THE CHURCH MILITANT
Ephesians 5:11-"And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them". This Christian News Blog maintains a one stop resource of current news and reports of its own related to church, moral, spiritual, and related political issues, plus articles, and postings from other online discernment ministries, and media which share the aims to obey the biblical commands to shed light on and refute error, heresy, apostasy, cults, and spiritual abuse.
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Ukraine’s parliamentarian Andriy Derkach, who is heading a criminal case on interference in the 2016 U.S. elections, revealed on Wednesday that former Vice President Joe Biden was funneled $900,000 for “lobbying activities,” by Burisma Group, where his son Hunter Biden has sat on the board of directors since 2014.
Derkach provided charts and images showing the connection between Burisma and U.S.-based company Rosemont Seneca Partners, which was co-founded by Hunter Biden.
“This was the transfer of Burisma Group’s funds for lobbying activities, as investigators believe, personally to Joe Biden through a lobbying company. Funds in the amount of $900,000 were transferred to the U.S.-based company Rosemont Seneca Partners, which according to open sources, in particular, the New York Times, is affiliated with Biden. The payment reference was payment for consultative services,” Derkach said.
Hunter Biden and Rosemont Seneca co-founder Devon Archer, who is Burisma’s Independent Director, were also paid big bucks by the Ukrainian gas company according to Derkach.
“According to the documents, Burisma paid no less than $16.5 million to [former Polish President, who became an independent director at Burisma Holdings in 2014] Aleksander Kwasniewski, [chairman of the Burisma board of independent directors] Alan Apter, [Burisma independent director] Devon Archer and Hunter Biden [who joined the Burisma board of directors in 2014],” he said.
Continuing, Derkach added, “Using political and economic levelers of influencing Ukrainian authorities and manipulating the issue of providing financial aid to Ukraine, Joe Biden actively assisted closing criminal cases into the activity of former Ukrainian Ecology Minister Mykola Zlochevsky, who is the founder and owner of Burisma Group.”
Since Derkach’s press conference took place in Ukraine, the images and his presentation were in Ukrainian.
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Joe Biden is projecting his own panic on the president as he stumbles down the campaign trail.
However, Joe Biden does have a reason to panic.
A retired CIA officer recently told the Washington Examiner, “From everything we know about the whistleblower and his work in the executive branch then, there is absolutely no doubt he would have been working with Biden when he was vice president. As an experienced CIA official on the NSC with the deep knowledge of Ukraine that he demonstrated in his complaint, it is probable that the whistleblower briefed Biden and likely that he accompanied him on Air Force Two during at least one of the six visits the 2020 candidate made to the country.”
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s parliamentarian Andriy Derkach, who is heading a criminal case on interference in the 2016 U.S. elections, revealed on Wednesday that former Vice President Joe Biden was funneled $900,000 for “lobbying activities,” by Burisma Group, where his son Hunter Biden has sat on the board of directors since 2014.
Derkach provided charts and images showing the connection between Burisma and U.S.-based company Rosemont Seneca Partners, which was co-founded by Hunter Biden.
Derkach added, “Using political and economic levelers of influencing Ukrainian authorities and manipulating the issue of providing financial aid to Ukraine, Joe Biden actively assisted closing criminal cases into the activity of former Ukrainian Ecology Minister Mykola Zlochevsky, who is the founder and owner of Burisma Group.”
How long Joe Biden can maintain his delusions marinated in hubris is anyone’s guess.
Perhaps he will simply shuffle back into the same box of losers he came from.
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2020 Presidential Democratic Candidate Beto O’Rourke vowed Thursday to make it a “priority” of his administration, if elected, to revoke the tax exempt status of Christian churches and organizations that oppose “same-sex marriage” or deny “full human rights” and “full civil rights” to those who identify as LGBTQ+.
O’Rourke, a former Texas congressman who hopes to obtain the Democrat Party’s nomination for president, made the comments during a CNN town hall meeting that was dedicated to so-called LGBTQ+ issues.
“Do you think religious institutions like colleges, churches, charities – should they lose their tax exempt status if they oppose same-sex marriage?” CNN’s Don Lemon asked of O’Rourke.
“Yes,” O’Rourke said immediately, drawing much applause from the audience in Los Angeles. “There can be no reward, no benefit, no tax break for anyone, or any institution, any organization in America that denies the full human rights and the full civil rights of every single one of us,” O’Rourke stated. “So as president we’re going to make that a priority and we are going to stop those who are infringing on the rights of our fellow Americans,” he added.
