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Religious Freedom Commissioners ‘Flattered’ by China’s Sanctions

The leaders of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) said Sunday they are “flattered” to be on the list of those the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has sanctioned.

Gayle Manchin and Tony Perkins, the chairman and vice chairman of the USCIRF, wrote in Sunday’s Wall Street Journal that the CCP sanctions represent “a desperate attempt to silence international scrutiny of Beijing’s abysmal human-rights record, particularly its genocidal policies against the Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang and its persecution of other religious minorities.”

“We won’t be intimidated or silenced,” the chairmen stated, and “we are proud that USCIRF has long been at the forefront in exposing the Communist Party’s egregious religious-freedom violations.”

They went on:

In fact, we’re flattered by the Chinese government’s recognition for our work in defending religious freedom in China, as we join an increasing list of courageous American, European and other officials on whom the party has likewise applied sanctions for standing up to a regime that has violated its obligations under the Genocide Convention.

As Breitbart News reported, last summer the USCIRF accused the Chinese government of creating “an Orwellian surveillance state with an unprecedented ability to gather private information about its citizens,” which it is using to monitor Christians and other religious minorities.

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Christian Communal Life vs. Communism

“Those who believed shared all things in common; they would sell their property and goods, dividing everything on the basis of each one’s needs.”

Thus does the Acts of the Apostles describe the “communal life” of the early Christians.

This, I think, is the root of the attraction some Catholics feel toward the communist ideal: what we might call the “commune-ism: of the early Church, as distinct from modern day communist systems.

Indeed, Catholics drawn to the communist ideal will point out that “true communism” has never actually existed on a large scale, national level. I would submit that it never will, because it never can.

The communal approach of the early Church is easily seen as the Christian ideal. It has flourished, in various forms, throughout the history of Catholicism, in monastic life, among certain religious orders, in some lay movements and communities.

It works for several reasons: it is voluntary, the communities are small, and all who participate believe in and are committed to its ideals.

And these are precisely the reasons that large scale, government-imposed communist systems do not work—and are morally unacceptable.

They deny human freedom. One does not have to be a “greedy capitalist” to want one’s own property—to be in business for oneself, to work one’s own land, or just to have a home for one’s family.

As Pope Leo XIII made clear in Rerum Novarum, his seminal encyclical on Catholic social teaching, the Church upholds the right of the individual to own property as the just fruits of one’s labor.

We are all free to voluntarily give away what we have, or decline to possess anything of our own. And yes, our Church teaches that we ought not hoard more than we need, while others suffer from want. But it is morally wrong for a coercive government to dispossess us of what is rightfully ours, to force us into a communal way of living that we do not choose for ourselves.

The vastness and diversity of large-scale communist societies also make them unworkable and morally problematic.

It is one thing for a small group of like-minded people to come together voluntarily in a commune, all holding the same beliefs and values and agreeing to the same rules and practices, the appropriate use of their shared resources, and the relinquishing of personal freedom and individual possessions.

It is quite another thing to force together an entire nation of diverse people, with different values, different religious beliefs, different priorities in their lives, require them to surrender any freedom to act according to their beliefs, values, and priorities, and deny them the discretion to use the resources they have earned in furtherance of those beliefs, values, and priorities.

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China Experiments With Digital Money That Expires

  • Citizens will be forced to spend digital money and not save
  • China’s current experiment is “capital controls” on steroids, when compared to 2013 Cyprus “bail-ins”

China is experimenting with digital money with an expiration date, meaning that citizens will be forced to spend and not save.

The “digital yuan” could usher in an era of total population control as people who aren’t allowed to save money will be more dependent on the government.

“Beijing has tested expiration dates to encourage users to spend it quickly, for times when the economy needs a jump start,” according to an article by the Wall Street Journal which practically endorses the Keynesian ideology behind China’s experiment.

“…China’s version of a digital currency is controlled by its central bank, which will issue the new electronic money,” the article added. “It is expected to give China’s government vast new tools to monitor both its economy and its people.”

When compared to the Cyprus “bail-ins” of 2013, in which thousands of people saw money in their savings accounts confiscated to “save” the island’s banks, China’s current experiment is “capital controls” on steroids.

“Beijing is also positioning the digital yan for international use and designing it to be untethered to the global financial system, where the U.S. dollar has been king since World War II.”

And, of course, because it’s a digital currency, people can’t use it outside the control of the Chinese government.

For the past several years, both China and Russia have been moving away from using the U.S. Dollar as a reserve currency, which could trigger a meltdown of the American economy as the U.S. has relied on global demand for the dollar to prop up its decades-long trade deficit.

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27-Year-Old Resident Doctor Dies Months After Receiving COVID Vaccine

A 27-year-old man who was administering COVID vaccines in Chicago suddenly died just months after he took his second dose of the Pfizer shot.

