China analyst Gordon Chang, author of “The Coming Collapse of China,” discusses Chinese Communist Party paid propaganda in American news outlets, how Beijing interfered in the U.S. elections, and why China is building a massive DNA database of people all over the world.
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‘In 2009, a conman bilked members at Bethel Church in Redding, California, out of more than $650,000. Now, two shysters peddling a Ponzi scheme have reportedly struck the controversial megachurch again—this time defrauding investors of $35 million from 2015 to 2020.
Accused in a recently unsealed 31-count indictment by the Department of Justice (DOJ) is 44-year-old Matthew Piercey and his alleged accomplice, 67-year-old Kenneth Winton. Piercey is a congregant of Bethel Church. And Winton describes himself as a “God Lover” on his Facebook page where he often posts Scripture and inspirational thoughts.
“Piercey used (his two companies) Family Wealth Legacy and Zolla to solicit funds from investors using a variety of false and misleading statements, including about trading algorithms, the success of the companies’ investment strategies, and the liquidity of investments,” the DOJ said in a press release announcing the charges.
When Piercey’s outlandish claims about investment returns failed to materialize, investigators say he and Winton funneled some $8.8 million back to earlier investors, constituting a Ponzi scheme.
“Piercey entered a pattern of paying old investors lulling payments with new investor funds, while making various false and misleading statements, half-truths, and omissions to raise new money and to hide the constant downward financial spiral,” government attorneys wrote in a court filing on Nov. 17.
According to The Sacramento Bee, Piercey specifically recruited Bethel Church members as investors.
Additionally, court documents say that when Piercey learned of the FBI’s investigation into his activities, he urged investors not to cooperate with the probe. In an email to one investor, Piercey suggested that the probe was a response to a letter Piercey had sent President Trump about saving the banking system.
“In light of our emboldened focus to rescue the banking system,” Piercey wrote, “be advised I anticipate potential new levels of regulatory scrutiny.”
If Piercey truly targeted Bethel members, it would be at least the second time the church has found itself embroiled in such a scandal. In 2009, a jury sentenced Bethel congregant David Souza to 18 years in prison after he conned fellow parishioners out of between $650,000 and $947,000 using a fake investment pitch and the tagline, “Where business is moral and the miraculous is routine.”
Churches tend to be susceptible to what experts call “affinity fraud,” a scam that spreads in a tight-knit community.
“Once the fraud breaks into a group, trust is there, and the guard is dropped,” said Kevin Baker, a private investigator who previously led the FBI’s white collar crime unit in northern California. “Churches are ripe for it.”
In this case, Bethel’s theological beliefs may have also contributed: The church promotes the prosperity gospel and teaches faith healing at its School of Supernatural Ministry.
“It’s fair to say if people are already thinking outside the box, they’d be more receptive to things that are not in the mainstream,” Baker told The Roys Report.
The church seems to be aware of its potential vulnerability. On its website is a highly unusual “investing policy and disclaimer,” which reads in part: “Although we pray for miracles in economies and investments, Bethel Church board members, leaders, and management are neither financial advisors nor investment consultants and in no way represent ourselves as such.”
The statement goes on to say it is against church policy to promote or solicit investment opportunities on Bethel property and says leadership “strongly recommends that you seek expert investment advice from qualified professionals before considering any form of investment.”
Bethel communications director Aaaron Tesauro reiterated that policy in an emailed statement to The Roys Report. He confirmed Piercey and his family do attend services at Bethel but said they are not official members. He said the church was “unaware of his personal financial decisions.”
Piercey’s recent arrest drew national attention when he used an underwater “sea scooter” to attempt to avoid arrest.
Bethel also made headlines recently when a surge of more than 100 COVID-19 cases were linked to Bethel’s School of Supernatural Ministry.
According to court documents, Piercey could face, on “the low end,” life in prison for his cumulative offenses. Investigator Kevin Baker said life sentences for financial crimes are rare, but Piercey will face significant consequences if convicted.’https://ministrywatch.com/ponzi-scheme-strikes-bethel-church/
Masks will be mandated if Sleepy Joe gets the WH. So, ‘If you’re tired of wearing a visible sign of massive government overreach and ginned-up hysteria everywhere you go, do not despair. Help could be on its way, courtesy of the most unlikely source: al-Qaeda.
