Once again, high potency marijuana is in the news. Governor J.B. Pritzker and several state lawmakers held a press conference this past Saturday to announce their bill (SB 7) to legalize marijuana for “recreational” use in Illinois. This legislation is sponsored by Illinois Senators Heather Steans (D-Chicago), Toi Hutchinson (D-Chicago Heights), Kimberly Lightford (D-Westchester) and Patricia Van Pelt (D-Chicago).

Illinois Family Institute continues to present overwhelming evidence of the high costs and consequences of this onerous public policy, and Illinois voters must speak out if we hope to turn the tide on their plans. Many of our friends and neighbors simply do not understand what this policy means for their families, communities, schools, workplace and roadways. If we hope to stop this legislation from becoming law, we must quickly educate and activate parents and grandparents.

It doesn’t take much to turn the tide!

As you are aware, the most extreme abortion legislation to date was introduced in Illinois this year. With a super majority of Leftists in both chambers of the Illinois General Assembly and an extremely anti-life governor, it appeared to be a slam dunk for abortion activists. But these bills are now stalled! You did that!

Pro-life advocates made calls, visited their lawmakers, wrote letters and sent emails, and urged others to do the same. God used your efforts to push these bills back!

Earlier this year, the push for marijuana legalization in New Jersey fell apart. According to an article in the New York Times:

“[the] effort to legalize marijuana in News Jersey collapsed… after Democrats were unable to muster enough support for the measure, derailing a central campaign pledge by Gov. Philip D. Murphy and leaving the future of the legalization movement in doubt.”

Our goal is to derail the push here in Illinois with strong evidence coupled with strong opposition from concerned citizens like you. We can stop this from becoming law in the Land of Lincoln!

The evidence of harm couldn’t be clearer. This crazy social experiment has been going on for years in Colorado, California and Washington, and the data is extremely alarming. Consider our top 10 reasons to oppose legal weed in Illinois. And please share the linked graphics on your social media pages.

10 Reasons to Oppose High Potency Marijuana Legalization:

1.) Increased THC Levels. It’s Not Your Daddy’s Weed!

The TCH (tetrahydrocannabinol) levels in today’s marijuana products are much higher than the marijuana of the 60’s and 70’s. This high-THC content has been linked to an increase in serious mental health issues and addiction. A recent Cambridge University study found that the use of today’s high-THC products was associated with a higher risk of addiction than lower potency forms of marijuana and that the association was found to be even higher in younger cannabis users.

This includes the alarmingly high THC Content in Concentrates (oil, wax, dab, shatter).

2.) Increased Risk of Psychosis, and even more alarming is Youth Suicide; more here.

Several studies have linked marijuana use to increased risk for psychiatric disorders, including psychosis (schizophrenia), depression, anxiety, and substance use disorders. A recent study published in the The Lancet Psychiatry shows that consuming pot on a daily basis and especially using high-potency cannabis increases the odds of having a psychotic episode later.

This is also closely related to the homelessness problem that is increasing in Colorado due to the weed. Please also watch and listen to PGM Pastor Phil Kwiatowski‘s concerns in this short video presentation.

3.) Increased Marijuana-Related Hospitalizations and Poison Control Center Calls. 

Dr. Karen Randall, an ER physician and a resident of Pueblo, Colorado, spoke at a recent town-hall meeting in Des Plaines. Her testimony about how legal weed has negatively affected her hospital and community is powerful. Watch and listen to what she has to say here.

Washington state also has a huge problem with calls to poison centers as well.

4.) Increased Marijuana-Related Exposures in Children 0-5 Years Old. 

“A study in the December 2018 Pediatrics found that nearly half of hospitalized children in Colorado whose parents enrolled in a smoking cessation program tested positive for marijuana exposure. Authors of the study, “Marijuana and Tobacco Co-Exposure in Hospitalized Children” (published online Nov. 19), said findings suggest prevalent co-use of tobacco and marijuana in the state that could expose children to harmful effects of both.” Read more here and here.

5.) Increased Violent Crime in Legalized States; more here.

Are you surprised to learn that research published in the journal Psychological Medicine concludes that continued use of cannabis causes violent behavior as a direct result of changes in brain function that are caused by smoking weed over many years? Read more here.

6.) Increased and Potential Serious Brain Alteration; more here.

Medical research has revealed altered brain activity in young adults with cannabis addiction. The findings suggest a mechanism that may explain why the risk of depression and other mental health issues is higher among those who use the drug. Read more here, from the journal Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging.

7.) Increased Heroin and Opioid Deaths in Illinois After “Medical” Marijuana is Legalized in 2013.

Would you be surprised to know that legal weed is also linked to increased alcohol consumption? More here, from Dr. Kenneth Finn.

8.) Premature Aging of the Brain.

“By studying a large number of imaging scans, researchers have identified conditions and behaviors that could make the brain age prematurely, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, alcohol use, and the use of cannabis.” (Medical News Today)

9.) Increased Marijuana-Related Traffic Fatalities; more here. 

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety issued a report in October 2018 claiming that “Colorado, Washington, and Oregon experienced a 5.2% higher police-reported crash rate overall than would have been expected had they not legalized recreational marijuana.”

10.) Increased Social and Economic Costs Outweigh Tax Revenue by $4.50 to every $1. more here and here.

Given the facts above, you can see how the social costs for the state’s first responders, welfare system, health care system, traffic fatalities, violent crime, increased use in all age categories, and addiction – are costs Illinois cannot afford.

Take ACTION: Please click HERE to send a message to your state senator and state representative to urge them to reject the push for legal marijuana.

Additionally, PLEASE CALL your lawmakers to make sure they know that many people oppose this disastrous policy. Click HERE for their names and phone numbers, which you will find at the end of the state list. Please make the calls!

Watch more:

Please visit IFI YouTube channel and this playlist of 16 videos (and growing) dedicated to the opposition of marijuana legalization.

Read more:

Thinking Biblically About Recreational Marijuana

Medical Doctor from Peoria Opposes Legal Pot

ER Doc Says “Recreational” Pot Has Ruined My Town

IFI Resource Page on Marijuana

Former State Rep. Jeanne Ives Address Marijuana & Illinois’ Economic Crisis (podcast)

More info:

NoWeedIllinois.com

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois!

