China ramping up persecution of Christians as it demands 'worship and allegiance' of Xi Jinping

 

June 11, 2023

The Chinese Communist Party escalated its persecution of Christians throughout 2022 as the country clamped down on churches and online religious content while demanding allegiance to Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to a watchdog group.

A report released last week by the U.S.-based non-governmental organization ChinaAid warned that the Chinese government is using charges of "fraud" to financially suffocate the house church movement, which consists of Christian congregations that have not registered with China's official Protestant church.

Authorities are using the traditional Christian practice of giving tithes and offerings to trump up charges against house churches under the "Measures for the Financial Management of Religious Activity Venues," which were updated last June, according to the report. The report noted that multiple house church pastors and elders have been jailed and potentially face years in prison.

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China’s Amped-Up Aggression Shows Biden’s Détente Approach Won’t Work

 

June 11, 2023

The Biden administration must discard its delusional détente with Beijing and instead focus on increasing the U.S. and its allies’ military readiness.

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Euro zone enters recession after Germany, Ireland growth revision

 

June 8, 2023

• Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany and Greece are among the euro economies that reported an economic quarter-on-quarter contraction in the first quarter.
• The lackluster economic environment also poses a challenge to the European Central Bank, which has been on a hawkish path for the last 12 months.
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PGA Tour-LIV Golf merger is a major win for the Saudis — and Americans are slamming it

 

June 7, 2023

• The two-year-long fight between the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s LIV Golf came to a stunning conclusion with the Tuesday news that the archrivals are now joining forces.
• American lawmakers, commentators and sports fans are calling the deal “hypocritical” and accusing the PGA Tour of taking “Saudi blood money” and “sportswashing.”
• Financial analysts say the merger will elevate golf globally and give it new resources to expand its fan base.
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Norway bans child sex changes, joins Finland, Sweden, and UK in rejecting gender ideology

 

June 7, 2023

Common sense and science are gradually prevailing.

Last week, the Norwegian Healthcare Investigation Board announced it would be revising its current guidelines regarding so-called " gender -affirming care" for minors because it no longer considers them to be evidence-based. The board also acknowledged that the growing number of teenage girls identifying as male post-puberty remains under-studied.

Under the proposed updated guidelines, the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and transition-related surgery would be restricted to research contexts and no longer provided in clinical settings. Norway joins Finland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom in introducing greater safeguarding for children. In the United States, eight states thus far have banned affirmative care for individuals under 18, with Tennessee being the latest to pass such legislation.

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Communist China’s Cyber Attacks Must Be Declared Acts of War

 

June 5, 2023

We have been fools. We will continue to be fooled until our politicians fight communist China’s unrestricted cyber warfare against the United States with more than hot air. The latest evidence of such warfare is a newly published Microsoft report documenting the breathtaking scope of this particular form of communist Chinese aggression.

According to that May 2023 report, the Chinese regime is aggressively probing our military infrastructure in strategic locations like Guam as it prepares to take Taiwan by military force. The irony, of course, is that Microsoft is helping the Chinese military develop artificial intelligence to create weapons of unimaginable destruction.

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Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences

 

June 4, 2023

What might change the world’s dire demographic trajectory?

In the roughly 250 years since the Industrial Revolution the world’s population, like its wealth, has exploded. Before the end of this century, however, the number of people on the planet could shrink for the first time since the Black Death. The root cause is not a surge in deaths, but a slump in births. Across much of the world the fertility rate, the average number of births per woman, is collapsing. Although the trend may be familiar, its extent and its consequences are not. Even as artificial intelligence (ai) leads to surging optimism in some quarters, the baby bust hangs over the future of the world economy.

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No Place to Hide - The Strategy and Tactics of Terrorism

How a declining birthrate could impact every American

 

June 1, 2023

Teen births hit historic low; birthrates overall well below replacement, according to provisional CDC data

Births to teenagers hit a new low in 2022, following a decades-old trend that began in 1991, despite brief increases in 2006 and 2007. And the birthrate for young women, ages 20-24, also reached a record low.

But not all birth declines are being hailed as good news. Demographic experts say reports on fertility rates are not just an interesting look at numbers. Fertility is a roadmap to aspects of the future that have great bearing on most people’s lives in one way or another, though they may not recognize it.

Population change impacts schools, economies and social programs, they say. It can impact whether you can cash out the equity in your house or how many holes the social safety net might have as you grow old.

