Journalist Who Exposed CIA’s Media Control, Conspiracy with Banks, Found Dead at 56

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Dr Udo Ulfkotte, the former German newspaper editor whose bestselling book exposed how the CIA controls German media, has been found dead. He was 56.

Ulfkotte was an editor at Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one of the largest newspapers in Germany, when he published Bought Journalists, the bestselling book that cost him his job and perhaps his life.

German media, who were banned from reporting on his work in recent years, are reporting he died of “heart failure”.

Acknowledging that his life was under threat, Ulfkotte explained that he was in a better position than most journalists to expose the truth because he didn’t have any children who could be threatened.

Speaking to the Russian newspaper Russian Insider, Ulkfotte said: “When I told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Ulfkotte’s newspaper) that I would publish the book, their lawyers sent me a letter threatening with all legal consequences if I would publish any names or secrets – but I don’t mind. You see, I don’t have children to take care of.“

His fears for a war in Europe, lead him to his decision to tell the truth about corporate media being controlled by intelligence services on behalf of the financial class.

(Read more from “Journalist Who Exposed CIA’s Media Control, Conspiracy with Banks, Found Dead at 56” HERE)

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Omar Mateen’s Wife Arrested for Aiding TERROR. So STOP with the Word Games, Media!

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Earlier today the FBI announced the arrest of the widow of jihadi Omar Mateen, the man who ruthlessly killed innocent Americans — in the name of Islam — at the Pulse night club in Orlando, Florida. Noor Salman has been arrested on charges of aiding her husband in the planning of the jihadist attack. There’s one key point that the mainstream media has been leaving out of their headlines about the arrest. That’s right, instead of the headlines identifying Mateen as a jihadi, or even terrorist, they all scream some version of “mass shooter.”

Mateen’s wife was charged with “aiding & abetting the attempted provision of material support to a foreign terrorist organization.”

These are terrorism, not “shooting” charges.

Nevertheless, here is the how the New York Times reported it via headline.

nyt shooter vs terror

Here’s the CBS News headline.

cbs shooter vs terror

There are countless other stories that have some variation of the headline “mass shooter” instead of “jihadi” or “terrorist,” and this is nothing new. The American media has always preferred to keep the motive out of headlines regarding jihadi attacks so that they can push another narrative. This, purposeful headline writing is a subject we’ve covered extensively here at Conservative Review.

The word “shooter” is purposely used to push a gun control narrative. CR’s Chris Pandolfo wrote about the difference in coverage of foreign jihadi attacks by American news outfits compared to jihadi attacks on U.S. soil. Pandolfo also highlighted the difference in coverage of the Orlando ISIS inspired jihadi attack.

Other conservative writers have also pointed this out. Here’s what Charles C. W. Cooke tweeted at the time.

New York Times reporter Adam Goldman also took to Twitter to remind us all about his puff piece on Mateen’s wife.

The main stream media has made a lot of noise recently about “fake news.” There has also been pushback on misleading headlines.

In this fast paced, 24/7 social media culture, people do often just read headlines. The MSM knows this and uses it to their advantage when pushing a narrative. Today’s headlines are just another example. (For more from the author of “Omar Mateen’s Wife Arrested for Aiding TERROR. So STOP with the Word Games, Media!” please click HERE)

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The Left’s “Abortion-Armageddon” Hysteria Now in Full Force with Trump

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Remember when conservatives thought President Obama was so pro-choice he would practically require women to have abortions to both show how thankful they were that they even had such a right and to demonstrate the importance of it? No? Me neither. That’s because President Obama never said such a thing — nor did any media, right of center, speculate he might believe that. To do so would have been false, dangerously reckless, and just plain absurd.

Yet, ever since President Trump won the election, the media has been anxiously predicting the era of a woman’s “right to choose” will soon be over, as all Republicans are apparently working to curtail access to the wonder of abortion. (Strangely, nothing is said of the lives of actual babies at stake.)

In this, the Left not only acts unfairly, but misses the point altogether of where much of the conservative movement stands on abortion. Hint: It’s not in the middle of a back alley, beckoning women to get abortions via coat hangers, risking life and limb.

What Trump will do

In this New York magazine cover story, “Warning: Abortion’s Deadly DIY Past Could Soon Become Its Future,” the writer all but predicts Trump will single-handedly overturn Roe v. Wade, forcing women to have abortions illegally in secret.

