News

Clinton Foundation fundraising branch in Sweden lobbied State Department for sanction relief

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Hillary Clinton: secretive, entitled, hypoctritical
Hillary Clinton: secretive, entitled, hypoctritical

More bad news for the Clinton machine, this time reported in the Washington Times.

Excerpt:

Bill Clinton’s foundation set up a fundraising arm in Sweden that collected $26 million in donations at the same time that country was lobbying Hillary Rodham Clinton’s State Department to forgo sanctions that threatened its thriving business with Iran, according to interviews and documents obtained by The Washington Times.

The Swedish entity, called the William J. Clinton FoundationInsamlingsstiftelse, was never disclosed to or cleared by State Department ethics officials, even though one of its largest sources of donations was a Swedish government-sanctioned lottery.

As the money flowed to the foundation from Sweden, Mrs. Clinton’s team in Washington declined to blacklist any Swedish firms despite warnings from career officials at the U.S. Embassy in Stockholm that Sweden was growing its economic ties with Iran and potentially undercutting Western efforts to end Tehran’s rogue nuclear program, diplomatic cables show.

“Sweden does not support implementing tighter financial sanctions on Iran” and believes “more stringent financial standards could hurt Swedish exports,” one such cable from 2009 alerted Mrs. Clinton’s office in Washington.

Separately, U.S. intelligence was reporting that Sweden’s second-largest employer, telecommunications giant Ericsson AB, was pitching cellphone tracking technology to Iran that could be used by the country’s security services, officials told The Times.

By the time Mrs. Clinton left office in 2013, the Clinton Foundation Insamlingsstiftelse had collected millions of dollars inside Sweden for his global charitable efforts and Mr. Clinton personally pocketed a record $750,000 speech fee from Ericsson, one of the firms at the center of the sanctions debate.

Now the last time I blogged about these issues, I think what was said was that if a company had offices in America, as Ericsson does, then they would be subject to sanctions from America for dealing with Iran, depending on what they were doing.

What’s interesting is that the responses to inquiries from the media:

The foundation, however, declined repeated requests to identify the names of the specific donors that passed through the Swedish arm.

A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign offered no comment or explanation despite two weeks of requests.

When Mrs. Clinton became President Obama’s secretary of state in 2009, she vowed to set up a transparent review system that would ensure any of her husband’s fundraising or lucrative speaking activities were reviewed for possible ties to foreign countries doing business with her agency, insisting she wanted to eliminate even the “appearance” of conflicts of interests.

But there is growing evidence that the Clintons did not run certain financial activities involving foreign entities by the State Department, such as the Swedish fundraising arm and the Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative based in Canada, or disclose on her annual ethics form the existence of a limited liability corporation that Mr. Clinton set up for his personal consulting work.

The Washington Times article is a must-read, and please do share it. We have to make sure that we do not elect another Democrat who will take our country even further away from its conservative roots. If exposing Clinton Foundation finances stops the Democrats from getting more pro-abortion, anti-marriage Supreme Court picks, then that’s what we have to talk about.

By the way, this is not the first story to come out on dealings like this… we already had one from Canadian allies of the Clinton Foundation, and another from a Ukrainian donor who was dealing with Iran.

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News

J. Warner Wallace: 10 reasons why you hesitate to share your faith

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Want to be brave? Then talk about things you know
Want to be brave? Then talk about things you know

He has links to 10 articles in his post.

Here are the titles:

  1. We mistakenly think our beliefs about Christianity are entirely subjective
  2. We think we have to be a theologian or apologist to share effectively
  3. We aren’t sure who we should share with
  4. We are simply afraid to take the first step
  5. We think we have to know someone well before we can share the truth
  6. We’re not sure how to engage people (especially people we don’t know well)
  7. We’re afraid of feeling uncomfortable at any point in the process
  8. We hold pessimistically low expectations of being successful
  9. We have been conditioned to speak a Christian language foreign to the secular culture
  10. We think our success as evangelists is entirely dependent on our individual effort

Number 1 is the most important to me, but the one that I am seeing the most in church is number 7.

