90 Miles From Tyranny

Thursday, October 31, 2019

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California’s Disastrous State Illustrates Limits of Progressivism

By Victor Davis Hanson
More than 2 million Californians recently were left without power after the state’s largest utility, Pacific Gas and Electric—which filed for bankruptcy earlier this year—preemptively shut down transmission lines in fear that they might spark fires during periods of high autumn winds.

Consumers blame the state for not cleaning up dead trees and brush, along with the utility companies for not updating their ossified equipment. The power companies in turn fault the state for so overregulating utilities that they had no resources to modernize their grids.

Californians know that having tens of thousands of homeless in their major cities is untenable. In some places, municipal sidewalks have become open sewers of garbage, used needles, rodents, and infectious diseases.

Yet no one dares question progressive orthodoxy by enforcing drug and vagrancy laws, moving the homeless out of cities to suburban or rural facilities, or increasing the number of mental hospitals.

Taxpayers in California, whose basket of sales, gasoline, and income taxes is the highest in the nation, quietly seethe while immobile on antiquated freeways that are crowded, dangerous, and under nonstop makeshift repair.

Gas prices of $4 to $5 a gallon—the result of high taxes, hyper-regulation, and green mandates—add insult to the injury of stalled commuters. Gas tax increases ostensibly intended to fund freeway expansion and repair continue to be diverted to the state’s failing high-speed rail project.

Residents shrug that the state’s public schools are among the weakest in the nation, often ranking in the bottom quadrant in standardized test scores. Elites publicly oppose charter schools, but often put their own kids in private academies.

Californians know that to venture into a typical municipal emergency room is to descend into a modern Dante’s Inferno. Medical facilities are overcrowded. They can be as unpleasant as they are bankrupting to the vanishing middle class that must face exorbitant charges to bring in an injured or sick child.

No one would dare to connect the crumbling infrastructure, poor schools, and failing public health care with the non-enforcement of immigration laws, which has led to a massive influx of undocumented immigrants from the poorest regions of the world, who often arrive without fluency in English or...

Florida man arrested after spitting on 67-year-old man in a MAGA hat

43-year-old Matthias Ajple was arrested for allegedly assaulting a 67-year-old man in a Make America Great Again hat.

The reported incident occurred at a bar called “Hurricane Grill” in Vero Beach where Ajple allegedly slapped the bill of the older man’s hat, told the man to “go back to Russia, you f****** communist,” and spit on him.

According to the arrest affidavit, 67-year-old Robert Youngblood was seated with two of his friends who witnessed the event. Following the man, Youngblood took down Ajple’s license plate as he fled the bar, and reported the interaction to the police. Cops reviewed the surveillance footage at the bar and confirmed that the incident had taken place as Youngblood had described.

The affidavit further describes a woman named “Laura Torres” who confirmed that she and Ajple were at the bar together and that she had told him to tell the older man to “go back to Russia” as a joke. Though she admits that she didn’t expect him to actually follow through with it.

Upon Ajple’s arrest, he allegedly told police that he was “just trying to protect you guys because I support Law Enforcement, Trump supporters are communist and racist.” He would go on to state: “I don’t even care that I am going to jail, it’s actually exciting, plus I have more time on this earth than he does anyway, he probably feels so good about himself.”

He has been charged with one count of battery.

This is not the first time that the sight of a MAGA hat has inspired violence by someone who disagrees with the message.

In February 2019, a man in Massachusetts was similarly assaulted in a Mexican restaurant after a Brazilian migrant named Rosaine Santos slapped the hat off of his head and began yelling at him. According to reports, Santos was later taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and was ordered before an immigration judge for removal.

In July 2018, Kino Jimenez confronted a 16-year-old in a Make America Great Again hat at a San Antonio Whataburger, where a video shows the man allegedly throwing a drink in the face of the teen, using a racial slur, and then walking off with his hat, threatening to burn it. He was arrested and charged with theft of a person.

In March 2019, 19-year-old Ryan M. Salvagno was arrested and charged with assault and harassment after allegedly attacking an 81-year-old man who was wearing a Make America Great Again hat. The older man was attempting to leave a local grocery store with his purchases when he was confronted by the teen, who reportedly grabbed the victim’s hat. This action prompted a struggle which allegedly resulted in...