Joshimar Henry, a resident doctor working with the PGY1 program (pharmacy) at Humboldt Park Health in Chicago, Illinois, was “honored to be a part of administering the 2nd dose of the Pfizer vaccine to the first 5 recipients in Chicago.”

“While I understand the hesitancy of many regarding receiving the vaccine, I’d like to encourage all those who qualify to be vaccinated. Initially I was also hesitant but was reassured with some research and clarifying my doubt through reading,” Henry wrote in a January Facebook post.

He continued, “Many of my colleagues likewise have received the vaccine and have not experienced any severe side effects. I have received the vaccine myself and only experienced shoulder soreness thus far. I do believe that the benefits of this vaccine certainly outweigh the risks given its low side effect profile. Be safe everyone and continue to practice social distancing.”

https://www.facebook.com/joshimar.henry/posts/10158833306239496

Henry was seen administering a vaccine in a screenshot of the ABC 7 Chicago report he shared on Facebook.

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Top Republican Posts Video of ‘Child Abuse’ at Texas Border Patrol Facility

House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) posted video footage of numerous unaccompanied children being housed in a Donna, Texas, Border Patrol facility and said it’s tantamount to “child abuse.”

“I visited the Donna processing facility yesterday … This is the devastating result of their disastrous left-wing immigration agenda. RT so everyone can see what they’re trying to hide. This is child abuse,” Scalise wrote on Twitter on April 10.

The video showed what appeared to be possibly hundreds of children covered in aluminum-style blankets, packed next to each other in transparent pens. The sound of people talking loudly in the background can be heard.

A day before releasing the video, Scalise, the No. 2 Republican in the House, posted a video of himself talking near a section of the U.S.-Mexico border.

“This is out of control. It’s the middle of the night. We’ve seen dozens of children flow freely across the border in just the past few minutes,” he said in a tweet as dozens of people who appear to be trying to cross the border illegally walk past him.

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Police and Protestors Face Off at the Fence Blocking GraceLife Church

Hundreds of people showed up Sunday to protest at the site of GraceLife Church (GLC) in Spruce Grove, Alberta. GLC has insisted that its members were not among the protesters, some of whom at one point started tearing down the fence surrounding the shuttered church. 

“Grace Life Church appreciates the public outpouring of support to fully open churches in Alberta,” said GLC in a statement issued by Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF), which represents the congregation and its pastor, James Coates. “Grace Life Church congregants were not at the protest that occurred on Sunday, April 11, 2021 near the Church’s facility. Grace Life Church recognizes the place for peaceful protest within the context of a democracy.” The church’s statement continues:

Grace Life Church has no control of our Church or grounds at this time. The Church grounds are fully under the responsibility and control of the RCMP [Royal Canadian Mounted Police] and Alberta Health Services [AHS]. The closing of the Grace Life facility has understandably resulted in significant public outrage and caused even larger crowds to gather in one place. Albertans have a constitutional right to assemble, associate, and worship. By taking the measures the government has, while the matter is still pending before the Courts, the Alberta Government has created an even more divisive situation.

It is time to end these unscientific, unjustified and arbitrary lockdown measures.

Hundreds Show Up to Protest at GraceLife Church 

AHS shuttered GLC last Wednesday, erecting a fence around the property two weeks after Pastor James Coates was released from prison for ignoring public health restrictions. The congregation has been disregarding a 15 percent capacity limitation on in-person worship. AHS released a statement saying it has “physically closed GraceLife Church (GLC) and has prevented access to the building until GLC can demonstrate the ability to comply with Alberta’s Chief Medical Officer of Health’s (CMOH) restrictions.”

Groups that organized Sunday’s protest included Walk for Freedom, which describes itself as “a UNITED front for various movements and peoples to rally and peacefully promote breeches to our civil liberties across Alberta.” Walk for Freedom told people to meet at 6 a.m. Sunday in Calgary and to arrive at GLC by approximately 10 a.m.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police issued a news release ahead of the protest warning that there would be increased traffic enforcement Sunday along the roads near the church building. The notice warned, “Parking north of Highway 627 on Enoch Cree First Nation and parking or stopping on the highway itself is not permitted.”

In addition to increased traffic restrictions, police set up a blockade in front of the church. CTV News said “dozens of RCMP cruisers” were present and authorities also had tow trucks to remove vehicles that were blocking the highway. 

Video journalist Laura Krause, who documented the events of the day, reported that people had started arriving by 9:30 a.m.

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‘A Demented Pervert’: Sidney Powell Goes Off on Joe Biden (video)

Attorney Sidney Powell joined radio host Rose Tennent to discuss her ongoing efforts to expose the fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

During the interview, Sidney Powell predicted that Maricopa County’s upcoming audit will reveal over 100,000 fraudulent ballots in Arizona.

