MARILYN HICKEY REACHES OVER 1 MILLION PAKISTANIS WITH THE GOSPEL

Marilyn Hickey Reaches Over 1 Million Pakistanis With the Gospel

10:30AM EST 11/30/2016 TAYLOR BERGLUND - CHRISMA NEWS

Marilyn Hickey preached to over 1 million people in Karachi, the largest city in Pakistan, earlier this month. The momentous meeting came during an eight-day missions trip to Pakistan. But that trip and the millions reached for Christ were the fruits of seeds planted years before. 

In 1995, Hickey said she felt called by the Lord to minister in Muslim countries, specifically in Pakistan. She held healing meetings in Lahore, the capital city of the Punjab province, and attracted thousands. 

"It was absolutely a destiny time," Hickey said. "So I went. The first night, I remember we had 4,000 people. By the fourth night, we had over 20,000. Lots of people [were] saved. Lots of people [were] Spirit-filled, delivered, healed. So in that timing, a man was saved called Anwar Fazal." 

Fazal became a pastor and launched Isaac TV, a Christian television network that reaches every home in Pakistan. Over 96 percent of Pakistanis are Muslims, and Isaac TV has had an enormous impact in spreading the gospel. 

When Hickey planned her seventh trip to Pakistan last year, she reached out to Fazal and shared her vision for the trip. She wanted to gather 1 million people. Without hesitation, Fazal said, "That's possible." 

Hickey and Fazal's ministries worked together, and the event was scheduled in Karachi for Nov. 12. The ministries secured a 50-acre space for the Karachi meeting and covered the entire area with rugs. Isaac TV promoted the event, and Marilyn Hickey's own reputation in the country helped attract a crowd. Believers flew in from across the country. But no one knew if they would fill the entire space. 

When the gathering began, Hickey says the 50 acres could barely fit all the people. 

"People come and they sit almost like sardines on the ground, all squished together," Hickey said. "So for 50 acres, we had people. They're very open. I'm going to guess a third of the crowd maybe was Islamic, and the rest were Christians, because the television is really, really getting hold of people's hearts in Pakistan." 

She taught on the miracles of Christ and discussed what it means to be healed by the Word. Then she says she used words of knowledge to call out healings in the crowd, and miracles took place accordingly. Finally, she explained the gospel—Jesus' life, death and resurrection—before leading people to accept Christ. 

During the eight-day trip, Hickey brought that same message to other venues, including an interview with the governor and a sermon at Fazal's church. At a meeting in Lahore, Hickey says she saw many people healed of deafness, cancer and back problems. 

And even though she's 85, Hickey has no intention to stop anytime soon. 

"At 81, I had my biggest meeting in Pakistan—at that time," Hickey said. "And if you'd told me I was going to, I would have thought, 'You're crazy.' But we had 230,000 people. ... This is how I take retirement. Retirement is doing what you like. So this is what I like. I like to do this. It doesn't make you idle. It makes you supernatural." 

JOEL 1-2 PROPHECY PREVAILS AS WILDFIRES RANSACK GATLINBURG

Joel 1-2 Prophecy Prevails as Wildfires Ransack Gatlinburg

11:30AM EST 11/30/2016 JESSILYN JUSTICE - charisma news

Joel 1 and 2, which specifically prophesy the end of days, prevail as fires ransack the Great Smokey Mountains in Tennessee.  

Dollywood employee Isaac McCord found pieces of the two chapters among the charred remains in the Pigeon Forge area.  

"I just found this while helping our House and Grounds team clean different areas of Dollywood Theme Park. It was under a bench soaking wet. Talk about goosebumps...." McCord wrote beside the seared edges of the Old Testament prophet's words. 

