Money Trail
All posts tagged Money Trail
‘Some 13 years after the end of a civil war that saw 100,000 deaths, Sri Lanka is once again on the cusp of serious violence. Earlier today, the police opened fire on protesters in the town of Rambukkana. One person has died and at least ten people are said to be in critical condition. It’s the first use of deadly force against demonstrators who seem to have filled the entire island in recent weeks. Grainy footage shows half-conscious bodies being carried into hospital, bullet casings littering the quiet palm-lined streets.
This was meant to be a time of celebration. Buddhists are marking the new year while the country’s Muslim minority observe Ramadan. Instead, the country has been brought to a standstill by nationwide protests demanding that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa resign amid a crippling economic crisis.
Sri Lanka’s capital, Colombo, is now a ghost town. The savings of the country’s burgeoning middle classes have become worthless: the Sri Lankan Rupee is now the world’s worst-performing currency. India’s southern neighbour owes international lenders more than £21 billion, with just £1.7 billion in reserves. Shops and restaurants are closed and armed police patrol the streets. The price of vegetables has increased fivefold since 2021, while the cost of rice has doubled. Many residents say they are unable to eat more than one meal a day.
Rajapaksa, a Sinhalese Buddhist, was elected President in 2019 following the Easter Sunday terror attacks. To many Sri Lankans – particularly the country’s Sinhalese Buddhist majority, around 70 per cent of the population – he seemed the obvious choice to restore law and order, having served as defence secretary during the civil war. He is credited with bringing an end to the 26-year conflict, but not without allegedly committing an array of gross human rights abuses against Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority. It’s difficult to find a more polarising figure in South Asian politics.
Since his election, Rajapaksa has faced accusations of economic mismanagement, embezzlement and corruption. His brother, Mahinda, is the country’s Prime Minister and another brother, Basil, was finance minister until he resigned last week along with the rest of the cabinet. Basil implemented a series of ill-advised tax cuts back in 2019; Sri Lanka was subsequently locked out of international debt markets and has had to burn through its foreign exchange reserves to service sovereign bond payments.
The Rajapaksas were also behind a sudden decision to suddenly ban chemical fertilisers last May, without consulting farmers, which led to a disastrous drop in rice yields this year. They claimed that it would protect farmers from harmful chemicals which were causing kidney issues. Unable to afford food imports, Sri Lanka saw yields of domestically-grown rice fall by around 50 per cent.
In order to deal with the surging levels of debt, Sri Lanka announced a blanket ban on non-essential imports last year. Now, everything from milk powder to spare car parts are unavailable. Even school exams have been cancelled because the government can’t afford the paper on which to print the tests.
Fuel, gas and diesel shortages have become common. Sunrise in Colombo is met by crowds of residents heading to petrol stations and waiting, usually in vain, to fill up their vehicles. In an attempt to preserve supplies, the government is enforcing ten-hour daily power cuts across the country.
Unsurprisingly, Sri Lankans are angry. Last Saturday, in the largest protest to date, tens of thousands of Colombo residents took to the streets demanding regime change. Many also called for the Rajapaksa brothers to have their day in court. ‘It was never this bad during the civil war,’ one 43-year-old IT worker in Colombo explains. ‘At least then we had food to eat, power in our homes and fuel in our cars.’
It seems growing numbers of Sri Lankans agree. The weekend before last, Muslim leaders marched side-by-side with saffron-robed Buddhist monks before members of the country’s LGBTQ community joined them to break the Ramadan fast. You find groups of wealthy professionals chanting anti-Rajapaksa slogans alongside poor rickshaw drivers who can no longer afford fuel. Doctors and nurses are becoming a vocal part of the protests.
Meanwhile, Sri Lanka’s largest public medical body, the Government Medical Officers Association, has declared a health emergency. Hospitals have run out of five life-saving drugs and the GMOA says there are shortages of another 180 medicines, as well as a lack of vital surgical and testing equipment. There are reports of several deaths due to a shortage of Tenecteplase, a drug administered to patients after heart attacks. Pharmacies surrounding Colombo’s leading cancer hospital are turning away patients. The GMOA is pleading with Sri Lankan expats to send essential drugs.
Yet the Rajapaksas remain resolute: Gotabaya has refused to resign. The country’s new finance minister, who attempted to quit less than 24 hours in the job, has said that reviving the economy will be a ‘Herculean’ task. He estimates Sri Lanka requires £2.3 billion in aid over the next six months to purchase essentials like food and fuel, in addition to meeting £5.3 billion of debt repayments for the rest of the year.