How can we protect kids from sexual exploitation?
This 3-part program will dive into the increasingly early exposure of children to sexual messages, images, and themes at younger and younger ages, including through social media, school curriculum, and controversial medical treatments to treat gender dysphoria.
Expert panelists will discuss the problems faced by parents and children, educators, and medical professionals—and highlight why it's critical to preserve parental rights, freedom of conscience, and free speech in order to protect children from unwanted sexualization.
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government has declared that Iran's call to obliterate the State of Israel is not an expression of antisemitism.
On October 1, Merkel’s Foreign Ministry labeled the call to destroy Israel by commander-in-chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Gen. Hossein Salami as “anti-Israel rhetoric.”
When the Post asked the Merkel administration if it agreed with the Foreign Ministry statement, a government spokesman told The Jerusalem Post: “We have nothing to add to the reply of the foreign office.”The Post had specifically asked if Salami’s statements were antisemitic.In late September, Salami delivered his call to exterminate the Jewish state before an audience of IRGC leaders that was publicized by the state-funded IRNA agency, as well as other Iranian regime-controlled outlets.Salami said that “This sinister regime must be wiped off the map and this is no longer… a dream [but] it is an achievable goal.”He added that his country has “managed to obtain the capacity to destroy the impostor Zionist regime” 40 years after the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Germany’s Foreign Ministry issued the following statement in German and English: “We condemn the recent threats by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps against Israel in the strongest possible terms. Such anti-Israel rhetoric is completely unacceptable. Israel’s right to exist is not negotiable. We urge Iran to commit to maintaining peaceful relations with all states in the region and to take practical steps to de-escalate tensions.”
When asked on Twitter why German Ambassador to Iran Michael Klor-Berchtold did not tweet the statement in Persian and why the German Foreign Ministry did not translate the comment into Persian, both the Foreign Ministry and Klor-Berchtold declined to answer.Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the chief Nazi-hunter for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told the Post on Monday that “The condemnation by the German Foreign Ministry of the recent threats to destroy Israel by Hossein Salami, commander of the IRGC, seems to ignore the starkly antisemitic dimensions of his comments. To reduce them to ‘anti-Israel rhetoric’ is to ignore the obvious antisemitic component and their genocidal intent.”Zuroff, a widely acknowledged expert on antisemitism who oversees the Wiesenthal Center’s Jerusalem office, added that “The verbal condemnation of the German Foreign Ministry should be accompanied by practical steps to expel Iran from UN and to boycott all commerce with the fanatic fundamentalist Islamic regime, instead of [Germany] promoting business with Iran and seeking ways to circumvent sanctions against a terrorist regime in Tehran.”The United States classifies Iran’s clerical regime as the leading international state-sponsor of terrorism.Prof. Gerald Steinberg, founder and president of NGO Monitor and professor of Political Studies at Bar-Ilan University, told the Post that “The Germans, and Merkel in particular, should be the first to condemn Iran’s genocidal threats against the Jewish state as antisemitism. Instead, by taking refuge behind the canard that ‘anti-Israel’ language can be distinguished from antisemitism, they undermine the international consensus behind the IHRA [The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance] working definition.”Steinberg, an expert on contemporary antisemitism, added “Every aspect of Iran’s campaign to destroy Israel is anchored in hatred of Jews and Jewish national self-determination, including many of the images that echo Nazi propaganda. In the time she remains in office, Merkel should give high priority to undoing the damage she has done by failing to confront Iran.”In February, the German Foreign Ministry participated in a celebration of Iran’s Islamic revolution at the Iranian Embassy in Berlin. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said he went into politics “because of Auschwitz.”Also in February, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier sent a telegram to the mullah regime in Tehran that praised Iran’s revolution.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan used his United Nations General Assembly speech last week to blast Israel as the cause of "injustice" in the Middle East and vow that his country "will continue to stand by the oppressed people of Palestine as she has always done." But a new report by Israel's Meir Amit Intelligence and Information Center, as well as new sanctions announced by the U.S. Treasury Department, make it clear that Erdogan is in no position to cast aspersions.