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WHO Director Demands Sovereignty and Control Over All Member Nations Due to Global Warming Crisis

 

May 25, 2023

I thought they wanted world control only over the pandemics.  Now they have added climate change crisis for a reason to control the world.  Then what?

Former US Representative and Regent Graduate School Dean Michele Bachmann is attending the 76th World Health Assembly this week in Geneva, Switzerland.

Michele joined Steve Bannon again on Wednesday to discuss the meetings on The War Room. According to Michele, the UN, World Health Organization (WHO), Bill and Melinda Gates Society, and World Trade Organization are all represented at the meetings this week.

Michele told Steve they are not even hiding their intentions during their meetings. Michele told Steve earlier today that WHO Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who lied to the world about the COVID19 pandemic origins and mortality rate, is demanding the WHO hold “sovereignty” over all member nations due to the global warming climate crisis.

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Can the Abraham Accords transform the Middle East?

 

May 25, 2023

The third anniversary of landmark agreements between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain, known as the Abraham Accords, is approaching. Joint normalization between the Jewish state, Sudan, and Morocco later followed, growing the number of countries in the region that recognize Israel.

Now is a good time to revisit the peace treaties to see how they have reshaped the trajectory of Middle East relations.

Named after the father of three monotheistic religions founded in the Middle East — Judaism, Islam and Christianity — the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords made history as the first time in more than two decades that any country in the Middle East and North Africa region normalized ties with the Jewish state.

In 1979, Egypt became the first country in the region to establish a peace treaty with Israel, followed by Jordan in 1994.

Since the Abraham Accords were first penned almost three years ago, normalization has opened new opportunities for defense cooperation, collaboration on food and water security, and much more.

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Biden’s Border Chief Says He Can’t Explain Border Rush

 

May 10, 2023

President Joe Biden’s border chief says he can’t explain why hundreds of thousands of migrants are rushing over the border he is tasked to guard.

“Can you explain why you’ve seen this big surge [of migrants] in the last couple of weeks?” border chief Alejandro Mayorkas was asked on Friday, just six days before he lifts the Title 42 border barrier.

“It’s very difficult to identify the cause,” the pro-migration border chief responded to the reporter.

However, a Venezuelan migrant named Daniel told the May 7 New York Times why he and many other Venezuelans are sneaking into the United States: “We just want to work.”

“The goal was to provide for the children a quality life and educational opportunities,” Venezuelan Abel Oviedo told TexasTribune.org. He had settled in Colombia, and then moved to Peru, but started his family’s migration in late 2022. “I’m a hard worker,” Oviedo said.

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Why It’s Time to Treat Communist Symbols Like the Swastika

 

May 10, 2023

If someone were to ask you to think of either extreme of the political spectrum, odds are you would immediately picture a swastika at one end, and a hammer and sickle at the other. Regardless of your views of the left-right paradigm, or whether you subscribe to horseshoe theory or not, we (rightfully) tend to perceive fascism and communism as the standard ideologies of the extreme.

As such, many of us would also feel rather uneasy seeing those two symbols. Upon seeing a swastika, we are immediately reminded of the evils of the Nazi regime, and are accordingly repulsed. To publicly display the logo is even a crime in many European countries. We understand how abhorrent the ideology is, and treat it accordingly with disrespect and disgust.

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Illegal Immigration Destroys Sovereignty

 

May 10, 2023

Our ruling classes reject our right to govern ourselves.

Controversy about immigration in America is as old as the nation itself. The Declaration of Independence presents as one of the “Facts…submitted to a candid world” that “the present King of Great Britain” intends to establish “an absolute Tyranny over these States” because he has obstructed “Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither.”

The Declaration had proclaimed that “the Laws of nature and of Nature’s God” entitled the American people to assume, “among the Powers of the earth,” a “separate and equal” sovereign nation. This nation would be based on the “consent of the governed” and dedicated to the proposition that “all men are created equal.” The clear message conveyed by the Declaration was that a sovereign nation-state has plenary power over matters of citizenship and immigration.

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Biden's Border Crisis Doesn't Look Very Made Up Now

 

May 10, 2023

CBS News, April 2, 2023. "Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas won't call immigration at southern border a crisis."

USA Today, March 27, 2021. "White House says migrant situation 'not a crisis' as Biden's border czar Roberta Jacobson heads to Mexico."

CNN, April 19, 2021. "White House backtracks after Biden calls border situation a ‘crisis’."