The specific verses include Joel 1:15, 19-20 and Joel 2:1. They declare: 

"Alas, for the day! or the day of the Lord is near, and like devastation from the Almighty it comes. ... To You, O Lord, I call, because fire has devoured the wild pastures, and flame has burned all the trees of the field. Even the beasts of the field long for You, because the streams of water have dried up, and fire has devoured the wild pastures. ... Blow the ram's horn in Zion, sound the alarm on My holy mountain! All the inhabitants of the earth will tremble, because the day of the Lord has come, because it is near."

BRITISH PM TAKES STRONG PRO-CHRISTIAN STAND

British Prime Minister Takes Strong Pro-Christian Stand

2:00PM EST 11/30/2016 THE CHRISTIAN INSTITUTE - CHARISMA NEWS

Theresa May has said Christians should be able to speak about their faith in the workplace.

Responding to a question in Parliament today, the Prime Minister said the UK has a "very strong tradition" of "religious tolerance and freedom of speech", and added that our "Christian heritage is something we can all be proud of."

Fiona Bruce MP had raised concerns that many Christians are worried "about mentioning their faith in public", after a report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) hit out at organisations which suppress Christianity for fear of causing offence.

Free Speech

The Prime Minister agreed that the ability to "speak freely, respectfully and responsibly about one's religion" should be a "jealously guarded principle."

She went on to say: "I am sure we would all want to ensure that people at work do feel able to speak about their faith and also feel able to speak quite freely about Christmas."

The EHRC's report, due to be published this week, hits out at organizations that discipline Christians or drop references to Christianity.

Injustice

According to The Mail on Sunday, it references several cases where believers were treated unjustly, including that of Institute client Adrian Smith. Smith was demoted for writing that gay marriage was "an equality too far" on his private Facebook page.

One section is reported as saying: "There is no right in Britain not to be offended and, in our view, respect for people's right to express beliefs with which others might disagree, is the mark of a democratic society."

Institute Public Affairs Deputy Director, Simon Calvert, responded to the report, saying: "Christians have certainly felt that their fundamental freedoms have been set aside by the human rights and equality industry in recent years."

Change Needed

"It's a relief to see the Commission stand up for freedom of religion as a fundamental right and recognize that it should not be suppressed through fear of offending."

But Calvert insisted that the current law needs to be amended.

"We have long argued that equality law needs rebalancing so that courts have to take time to weigh up competing rights to see if both sides can be reasonably accommodated.

"Too often the courts come down strongly in favor of the secular liberal side of the argument."

My comments: Ironically Britain and the U.S. will survive as "Christian" or not at all. God, the Ultimate Judge will not long tolerate an godless Culture--He never has. Today, the godless, Socialist, Secular Humanist Religion wants Complete Control. If it is given to them, the Cultures that do so, are Doomed.

NO, FLAG-BURNING IS NOT PROTECTED BY THE CONSTITUTION

November 30, 2016

No, flag-burning is not protected by the Constitution

By Bryan Fischer

Follow me on Twitter: @BryanJFischer, on Facebook at "Focal Point"

Host of "Focal Point" on American Family Radio, 1-3pm CT, M-Fwww.afr.net

Donald Trump, as is his wont, kicked a considerable amount of dust in the air with a Tweet declaring that those who burn the American flag should be punished.

The amount of dust in the air is so thick that it is blotting out the light of the Constitution itself.
As soon as Trump's Tweet landed in the Twitterverse, a cascade of volleys from both the left and right descended on him, almost all of them to the effect that flag-burning is protected by the Constitution's plank on freedom of speech. Flag-burning, they insist, is a form of speech and therefore is protected.
But they are, quite simply, wrong. Burning a flag is not speech. It's action. Speech, on the other hand, means words actually coming out of your mouth. I give you the definition of "speech" from Merriam-Webster (emphasis mine): "the communication or expression of thoughts in spoken words." The First Amendment protects speech, not action.
In particular, the Founders were protecting freedom of political speech in the Bill of Rights. They had come out of a period of time in which the Crown sought to repress and punish speech which was critical of its policies. The Founders wanted to ensure that America would always be a place where a free and robust public debate about political ideas would be unhindered and completely free from government interference.

