90 Miles From Tyranny

Thursday, January 4, 2018

Once Manipulated by Obama Administration on Iran, Media Still Peddles Wrong Narrative

Dramatic images of the protests rocking Iran should be a reminder of how good we have it in the United States and how easy it is to lose perspective.

In America, a “war on women” is defined by progressives as failing to force nuns to pay for birth control. In Iran, a woman can be punished for not wearing a hijab and a man can be brutally executed for being gay.

While the left has a penchant for accusing America of oppression while excusing foreign malfeasance, its refusal to criticize Iran still stands out.

CNN oddly defined the movement as “pro-government protests,” before issuing a correction.

The New York Times’ Tehran bureau chief, Thomas Erdbrink, reported on New Year’s Day that the protests were ongoing as the Iranian people “ignored calls for calm,” as if the movement were driven simply by a few rowdy troublemakers instead of having larger political implications for a tyrannical government.

Many have compared Erdbrink’s reporting to the actions of the Times’ infamous Moscow bureau chief, Walter Duranty, who denied the communists’ forced famine in Ukraine in the 1930s that killed millions of people.

In November, Erdbrink reported that Iranians had “united” in opposition to Trump and Saudi Arabia.

Clearly, they weren’t.

While the nature of the decentralized group of protests remains somewhat clouded, Jim Phillips, Heritage Foundation senior research fellow for Middle Eastern affairs, explained in The Daily Signal how continuing corruption under Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, a sudden surge in food prices, and importantly, the repressive Islamist ideology of the powers that be, have contributed to the toxic stew of resentment.

“We don’t want an Islamic Republic,” “Down with Hezbollah,” and “Death to the dictator” are reportedly common chants by protesters.

The fact is that there is deep discontent with the Islamist theocracy that has ruled the country since the 1979 revolution and many are now willing to risk....

A poll of likely 2018 voters shows two-to-one support for President Donald Trump’s pro-American immigration policies, and a lopsided four-to-one opposition against the cheap-labor, mass-immigration, economic policy pushed by bipartisan establishment-backed D.C. interest-groups.

The poll for NumbersUSA is another reminder to politicians that the business-funded ‘Nation of Immigrants” polls distract attention from voters’ private views, which were shockingly displayed on the evening of November 8, 2016.

The voters’ attitudes are critical as business groups, Democrats and some GOP legislators renew their push to persuade Trump to accept an amnesty of the 3 million ‘dreamer illegals — and thus drop his election-winning, pro-American policies before the 2018 election in favor of business-friendly, high-immigration/low-wage policies.

The December 19 and 20 poll of likely mid-term voters by Pulse Opinion Research asked respondents to pick from competing priorities, not just whether they want to welcome more immigrants or to declare support for the nation’s history of immigration.

That focus on priorities ensured the pollster revealed 64 percent opposition to the current wage-flattening, annual inflow of roughly 1 million legal immigrants, alongside just 17 percent support for those pro-investor, anti-employee policies. Voters were asked:

When businesses say they are having trouble finding Americans to take jobs in construction, manufacturing, hospitality and other service work, what is generally best for the country? Is it better to raise the pay until they can attract Americans without jobs even if it causes prices to rise, or is it better for the government to continue to automatically bring in new immigrants each year to keep the costs down?

The wage-raising priority got 57 percent among voters aged 18 to 39, 65 percent among blacks, 64 percent support among Latinos, 71 percent support among Republicans, 62 percent support among...

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.

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Drexel Professor Who Called For “White Genocide” Hired By New York University

We have previously discussed the controversial writings of George Ciccariello-Maher, a former Drexel University professor who was pushed to resign after a national outcry. Ciccariello-Maher has blamed the Las Vegas massacre on “Trumpism” and declared that “All I want for Christmas is white genocide.” He has insisted that some of his prior tweets have been”satirical,” though he appears to court controversy on social media. He has now announced to have been hired as a visiting scholar by New York University’s Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics.

related: Drexel Professor Who Blamed Las Vegas, Texas Church Shootings on Trump and ‘Whiteness’ Resigns

Last year, he tweeted, “Some guy gave up his first class seat for a uniformed soldier. People are thanking him. I’m trying not to vomit or yell about Mosul.” Likewise, after the mass shooting in Las Vegas, he posted, “It’s the white supremacist patriarchy, stupid,” arguing the tragedy was caused by an overarching “narrative of white victimization.”

related: The Far-Left Ideas that Motivate ‘White Genocide’ Professor

Despite a long history of writing highly offensive and prejudicial statements, I continued to question the effort to fire Ciccariello-Maher in exercising his free speech rights on social media. My concern was heightened by the demand of wealthy donors that the Ciccariello-Maher be fired. Thousands of university professors (including this one) engage in blogs and social media to express political, social, and academic viewpoints. Inevitably, there will be those who view many statements to be offensive or insulting. However, these academics retain not simply their rights of free speech but have historically been protected by the principles of academic freedom. If schools like Drexel destroy that tradition, any professor could be dismissed after some wealthy donor complains to a university president. University administrators are notorious for putting the bottomline ahead of principle in such controversies. The answer to Ciccariello-Maher is readily apparent: response with your own postings and arguments. That is the beauty of free speech. Bad speech can be countered by good speech.

related: Antifa Professor at Drexel Wants to Vomit When 1st Class Passenger Gives His Seat to a Soldier

There is however a countervailing concern. As we have previously discussed (including the recent story involving an Oregon professor), there remains an uncertain line in what language is protected for teachers in their private lives. The incident also raises what some faculty have complained is a double or at least uncertain standard. We have previously discussed....

