90 Miles From Tyranny

Sunday, January 30, 2022

The 90 Miles Mystery Box: Episode #1614

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.

Quick Hits Of Wisdom, Knowledge And Snark #208

Quick Hits Of Wisdom, Knowledge And Snark #207

Meet the Capitol Police’s New Spy Chief

Capitol police, acting as the Stasi of the Democratic Party, will collect dirt on Republicans under the pretense of national security then leak gossipy details to an always-compliant news media.

When most Americans hear the term “Capitol Police,” they likely conjure visions of uniformed officers manning metal detectors at the numerous congressional buildings or helping tourists navigate the sprawling Capitol grounds: a D.C. version of a mall cop.

That imagery, however, is in stark contrast to reality as Democrats have weaponized yet another federal agency to target their political enemies on the Right.

After January 6, 2021, Capitol Police officials announced plans to expand beyond the legislatively authorized purview of the agency and open offices in Florida and California, as well as in other states. Congress overwhelmingly supported a bill last year to fork over $2.1 billion in new funding to the Capitol Police. Now flush with cash and immune from any serious public oversight, the agency is returning the favor by spying on dissidents of the Biden regime.

According to Politico, Capitol Police investigators are preparing secret dossiers on lawmakers, congressional staff, donors, and even constituents who visit their representatives in public or in private.

“After the Jan. 6 insurrection (sic), the Capitol Police’s intelligence unit quietly started scrutinizing the backgrounds of people who meet with lawmakers,” reporters Betsy Woodruff Swan and Daniel Lippman wrote. “Several Capitol Police intelligence analysts have already raised concerns about the practice to the department’s inspector general,” one source told Politico.

Investigators are asked to scour social media accounts and even examine “tax and real estate records to find out who owned the properties that lawmakers visited.” In one example, Capitol Police analyzed a fundraiser held in a private home for Senator Rick Scott (R-Fla.). Donors to House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), who was shot by a Bernie Sanders supporter in 2017, also are under Capitol police scrutiny.

Far from ensuring the safety of legislators and their staffs, the underlying political motive is obvious to anyone who’s been paying attention the past several years: the Capitol Police, acting as the Stasi of the Democratic Party, will collect dirt on Republicans under the pretense of national security then leak gossipy details to an always-compliant news media.

Journalists will then source the leaks to anonymous “intelligence officials” to legitimize any incriminating disclosures, which in turn will prompt Democrats to call for immediate investigations and criminal referrals—see the January 6 select committee for how this successful formula works.

In fact, an official from the Obama Administration, the birthplace of Russiagate and other political espionage efforts, is heading up the new endeavor.

“Major changes in the Capitol Police intelligence unit started in fall of 2020, when the department brought on former Department of Homeland Security official Julie Farnam to help run its intelligence unit, which is housed in its Intelligence and Interagency Coordination Division,” Politico confirmed.

Who is Julie Farnam? In October 2014, Farnam was hired by the Obama Administration to serve as...

Beat on the brat

Beat on the brat with a baseball bat
Oh yeah, oh yeah, uh-oh.

North Korea is going to chair the World Disarmament Conference: More UN madness

In fresh proof of the lunacy of the United Nations, North Korea will chair its world disarmament forum for four weeks starting May 30.

Yes, the world’s foremost weapons proliferator will preside over the 65-nation World Disarmament Conference, most famous for producing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty back in 1968.

North Korea is in constant violation of nine separate UN orders thanks to its continued nuclear and ballistic-missile programs. It has launched six ballistic missiles in four weapons tests this month, and the country openly sells its missile and atomic blueprints to any comer.

Pyongyang also routinely threatens to attack other UN member states.

Fine, North Korea’s role at the forum is largely ceremonial, but what a message it sends. Any government that actually cares about disarmament ought to boycott, as the United States and Canada did when Iran held the same chair in 2013.

We neither know nor care what global politicking leads to such travesties. Yet it all shows once again that...

This is the end

Beautiful friend

This is the end

My only friend, the end

Of our elaborate plans, the end

Of everything that stands, the end

No safety or surprise, the end

I'll never look into your eyes again

Can you picture what will be?

So limitless and free

Desperately in need

Of some stranger's hand

In a desperate land

Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain

And all the children are insane

All the children are insane

Waiting for the summer rain, yeah

Durham Court Filing Reveals DOJ Inspector General Horowitz Withheld Key Evidence From Special Counsel

A new court filing by special counsel John Durham reveals that Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Michael Horowitz concealed crucial information from Durham in connection with the ongoing prosecution of Michael Sussmann, a former attorney to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

The filing also reveals that Horowitz failed to disclose that his office is in possession of two cellphones used by former FBI general counsel James Baker. The phones may contain information that’s important to the Sussmann case, as well as to a separate criminal leak investigation of Baker that Durham personally conducted between 2017 and 2019.

Horowitz first came to public prominence in June 2018 when he issued a report on the FBI’s actions leading up to the 2016 presidential election. Horowitz followed up in December 2019 with another report on the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation and the bureau’s pursuit of a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant on Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

Durham’s filing on Jan. 25 involves discovery issues surrounding Sussmann’s upcoming trial for allegedly making a materially false statement to the FBI’s then-general counsel James Baker. As part of Durham’s discovery obligations, the Special Counsel’s Office met with Horowitz and his team on Oct. 7, 2021, and subsequently requested any materials, including any “documents, records, and information” regarding Sussmann that may have been in the possession of the Office of Inspector General (OIG).

On Dec. 17, 2021, Horowitz’s office provided Durham with information that Sussmann had given the OIG information in early 2017, that an OIG “employee’s computer was ‘seen publicly’ in ‘Internet traffic’ and was connecting to a Virtual Private Network in a foreign country.” It isn’t clear what this information was about, why Sussmann would know about this information, or why he would have been interested in the internet activities of OIG employees.

It also isn’t known why Sussmann, a private citizen, would have been seeking out the OIG shortly after he was pushing information detrimental to Trump to both the FBI and the CIA.

At the time of the Dec. 17 disclosure, “the OIG represented to [Durham’s] team that it had “no other file or other documentation” relating to this cyber matter.” However, last week, Sussmann’s attorneys informed Durham that there was additional information, including the fact that Sussmann had met with Horowitz in March 2017 to personally pass along the information about the OIG employee’s computer VPN use. This meeting between Horowitz and Sussmann hadn’t been disclosed by Horowitz to Durham during their previous meetings and interactions.

It isn’t known why Horowitz would have taken a personal meeting from Hillary Clinton’s campaign lawyer. According to Bill Shipley, a former federal prosecutor, “[y]ou don’t generally just call the IG and get a meeting with him personally.” It also isn’t clear why Horowitz chose not to inform Durham of the meeting—particularly as it pertained directly to information that Horowitz’s office had been specifically requested to relay to Durham’s special counsel probe.

Sussmann’s attorneys further informed Durham that the VPN information had come from Rodney Joffe, a computer expert with close connections to the FBI. This was another material fact that hadn’t been disclosed by Horowitz. Joffe is of great import to Durham’s case against Sussmann and to the wider investigation into the origins of the Russia collusion investigation, since he was alleged to have provided Sussmann with falsified data about contacts between the Trump Organization and Russia’s Alfa Bank.

Those alleged contacts were used by Hillary Clinton and her campaign to push the narrative that Trump was compromised by the Kremlin. Durham had noted in a previous filing that “[Joffe’s] goal was to support an ‘inference’ and ‘narrative’ regarding Trump that would please...