It ought to be noted in passing that the protection of speech in the First Amendment was not intended by the Founders to be absolute. There is absolutely no First Amendment protection for profanity or libel or pornography, for example, or for yelling "Fire" in a crowded theater. People may be allowed to get away with profanity or pornography, but that's a different matter altogether than claiming they have a constitutional right to such expressions.

Profanity is not political speech, which is what the Founders were protecting. Pornography is not political speech at all. It's not even speech. Taking your clothes off and having sex in front of a camera is not speech. It's action, it's conduct, and finds no constitutional refuge in the First Amendment. Both profanity and pornography can be restricted in any way the elected representatives of the people choose.
Flag desecration was so far from being considered constitutionally suspect that by 1932 every state in the union had a law banning it on the books. Even Democratic icon Franklin Roosevelt signed an act of Congress in 1942 that provided crystal clear guidance as to how the flag was to be respected and treated.
What the Low-to-No Information Media will not tell you is that even Hillary Clinton herself introduced legislation in 2005 to criminalize flag-burning. She also supported another bill in 2006 that would have sent flag burners to jail for a year. The 2006 bill got 36 Democratic votes, another thing the media will hide from you.

Here's where judicial activists, beginning in the 1940s, pulled a linguistic sleight of hand on us that we have indulged for far too long. For "freedom of speech" they substituted the term "freedom of expression." They've managed to smuggle a host of reprehensible forms of communication across our moral border by using this gratuitous euphemism, and it's time they be called on it.

Simply put, speech is speech, and in particular, political speech. That's what the First Amendment protects.
So when it comes to flag burning, the truth is quite simple. It's not speech. It's action, it's behavior, it's conduct, and thus falls outside the purview of the freedom of speech plank in the Constitution. The purpose of law is to regulate destructive conduct and provide appropriate sanctions for behaviors – like speeding in a school zone – that are contrary to public policy. Flag-burning is one of those behaviors.
The bald eagle is an American symbol, just like the flag. Shooting a bald eagle as a form of political protest is not speech. It's action, and can be sanctioned in law. Even our liberal friends who believe in torching a flag would agree with us about the eagle. They ought to agree with us about the flag.

Many conservatives have argued that flag-burning must be okay because even Antonin Scalia said it was. Well, Scalia was an eminent jurist, but he could be wrong like any other fallible human being, and he was wrong on this one. Justice Scalia is not the supreme legal authority in the land, the Constitution is. And where the Constitution contradicts Scalia, I'm going with the Constitution.

So if we use the Founders' Constitution (not the one mangled by the Court) there is no constitutional impediment to sanctioning flag-burning. Whether it should be done is a separate matter, and is the reason why we have a Congress and state legislatures. As elected representatives of the people, it's their job to decide what behaviors ought to be regulated in law. They certainly can regulate flag desecration if they wish. And speaking for myself, I think they should.
(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)

© Bryan Fischer

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/fischer/161130

THE MORAL SICKNESS OF THE LEFT

November 30, 2016

The moral sickness of the left

By Cliff Kincaid

Donald J. Trump is labeled by CNN as a liar on a regular basis, while the dead communist tyrant Fidel Castro is lauded as a revolutionary hero. American reporters are in Havana, Cuba, to film people crying on their way to honor a dictator who had recommended that the Soviets launch a nuclear attack on the United States.
Our media never fail to demonstrate that there is no limit to how low they can sink. The sickness in the media is only matched by the pro-Castro sentiments in people like Jill Stein, the Green Party presidential candidate working with Hillary Clinton to overturn the results of the 2016 presidential election. Stein remarked, "Fidel Castro was a symbol of the struggle for justice in the shadow of empire. Presente!"
Virtually all day long on Monday, CNN was broadcasting the "news" that Trump had "falsely" claimed that millions had voted illegally in the 2016 presidential election. CNN had not bothered to provide to its viewers the 45 pages of documentation of Trump's claim from the Trump transition office. Instead, CNN simply dismissed it out of hand.