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NBC, ABC Downplay the Size of Iranian Protests, CBS Questions Murders

The network coverage of the Iranian protests since their beginning nearly a week ago has been utterly abysmal. From ignoring them all together to downplaying the murder of protesters, the three major network news outlets have had to be dragged kicking and screaming to cover the spontaneous uprising. Tuesday was no different with ABC’s World News Tonight and NBC Nightly News downplaying the size and expansiveness of the demonstrations. CBS Evening News went off the deep end and started openly questioning who was actually killing the protesters.

In one of the most outrageous examples of the liberal media downplaying the Iranian protests, NBC’s Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchell (who has a long history of kissing up to brutal foreign regimes) claimed the protests were only 10 percent of their actual scope.

“Unlike Iran’s last major protest over disputed elections in 2009, these were sparked by frustration over a weak economy. Starting in the city of Mashhad, smaller but for the first time spreading nationwide,” Mitchell asserted. And as she said that the current protests were “smaller,” she flashed a map on the screen that highlighted only four cities. That map was an outright fabrication of the truth.

Mitchell’s map claiming that there were protests in only four cities was a blatant lie easily proven false by a map tweeted out by the Associated Press that puts the city count at over three dozen, 37 to be precise. But prior to her report, while anchor Lester Holt was still delivering the introduction to the segment, the network flashed yet another map showing only 21 cities having protests. It did show more cities but it was still less than two-thirds of what it really was.

The NBC reporter was also worried about the negative effects President Trump would have with his tweets of support. “President Trump supporting the protests, tweeting: “The people of Iran are finally acting against the brutal and corrupt Iranian regime… the U.S. is watching,” she noted while failing to mention that what the U.S. was watching for was signs of human rights violations. “But could the Trump tweets backfire? Sparking a crackdown?”

Feigning concern about a crackdown against the protesters was a disturbing narrative from the liberal media to try to shut up...

Several reports out of the China-North Korean border area indicate that Beijing is massing People’s Liberation Army troops on the frontier and has told them to prepare for war.

“Columns of (People’s Liberation Army) trucks have been pictured on the move near Yanji City which is close to the triple border between China, Russia and North Korea,” the U.K. Star reported Tuesday.

According to a computer translation of the Korean-language Daily NK, military trucks have been moving into position at night so as not to attract the attention of locals.

“There were so many soldiers in (vehicles) that there was a traffic jam,” a source reportedly said on Dec. 30. “We have not seen so many soldiers trucking to Yanji so far.”

Sources in the Chinese media have said that the PLA is “preparing for war on the Korean Peninsula” and that army commanders have participated in a “war ceremony” urging their troops to be ready for war.

Pictures of the ceremony, shot last month, show massive gatherings of Chinese troops, all of whom were purportedly swearing oaths only given during wartime.

Meanwhile, residents of the area have apparently been told that “Trump (is) to hit North Korea in the New Year, we are preparing for war on the peninsula,” a source said.

China’s move comes as North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un warned in his New Year’s Day address that he has a “nuclear button” on his desk and that North Korea would continue its development of atomic weapons in 2018.

“The entire United States is within range of our nuclear weapons, a nuclear button is always on my desk. This is reality, not a threat,” Kim said, according to...

Republicans on key congressional committees say they have uncovered new irregularities and contradictions inside the FBI’s probe of Hillary Clinton’s email server.

For the first time, investigators say they have secured written evidence that the FBI believed there was evidence that some laws were broken when the former secretary of State and her top aides transmitted classified information through her insecure private email server, lawmakers and investigators told The Hill.

That evidence includes passages in FBI documents stating the “sheer volume” of classified information that flowed through Clinton’s insecure emails was proof of criminality as well as an admission of false statements by one key witness in the case, the investigators said.

The name of the witness is redacted from the FBI documents but lawmakers said he was an employee of a computer firm that helped maintain her personal server after she left office as America’s top diplomat and who belatedly admitted he had permanently erased an archive of her messages in 2015 after they had been subpoenaed by Congress.

The investigators also confirmed that the FBI began drafting a statement exonerating Clinton of any crimes while evidence responsive to subpoenas was still outstanding and before agents had interviewed more than a dozen key witnesses.

Those witnesses included Clinton and the computer firm employee who permanently erased her email archives just days after the emails were subpoenaed by Congress, the investigators said.

Lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee who attended a Dec. 21 closed-door briefing by FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe say the bureau official confirmed that the investigation and charging decisions were controlled by a small group in Washington headquarters rather the normal process of allowing field offices to investigate possible criminality in their localities. The Clinton email server in question was based in New York.