"Turkey turns a blind eye to Hamas's covert operational and financial activity being carried out from its territory (which has recently been demonstrated in the American sanctions) and regularly denies its existence," the Meir Amit center reported.
"[T]he latest American designations clearly demonstrate that Turkey continues to be used as a hub for Hamas's operational and financial activity, even after the departure of Saleh al-Arouri," the Meir Amit report said. Arouri, a founder of the Hamas military wing and a member of the Hamas political bureau, lived in Turkey until last year.
During his time in Turkey, he helped plot Hamas terror attacks. He claimed credit on behalf of Hamas for the 2014 kidnapping and murder of three Israeli yeshiva students. Later that year, the Shin Bet "uncovered an extensive Hamas military network which operated in Judea and Samaria. Its operatives had planted IEDs in Samaria. They [were] handled by Hamas's headquarters in Turkey," the Meir Amit report said. "Hamas's military operatives who were trained abroad (in various countries, including Turkey) participated in this activity."
For his part, Erdogan considers Hamas a "liberation movement" and denies that it is a terrorist group.
While it supports the Palestinian-Arab cause, Turkey denies autonomy to more than 15 million Kurds and even represses the use of the Kurdish language. It has bombed Kurdish civilians. It occupies much of northwestern Syria and has engaged in ethnic cleansing against the Kurds there. Turkish warplanes bombed a hospital in Afrin during its invasion of the Kurdish enclave last year, independent analysis by Bellingcat, a citizen journalism organization that focuses on war crimes and criminal activities, showed.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Treasury Department announced sanctions on Hamas leaders and ISIS facilitators living in Turkey.
Those include Zaher Jabarin, who heads Hamas' finance office from Turkey and manages tens of millions of dollars in Hamas money. Jabarin's transfers of U.S. dollars "finance HAMAS's terrorist activity," the Treasury statement said. Like Arouri, Jabarin was one of the founders of the Hamas military wing in Judea and Samaria. Jabarin was in charge of a Hamas squad that abducted and murdered Israeli border policeman Nissim Toledano in 1992, the Meir Amit report said.
"Jabarin has served as the primary point of contact between Hamas and the [Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp –Quds Force] IRGC-QF. Since 2017, his relations with them were enhanced based on Hamas operatives' efforts to increase funding from Iran," the report said.
Treasury also targeted the Turkey-based Redin Exchange as "a key part of the infrastructure used to transfer money" to Hamas. Redin transferred $10 million to the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas' military wing, in March.
Redin also facilitated a $2 million transfer last year from the IRGC-QF and Hezbollah to Hamas. Its deputy CEO, Ismail Tash, was the primary contact in numerous Iran-Hamas money transfers, the Meir Amit report found.
Erdogan's inner circle has encouraged bloodshed between Israel and the Palestinians by providing assistance to the al-Qassam Brigades. Israel's Shin Bet arrested two suspects last year linked to the Turkish private military company SADAT, which run by top Erdogan military adviser retired Brig. Gen. Adnan Tanriverdi. It accused them of helping Hamas' military buildup by providing money and weapons to the terrorists. SADAT's website calls for the use of military force against Israel. Meir Amit reportedthat Jabarin had recruited the men under instructions from Arouri.
"The liaison of Palestine with the globe should not be left at the mercy of Israel. This requires open support by Islamic countries. Every effort should be made, including use of force," SADAT says on its website.
Erdogan presented Turkey as a terrorism fighter, saying Turkey killed ISIS fighters in areas of Syria it occupies. He glossed over Turkey's clandestine support for ISIS in Syria.
"Turkey has been the country most influenced by the [ISIS] threat; this terrorist organization has harassed our borders and targeted our cities very near the borders with suicide bombings that have killed hundreds of Turkish citizens," Erdogan said. "Turkey is the first country that has delivered the heaviest blow to the [ISIS] presence in Syria."
Internal documents and whistleblowers tell a different story — one of a country that plays both sides when it comes to ISIS. Leaked emails from Erdogan's son-in-law and current Turkish finance minister, Berat Albayrak, showed his connection to an ISIS oil smuggling operations.
The Treasury Department sanctions also targeted several Turkish companies that "materially assisted ... or provided financial, material, or technological support" to ISIS.
Turkey's intelligence agency, the MIT, conspired to bus ISIS jihadists across Turkish territory, leaked Turkish wiretaps show. At least 15,000 ISIS fighters entered Syria that way, Abdullah Bozkurt, former editor of Turkey's Today's Zaman newspaper, told the Investigative Project on Terrorism (where we both work) in February.