Upon his November election win, Americans Googled “abortion” so much it looked like the “manifestation of collective anxiety about what would become an early flash point in the Trump administration—and a first test of whether much of the social progress of the past 40 years can be undone over the next four.”

The piece describes how our great grandmothers had to seek abortions secretly and dangerously: “This isn’t ancient history; this was the lived reality of many of our mothers and certainly of our grandmothers. And it is entirely possible that it could become our future as well.”

One of the things they worry Trump will do is what Paul Ryan, R-Wisc. (F, 52%) has often said Congress will (and attempted to do last year) — defund Planned Parenthood. The New York cover story suggests that if this were to occur:

60 percent of Planned Parenthood patients — who rely on those programs for Pap smears, breast exams, STD testing, and, of course, contraception would no longer be able to get that care from Planned Parenthood. For many, that would mean not being able to get treatment at all.

This could not be more false. Defunding Planned Parenthood simply means they won’t receive taxpayer dollars. In fact, last year the House Oversight Committee found Planned Parenthood was able to function without taxpayer subsidies. If the absence of taxpayer dollars forces the group to shut down, perhaps they never should have been in operation in the first place.

So is this an attempt by Republicans to handle taxpayer dollars wisely that doubles as an attempt to save the lives of unborn babies? Absolutely. Bloomberg did report last February abortion clinics were closing at a “record pace.” Since 2011, 162 clinics closed, not all operated by Planned Parenthood.

And while most of those closings were due to legislation, some closed because they were not fit to practice medicine — a fact that doesn’t seem to bother the Left. By contrast, the number of crisis pregnancy centers, which typically steer patients away from abortion, are growing at an alarming pace.

Babies have rights, too

New York mag explains, “The truth is, conservative activists and legislators have been chipping away at American women’s access to reproductive health care for years, with more and greater restrictions in more and more states.”

While the above might appear to the Left as a strategic maneuver to strip women of the supposed right to choose, the statistics — abortion clinics defunded or closing and crisis pregnancy centers rising — more accurately show a two-pronged effort to stop murdering babies in utero.

The piece continues:

That the right wing’s focus is not simply opposition to abortion but also reducing women’s access to contraception gives away the game: Theirs is an effort to keep women from making decisions about when, if, and under what circumstances to have children, and thereby to keep them from exerting agency over their families, their work, their partnerships, their sex lives, and their bodies.

Sigh.

Speaker Paul Ryan, when asked if birth control would still be free when Republicans repeal Obamacare, called it a “nitty-gritty detail,” and was lambasted for his callousness toward what is apparently a central issue in U.S. health care. The issue is neither central nor an “effort to keep women from making decisions about when, if, and under what circumstances to have children.”

Remind me again why and with what logic should the government provide health care, birth control et al., for free? That’s the central issue. When my husband and I were newly married and just beginning to talk through if or when we might like children, it never occurred to me the government should pay for my birth control, just like the government does not pay for my dentistry.

While they’re not always successful at implementing this, the party of limited government and fiscal responsibility sometimes tries to enforce these ideas.

Ignorance is bliss

Despite the fact that Roe v. Wade was decided decades ago, the Left still feigns outrage when conservatives try to curtail abortions by any means, legislatively or otherwise. Articles like and the New York mag story show how they even pretend to not understand why.

Over the years, conservatives have embraced science from Princeton that shows when life begins, studies from Oxford that describe how babies feel pain in the womb, and how ultrasounds change women’s minds about their babies. The Right has encouraged marches, picketing, legislation, safe clinics, care for moms and babies postpartum, and adoption. In fact, conservatives are doing this so successfully it’s spawned abortion-armageddon hysteria.

It’s baffling as to how the Left continues to insist, after four decades, that Republicans — who have repeatedly fought for women’s rights over the last century — actually care more about limiting women’s freedoms than saving lives.

It’s such an obvious truth it’s hard to know if this ignorance is feigned or real. Only one of these efforts between the two political parties is beneficial for mom, baby, dad, and society. The other is harmful, if ever progressive and “liberating.”

Conservatives can and do care about women’s rights and babies’ rights — the two aren’t mutually exclusive. And doing both doesn’t mean women are going to be forced to have abortions in back alleys; it means women might actually think twice about aborting their babies, thus sparing emotional trauma, life, and making a difference in society’s cultural makeup. That’s what conservatives are trying to do. (For more from the author of “The Left’s “Abortion-Armageddon” Hysteria Now in Full Force with Trump” please click HERE)

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History Was Just Made in the Senate — and Hell Hath Frozen Over

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If you’ve been around politics for at least five minutes or more, you learn there are certain unwritten rules that conservatives are just supposed to accept to our own detriment. And if you stick around another five minutes longer, you learn those unwritten rules are never to be applied the other way to our favor.