CNN correspondent Jeff Zeleny reported, "Donald Trump is showing signs tonight of being a sore winner. The president-elect is suggesting with zero evidence to back up his claim that he won the popular vote," and that "he's a victim of widespread election fraud."

Zero evidence? That's a matter of opinion. Viewers had no way of knowing that the Trump transition team had provided 45 pages of documentation.

Contrast how quickly our media were able to "debunk" Trump's claim to how long it took them to determine that the attacker at Ohio State University was an Islamic terrorist. On Tuesday morning, Davan Maharaj, editor-in-chief of the Los Angeles Times, sent an email to subscribers listing various headlines from the news, including that "A man drove a car into a crowd of students at Ohio State University and then attacked bystanders with a butcher knife, injuring at least 11. Officials are investigating whether terrorism was a motive."
This kind of formulation is not only an indictment of the media, which knew the facts about the Islamic motivations of the terrorist by that time, but also of the anonymous "officials" supposedly investigating "whether terrorism was a motive."
Why are the media so quick to denounce Trump and so eager to whitewash radical Islam?
This sickness in the media is matched by the reaction of leading "progressive" organizations to Castro's death.
Black Lives Matter says, "There is an overwhelming sense of loss, complicated by fear and anxiety. Although no leader is without their flaws, we must push back against the rhetoric of the right and come to the defense of El Comandante."
Black Lives Matter supports convicted cop-killer Assata Shakur, who is listed by the FBI as a domestic terrorist with a $1 million bounty on her head. She is living in Cuba under the protection of the Raul Castro regime.

Global Exchange, a group co-founded by Medea Benjamin, who is also the co-founder of CodePink, noted "with sadness and respect the passing of Comandante Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz." It added, "His life has been in the service of humanity. His leadership in the Cuban Revolution can never be forgotten. The peoples of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the United States are beneficiaries of Cuban internationalism – a unique internationalism not based simply on theory but on practice, sacrifice, and love."
Ironically, Global Exchange claims to be "an international human rights organization." The group makes money from trips to Cuba.
Not to be outdone, the Cuban Communist "news" organization, Prensa Latina, highlighted how Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) had praised Castro, saying, "President Castro was a recognized world leader who was dedicated to the Cuban people."
Lee was a secret member of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, a spin-off of the Communist Party USA. She was Barack Obama's Western Regional co-chair during the 2008 presidential campaign.

© Cliff Kincaid

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/kincaid/161130

My comments: The "Left" is comprised of godless, Socialist, Secular Humanists--Against God and His Word. This is as Despicable as it gets before the Living God, and their influence in America is a Curse upon America. These godless people are sending Millions of people to Hell with their godless Religion, and America has No Furture with them in positions of influence as they are.

DEATH OF A TYRANT

CELEBRATE THE FAILURE OF CASTRO'S DREAM

Exclusive: Barry Farber is glad to know 'Fidel's poison pen will dictate no more'

It was shortly after Japan bombed us into the war in 1941. I was a pre-teenager and the first to see the morning paper which carried the story that American planes had sunk a Japanese destroyer, killing 2,000 Japanese sailors. “Great news!” I shouted as I barged into my father’s room. “We killed two thousand Japs!”

“I know what you mean, son,” my father said, “But remember, it’s never good news when people die.” I thought of that philosophical offering when word arrived of the death of Fidel Castro. So let’s set him aside as a 90-year-old piece of human biology and rejoice together that a dictator has dictated his final orders for the execution of political foes, the torture of freedom-lovers, the imprisonment of those Cubans who don’t want to live in Communist Cuba and the repression of human rights to a degree rarely seen in this hemisphere. His poison pen will dictate no more.

Castro may resemble Santa Claus only in facial hair, but by dying he gave a big present to all those Americans too opaque to know the difference between our outgoing president and our president-elect. President Obama’s statement upon Fidel’s passing could have been written about a normal leader of a normal country. He offered condolences to the people of Cuba for the loss of a leader who “served his people for over half a century.” Whaddaya know! “Adolf Hitler served the German people for only 12 years!”

