90 Miles From Tyranny

Thursday, March 17, 2022

Feds Accuse Chinese Agents of Stalking House Candidate, Spying on Democracy Activists

The Justice Department on Wednesday accused five alleged agents of the Chinese government of spying on U.S.-based critics of the Chinese Communist Party, including a congressional candidate and the father of an American Olympian.

Prosecutors accused Qiming Lin, a former officer in China's domestic spy bureau, of attempting to hire a private investigator to manufacture a sex scandal against an unnamed House candidate in New York. They also accused Shujun Wang, the head of a pro-democracy organization in Queens, of using the group to spy on activists and provide intelligence to the Chinese government. Three other operatives are accused of trying to bribe a federal official to obtain the tax returns of a pro-democracy dissident.

Prosecutors allege that the defendants are part of a "transnational repression scheme" to silence critics of the Chinese government. The communist regime has increasingly used covert agents to stalk and harass dissidents in the United States. The Justice Department charged eight Chinese nationals in 2020 with stalking and harassing Chinese dissidents in New York as part of Operation Fox Hunt, the Chinese Communist Party initiative to track dissenters living in the West. Also in 2020, prosecutors charged a New York City police officer with spying on Tibetan nationalist groups on behalf of the Chinese government.

According to the Justice Department, Lin hired a private investigator in New York to "undermine the candidacy" of a House candidate on Long Island. The candidate is not identified in court filings, but details suggest it is Xiong Yan, a naturalized U.S. citizen who helped organize the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.

Lin asked the private investigator to set the candidate up with a prostitute in order to manufacture a sex scandal, prosecutors allege.

"You go find a girl for him, see if he would take the bait," Lin wrote.

Lin also suggested that the private investigator could physically harm the candidate in order to remove him from the campaign trail.

"But in the end, violence would be fine too," Lin allegedly wrote. He suggested that the investigator "beat him until he cannot run for election" or orchestrate a car accident.

Prosecutors allege that Shujun Wang, the founder of the pro-democracy organization, secretly collected information about Tibetan and Uyghur activists in New York City on behalf of the Chinese Ministry of State Security.

"While ostensibly lending a sympathetic ear, Wang reported on statements activists made in confidence to him, including on their views on democracy in the PRC, as well as planned speeches, writings, and demonstrations against...

Visage à trois #122

Three Videos For Your Viewing Pleasure:

Three Additional Bonus Videos:

CUSEF rears its head, again.

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman served as a Senior Fellow at a graduate school receiving funds from and collaborating with a controversial Chinese Communist Party influence group flagged by the U.S. State Department for its efforts to infiltrate American politics, The National Pulse can reveal.

Vindman, who testified during President Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial, served as a Senior Fellow at Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) from September 2020 to August 2021.

As a Foreign Policy Institute (FPI) Senior Fellow, Vindman also participated in several events promoting his book “Here, Right Matters” with SAIS during his fellowship.

SAIS, however, has accepted funding from the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF) and sent its students on trips to China sponsored by the foreign influence group.

CUSEF functions as part China’s “United Front,” which the federal government identifies as Beijing’s covert operation “to co-opt and neutralize sources of potential opposition to the policies and authority of its ruling Chinese Communist Party” and “influence foreign governments to take actions or adopt positions supportive of Beijing.”

The U.S. State Department compares the United Front to the Chinese regime’s “magic weapon” to advance its preferred policies by infiltrating American politics, media, and academia.

In 2017, SAIS announced a new endowed professorship in its China Studies department and launched a new research project called the Pacific Community Initiative, which aims to examine “what China’s broader role in Asia and the world means for its neighbors and partners.” Both projects were sizably funded by CUSEF, as flagged by Foreign Policy.

Beyond accepting funding from CUSEF, which has used similar tactics on Western journalists in exchange for “favorable coverage” of the Chinese Communist Party, SAIS has also sent its students on trips to...

Quick Hits Of Wisdom, Knowledge And Snark #296

New Media Poll Debunks Fake ABC Poll About So-Called ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill

On Monday, a poll from far-left ABC News/Ipsos claimed that 62 percent of the country opposed the Florida bill prohibiting sexual grooming teaching elementary school kids sexual orientation, gender fluidity, and identity.

On its face, the poll was a joke. The idea that nearly two-thirds of Americans are comfortable with the idea of teachers grooming engaging with prepubescent children about sex, much less the confusing subcultures of homosexuality, bisexuality, and switching genders, is absurd.

The poll was an obvious hoax, a rigged poll meant to gaslight those opposed to such madness into believing they are outnumbered. The stupid media have been playing this corrupt game with polling for decades. By and large, the public has caught on, but still…

And I’m not just saying that. Over at Hot Air, Ed Morrissey dug into the internals and smoked out ABC’s rat:

In the first place, just how did this panel manage to oversample LGBTQ respondents? That is not a demographic that typically gets oversampled in polls. Are we to believe that it’s a coincidence that ABC/Ipsos just so happened to oversample this community on a polling question that directly relates to them?