Many Sri Lankans blame high-interest Chinese loans for the crisis. Already, Sri Lanka has been forced to lease a new mega port to China in lieu of repayments. Spotting an opportunity, India has signed over £760 million of credit to Sri Lanka and talks are underway for a further £1.1 billion of financial support.
Back in Colombo, some are saying this is Sri Lanka’s ‘Arab Spring’ moment, as peaceful protesters seek to overthrow an autocratic government mired in corruption allegations and complicit in gross economic mismanagement. But for now, Sri Lanka’s notorious military continues to support the Rajapaksas. Whether that continues is an open question.
‘We haven’t seen anything like this for decades, there is no gas, no fuel, no food. The whole country is coming out onto the streets,’ one 22-year-old protester says. ‘The Rajapaksas have to go right now or it is going to be the end of us all.’’https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/04/sri-lankas-descent-into-chaos/
- ‘The globalist cabal wants to monopolize health systems worldwide, and a stealth attack is already underway in the form of an international pandemic treaty, proposed by the World Health Organization
- The treaty is a direct threat to a nation’s sovereignty to make decisions for itself and its citizens, and would erode democracy everywhere. Not only would the treaty empower the WHO to mandate COVID jabs and vaccine passports globally, it could potentially also expand the WHO’s power to dictate all health care policy worldwide
- The treaty would also give the WHO the power to censor health information worldwide. This would be disastrous, as the WHO has a long history of corruption and health policy failures that are intrinsically linked to conflicts of interest
- When people are harmed by the WHO’s health policies, there’s no accountability because the WHO has diplomatic immunity
- Bill Gates, the second largest funder of the WHO, has also been funding pandemic exercises, including Event 201 and the Nuclear Threat Initiative’s exercise on international response to deliberate biological events. This scenario involved a deliberate release of a genetically engineered bioweapon — a pneumonic plague — for which there is no available treatment. Both exercises were held in 2019′ More detail at https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2022/03/30/who-pandemic-treaty.aspx?ui=5a05e186fc85b30f55c28204f849862c04192d97b134e516f76782809875c086&sd=20211124&cid_source=dnl&cid_medium=email&cid_content=art1ReadMore&cid=20220330&mid=DM1137112&rid=1447390458
1Corinthians 16:2 Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come.
2Corinthians 9:7 Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.
The following article concerns Willow Creek inviting Robert Morris from Gateway Church, Dallas, Texas to preach. The controversy is that some believe Morris preaches a prosperity Gospel. Willow Creek’s Tim Stevens however ‘…said Willow is spreading the word about God’s miraculous provision — not a prosperity gospel.’
Nevertheless, Robert Morris and his church are connected with Pentecostal preacher Jack Hayford https://www.tku.edu/about-tku/gateway-church/ and most prosperity preachers are within the Pentecostal movement.
Amos 3:3 asks ‘Can two walk together, except they be agreed?‘ Now Robert Morris and Pentecostal Jack Hayford seem to have a very close relationship as ‘Dr. Hayford serves as an apostolic elder of Gateway Church’. Hayford is associated with the Foursquare Pentecostal Church which encourages the speaking in tongues https://www.wayoflife.org/reports/beware_of_jack_hayford.html. Willow Creek must not have a problem with this either.
So, ‘Facing persistently lower giving, Willow Creek Community Church last Sunday invited Pastor Robert Morris, who some allege is a prosperity preacher, to deliver a guest sermon on tithing. The sermon contained a singular promise: Tithe for a year, and if you’re not satisfied, you’ll get your money back.
“Thousands and thousands” had seen their lives changed after starting to give 10% of their income regularly, Morris said. “I’ve done this with our church. I’ve told our church on multiple occasions, I’ve said to them, if you’ll try it for one year, if you are not fully satisfied at the end of that year, I’ll give you your money back. In 22 years of church no one’s ever asked for money (back).”
Morris is pastor of Gateway Church, once the largest congregation of the Association of Related Churches (ARC) in the United States. (It’s no longer listed in the ARC’s church finder.) He also is one of disgraced pastor Mark Driscoll’s staunchest supporters.
Morris was the first to replatform Driscoll after the Mars Hill debacle in 2014. And just last summer, Morris had Driscoll speak at an ARC preaching seminar at Gateway Church.
