90 Miles From Tyranny

Thursday, May 14, 2020

The 90 Miles Mystery Box: Episode #987

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.

Girls With Guns

The Greatest Political Crime In American History...

Introducing The Fondling Fathers Tour!

YUGE: Republicans Sweep Congressional Special Elections, Reclaiming California District from Democrats

Mike Garcia and Tom Tiffany won special elections.

Republicans won two special elections for the House of Representatives on Tuesday, picking up victories in Wisconsin and California. Republicans Mike Garcia and Tom Tiffany defeated Democrats Christy Smith and Tricia Zunker.

Garcia’s election victory, which takes place in California’s 25th congressional district, was set forth to replace former Democrat Representative Katie Hill following her resignation over a sex scandal. Hill resigned after being exposed for intimate and inappropriate relationships with subordinate congressional staff, yet has claimed that she represents a form of feminist victim for her inappropriate workplace behavior.

The former Navy fighter pilot’s victory over a Democratic State Assemblywoman ensures that the Republican Party has flipped back the first of the congressional seats it lost in the 2018 midterms. As of Wednesday morning, Garcia is up by a percentage count of 55% to 44%, suggesting a handy victory for the Republican to flip the district.

Hillary Clinton had won the popular vote of the northern Los Angeles county district by 6 percentage points in 2016, suggesting a possibility that the Republican Party could be broadening...

Impeachment Boomerang: Contacts exposed between US embassy, Hunter Biden-connected Ukraine firm

Ambassador’s impeachment testimony omitted mention of Burisma meetings, letters.

During President Trump’s impeachment, former U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch testified to Congress that she knew little beyond an initial briefing and “press reports” about Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian natural gas firm that had hired Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter and was dogged by a corruption investigation.

“It just wasn’t a big deal,” she declared under oath on Oct. 11, 2019.

But newly unearthed State Department memos obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show Yovanovitch’s embassy in Kiev, including the ambassador herself, was engaged in several discussions and meetings about Burisma as the gas firm scrambled during the 2016 election and transition to settle a long-running corruption investigation and polish its image before President Trump took office.

Yovanovitch, for instance, was specifically warned in an email by her top deputy in September 2016 — three years before her testimony — that Burisma had hired an American firm with deep Democratic connections called Blue Star Strategies to “rehabilitate the reputation” of the Ukrainian gas firm and that it had placed “Hunter Biden on its board,” the memos show.

She also met directly with a representative for Burisma in her embassy office, less than 45 days before Trump took office, a contact she did not mention during her impeachment deposition.

The discussions about Burisma inside Yovanovitch’s embassy were so extensive, in fact, that they filled more than 160 pages of emails, memos and correspondence in fall 2016 alone, according to the State Department records obtained under FOIA by the conservative group Citizens United.

The contacts included a detailed private letter hand-delivered to Yovanovitch by one of Burisma’s lawyers in September 2016, a briefing later that month from her staff on Burisma’s issues, and a meeting scheduled between the ambassador and a Burisma representative shortly before Christmas 2016 as the Obama administration was preparing to leave office.

Yovanovitch, who recently retired from State, did not respond Tuesday to a message sent to her private email seeking comment. Her lawyer during the impeachment proceedings, Lawrence S. Robbins, also did not respond to an emailed request for comment.

State officials declined comment.

David Bossie, a former congressional investigator and current outside adviser to Trump who runs Citizen United, said the documents his group obtained raise questions about Yovanovitch’s testimony last fall and what else Congress may not know about the embassy’s involvement with the Hunter Biden-connected Burisma firm.

"These new records clearly don't support Ambassador Yovanovitch's testimony under oath during...

Every breath you take and every move you make
Every bond you break, every step you take, I'll be watching you
Every single day, every word you say
Every game you play, every night you stay, I'll be watching you

[Chorus]
Oh can't you see, you belong to me
How my poor heart aches with every step you take..

President of French pro-migrant association murdered by Afghan migrant

In Cherbourg, the president of the association for aid to migrants was killed at his home on Tuesday, May 12. He had housed an Afghan asylum seeker. The individual was taken into custody for murder.

His name was Jean Dussine and came to the aid of migrants through the Cherbourg association Itinérance, of which he was the president since 2016.

This man was hospitable enough to accommodate in his own house in Bretteville-en-Saire, a migrant of Afghan origin. But Jean Dussine was unfortunately murdered on Tuesday, May 12. Witnesses said the victim “was sleeping when [the alleged assailant], an Afghan migrant barely 20 years old, attacked him with an iron rod. He could not be revived,” reported regional news outlet France 3 Normandy.

Jean Dussine was a retired teacher and former director of the Gonneville school in the Manche. At the same time, he had housed other migrants at his home, witnesses to the scene. They even reportedly raised the alarm which allowed the arrest of the alleged murderer.

The investigators are trying to determine the motive for this murder and the exact circumstances of the drama. Public prosecutor Yves Le Clair confirmed the arrest of the Afghan migrant. The suspect was taken into custody for first degree murder....