Until now.

Last week there was a shocking sight in Washington. Something not seen since the days when everybody smoked like John Boehner. In fact, we here at Conservative Review didn’t believe it ourselves at first, but we can now confirm that just happened.

A moderate-to-liberal Republican evolved to the Right.

That’s right my fellow randomly evolved via natural process alone primates. If there really was such a thing as Hell it would’ve instantly frozen over at the visual alone of Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. (F, 30%) standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas (A, 97%) — whom he once joked about killing on the floor of the Senate — arguing for the defunding of the United Nations, otherwise known as the progressives’ Taj Mahal.

And it even happened on MSNBC, no less.

“Jesus, take the wheel.”

“Rapture me now.”

“This is the big one. I’m comin’ for you.”

“Goodbye cruel world!”

Whichever parting words you prefer are now appropriate. For there was Graham, the sort of Republican who would typically offer to give the UN even more of our money than the Democrats ask for just to show he’s not one of us, being one of us. Of course, this leads to instant and suspicious speculation, and you really can’t blame conservatives for it. Lucy has pulled the football away from us so often we don’t even try to kick it anymore. We just embarrassingly fall down on our own when it’s offered just to get the disappointment over with.

“What did Cruz sell us out on in return?”

“Let me guess, this doesn’t really defund anything and that’s why Lindsey Grahamnesty supported it, right”

“Maybe defunding the UN isn’t a good idea at all if John McCain’s, R-Ariz. (F, 32%) lap poodle is for it?”

Far be it for Mr. Total Depravity here to be a beacon of hope, but perhaps we should just shut up listen to nana when she taught us “never look a gift horse in the mouth.” I know it seems unlikely, but perhaps Graham simply saw how overtly anti-Israel the UN’s latest actions are and decided to act on his courage of conviction?

Stop laughing. No, really, I wasn’t trying to be funny. That might’ve happened. I mean, it’s not like we just elected a reality TV star, who violated every unwritten rule of decorum and protocol, to the presidency or something.

So maybe it is a brand new day? Or maybe a leopard really never changes his spots? Or maybe we should just be adults and practice that whole discernment thing we tend to cast aside for pack-like, binary-choice thinking. Remember that adults draw distinctions, because the world — as well as the people in it — are more complicated than simple either-or at all times scenarios.

Sometimes people are right for the wrong reasons, and sometimes they’re wrong for the right ones. Sometimes the people you disagree with on everything else are right about this one thing, and sometimes the people you do agree with on everything else are wrong about this one.

In fact, I’ve found myself agreeing with Graham more in the past month than I have the past decade. Why? Because I think he’s been right, that’s why. That doesn’t mean we’re right about what we agree on, by the way, but it does mean as an adult I have a choice to make. Do I believe the truth is the truth, regardless of the one wielding it? Or do I believe truth is determined by the one wielding it? In other words, is truth its own transcendent thing to be sought and found, or do we make our own truth or determine what the truth is?

One view of truth makes you a conservative, and the other doesn’t. Can you guess which is which?

So, yes, typically Graham has not been my kind of Republican. And back when I still was a Republican it’s unlikely I was his type, too. A child considers that knowledge and doesn’t accept Graham’s help when it’s offered, but instead criticizes its own ally like Cruz for accepting it. An adult takes help whenever it’s offered, even from unconventional sources, provided it doesn’t require compromising your own integrity in return and is grateful for it.

And I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention lately, but America is suffering from a dearth of adults at the moment.

“When I was a child I thought, spoke, and reasoned as a child. When I became an adult I set aside such childish things.” – St. Paul

(For more from the author of “History Was Just Made in the Senate — and Hell Hath Frozen Over” please click HERE)

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What Obama’s Farewell Speech Revealed about His Plans for YOUR Future

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In Obama’s farewell address, he rekindled his lifelong effort to reinvigorate leftist activism, provided hints and direction for more concentrated efforts, and directed leftists as to how to go about bringing “change.”

In November I wrote two pieces here and here, that had to do with community organizing on the constitutional conservative side, to counter the obvious organizational superiority of the Left. With Obama free to take up his previous tasks with rockstar status and an extremely distraught Left, he will have the fuel to launch highly motivated leftists in every town. We must be there too.