When asked about Morris’ money-back guarantee, Willow Creek Executive Pastor Tim Stevens said Willow is spreading the word about God’s miraculous provision — not a prosperity gospel.
Stevens confirmed that Willow Creek’s average weekly giving so far this year is 20% below the church’s already reduced budget. This year’s giving budget is about half the church’s revenue in 2019, when investigators said sexual misconduct allegations against Willow Creek’s founder Bill Hybels were credible. But he said giving so far this year is on par with last year’s weekly giving average.
Stevens told The Roys Report that the church budgets the same amount of revenue for every week—about $614,000 across seven campuses. However, he noted, “the reality is that a larger percentage of our giving happens at the end of the year.”
Critics, however, say that though Morris has a softer sell, he still preaches the same health and wealth gospel of prominent prosperity preachers like Kenneth Hagin. “Hagin had no problem telling you that God wanted him to be rich,” write Paul and Susan Dunk of KW Redeemer Church in Breslau, Ontario. “But Morris softens it and prefers blessed.”
They add that Morris’ teaching on tithing is more like “pagan votive offerings” than the voluntary giving encouraged in the New Testament. “If you needed health, wealth, crops, love, wisdom etc . . . you would go to the temple and give money to the corresponding gods of those blessings,” the Dunks write.
Theology professor and Pastor David Schrock likewise called Morris’s beliefs about material blessing a “misreading of Scripture” in a critical review of Morris’s book “The Blessed Life.”
“Instead of grounding God’s character and promises in the new covenant of Christ, Morris makes God a self-styled miracle-worker who promises supernatural power,” Schrock wrote.
Morris preached Sunday on “The Principle of First” as part of Willow Creek’s five-part sermon series “More Than Money.” The series coincides with a major giving campaign underway now at Willow Creek.
“This series aims to help people understand that money is not a financial issue, it’s a discipleship issue and a matter of the heart,” the series summary reads in part.
Morris’s money-back promise was mentioned only in an unlisted video recording of the 9 a.m. service. It’s absent from the sermon video published on Willow Creek’s website, which was apparently drawn from the “full service” recording of the 11:15 a.m. service.
In the 9 a.m. service, Willow Creek Pastor Dave Dummitt made the same promise as he held up a commitment card for the church’s current giving initiative.
Dummitt encouraged congregants to consider pledging to be “Christ-first givers”— the third of four giving options the church is asking congregants to commit to. Then he told the audience he’d “go ahead and be bold and say, if you do this for the year, and you are not fully satisfied, we’ll give the money back.”
“I like that challenge. It’s good,” Dummitt added.
Stevens said Dummitt had offered something similar at his previous church, but his decision to challenge Willow Creek came spontaneously. Leadership decided the idea “needed some time to bake” so it wasn’t mentioned in the later service, Stevens said. However, the challenge is being developed now and could be formally announced as soon as this weekend.
Stevens denied that the money-back challenge constituted a “prosperity gospel” message.
“Any time that my wife and I have stretched in our giving, God has out-given us in return,” Stevens wrote in an email to The Roys Report. The old car lasted longer, he offered as an example, or the tax return was big enough to cover a surprise bill.
“God meets a need in some miraculous way that we didn’t see coming,” Stevens continued. “I think that was the intent of what our guest preacher was communicating, and what Dave was affirming. Willow does not, and never has, held a position that says God will make you rich if you commit your finances to the church.”
When asked about Morris’ longstanding support of Driscoll, Stevens wrote that Willow Creek tries “to shy away from ‘guilt by association’” when inviting guest speakers.
In addition to repeatedly platforming Driscoll, Morris was formerly an overseer at Driscoll’s new church, The Trinity Church. A spokesman for Morris previously told The Roys Report that Morris remains available if Driscoll’s church needs counsel.
Last August, Driscoll was featured alongside Morris as a speaker at a preaching seminar Gateway and Morris hosted.
Stevens pointed out Willow Creek has recently invited other speakers. Some of them could be considered controversial.