Donald Trump decried this monster dictator who murdered, lied, stole and shredded human rights like an angry coyote who’d found a baby kitten. Many Americans will learn for the very first time how different a nation America is about to become.

As a young journalist in the late 1950s, I could have been brought up on charges of gun-running for Fidel Castro. I was the producer of a New York radio talk show that considered the Cuban ruler whom Castro overthrew, Fulgencio Batista, as belonging to the Hitler-Mussolini-Stalin-Mao class of tyrants. All of us were for Castro. We interviewed many Cuban pro-Castro dissidents and begged the listeners to send money to Fidel Castro’s “Twenty-Sixth of July Movement” (the name came from Castro’s first “revolutionary” battle, when he attacked the Cuban Army barracks at Santiago de Cuba on that date in 1953). Back then, Castro’s movement promised widespread reform, including distribution of land to peasants and honest elections!

One night I went to the Paris Hotel in New York to escort a pro-Castro Cuban official to the broadcast. Castro chose this man to be his first “president” of Cuba once Batista were unseated. “You will win this revolution,” I told him as our cab rolled from the hotel to the broadcast studio. “There will be hundreds of foreign newspeople attending your first news conference. You will see me in the crowd. I ask you now to remember me and have your aides bring me into your office for an exclusive interview.”

And that’s exactly the way it came to pass. Castro’s first president, Manuel Urrutia from Yaguajay, pointed to me and welcomed me into his office and gave me my first real “scoop”! Why did Castro choose Urrutia as his “president”? Fidel had been arrested a few years earlier on treason charges. Judge Urrutia threw the case out, and Castro went free.

Batista was no Hitler, Stalin, Mao or anything near. He was a typical Latin American “strongman.” Real dictators don’t let armed revolutionaries go free.

Urrutia didn’t last long as president. But until he realized Fidel’s true intentions and became one of his opponents, Urrutia was sucker enough to believe what the rest of us believed – namely, that Fidel wanted to establish a democracy in Cuba and then train, aid and abet copycat revolutions in every single Latin American dictatorship. It was convincing. What a great dream! Castro would mobilize the youth of all the Americas and become the new “Simon Bolivar.” The next target after Cuba was to be the Dominican Republic run by Rafael Trujillo.

What happened to that dream? Castro had a different one. His true aim the whole time was to bring communism big-time to the Americas, and the celebratory cup I sip from now is not to rejoice over Fidel Castro’s physical departure. It’s to celebrate the bankruptcy of his dream. Venezuela is the latest country to fall into the Castro scam. I count 39 countries that have tried communist/socialist economies. All have failed. If you had a cat that tore up 39 sofas, would you provide sofa number 40 upon which he could cavort?

Castro may right now be saying to Abraham Lincoln [Go along with me here for a moment and presume – however unlikely – that both men are spending eternity in the same place!], “Abe, I may not have converted the Americas to communism, but I sure played havoc with that old chestnut of yours about fooling some of the people all the time and all the people some of the time. I think, Abe, I’ve proved that if you have enough liberals in the right places, mainly the media, you can sure-as-hell fool most of the people most of the time!

“And, Abe, if you need convincing, look at that wimp Justin Trudeau in Canada, who was even more effusive in his praise of me than Obama was.”

Castro leaves Cuba 100 percent Marx – 50 percent Karl and 50 percent Groucho!

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2016/11/celebrate-the-failure-of-castros-dream/#HW5eUcvCwBq0VVUp.99

ON MISSION

THE LEFT'S 'PARENTS ARE THE ENEMY' SCHEME

Exclusive: Linda Harvey combats school policy pushed by 'LGBTQ' lobbyists

Children should learn to distrust their parents, keep secrets from them and make decisions without parental input. Parents, as we all know, stand in the way of progress, dreams and desires.

