News

Chinese Communist Party members increasingly attending church

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From CNS News.

Excerpt:

More Communist Party members in the Peoples Republic of China are attending church, according to the U.S. State Department’s latest report on International Religious Freedom.

“Although CCP members are required to be atheists and generally are discouraged from participating in religious activities, their attendance at official church services in Guangdong Province was reportedly growing, as authorities increasingly chose to turn a blind eye to their attendance,” the report stated.

Representative Frank Wolf (R-Va.), who authored the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, backed up claims that more Chinese Communists as well as members of the media are becoming Christians, despite continuing religious repression in China.

“It is definitely taking place around the country,” Wolf told CNSNews.com. “There’s a large number of Chinese who have become Christian, there are a number of people in the government and even some in the media who have become Christians.”

[…]The International Religious Freedom Report, released on July 30, also noted that in 2011, there was a “marked deterioration” of religious freedom in China.

The report discussed the persecution of religious groups, including Christians, Uighur Muslims, Catholics and Tibetan Buddhists:

“Some religious and spiritual groups are outlawed. Tibetan Buddhists in China are not free to venerate the Dalai Lama and encounter severe government interference in religious practice,” the report said.

“The government continued to severely repress Muslims living in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region and other parts of China. Crackdowns on Christian house churches, such as the Shouwang church in Beijing, continued.”

The report also noted that Chinese authorities broke up Christmas and Easter celebrations and designated many Christian groups as “evil cults.” Authorities also detained numerous Uighur Muslims without bothering to discern between peaceful worship and criminal activity.

Many Catholic clergymen who remain loyal to the Vatican instead of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA) also have been detained by the Communist regime.

[…]The Chinese constitution permits the citizenry to hold religious beliefs, but restricts the practicing and worship of religion to “normal religious activities”—a term that is left undefined by the constitution.

Since 1999, China has been designated by the U.S. State Department as a “Country of Particular Concern” under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998.

What’s striking to be is how similar the views of the repressive Chinese government are to the views of many atheists in the West. In China, even religious people have to act like atheists in public. It’s an atheist paradise. It reminds me a little of what is happening here with Obamacare and religious institutions being forced to provide abortion-inducing drugs against their consciences.

News

Obamacare subsidizes the risky behaviors of sexually active women

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From CNS News.

Excerpt:

 Starting August 1, the Democrats’ health care law — as implemented by the Health and Human Services Administration — entitles 47 million women to eight new “prevention-related” health care services “without paying more out of their own pocket,” HHS reminded Americans on Tuesday.

In addition to the controversial contraceptive mandate, HHS says virtually all health plans must cover– at no charge — the following items for sexually active women.

— HIV screening and counseling: “Sexually-active women will have access to annual counseling on HIV,” HHS said, noting that women are at increased risk of contracting HIV/AIDS.

— Counseling on sexually transmitted infections: “Sexually-active women will have access to annual counseling on sexually transmitted infections,” HHS said. “These sessions have been shown to reduce risky behavior in patients, yet only 28 percent of women aged 18-44 years reported that they had discussed STIs with a doctor or nurse.”

— HPV (human papillomavirus): This sexually transmitted disease is linked to cervical cancer. According to HHS, “Women who are 30 or older will have access to high-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA testing every three years, regardless of Pap smear results.”

— Interpersonal and domestic violence screening: “Screening and counseling for interpersonal and domestic violence should be provided for all adolescent and adult women,” HHS says. “An estimated 25% of women in the United States report being targets of intimate partner violence during their lifetimes. Screening is effective in the early detection and effectiveness of interventions to increase the safety of abused women.”

— Contraceptive coverage: The HHS regulation requires nearly all health insurance plans to provide women with sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives, including emergency contraception, without any fees or co-pay.

It is a major priority of the Obama administration: making it easier for women to have casual recreational sex with people outside of marriage. Sometimes, this recreational sex will result in increased sickness and disease, and sometimes this recreational sex will result in unplanned pregancies. But no matter – the taxpayers are there to pick up the tab for these activities. After all, “the private sector is fine” and business owners and workers “didn’t build that”, so it’s no problem at all to “spread the wealth around” from job creators and workers to pay for these expenses. And it has the added benefit of buying votes. Not only that, but Planned Parenthood will make generous donations to the Democrat Party in exchange for all the new business they’ll get.

News

Ohio coal mine closes because of Obama administration environmental policies

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From CNS News.

Excerpt:

A stop not scheduled during the president’s third visit to the battleground state in four weeks was a coal-mining operation near Brilliant, Ohio, run by Ohio American Energy Inc., a subsidiary of Murray Energy Corp. The operation employed 239 workers at its peak but will be closing as the result of President Obama’s environmental policies.

Regulatory actions by President Obama and his appointees and followers were cited as the entire reason in the press release that announced the closing. “Mr. Obama has already destroyed 83,000 megawatts of coal-fired electricity generation in America,” said Michael T.W. Carey, vice president of government affairs for Murray Energy. “Electric prices in the recent PJM Interconnection monthly auction were bid up 800% for 2015-16 because of this,” he added.

PJM Interconnection, the company that operates the electric grid for 13 states, including Ohio, recently held its 2015 capacity auction. This gave the first real indication of just how drastic the effects of Obama’s war on coal will be. The market-clearing price for new 2015 capacity was $136 per megawatt.

That’s eight times higher than the price for 2012, which was just $16 per megawatt. In Pennsylvania, the new market price is $167 per megawatt — 10 times higher. In northern Ohio, which is suffering from more forced coal-plant retirements than the rest of the region, the 2015 price is an astounding $357 per megawatt.

This is one campaign promise President Obama has kept. In 2008, candidate Obama promised a system under which “if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.”

I’m sure that some of the people who lost their jobs voted for Obama. Maybe they were even familiar with that quote of his. But they just didn’t put two and two together to make four. Will you do that in November? I think that the one thing you want to do in life is to NOT hurt yourself with your own actions. Never vote to take away your own job.