“In the last year we’ve had John Maxwell, Derwin Grey, Gene Appel, (Immanuel Acho), and others,” Stevens wrote. “Having them, and others, on our platform does not mean we endorse 100% of their theology, associations, or partnerships, but rather that we believe they can help us encourage our people to love God, love people, and change the world through teaching a specific topic on a given weekend.”’https://julieroys.com/giving-push-willow-creek-robert-morris-offer-tithe-refund/?mc_cid=80c8070c03&mc_eid=b13d34ad49
This is what Paul the church planter wrote in 2Corinthians 6:1-10 We then, as workers together with him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain. 2 (For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.) 3 Giving no offence in any thing, that the ministry be not blamed: 4 But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses,
5 In stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings; 6 By pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, 7 By the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, 8 By honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report: as deceivers, and yet true; 9 As unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed; 10 As sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.
This is what is happening in today’s church planting efforts. ‘The Association of Related Churches, or ARC, is arguably the biggest church planting organization in North America. It’s also one of the most embattled . . . with scandals involving ARC pastors hitting the news with shocking regularity. In this episode of The Roys Report podcast, former ARC pastor Jeff Thompson explains why. In 2012, Jeff says he was enamored with ARC’s model of “launching large”—of starting a church with a big capital investment, top-notch worship team, and professional marketing. But when that effort flopped, Jeff began to question the biblical basis of ARC’s methods. He says the movement glorifies success as measured in attendance and budgets—but it minimizes sin, especially among its pastors. Pastor Jeff Thompson shares much more in this extremely important and timely podcast.’
‘Big brother has been pushing for a universal digital global currency to be rolled out worldwide.
Using excuses such as it would allow governments to collect more tax revenue as every financial transaction will be traceable, act as a deterrent of illegal activity such as illegal drug sales, would end the printing and maintaining of the various currencies, and prevent theft if used with an implantable chip ETC.
The solution is similar to the technology that is very common for household pets. People in Sweden are already allowing embeddable microchips to be placed under their skin.’https://ericthompsonshow.com/2022/01/03/its-happening-implantable-covid-microchip-developer-says-theres-no-stopping-roll-out-whether-we-like-it-or-not/
‘In June 2020, as the country attempted to recover from deadly and destructive riots after the death of George Floyd, a man from Wisconsin hosted a national conference of self-styled “militia” members in a suburban Columbus, Ohio hotel. Stephen Robeson, founder of the Wisconsin chapter of the Three Percenters, an alleged militia group on the FBI’s naughty list, pestered his contacts across the country to participate in the gathering.
People who attended the conference, including two men later charged with federal crimes related to a plot to abduct Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer from her vacation cottage in 2020, observed that the hotel was crawling with federal agents.
One of the feds at the conference was none other than Stephen Robeson himself.
Without Robeson’s deep involvement as an FBI informant, the Whitmer kidnapping caper never would have made national headlines a few weeks before Election Day; in fact, the whole pre-election drama wouldn’t have materialized at all. A longtime FBI asset, Robeson was one of at least 12 confidential human sources embedded in the failed plot, which concluded when several men were arrested attempting to buy explosives from an undercover FBI agent in October 2020.
Defense attorneys are building a convincing case that the FBI entrapped their clients, who stand accused of perpetrating an act of domestic terror; a motion to dismiss the federal kidnapping count was filed on Christmas Day. “[The] evidence here demonstrates egregious overreaching by the government’s agents, and by the informants those agents handled,” five defense attorneys wrote to a Michigan judge on December 25. FBI agents and informants, according to the filing, “concocted, hatched, and pushed this ‘kidnapping plan’ from the beginning, doing so against defendants who explicitly repudiated the plan.”
Stephen Robeson played as instrumental a role as any other FBI informant or agent. In addition to organizing the June militia conference, Robeson arranged a military-style training exercise in Wisconsin in July; another gathering in Ohio a week later; a meeting in Delaware in late summer; and a night time surveillance mission outside Whitmer’s vacation home in September. “He also urged people to plan violent actions against elected officials and to acquire weapons and bomb-making materials,” anonymous attendees told BuzzFeed News reporters in July. “Some of those contacts say he called them nearly every day.”
But Robeson had another secret he withheld from the group of would-be kidnappers whom he coaxed into an FBI trap; Robeson is a convicted felon several times over with “a rap sheet stretching back to the early 1980s that includes fraud, assault, and sex with a minor,” BuzzFeed News confirmed.
And Robeson didn’t suspend his criminal ways while working on behalf of the federal government. At the same time Robeson was producing all the optics later used as evidence against the Whitmer “kidnappers,” he committed at least two other crimes.
In September 2020, Robeson purchased a firearm—a no-no as a convicted felon—just a few weeks after he conducted the reconnaissance trip near Whitmer’s cottage. He sold the gun several months later.
