive to take over Ukraine. Kissinger said the West should agree to keep Ukraine out of NATO. Kissinger, whose firm does business in Russia, says Ukraine “will be free to participate in European economic relationships, but not join NATO.”

The global elites have clearly decided that Ukraine must be sacrificed in the name of protecting the big businesses investing in Putin’s Russia.

Not surprisingly, the ICG/Kissinger position is essentially the same as the one held by Russia. The Moscow-funded propaganda channel RT features Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov as saying, “The seeds for the current crisis were sown in 2008 in April during the NATO summit in Bucharest, when NATO leaders stated in a declaration that Georgia and Ukraine would be in NATO.”

But the “seeds” never sprouted and Putin invaded Ukraine anyway.

It was in 2008 that Russia invaded Georgia, taking over two regions, South Ossetia and Abkhazia. NATO’s April 2008 Bucharest Summit had declared, “We agreed today that these countries [Georgia and Ukraine] will become members of NATO.”

Today, however, Georgia still remains an “aspirant” for NATO membership. While Ukraine was also a candidate to join NATO, this never took place, either, with the blame falling on both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations.

Republicans like to forget that Bush was fooled by Putin, saying about the Russian leader in 2001, “I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straight forward and trustworthy and we had a very good dialog. I was able to get a sense of his soul.”

Bush thought Putin would be an ally of the U.S. after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Based on what Soros, Kissinger and the others are saying, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and takeover of Crimea, and control over the Black Sea and its strategic waterways will be left in place. The pro-Russian website Global Research notes, “the union of Crimea with Russia redefines the geopolitical chessboard in the Black Sea Basin.”

The liberal betrayal of Ukraine is something to behold and has taken place in only a few months. “Ukraine is something of a miracle,” Soros declared in an April 7 column. “A group of unarmed citizens rose up and overwhelmed a police force with orders to shoot to kill them. We are witnessing the birth of a new nation, a new Ukraine—with a limitless future made possible by people willing to sacrifice their lives for their country.”

The rhetoric sounded good. But now, these citizens are supposed to abandon their anti-communist vision of being free of Soviet/Russian control. Perhaps the Russians will restore the Lenin statues that the Ukrainians have toppled in dozens of cities.

Raising the white flag of surrender, Soros told The New York Review of Books that Western leaders “cannot prevent or reverse the annexation of Crimea. They are bound to protest it, of course, because it violates the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 that guaranteed the territorial integrity of Ukraine, including Crimea, but they are not in a position to oppose it by military means.”

So Russia’s violation of international law should be excused. This seems like a strange position for the liberals to take, since they traditionally favor the power of global institutions to enforce international treaties.

What’s more, there’s no evidence that giving Crimea to Russia will end the Putin regime’s campaign to destabilize the rest of Ukraine.

“The United States and the West are not in a position to go to war over the crisis in Ukraine and Crimea, nor should they,” says the Soros-funded Center for American Progress. The best steps forward, the group argues, are “to diffuse the situation” and “proactively shape trends and expand possibilities.” This gibberish means doing nothing of a military nature.

Obama himself said recently that neither Ukraine nor Georgia “are currently on a path to NATO membership and there has not been any immediate plans for expansion of NATO’s membership.” This is appeasement of Russia, pure and simple.

Meanwhile, American taxpayers are sending financial assistance to Ukraine, in the form of around $1 billion in loan guarantees, which may inevitably flow back to Russia as payments for gas. The International Monetary Fund, partly financed by the U.S., is sending billions more.

The Ukraine aid bill passed the Senate by a voice vote, and the House by a 399-19 vote.

It’s important to support Ukraine, but not if the plan is to eventually give the Russians or their puppets control of the entire country.

The liberal betrayal is acute when it comes to Obama personally. In 2008, then-Senator Barack Obama co-sponsored (with then-Senator Hillary Clinton) a resolution urging Ukraine and Georgia admission to NATO. It unanimously passed the Senate. It was also co-sponsored by then-chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Joseph R. Biden, Jr.

Curiously, Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden has now been added to the board of Ukraine’s largest private gas producer, Burisma Holdings, as if this will help the country stave off Russian subversion and infiltration, or perhaps buy some goodwill in Washington. It is desperation on Ukraine’s part and alienates conservatives who wanted the country to be free.

“For more than half a century, NATO has remained a vital asset in our nation’s efforts to support democracy and stability in Europe and to defend our interests and values throughout the world,” Senator Obama said in 2008. “I welcome the desire of Ukraine and Georgia to seek closer ties with NATO, and I hope that NATO responds favorably to their requests, consistent with its criteria for membership. Whether Ukraine and Georgia ultimately join NATO will be a decision for the members of the Alliance and the citizens of those countries, after a period of open and democratic debate. But they should receive our help and encouragement as they continue to develop ties to Atlantic and European institutions.”