According to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), the jihad group is refusing to accept the State Department’s complacent assertion that it is on the ropes, and has just published a new magazine with the catchy title Wolves of Manhattan, in which it calls on the warriors of jihad who find themselves in the U.S. to murder people by means of poisoned coronavirus masks. So now it’s wear a mask or the coronavirus will get you (unless you’re at a Black Lives Matter protest, of course; the virus knows better than to infect the righteous), or don’t wear a mask so that al-Qaeda doesn’t get you.
Al-Qaeda is one of the most evil organizations in the entire world, but if its new threat can help to put an end to the mask hysteria and bring back some semblance of normal life, at least before His Fraudulency President-apparent Joe Biden’s authoritarian kleptocracy descends upon us, then these jihadis might accidentally have done one good deed in this world, not that this will balance out their thousands of murders, enslavements, pillages, and other marvelous effluvia of their famous Misunderstanding of the Religion of Peace.
The article bears a title that could have come word-for-word from the Huffington Post or Slate: “Ways And Means Of Exploiting the Corona Pandemic Against The Powers Of Global Unbelief,” although in the HuffPo or Slate the “unbelief” in question would not be the rejection of Islam, but the unbelief involved in daring to doubt that stepping outside without a mask would result in one immediately dropping dead, after destroying the lives of hundreds of others in Typhoid Mary fashion by breathing freely in their presence. And the people “exploiting” the pandemic would be those mayors and governors who are happily destroying the areas they govern and asserting authoritarian control over their people.’https://www.jihadwatch.org/2020/12/al-qaeda-calls-on-jihadis-to-kill-non-muslims-with-poisoned-coronavirus-masks?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the_2020_12_05_jihad_watch_daily_digest&utm_term=2020-12-05
One would have to be a hermit not to know something about Twitter’s double standards in what they allow and will not allow on their platform! Now, ‘In the past week, state-labeled accounts from the CCP of China have spread misinformation regarding the origins of COVID-19, pointing the finger at frozen food from Europe and Italy, in an attempt to shield themselves from culpability and obfuscate any investigation into their actions in Wuhan or their virology studies. The posts from Chinese state-run media have gone unchallenged by Twitter, and Twitter’s communications team, whose members apparently don’t like using their own platform, remains silent.
When Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian posted a photoshopped graphic of an Australian soldier with a knife to the neck of a young child, as part of an ongoing conflict between Australia and China, the topic trended on Twitter’s news feed. It garnered a featured spot in their news section. The tweet prompted a response from Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida in a letter directly addressed to Jack Dorsey about why Chinese state accounts are allowed to spread misinformation on his platform at will, while the President’s account is policed within mere minutes.
Rubio doesn’t have much authority to enforce Twitter’s rules on its behalf, but just as it comes to banning Twitter accounts along ideological lines, if Dorsey and Twitter won’t begin to enforce their own rules, then someone else will. But Rubio is asking valid questions. Why are Chinese state accounts allowed to spread conspiracies and misinformation against other countries or about the global pandemic they created, while Twitter executives and engineers simply look the other way? The answer might be even more troubling than what it appears to be on the surface.
Earlier this week, the New York Times reported that the likes of Nike and Apple are lobbying members of Congress against the Xinjiang Forced Labor Bill, which addresses American-based companies using forced labor camps, like the ones containing Uighur Muslims in China, to produce their products, or the materials that go into their products. These companies are arguing that the financial hit their supply chains will incur as a result of complete separation from China is not acceptable. Nike and Apple, you will recall, put up a woke facade this summer in the name of raking in millions of social-justice dollars for their products. Twitter does not offer a can of soda, or a pair of high priced trainers, but it’s not inconceivable to imagine that it views cultural investments in China in much the same way that movie studios such as Disney. Currently it’s illegal to use Twitter in China, though many Chinese people do so by using a VPN. Where you see a repressive authoritarian regime and a billion and a half silent citizens, does Jack Dorsey see a business opportunity?
