Posted on 03/01/2006 2:50:42 AM PST by goldstategop
The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is an institution. Now in its 32nd. year, CPAC is the largest annual gathering of grassroots activists on the right.
But, when it comes to co-sponsors, CPAC, and its parent group -- the American Conservative Union -- are keeping strange company.
CPAC always has a lustrous line-up of speakers. Ann Coulter, Oliver North, George Will, Senator Rick Santorum and Vice President Dick Cheney all addressed this year's conference. For the most part, panel discussions and workshops are informative.
Increasingly, CPAC is becoming a youth conference - demonstrating the movement's vitality. Of the 3,500 or so attendees at CPAC 2006 (Feb. 9-11), at least half were under 25.
But this also highlights the danger of CPAC associating with the American Civil Liberties Union (an exhibitor at this year's conference), Muslim organizations with dubious ties and Soros-funded drug-legalization groups.
College kids who encounter the Muslim Public Affairs Council and the Drug Policy Alliance at CPAC assume that there's a connection between what they're pushing and the conservative agenda, especially when they're also on the program.
For a $3,000 fee, co-sponsors get an exhibit, listing in conference materials and a place in the program. CPAC is getting less and less discriminating about who it lets in the door. Finances outweigh principle.
At its booth in the exhibit hall, the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) distributed flyers headlined: "American Muslims Fighting Terrorism." If there are American Muslims fighting terrorism, they're not in MPAC.
The group was founded in 1989. On the afternoon of September 11, 2001, MPAC cofounder Salam al-Marayati told a Los Angeles talk show that the Israelis might be responsible for the World Trade Center carnage - lest anyone suspect the religion of peace (just because all 19 of the hijackers happened to be from Saudi Arabia and practitioners of the fanatical Whabbi brand of Islam).
Another MPAC leader, Maher Hathout, condemned U.S, air strikes on terrorist bases in Afghanistan (following the 1998 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania) as "illegal, immoral, unhuman, unacceptable, stupid and un-American." Hathout has an unfortunate tendency to equivocate.
When a suicide bomber blew up an Israeli pizzeria in August 2001, scattering the body parts of young parents and their children, MPAC said the Israelis had it coming. According to the self-styled anti-terrorist group, Israel was "responsible for the pattern of violence."
In a 1999 publication, MPAC excused the 1983 suicide attack on the Beirut Marine compound (that left 241 dead) as a military operation. In its "Position Paper on U.S. Counterterrorism Policy," MPAC observed: "Yet this attack, for all the pain it caused, was not in a strict sense a terrorist operation - It was a military operation producing no civilian casualties - exactly the kind of attack that Americans might have lauded had it been directed against Washington's enemies" - which should come as a great comfort to the families of 241 dead Marines.
On its website (January 26, 2006), MPAC posted a report that tried to rationalize the Hamas victory in the recent Palestinian election.
A win for terrorism? Not at all, MPAC argued. Voters chose the enthusiastic killers of Hamas (over the more sedate killers of Fatah) because they were "unhappy with the status quo" and demand better services - like the more efficient murder of Jews.
With Americans dying in Iraq, it's sick and twisted for the American Conservative Union to allow these apologists for terrorism to infiltrate CPAC.
The Islamic Free Market Institute has been a CPAC co-sponsor for the past two years. While there's less of a paper trail here, there is enough troubling intelligence to disqualify the Institute as a co-sponsor.
Also known as the Islamic Institute, the operation initially was funded by Abdurahman Alamoudi, a fan of Hamas and Hezbollah. In 1996, Alamoudi told the annual conference of the Islamic Association of Palestinians, "If we are outside this country we can say 'O Allah, destroy America.' But once we are here, our mission is to change it."
So, the Islamic Free Market Institute - do they cut your taxes before or after they cut off your head?