Obama began his speech describing his beginning as a community organizer in Chicago, saying, “I began working with church groups in the shadows of closed steel mills.” His start was a direct copy of Saul Alinsky’s start to begin to radically change the minds and hearts of people through agitation.

Writing about Hillary Clinton’s ties with Saul Alinsky over the summer, I quoted Alinsky when he argued community organizer must be:

… dedicated to changing the character of life of a particular community [and] has an initial function of serving as an abrasive agent to rub raw the resentments of the people of the community; to fan latent hostilities of many of the people to the point of overt expressions… to provide a channel into which they can pour their frustration of the past; to create a mechanism which can drain off underlying guilt for having accepted the previous situation for so long a time. When those who represent the status quo label you [i.e. the community organizer] as an ‘agitator’ they are completely correct, for that is, in one word, your function–to agitate to the point of conflict.

That’s what the Left calls “community organizing.” Rubbing raw resentment and anger to the point of conflict. It is what we as Americans have been subject to during Obama’s presidency, and what has provided much of the strain we all see in the nation.

And Obama is certainly dedicated to that end. His farewell speech sought to re-dedicate his most loyal followers.

Obama called upon the Left to organize many times in his speech, including, but not limited to, these statements:

“… change only happens when ordinary people get involved, get engaged, and come together to demand it.”

“We, the People, through the instrument of our democracy, can form a more perfect union.”

“… we must forge a new social compact”

“All of us have more work to do.”

“All of us, regardless of party, should throw ourselves into the task of rebuilding our democratic institutions.”

“And all of this depends on our participation; on each of us accepting the responsibility of citizenship, regardless of which way the pendulum of power swings.”

“We, the people, give it power – with our participation, and the choices we make.”

“So you see, that’s what our democracy demands. It needs you.”

“If you’re tired of arguing with strangers on the Internet, try talking with one of them in real life.”

“If you’re disappointed by your elected officials, grab a clipboard, get some signatures and run for office yourself.”

“Show up. Dive in. Stay at it.”

“I am asking you to believe, not in my ability to bring about change, but in yours.”

“To believe that you can make a difference, to hitch your wagon to something bigger than yourselves.”

Obama’s not going anywhere.

So many have complained that Trump was butting in on Obama’s presidency, causing a dual presidency. But now the shoe is on the other foot, and leftists are outright ignoring the greatness of the Constitution’s Electoral College, calling Trump “illegitimate,” and continuing to follow Obama as their president, blowing up the rule of law in their altered reality.

But Obama didn’t just call on his followers to organize. He issued directives for his community organizers while using the founding principles we all believe in: “self-government,” and “that we are all created equal, endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

But Obama and his followers do not believe those principles. If they believed in self-government, they would put stock in themselves and God instead of the government. If they believed that we are all created equal, they wouldn’t continue to agitate one man against another while focusing on our differences. If they believed we are endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights such as life, they would be pro-life instead of pro-abortion. If they believed in Liberty, they wouldn’t engage in coercion as they did with Obamacare, and so on.

Laced throughout the speech, Obama focused leftist agitators on:

Guaranteed college education

Increased unionization

Increased welfare

Higher taxation

Continued class warfare

Radical racialization

Forced employment policies

The false flag of anthropogenic global warming

Abortion as a human right

Fighting against voter ID laws

Overturning Citizens United v Federal Elections Committee

Redistricting

Contrary to Obama’s litany of “worthy causes,” constitutional conservatives must be able to articulate the proper disposition of the Constitution as it is dragged through the mud with the Left’s unending destruction of it. We need a counter to the Alinskyites.

President Obama gave all of us a list of things to do, and it matters because he is telling us that his side will be out there in force giving the people a destructive worldview. We will see more agitating, marching, demonstrating, and rioting, but that is not the beginnings of their conspiracies.

All too often, we ignore how the Left is able to change minds and hearts. They do it by influencing our churches, our neighborhoods, our culture, our schools, and our government at local, state, and federal levels. They are directed to by their president. Constitutional conservatives must stop playing catch-up with the Left or act as spectators, giving opinions that identify what is going wrong without providing the proper way to make it go right. We can’t just complain about how the Left changes our culture. We have to be there to nip it all in the bud, and provide the corrected version of the Left’s historically inaccurate and intellectually lazy homework. (For more from the author of “What Obama’s Farewell Speech Revealed about His Plans for YOUR Future” please click HERE)

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State Department Held Workshops for Employees Dealing with Trump Transition Stress

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The Department of State held workshops in December for agency employees struggling with the emotional stress of the Trump Transition, the Washington Free Beacon reports.