Transgender and homosexual activists, on the other hand, are totally trustworthy, even if they pose as teachers, health professionals or school counselors.

This is how progressives think. Yet most of us would disagree.

“Parents are the enemy” is too often today’s default narrative disseminated throughout the public education establishment, propelled by the sexual anarchist left.

Two recent issues highlight this trend. One is a lawsuit just filed in Minnesota by mother Anmarie Calgaro against a school, several health providers and social service agencies. Why? Because her minor son is receiving medical treatment with the objective of “becoming” a female, and Calgaro was blocked from input into this life-changing decision.

In fact, these defendants presumed Calgaro’s son was an emancipated minor, when he is not.

Along these same lines, a recent bill introduced in the Texas Legislature would prohibit the violation of parental rights. The sponsor is state Sen. Konni Burton. The measure would bar schools from withholding medical and mental health information from parents. SB 242 would clarify existing state law and prevent schools from adopting a secrecy posture toward parents.

In a recent Texas controversy, students who identified as “transgender” in the Fort Worth Independent School District could depend on school officials to disclose that information only on a “need to know” basis, according to instructions from the superintendent, Dr. Kent Scribner. And sometimes, parents didn’t “need to know.” Scribner withdrew the faculty and staff directive after other Texas officials cried foul.

The homosexual activist community is screaming about Burton’s bill, claiming it would “out” students to their parents. And that, of course, might produce a positive outcome, since parents can often dissuade a confused child from starting down a path of life-destroying behavior.

Twitter comments accuse Sen. Burton of filing a bill that would “kill teens” or cause suicide. This is a common manipulative tactic of homosexual activists, holding communities hostage to the non-specific threats of youth self-harm. Many local and state pro-homosexual/transgender measures have been embraced after sensational prophecies based on unverifiable anecdotes.

Sen. Burton’s bill does not require schools to pro-actively notify all parents but only directs schools to respond to parent-initiated requests for academic, behavioral, or health records about a child.

The routine bypass of parents is a real problem and raises a whole host of questions. The abortion industry has been getting away with violating parental rights for several decades as clinics receiving Title X federal funds for contraceptive services are often allowed to treat minors without parental consent.

“Some teens are in danger if their backward parents learn about their daughter’s sexual choices,” is the standard clinic position. It’s not coincidental that abortuaries rake in piles of cash from the sexual promiscuity of vulnerable and confused young girls whose taxpaying parents are kept intentionally in the dark about a child’s high-risk behavior.

The Guttmacher Institute, established as the research arm of Planned Parenthood, says this:

“Minors who are sexually active, pregnant, or infected with a sexually transmitted disease (STD) and those who abuse drugs or alcohol or suffer from emotional or psychological problems may avoid seeking care if they must involve their parents.”

So with this excuse in hand, the abortion industry and now homosexual advocacy groups claim to be acting in a minor’s best interests while initiating intrusive and life-altering medical treatment for that child. It may be an abortion on a 14-year-old, or in some states now (like Oregon), administration of hormone treatment of young teens for purported “sex change,” all without any parent’s knowledge or consent.

How is this a good thing? It won’t be long before 13- or 14-year-old boys can be surgically castrated without parental consent, all because they “needed” this horrific procedure, which many would consider child mutilation and abuse. The destructive trend will continue until concerned taxpaying parents start saying, “No way.”

Planned Parenthood’s deceptive standard of “care” is to ally with the girl against her parents in a diabolical corruption scheme that sometimes involves murder. The intentional destruction of one’s own child is an act that has life-long consequences for every mother. And we are letting our girls be drawn into such actions, all with taxpayer support of these blood-drenched clinics.

Virtually all parents love and want the best for their children. Only a tiny minority will ever act without a child’s long-term welfare in mind. Yet the current leftist “presumption of harm” by parents is too often the prevailing attitude. It’s an ungodly attempt to separate youth from the very people whose provision, protection and guidance will be the best recipe for their well-being. But, typical of Satan, those who want to mess with families will couch their harmful plans in terms of “help.”