This also isn’t the first instance of Twitter placating Chinese state accounts. In 2019, Twitter removed the accounts of several Chinese dissidents, three days prior to the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Twitter claimed it was a routine effort to stop inauthentic and spam accounts, an excuse they’ve used in the past when it comes to censoring certain conservative accounts. Eventually Twitter is going to have to answer for this behavior.’https://spectator.com.au/2020/12/twitter-is-in-chinas-pocket/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=WORL%20%2020201204%20%20AL&utm_content=WORL%20%2020201204%20%20AL+CID_daeaa1896bfd7c8341b38f7f4a2a3678&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Australia&utm_term=Stephen%20L%20Miller
Yep, a rock and roll singer, and not a good one at that in my own opinion, is the person that the government would go to for diplomatic advice. You see, ‘Jimmy Barnes is better known for his screaming than for his expertise on foreign affairs which, of course, makes him the perfect person to pontificate about international diplomacy on the ABC.
The ageing rocker told Q&A on Monday that Australia’s feud with China could have been avoided if Prime Minister Scott Morrison had been more culturally sensitive.
Well sure. And England’s feud with Germany could have been avoided if Neville Chamberlain had spoken in softer tones to the Fuhrer.
Jimmy Barnes didn’t mention the ‘cultural sensitivity’ displayed by China when, having realised coronavirus had escaped (or was it released) from a wet market (or was it a lab) they shut down domestic travel but continued to export the virus overseas.
He ignored the ‘culturally sensitivity’ on show when China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman, Lijian Zhao, accused the US army of seeding the virus in China.
And he failed to mention the ‘cultural sensitivity’ demonstrated by China spreading fake photographs depicting an Australian solider beheading an Afghan child.
None of that was relevant. It was Scott Morrison who needed a lesson in manners.
Jimmy ‘The Last Plane Out Of Wuhan’ Barnes said the PM’s call for an inquiry into the origins of the Chinese Flu, which spread from China to the world, had needlessly upset the Chinese.
“We can’t just expect… if we’re Australians and we say, ‘This is wrong, we’ve got to bloody stand up to it’ that may not culturally be the same way to speak to the Chinese,” he said, in a monologue that almost made Joe Biden look articulate.’https://www.spectator.com.au/2020/12/their-abc-presents-the-henry-kissinger-of-the-largs-piers-hotel/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=OZWH%20%2020201205%20%20AL&utm_content=OZWH%20%2020201205%20%20AL+CID_4cec53f1b5ef01b6c399f04ed34dd711&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Australia&utm_term=Their%20ABC%20presents%20Jimmy%20Barnes%20the%20China%20expert%20of%20the%20Largs%20Piers%20Hotel
Is there just a smidgen of hypocrisy by the Leftist Victorian government in the following article? ‘Cognitive dissonance, thy name is Victoria.
How else to explain a state in which the miscarriage of a wanted baby is commemorated with a certificate, while the killing of an unwanted baby is protected by law?
Premier Daniel Andrews last night announced the creation of a certificate for parents who lose a child through miscarriage.
“Parents who have experienced early pregnancy loss can now apply for a commemorative certificate from Births, Deaths and Marriages Victoria,” he announced via Twitter.
“Hopefully it’ll help bereaved parents mourn the child they never got to meet.
A message on the government’s website says: “To be able to provide these certificates to parents is such an important way to acknowledge their baby, and to acknowledge their loss.”
The initiative is to be applauded. But it does make one marvel at the mental gymnastics required to accept that an unborn child is a “baby” when miscarried, and something else when aborted.
It’s a classic case of doublethink.
Or is it? Perhaps the clump of cells growing in a womb magically becomes a baby when it is wanted.
Daniel Andrews last night lamented that “around one in five pregnancies ends in miscarriage before 20 weeks” leaving “bereaved parents.”
But on the other hand, Mr Andrews is responsible for laws permitting abortion on demand up until week 24 of a pregnancy and, where two medical practitioners agree, right up until birth.
The definition of human, like gender, is now seemingly fluid – blowing this way or that according to an individual’s sensibilities or, in this case, the audience Daniel Andrews is addressing.