Maybe that explains why Democrats sent their top Attorney Mark Elias to stop the audit before the fraud is revealed.

Sidney then took a swipe at Joe Biden in her own colorful way.

Sidney Powell:  “Just realize they took the two most pathetic candidates in the history of the Democratic Party.  A vice president who didn’t even win a primary in her own state.  And a demented pervert, among other things, who can’t even tie his own shoelaces or know where he is and they crammed them up our nose with a fork of fraud so blatant that it is visible around the world.”

This was an excellent interview with Rose Tennent.

Pope Francis Calls For “Global Governance” And Vaccines For All

Pope Francis has officially called for “global governance” and held up the goal of “universal vaccines” in an April 4 letter—a letter in which God is mentioned only once, but vaccines mentioned three times.

The letter was sent to the Spring 2021 virtual meeting (April 5-11) between the globalist World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) and delivered through Peter Cardinal Turkson, Prefect of the Holy See’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.

In the letter, the Pope says the Covid-19 pandemic forced the world to “confront a series of grave and interrelated socio-economic, ecological, and political crises.” Francis brought up one of his favorite topics, climate change, claiming, “We are, in fact, in debt to nature itself, as well as the people and countries affected by human-induced ecological degradation and biodiversity loss.”

Francis’s language sounds similar to that of the globalist founder of the World Economic Forum (WEF), Klaus Schwab, who designed the anti-Catholic “Great Reset,” a plan heavily dependent on a “green financial agenda.” Francis has sent addresses to WEF already four times during his eight years as pope and has permitted a Vatican roundtable at WEF’s annual Swiss conference site, Davos.

Pope Francis also refers to the secular fraternity outlined in his recent encyclical Fratelli Tutti, and calls for “a justly financed vaccine solidarity,” which, according to him, is necessary to fulfill “the law of love and the health of all.”

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Blinken Criticizes China, Says ‘Need to Get to the Bottom’ of COVID-19 Origin

China’s failure to provide access to global health experts made the COVID-19 pandemic worse than it had to be, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said on Sunday, and it was important to “get to the bottom” of the origin of the novel coronavirus.

The top U.S. diplomat’s sharp words underscored criticism from other members of the Biden administration over Beijing’s lack of transparency in the crucial early days of the pandemic.

China did not give access to international experts or share information in real time to provide true transparency, Blinken said in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

As a result, the virus “got out of hand faster and with, I think, much more egregious results than it might otherwise,” Blinken said.

The World Health Organization director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on March 30 that data was withheld from WHO investigators who traveled to China to research the origins of the pandemic.

A WHO report, written jointly with Chinese scientists, released at the time said the virus had probably been transmitted from bats to humans through another animal, and that a lab leak was “extremely unlikely” as a cause.

Tedros said the issue required further investigation.

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Apple’s Battle With Fortnite Maker Epic Games Intensifies As Lawsuit Challenges 30% App Store Commission

TOPLINE

Apple plans to argue that it faces stiff competition in the video games market and that gamers would suffer should Fortnite developer Epic Games succeed in its legal battle to overturn Apple’s App Store policies, according to court documents the company filed Thursday, reiterating accusations that the lawsuit is part of a carefully curated PR campaign to revive interest in Fortnite. 

KEY FACTS

  • Apple unveiled its plan of attack against Epic in filings submitted to a California federal court Thursday ahead of a no jury trial in early May, resisting allegations of anticompetitive behavior by arguing the 30% levy it places on developers is standard across the industry.
  • The argument rejects Epic’s claim that the more than 1 billion iPhone users, who must use the App Store to install software, is an independent market that Apple has control over, saying gamers and developers have options to use games across multiple platforms.
  • Though Apple’s 30% commission on App Store sales is levied through the App Store, Apple said gamers have options to purchase in-game items on other platforms to use on the platform.
  • Apple also said the billions of dollars it spends in developing the infrastructure that underpins the App Store justifies its fee, adding that Epic had “benefited handsomely” from this arrangement and earned more than $700 million from its users in the two years that the popular Fortnite game was available on the store.  
  • The tech giant also criticised the splashy public relations campaign Epic launched with the lawsuit, which was known internally as Project Liberty and portrayed the company as an underdog fighting Apple’s oppression. 

KEY BACKGROUND

The outcome of this lawsuit could determine the future of the digital marketplace and is part of a litany of investigations and lawsuits questioning the reach of big tech. Apple, and in particular its role of gatekeeper for what apps can appear on its devices, has been the focus of increasing regulatory scrutiny and criticism from developers and competition watchdogs around the world. The European Commission, for example, has four antitrust probes into Apple open, three of which involve the App Store. Epic has spearheaded the private sector opposition to Apple’s practices, which is now part of a larger movement of tech companies, including Spotify, Match Group and Tile.

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