By: Cliff Kincaid
Using emergency authority granted to him by Congress, President Trump on Saturday issued four China virus relief executive orders to benefit taxpayers, students, renters, and homeowners. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi got in the way of this assistance because her “Heroes” bill that she insisted on passing through the Senate would have made heroes out of dope dealers and stoners and other clients of the marijuana industry. In a masterstroke, the president bypassed her.
The controversy demonstrates the priorities of the House Speaker, whose son, Paul Pelosi Jr., ran a marijuana legalization company called Freedom Leaf Inc. He left the company in 2018, after speaking of “the powerful benefits of cannabis,” and made several transactions involving company stock. (The company relaunched in 2019 as GL Brands).
At the time that Freedom Leaf named Paul Pelosi Jr. as chairman of the board, the company highlighted the fact that he “is the son of U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.” Pelosi was Minority Leader at the time and became Speaker when the Democrats took control of the House in 2018. A Congressional Cannabis [Marijuana] Caucus was formed to provide the façade of bipartisan support for getting stoned. But she was unable to deliver to Big Marijuana, mostly because of opposition from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republicans.
The so-called “HEROES” bill, which stands for Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions Act, had an astounding 68 references to cannabis. It even directed that money be used in minority communities so that marijuana businesses can more easily distribute their dope to people of color.
Pelosi was taking a stand, in the name of “values,” by demanding that the federal government help the marijuana industry, in addition to passing mail-in voting schemes to benefit Democrats.
With his executive orders, Trump stopped Pelosi’s gambit by extending direct relief to victims of coronavirus and avoiding federal payments to an industry that is making money by getting people high and more vulnerable to death from coronavirus.
In protesting the so-called HEROES bill, Senate Majority Leader McConnell had said that Pelosi was “agitating for strange, new special interest carve-outs for the marijuana industry and even claiming they are COVID-related.” In regard to the latest “negotiations,” McConnell commented, “She said that, with respect to this virus, marijuana is ‘a therapy that has proven successful.’ You can’t make this up.” McConnell added, “I hope she shares her breakthrough with Dr. Fauci.”
McConnell, of course, was mocking Pelosi’s advocacy of dope as a medical treatment to make people well. Common sense is that inhaling marijuana smoke with mind-altering THC can only worsen the symptoms of the China virus, which strikes the lungs in many cases. A group of anti-drug experts warned that coronavirus harms are severely elevated by marijuana use and signed a statement asking health care professionals to examine in a scientific manner the likely connection between coming down with the China virus and smoking dope.
In terms of lies, Pelosi’s statement about marijuana being a successful therapy was a whopper with serious health consequences and actually risked the lives of Americans.
Some of our media, in a rare development, fact-checked her. After the news conference where she claimed that marijuana “is a therapy that has proven successful,” USA Today noted that she “did not cite any studies or health officials that have said cannabis may be a treatment for the coronavirus.” That’s because there are none. The Washington Times commented, “Mrs. Pelosi did not offer any evidence to corroborate her claim, and no published studies have proven that marijuana is effective at treating COVID-19, the contagious disease caused by the novel coronavirus.”
President Trump got the message from his negotiators that Pelosi was adamant about pot’s supposed health benefits and decided to bypass her with a series of four executive orders on China virus relief assistance.
Pelosi is a big loser, but so is George Soros, the big financial backer of dope legalization who has major influence over the Democratic Party and its policies. Roger Morgan’s new book, Soros: Orchestrating America’s Demise, explains the strategy.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez continues pushing. “Marijuana should be legalized,” she declared, “and drug consumption should be decriminalized. These are matters of public health.”
Since this has nothing to do with benefiting “public health,” and actually harms public health, what is this all about? One answer is campaign contributions for Democrats (and some Republicans) from the marijuana industry and their pot shops, which have remained open in many states during the pandemic. Another factor is that millions of stoners, drawn from the millennial generation, may turn out to vote for politicians who promise easy access to marijuana. They will vote for legal weed and then demand government help when their mental faculties deteriorate.
Consider the fact that, according to government statistics, 22.2 million people have used marijuana in the past month. They are a potential major voting bloc.
Not surprisingly, the Washington Post is out with a long story defending the hedge fund billionaire, George Soros, and another article casting doubt on President Trump’s executive actions on China virus relief. In the past, it has argued that drug tests threaten privacy and that employers should stop screening for marijuana. This is typical of a paper whose liberalism has degenerated into toxic paranoia, a characteristic of an alternative lifestyle not based on objective reality. Clearly, drug tests are needed at the paper. Owner Jeff Bezos should order them immediately and set an example by taking the first test himself.
In the name of the public’s right to know, the paper whose slogan is “Democracy dies in darkness” should then release the results.
*Cliff Kincaid is president of America’s Survival, Inc. www.usasurvival.org.