Also waging war on Western civilization were CPAC's druggie co-sponsors. Speaking from the floor of the House of Representatives on February 8, Congressman Mark Souder (R, IN), who's spoken at CPAC in the past (as has your humble servant, at least half a dozen times in the past 20 years), declared:
"One can imagine a conservative's surprise to read on the CPAC agenda that a representative of the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) is slated to moderate - yes, moderate - a panel Friday discussing drug policy. For those who are unacquainted with it , the pro-marijuana MPP has been funded by Soros in the past. Also represented on the panel is the Drug Policy Alliance, which is Soros' principal pro-drug arm. Incidentally, the moderator himself (Rob Kampia) is a convicted drug dealer."
The Congressman could have added that billionaire Soros (dubbed "the Daddy Warbucks of drug legalization" by former U.S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Joseph Califano) is the chief financial angel of the Marijuana Policy Project, and donated $8.5 million to the Drug Policy Alliance between 2001 and 2004.
Drug legalization is part of Soros' final solution for America. Besides his spending here, the Lear Jet leftist has lavished a fortune on promoting euthanasia, abortion advocacy and an isolationist foreign policy.
A dispassionate observer of the political scene, he once compared the president to the Nazis ("When I hear George W. Bush say: 'You're either with us or against us,' it reminds me of the Germans" - this not in reference to Beethoven and Kant.) In 2004, through a complex of 527 groups like MoveOn.org, Soros spent an estimated $18 million dollars to defeat the Fourth Reich of Herr W.
Soros could make common cause with the Muslim Public Affairs Council. He's forever telling us that the war on terrorism can't be won (just like the war on drugs).
An inveterate root-causer, Soros cautions that we must "correct the grievances on which terrorism feeds" - including the lack of a Palestinian state, the existence of Israel, cartoons depicting Mohammed and the destruction of the Spanish caliphate in 1492.
In his book "Soros On Soros" (how's that for humility?) the Hungarian-born immigrant and convicted insider-trader said that if it were up to him, he'd legalize all drugs "excluding the most dangerous ones like crack." Presumably, the legalization list would include such benign substances as cocaine and heroin.
The Drug Policy Alliance's Ethan Nadelmann recently suggested, "Coca (the plant from which cocaine is derived) deserves the same opportunities to compete legally in international markets as coffee." Cocaine - good to the last drop?
In an interview with The Pittsburgh Tribune Review, Nadelmann argued, "If you possess small amounts of a drug for your own personal use, that should not be a crime - regardless of the drug."
While it's true that there are a few prominent conservative proponents of marijuana legalization (like William F. Buckley, Jr. and economist Milton Friedman), with the exception of the libertarian CATO Institute -- which also follows the Soros line on foreign policy -- I can't think of a single legitimate group on the right that shares this societal death wish.
Reportedly, ACU Chairman David Keene is amused that Soros is helping to fund a conservative conference. Does he also chuckle over the fact that young conservatives are duped into thinking that the hypodermic crowd are conservatives? ("Yeah, man, like we believe in individual liberty - or something.")
Is he amused that the Marijuana Policy Project, the Drug Policy Alliance, the Muslim Public Affairs Council and the Islamic Free Market Institute can use their association with CPAC (they're co-sponsors, after all) to legitimize themselves?
Informed conservatives understand that the left is involved in a relentless crusade to undermine America at home and to bolster our enemies abroad.
Tragically, the Conservative Political Action Conference is now unwittingly aiding America's enemies - on both fronts.
Perhaps next year's CPAC will include the Medellin Cartel and Hamas among its cosponsors. Wouldn't that be a blast?
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
...agreed. Or all of the South Park cartoon characters will soon be wearing turbans and veils and stabbing "infidels."
Ping.
Feder's hyperventilating, and there are plenty of republicans who understand the complete waste of monies the war on drugs is. Secondly, allowing the ACLU to have a table at CPAC is actually a good idea, I'd like to see more right wingers make their mark on the ACLU, there are actually issues on which we agree. As to the Islamic orgs there...who's to say they aren't republicans or support republican ideals?