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

If Governor J.B. Pritzker has his way, Illinois will institute a graduated income tax to replace its flat 4.95 percent tax rate. The governor claims that increasing the tax rate will generate billions in new revenue while only raising taxes on the wealthiest 3 percent of taxpayers with income of more than $250,000.

Before legislators can consider the proposal, however, voters must first pass a referendum that removes language in the state constitution mandating a flat income tax rate. They face an uphill battle: though Democrats control the Illinois General Assembly, the rules require that the referendum for a state constitutional amendment pass by an “extraordinary majority.”

Both sides are gearing up for the anticipated fight. As with any battle, there is truth to the adage of the ancient Greek philosopher: “The first casualty when war comes is truth.”  Think Big Illinois, a progressive group that endorses a graduated income tax based upon income, claimed: “In almost every state with an income tax, wealthy people pay a higher tax rate than the middle class.”

The fact-checking organization PolitiFact Illinois begged to differ, pointing out that “Even by the most conservative definition, there are 19 states with income taxes that do not apply higher rates to the earnings of the wealthy—nine flat tax states and 10 with graduated taxes with rates that top out at income below $25,000. Add in another eight states where top rates for married couples kick in somewhere between $31,000 and $104,000, and the Think Big claim becomes even more dubious.” The reality is far from the assertion that “‘almost every’ income-taxing state levies a higher rate on top earners, earning this claim a rating of Mostly False.”

But how much would a graduated income tax improve the state’s dire financial condition? By September 2017, Illinois was in arrears to the tune of $16 billion and has accumulated the worst unfunded pension debt in the nation. At best the referendum would only partially address the shortfall.

Far from “plugging Illinois’ fiscal hole,” the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability estimates that the tax increase would at most decrease that debt by only $5 billion per year (other estimates put the figure as low as $3.4 billion), let alone solve the pension crisis and provide needed additional funding for the cash-strapped school system, healthcare, etc. In fact, the additional income would be quickly swallowed up by the growing $4.7 billion shortfall per year accumulated by the state’s five major pensions.

And the new revenue wouldn’t begin to address the hundreds of local pension funds in the state that are drowning in debt. In fact, Moody’s estimates that Illinois has a stratospheric–and frankly unimaginable–$234 billion in unfunded liabilities.

Any additional revenue generated by increasing income taxes would have minimal effect. According to an article posted by the Illinois watchdog group Wirepoints: “The new revenue would barely dent our problems and only further enrage the Illinoisans who are already fed up and ready to leave.”

The bill is coming due for a state which for decades has been run by free-spending politicians who annually approve ever-ballooning budgets that have routinely raided the state’s pension funds and driven up debt to unsustainable levels. Yet many politicians appear to be constitutionally incapable of accepting blame or recognizing that grave financial improprieties have become the norm in the state, giving new meaning to the biblical admonition about those who brazenly wipe their mouths and say: “I have done no wrong.”

Again, to quote Wirepoints, such politicians “ignore growing debts and count borrowed money, asset sales and raids on segregated funds as income.”  There are no easy solutions, but there is no escaping the looming abyss, and we can only hope and pray that the Prairie State will find the courage to enact fiscal revolution, beginning with pension reform and making the hard choices necessary to–as most families have learned to do–live within its budget, as Illinois’ Constitution requires.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to ask the governor and your state lawmakers to vote against any legislative proposal that would increase tax burdens for Illinois citizens.

More taxes, more spending, more debt and more bleeding of Illinois families.  That’s the message too many state lawmakers are advancing for the citizens of Illinois.

Let them know that you oppose any new tax increases when they refuse to cut government waste and bloat. You can also call your lawmakers through the Capitol Switchboard at (217) 782-2000.

The God-rejecting, science-denying, incoherent “trans” ideology lurches on destroying lives, aided and abetted by ignorant people like Illinois’ Governor J.B. Pritzker who is using an administrative rule to force Illinoisans to pay for “gender reassignment” surgery and risky cross-sex hormone-doping through Medicaid.

The term “gender reassignment surgery” is absurd. Physicians do not “reassign” or “confirm” gender. Nor do they reassign, confirm, or change a person’s sex. The surgery Pritzker seeks to make taxpayers fund in this morally and fiscally bankrupt state is surgery that mutilates healthy bodies in order to enable those who suffer from gender dysphoria to pass as the sex they are not and never can be. Such medical malpractice is lucrative for surgeons and pharmaceutical companies but grievously harmful to its victims. Forcing Illinoisans to subsidize it is a social, political, and moral injustice.

At the same time, however, more and more brave souls are emerging on the cultural scene to fight back against the heart-, mind-, and body-destroying “trans” ideology often at great personal cost.

The number of men and women “detransitioning” grows, and they’re trying to warn others through websites like Sex Change Regret and Pique Resilience Project about the numerous problems—intellectual, moral, social, political, and medical—that are integral to the “trans” ideology.

Conservative and “progressive” women—including self-identifying lesbians—have created an organization called Hands Across the Aisle to oppose the implementation of “gender identity theory” through legislation and to prevent the sexual integration of women’s activities and private spaces.

“Gender-critical” radical feminists like Kara Dansky and lesbians Sheila Jeffreys and Julia Beck (who was kicked off of a Boston “LGBT” commission for her belief that only women can be lesbians and for her refusal to use female pronouns when referring to a male rapist who pretends to be a woman) are speaking out.

The Heritage Foundation has held two panel discussions that included lesbians, radical feminists, conservative Christians, and a man who formerly identified as a woman, all who share in common unstinting critiques of the “trans” ideology. (To watch them, click here  and here)

Scholars like Lisa Littman, Lisa Marchiano, Heather Brunskell-Evans, and Rebecca Reilly Cooper are dissecting the “trans” ideology, exposing its weaknesses.

