90 Miles From Tyranny

Saturday, February 8, 2020

C.D.C. and W.H.O. Offers to Help China Have Been Ignored for Weeks

Privately, Chinese doctors say they need outside expertise. But Beijing, without saying why, has shown no interest so far.

For more than a month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been offering to send a team of experts to China to observe its coronavirus outbreak and help if it can.

Normally, teams from the agency’s Epidemic Intelligence Service can be in the air within 24 hours.

But no invitation has come — and no one can publicly explain why.

The World Health Organization, which made a similar offer about two weeks ago, appears to be facing the same cold shoulder, though a spokeswoman said it is just “sorting out arrangements.”

Current and former public health officials and diplomats, speaking anonymously for fear of upsetting diplomatic relations, said they believe the reluctance comes from China’s top leaders, who do not want the world to think they need outside help.

In 2003, China was badly stung by criticism of its response to SARS, another coronavirus epidemic; it has also been embroiled in a trade war with the United States for more than a year.

Some experts also say that outsiders could discover aspects of the outbreak that are embarrassing to China: for example, the country has not revealed how many...

FBI director admits: Yes, surveillance of Carter Page was illegal

FBI Director Christopher Wray agreed that the Justice Department and the FBI illegally surveilled Carter Page when they used British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s unverified dossier to obtain four Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants against the Trump campaign associate.

Wray made the claim during congressional testimony before the Democrat-led House Judiciary Committee earlier this week, as Republicans pressed him for answers about the bureau’s response to the Justice Department watchdog’s FISA abuse report.

The report by Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz concluded that the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation was flawed, and he criticized the DOJ and the FBI for 17 “significant errors and omissions” related to secret surveillance court filings targeting Page. The filings made use of the dossier compiled by Steele, who’d been hired by Fusion GPS, which in turn was hired by the Hillary Clinton campaign through the Perkins Coie law firm.

Under questioning from Republican Rep. John Ratcliffe of Texas, Wray, who deflected many questions by referring lawmakers back to Horowitz’s report, agreed that Page was surveilled illegally.

“The report acknowledges that ... this was illegal surveillance with respect to at least several of these FISA applications, because there was not probable cause or proper predication, correct?” Ratcliffe asked.

“Right,” Wray replied.

Ratcliffe was referring to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court revelation that, in the wake of Horowitz’s report, the DOJ told the FISA court it believed the final two Page FISA warrants were invalid but were still reviewing the first two. The FBI also told the court it was trying to sequester all the information obtained through...

We Need A Hero:

Hmmmmmm....

Q: Why Does Trump Win So Much? A: Because He’s Almost Always Right

President Trump is on a political roll of epic proportions. With rising poll numbers and a full Senate acquittal that has knocked down the disastrous clown-car impeachment that was pushed by hapless anti-Trump House Democrats, the proverbial wind is at his back while the Democrat Party is staggering like a terminal alcoholic following an all-you-can-drink buffet binge.

It’s left supporters of the president once again thankful and a growing number of his detractors grudgingly impressed as more and more of them ask how it is President Trump manages to win so much.

The answer is quite simple. It’s because whether its on the economy, immigration, defense, the rights of citizens, the proper role of government, etc., President Trump is almost always right and today’s Democrat Party is almost always wrong.

Via The American Spectator:

Prosperity and national pride will always triumph over partisanship and petulant rage.

President Trump’s continued success in the face of unprecedented opposition from the Washington ruling class is obviously a source of considerable mystification for the Democrats, but the puzzle isn’t difficult to solve for any politician brave enough to look beyond the Beltway and observe what is happening in the day-to-day lives of ordinary Americans. The vast majority of the public can see that they are far better off now than they have been in a very long time. They are actually experiencing the genuine progress reported Tuesday by President Trump in the State of the Union address, as a new Gallup survey released Thursday confirms:

“Nine in 10 Americans are satisfied with the way things are going in their personal life, a new high in Gallup’s four-decade trend. The latest figure bests the previous high of 88% recorded in 2003.… It’s likely no coincidence that Americans’ heightened satisfaction with their personal life comes as confidence in the U.S. economy and their personal finances are also at...