But now that Russia has seized parts of Ukraine, Obama has taken Ukraine’s NATO membership off the table, despite what the people in that country may decide in their own free elections. Obama’s true colors are showing, too. He never wanted Ukraine to be truly free and had no desire to confront Russia.

The Hunter Biden move suggests the Democrats are trying to exploit the worsening situation, in order to make some money before the Russians and their allies take over the whole country. The next step will be for Ukraine to hire K Street lobbying firms to make the most of the surrender and save some scraps for their own benefit.

In this context, the Russian front groups are moving forward with propaganda campaigns and even street protests, such as at the NATO summit on September 4-5in Wales. “NATO is the military alliance binding Europe to US foreign policy, a foreign policy post-Iraq increasingly unpopular around the world,” says the Stop the War Coalition. “It is also the military alliance currently occupying Afghanistan.”

Interestingly, these “Stop the War” left-wing protesters don’t want to stop Putin’s war on Ukraine.

As Ukraine fights for its life as an independent nation, NATO leaders will be meeting at the luxurious Celtic Manor Resort—a golf, spa and leisure hotel—to decide the next step to take in appeasing Putin.

Joe Iosbaker of the United National Antiwar Committee is also leading the charge against NATO, appearing on the Iranian-funded Press TV to argue that “In truth, the war moves by the U.S. and NATO in Eastern Europe, and the Black Sea, and the Baltic Sea, are bringing about a new Cold War.”

Iosbaker is an interesting character. The homes and offices of he and his wife Stephanie Weiner were raided because of suspicions that they were providing support to foreign terrorist organizations. Both of them have been associated with the Marxist-Leninist Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) and the Chicago New Party that included Barack Obama.

Which country is Putin’s next target? Writing in the British Spectator, Alex Massie says, “Putin’s behavior demonstrates that, if anything, the problem with NATO expansion is that perhaps it did not go far enough. What price the independence of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania if they were not now members of the western alliance? Even now their liberty is not guaranteed. It is not hard to see how Russian agitators could spark a contrived crisis in the Baltic states; not hard either to see how Putin might attack them again.”

Putin’s grand strategy, writes analyst Pawel Styrna, includes “rebuilding the empire.” As part of that, he says Putin’s goal is to reduce the influence of “Euro-Atlanticist” powers, i.e., the United States, Great Britain, and their allies. A “Eurasian empire,” centered around its Russian core, is the “engine” driving this “international anti-American coalition.”

In the face of the weak response to Russian aggression, can the destruction of NATO, a long-time Soviet goal, be far behind? If so, why should U.S. taxpayers finance Ukraine’s destruction with bailouts of a regime that will inevitably be transformed into a pawn of Putin’s geopolitical designs and future aggression?

This article was originally posted at the Accuracy in Media blog.

When Barack Obama said he would “fundamentally transform” the United States, few anticipated that the plan involved destroying the minds of young people through addictive substances. But after the expenditure of $250 million by Obama backer George Soros on behalf of the marijuana legalization movement, we are seeing the results, especially in Colorado. The new website www.legalizationviolations.org is documenting the fallout and the damage.

In addition to what is reported on this site, such as kids using, and even selling, marijuana, we have some other sensational cases in Colorado, such as a husband and father, Richard Kirk, who began hallucinating after eating a marijuana cookie, and shot and killed his wife.

In another case, a 19-year-old student jumped off a Denver hotel balcony to his death after eating a marijuana cookie. USA Today reported that Levi Thamba Pongi, a native of the Republic of Congo, ate the cookie and “exhibited hostile behavior” that included pulling things off walls and speaking erratically.

In addition to these deaths, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Denver has filed an indictment “alleging money laundering related to marijuana cultivation and distribution” in Colorado. The case involves money transfers from a Colombian bank, as well as violations of federal firearms laws.

In the face of the human deaths and destruction being wrought by marijuana legalization in Colorado, and the movement of the Colombian groups into the state, the Heritage Foundation took a stand this week in favor of “Reefer Sanity,” the name of a new book by drug policy expert Kevin A. Sabet.

Heritage featured Sabet giving a speech exposing the “seven great myths about marijuana” that have driven this unfolding disaster. Sabet co-founded SAM (Smart Approaches to Marijuana) with former Democratic U.S. Representative Patrick J. Kennedy (RI), in order to focus public attention on the harmful consequences of marijuana use and counteract the impact of the drug-friendly media. Writer David Frum is a member of the board.