Turkish police were told not to arrest ISIS fighters traveling to Syria, said former Turkish National Police official Ahmet Yayla.
Turkey provided ISIS with drones and munitions, an ISIS fighter detained by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) who was interviewed by the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism said. He and a Palestinian-Arab ISIS fighterheld by the SDF said that Turkish hospitals provided medical assistance to wounded ISIS terrorists.
"Like me, thousands of ISIS members have been treated in Turkey. Everyone knows that Turkey is the mother of all jihadist groups," said former ISIS fighter Islam Ahmed Muhammed Balusha. "This applies to the jihadist groups in Syria, Iraq, Libya, and even from Palestine to Afghanistan. Turkey has supported the ISIS massively."
Erdogan's party, the AKP, allegedly used ISIS to attack political opponents.
EU INTCEN, the European Union's intelligence arm, reportedly suggested the AKP ordered an October 2015 ISIS suicide bombing at a peace rally in Ankara that killed 109 people.
Erdogan's pretense of being the savior of the region's problems belies the fact his government has become a major terrorism supporter and is guilty of everything he criticizes Israel of doing.
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Apple has removed a police-tracking app used by Hong Kong protesters after state-run Chinese media criticized the company for green-lighting the app.
The company removed the app hours after China’s official newspaper questioned Apple of whether it was acting as an “accomplice to the rioters.”
The app was similar to the US-based navigation app Waze which allows users to report police locations.
“The app displays police locations and we have verified with the Hong Kong Cybersecurity and Technology Crime Bureau that the app has been used to target and ambush police, threaten public safety, and criminals have used it to victimize residents in areas where they know there is no law enforcement,” Apple said in a statement released Wednesday.
Hours before, on late Tuesday night, The People’s Daily blasted Apple for approving the app in the first place.
“The developers of the map app had not hidden their malicious motive in providing ‘navigation’ for the rioters,” the newspaper stated. “Apple chose to approve the app in the App Store in Hong Kong at this point. Does this mean Apple intended to be an accomplice to the rioters?”
Given the timeframe, it would appear that the Chinese government’s criticism was more influential in the app’s removal than the other factors Apple suggested.
The anonymous developer of the app responded to the criticism by stating the app fell squarely within the realm of free speech and public domain.
“Protest is part of our freedom of speech and I don’t think the application is illegal in Hong Kong,” the developer said, according to FT. “It merely consolidates information that is already available in public domain, e.g. Telegram groups.”
A 13-year-old girl was arrested by a school resource officer at a Kansas middle school when she made a gun gesture with her fingers and pointed it at four classmates, officials said. The youth was hauled out of Westridge Middle School in Overland Park in handcuffs and slapped with a felony charge for threatening. School officials had reached out to police about the student using an online portal 'which allows for reporting of safety concerns,' cops said in a press release about the September 18 incident. A source who spoke with the Kansas City Star explained the student was in class when she was asked by another child, if she could kill 5 people, 'who would they be?'In response, the student made the gun gesture with her fingers, and pointed it at four classmates, before then turning the pretend firearm on herself, the source said. The gesture got the youth sent to Principal Jeremy McDonnell's office. The other youths involved also were spoken to, the Star reports. School officials reached out to police about the student from the Westridge Middle School (pictured above) using an online portal 'which allows for reporting of safety concerns,' cops said in a press release about the September 18 incident The youth was then questioned by Shawnee Mission school district officials and the school resource officer. 'The student, as well as another student, affirmed the actions which constituted the potential threat,' cops said in the release. 'The Police Officer, after interviews and consideration, arrested the juvenile and transported the student to an appropriate facility,' police said. The girl 'unlawfully and feloniously communicated a threat to commit violence, with the intent to place another, in fear, or with the intent to cause the evacuation, lockdown or disruption in regular, ongoing activities …' or created the risk of causing fear, according to Johnson County District Court documents. The finger gesture, similar to how children do the same when playing cops and robbers, got the youth sent to Principal Jeremy McDonnell's office. The other youths involved also were spoken to, the Star reports. McDonnell is pictured above.No additional details were provided about the child, due to her age. A school district spokesman said the decision to arrest the student was solely made by cops, and not school officials. 'We don't arrest students,' district spokesman, David A. Smith, told DailyMail.com. A hearing is scheduled in the juvenile division of the District Court of Johnson County next Tuesday, reports the Kansas City Star. The girl, however, is no longer in Kansas, and is now living in California, said her grandfather Jon Cavanaugh. 'I think this is something that probably could have been handled in the principal's office and got completely out of hand, Cavanaugh told the Star. The child has no access to handguns and did not intend to cause harm, he said. 'She was just mouthing off.' Cops pointed out that the Westridge Middle School (pictured abo
A 12-year-old girl was hauled from school in handcuffs and charged with a felony for allegedly pointing her fingers in the shape of a gun at classmates in Overland Park, Kansas.