If ACU is hurting for exhibitors, they just need to do a better job marketing to the conservative community.
I attended CPAC; Explaining which groups were infiltrators to my groups of friends was exhausting. CPAC is supposed to be the one little break a year when we don't have to deal commies.
There are rumours that Norquist's fellow CR's, Ralph Reed and Jack Abramhoff, will also face anti-conservative charges in the near future. :-)Freerepublic yanks Grover Norquist's conservative credentials
INTERNET, March 1, 2006 - FReerepublic has announced that, following lengthy debate, Grover Norquist has had his Conservative Credentials suspended-for 60 days-following complaints that Norquist has sold out to anti-American undercurrents.
Norquist faces anti-Conservative charges that he is promoting the Wahhabi lobby, a Saudi-funded network designed to dominate and radicalize Islam in America.
Allegedly, a portion of the seed money for Norquist's Islamic Institute came from Abdurahman Alamoudi, a supporter of Hezbollah, the terrorist group that killed 241 US Marines in a 1983 suicide bomb attack.
Furthermore, Norquist faces the anti-conservative charge that he has facilitated the appointment -- to a high risk, high security clearance position in Homeland Security-- of a 32-year-old lawyer named Faisal Gill, an associate of Norquist's Islamic Institute.
Norquist's protege, Faisal Gill was a spokesman for the controversial American Muslim Council (AMC) prior to 9/11. The AMC was founded and controlled by a prominent Islamist activist, Abdurahman Alamoudi. Alamoudi has since been convicted of terrorism-related money laundering charges. Alamoudi was the individual who revealed the Libyan plot to murder the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.
The committee reviewing Norquist's credentials will seek affidavits from individuals that either support or deny the supposition that the accused has joined the Dark Force.
"The eLottery money went first to Norquist's foundation, Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), and then through a second group in Virginia Beach called the Faith and Family Alliance, before it reached Reed's company, Century Strategies. Norquist's group retained a share of the money as it passed through.Ralph Reed is the former head of the Christian Coalition and currently running for Lieutenant Governor in Georgia.
"'I have 3 checks from elot: (1) 2 checks for $80K payable to ATR and (2) 1 check to TVC for $25K,' Abramoff's assistant Susan Ralston e-mailed him on June 22, 2000. 'Let me know exactly what to do next. Send to Grover? Send to Rev. Lou?'
"Minutes later Abramoff responded, saying that the check for Sheldon's group should be sent directly to Sheldon, but that the checks for Norquist required special instructions: "Call Grover, tell him I am in Michigan and that I have two checks for him totaling 160 and need a check back for Faith and Family for $150K."
"According to the e-mails, Reed provided the name and address where Norquist was supposed to send the money: to Robin Vanderwall at a location in Virginia Beach.
"Vanderwall was director of the Faith and Family Alliance, a political advocacy group that was founded by two of Reed's colleagues and then turned over to Vanderwall, Vanderwall said and records show.
"Vanderwall, a former Regent University Law School student and Republican operative, was later convicted of soliciting sex with minors via the Internet and is serving a seven-year term in Virginia state prison.
"In a telephone interview, Vanderwall said that in July 2000 he was called by Reed's firm, Century Strategies, alerting him that he would be receiving a package. When it came, it contained a check payable to Vanderwall's group for $150,000 from Americans for Tax Reform, signed by Norquist. Vanderwall said he followed the instructions from Reed's firm -- depositing the money and then writing a check to Reed's firm for an identical amount.
"'I was operating as a shell,' Vanderwall said, adding that he was never told how the money was spent. He said: 'I regret having had anything to do with it.'"
How a Lobbyist Stacked the Deck, Washington Post, October 2005
The Rev. Louis P. Sheldon is the head of the Traditional Values Coalition.
It would appear that real conservatives are being played by a tight little group that hands out money the way deviants hand out candy.
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