And websites like 4thWaveNow and Transgender Trend, both started by parents of children caught up in the darkness and delusion of the “trans” ideology, are helping each other and the public at large better understand the dangers posed by the wholesale cultural embrace of the “trans” madness, including the embrace of it by medical and mental health communities, which now results in surgeons performing double mastectomies on 13-year-old girls and castrating 16- and 17-year-old boys.

The newest organization to emerge on the scene is The Kelsey Coalition, “a national group of parents whose transgender-identifying children have been harmed by physicians, therapists, and clinics throughout the US.” The Kelsey Coalition is calling for the term “gender identity” to be removed from the Equality Act and from what are called “conversion therapy bans,” which unjustifiably ban conventional counseling protocols.

The Kelsey Coalition has also mounted a critically important campaign to stop an unethical, ideology-driven five-year study of gender-dysphoric minors funded by taxpayers through a $5.7 million grant from  the National Institutes of Health (NIH)to four “gender” clinics—including one at Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago headed up by HIV-positive homosexual pediatrician Dr. Robert Garofalo. A profile of Garofalo—who started Lurie’s gender clinic with a huge donation from J.B. Pritker’s male cousin who masquerades as a woman—in Chicago Magazine at the start of the NIH study makes this disturbing claim:

For now Garofalo’s treatments have to be seen as a radical form of medical improvisation.

This study, begun in 2015, uses children as lab rats to study the effects of puberty-blocking drugs and cross-sex hormone-doping on minors. The Kelsey Coalition’s press release states the following:

This NIH study is a five-year observational experiment in which children are treated with powerful drugs to treat a non-medical condition. The basis for inclusion in the study is little more than a child’s self-identification as transgender. There is no control group….

Young children in the study are given puberty-blocking drugs; older children, cross-sex hormones. There is neither FDA approval, nor a single safety study, to support the use of these medications by healthy children and adolescents. According to Dr. Michael Laidlaw, medical consultant to the Coalition,” These drugs will radically alter their endocrine systems, impact sexual function, and fertility, while putting them at increased risk of developing other serious medical health conditions.”

… “In 2017, the protocol was changed mid-study: the minimum age for cross-sex hormone inclusion was decreased from age thirteen to age eight. According to the 2018 progress report, 19 children have been recruited into the new 8-12 year-old cohort.”

The Kelsey Coalition contends this trial is unethical and violates laws protecting human subjects.

Through this study, taxpayers are subsidizing unethical science experiments on children as young as 8 years old.

We’re paying for quack doctors to suppress or prevent puberty, which irrevocably alters formative adolescent social experiences, making it unlikely that children will ever reclaim a proper and true sexual identity:

The impact on sexuality has not yet been studied, but the restriction of sexual appetite brought about by blockers may prevent the adolescent from having age-appropriate socio-sexual experiences.

We’re paying for the cross-sex hormone doping of minors that is supported by zero research assuring its long-term safety and which leaves children permanently sterile.

While forging ahead in its support for this medical barbarism, UnitedHealthcare Oxford ironically states that,

Clinical evidence supporting the use of GnRH analogs [puberty blockers] for the treatment of gender dysphoria is limited and lacks long-term safety data. Statistically robust randomized controlled trials are needed to address the issue of whether the benefits outweigh the clinical risk in its use.

Medical professionals believe cross-sex hormones may increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, blood clots, and cancer. And they believe puberty-blockers may have deleterious effects on bone and neurological development.

Remarkably, even here in the moral and intellectual darkness that engulfs our once great state, glimmers of light offer hope to beleaguered Illinoisans. Two courageous lawmakers are taking bold public stands against the “trans” madness.

State Representative Darren Bailey (R-Louisville) announced he will be sponsoring legislation to block Pritzker’s outrageous plan to force taxpayers through Medicaid to fund medical interventions that disrupt healthy biological processes and mutilate healthy anatomy. And State Representative Tom Morrison (R-Palatine) has sponsored legislation (HB 3515) to ban chemical and surgical interventions for the treatment of gender dysphoria in minors.

Tragically, there are few lawmakers at the state or national level who have the courage and wisdom to take on the “trans” ideology that wreaks havoc on the bodies and minds of men, women, and children; on families; and on the body politic. Illinoisans should support these two courageous and principled lawmakers in every way possible.

Yes, opposition to the “trans” ideology grows but not nearly fast enough. While most Christians lay low to avoid the trials God has promised us and commanded us to count as joy, the “trans” ideology lays waste to the lives and bodies of people for whom we should be willing to lay down our lives.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to Governor Pritzker’s office to let his administration know that you disagree with the misuse of taxpayer funds for Medicaid so-called “gender reassignment” surgeries.  You can also voice your opinion by phone at (217) 782-6830 or (312) 814-2121.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/JB_Pride.mp3

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois!

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

How did they vote?

This afternoon, the Illinois House of Representatives voted 60-42 to pass HB 246, which will mandate that all students in K-12 public schools be taught about the “roles and contributions” of homosexuals and opposite-sex impersonators and that textbooks purchased include discussions of the roles and contributions of homosexuals and opposite-sex impersonators.

Click HERE to see how your state representative voted on this legislation, or look at the graphic below. The chief sponsor of this legislation in the Illinois House is State Representative Anna Moeller (D-Chicago).

It is interesting to note that in the Illinois House, 44 Republicans and 14 Democrats did not vote for this LGBT indoctrination scheme. On the pro-family side, the only lawmaker to speak against the passage of this unfunded mandate to indoctrinate your children was Tom Morrison (R-Palatine).

This legislation now moves to the Illinois Senate where it is has a good chance of passing unless there is a  tsunami of opposition from Christians across Illinois. Governor J.B. Pritzker is also expected to sign this legislation into law. Thanks for nothing to the 60 feckless state representatives who demonstrated again why Illinois is such a sorry state.

Take ACTION: Send a message to your state senator and to Gov. Pritzker to let them know that a good many Illinois voters oppose this effort to politicize curricula in order to advance biased beliefs about sexuality to children in our tax-funded government schools.

**UPDATE: This legislative mandate passed the Illinois House by a vote of 60-42 on March 13, 2019 and then in the Illinois Senate by a vote of 37-17 on May 23, 2019. It was sent to Governor Pritzker’s desk on June 21st. He is expected to sign it into law. Read more about the 2019 Spring Session HERE.

