Whatever you may think about television and radio host Glenn Beck, I have to say that he got it right several years ago when he spoke of billionaire George Soros as “Spooky Dude.” I’ll leave you to google why Beck ascribed that nickname to Soros. But for me, a story in the Washington Times today affirmed the nickname.
Soros is often called a “philanthropist,” which is a description that connotes good will and a desire to promote the welfare of others through the generous donation of money. As the Times exposé shows today, that could not be farther from the truth.
Let me mention something else that happened this week which will put the Soros exposé into perspective. The Supreme Court issued a ruling that deals with campaign finance and which has sent Democrats into a frenzy. Following on the heels of the Citizens United decision a couple of years ago, SCOTUS ruled this week that the existing cap on the total amount of contributions that a person can give is unconstitutional. This means that the $123,000 overall limit (including those to political action committees) and the $48,000 individual limit on annual contributions to candidates to which I was restricted has been wiped out. I now can give as much as I want to as many candidates and PACs as I want. This has Democrats seeing red–not because they are worried about little old me. No, it’s because they see only the devil-incarnate billionaire Koch Brothers doling out their filthy money to conservative candidates. And Democrats HATE the Koch Brothers — and anything that they support.
The truth is that this week’s SCOTUS ruling is really not that big of a deal. I mean, few people have that much money to burn anyway. And those who do can hire attorneys to figure out how to get their money and their influence out there despite the restrictions. Moreover, the ruling did nothing about the individual cap that remains in place — $2600, which is the maximum that a person can give to any single candidate. That limit remains and is not likely to go anywhere any time soon.
So, back to Spooky Dude. Despite any campaign finance laws, Spooky Dude figured out a long time ago how to get around the limitations on contributions to candidates. He has been funding issues rather than merely candidates. Billionaire Soros knows that rather than fund candidates who support a given issue, he can fund the liberal issues that suit his agenda, and the candidates will then be eating out of his hand. It’s a variation of the old adage: If you fund it they will come.
To be sure, Soros has his hands (and his money) in every liberal issue and organization out there. Glenn Beck used his famous chalkboard during his days on Fox News Channel to diagram how Soros was everywhere when it came to liberal organizations and the constant pounding of their agenda to bring down the American way of life.
The issue that Spooky Dude is currently funding, and which is why I concur in the assignation of his nickname, is the legalization of marijuana. To listen to the mainstream media you would think that 90% of Americans support the legalization of this “harmless,” misunderstood plant. But as the Times article today points out, that could not be further from the truth. Here’s how the Times begins its explanation of the influence that Soros has had over the pot debate for two decades now.
Billionaire philanthropist George Soros hopes the U.S. goes to pot, and he is using his money to drive it there.
With a cadre of like-minded, wealthy donors, Mr. Soros is dominating the pro-legalization side of the marijuana debate by funding grass-roots initiatives that begin in New York City and end up affecting local politics elsewhere.
The Times article is well worth the read. Soros and his minions assert that drug use is nothing more than a medical condition and that drugs should never be illegal and their use should never be criminalized. Now, initially the libertarian side of me would tend to agree with this philosophy. But then I am reminded of my days as a prosecutor when I saw scores of uneducated bumpkins who had destroyed their own lives and those of their families through idiotically manufacturing methamphetamine in a mobile home using such seemingly harmless ingredients as anhydrous ammonia, lithium batteries, and Sudafed. It is clear to me from those experiences that somebody has got to protect the innocent from the “freedom” of morons who do not know their limits, and especially when to light up and when not to.
“But marijuana is harmless,” say recreational smokers like our President. Ahhh, but therein lies the rub. It is through millions of dollars in funding to pro-weed groups that Soros has pushed that message for years now. Lies asserting the harmless nature of marijuana have been perpetuated and entrenched in our nation’s collective consciousness. The Times article points out the truth of the matter and cites even officials in the Obama administration who refute the Presidents assertion that marijuana is no more harmful than alcohol.
As for Spooky Dude Soros, he is not asserting his influence only in the United States. Rather, he has his nose in the marijuana legalization efforts in Uruguay also. And I can promise you there is nothing benevolent about that intervention. Uruguay has something that Soros wants. Control? Domination for the sake of domination? If you can sedate the people, you can have your way with them. It is already proving true in this country.
And Spooky Dude gets spookier with the legalization of marijuana in state after state.
VALman says: Just an aside: I think of Glenn Beck like I think of VictoryGirls, and Sarah Palin, and the links of bloggers on your homepage, and Rush Limbaugh, and Megyn Kelly, and Mark Levin, and Judge Jeanine, and the visitors to your blog, and many more. We are all trying to sort through what more and more seems to be “chaos”. We’re trying to find answers, though, if you’re similar to me, I don’t even know what the questions are.
Glen demonstrates that he has and continue to wrestle with the issues. I prefer to think that I appreciate his time and work, let all those listed above. It doesn’t mean that I agree with him, or others, on everything. However, I do note here that in 2008 he indicated that “a perfect storm” was shaping up. How accurate he was.