In normal FBI cases, field offices where crimes are believed to have been committed investigate the evidence and then recommend to bureau hierarchy whether to pursue charges with prosecutors. In this case, the bureau hierarchy controlled both the investigation and the charging decision from Washington, a scenario known in FBI parlance as a “special,” the lawmakers said.

The FBI declined comment on McCabe’s closed-door testimony and the evidence being shared with Congress.

Some Republicans on the committee say the findings and revelations have left them more convinced than ever that FBI leadership rigged the outcome to clear Clinton.

“This was an effort to pre-bake the cake, pre-bake the outcome,” said Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), a House Judiciary Committee member who attended the McCabe briefing before the holidays. “Hillary Clinton obviously benefited from people taking actions to ensure she wasn’t held accountable.”

Gaetz said he could not divulge the specifics of what McCabe told lawmakers, but that he left the Dec. 21 session believing the FBI had deviated from its “normal objective practices” while investigating Clinton.

The top Democrat on the panel acknowledged the FBI’s handling of the case was unique, but argued Republicans are politicizing their own panel’s work.

“To the extent that the Assistant Director of the FBI was involved in that investigation, and recognizing that the investigation itself presented a unique set of circumstances, his testimony did not raise any concerns that would justify the Republicans’ outsized obsession with Hillary Clinton’s emails two years after the fact,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y) who recently took over as the top Democrat on House Judiciary after former Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) stepped aside after sexual misconduct allegations were made against him.

Gaetz said he has growing questions about the role the Obama Justice Department played in the case.

Former FBI Director James Comey has testified he made the decision not to seek criminal charges against Clinton — with no Justice Department input — because he feared any involvement from the department might ...

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.

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ILLEGAL ALIEN SOLD LSD AND COCAINE TO UNDERCOVER OFFICER

RALEIGH, NC (The News & Observer) – A Raleigh man accused of selling drugs to the same undercover police officer three times in less than a week is facing several charges.

Tomas Aguayo-Moreno, 25, was charged by Wake County sheriff’s deputies with eight counts of trafficking in LSD, one count of trafficking in cocaine, three counts of maintaining a dwelling or vehicle for drug purposes, felony marijuana possession and one count each of cocaine possession, cocaine sale and cocaine delivery.

Aguayo-Moreno was arrested about 5 p.m. Tuesday when deputies stopped his black Audi on New Bern Avenue in east Raleigh. Deputies say they stopped the car after Aguayo-Moreno sold between 500 and 1,000 doses of LSD to the undercover officer.

They also accused Aguayo-Moreno of having at least 28 grams of cocaine and a little more than a half-pound of marijuana, and of using his apartment on Conifer Drive in west Raleigh to keep and sell cocaine and marijuana.

About two hours after Aguayo-Moreno was booked into the Wake County Detention Center, deputies also charged him with selling between 100 and 500...

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The Fractal Wrongness of Leftist Ideology

What is fractal wrongness? Let’s begin with a fractal. A fractal is a geometric pattern that repeats itself at every level of magnification. Mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot introduced fractal geometry in 1975 and defined a fractal as “a geometric shape that can be separated into parts, each of which is a reduced-scale version of the whole.” This means that a fractal is a self-similar never-ending pattern that repeats itself at different scales.

The famous Menger sponge is a fractal in math. Fractals in nature are trees, rivers, lightning bolts, and crystals. Russian nesting dolls are fractals. In computer science fractals are images that are the same at any level of scale which means that it is impossible to determine how much the image is zoomed by simply looking at it.

Fractal wrongness is the state of being wrong at every conceivable scale of resolution - the person’s entire worldview is wrong. The political Left has decided that anyone who disagrees with their platform of political correctness, moral relativism, and historical revisionism is fractally wrong. Fractal wrongness explains why the Left views the entire worldview of conservatives as wrong, deplorable, and contemptible.

Leftism, like any orthodoxy, has embraced its tenets with religious zealotry and a tyrannical demand for conformity that ignores obvious contradictions in its own narrative. Leftists, who pride themselves on being tolerant, are hypocritically intolerant of anyone who embraces a world view that differs from their own. Leftist faux tolerance only tolerates those who look different - it does not tolerate those who think differently. This presents a philosophical inconsistency that Leftism solves with Leftist Newspeak, the official language of the Left.

Newspeak is the language of George Orwell’s dystopian city Oceania described in his classic novel 1984. Newspeak is the language of official propaganda in Oceania that was created to replace Oldspeak - standard English. Newspeak replaces the meaning of a familiar word with its unfamiliar opposite. The key to translating Newspeak is thinking in opposites.

Leftist Newspeak is the language of opposites that imitates taqiyyah - deliberately lying or obfuscating to further Islam. The Islamic world understands the word peace to mean when all the world is Islamic. The Western world understands the word peace to mean pluralism, tolerance, and the absence of conflict. Leftist Newspeak interprets peace as manifest when all the Western world embraces Leftism. Taqiyyah and Leftist Newspeak share an intentional replacement of one set of meanings for another. Leftist Newspeak is the language of ...