One of Sabet’s slides advised people to “Follow the Money,” and named George Soros as the key money bags behind the growing number of states accepting legal marijuana. Sabet’s website included the figure of $250 million invested by Soros in the drug legalization movement. In addition, Peter Lewis gave $50 to $70 million to this movement, and John Sperling gave over $50 million.

As far back as 2004, in our article, “The Hidden Soros Agenda: Drugs, Money, the Media, and Political Power,” we noted the billionaire hedge-fund operator’s investment in a Colombian bank accused of drug-money laundering.

Calvina Fay of the Drug Free America Foundation described Soros as an “extremely evil person” because of his campaign to legalize dangerous mind-altering drugs.

Over a year ago, in our column, “A Kennedy Shocks the Pro-Dope Liberal Media,” we noted the potential impact that SAM could have on the “debate” over marijuana, such as it is in the liberal media.

Sabet, in his Heritage Foundation speech, did not directly address President Obama’s personal role in the unfolding debacle confronting our youth, except to say that using marijuana is clearly not a solution to a deteriorating economy that produces few jobs for young people.

Yet, the facts are that Obama was a member of the “Choom Gang,” a group of heavy marijuana smokers, when he was growing up in Hawaii. His childhood mentor, Communist Party operative Frank Marshall Davis, was also a pothead.

Although Sabet is pursuing a non-partisan approach to the disaster in order to appeal to Democrats, in an attempt to stop the deadly and dangerous drug legalization experiment, he is nevertheless giving the Soros-funded activists a case of nerves. His book features a quote from Ryan Grimm of the far-left Huffington Post, saying that backers of pot legalization should find Sabet “dangerous” because of his effectiveness.

The new website www.legalizationviolations.org is also a SAM project and is performing a useful function in publicizing cases in Colorado that are not getting national media attention.

Some headlines on the site from Colorado include:

• Denver emergency room doctor seeing more patients for marijuana edibles
• 4th Grader Tries To Sell Pot On Playground
• Kids caught distributing pot in school
• Colorado kids getting into parents’ pot-laced goodies
• 4 With Ties To Colorado Pot Accused Of Laundering

In regard to the latter, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has released its own statement on the case involving money being wired from bank accounts in Colombia to bank accounts in Colorado for the purchase of a “marijuana grow” facility.

The charges are big news in Colorado (see “Feds: Four men diverted Colombian cash to Colorado marijuana business” in the Denver Post). But it is truly a national story, showing that the Colombian drug traffickers are moving into Colorado to take advantage of the “legal” side of the marijuana business.

One of the myths Sabet addressed in his Heritage speech was the idea that marijuana is harmless. He noted its link to lower IQ and mental illness.

In a case out of Tennessee that did make some national news, a woman named Stephanie Hamman smoked the drug and drove her car into a church, where she stabbed her husband because he liked NASCAR. “I love to smoke it,” she said of marijuana. “Sometimes when I do, I start seeing things that others don’t. Isn’t God good? He told me this would happen, and just look, I am okay.”

“In court,” the local TV station reported, “guards walked Hamman in, her eyes were closed and she appeared to be talking to herself.” She is charged with attempted first-degree murder and felony vandalism.

This article was originally published at the Accuracy in Media website.

Written by Becky Yeh

An anti-drug advocate laments that billionaire George Soros continues to fund deadly and destructive marijuana legalization efforts across the country.

A new report shows that billionaire George Soros has funneled at least $80 million towards marijuana legalization since 1994. A Washington Times report shows that Soros’ support for legalization has placed initiatives on ballots around the world. The Times notes that the billionaire’s funds helped legalize the recreational use of marijuana in Colorado and Washington.

James Lambert of MarijuanaHarmsFamilies.com says the impact of someone like Soros is huge.

“Soros is basically funding these movements almost single-handedly,” he says. “People like Harry Reid complain about the Koch brothers donating money. Well, this guy is negatively influencing our culture and society by trying to legalize drugs.”

Soros was also involved in an initiative to legalize pot in Uruguay. Soros and pro-marijuana activists are pushing for marijuana legalization in Alaska, Florida and Oregon in 2014. In 2016, Soros and friends are considering working for legalization in California, Maine, Arizona, Nevada, Montana and Massachusetts.

“When you have people like George Soros, who has infected our society by the legalization of pot, we can see what it has done,” he tells OneNewsNow. “All we have to do is look at the state of Colorado. The number of people who are addicted to pot has significantly increased in that state.”

Late Progressive Insurance chairman Peter Lewis came in second with at least $40 million donated towards marijuana legalization efforts.

This article was originally posted at the OneNewsNow.com website.