Horror For Democrats:

The Nanny State Is Falling Apart....
Buying Votes With Tax Money Will Be Harder To Do..

The Political Genius Behind Trump’s SOTU Theatrics

The ranks of President Trump’s supporters are swelling with former Democrats, with independents, with blacks and Hispanics, and with former nonvoters. He has earned their trust and their enthusiasm through bona fide real-life achievements.

President Trump’s political genius was on display in his 2020 State of the Union address on Tuesday, as much as were his many achievements from his first three years.

As the president began to roll out his introductions of guests in the gallery, with each one, he was doing a three-for-one. No person with a heart remained dry-eyed. The stories and the dramas were electrifying moments for normal people watching and sharing the guests’ sorrow, joy, pride, hope, and desire for justice.

These guests also conveyed a political meaning—an in your face challenge to the Democrats on key policy conflicts such as homelessness, abortion, school choice, honoring those who sacrifice for our safety and freedom, borders, and sanctuary cities. Trump was going for the hot-button issues, not by debating, but by showing their human face.

Each real-time drama demonstrated how the president delivers for real people, individual people.

Lastly, the pathos associated with each guest was paired on camera with the stony-faced Democrats unwilling to applaud. They didn’t applaud for all the great statistics showing the lowest black unemployment and lowest black poverty in history. They didn’t applaud Charles McGee, the 100-year-old World War II veteran and Tuskegee airman who President Trump announced he had honored earlier in the day with a promotion to brigadier general.

Trump used the opportunity to display both his respect and his understanding that blacks have been treated as second class citizens in living memory, relating how after 130 combat missions, McGee returned home to “a country still struggling for civil rights.” Trump upped the emotional power by also introducing General McGee’s 13-year-old great-grandson, who aspires to be a Space Force officer, a new branch of the military President Trump established last year.

Democrats found nothing here to applaud. They want the race narrative to be 1619, America to be eternally damned as a foundationally racist country. Trump’s position, in contrast, raises everyone up: “From the pilgrims to our Founders, from the soldiers at Valley Forge to the marchers at Selma, and from President Lincoln to the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Americans have always rejected limits on our children’s future.” Trump wants to remind black Americans that this inheritance of striving and overcoming belongs to them, too.

In Trump’s America, we are a land of heroes. We all unite in honoring and loving our common heroes. Whose team would you rather be on?

It was clear from the choice of guests that President Trump is going all out for the black vote, with personal stories of courage, success, and hopes answered. The first five featured guests were African American. The Democrats scowled through it all. It was shocking.

The very first was a previously homeless and drug-addled black veteran, now sober and working thanks to a President Trump supported enterprise zone, for which Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.) got a special shout out and a close-up on camera. This was an unspoken challenge to the Democrats’ failed policies on the homeless.

The next was awesome because President Trump upped the ante and used a reality TV approach to create a dramatic moment in real-time. He introduced Janiyah Davis, an adorable fourth grader and her pretty single mom, desperate for a better school and better future for her daughter. Her hopes to get her daughter a good education in a charter school were blasted by Pennsylvania’s governor, a Democrat, who vetoed the expansion of school choice for 50,000 children.

President Trump came to the rescue. “Janiyah, I am pleased to inform you that your long wait is over. I can proudly announce tonight that an Opportunity Scholarship has become available, it is going to you, and you will soon be heading to the school of your choice!”

For me, the most moving real-time experience was seeing a young mother and her miracle 2-year-old child, born after only 21 weeks. Trump didn’t need to make a pro-life argument. He showed it to us in an unforgettable, living moment. In doing so, he changed that debate forever.

When the president announced he was asking Congress to ban late-term abortion, we weren’t listening to a debate. We were watching a human face, the face of the child’s mother—seeing intense emotions surge through her—surprise, gratitude, elation, love, vindication, triumph.

President Trump co-opted and promoted initiatives Democrats once claimed, making them his own: incarceration reform, family leave for men and women, infrastructure, high-speed internet for all communities, stamping out human trafficking. Democrats were unwilling to applaud for anything but...