The workshop, titled, “The Emotional Transition: Managing the Stress of Change,” was advertised in an agency-wide email, and employees were allowed to dedicate work time to the hour-long sessions. The sessions were held Dec. 8 and Dec. 14, a month after President-elect Donald Trump defeated former State Department Secretary Hillary Clinton in the presidential race.

“Change is an inevitable part of the human experience,” an email invitation for the workshop said, according to the Washington Free Beacon. “We can become paralyzed by fear or allow the experience of change to propel us closer to self-actualization.”

“Our perspective determines our outcome,” the State Department email continued. “This seminar is designed to discuss the impact of change; the emotional cycles some people experience when confronted with change, and tools to effectively manage the stress of change.”

The stress workshops were sponsored by State’s Bureau of Medical Services, which regularly provides “treatment for problems related to the stress of deployment to high-threat posts, overseas crises and other stressful situations encountered by Foreign Service Officers, family members and State Department employees overseas.” (Read more from “State Department Held Workshops for Employees Dealing with Trump Transition Stress” please click HERE)

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Religious Freedom under President-Elect Trump

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As we commemorate Religious Freedom Day 2017, on January 16th, we mark a year of much change and a season of much opportunity for religious freedom.

President-Elect Trump’s surprise win can be credited in part to widespread (and unforeseen) angst over eight years of an Obama administration that has increasingly meddled in individual lives and liberty. In the area of religious freedom, the federal government has picked and chosen which religious freedom claims to advance and which to ignore. While the administration has disproportionately highlighted Muslim religious rights, it has failed to defend the rights of Christians — both overseas and at home. It also only supports religious freedom claims when they do not interfere with its pet causes of promoting abortion and LGBT policies. Such selectivity and bias destroys the integrity of any religious freedom policy; unfortunately, our federal government has done exactly that.

President-Elect Trump now has an opportunity to restore the credibility of U.S. religious freedom policy, at home and abroad, by addressing these incongruities. He can do this with two simple policy adjustments:

Protect religious freedom equally for everyone. Justice is blind, and the same law must be applied neutrally and fairly to everyone, regardless of their religion, and regardless of the circumstances. Some claims will succeed and others will fail under our religious freedom laws — they have always functioned this way. The key is that all are entitled to a fair shot. Yet by prioritizing some and deprioritizing others in its policy, the Obama administration has unfairly influenced the race out of the starting gate. This approach has been incredibly destructive to the morale of anyone who cares about religious freedom. The new president can do much good merely by taking the approach that all religious claims deserve to be treated equally by the government, regardless of the faith of the individual and the context in which the claim is raised.

Protect robust religious exercise, not a stifled and limited notion of the idea advanced by the Obama administration and championed by losing presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Under the Obama administration’s view, religious freedom only applies fully within “houses of worship,” not to one’s place of business or anywhere else. Yet this is neither true under our laws nor faithful to our history. Religious freedom includes the ability to exercise one’s religious beliefs in all spheres of life; indeed, this is reflected domestically in our First Amendment and internationally in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Despite what the Obama administration would wish, religious freedom simply doesn’t exist when the Little Sisters are forced by the government to violate their consciences by helping provide abortion-causing drugs to their employees — as the administration tried to force them to do. These nuns did not have religious freedom under the administration’s proposals, despite what the government tried to claim. This must be corrected.

Policy changes in these two areas apply to our international religious freedom efforts as well. The Obama administration has failed to properly prioritize religious freedom in our international affairs, and has abandoned our historical role as a strong religious freedom and human rights defender around the world. President-Elect Trump has an opportunity to change this, and re-engage the United States on this critical issue worldwide by defending the right of all to freely choose and live out their beliefs. Marginalized peoples around the world often look to the United States for help when they are persecuted because of their religion, and we should be there for them. A proper understanding of religious freedom demands that it be defended for all, at home and abroad.