In October 2021, Robeson pleaded guilty to one count of illegally possessing a firearm. But rather than recommend the stiffest sentence for the felony charge, which is punishable by up to 10 years in prison, prosecutors offered Robeson a sweetheart deal with only two years supervised release and a $100 fine. He will be officially sentenced in February.
And Robeson’s legal woes are mounting. He and his wife were charged this month with fraud for convincing a Wisconsin couple to purchase and donate a vehicle to a non-existent charity Robeson claimed to operate. The couple bought a used Chevy Tahoe for $3,500 and signed over the title to Robeson on September 3, 2020, the same month he illegally purchased the firearm and was working undercover for the FBI.
In the criminal complaint filed on December 20, 2021 against Robeson and his wife, the couple who bought the vehicle said Robeson became “verbally aggressive” when they confronted him about the legitimacy of the nonprofit. “They started to realize the potential that Robeson’s non-profit was not real, as he talked about things such as performing raids with law enforcement and being a part of the ‘three percenters,’” a local prosecutor wrote. Robeson faces up to three years in prison if convicted.
It’s unclear how much Robeson was paid for his stint in the Whitmer kidnapping ruse. According to court testimony, the top informant known as “Dan” received more than $50,000 in compensation—including cash, a new car, and reimbursement for taking a loss after selling his home—for six months’ work on the Whitmer case. It’s also unclear if Robeson drove the unlawfully obtained vehicle while working as an FBI informant, particularly whether he used the truck to transport the suspects to any of his planned events.
Robeson isn’t the only government asset tied to the Whitmer case accused of criminal misconduct. Richard Trask, the FBI special agent who signed the criminal complaint against the six federal defendants, was arrested over the summer and charged with domestic battery for assaulting his wife in a drunken rage following a swingers party at a hotel near their Kalamazoo home. Trask was fired by the FBI and recently pleaded no contest to the charge. (Local reporters also unearthed Trask’s social media account that contained vile remarks about Donald Trump.)
Neither Trask, nor the FBI’s other top agents who handled the numerous informants in the Whitmer case, will testify for the government during the trial scheduled to begin March 8.
So, to summarize: A convicted felon with a lengthy rap sheet marketed himself as a leader of one of the FBI’s most wanted “militia” groups to lure people angry about lockdown policies into an FBI trap that acted as another example of FBI election interference while at the same time committing other crimes. Robeson wasn’t an informant—he was an agitator and an instigator.
And he got paid an unknown amount by U.S. taxpayers.
Unfortunately for the American people, lowlifes like Stephen Robeson and Richard Trask represent the current state of the Federal Bureau of Investigation—a morally bankrupt, politically weaponized agency doing the dirty work of the Democratic Party. It’s only a matter of time before we learn how many Stephen Robesons and Richard Trasks were involved in the events of January 6.’https://amgreatness.com/2021/12/30/the-fbis-criminal-lead-informant-in-whitmer-kidnapping-caper/
Genesis 1:21
“And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.”
‘The pseudo-science of climate change is replete with scare stories. New Scientist recently contained a most disingenuous example, with the headline: “Climate change will make world too hot for 60 per cent of fish species”. “Fish are at a far greater risk from climate change than previously thought,” the article opined.
Yet, in the very next sentence, the article conceded that the figure of 60% of species becoming extinct was only a concern in the “worst-case scenario of 5°C of global warming.” A rise of 5°C is equivalent to a 9°F rise. Previous warming models – which have still over-estimated global temperature rises by more than 200% – have suggested rises of 2.3°C. The New Scientist article suggests that a 1.5°C rise would kill off 10% of fish species. Actual temperature rises have stayed below 1°C, with no noticeable reduction in species of bony fish.
The article is fallacious on many levels. Evolutionists have made great play in the past of criticizing creationists for referring to “fish”, as evolutionists have concluded that former fish class is actually three classes – bony fish, cartilaginous fish and jawless fish. Yet, this climate-change article, purporting to be scientific, uses the old fish classification. Also, the extraordinary ability of fish to adapt to different environments has been overlooked.
God made the oceans to teem with fish. And His promise to continue the seasons as they are has not been superseded.’ https://creationmoments.com/sermons/a-fishy-climate-change-scare/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-fishy-climate-change-scare&mc_cid=3923d50855&mc_eid=00c1dcff3c
