Chairman of Progressive Insurance Peter Lewis Donated Millions to Left Wing Organizations-Truth!

Chairman of Progressive Insurance Peter Lewis Donated Millions to Left Wing Organizations-Truth!

Summary of the eRumor: This is a forwarded email that says millions of dollars in political contributions have been donated to the American Civil Liberties Union and Moveon.Org by the chairman of Progressive Insurance, Peter Lewis.

The Truth: According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) website, the chairman of Progressive Insurance, Peter Lewis, gave $8 million in 2003 and $7 million in 2001. Click for ACLU news release. A March 10, 2004 Washington Post article reported that Lewis had contributed $3 million to America Coming Together (ACT), a liberal political action group dedicated to encourage voters to the polls and $500,000 to MoveOn.org, a group formed in response to the campaign to impeach President Bill Clinton. This eRumor originally appeared back in 2006 after an alert from the American Family Association went viral on the World Wide Web accusing billionaire George Soros and Progressive Insurance Chairman Peter Lewis of being the leading enemies of traditional values in the U.S. On December 29, 2006, the American Family Association sent out an alert to their subscribers based on the findings in the book Culture Warrior by Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly. In it, O'Reilly wrote that Soros and Lewis are "working feverishly to ensure that the secular-progressive battalions are supplied with plenty of resources and firepower by which to pursue their global foreign-policy strategy and radical domestic agenda." During the Talking Points portion of his January 6, 2006 Fox News program, O'Reilly reported that Lewis has donated $25 Million over the years to the ACLU since 2001. Click for O'Reilly story. A recent September 17, 2010 opinion article appeared in the Wall Street Journal that said, "The progressive left has spent the better part of a decade building an archipelago of tightly linked third-party groups: MoveOn.org, Democracy Alliance, the Center for American Progress, their spinoffs and dozens of others. Bankrolled in large part by billionaires like George Soros and Peter Lewis, and along with more traditional institutions like organized labor and the environmental lobby, these organizations are effectively a shadow party that operates outside the ambit of the Democratic Party." Lewis is listed as one of 400 richest Americans by Forbes Magazine and is noted to have donated to ACLU, as well as a lobbyist organization for the legalization of marijuana for medical use, the Marijuana Policy Project. Click for Forbes listing. The American Family Association is a conservative watchdog organization and the ACLU is opposed by many conservatives. Last updated 10/06/10

A real example of the eRumor as it has appeared on the Internet:
Progressive Insurance Company Did anyone know about these actions? This is a heads up regarding Progressive Auto Insurance. You know who they are. They're the ones with the clever television ads featuring the perky brunette actress, Flo, all dressed in white. What you might not know is that the chairman of Progressive is Peter Lewis, one of the largest funders of the left in America .. He's your typical rich spoiled kid who took over the company from his father and apparently feels guilty for his success and now dedicates himself to making It impossible for anyone else to become wealthy. Between 2001 and 2003, Lewis funneled $15 million to the ACLU, the group most responsible for destroying what's left of America's Judeo-Christian heritage. Indeed, Lewis is himself an ACLU member. One of the ACLU projects he earmarked his funds for was an effort to sue school districts who have drug testing policies. In other words, this idiot wants teachers to be able to use drugs without fear of exposure. I wonder what he would think if all his own employees came to work drugged out every day.. Lewis also gave $12.5 million to MoveOn.org and American Coming Together, two key components of the socialist left. The former group is perhaps the main group used by the Obama forces to organize their activists; the latter group is a 527 political action group that essentially served as a front for the SEIU union thugs who ran ACORN. His funding for these groups was conditional on matching contributions from George Soros, the international socialist who finances much of the Obama political network. It's disturbing that Lewis made a fortune as a result of capitalism But now finances a progressive movement that threatens to destroy The free enterprise system. He reminds me somewhat of Armand Hammer, the former head of Occidental Petroleum who did business with Joseph Stalin and became his good friend, around the same time Stalin was executing businessmen all over the USSR . What angers me further is the way this company is targeting television shows watched by conservatives such as Fox News. Peter Lewis is making a fortune off of conservative Americans so that he can destroy our country. He's banking on no one finding out who he is. I think it's time we expose this clown. Sample of eRumor from 2005: Progressive Insurance Chairman Gives $8.5 Million To ACLU In one of his recent columns, Chuck Colson relates the following story. In a Texas classroom, children were told to draw a tracing of their foot, and then put a message on the drawing. One little girl wrote "Jesus Loves Me" on hers. What happened next shows the abysmal state of religious tolerance in America. As Fox news anchor John Gibson relates in his new book, The War on Christmas, the child's teacher ripped the tracing off the board. "Don't you ever do this again," she said. The little girl burst into tears. When her outraged father called the school, nervous officials told the child to make another tracing. She did so-but this time, instead of scrawling "Jesus Loves Me," she drew a tiny cross that was so small it was almost invisible. Behind nearly every such incident you will find the ACLU. According to the New York Times, Peter Lewis, chairman of Progressive Insurance, believes in the mission and work of the ACLU so much that he gave them $8.5 million. (Do an Internet search on "Peter B. Lewis" and "ACLU." You'll be shocked by how extensive his support is!) Chairman Lewis' gift helps the ACLU promote their anti-Christmas agenda such as: Removing nativity scenes from public property Banning songs such as Silent Night from schools Refusing to allow students to write about the Christian aspect of Christmas in school projects Renaming Christmas break Winter break Refusing to allow a city sponsored Christmas parade to be called a Christmas parade Not allowing a Christmas tree in a public school Renaming a Christmas tree displayed on public property a Holiday tree In addition to their war on Christmas, the ACLU uses gifts like that from Chairman Lewis to: Sue states to force them to legalize homosexual marriage Force libraries to remove porn filters from their computers Sue the Boy Scouts to force them to accept homosexuals as scout leaders Help legalize child pornography Legalize live sex acts in bars in Oregon Protect the North American Man Boy Love Association whose motto is "sex by eight or it is too late" Censor student led prayer at graduation Remove "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance Remove "In God We Trust" on our currency Recommended action: If you have a Progressive Insurance policy, cancel it. If you don't have a Progressive policy, let Chairman Lewis know you will not be buying one. (We recommend you do not purchase Allstate Insurance. We will explain our recommendation in a future letter.) Click here if you have a Progressive policy Click here if you do not have a Progressive policy Extremely important! Please forward this to your family and friends. The vast majority of them probably aren't aware of Chairman Lewis' gift to the ACLU. Thanks for caring enough to get involved. Sincerely, Don Donald E. Wildmon, Founder and Chairman American Family Association P.S. Please forward this e-mail message to your family and friends!