This proper understanding of religious freedom has been dangerously eroded over the past eight years. President-Elect Trump has an opportunity to lead in restoring it, and the above two steps would be a start. (For more from the author of “Religious Freedom under President-Elect Trump” please click HERE)

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The ‘POTUS Shield’ Descends on Washington to Pray for Trump, State Governments

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A group of faith leaders and prelates gathered Thursday in Washington, D.C., to “storm heaven” in prayer for President-elect Donald Trump a week prior to his inauguration. On Friday, they prayed in small groups at the White House, the Capitol, and the Supreme Court.

The “POTUS Shield,” as they call their movement, seeks to “raise up a shield of prayer and prophetic understanding” and lead attendees in prayer, intercession, declarations and decrees over the White House, the Supreme Court and Capitol Hill, the group says on their website. “As some of the faith leaders and prophets that first heard and declared the will of God for this election process, and specifically the breaker anointing upon Donald Trump to usher in a new era; we are now assembling to humbly invoke the voice of the Lord.”

The faith leaders include E.W. Jackson, Lt. General Jerry Boykin, Bishop Harry Jackson, Dr. Alveda King, Lance Wallnau and Cindy Jacobs, among others. This leaders, says the group’s homepage, “are especially gifted to help discern and present spiritual plans to prepare the way for transformation, reformation, and revival in our nation.”

“We’re really not looking for Mr. Trump or any human to change America, but we know God can and will do it,” Dr. Alveda King, director of Civil Rights for the Unborn, told CBN News at the gathering.

The group’s mission is to be “prayerfully committed to see, to hear, to declare and decree, and to prepare the way for transformation, reformation and revival of our nation,” with the following key principles in mind:

1. To assemble, structure and activate The POTUS Shield as a powerfully interactive spiritual, apostolic, prophetic force that acts and reacts in unity, with efficiency and expedience;

2. To be a leadership forum that is inclusive and embraces the Bible believing Body of Christ, with a Kingdom heart to embrace the Body of Christ as One, even as prayed by our Lord as written in the Gospel of John, Chapter 17.

3. To connect as an apostolic network exclusively assigned to the affirmation and reformation of The United States of America as ONE nation under GOD;

4. To discern, declare, and decree the strategies of the Lord for our nation, with a special sensitivity to the three branches of the United States Government;

5. To prepare the way and coordinate the simultaneous spiritual alignment of the Kingdom shift that is manifesting and impacting the government and the Church;

6. To lay the foundation to convene in Philadelphia in March during Purim to declare a renewed covenant as the renewed United States of America, as one nation under God, and to commission and plan similar covenants in each of the 50 states in the Union.

Pastor Leon Benjamin from Richmond addressed some of the concerns of the African-American community about the Trump administration. “We must believe for the best,” he told CBN News. “It doesn’t matter who is in the White House as long as there is faith that God has not forsaken us and that He has not left us because of a transition of power. That would be dreadful for us as pastors and leaders to say ‘Oh my God, we’re doomed now!’ So we’re very hopeful.”

POTUS Shield will now begin to focus their prayer on state capitals and agencies.

(For more from the author of “The ‘POTUS Shield’ Descends on Washington to Pray for Trump, State Governments” please click HERE)

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Clinton Foundation Shuts down Global Initiative Due to Decrease in Foreign Donors Paying to Play

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The Clinton Foundation revealed last week that it will be discontinuing the Clinton Global Initiative and laying off 22 staffers. The beleaguered organization filed a report with the New York Department of Labor Thursday stating its intentions to terminate the doomed employees on April 15, reports The Observer, a New York City weekly.

The move comes in response to an ongoing FBI investigation into the foundation’s “pay-to-play” schemes, where foreign interests as well as corporate interests contributed heavily to the foundation in exchange for influencing American government, especially during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state. The IRS is also investigating the schemes.

Clinton’s Wave of Layoffs

It is a part of a wave of layoffs. According to Politico, the foundation told employees internally last September that dozens of layoffs were coming by the year’s end, and announced that it would no longer be accepting new contributions from foreign or corporate donors.

At that time, there were concerns that if Hillary won the presidency, the loose money would present multiple conflicts of interest. Bill Clinton admitted that foreign interests “may have given money to the foundation to build a relationship with the Clintons or to gain access to the State Department during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state.” At its peak, the CBI had about 200 employees. 74 were laid off at the end of last year.

Emails released by Wikileaks exposed tension within the foundation over the conflicts of interest. Top Clinton aide Doug Band expressed his concern about the ethical dilemmas in a 2011 email to John Podesta, especially in regards to Bill.