The official Illinois House roll call of this vote:

IFI Worldview Conference

This Saturday, the Illinois Family Institute will be hosting our annual Worldview Conference. This year, we will focus on the “transgender” revolution. We will hear from Dr. Michelle Cretella, President of the American College of Pediatricians; Walt Heyer, former “transgender” and contributor to Public Discourse; Denise Schick, Founder and Director of Help 4 Families, and daughter of a man who “identified” as a woman; and Doug Wilson, who is a Senior Fellow of Theology at New Saint Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho, and pastor at Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho .

The Transgender Ideology:
What Is It? Where Will It Lead? What is the Church’s Role?
Click here for more information.

To fulfill Governor J.B. Pritzker’s dream to make Illinois a slaughterhouse extraordinaire and the abortion mecca of the Midwest, that ever-reliable instigator of moral mayhem, State Representative Kelly Cassidy (D-Chicago), has sponsored a bill that would put a twinkle in the eye of Kermit Gosnell. The absurdly named Reproductive Health Act—or as I call it, the Baby Butchery Bill, which has little to do with reproducing and nothing to do with health—was introduced in the Illinois House by Cassidy and now has 40 accomplices. Two days later Melinda Bush (D-Grayslake) introduced it in the Illinois Senate. She now has 4 accomplices.

For those unfamiliar with Cassidy, she’s a lesbian whose “spouse” is Newt Gingrich’s half-sister, “genderqueer” Candace Gingrich, an instigator of moral mayhem herself. She’s a leftist ideologue and Associate Director of the Youth and Campus Engagement Program of the Human Rights Campaign who refers to herself by plural pronouns. Cassidy, obsessed with using government resources to promote deviant sexuality, supports all sorts of lousy body-, soul-, family-, and culture-destroying legislation.

According to constitutional attorney Paul Linton, Cassidy’s nightmarish 120-page bill (HB 2495) will increase the numbers of weak, vulnerable humans who will have their bodies destroyed by adults who ironically claim to worship bodily autonomy. Here are some of the things Cassidy’s Baby Butchery Bill will do according to Linton:

• eliminate any restrictions on post-viability abortions and allow abortions for any reason whatsoever throughout all nine months of pregnancy

• eliminate any requirement that the person performing a post-viability abortion use a method of abortion that would enhance the chances of the unborn child surviving the abortion [thus providing evidence that women aren’t fighting for the right to terminate a pregnancy but rather to kill their babies]

• eliminate the requirement that a second physician be present to provide immediate medical care for any child born alive as a result of a post-viability abortion

• eliminate any restrictions on where abortions may be performed

• allow non-physicians to perform abortions, both surgical and medical

• allow women to attempt to abort their own pregnancies regardless of potential health risks

• undermine institutional and individual rights of conscience

• provide a basis to nullify regulations governing the operation of abortion clinics

• allow DCFS to use public funds to pay for abortions

• require health insurance policies to include coverage for all abortions, with no exemptions, even for churches and other religious organizations

• jeopardize enforcement of the Parental Notice of Abortion Act of 1995 (which is the subject of separate bills that would expressly repeal the Act)

• eliminate any requirement to investigate fetal deaths or maternal deaths resulting from abortions or to record fetal deaths resulting from abortions

• impose no restrictions on fetal experimentation

• provide a basis for barring any common law cause of action for prenatal injuries and any statutory action for the wrongful death of an unborn child

When it comes to the legalized slaughter of inconvenient or imperfect babies in their 6^th through 9^th month of life in the womb, eager Baby Butchery-Choice advocates like Cassidy and her 40 accomplices prefer to focus on percentages rather than numbers. They will exploit whatever tactic may help conceal the unmitigated evil of abortion. Instead of percentages, let’s look at numbers to help expose the truth.

In the United States, there have been 61,000,000 abortions committed since 1973—a year that will live in infamy. It is estimated that 1.3% of those babies were killed after 21 weeks gestation. That means 793,000 10-inch-long babies with fingers, toes, hearts, and brains have been killed since 1973.

Imagine the caterwauling of Leftists if, over the past 45 years, 793,000 guilty death row inmates had been executed and had been executed by having scissors inserted in the back of their skulls, their brains scrambled, and skulls crushed; or had their bodies torn into pieces; or had their hearts stopped via an injection of potassium chloride, all of which are done to babies after 21 weeks of gestation.

It’s important to note that the government does not permit the administration of potassium chloride to criminals guilty of heinous crimes without first administering powerful sedatives because, as pharmacologist and toxicologist David Kroll explains in Forbes Magazine, “If given alone without the other drugs, the high concentration of potassium chloride would be terribly painful, akin to fire or electricity coursing through the veins.”

It’s important to note also that experts say that by 20 weeks gestation or earlier, babies can experience pain and that fetal surgeons administer anesthesia and analgesics (i.e., painkillers) to unborn babies undergoing surgery.

Leftists relentlessly defend abortion by asserting that pregnant women have the absolute right to make decisions concerning their bodies. This, of course, requires proof that abortion involves only the bodies of pregnant women—a patently false, science-denying claim. If abortion really involves only one body and the owner of that body is entitled to do with it as she pleases, then shouldn’t “progressives” defend the moral right of women to take Accutane or drink alcohol throughout their pregnancies? Is it coherent to argue that while a woman has a right to kill the purportedly non-existent body within her body, she is ethically obligated not to ingest anything that would “harm” the purportedly non-existent body within her body? Either her bodily autonomy rights are absolute or they’re not. Either there are two bodies or there aren’t.

As science continues to prove the falsity of their claims, Baby Butchery-Choice advocates are being forced to move away from hard science for the foundation of their arguments and move into metaphysics. Now, they argue that, sure, the product of conception between two humans is a human, but it’s not a person with rights until…

Yeah, we’re all waiting on pins and needles for morally-compromised metaphysician Cassidy et al to explain that. Is the product of conception a person with rights when she can feel pain? Breathe on her own? Show evidence of self-awareness? Are her rights dependent on her anatomical wholeness, her physiological health, or on how others feel about her? Are her rights dependent on her cost to others? Shouldn’t Cassidy and her colluders answer these questions before they make Baby Butchery even easier?