William Barr Walked Into A.....

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RealClear Investigations Suggests ‘Whistleblower’ Likely 33-Year-Old CIA Analyst Eric Ciaramella

RealClearInvestigations on Wednesday published the name of the person they believe is most likely the “whistleblower” against President Trump: Eric Ciaramella, an analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency.

The outlet reported that Ciaramella’s name has been raised privately in impeachment depositions, as well as at least one open hearing held by a House committee not involved in the impeachment inquiry.

RealClearInvestigations also reported that House Democrats this week blocked Republicans from asking questions about Ciaramella and “intend to redact his name from all deposition transcripts.”

The outlet said:

RealClearInvestigations is disclosing the name because of the public’s interest in learning details of an effort to remove a sitting president from office. Further, the official’s status as a ‘whistleblower’ is complicated by his being a hearsay reporter of accusations against the president, one who has ‘some indicia of an arguable political bias … in favor of a rival political candidate’ — as the Intelligence Community Inspector General phrased it circumspectly in originally fielding his complaint.

It said Ciaramella is 33-years-old, a registered Democrat who began working at the White House during the Obama administration and previously worked with former Vice President Joe Biden and former CIA Director John Brennan.

Ciaramella left the Trump administration’s National Security Council in mid-2017 over concerns about negative leaks to the media and then returned to the CIA, the outlet reported.

“He was accused of working against Trump and leaking against Trump,” a former NSC official told RealClearInvestigiations.

The outlet also reported that Ciaramella huddled for “guidance” with the staff of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA), including former NSC colleagues who now work for Schiff.

Ciaramella also worked with a Democratic National Committee operative, Alexandra Chalupa, who dug up dirt on the Trump campaign during the 2016 election, and he invited her into the White House for meetings, former White House colleagues told RealClearInvestigations.

“He knows her. He had her in the White House,” one former co-worker told the outlet.

A handful of former colleagues have compiled a roughly 40-page research dossier on Ciaramella, which has been circulating on Capitol Hill, the outlet reported.

“Everyone knows who he is. CNN knows. The Washington Post knows. The New York Times knows. Congress knows. The White House knows. Even the president knows who he is,” Fred Fleitz, former CIA analyst and NSC chief of staff, told RealClearInvestigations.

“They’re hiding him,” he added. “They’re hiding him because of his political bias.”

Ciaramella is reportedly a CIA officer specializing in Russia and Ukraine who was...

A new report from RealClearInvestigations reveals that the anti-Trump “whistleblower” who prompted the current impeachment proceedings against President Trump is a registered Democrat who worked with a Democratic National Committee opposition researcher who dug up dirt on the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.

Federal documents reveal that the whistleblower, Eric Ciaramella, previously worked in the Obama administration with former Vice President Joe Biden and former CIA Director John Brennan. RealClear reports that Ciaramella remained there into the Trump administration, and headed the Ukraine desk at the National Security Council, eventually transitioning into the West Wing, until June 2017.

He then “left his National Security Council posting in the White House’s West Wing in mid-2017 amid concerns about negative leaks to the media. He has since returned to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia,” RealClearInvestigations reported. Ciaramella is a Yale graduate who reportedly speaks Russian, Ukrainian, and Arabic.

Officials told RealClear that Ciaramella strongly opposed Trump’s foreign policy.

“He didn’t exactly hide his passion with respect to what he thought was the right thing to do with Ukraine and Russia, and his views were at odds with the president’s policies,” a former senior White House official said.

Politico reported on a Ukrainian-American woman who consulted for the Democratic National Committee, and “met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump, top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia.” The woman, Alexandra Chalupa, was paid $412,000 from 2004 to June 2016 by the DNC.

Ciaramella invited Chalupa to meetings and events at the White House, RealClear reported, documents confirming one occasion in November 2015. She also visited the White House with Ukrainian lobbyists seeking aid from Obama.

Chalupa said she shared her findings with both the DNC and Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Politico reports that “Chalupa told a senior DNC official that, when it came to Trump’s campaign, ‘I felt there was a Russia connection.'” Chalupa also said that the Ukrainian embassy worked directly with reporters digging for...