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Multiple 2016 and 2017 emails from Hunter Biden’s longtime business partner Eric Schwerin .. raise new questions about a claim made by Biden's attorney regarding Biden's divestiture in a technology-focused fund. Leaked Treasury Department records obtained as part of the FinCen Files revealed that Hares Youssef, a Ukrainian-Syrian businessman with alleged ties to Russian organized crime, paid mbloom — a now-defunct technology startup fund backed by Hawaii’s Strategic State Development Corporation and Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners (RSTP) — nearly $3 million. ... The transaction was flagged via a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) by the City National Bank in Los Angeles...

A friend recently asked, “Where are those with uncompromising power and God-given authority in our pulpits today?” His statement reminded me of the desperate need for passionate, spirit-filled preachers focused on pleasing God rather than man. Our culture’s false perception of God as a cosmic ball of love, or a doting grandfather desperately needs to be challenged. Unfortunately, difficult truths are often compromised, watered-down, or avoided altogether in the hope of “not offending,” “securing an audience,” or building a “mega-ministry.” As a result, the church is a mile wide but only an inch deep; judgment is never mentioned, repentance is...

The semantic dance of whether or not to call the July mass shooting in Chattanooga a "terrorist" attack appears to be winding down. FBI Director James Comey twice called the deadly Chattanooga shooting that killed four Marines and one sailor a "terror attack" during a press conference with NYPD commissioner Bill Bratton on Wednesday. Bratton and Comey spoke after addressing the NYPD Shield Conference in New York City. "We've investigated Chattanooga as a terror attack from the beginning," Comey said. "The Chattanooga killer was inspired by a foreign terror organization. It's hard to entangle which particular source...there are lots of...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The public may never know what motivated a 24-year-old Chattanooga man to kill four Marines and a sailor in an attack on Chattanooga's U.S. Naval and Marine Reserve Center last July. Investigators have said Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez was a homegrown violent extremist but have not offered more details about what motivated the attack that began at a military recruiting center and ended when Abdulazeez was shot to death by police who followed him to the reserve center. "We're still trying to make sure we understand Abdulazeez, his motivations and associations, in a really good way," FBI Director...

The Obama administration gave the parents of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl extraordinary insider access to the military’s hunt for their son by having them take part in a series of secure video conferences with senior commanders as well as White House and State Department officials. A former government official involved in American hostage issues said he had never heard of giving a family such access and questioned whether sensitive information could have been conveyed to Robert and Jani Bergdahl and somehow leaked out. A family spokesman said he knows of no such breach. Soon after Sgt. Bergdahl went missing in...

For twenty years, Mr. Obama drank from a particular brand of religion—Liberal Christianity. To be sure, most Bible-believing Christians would not consider that brand to be Christianity at all. But liberal Christians would consider their brand to actually be the enlightened one. Over time, Liberal Christianity has developed a humanistic understanding of what the Christian faith is about. They claim that Christians who still believe the Bible is God’s perfect self-revelation are stuck back in the 1st century. Society has evolved, they say. And because society has evolved, God must be evolving also. After all, why else would He allow...

That’s a startling question, to be sure. But it’s a question that haunted me during my recent visit to Australia. There, political conservatism is experiencing a revival of sorts after six years of socialist wilderness. While in Australia, I kept thinking about a surprising statement made to me by a prominent American conservative leader during the last U.S. election. At that time, he said, “I will not support the Republican candidate. In fact, I hope Obama wins.” When I couldn’t hide my shock, he went on to explain his perspective: eventually the socialist ideology in our country would over-tip its...

Youssef was transferred from a federal detention center during the past few weeks to an undisclosed halfway house as part of preparation for his release, Federal Bureau of Prisons spokesman Ed Ross said. He is due to be freed on September 26 but will remain under the supervision of probation officials for the next four years, Ross said.

In my book, When the Crosses are Gone, I warn that when a culture abandons thinking and logic in favor of feelings and emotions, it is doomed to destruction. Although emotions are a very important part of the human psyche, when they control every aspect of life, morality becomes a victim. Today, there is widespread agreement that morality in America is deteriorating with breathtaking speed. On one hand, we face a belligerent and intimidating lobby that desires the breakdown of biblical morality. On the other hand, a docile public-as well as church leadership-is terrified to stand up for truth lest...

Some in the media have popularized the term "culture war," giving the impression that the war being waged against Christianity is the same thing as a war against everything that is traditional. But in 2013, let's change the term. Let's call it what it is: "A war against Christ." Certainly there are many American traditions rooted in Christian teaching and history. But mixing some traditions with what is purely Christ-honoring -- although it may recruit support from non-Christian traditionalists or conservatives -- dilutes the Christian dye. Take for example the ACLU's war against Christians praying in public schools while obliging...