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Weakness on China

 

May 10, 2023

The Biden administration has adopted a posture of compliance and appeasement toward Beijing.

Two years into the Biden administration the public has a solid foundation to judge its approach to the threat posed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC), especially compared to the previous administration. Trump was the first president to take major and sustained steps to combat the China threat. In contrast, Biden’s declaratory policies sound strong, but in practice, Biden and his advisers seek to return to the policies of engagement and accommodation that defined the approaches of U.S. presidents since Nixon. Because the PRC’s threat is metastatic expansion and overt belligerence, attempts to return to these failed policies will only accelerate the PRC’s aggression and narrow the window of opportunity that the U.S. possesses to defeat the PRC threat.

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Ireland’s controversial hate speech law paves the way for an Orwellian future

 

May 10, 2023

A new hate speech bill is being pushed through the Irish parliament despite an initial public consultation revealing an overwhelming number of Irish citizens oppose the controversial reforms to free speech.

Passed through the Dáil, the country’s lower parliamentary chamber last month, the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill 2022 was roundly endorsed across the political spectrum. Parties including Sinn Fein, Labour, the Green Party, Fianna Fáil, and Irish leader Leo Varadkar’s Fine Gael all backed the bill, as it received 110 votes in favor to just 14 against.

However, as is often the case, the popular legislation among politicians is less admired by the electorate and has been widely criticized by huge swathes of the Irish public and free speech advocates.

The bill has also received international condemnation with high-profile opponents including Elon Musk; Donald Trump Jr.; and Canadian scholar Jordan Peterson, a former Harvard University professor.

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Border Patrol clears way for more migrant releases to city streets, sources say: 'The dam is about to break'

 

May 9, 2023

Tens of thousands of migrants are expected to surge into the United States as Title 42 expires on May 11

The Biden administration's top border officials in Washington, D.C., have decided to authorize all Border Patrol sectors to begin "safe" mass releases of migrants to city streets if non-governmental organizations don't have the capacity to hold them, multiple sources tell Fox News.

The consequence of this decision is that migrants will be mass released at bus stops, gas stations, supermarkets and in towns and cities across the border as Customs and Border Protection facilities are already over capacity in multiple sectors, according to CBP sources who were not authorized to speak publicly. 

NGOs are quickly approaching their limits to house migrants and tens of thousands more migrants are expected to surge into the United States once the Title 42 public health order is lifted on May 11. The city of El Paso, Texas has already seen thousands of migrants camped out on the sidewalks.

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Overcommitment to NATO turns Uncle Sam into Uncle Sucker in Europe

 May 8, 2023

America has long been the biggest military spender of any of its allies, but other nations aren’t holding up their end of the bargain. It’s time to rethink NATO burden sharing, says Justin Logan of the Cato Institute, a Washington D.C. think tank that studies many public policy issues, including a more restrained foreign policy that keeps the U.S. strong for future generations.  

As of last year, the U.S. can include 50 of the world’s countries as formal allies, plus dozens of other informal partnerships. The U.S. shoulders a vastly disproportionate amount of the economic burden: While U.S. allies account for about 36% of world economic output, they contribute just 24% of global military spending. 

This imbalance allows allies to spend money on domestic priorities while U.S. taxpayers pick up the tab for their national security. Every U.S. president since Eisenhower has called this out, but the solution is far from simple. It likely involves reevaluating our alliances, pulling back from firm commitments, and following a three-pronged approach to spurring allies to take on more economic responsibility involving institutions, military deployments, and diplomatic signals. 

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The one and only password tip you need

 

May 8, 2023

OK, it’s time for me to keep a promise.

Back in October 2022, I wrote an article called Why (almost) everything we told you about passwords was wrong. The article summarizes how a lot of what you’ve been told about passwords over the years was either wrong (change your passwords as often as your underwear), misguided (choose long, complicated passwords), or counterproductive (don’t reuse passwords).

Most damningly of all, the vast effort involved in dispensing this advice over decades has generated little discernible improvement in people’s password choices. If it hasn’t quite been a wasted effort, it has certainly represented a galactically inefficient use of resources.

We know that this advice isn’t what it’s cracked up to be thanks to intrepid researchers, such as the folks Microsoft Research, who made it their business to discover what actually makes a difference to password security in the real world, and what doesn’t.

If you want the full, three-course meal version of why all the password advice you've been told stacks up to much less than the sum of its parts you can read the original article. Here's the snack version:

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