The biggest problem I am seeing is that people think that Christianity should make them feel good, and that it should make other people like them. Even if we are doing spiritual things, the overall goal is for us to feel good and be liked as we do them. Well… people are reacting very angrily to Christianity these days, so normal Christianity is not going to make you feel good or be liked by others. The animosity to Christianity is primarily for one reason – our moral rules on sexuality. A lot of people are not interested in hearing about the truth claims of Christian theism, e.g. – Jesus is God stepping into history, since they are already blocked off from Christianity because of their commitment to engaging in sexual activity.

Wallace’s solution is for us to get used to the fact that Christianity is not supposed to make us happy, or make people like us:

So my first goal in training yesterday was to simply help these young men and women get comfortable with discomfort by taking their eyes off themselves and placing them firmly on God. I tried to remind them that character is more important than comfort. It’s easy to get caught up in thinking that our worldly image is more important than our heavenly mission. As Christians, we ought to know better:

1 John 2:15-17
Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.

James 4:4
You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

Sometimes our fears expose what’s really important to us, so they’re a good place to assess and address our priorities. What are you afraid of? What’s keeping you from sharing the Gospel with the people in your life, even the strangers who you meet every day? It might just be that (like me) you’re often more concerned with your own comfort than you are with the cause of Christ. It’s easy to worry more about the world we see than the Kingdom that matters. But we can change all that. We can conquer our fears by simply changing our focus.

Yes, Christianity is not meant to be fun. If you are asking yourself how to merge Christianity with your desire to be happy and to feel good, you’re doing Christianity wrong.

My solution to the problem of feeling uncomfortable when talking about Christianity to non-Christians is to talk about science. Specifically, to talk about mainstream scientific discoveries around cosmology, biology, paleontology, embryology, and so on. No one is going to get mad at you for that – not even at work. The best way to be able to get to Christian specifics, especially the resurrection, is to first establish the existence of a supernatural Creator and Designer from mainstream scientific evidence. Then we can talk about whether history shows us that miracles have occurred, e.g. – that Jesus rose from the dead. Before you can have miracles, you need God right? Otherwise, who is there to do the miracles? So, start with the easy stuff first – science. People feel more comfortable talking about science because the findings of science are universally accessible to all religions, and even to no religion at all.

The secret to talking about God with strangers is not to talk about things that are private and subjective. Don’t start with your subjective Christianese testimony – that just makes them uncomfortable. As uncomfortable as you would be if a witch doctor or voodoo priest started telling you their testimony with all their weird spiritual language. So don’t do that. Talk about pure science using pure scientific language, until you defeat the presumption of naturalism. When the naturalism is dead, turn your attention to the historical claims of Christianity. When the historical claims are defended, then turn to defending Christian theism from philosophical arguments like the problem of evil, the hiddenness of God, and so on. Start from the things that even non-religious people accept, and they will discuss them with you easily. Don’t annoy them with Christian theology and your religious experiences. That just makes them uncomfortable, because they can’t see how any of what you are saying is connected to reality. It’s like you are trying to get them to take your make-believe seriously – they don’t know what to say back without offending you.

The only downside to this approach (which works, trust me) is that you have to study first. Which is probably why some Christians don’t want to do it.

But, I have books to help you. Wallace actually has a new book out where he goes over the scientific arguments for a Creator and Designer. It’s actually on sale (pre-order) on ChristianBook.com right now. If you want to read something easy and good right now, get yourself a copy of Lee Strobel’s “The Case for a Creator”. You should also get the 3-DVD pack on intelligent design from Amazon.com if you want to watch something instead of reading.

Mentoring

When can Christians start dating?

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Painting:
Painting: “Courtship”, by Edmund Blair Leighton (1888)

First, read this article from a Crisis Pregnancy Center worker.

Excerpt:

I have concerns about the number one way that our culture chooses to perpetuate the cancer of broken marriages and failed relationships– underage dating.