The child was arrested on Sept. 18 after she, “unlawfully and feloniously communicated a threat to commit violence, with the intent to place another, in fear, or with the intent to cause the evacuation, lockdown or disruption in regular, ongoing activities,” according to court documents reviewed by the Kansas City Star.
While school officials and authorities have reportedly declined to discuss the case, citing privacy laws, a source familiar with the course of events shared them with the Star.
“The person said that during a class discussion, another student asked the girl, if she could kill five people in the class, who would they be? In response, the girl allegedly pointed her finger pistol — like the ones many children use playing cops and robbers,” the Star reports.
“Because of that gesture, The Star was told, the girl was sent to Principal Jeremy McDonnell’s office, and the other students involved were also talked to. The school resource officer recommended that she be arrested, the source said. She was detained by police and later released to her mother.”
The child is now reportedly living within California with her grandfather, Jon Cavanaugh, who says he is afraid for her future, as he has been advised she could face up to a year at a juvenile detention center if convicted.
“I think that this is something that probably could have been handled in the principal’s office and got completely out of hand,” Cavanaugh said. “She was just mouthing off.”
Cavanaugh says the child has no access to a real firearm and never intended to hurt anyone.
In 2013, a 7-year-old Baltimore boy made national headlines after he was suspended from school for allegedly chewing a pastry into the shape of a gun. A handful of similar incidents have played out since.
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In a 10-2 vote this week, members of the Burlington, Vermont, City Council passed a resolution that would allow non-citizens to vote in local elections.
Councilor Adam Roof, the resolution’s sponsor, argued that every resident should have the opportunity to vote because all are affected by local government decisions.
Roof wrote in a statement:
The right to vote is more important now than ever before. All residents have the right, in my eyes, to participate in the local democratic process, and the highest level of participation in that process is being able to cast your vote. To that end, I am pushing to expand voting rights in Burlington to all residents of the city in order to lower the barrier to participation and build a more inclusive community. The city is in a position to look at this issue again and hopefully have a different outcome on the ballot in March.
Roof also said his proposal supports the city’s Diversity and Equity Strategic Plan, which the council unanimously adopted in 2014.
“The main goal of the city’s Diversity and Equity Strategic Plan from 2014 is to create a more inclusive and engaged community, which is critical because we know that broad participation in the democratic process strengthens the entirety of the community,” Roof added.
The 82-page plan includes 31 recommendations and 49 action steps with the aim of eliminating “race-based disparities” across all city departments and in the Burlington community.
One of the two councilors to vote against the resolution was Council President Kurt Wright, who said he believes the right to vote should exclusively belong to American citizens.
“I think that’s important. I would not expect to move to another country and not become a citizen and expect to be voting in their elections,” said Wright. “We voted on this just a few years ago and the citizens of Burlington voted significantly against it so I’m not supportive of this proposal.”
Only one person spoke during the public hearing portion of the meeting. The man disapproved of the resolution and accused city councilors of pandering. He also noted that the measure could have the consequence of giving Burlington’s nonresident student population undue influence in local decisions.
“We have 40,000-plus registered voters. How many of those are nonresident college students who vote on our property taxes, our legislators, our city leadership, which includes all of you, and much more, and then move away?” the man asked.
The resolution now heads to the Charter Change Committee, where it could be added as an amendment to the city’s charter. However, it will require approval from the state legislature, where its chances of being green-lighted are uncertain.
Voters in Montepelier passed a similar measure that was approved by the state House of Representatives but ultimately stalled in the Senate. Vermont’s Republican governor, Phil Scott, has said he is not convinced by the idea of letting non-citizens vote, suggesting that such measures might violate a state law that prevents any database of non-citizens.