Parents are the enemy in the warped and rebellious minds of most “LGBTQ” lobbyists. The evil strategy of youth-directed homosexual activism corrupts young minds and bodies. Then, when other people’s children predictably rebel and adopt bizarre, destructive identities and behaviors, the activists insist that parents be kept in the dark for fear of “harm” to the child – sometimes self-harm – which, ironically, these deviants may have callously enabled.

The hand grenade of supporting “LGBTQ” behavior is tossed into a school, yet the collateral damage is still blamed on local homes and churches– never on the “gay” community aggressively corrupting minors.

It’s exactly the opposite. These activists need to be expelled from every school, clinic or youth organization where they work.

Parental rights need to be affirmed and upheld in all U.S. schools, and those school administrators who don’t understand this need to lose their rights – to a high-paying, taxpayer-funded job.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2016/11/the-lefts-parents-are-the-enemy-scheme/#M2LWBS2H5QgBdwvc.99

My comments: LGBT activists need to be expelled from every school, clinic or youth organization where they work. Parental rights need to be affirmed and upheld in all U.S. schools.

CASTRO USED HOLLYWOOD STOOGES TO MAKE HIM LOOK LIKE A HERO

BETWEEN THE LINES

HOW HOLLYWOOD REHABILITATED CASTRO

Exclusive: Joseph Farah points to magazine's spiking of story about Fidel's film school

Sean Penn, Danny Glover, Robert Redford, Oliver Stone and Harry Belafonte.

These are just a few of the stars we have to thank for the way Fidel Castro is remembered today not as the long-time dictator of a police state that attempted to import nuclear weapons to the island nation to achieve military parity with the U.S., just 90 miles away. Instead, the obituaries all-too-often make him sound like a saint.

Even the pope sounded confused about who and what Castro truly was.

But it was the Hollywood establishment that long ago fell hook, line and sinker for Fidel’s propaganda machine, helping to rehabilitate the image of the late ruthless tyrant.

The Hollywood pilgrimages to Cuba have been going on for a long time. Let me give you a little background and tell you what no one else is willing to say about them.

About two decades ago, a good friend of mine, and one of the best investigative reporters I’ve ever worked with, Merle Linda Wolin, got a feature assignment from the entertainment magazine Premiere to visit Cuba and report on the “renowned” cinema school headed by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Wolin, by way of background, was one of the founders of Mother Jones magazine, and her “progressive” credentials were impeccable. I had the pleasure of working as her editor; she served as Latin American bureau chief in Mexico City for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. Though, indeed, Wolin was personally sympathetic to the causes of the left, as a reporter she always sought the truth – no matter what the assignment.

Shortly after the Sandinistas assumed power in Nicaragua in the 1980s, Wolin spent weeks on the scene, interviewing all the top officials of the new Marxist government and digging in all the right places. Her six-part “Portrait of the Enemy” series for our paper was, perhaps, the most devastating profile of the Sandinistas ever written.

So, from my point of view, she was just the right person to explore Cuba’s cinema school and its links with Oliver Stone, Sidney Pollack, Spike Lee, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas and many other Hollywood icons.

Experience more of Joseph Farah’s no-nonsense truth-telling in his books, audio and video products, featured in the WND Superstore

What Wolin found did not surprise me, but it did shock her editors at Premiere:

Student work at the cinema school was subject to censorship like everything else in Cuba.

Cuban intelligence agents permeated every facet of the school and watched over all activities like hawks.

Fidel and Garcia Marquez played Hollywood like a flute – entertaining stars, persuading them that the cinema school was a bastion of freedom and creativity and that real art, not propaganda, was the result.

Wolin interviewed Antonio Valle Vallejo, Garcia Marquez’s former personal assistant at the school who defected to the United States. Vallejo explained the school was little more than a Cuban propaganda operation whose principal objective was to use the film project to expand the Cuban political model throughout Latin America while improving the police state’s image around the world.