You can follow them on Facebook – the failed attempts at love, I mean. Somebody is always changing their status from “in a relationship” to “single.” Unfortunately, a huge number of these disappointed lovers are too young to be legally married. I wonder sometimes if I am the only one who winces to hear a thirteen-year old speak with cavalier abandon of his or her “ex?”  Since when is it considered healthy and acceptable for underage people to be in “relationships?” Just what do parents and educators expect to be the result of the romantic conquests of these middle-school children and young high school students? The results I’ve witnessed personally are beyond disturbing; they are downright sinister, and have caused me to question whether or not those who claim to champion marital fidelity and family values are paying any attention at all to the standards we are passing to our children.

The trouble with underage dating is that it presents an entirely faulty view of what interaction with the opposite gender should be about. Rather than placing emphasis on building one strong relationship with one person at a stage of life when a marital commitment is feasible, dating encourages young people to pour their energies into consistently seducing other young people at a time when neither of them are capable of making any long-term commitments. Their “relationships” are destined to fail from the get-go because they are founded on unhealthy perceptions of love and not backed by any real necessity to stick it out.

The beauty of marriage, as it was intended to be, is that it teaches two people of opposite genders to learn to work through incompatibilities and give of themselves. In the same way, the great ugliness of dating as it is practiced by our culture and portrayed by our media, is that it teaches two people of opposite genders to be selfish by giving them an easy “out” when things don’t go according to their initial feelings. I believe it is fair to say that this form of dating is a training manual for divorce, because it encourages young people to grow accustomed to giving their hearts away and then taking them back.

Sadly, parents who should know better continue to display shocking naïveté regarding the absurd practices of driving their twelve year olds out on a “date,” or purchasing provocative clothing for their sixteen-year-olds, or sympathizing with their broken-hearted fourteen-year-olds by assuring them that they’ll “find someone better.” “They’re just having fun,” they’ll tell us, rolling their eyes at what they consider to be our tightly wound principles. I work a volunteer shift at Crisis Pregnancy Clinic where I witness every week the ruined lives and broken dreams that “fun” has left with our youth.

And now here’s my take.

Basically, relationships are not meant to be entertainment, but to lead to marriage. So, you can start dating whenever the woman and man are able to demonstrate to each other that they are prepared to fulfill their roles in a future marriage.

For example, the woman should be able to show that she has been able to maintain commitments to caring for others through some period of time, maybe with small children or pets. She should be voluntarily entering into relationships and responsibilities with other people where she is giving of herself – like volunteering at a crisis pregnancy center or caring for an ailing or elderly relative. That shows potential suitors that she has the right attitude to relationships – serving others self-sacrificially, and not looking for tingles and excitement. She should be able to show that she is good at making commitments and solving problems by studying hard subjects in school, i.e. – STEM subjects. And then she should be able to get a job in a difficult field and save money, instead of wasting it on frivolous fun activities. That shows a man that she can do hard things self-sacrificially – even if she doesn’t feel like it.

And for the man, he should be able to show that he is able to do his roles – protector, provider and moral/spiritual leader. He should be able to prove that he is able to mentor and guide other people to learn things and do things that will make them more effective Christians. That’s moral and spiritual leadership. Spiritual leadership is not just agreeing with people, it means leading them to serve God more effectively, perhaps by helping others to make better decisions about their education and careers. A man  should have studied a subject that is going to allow him to find work. It’s not enough to be a hard worker, he has to be able to show from his resume and bank account that he understands how to earn, save and invest money. I don’t think that an unemployed man should start a relationship with a woman, because cannot demonstrate ability in the provider role. He needs to show that he can work self-sacrificially, even if the work does not make him feel happy. He also needs to prove that he is comfortable sharing it with others – since he will have to share with his family when the time comes.

I think there are other ways for men and women to show that they are ready for marriage, but those are some ways. The key thing is that people shouldn’t be dating until they are able to show that they know the roles that they are expected to fill in marriage as men and women. They should also be looking for the right things in others. They can’t be looking for the shallow things that give them tingles, like looks, athleticism, etc. Before men and women start dating, they have to be able to show that they are working on being able to handle their responsibilities, and they have to show that their selection criteria for the opposite sex are at least partly based on the responsibilities that the opposite sex has in a marriage.