Already, Illinois permits abortion through all nine months if a doctor concludes that a woman’s “health” is jeopardized by the continuation of a pregnancy, with “health” defined so elastically as to include virtually any reason. But that’s not enough for the self-centered and amoral among us. Everyone with the capacity to think through the logical implications of an argument knows where we’re headed. If late-term abortions of babies—not fetuses—are ethically justified by the presence of physical anomalies, terminal conditions, the emotional state of their mothers, or their mothers’ fiscal concerns, why aren’t post-natal abortions (i.e., infanticide) of newborns or week-old or month-old babies justified by those same factors?

Every Republican who claims that the reductively called “social issues” are less important than tax rates or pension reform is culpable for the noxious political and moral climate that is killing us. Every Republican who defers to GOP leaders who claim that party unity and political “wins” demand silence and capitulation on the “social issues” is culpable for the increasingly brazen and foul demands for de facto infanticide. Every Republican who has skittered nervously away from saying it is evil to permit the intentional killing of babies in the womb who were conceived via criminal acts is culpable for the political power of the intellectually incoherent and morally vacuous whose consciences are so seared they cheer and shout for death.

Take ACTION:  Please speak out!  Click HERE to send a message to your state senator, state representative and to Gov. Pritzker. Ask them to stop targeting innocent pre-born children and vulnerable women in Illinois. Ask them to vote against HB 2495 and HB 2467.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/IL-abortion-article.mp3

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois!

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

There are two dates on my mind today. The first is January 22, 1973, the day the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Roe v. Wade, opening the door for virtually unlimited abortion on demand. Since that day, over 61 million Americans have perished at the hands of medical practitioners who shun the Hippocratic Oath. Let that number sink in for a minute. 61,000,000. That equates to about the total populations of California and Texas combined!

There have been so many deaths from abortion that many Americans are becoming desensitized to the issue. I remember the initial response to Roe v. Wade. There were grief-stricken people of faith across the nation standing in peaceful protest and turning out for marches, walks, and human life chains so long they passed through cities. But today, the silenced innocents are all but forgotten. To most, they are nameless, faceless, soulless numbers. But God remembers.

Can a woman forget her nursing child, and not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, yet I will not forget you.” (Isaiah 49:15)

Medical science has revealed that these babies were far more than numbers. Even though they were doomed never to take their first breath, they had beating hearts, working organs, functioning brains, and souls that cried to the Lord for justice. We didn’t hear their screams. But God heard.

Imagine the horror of seeing such things done to the bodies of our living children. God doesn’t have to imagine. He sees.

You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. (Psalm 56:8)

But these realities are not stopping “progressive” politicians from doing what they can to facilitate more deaths. On the 46^th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade, Illinois’ new governor, J.B. Pritzker, while signing an executive order supporting taxpayer-funded abortions, declared that Illinois “will be the most progressive state in the nation when it comes to guaranteeing women’s reproductive rights.”

Equally damning, the majority of elected state lawmakers in New York erupted in applause at the passing of the Reproductive Health Act, a measure which legalizes the death of babies, even up through the ninth month of gestation. The bill was quickly and joyfully signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo. New York, the state with the highest percentage of abortions per capita, will see even more innocent babies executed—legally. These forsaken children will have no memorial, outside of those detailed in Planned Parenthood’s annual report.

Ironically, there is one famous public memorial that urges New Yorkers to remember and to validate the lives of New Yorkers—an eerie reminder that human life is precious—all human life. Regardless of sex, race, creed, color, or age, we are fearfully and wonderfully made. In this place, there is a statement affirming the value of the unborn.

That is the memorial to those lost on September 11, 2001, the second date on my mind. A day of great tragedy and heartache—one that still haunts America to this day. Almost 3,000 innocent people died that day. The victims of the tragedy could not protect themselves. The decision to terminate their lives was made by others.

Yet, we remember and honor these precious lives. A solemn monument was erected in downtown New York City called the 911 Memorial. At this sacred site, the names of all those who perished are forever chiseled into the American psyche—inscribed in gray granite for future generations to see and remember.

Ten of those listed include unborn children. The unborn who perished inside their mothers are listed for the world to see and mourn! They are not callously called “fetuses.” They are not referred to as a “biological mass.” They are called what they are: children!

The names of each individual are there to remind us about the horror of deaths of innocent people caused by the decisions and actions of others. This memorial is in the center of New York City, ironically a place where the lives of many other babies are extinguished daily.

And, we are not to forget—unless you happen to be a “progressive” politician with an agenda.

“DEANNA LYNN GALANTE AND HER UNBORN CHILD.”

“LAUREN CATUZZI GRANDCOLAS AND HER UNBORN CHILD”

“JENNIFER L. HOWLEY AND HER UNBORN CHILD”

“HELEN CROSSIN KITTLE AND HER UNBORN CHILD.”

“VANESSA LANG AND HER UNBORN CHILD”

‘PATRICIA ANN CIMAROLI MASSARI AND HER UNBORN CHILD”

‘RENEE A. MAY AND HER UNBORN CHILD”

“SYLVIA SAN PIO RESTA AND HER UNBORN CHILD.”

“RAHMA SALIE AND HER UNBORN CHILD”

“DIANNE SINGER AND HER UNBORN CHILD”

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We now have an IFI mobile app that enables us to deliver great content based on the “Tracks” you choose, including timely legislative alerts, cultural commentaries, upcoming event notifications, links to our podcasts, video reports, and even daily Bible verses to encourage you. This great app is available for Android and iPhones.

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Illinois’ newly installed governor, billionaire J.B. Pritzker, looked at the mess that decades of “progressive” rule has made of Illinois and had an epiphany: OMG, the problem here in Illinois is that it’s not progressive enough! That set him on a quest to out-“progressive” every “progressive” state in the union—well, at least regarding feticide. At a press conference pregnant with symbolism held at Chicago’s Planned Parenthood (PP) office on Tuesday, Pritzker issued this proclamation:

On the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, I’m proud to declare under my administration, the State of Illinois will be the most progressive state in the nation when it comes to guaranteeing the right to choose for every single woman…. And today, I’m proud to sign an executive order that will further protect and expand the right to choose in Illinois.

