90 Miles From Tyranny

Monday, December 16, 2019

The 90 Miles Mystery Box: Episode #837

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.

What This Election Is About...

U.S.-China trade deal 'totally done,' will expand U.S. exports: Lighthizer

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The “phase one” U.S.-China trade deal will nearly double U.S. exports to China over the next two years and is “totally done” despite the need for translation and revisions to its text, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said on Sunday.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer gestures as he speaks during a meeting at the Presidential Palace, in Mexico City, Mexico December 10, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso

Lighthizer, speaking on CBS’ “Face the Nation” program, said there would be some routine “scrubs” to the text but “this is totally done, absolutely.”

Lighthizer said a date and location for senior U.S. and Chinese officials to formally sign the agreement is still being determined.

The deal, announced on Friday after more than two and a half years of on-and-off negotiations between Washington and Beijing, will reduce some U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods in exchange for increased Chinese purchases of U.S. agricultural, manufactured and energy products by some $200 billion over the next two years.

China has also pledged in the agreement to better protect U.S. intellectual property, to curb the coerced transfer of American technology to Chinese firms, to open its financial services market to U.S. firms and to avoid manipulation of...

Gowdy: ‘Too Damn Late’ For Comey To Admit He Was Wrong About FISA Abuse

Former Rep. Trey Gowdy said Sunday that it is “too damn late” for James Comey to admit he was wrong about FBI abuse of the FISA process, as the former FBI director did in an interview on Fox News earlier in the day.

“I think this morning Comey admitted he was wrong. Sometimes, Maria, it’s better late than never, and sometimes it’s just too damn late,” Gowdy said in an interview on “Sunday Morning Futures,” hosted by Maria Bartiromo.

Comey acknowledged in an interview with Chris Wallace that he was “wrong” to deny in 2018 that the FBI properly followed procedures in applications for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants against former Trump aide Carter Page.

The Justice Department inspector general found otherwise in a report released Monday. Michael Horowitz, the inspector general, found “significant inaccuracies” in the FBI’s FISA applications. Investigators withheld exculpatory information regarding Carter Page, and derogatory information about the Steele dossier.

WATCH:

Another Ignored Genocide of Christians Plagues Burkina Faso

Pictured: Smoke rises from Embassy of France in Burkina Faso, March 2, 2018, during a jihadi terrorist attack that killed up to 28 people. (Image source: VOA)

While a total of 12 Islamic terror attacks in Burkina Faso were registered in 2016, nearly 160 were reported in just the first five months of 2019.
The situation has reached the point where... the mainstream media habitually downplay the religious element whenever Muslims attack Christians, by referring to it as "sectarian strife....
[T]he militants told everyone to lie down and proceeded to look for Christians by asking for first names or looking for anyone wearing Christian insignia (like crosses). The deadly search yielded four men.... [W]hen they saw crosses, the assailants singled them out. All four were taken aside and executed." – June 27, 2019.
"There is no Christian anymore in this town [Arbinda]," said a local contact; "... they [terrorists] were looking for Christians. Families who hide Christians are [also] killed. Arbinda had now lost in total no less than 100 people within six months."
According to a local, "The assailants asked the Christians to convert to Islam, but the pastor and the others refused." So "they called them, one after the other, behind the church building where they shot them dead."
One can only hope that the response of the media and international community will be stronger than their usual one: ignoring the massacres. This slaughter has been already been characterized as a "genocide of Christians." When, then, will the media and the so-called human rights groups finally confront — or at the very least condemn or even report on — these religiously fueled massacres plaguing West Africa?

On Sunday, December 1, 2019, Islamic terrorists raided a Protestant Christian church in Burkina Faso during the service and massacred 14 worshippers. The pastor and several children were among those killed.

This is but the latest of many lethal attacks on the Christian minority of the small nation located in West Africa, a region better known for the persecution of Christians in Nigeria.

Discussing the situation in Burkina Faso — which is approximately 60% Muslim, 23% Christian, and 17% animist or other — the BBC reported that "Jihadist violence has flared in Burkina Faso since 2016.... Fighters affiliated to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group as well as the local Ansarul Islam [Champions of Islam] have been active in the region."

However, while a total of 12 Islamic terror attacks were registered in 2016, nearly 160 were reported in just the first five months of 2019.

Although the mainstream media habitually downplay the religious element whenever Muslims attack Christians — often by referring to it as "sectarian strife" — attacks in Burkina Faso have become so flagrantly based on religion that even the Washington Post published a report on August 21 titled, "Islamist militants are targeting Christians in Burkina Faso": "A spreading Islamist insurgency has transformed Burkina Faso from a peaceful country known for farming, a celebrated film festival and religious tolerance into a hotbed of extremism." The report notes that the jihadis have been checking people's necks for...