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From CNSnews.com
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
By Penny Starr
(CNSNews.com) – In its budget request for Fiscal Year 2012, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) cuts funding for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) by $38 million while asking for steep increases for other departments in the agency. In 2009, the Obama administration described Mexican drug cartels as the “greatest organized crime threat to the United States.”
Funding for the DEA would drop from $2,050,000,000 to $2,012,000,000 for FY 2012.
Increased funding for DOJ departments would include the Detention Trustee department – tasked, in part, with cost savings and efficiency of the federal detention system – getting a $156 million increase, if the budget is approved as is. The federal prison system would see a $606 million increase, and a $138 million increase is requested for the “general legal activities” of the DOJ.
Funding for DOJ’s National Security Division, with a stated mission “to carry out the Department’s highest priority: to combat terrorism and other threats to national security,” would remain at the FY 2011 level of $88 billion.
In testimony before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs in March, 2009, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said that Mexican drug cartels are known to be operating in 230 U.S. cities and that the DOJ had described the cartels as the “greatest organized crime threat to the United States.”
“Mexican drug cartels maintain drug-distribution networks, or supply drugs to distributors, in at least 230 American cities, leading the Justice Department to call Mexican drug cartels the ‘greatest organized crime threat to the United States,” Napolitano said.
[…]
The budget requests a $3 billion increase in DOJ’s “litigation components” to “support litigation efforts to protect civil rights, consumers, intellectual property and the environment.”
The budget proposal would cut $588 million in local and state grants, including $194 million for communications in the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program.
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Is George Soros still affecting Drug Policy?
The Hidden Soros Agenda: Drugs, Money, the Media, and Political Power
BY CLIFF KINCAID | OCTOBER 27, 2004
Soros has categorically denied receiving money from drug cartels or any form of criminal activity. The fact remains, however, that at least some of his financial operations have been based offshore, in banking and financial centers that are widely reported to be considered conducive to money-laundering. The Soros fund is based in the Netherlands Antilles, a self-governing federation of five Caribbean islands. A CIA factbook describes the region as “a transshipment point for South American drugs bound for the US and Europe; money-laundering center.”
Soros reportedly purchased a major stake in one of Colombia’s biggest banks, at a time when the Drug Enforcement Administration, in its study, “Colombian Economic Reform: The Impact on Drug Money Laundering within the Colombian Economy,” was documenting how major drug kingpins were taking advantage of the liberalization of the economy to put illicit drug revenue into legitimate businesses. The report stated: “U.S. and Colombian Government authorities have evidence of drug proceeds being deposited in every major bank in Colombia… A Colombian source indicated that many banks and businesses are owned covertly by principal members of the Cali cartel.”
His complex web of financial interests, companies and foundations makes Halliburton look like a Mom & Pop operation.
The charge we read in the press is that Halliburton gets government contracts and makes money from the Iraq war. Far less attention has been paid to the fact that the company has lost 54 employees as a result of that war. Nobody in the press mentions that Soros profits from the Kosovo war, which he supported as a preemptive strike against Yugoslavia, because he runs an investment fund that now does business there. Even though he pays big bucks to advertise his opposition to the Bush policy of democracy-building in Iraq, reporters still describe him as someone with a reputation for building democracy abroad.
However, his position on Iraq may be a diversion from the real reason he wants to get rid of Bush ? his longstanding desire to adopt a national “retreat and defeat” approach to the drug problem.
Soros’ long-time goal has been to subvert the national anti-drug policy of the U.S. Government, to move away from the use of national and global law enforcement resources against the drug trade. He calls this “harm reduction,” meaning that criminal activity associated with the use of drugs will supposedly be reduced if the government takes over the drug trade and provides drugs and drug paraphernalia, including needles, to addicts. But law enforcement would still be required to keep drugs out of the hands of children. If this is not the case, then Soros intends to allow substances such as marijuana, cocaine and heroin to be distributed to children.
If Soros is able to capture the White House and implement his drug policy nationally, millions more people could be led to experiment with dangerous psychoactive substances and damage themselves, their families, and society. Even marijuana, depicted by the media as a “soft” drug, has extremely negative consequences. In the new book, “Marijuana and Madness,” one of the editors, Prof. Robin Murray of Britain’s Institute of Psychiatry, cites studies and evidence from around the world, some of it going back 40 years, linking the use of marijuana to mental illnesses, including schizophrenia and psychosis.
In a recent article about his growing financial and political clout, the Washington Post sanitized Soros by claiming that he “funded efforts to reform campaign laws, decriminalize marijuana and change [the] criminal justice system.” All of that is misleading, if not false. His “reform” of campaign laws left a loophole that will enable him to set a record “for the most money donated by an individual in an election cycle,” to quote the Post itself. So where are the investigative stories into Soros and his agenda?
A key part of the Soros agenda — his proposed surrender in the war on drugs — has been carefully concealed from the American people during this campaign. The war on Islamic terrorism is front and center, to be sure, but the war on drugs is still of major concern to millions of Americans, especially parents fearful of the influence of Hollywood and the drug culture.