Someone just arriving from Mars may wonder about the odd construction of those sentences. They might ask, “Right to choose what?” A translator would then explain that Pritzker was using a script written by the denizens of the Upside Down. For those who are unfamiliar, the Upside Down is “a dimension that is a dark reflection or echo of our world. It is a place of decay and death. A plane out of phase. A place of monsters. It is right next to you and you don’t even see it.” Those denizens are the monsters of Planned Parenthood, and the “choice” they and Pritzker avoid identifying is the choice to have one’s offspring offed.

Pritzker knew it would be challenging to follow in the colossal footsteps of that colossal failure Pinocchio Rauner who became the first governor in the country to mandate public-funding of abortion. Pritzker knew he had to do something BIG to capture the hearts and wallets of those who celebrate human slaughter and shout the killings of their children, like Amelia Bonow, seen here indoctrinating children in a lighthearted discussion of the absolute, unrestricted right to abortion:

In the service of his morally disordered fan-base, Pritzker signed an executive order to ensure that all state insurance policies are quickly up to snuff in ensuring that women can snuff out their babies on the public dime.

Americans must disabuse themselves of the notions that killing humans is healthcare and that PP is deeply invested in providing mammograms. In an recent interview, PP president, Dr. Leana Wen, who absurdly claims there is “no more important organization than Planned Parenthood,” shared that,

The last thing I would want is people to get the impression that we are backing off of our core services…. What we will always be here to do is provide abortion access… it’s who we are.”

While everyone is aware of PP’s body-snatching-for-profit business, few remain aware that “Planned Parenthood is one of the largest sources in the US of transgender healthcare.” According to The Guardian,

[Planned Parenthood’s] centers use a newer model for gender transitioning that gives the patient input on whether to start their transition, rather than turning the decision over entirely to a psychiatrist. Some clinics have staff with detailed knowledge of how to update driver’s licenses, passports and social security cards to reflect someone’s name and gender.

Perhaps that’s another reason for J.B. Pritzker’s personal and political investment in PP. Who can forget his first cousin James/”Jennifer” Pritzker. Since not everyone who wants to masquerade as the opposite sex is a billionaire, maybe J.B. thinks the public should pay for their chemically and surgically constructed flesh costumes as well. If he’s willing to use public money to destroy the tiny bodies of young humans, why not use public money to destroy the bodies of bigger, older humans?

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo also used the shameful occasion of the 46^th anniversary of Roe v. Wade to sign into law a bill that guarantees the legal right of women to have their offspring killed in the womb without restrictions until 24 weeks of pregnancy and to have their offspring killed up until birth if the “health” of a woman is deemed at risk or the baby is “not viable.” Prior to the passage of this law, New York—which legalized abortion in 1970, three years prior to Roe—has had a law on the books that “defined homicide as ‘conduct which causes the death of a person or an unborn child with which a female has been pregnant for more than 24 weeks.’”

New York mothers now have a legal right to have their babies killed for virtually any reason one day prior to their  birth day. One day after birth, such a killing would be murder. Nowhere in America do we permit the non-voluntary killing of terminally ill humans, so we shouldn’t permit the non-voluntary killing of 40-week-old “non-viable” humans.

Alaska, Colorado, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, and Vermont have no restrictions on late-term abortions, and now New York joins the ranks of the 23 other states that permit abortions up until birth days if the non-defined “health” of the mother is deemed at risk by preventing the killing of her baby. “Health” includes factors pertaining to well-being, including physical, emotional, psychological, and familial. In other words, anyone who wants an abortion can get one in these states.

The product of conception between two humans is inarguably a human. Slowly, over decades, proponents of the legal right to kill humans in the womb have been forced to abandon their intellectually untenable early claim that the unborn were mere clumps of cells. Feticide-advocates now admit that humans in the womb are, indeed, human. What they say now is that, well, yes, it is a human but it’s not a person because essential to personhood are some abilities. One’s person-ness is constituted not by what one is but by what one can do. But if that’s the case, then the whole foundation for the Leftist “social justice” project is threatened. As philosophy professor  Francis Beckwith writes,

For if human ability (or achievement) is the sine qua non [i.e., something essential] of an individual’s right to life, then it is difficult to explain why we shouldn’t abandon the idea of human equality, since all our abilities come in degrees at every stage of human development.

If our moral status as persons with unalienable rights depends solely on our abilities—rather than on our existence as humans—then on what basis can we argue for the importance of equality in human affairs? To “progressives,” ability—a continually shifting phenomenon—precedes and determines personhood and, therefore, the rights conferred by personhood. According to the pro-abortion ideology, all humans are not equal. Equality based on humanness alone does not exist. I guess a panel of personhood judges is going to have to evaluate human worth and award those coveted and hard-to-earn rights. Woe to those who, once deemed persons, lose cognitive or physical abilities.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Pritzker-Recording-3.mp3

Save the Date!!!

On Saturday, March 16, 2019, the Illinois Family Institute will be hosting our annual Worldview Conference. This coming year, we will focus on the “transgender” revolution. We already have commitments from Dr. Michelle Cretella, President of the American College of Pediatricians; Walt Heyer, former “transgender” and contributor to Public Discourse; Denise Schick, Founder and Director of Help 4 Families, and daughter of a man who “identified” as a woman; and Doug Wilson, who is a Senior Fellow of Theology at New Saint Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho, and pastor at Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho .

The Transgender Ideology:
What Is It? Where Will It Lead? What is the Church’s Role?
Click here for more information!

“We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population.”
~Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, 1939

On the 46^th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker held a news conference at a Chicago Planned Parenthood office to sign an executive order expanding abortion access in Illinois. With all the work that needs to be done in our state, the celebration and championing of abortion, what Planned Parenthood likes to call “reproductive rights,” will do nothing to solve the state’s growing fiscal crisis and outbound migration.