Burlington is the hometown of Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt), who served as the city’s mayor from 1981 to 1989.
U.S. law has prohibited non-citizens from voting in federal elections since the passage of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996.
Non-citizens who knowingly cast ballots in federal elections are subject to fines, imprisonment, and even deportation, though the law exempts from punishment any non-citizen who “reasonably believed at the time of voting” that he or she was a citizen.
Federal law leaves the matter of letting non-citizens vote in state and local elections up to the states. No states have allowed non-citizens to vote in state elections since Arkansas became the last to ban non-citizen voting in 1926.
Some local governments, however, do have authority to extend the franchise to non-citizens if they wish to. Eleven local governments, 10 of them in Maryland, presently permit non-citizens to vote in their elections. San Francisco lets non-citizens vote in school board elections.
The Constitution reserves to the states considerable discretion in deciding who gets to vote. Article 1, Section 2 only says that “Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.”
If federal prohibitions against non-citizen voting in federal elections were repealed, then, it’s possible that advocates of opening elections up to foreign nationals could begin with letting non-citizens vote for state representatives and then justify letting them vote for federal office under Article 1, Section 2.
Whatever the tactic they undertake, the movement to extend voting rights to non-citizens is clearly gaining increasing traction on the Left. And here we thought they were against foreign interference in American elections.
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Facing a massive hole in its budget, the United Nations is implementing “emergency measures” to avoid missing payroll and other obligations before the end of the year. Unsurprisingly, UN bosses are demanding that taxpayers in America and other nations hand over more money now or face global catastrophe. Even UN officials and apologists, though, have blasted the “bloated” organization for squandering massive amounts of money on everything from luxurious air travel and fancy hotels to globalist propaganda promoting its own agenda. Trump reacted to the whining by calling on the UN to go look for money elsewhere.
According to the UN, one third of all “member states” are delinquent in paying their “dues” to the UN this year. That includes the United States, which funds between a fourth and a third of the UN's overall budget, compared to Communist China's meager 8 percent. In exchange, the regime in Beijing runs almost one third of all UN specialized agencies, while an American runs just one out of 15. State Department officials said the U.S. government would pay up at some point in the fall.
While the exact numbers are hard to pin down because so many federal agencies provide so many funding streams to the UN and its maze of bureaucracies — not to mention the "peacekeeping" — official estimates suggest the U.S. government sends well over $10 billion per year. American taxpayers pay more than 185 other UN member states, combined. And in return for all that money, the UN constantly attacks Americans' liberties while praising and aiding mass-murdering regimes.
The official UN deficit is about a quarter of a billion dollars. In a letter addressed to the almost 40,000 bureaucrats based at the UN Secretariat, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, a radical socialist, sounded the alarm about the numbers. “Member states have paid only 70 percent of the total amount needed for our regular budget operations in 2019,” he complained. “This translates into a cash shortage of $230 million at the end of September. We run the risk of depleting our backup liquidity reserves by the end of the month.” If the situation does not improve, the UN could default on salaries to employees and payments to vendors very soon.
But Trump was unmoved by the whining. “So make all Member Countries pay, not just the United States!” he fumed on Twitter in his typical style. Prior to that, speaking at the UN in New York City, Trump told “world leaders” last month that the UN needed to ensure that “no member state shoulders a disproportionate share of the burden.” As of right now, the General Assembly, which UN bosses such as then-Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon have dangerously characterized as the “Parliament of Humanity,” decides how much each government is expected to hand over from their citizens.
But Americans and their elected president are getting tired of shouldering an outlandish portion of the burden. On the campaign trail, for instance, Trump noted that the UN was not a friend to freedom or the United States. He has also repeatedly blasted globalism, most recently telling the UN General Assembly that the future did not belong to globalists, but to patriots. And the UN'sraison d'etre at the moment — the man-made global-warming hypothesis — was described by Trump as a “hoax” to benefit the dictatorship enslaving mainland China. And he won the election in an electoral college landslide.
Since his victory, Trump has dealt several major blows to the UN, even before this budget impasse. For instance, in 2017, the administration managed to get the UN budget slashed by a quarter of a billion dollars. That same year, Trump announced that the U.S. government was withdrawing from the UN Paris Agreement on “climate change.” He also withdrew from several key UN organs including UNESCO, the UN's totalitarian-controlled “education” bureaucracy; and from the dictator-controlled UN “Human Rights Council,” which specializes in praising mass-murdering regimes while constantly attacking America and other nations that still enjoy some freedoms. Trump defunded a number of UN programs, agencies, and schemes, too.
