90 Miles From Tyranny

Tuesday, April 16, 2019

I Finally Found An Example Of White Male Privilege. It Must End Now.

Potential Consequences of Spying on the Trump Campaign

Actions by Justice Department officials in spying on a Donald Trump campaign adviser in 2016 could be a crime or merely an administrative offense, legal experts say.

Crimes could include perjury or misleading a court, they say, while disciplinary action for an administrative offense could mean being fired or losing a law license.

Testifying last week before two separate congressional panels, Attorney General William Barr said the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General report about the surveillance of Trump campaign aide Carter Page will be released in May or June.

Barr also indicated that he planned a further review of government “spying” on the Trump campaign.

What’s known is that the Obama administration’s Justice Department obtained a warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, to conduct electronic surveillance on Page in October 2016.

The inspector general’s review is looking at whether Justice Department or FBI officials did anything improper in obtaining the warrant approved by a federal judge.

“Before looking at the legality, the department should examine the process behind getting a FISA warrant against a presidential campaign. That’s something that should be approved by the attorney general first,” John Yoo, a former assistant U.S. attorney general under President George W. Bush, told The Daily Signal.

Domestic spying on political opponents was a big part of what prompted the FISA law in the 1970s after President Richard Nixon’s administration, the goal being to put a check in place.

“The whole point of FISA was because Nixon was spying on political opponents,” said Yoo, now a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley. “This seems to have violated the purpose of FISA, which is to make sure surveillance is always...

Ilhan Omar’s Los Angeles CAIR speech — the one that has attracted the current attention — gives the received CAIR origin fable that is recited as fact by the mainstream media outlets. I mean the one that serves up CAIR as a civil rights organization. Mosaic reminds us this morning:

Controversy broke out last week concerning remarks Congresswoman Ilhan Omar made at a gathering of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Last week also marked the fifth anniversary since CAIR—widely regarded by American journalists and politicians as a legitimate representative of U.S. Muslims—successfully pressured Brandeis University into canceling its plans to grant an honorary degree to the apostate Muslim and women’s-rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali. At the time, Andrew McCarthy responded with an updated version of a chapter from his 2010 book, in which he explained how Hamas operatives created CAIR.

Mosaic quotes this passage:

When 25 [Hamas] members and supporters gathered at a Marriott Hotel in Philadelphia on October 27, 1993, they were unaware that the FBI was monitoring their deliberations. The confab was a brainstorming exercise: how best to back Hamas and derail the Oslo Accords while concealing these activities from the American government? . . . In the U.S., Hamas was [by this time] perceived as the principal enemy of the popular “peace process.” . . .

That was where [a] new organization would come in. . . . The new entity’s Islamism and Hamas promotion would have to be less “conspicuous.” It would need to couch its rhetoric in sweet nothings like “social justice,” “due process,” and “resistance.” If it did those things, though, it might be more attractive . . . and effective. A Muslim organization posing as a civil-rights activist while soft-pedaling its jihadist sympathies might be able to snow the American political class, the courts, the media, and the academy. It might make real inroads with the . . . progressives who dominated the Clinton administration. . . .

Despite its Hamas roots and terror ties, the most disturbing aspect of CAIR is its accomplishment of the Muslim Brotherhood’s precise aspiration for it. Thanks to its media savvy and the credulousness of government officials and press outlets, which have treated it as the “civil-rights” group it purports to be rather than the Islamist spearhead that it is, CAIR has been a constant thorn in the side of American national defense.

NR published an adapted excerpt from McCarthy’s The Grand Jihad in 2014 as “The roots of CAIR’s intimidation campaign.” Everyone should know this story. Those who...

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,

you could be inspired, you could be appalled.

This is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended.

You have been warned.

Weird Looking Cat Terrifies Young Man

OMG, I can't stop laughing at this!

Girls With Guns

These Blogs Provide Links To Rule 5 Sites:

What is Rule 5?

The Other McCain has: Rule 5 Sunday: Maisie Williams

Proof Positive has: Best Of Web Link Around

The Woodsterman has: Rule 5 Woodsterman Style

EBL has: Rule 5 And FMJRA

The Right Way has: Rule 5 Saturday LinkORama

The Pirate's Cove has: Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup

In Florida, Ron DeSantis Accelerates Conservative Agenda

As his first legislative session winds down, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis—elected five months ago by the narrowest of margins—has soared in popularity while pursuing an aggressive reform agenda that includes reshaping the state’s judiciary, investigating school safety, and enforcing immigration laws.

“He’s off to a fast start. He’s a trailblazer throughout the state,” Scott Parkinson, who served as chief of staff for DeSantis in the U.S. House of Representatives, told The Daily Signal.

“As a member of Congress, he had to be a consensus builder and build coalitions. As a governor he can lead on principle. He has such a unique life experience to be a leader,” Parkinson said.

DeSantis, 40, is a graduate of Yale and Harvard Law. He went on to serve as a Navy JAG officer, as an adviser to Navy SEALs in Iraq, and as counsel for the U.S. detention center for suspected terrorists in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, before first being elected to the House in 2012.

Parkinson, now vice president of government affairs at Club for Growth, a conservative business advocacy group, said that when he saw DeSantis in late February, the governor was in active mode.

“He said he had been to his fourth city in a day,” Parkinson said. “He’s not tied to a desk in Tallahassee. He demonstrates leadership.”

DeSantis is a husband and father, too.

In 2010, the Jacksonville native married the woman who would become first lady of Florida—Casey Black DeSantis, an Emmy Award-winning TV host. They have one daughter, Madison, and a son, Mason.

In the governor’s race, DeSantis, a Republican, beat Democrat Andrew Gillum by fewer than 1% of the votes. A Mason-Dixon poll released April 4, though, shows DeSantis with a 62%approval rating. A Quinnipiac University Poll in March showed DeSantis with a 59% approval rating.

“Not surprisingly, he has had a bold agenda that has been both conservative and...