LOS ANGELES — Fuming for two months in a jail cell here, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula has had plenty of time to reconsider the wisdom of making “Innocence of Muslims,” his crude YouTube movie trailer depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a bloodthirsty, philandering thug. Does Mr. Nakoula now regret the footage? After all, it fueled deadly protests across the Islamic world and led the unlikely filmmaker to his own arrest for violating his supervised release on a fraud conviction. Not at all. In his first public comments since his incarceration soon after the video gained international attention in September, Mr. Nakoula...

Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, (or Mark Basseley Youssef) the American Coptic filmmaker partly responsible for the film clip that President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice initially and incorrectly blamed for inciting the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that killed the American Ambassador and three other Americans, was recently sentenced to a one year prison term for violating his probation.On September 27, in the midst of the tumult in the Muslim world, Nakoula was arrested in the middle of the night from his home in the Los Angeles area for violating his...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The California man behind an anti-Muslim film that led to violence in many parts of the Middle East was sentenced Wednesday to a year in federal prison for probation violations in an unrelated matter, then issued a provocative statement through his attorney. The sentence was the result of a plea bargain between lawyers for Mark Bassely Youssef and federal prosecutors. Youssef admitted in open court that he had used several false names in violation of his probation order and obtained a driver's license under a false name. He was on probation for a bank fraud case....

No word yet on what the violation was, but I assume it must be far more serious than using an alias or a computer. Given the insanity of the past two weeks, replete with the White House nudging Google to pull the video off of YouTube and the State Department running ads on Pakistani TV to apologize for a movie they had nothing to do with, I can’t quite believe the DOJ would risk the perception that they’re punishing this guy for a thoughtcrime unless something serious was involved. There has to be a real crime underlying this. Right? The...

We now have a firsthand account that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pledged the Innocence of Muslims filmmaker (Nakoula Basseley Nakoula) would be “arrested and prosecuted” for making the video the administration spent weeks blaming for the Benghazi attack. That means Hillary outwardly expressed a desire to make Nakoula a political prisoner. There is another individual in Hillary’s past who appears to be living the life of a political prisoner right this very second; his name is Peter Paul and his ordeal began in the year 2000. Paul was the individual behind a completely different video trailer. In 2007, a...

The California man behind an anti-Muslim film that roiled the Middle East was sentenced Wednesday to a year in prison for violating his probation stemming from a 2010 bank fraud conviction by lying about his identity. U.S. District Court Judge Christina Snyder immediately sentenced Mark Basseley Youssef after he admitted to four of the eight alleged violations, including obtaining a fraudulent California driver's license. Prosecutors agreed to drop the other four allegations under an agreement with Youssef's attorneys, which also included more probation. None of the violations had to do with the content of "Innocence of Muslims," a film that...

The extreme naivety of our foreign policy makers toward countries like Libya and Egypt is not only embarrassing, it is dangerous and disastrous. With yesterday's storming of American diplomatic offices in Egypt and Libya, the world is now watching the true colors of Islamists -- something that those of us with experience have known all along. Unfortunately the Obama administration has been doggedly colorblind to the Islamists' true colors. We give Egypt $2 billion a year. We give Libya military and financial aid to topple their dictator. But what do we get in the way of thanks? Death and destruction....

Episcopalian leaders continue to guide their denomination into the abyss—and no doubt, the Presbyterians (PCUSA) will soon follow. As reported in the Huffington Post, the Episcopal denomination’s General Convention voted this week to make it illegal to “discriminate against anyone.” Specifically, that means it is now illegal to “. . . bar from the priesthood people who were born into one gender and live as another or who do not identify themselves as male or female.” Readers of my columns and other pieces may remember my prediction that this fast train into the pit would not stop just with practicing...

In my last blog, Obama's Religion, I explained the new religion that is taking American churches by storm. That new religion is articulated and exalted by no less than President Obama himself. The religion adheres to the following belief: "Yes, Jesus is my Savior, but He's not the only one. Other religions are equally valid and accepted by God. Christianity is one way to God, but not the only way." An even greater travesty is that so many well-meaning Christians are buying into that preposterous belief. Why do I call it preposterous? Because it's equivalent to believing 2 + 2...

I feel sorry for Mr. Obama. Regular readers of my blog may be surprised to see those words, but I really do have feelings of genuine sympathy for him. Any human who carries a semblance of spiritual understanding will share in that feeling of sorrow. Try to imagine him standing on two small boats in the middle of the ocean—he has one foot squarely in the middle of the floor of one boat, and the other foot is similarly fixed to the second boat. If an observer were to make only a passing glance at such a scene, one might...