I agree with him and you, Donna, about Soros. He’s a “Spooky Dude”. I question his actions in this issue. Hopefully, with the ruling of the SCOTUS, the Koch may be a more of a neutralizing influence. Because, when Harry Reid directs his attention in your direction, you just know he feels threatened. We’re not billionaires, yet that doesn’t mean we have to “wave the white flag.” We need, we have a right, to reasoned answers. Among them, I count this whole matter of the legalization of marijuana.
Thanks for your reflection, VALman. You hit the nail on the head when you said, “I don’t even know what the questions are.” That, to me, is why it is so important to read a variety of authors and news sources and opinions. If we are too narrow minded we think we have all the answers. But hearing two or more opinions makes us evaluate them and see which one resonates.
VALman says: There’s quite a bit of deflection going on in debates, discussions, and ordinary conversations. One of the prime examples, and one I think was intolerable and scandalous, was the 2012 Vice-Presidential Debate. Biden had made up his mind not to engage Ryan. We all saw what a mockery it turned out to be.
See, we can and must insist on our concerns and needs being addressed. We must not allow name-calling, or a dismissive attitude, or even repudiation to turn us away. Whether it be the POTUS or the AG or any elected official who says, for example, we’re not going to enforce the law, we ought to ask “By whose authority do you do so?” Only a legitimate answer is acceptable. If they don’t provide one, then we ought to press them until they do, or remove them from office. They’re to serve the country, all of it – the parts they don’t like, as well as those that they do. It’s not the basis of our country that we serve them.
If they won’t protect the country, then we must. And, we cannot let them deter us from our obligation to ourselves and one another!
Sadly, the institution that historically performed that function of holding government officials’ feet to the fire–journalists– has almost completely caved and become fawning blathering idiots. You are correct in that the three branches should be checking and balancing each other. But the executive branch has upstaged and made irrelevant the legislative branch by simply refusing to enforce laws that the exec doesn’t like. The next 2 1/2 years will be very telling. A lot will depend on what happens in the elections this Fall. A veto-proof Senate would go a loooong way toward crushing the stranglehold that liberals have had on the throat of America since 2008….
RKae says: My whole life I’ve watched pot change people I know. Complete personality shifts – and never for the better.
In the “scientific” research (I should probably put that word in quote marks as well), they can only talk about reaction time, problem solving while stoned, etc. There is no way to measure a person’s arrogance, smugness, apathy or narcissism – all the ingredients of “cool,” I suppose.
I despise pot. Always have. Always will.
Kathleen Chippi says: As a cannabis advocate for over 2 decades….Soros might have funded the language in pot states but the language he pushes creates more prohibitions with ‘legalization’ than there were with old fashioned prohibition and local grassroots activists having been calling foul since 1997. With ‘legalization’ in CO we went from 9 pages of marijuana law to over 550 and 100 more on the way. Filled with dozens of new prohibitions that create more criminals, not less. And only super rich can own a pot business. Ma’s and pa’s (99%) clearly can’t afford $10,000-$500,000 application fee’s or licenses (protection fee’s).
“At a recent drug-reform conference in Denver, Drug Policy Alliance executive director Ethan Nadelmann acknowledged the uncomfortable transition that’s now occurring. Those who have suffered the most in the War on Drugs and those who have struggled against it, he noted, may not be among those who profit from its conclusion.
“The capitalist forces at work in a prohibitionist market are violent and brutal,” Nadelmann said, “but the capitalist forces at work in a legal market are even more brutal in some respects. We know that the people who may come to dominate this industry are not necessarily the people who are apart of this movement.”” Rolling Stone Jan. 2014.
JHC! Hey Nadelmann–you and your 1%er friends like Soros and Rockefeller wrote all this “brutal” language that gives BIG BUSINESS (your friends) all the power and control of the entire ‘industry’ and stomps out “we the people”, the 99% of Americans. Hell, in Colorado you have successfully excluded all the A20 (year 2000) Constitutionally protected patients and caregivers (160,000 in 2010) from dispensing for sale and now it’s illegal for an ‘elite’ licensed new pot shops to NOT NARC out patients and caregivers who try to sell medicine like they could/did since 2000 as long as they paid taxes.
This is 1937 Reefer Madness all over again! Amazing…..in 1937 it was called “prohibition” on behalf of public safety and in 2014 it’s called “legalization” on behalf of public safety, even when science shows cannabis to be the safest therapeutic substance known to man.
The same forces control, GOVERNMENT, MEDIA AND BIG BUSINESS….still in bed 77 years later, still the only ones to benefit from prohibition and/or ‘legalization’.
The regulatory side of things is sort of the “be careful what you wish for” response to those who want to legalize pot and other drugs. Taxes are the other thing that creeps in like an elephant. I never will touch the stuff, having smoked it two times in college and having hated not being in control of my senses and actions. No one will ever convince me that MJ is harmless. So many of the same people who support pot demonize tobacco smokers (which I did do for 24 year until I broke the habit). Hypocrites all.
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