“The school is the hook for Hollywood,” said Vallejo. And, back in the early 1990s, Redford was the fish. He fell for the bait – hook, line and sinker.

Meanwhile, the story inside the story was even more interesting. When Wolin finished her major investigative piece for Premiere, her editors were aghast. They spiked the story.

“Our liberal readers will never believe this,” Wolin was told.

Despite having invested tens of thousands of dollars in the research and travel, Premiere decided not to share the information with Hollywood. Wolin switched gears and wrote the story for the New Republic.

But it’s no wonder Hollywood has never learned the painful lessons Redford learned from his exploitation by Fidel and Garcia Marquez. The entertainment industry magazine that uncovered the details never published a story for Hollywood.

So, the pilgrimages to the island police state and its famous film school continued. The names and the faces changed, but the money and influence they brought with them continued to bolster the lie that Cuba was interested in art and that its film school is somehow independent of Castro’s totalitarian political policies.

Castro killed people who disagree with him. He lined them up against the wall and shot them. He locked others up in dungeons where they never again saw the light of day, as Armando Valladares, a survivor, documented in his seminal book on the Cuban gulag.

He also used Hollywood stooges to make him look like a hero to the rest of the world.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2016/11/how-hollywood-rehabilitated-castro/#8tIzo2DPVxyw4lhe.99

MARRIED TEACHER STALKED STUDENTS FOR SEX

Woman admits to crimes with teen in classroom, sent 'thong' selfie

Published: 4 hours ago

(MIRROR) A high school teacher is facing jail after sending racy photos and text messages to two teenage students and performing oral sex on one of them in a classroom, it has been reported.

English teacher Allison Marchese, 39, sent flirtations and sexual hints through social media as well as a selfie of herself “dressed in only thong style underwear with her breast covered and her midriff exposed”, court records said.

One message said that Marchese “would do anything (the pupil) told her to do as long as he was going to talk to her”, an arrest warrant affidavit said.

Read the WND story that started it all! The big list: Female teachers with students

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GOLDMAN SACHS: TRUMP PRESIDENCY TO BENEFIT ALMOST EVERY SECTOR

Expectations of lower tax rates, economic stimulus among key reasons

Published: 4 hours ago

(BLOOMBERG) After years of slowing earnings growth and little in the way of excitement for many Wall Street analysts, many are now hopeful that President-elect Donald Trump will finally make things interesting.

When collating data for the Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Analyst Index — a proprietary measure of growth across different sectors of the S&P 500 — the firm included a question this month on what the election of Donald Trump will mean for the industries covered by those surveyed. Turns out, they are rather optimistic.

“This month, we asked analysts to comment on how the results of the U.S. election will affect companies in their respective sectors,” the team led by Avisha Thakkar writes in the new note. “While their responses suggest that there is still uncertainty about the sector-level impact, the majority of sectors are anticipating favorable effects,” they say, adding that expectations of lower tax rates and economic stimulus are among key reasons for the favorable outlook.

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TRUMP TO ANNOUNCE CARRIER PLANT WILL STAY IN U.S.

'Now I can put my daughter through college without having to look for another job'

Published: 16 hours ago

(NYTIMES) — From the earliest days of his campaign, Donald J. Trump made keeping manufacturing jobs in the United States his signature economic issue, and the decision by Carrier, the big air-conditioner company, to move over 2,000 of them from Indiana to Mexico was a tailor-made talking point for him on the stump.

On Thursday, Mr. Trump and Mike Pence, Indiana’s governor and the vice president-elect, plan to appear at Carrier’s Indianapolis factory to announce a deal with the company to keep roughly 1,000 jobs in the state, according to officials with the transition team as well as Carrier.

Mr. Trump will be hard-pressed to alter the economic forces that have hammered the Rust Belt for decades, but forcing Carrier and its parent company, United Technologies, to reverse course is a powerful tactical strike that will hearten his followers even before he takes office.

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