What becomes of a society that decides the value of one human being on the basis of whether another human being wants them to exist?
If an unborn baby is a mere lump of cells, then we are lying to the bereaved parents by presenting a commemorative certificate lamenting the child they never got to meet.
But if an unborn baby is human, then we are lying when we assure the woman seeking an abortion that it’s all about her ‘choice’ concerning her body and her ‘reproductive health’.
Both positions cannot be true.
So is the commemorative certificate from Births, Deaths and Marriages Victoria confirmation that the unborn are indeed human, just as two and two are four?
“Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.”’https://www.spectator.com.au/2020/12/daniel-andrews-abortion-doublethink/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=OZWH%20%2020201205%20%20AL&utm_content=OZWH%20%2020201205%20%20AL+CID_4cec53f1b5ef01b6c399f04ed34dd711&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Australia&utm_term=Daniel%20Andrews%20abortion%20doublethink
Are all those institutions that call themselves a ‘church’ really a church? Are some ‘church’ leaders Biblically qualified to lead? It’s interesting that ‘In a leaked audio call obtained by The Daily Mail, the founder and senior pastor of Hillsong Global, Brian Houston, described the events that led up to the firing of the lead pastor of the church’s New York City congregation, Carl Lentz.
Houston said difficulties with Lentz’s leadership emerged long before the recent revelations about the Hillsong East Coast pastor’s affair with Ranin Karim, a 34-year-old designer he met in Brooklyn, New York.
“I was already at the point, at the end of the summer, that I felt like Carl and Laura’s time in New York was coming to an end,” Houston said of Lentz and his wife, who also worked for the church.
Brian and Bobbie Houston founded the original Hillsong Church in 1983 in the suburbs of Sydney, Australia. It now has locations in 28 countries and, pre-pandemic, saw an average 150,000 attenders each week, according to its website.
Houston accused Lentz in the Daily Mail recording of “general narcissistic behavior. Manipulating, mistreating people. Breaches of trust. Constantly lying.” Houston went on to describe the global megachurch network as “one house with many rooms,” but he said Lentz always seemed to be doing his own thing with Hillsong East Coast.
“If it was just about a moral failure, perhaps it would have been possible to work with Carl and Laura and work their way through it and have a period of restoration,” Houston said on the call that took place the week before Thanksgiving with global church leadership and top donors.
“But the nature of where my relationship with Carl already was, then add the significant nature and the serious nature of the moral issues, just meant that I believed, and the board believed, the only way to go was to terminate Carl and to start with a fresh start in New York,” Houston said.
The Daily Mail’s report quoted anonymous sources alleging that Lentz had multiple affairs during his tenure at Hillsong, and that Houston implied the same in the recording the newspaper obtained. But while Houston talks about “affairs” in the plural, the recording is not entirely clear.’https://julieroys.com/leaked-call-houston-details-narcissistic-lentzs-firing/?mc_cid=fdfa821960&mc_eid=b13d34ad49
Will you be getting the China Virus vaccine? My wife says she won’t but I will continue to mull it over in the space called ‘my head’ and when it is available then make up my mind. However, Australia’s Federal ‘Health Minister Greg Hunt says “absolute safety” is the key to approving and rolling out a coronavirus vaccine next year. “We are an island sanctuary so what we do with vaccines, we want to make sure, is about absolute safety and extending the safe Australia concept that we have but doing it in a way that provides absolute confidence to the Australian people,” he told Sky News. The vaccine will be voluntary but Mr Hunt said he believed that Australians will get themselves vaccinated to protect one another. “My hope and my belief is that Australians will help and protect other Australians and themselves through the vaccination program.” Mr Hunt cautioned Australians not to be complacent with safety measures against coronavirus, even as Australia has recorded few cases. “This is still a dangerous, contagious, and deadly disease. Your help can save lives.”‘https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6214409491001?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Sky%20News%20Australia%20%20Newsletter&utm_content=Daily%20Sky%20News%20Australia%20%20Newsletter+CID_11da7aa9c7d9a1d530043c31be155f28&utm_source=Daily%20newsletter&utm_term=Your%20help%20can%20save%20lives%20Hunt%20urges%20people%20to%20consider%20vaccinations
The Australian state of New South Wales is a place where the Leftist Climate scammers have taken over. It is said that if it walks like a Duck and quacks like a Duck it is pretty sure it is a Duck. Same with a tax and ‘Google lists 16 synonyms for the word “tax”. Politicians have used most of them over the years. Levies, tolls, excises, imposts have all been popular choices for those seeking to hide a sneaky tax.