A Soros role in formulating national drug policy is worthy of special press attention because his pro-drug legalization campaign has been considered at odds with the vast majority of Republicans and Democrats who share the view that legalization would make the drug problem far worse.
In the current campaign, however, a major transformation has taken place. Soros is said to have “privatized” or replaced the Democratic Party by subsidizing many different liberal-left organizations that comprise its political base and creating new ones, the “527″ organizations.
Among the candidates who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination, Soros financially supported John Kerry, Wesley Clark, Senator Bob Graham, and Howard Dean. He has been praised by Senator Hillary Clinton and contributed to her Senate campaign and political action committee. He has also contributed to the political campaigns of Democratic Senators Tom Daschle, Carl Levin, John Corzine, Mary Landrieu, Debbie Stabenow, Charles Schumer, Joseph Biden, Patrick Leahy, Paul Sarbanes, Thomas Harkin, and Barbara Boxer. In 2002, Soros funded Al Gore for president and contributed $153,000 in “soft money” to the Democratic National Committee. Soros, who is also very close to Bill Clinton, was described by Clinton’s Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott as a “national treasure.”
It is significant that Soros and two of his sons have contributed $2000 each to Brad Carson, the Democratic Senate candidate in Oklahoma. His Republican opponent, Dr. Tom Coburn, was a member of the U.S. House for six years, where he developed a reputation as a leading opponent of efforts to legalize marijuana and fund needle exchange programs that facilitate illicit drug use. Coburn exposed Soros-style “harm reduction” as a backdoor approach to legalization of illicit drugs. Coburn was also a strong supporter of drug testing and even fought to require drug testing of members of Congress. Coburn and his staff voluntarily underwent drug testing. If elected to the Senate, say his supporters, Coburn would be the chamber’s leading voice for protecting children from the dangers of drug abuse and a scientific voice of reason against the Soros-supported movement that seeks to legalize drugs. It’s no wonder that Soros and his sons have targeted Coburn for defeat.
Soros has also contributed to Barack Obama, running for the Senate as a Democrat from Illinois. CNSNews.com reports that, “Not only did Soros donate to Obama’s campaign, but four other family members – Jennifer, sons Jonathan and Robert and wife Susan – did as well. Because of a special provision campaign finance laws, the Soroses were able to give a collective $60,000 to Obama during his primary challenge.”
Soros was described by the New Yorker as close to Harold Ickes, a former Clinton deputy chief of staff who runs the Media Fund, one of many Soros-supported “527″ groups. Soros described him as a “real pro.”
Away from the scrutiny or even the notice of the establishment press, Soros has emerged as a counter-culture hero.
The drug culture magazine, Heads, calls him “Daddy Weedbucks,” ran an excerpt from his book,Soros on Soros, and declared that “he drops the bucks exactly where they’re needed.” The September-October issue of the drug culture magazine High Times recognizes the stakes, noting that there are “ten reasons to get rid of Bush” and that one is that there will be “No legalization of pot” under Bush. The implication of the article was that the situation would change under Kerry.
None of this is being reported, however, by the major media.
His partner, Peter Lewis, whitewashed by the Post as “one of the country’s 10 most generous philanthropists,” was actually arrested in New Zealand for “importing” drugs, including hashish and marijuana.
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Soros backs Prop 19 for marijuana legalization
By Aaron Smith, staff writer (CNNmoney.com)
October 26, 2010
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Billionaire philanthropist George Soros has thrown his support behind Proposition 19, the initiative to legalize marijuana in California.
If voters approve Prop 19 on Nov. 2, then Californians ages 21 and older will be allowed to posses up to one ounce of cannabis, and cultivate the plant on a plot of land up to 25 square feet in size.
Soros, an advocate for legalizing medical marijuana since the 1990s, published his views on Prop 19 in aWall Street Journal op-ed piece.
“Regulating and taxing marijuana would simultaneously save taxpayers billions of dollars in enforcement and incarceration costs, while providing many billions of dollars in revenue annually,” wrote Soros, founder and chairman of Open Society Foundations, a pro-democracy organization.
He also wrote that legalization could reduce violent crime related to illegal drug markets. It could also reduce racial inequities, he said, noting that African-Americans bear the brunt of drug arrests — even though they are “no more likely than other Americans to use marijuana.”
Soros said the money spent on anti-marijuana law enforcement would be better spent on educating teenagers to stay away from marijuana and other drugs.
Soros has donated roughly $75 million towards drug policy reform since 1995, according to Ethan Nadelmann, founder and executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, an organization that Soros financially supports.
Nadelmann, advisor to Soros on drug policy issues, said that Soros has donated $1 million towards supporting Prop 19. In the past, most of Soros’ support has gone towards medical marijuana and promoting treatment instead incarceration, said Nadelmann. This is the first time he’s supported outright legalization, he said.
More here………
***Note: The voters of California voted AGAINST Proposition 19****
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January 23, 2009
This is the News you won’t hear on the news.
Los Angeles, CA. According to 33 year veteran gang specialist and retired L.A. Sheriff’s Sergeant Richard Valdemar, Mexican drug cartels have infiltrated city councils and political campaigns in many small cities in Los Angeles County.
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