Especially given the smaller sample size for a national poll (622 adults, not registered voters), it would appear that the pollster focused on specific localities where one would normally find a greater-than-usual percentage of LGBTQ respondents. If the calls were made mostly in urban areas, and perhaps especially in urban areas known for a more robust LGBTQ culture, then it would not only explain the oversample but also the results from non-LGBTQ-identifying adult respondents.

Hoax, hoax, hoax, hoax, hoax…

Enter New Media…

The Daily Wire just published an exclusive poll that shows 64 percent “support the Florida bill’s ban on classroom instructions on sexual orientation and gender identity in grades K-3, or at any level if it is not presented in a manner that is age or developmentally appropriate.”

Here’s my favorite part: only 21 percent oppose the ban.

Specifically, in the state of Florida — and again, this is no surprise — 62 percent of Democrats back the ban, as did 63 percent of black respondents and 66 percent of Hispanics.

“Do you believe it is appropriate or inappropriate for teachers and school personnel to instruct children in kindergarten through 3rd grade on various sexual orientations?” the poll asked. Almost two-thirds (65 percent) said no, including 69 percent of PARENTS.

“Do you believe it is appropriate or inappropriate for teachers and school personnel to instruct children in kindergarten through 3rd grade on gender identities, such as transgenderism?” A full two-thirds (66 percent) said no, including 69 percent of PARENTS.

“Over half of the survey’s respondents (52%) also indicated they believe parents should be able to pursue civil actions against school districts if their children are taught about these topics in ways they believe are inappropriate,” the poll found. Hell, yes. Bury these...

Just the News found on laptop seized by FBI dozens of emails in which presidential son coordinated travel, corresponded with agents on his protective detail

Days ahead of his trip to Mexico in spring 2011, Hunter Biden got an email from a Secret Service agent coordinating his protection detail.

“Hunter, when you have some free time, I would like to discuss the Monterrey trip with you,” Secret Service agent Yvonne DiCristoforo wrote then-Vice President Joe Biden’s son on April 28, 2011.

"I have some specific information to provide you that we received from our Mexico City office,” she added. “I know you are out of the office this evening, but if you could contact me at your convenience, I would appreciate it."

File: Monterrey-redacted.pdf

Secret Service records show Hunter Biden, in fact, took the trip with agents protecting him between May 15 to May 17, 2011.

The email, contained on a Hunter Biden laptop now in FBI custody and reviewed by Just the News, may not seem that significant at first blush. But it has significant meaning to Senate investigators.

Why? Because the Secret Service, after years of delay, told GOP Sens. Chuck Grassley, Iowa, and Ron Johnson, Wisconsin, last month the agency has been unable to locate any emails or other records showing its agents coordinating travel for Hunter Biden.

"The Secret Service worked extensively with your committees, and agreed to search parameters provided by your office as to identify communications regarding Mr. Biden's travel," Secret Service Director James M. Murray wrote the senators on Feb. 14.

"These search parameters did not yield communications for the years 2010, 2011, or 2013," Murray added.

File" 2022-02-14 Secret Service to CEG RHJ (Hunter Biden Follow Up) (2).pdf

In fact, Just the News found about five dozen emails between Hunter Biden and his Secret Service handlers on the FBI-seized laptop for those same years, as well as other ones in other years that Senate investigators said they had not...

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from the beautiful to the repugnant,

from the mysterious to the familiar.

If you decide to open it, you could be disappointed,

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This is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended.

You have been warned.

Girls With Guns

You paying more (and more) at the pump just means Biden gets one step closer to his anti-oil agenda. Don’t think he isn’t happy about it.

Gas prices in the United States hit a new all-time high under President Joe Biden’s watch on Tuesday, clocking in at an average of $4.17 per gallon, surpassing the previous record of $4.11 set in 2008.

A friend told me he recently saw prices jump 50 cents from the time he drove to work to the time he drove home. A gas station in Florida I stopped at last month had two “I did that” stickers on it. After someone had apparently tried to rip them off, someone else took a blue ballpoint pen and scrawled “FJB” on the front of the gas pump. Similar stickers have popped up in growing numbers all around the country.

It’s obvious to everyone paying attention (except for Biden and his corporate media comms shop… but that’s redundant) that the Democrat administration’s policies, not just the Russians, are to blame for rising prices at the pump. The third week of February, before the Russian invasion of Ukraine started, the average price of U.S. gas was $3.53 per gallon, compared with $2.38 the week Biden took office: a $1.15 difference. (That fact hasn’t stopped Press Secretary Jen Psaki from lying through her teeth to blame the spike entirely on Russia.)

But, bumbling though they are, the Biden administration did not just achieve rising gas prices through accidents and incompetence. Your pain at the pump isn’t just unforeseen collateral damage of the White House’s policies — it’s a very intentional result of it.

That’s right: Biden wants staggering gas prices to force you from being able to drive where you want, when you want, as much as you want to. It’s all a part of his green energy agenda, which panders to radicals on the far-left side of Biden’s ever-further-left party.

A video from Americans for Tax Reform shows Biden at a campaign rally pledging, “We are gonna get rid of fossil fuels.” Asked “would there be any place for fossil fuels, including coal and fracking, in a Biden administration?” by CNN’s Dana Bash during...