As might be expected, the U.S. State Department used a more diplomatic tone to emphasize American reluctance to continue paying so much for the UN. “Overall the United States, as the largest contributor to the UN, contributes roughly $10 billion annually in assessed and voluntary contributions across the United Nations system,” a spokesman for the department was quoted as saying in media report. The Trump administration “has been very clear on its position that no one member state should pay more than one-quarter of the Organization’s budget,” the spokesman added.
Even before Trump was president, though, it was clear that there was growing bi-partisan outrage about the UN. In 2016, following a UN Security Council vote attacking Israel, leaders of both parties in Congress blasted the UN and threatened to withhold funding. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), for instance, blasted the global outfit for being “fervently anti-Israel.” And in previous Congresses, lawmakers have come very close to nixing funding for the globalist body.
Just the UN Secretariat alone has over 44,000 overpaid bureaucrats working for it, not including the tens of thousands of additional bureaucrats working at the 15 UN specialized agencies or the dizzying array of auxiliary UN outfits. Adding insult to injury, UN bureaucrats make enormous amounts of money, too, including $400 per day per diem while in New York. According to a 2012 report, there were 637 employees of the UN Development Program (UNDP) with over $1 million in their accounts. There were over 1,000 who had homes worth more than $1 million, too. Leaders at the UN pull down salaries and benefits that would boggle the mind.
Even UN officials see it. Former First Vice-President of the UN Staff Union Guy Candusso, who worked for the UN until retiring recently, slammed the global body. “Over the last 10 years, the UN has become a bloated organization, especially at the top,” he argued, adding that financial shortages in the 1990s were even worse but had somehow been solved. “If the cash crunch is considered so serious now, there should be a complete hiring freeze along with the other measures announced.”
Among the measures being taken by the UN to deal with the problem is an end to all “non-essential” travel. Why UN bureaucrats were flying around the world in luxury on “non-essential” travel paid for by taxpayer money was not made clear. Ironically, thanks partly to air travel, the UN's carbon-dioxide footprint was larger than the entire population of some of its own member states, ranging from Malta to Liberia. Even UN officials have lambasted the globalist organization for using tax money so they can fly around the world in business class or even first class, while the people who pay their salaries sit in much smaller economy-class seats or struggle to even survive.
Calls for the UN to cut spending, or scale back its commitments, or quit paying exorbitant salaries to corrupt UN officials, are not wrong — but they seriously miss the point. Yes, the UN is bloated. Yes, it wastes outlandish amounts of the public's money. But that is not the real problem. “The best thing that you can say about the United Nations is it’s mostly ineffective and a waste of money,” Representative Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who has a bill to get the United States out of the UN, told The New American magazine. “That’s the best thing you can say about it. So I’m glad that they are somewhat ineffective, but I don’t like that we waste the money.”
But rather than making it more efficient, or less corrupt, Massie and other liberty-minded lawmakers say the time has come for the U.S. government to completely ditch the UN and remove its headquarters from U.S. soil. “It’s full of dictators, and it’s also something that I don’t think our sovereign government should defer to,” Massie explained. The bill, known as the American Sovereignty Restoration Act (H.R. 204), would sever all U.S. ties and funding to the UN while evicting it from New York. The legislation is currently in the House Foreign Affairs Committee, where Democrats hope to keep it bottled up. But if they lose control of the House at the next election, an “Amexit” from the UN may well end up on the agenda.
Radical Islamic Ideology in the United Nations Dr. Duke Pesta talks with Rep. Matt Shea about Muslim Brotherhood's multi-phase plan to infiltrate the United States government, and point out proof that it's already happening.
Islam Threatens the West, Ex-FBI Official Says In this exclusive interview with The New American's Alex Newman, former FBI agent John Guandolo argues that Islamic extremism is not the threat — Islam itself is. Guandolo, who now runs Understanding the Threat, goes through Islamic scriptures to argue that jihad, sharia and killing of infidels are inherent to the Muslim religion. Unless and until the Western world is willing to acknowledge this, the threat will continue to grow, he said.