No one beats innovation in this field of linguistic camouflage, however, than those seeking to justify a tax to prop up dud renewable energy investments.
The NSW Government has entered this competitive field with its *NSW Electricity Infrastructure Investment Bill 2020*. Section 57 of this proposed law would require electricity distribution companies to make a “contribution” to a Fund that will be used to support investments in renewable energy, batteries and other infrastructure.
A contribution! It sounds like the spare change you chuck onto the plate at mass but in fact there is nothing voluntary about this donation. The law would establish penalties for those who refuse to pay, potentially up to 220,000 for non-compliance.
A mandatory contribution is a tax. If we put a tax on electricity distribution companies, do you think these profit seeking companies will just absorb this extra impost? Of course not. These extra costs will be passed on to the long-suffering electricity consumers of New South Wales.
Electricity prices in Sydney have more than doubled over the past 15 years. There are many pensioners who can not afford to heat their homes in winter. This should be a moral outrage for a country that is blessed with abundant sources of coal, gas and sun.
In fairness, the NSW Government says that there is nothing to worry about. The “contributions” will only be required if prices get “too low”. That sounds a bit like saying our hospitals are very efficient, they only cater for those that don’t live too long. How can electricity prices be too low? I am pretty sure I speak for most when I say I want them to go as low as possible!
Worse, the NSW Government has not released any of the modelling that would describe exactly what level this artificial electricity floor price is set at.
The reason they won’t tell us is that this evidence would blow apart the myth that renewable energy is cheaper than coal. If renewable energy was the cheapest form of power why would they need government funded subsidies from a fund paid for by electricity consumers? If renewable energy was cheaper then they could undercut the coal electricity producers and make money without taxpayer support.
We didn’t need a tax on telephones for people to buy mobiles and we didn’t need a tax on typewriters to invent computers.
What this proposed law is actually about is trying to kill the coal fired power that supports so many NSW jobs. The NSW Government’s own documents admit this, with it planning for the closure of four coal fired power plants over the next 15 years.
They would be replaced by inexpensive and unreliable renewable energy. South Australia already tried this and it ended with its entire state’s lights going out. In the end it had to build a new gas fired power plant to restore reliability.’http://www.mattcanavan.com.au/dud_renewables_will_hurt_hip_pocket?utm_campaign=e_central_bulletin_3&utm_medium=email&utm_source=mattjcan
President Trump was for America but if Biden and that other person get the WH China will have full control of the world or so it would seem. Nevertheless, the news out of China is that ‘As the likelihood of a US-China reset increases despite the distracting drama over President Donald Trump’s White House departure, former intelligence officials and foreign policy analysts are gaming how Beijing could test the mettle of the incoming Biden administration for weakness and opportunity.
Most expect Beijing to initially take it slow in line with its past approach toward presidential transitions and to avoid jinxing a potential course correction after four brutal years of trade wars, name-calling and recriminations.
“Beijing may try a combination of hard and soft probing as it assesses the incoming administration,” said Jing Sun, associate professor at the University of Denver. “Contacts will be under the surface and incremental due to Beijing being traumatised by the Trump administration.”
Fuelling Beijing’s reluctance to test Washington in dramatic fashion is a belief that it is not in a rush, that American power is declining and that it has met many immediate objectives in the South China Sea. And on other core issues, it has tightened its grip over Hong Kong, while any precipitous move against Taiwan is probably premature, analysts said.’https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3111548/how-might-china-test-new-joe-biden-administration
Note the RESET in the first paragraph. That’s the WEF’s KEY WORD! Be prepared for a BIG RESET in your life if Sleepy Joe wins the WH!
