90 Miles From Tyranny

Friday, August 19, 2022

How Much Of The U.S. Has China Already Infiltrated Right Under Our Noses?

Through land grabs, media partners, and spies, the Chinese assault is less of a swift invasion and more of an endless infiltration.

Numerous pieces have been published discussing the inexorable rise of China, and the likelihood of the Chinese economy overtaking the United States’ economy. More concerning, though, is the fact that Chinese companies closely aligned with Beijing are directly influencing operations in the United States. They are buying up land, influencing news and media networks, and shaping the narratives on college campuses. The Chinese assault is less of a swift invasion and more of an endless infiltration.

Land Grabs

Fufeng Group, a company with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), recently acquired 300 acres of prime farmland in North Dakota for $2.6 million. China now owns well over 192,000 agricultural acres in the United States.

On July 25, obviously concerned by Fufeng’s purchase, Doug Burgum, the governor of North Dakota asked the U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to “provide clarity on whether this land purchase has national security implications.”

Burgum’s fears are most definitely warranted. Over the last decade, Chinese ownership of farmland in the United States has increased dramatically. To compound matters, only a handful of states ban foreign ownership of farmland. Since 2016, a mysterious billionaire by the name of Sun Guangxinhas spent tens of millions of dollars buying land in Texas. Sun’s ties to the CCP are well known.

In truth, Chinese ownership of American farmland is just one part of the disturbing equation. Residential real estate is the second part. China now accounts for roughly a quarter of total foreign investment, in U.S. residential real estate, according to Market Watch. The Chinese are now the largest foreign buyers of U.S. homes and this has been the case for close to a decade.

Chinese Media Partners

The next step in Chinese infiltration involves corporate media. Take CNN, for example. It’s owned by CNN Global, which is part of Warner Bros. Discovery. This multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate has close ties to China.

Three other highly influential networks, NBC News, CNBC, and MSNBC, are owned by Comcast. As Harold L. Vogel, a former professor of finance and economics at Columbia, wrote last year, Comcast’s reliance on the Chinese market cannot be emphasized enough. From “major feature film releases to a theme park, and to NBA basketball games,” Comcast is beholden to...

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The 90 Miles Mystery Box: Episode #1815

You have come across a mystery box. But what is inside?

It could be literally anything from the serene to the horrific,

from the beautiful to the repugnant,

from the mysterious to the familiar.

If you decide to open it, you could be disappointed,

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Judge Won’t Unseal The Mar-a-Lago Affidavit, But It’s A Safe Bet The FBI Followed Its Depraved FISA Court M.O.

Given the similarities between the Russia hoax and this get-Trump hoax, let’s assume the affidavit has the same issues as the Carter Page FISA applications.

Ordering the unsealing of the Mar-a-Lago search warrant affidavit would be wrong as a matter of law. But as a matter of lessons learned, Americans can infer that the unprecedented search of former President Donald Trump’s home rested on circular reporting, material omissions, misleading assertions, informants of unproven reliability, and an investigation undertaken by partisan agents.

Federal Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart will hear oral arguments Thursday afternoon on the media’s motions to unseal the Trump search warrant materials. The Department of Justice, with Trump’s consent, already released the search warrant and the corresponding attachments: Attachment A, which described the places to be searched, and Attachment B, which identified things to be seized. The government also released a redacted Property Receipt list.

The Biden administration opposes, however, unsealing the affidavit filed in support of the search of Trump’s home, arguing that “the search warrant presents a very different set of considerations,” and that there are “compelling reasons, including to protect the integrity of an ongoing law enforcement investigation that implicates national security, that support keeping the affidavit sealed.”

Precedent solidly supports the government’s argument. While the First Amendment provides the press and the public the “right of access to criminal trial proceedings,” neither the U.S. Supreme Court nor the 11th Circuit — the federal appellate court that establishes mandatory precedent for the Florida federal district court where the case is pending — have addressed the question of whether the First Amendment right of access extends to sealed search warrant materials. However, other federal appellate courts have held that “there is no tradition of public access to ex parte warrant proceedings,” and based on that precedent, the DOJ argues that the “better view is that no First Amendment right to access pre-indictment warrant materials” exists.

The Sixth Circuit’s detailed analysis in In re Search of Fair Finance strongly supports the DOJ’s position. In that case, the federal appellate court explained that under Supreme Court precedent, for a First Amendment right to access a particular criminal proceeding to exist, the proceeding must have “historically been open to the press and the general public,” and “public access [must] play[] a significant positive role in the functioning of the particular process in question.” Then, after discussing the relevant history, the court concluded that there was no “historical tradition of accessibility to documents filed in search warrant proceedings,” and “that alone requires a rejection of the newspapers’ contention that there is a First Amendment right of access to them.”

Given the strength of the analysis in In re Search of Fair Finance, Reinhart is unlikely to unseal the search warrant affidavit because that precedent indicates there is no right to access the materials at all. However, rather than hold...

Texas cattle ranchers audited by IRS issue dire warning to Americans

Texas cattle ranchers David and Deborah Hajda issued a dire warning to America’s middle class after Democrats’ spending bill passed both houses of Congress allowing provisions for approximately $80 billion in IRS funding, a majority of which is dedicated to enforcement.

The Raising Five Cattle Company ranchers spoke with Dana Perino on “America’s Newsroom” Tuesday, where they recounted the grueling tax audit they experienced 13 years ago.

“We got audited over basically a $7,800 engine rebuild on a very old tractor,” Deborah said.

“They just basically said this was a red flag, and we’re going to audit you, and we’re coming to your house,” she added.

Hajda said she asked if she could fax her bank records to the IRS, but they refused to give her the option. Instead, they came to her house and demanded all of her financial records in-person.

“I took out our box of receipts… and we handed it to him, and I said ‘Here’s your receipts’… we weren’t hiding anything,” she said.

Perino asked if the IRS agent sought out the ranchers simply to fill a quota.

“Probably. They said they flagged it because our expenses were high that year, and it was because of this repair,” David responded.

The Hajdas said, while they could not afford to replace the tractor, they kept all records of expenses for the necessary repairs. However, the auditor would not give up so easily.

“He wasn’t satisfied. He kept digging, and he ended up nailing us. Our tax person was giving us 80% on our work vehicles, and he said you can only do 50%,” David said.

“I was very naive about the situation. I had no idea of the power, the scope [of the audit] going in three years of my life… and me having no control over that, no control over the information he was given,” Deborah said.

“It was very invasive. You feel very attacked because that guy wanted to go back and say, ‘I got her.’”

She went on to issue a warning to other middle-class Americans who could soon endure the same process.

“They want to get you. If they’re coming after you for an audit, they don’t want to see your receipt… they want to nitpick your life apart, and that’s not what the American dream is for...