Gov. Pritzker says he wants to make Illinois “the most progressive state in the nation” when it comes to abortion access. Yet this wicked policy is unequivocally regressive and, in fact, counterproductive.

A shrinking population doesn’t bode well for the economic health of our state. The extermination of future human capital, ingenuity and productivity that would grow our economy—not to mention broaden our tax base—is at minimum shortsighted.

While many on the political left criticize President Trump’s immigration policies as racist and xenophobic, they refuse to acknowledge how abortion in Illinois and throughout the nation disproportionately affects black and brown communities. The facts are clear, abortion destroys a significantly higher percent of pre-born African-American and Latino lives.

Moreover, we must not turn a blind eye to the abortion industry’s connection to the elimination of “persons with less desirable qualities,” as Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger grotesquely referred to those she deemed of lesser value decades ago.

Everyone knows the product of conception between two humans is a human, endowed by his or her Creator with unalienable rights, chief among which is the right to live.

Gov. Pritzker, why are you doing the bidding of Planned Parenthood and its anti-life allies?

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send an email or fax to Gov. Pritzker’s office to let him know what you think of his abortion cheer-leading.

You may want to remind him that abortion does, in fact, destroy a human life. You may want to let him know about  Planned Parenthood’s racist roots and how abortion providers target black and brown babies. You may want to ask, “Gov. Pritzker, why are you doing the bidding of Planned Parenthood and its anti-life allies?” Either way, please speak out for life!

Read more:

Margaret Sanger, Racist Eugenicist Extraordinaire (Family Research Council)

Margaret Sanger, Planned Parenthood and Racism (Break Point)

9 Things You Should Know About Planned Parenthood Founder Margaret Sanger (The Gospel Coalition)

Eugenics, I’m Embarrassed to Say, is Alive and Flourishing in Modern America (The Stream)

Planned Parenthood Helps Rapists and Pimps (The Stream)

Planned Parenthood’s Racist & Barbaric History (National Review)

Planned Parenthood is Racist, Classist, and Abelist (The Family Foundation)

Planned Parenthood, An Unnecessary Evil (Illinois Family Institute)

#DefundPP

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Many will see the proposal outlined in my previous article as a ridiculous fantasy and politically impossible. To them I’d say that almost everything is politically impossible until it is made politically possible. Selling a plan will be hard work, so we will need leaders with a genuine work ethic to start the process. (They can learn that political work ethic by watching President Donald Trump.)

You know what’s already politically possible and, in fact, quite easy? Bowing to the powers of the government unions, keeping the public in the dark about just how bad things are, and allowing the state to go forward into bankruptcy. Don’t doubt me on this: bankruptcy is in our future. That has been my view for many years, but I do have to thank Mark Glennon of Wirepoints for bringing this to my attention at a recent press conference:

William Isaac knows insolvency when he sees it, and how to deal with it. As Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation from 1981 to 1985, he was on the forefront of the banking crisis at the time. He founded The Secura Group, a leading consulting firm in financial regulation, and is a respected voice in the world of finance.

Bankruptcy, not just for Chicago, but for Illinois as well, he says.

“The city and the state should act now to restructure their liabilities and put the fiscal mess behind them. This can be accomplished by utilizing Chapter 9 and other tools Congress just gave Puerto Rico,” wrote Isaac in an opinion piece published Thursday in The Bond Buyer.

Tax increases and spending cuts won’t work, he wrote:

In the short run tax increases can partly bridge the deficits, but even this benefit will prove pyrrhic. Recent tax increases have already made the state and the city less competitive venues. As for expenditures, there’s still fat that can be cut from the budget, but it’s difficult to see this making more than a dent.

Why is his opinion a watershed? He’s the first major financial figure to outright call for bankruptcy. Others have said to start thinking about it or that it might be needed eventually — for Chicago. Pass the needed federal legislation now, says Isaac. Federal legislation would be needed to allow a whole state to file for bankruptcy. “Once a financial mess of the first order is at hand, as is the case with Chicago and Illinois, it can be far better to act decisively by restructuring rather than prolonging the pain.”

The above is from an article from almost two years ago. (Wirepoints is excellent. Readers should sign up for their email newsletter.)

Here is the simple and easy-to-remember order of upcoming events that could save our state:

1.)  Bruce Rauner loses and J.B. Pritzker wins and finds out there is no money to fund all his promises. (Of course, J.B. already knows that, right? He can’t be that uninformed, right?)

2.)  Republicans privately fund what Jeanne Ives couldn’t get publicly funded last year—a serious study of how we can tax ourselves in a sane manner here in Illinois. This study need not be expensive or take long to accomplish. Let’s look at all those states that manage to have schools and police officers without taxing people out of their homes.

3.)  “Big and bold” becomes how Republican legislators and candidates think and act and the GOP starts winning more elections.

4.)  Illinois fiscal reality is reckoned with, and the causes of the current mess aren’t kicked down the road any longer.

Tax reform. School choice. Taxpayers freed from funding exorbitant pensions that now eat up 20-25 percent of the state budget. (Private sector companies have been getting out of the pension business for decades. It’s time for government to follow their lead.) Bankruptcy. Illinois stops being a national laughing stock and instead gets a fresh start. And families and jobs move here instead of away.

Laugh if you want, but William Isaac nailed it: “Once a financial mess of the first order is at hand, as is the case with Chicago and Illinois, it can be far better to act decisively by restructuring rather than prolonging the pain.”

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Back in the 1990s, Illinois conservatives watched as Republican governors cooperated with General Assembly Democrats to lay a foundation for our state’s current fiscal disaster. Today, as 25 percent of the state’s budget goes to paying overly-generous pensions for government employees, some sleepy slow-to-learn Republicans are waking up to the fact that something is amiss.

The good news is that Democratic candidate for governor J.B. Pritzker has a plan to solve our state’s revenue problem. Of course, I’m kidding: we don’t have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.

A proposal for a graduated income tax in Illinois is being sold in comical fashion by the comical Center for Tax and Budget Accountability (CTBA) — a group that is never without a plan to take more money from hard-working Illinois families and hand it over to the government.