I signed a conflict of interest policy as a board member of cgi. … Oddly, wjc does not have to sign such a document even though he is personally paid by 3 cgi sponsors, gets many expensive gifts from them, some that are at home etc. I could add 500 different examples of things like this.

The Washington Post reported that “Band helped run what he called ‘Bill Clinton Inc.,’ obtaining ‘in-kind services for the President and his family — for personal travel, hospitality, vacation and the like.’” What the Post called the foundation’s “aggressive strategy” lined up “consulting contracts and paid speaking engagements for Bill Clinton that added tens of millions of dollars to the family’s fortune.”

The CGI’s Pay to Play Schemes

Typical of the pay-to-play schemes was the relation of the owner of the Russian company Uranium One to the foundation and to Bill Clinton himself. The owner contributed $2.35 million to the Clinton Foundation, which the foundation failed to report. At that time, the Russian owner was in the process of buying the company, a sale that Secretary Clinton approved. Bill Clinton also received $500,000 from a Russian bank for a Moscow speech, where he promoted Uranium One stock.

The conservative news site Heat Street cynically observed, “The Clintons have always claimed their family charitable foundation was able to raise so much money because, deep down, Saudi princes and Ukrainian oligarchs are really concerned about poor children in Haiti.”

Michael Sainato of The Observer wrote that “The Clinton Foundation‘s downward trajectory ever since since Hillary Clinton’s election loss provides further testimony to claims that the organization was built on greed and the lust for power and wealth — not charity.”

Donations stopping dropping even before Hillary Clinton unexpectedly lost the election. Every year, CGI would throw a lavish party with celebrities, heads of state and Fortune 500 CEOs. But sponsors for the annual event started dropping off after 2011, from 46 that year down to just 23 last year. Coca-Cola, Barclays and Goldman Sachs all dropped their sponsorships last year.

Foreign donors to the Foundation also began drying up. The Australian government, which had contributed over $88 million to the foundation over 10 years, ended its partnership. The Norwegian government reduced its contribution from $20 million in 2015 to $4.2 million in 2016. Since the decline in donations began after public criticism of the foundation started heightening, this appears to validate the claim that foreign interests were contributing “predicated on donor access to the Clintons, rather than its philanthropic work.”

Meanwhile, former Clinton Foundation CEO Eric Braverman has now been out of public sight for 85 days. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange that it was a disgruntled Democratic insider who leaked emails to the organization, not the Russians. Based on that statement, Braverman has been named as a possible “mole” within the Foundation. (For more from the author of “Clinton Foundation Shuts down Global Initiative Due to Decrease in Foreign Donors Paying to Play” please click HERE)

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Ben Carson’s Prescription: Get People off Government Assistance

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Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson appeared before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Thursday to share his vision for the Department of Housing and Urban Development if the Senate confirms him as its next secretary.

In early December, President-elect Donald Trump announced Carson, who was a rival contender for the White House, as his pick to lead HUD.

Here are four highlights from Carson’s appearance:

1. On government assistance.

At the hearing, Republican Sen. Thom Tillis questioned Carson about his vision of best serving those who are on government programs.

“What is the best possible thing we can do for somebody who is on government assistance?” the North Carolina senator asked.

“Get them off of it,” Carson responded.

2. His childhood experience.

Carson said in a written statement that growing up in “inner city Detroit with a single mother who had a 3rd grade education” allowed him to understand housing insecurity.

Carson credited his mother for teaching him the importance of personal responsibility, and said that if confirmed as the next secretary of housing and urban development, he would do more than just advance its programs and funding.

3. Put medical clinics in neighborhoods.

Carson said that as part of his effort to enable and serve the beneficiaries of HUD programs, he plans to potentially put medical clinics in neighborhoods so that people don’t “rely on the emergency room where it costs five times more and where you don’t get kind of follow up that would prevent you from having stage five renal disease.”

4. Will work to benefit ‘all Americans.’

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., asked Carson about his intentions to ensure that none of the money funneled through HUD would specifically benefit Trump’s real estate ties.

“My concern is whether or not, among the billions of dollars that you’ll be responsible for handing out in grants and loans, can you assure us that not one dollar will go to benefit either the president-elect or his family?” Warren asked.

Carson responded by saying that his work would be beneficial to all Americans, not just the select few.

“It will not be my intention to do anything to benefit any American, particularly,” Carson said. “It’s for all Americans, everything that we do.” (For more from the author of “Ben Carson’s Prescription: Get People off Government Assistance” please click HERE)

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