In Crain’s Chicago Business, liberal reporter Greg Hinz writes that CTBA has found a progressive income tax proposal that would “boost state income $2 billion a year while reducing taxes for 98 percent of individual filers, anyone with an adjusted gross income of less than $300,000 a year.” And if you believe that one, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

Last year conservatives warned their fellow Illinoisans that the income tax increase that became law would not be the last tax increase. A progressive income tax wouldn’t be the last either — it would just be the next. When 25 percent of your state’s budget continues to fund retired government employees, while those pension funds are mathematically insolvent, it is foolish to think otherwise. And pension fund “debt” isn’t the only debt the state has amassed.

Wait, there’s more! There will be tax cuts under CTBA’s proposal. And their miracle plan asserts that “raising rates will not induce many higher-income individuals to move out of state”!

Campaigning in 2014, Bruce Rauner was vague about his claim that he could balance the state budget. Wisely, J.B. Pritzker is playing the same game in 2018. Though time will tell if Pritzker foolishly claims, as the CTBA does, that “98 percent of taxpayers would get at least some cut,” while “Those earning more than $300,000 a year would pay more, with rates rising to up to 9.85 percent for those with taxable income of more than $1 million year.”

Tax the rich! Too bad that never works out.

Mark Glennon, the founder and executive editor of Wirepoints, answers the CTBA:

CTBA’s New Progressive Tax Proposal Makes Our Case Against it

We’ve written here often that Illinois can’t count on a progressive income tax to solve much, if anything, in its fiscal crisis. That’s why many proponents, including gubernatorial candidate J.B. Pritzker, won’t get specific about what they spin as the primary solution to our problems, which we wrote about recently here and in Crain’s.

Well, the union-friendly Center for Tax and Budget Accountability just made the case for us.

They released a specific proposal and concluded it would raise just $2 billion in additional revenue. What that really does is prove the futility of thinking tax increases are a way out of our mess.

For some perspective on why $2 billion wouldn’t go far, consider just the additional funding required to meet “adequacy” under the new school funding formula. That alone will consume that $2 billion within six years.

Two billion dollars wouldn’t even cover the shortfall in unpaid interest that effectively accrues on pensions, much less begin to reduce their unfunded liability.

What about the rest of the deficit we’ve been running, which has averaged $11.7 billion over the last ten years, according to the state’s own financial statements?

How about something from the state to relieve suicidal property taxes so many municipalities are levying? Forget it.

And what about gubernatorial candidate J.B Pritzker’s list of promised goodies that so many progressives want?

“I think we all know what’s going on here,” Glennon writes:

Hurray, a tax cut for 98% of us so let’s get that constitutional amendment needed for this progressive tax proposal.” That’s what the CTBA and other proponents are hoping will be the response. After that, it will be, “Oops, wasn’t quite enough of a tax increase so….”

The entire article is worth your time — it can be found here.

In an article, Cole Lauterbach and Greg Bishop answer the question “Do Illinoisans support a progressive tax?” “It depends upon who you ask, they explain:

Jim Long, director of legislative relations for the Chicago-based think tank (the Illinois Policy Institute), said nearly everyone would support a progressive tax without the reality of math.

“It’s like asking a kid if they want ice cream for dinner. Everybody’s going to go for that,” he said. “We put [our poll] through the grinder of economics.”

Meanwhile,

All but one House Republican signed on to House Resolution 975 opposing a progressive tax ballot question, effectively killing the measure for this session. Rep. Jerry Costello became the first Democrat to sign on to a resolution opposing a graduated income tax when he was added as a chief co-sponsor to Rep. David McSweeney‘s similar House Resolution 891.

As always, readers must decide who to believe. Those defending and promoting excessive always-increasing taxes and government spending, or those calling for less of both.

For more on the topic, here are three recent articles of interest:

Taxpayer Victory: Progressive Tax Effectively Dead This Legislative Session

Fifty lawmakers are taking a pledge to fight a progressive income tax in Illinois, denying progressive tax proponents the support needed to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot.

Illinoisans can’t afford another middle-class tax hike. But that’s exactly what proponents of a progressive income tax were seeking this legislative session.

Here is a news item about the first Democrat to publicly oppose a progressive tax hike:

Costello Stands With Taxpayers, Signs Resolution Opposing Progressive Income Tax

Calls to protect Illinoisans from a progressive income tax are now coming from both sides of the aisle in Springfield.

State Rep. Jerry Costello, D-Smithton, signed on as chief co-sponsor to House Resolution 891 on April 27. The resolution was filed in March by state Rep. David McSweeney, R-Barrington Hills, and states that Illinois should not scrap its constitutionally protected flat income tax.

Given Illinois’ reckless spending habits, a graduated, or “progressive” income tax is the last thing the state needs. While sold as a tax on the rich, a progressive income tax could have disastrous consequences for middle-class Illinoisans while failing to address the state’s misplaced spending priorities.

The Painful Push for a Progressive Tax in Illinois

Instead of pushing for further tax hikes on tapped-out taxpayers, lawmakers should rally behind a bipartisan effort to limit state spending.

The push for scrapping Illinois’ constitutionally protected flat income tax is greater than ever, with Democratic gubernatorial nominee J.B. Pritzker making it a key pillar of his campaign.

A progressive income tax is one of the most foolish policy choices Illinois could enact at a time when residents are experiencing crushing tax burdens, sluggish economic growth and high levels of outmigration.

Take ACTION: Please click HERE to send a message to your state senator and state representative.  Springfield hasn’t earned a right to additional tax resources. They have been utterly reckless with what they already get… more revenue simply will not improve their imprudence. Ask them to vote against any legislative proposal that would increase tax burdens for Illinois citizens. Ask them not to take much needed resources away from responsible family budgets to boost imprudent spending of Illinois government.

Let them know that you oppose any new tax increases when they refuse to cut government waste and bloat. You can also call your lawmakers’ Springfield offices through the Capitol Switchboard at (217) 782-2000.

PLEASE ALSO CALL THE GOVERNOR’S OFFICE at (217) 782-0244 and/or (312) 814-2121.

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!

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