90 Miles From Tyranny

Thursday, December 13, 2018

China Makes First Big U.S. Soybean Purchase Since Chinese Capitulation To Trump

CHICAGO (Reuters) – China on Wednesday made its first major purchases of U.S. soybeans since President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping struck a trade war truce earlier this month, providing some relief to U.S. farmers who have struggled to find buyers for their record-large harvest.

Trump told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday the Chinese were already buying a “tremendous amount” of U.S. soybeans and would also soon cut tariffs on U.S. autos.

The purchase of over 1.5 million tonnes of beans is the most concrete evidence yet that China is making good on pledges the U.S. government said Xi made when the two leaders met on Dec. 1 and agreed to a 90-day detente to negotiate a trade deal.

Global markets had whipsawed since then, with little sign that China was making the substantial purchases of U.S. farm, energy and industrial products that Trump said would start immediately after the meeting.

Investors have been skeptical about the progress made toward ending a trade war that has disrupted the flow of hundreds of billions of dollars of goods between the world’s two largest economies. The arrest in Canada of a top Chinese executive from technology giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd also stoked concern in markets that the trade war could worsen.

In another sign of concessions to the United States, China appears to be easing its high-tech industrial push, dubbed “Made in China 2025,” which has long irked Washington.

China has also told state oil trader Unipec to buy U.S. oil, and...

THE REAL COLLUSION: Obama’s FBI Paid More on Russian Dirt and Fake News in 2016 Election Than Russia Did

On Tuesday Google CEO Sundar Pichai was called in to testify before the House Judiciary Committee.

Pichai was called in to explain Google business practices including data collection and targeting of conservative voices.

During questioning Pichai dashed the hopes of Democrats everywhere when he admitted Russia spent only $4,700 on advertisements during the 2016 election.

Which is next to nothing… In a campaign where Hillary Clinton spent nearly a billion dollars!

Russia also paid around $70,000 on Facebook ads to attract both Trump and Hillary supporters. Russia spent around $6,000 on Facebook ads the last six weeks of the election which had no effect on the election.

So we are looking at a total of around $75,000 spent by Russia to run ads on US social media during the 2016 election — both to promote Hillary AND Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, the FBI spent much more for Russian dirt than Russia paid on collusion.

The FBI picked up the tab for the Steele dossier along with the DNC and Hillary campaign. The FBI paid Christopher Steele’s travel and other expenses while he was putting together his slanderous dossier on Trump.

The Clinton campaign paid DNC lawyer Marc Elias and his law firm Perkins Coie paid Fusion GPS and later denied knowledge of the same dossier they paid for.

And the FBI paid Michael Steele from Fusion GPS $160,000 for travel expenses while he was digging up dirt for his fake dossier.
The FBI actually spent more on fake news during the 2016 election than Russia did!

You won’t see THAT in the liberal mainstream news anytime soon!

Thought Police: Public University’s Rules Now Prohibit Offensive Facial Expressions

When George Orwell famously wrote about a dystopian future where your every thought is monitored, he shouldn’t have set it in Great Britain. It would have been much more accurate had he instead written about American college campuses.

We've known about the alarming trend of coddling and control at colleges for a while, but it may be getting worse. At the publicly-funded University of Montana Western, college administrators seem to be doing their best Big Brother impressions.

That university recently published a policy which threatens punitive action against students for making — wait for it — “mean facial expressions.”“While discussions may become heated and passionate, they should never become mean, nasty or vindictive in spoken or printed or emailed words, facial expressions, or gestures,” theofficial Civility Standards at Montana Western declare.

Who decides what a mean facial expression looks like? Nobody seems to know.

“The policy says students must promote an atmosphere of civility and that their discussions should never become ‘mean, nasty, or vindictive,’ but those are all entirely subjective terms that could be applied to punish constitutionally protected speech,” Laura Beltz of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education explained to Campus Reform.

She’s right: People use a variety of facial expressions when upset, flustered or merely just excited. If you roll your eyes or raise your eyebrows, is your academic career over?

“If it is the responsibility for students to uphold these standards, it follows that they may be punished for perceived violations of these standards, in this case, for failing to promote civility or for having a discussion that is deemed mean, nasty, or vindictive,” Beltz pointed out.

Being punished for making a face seems like something that belongs in kindergarten, not a major university attended by serious young adults. But that certainly seems to be how the policy is written.

“According to the policy, violations of the Student Code of Conduct can result in suspension of a student’s technology account, suspension, or in extreme cases, expulsion,” explained Campus Reform.“Even if the policy isn’t actually applied that way, students who read the policy and see how vague it is are likely to self-censor instead of taking the risk that something they say will be seen as mean, nasty, vindictive, or not civil,” Beltz added. “This sort of chilling effect on protected speech is unacceptable at a public university like Montana Western.”

If someone doesn't think...

Abraham Lincoln

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New NY AG to Suspend Rule of Law Regarding Trump Family

The incoming Attorney General for the formerly great state of New York has announced one of her priorities is a wide ranging investigation of the President and his family.

In other words she’s suspending the rule of law and the American system of justice when it comes to the Trumps.

She has no crime to investigate but is investigating the family in search of one.

That is the opposite of how our system is supposed to operate.

NBC News has the story, but of course they’re practically giddy about it:

New York Attorney Gen.-elect Letitia James says she plans to launch sweeping investigations into President Donald Trump, his family and “anyone” in his circle who may have violated the law once she settles into her new job next month.

“We will use every area of the law to investigate President Trump and his business transactions and that of his family as well,” James, a Democrat, told NBC News in her first extensive interview since she was elected last month.

James outlined some of the probes she intends to pursue with regard to the president, his businesses and his family members. They include:

Any potential illegalities involving Trump’s real estate holdings in New York, highlighting a New York Times investigation published in October into the president’s finances.

The June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with a Russian official.

Examine government subsidies Trump received, which were also the subject of Times investigative work.

Whether he is in violation of the emoluments clause in the U.S. Constitution through his New York businesses.

Continue to probe the Trump Foundation.

“We want to investigate anyone in his orbit who has, in fact, violated the law,” said James, who was endorsed by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

James campaigned on passing a bill to change New York’s double jeopardy laws with an eye on possible pardons coming out of the White House. James told NBC News she wants to be able to pursue state charges against anyone the president were to pardon over federal charges or convictions and whose alleged crimes took place in the state. Under current New York law, she might not be able to...

UH-OH: Federal judge wants to see infamous FBI 302s on Michael Flynn BEFORE he is sentenced

Discovery: The federal judge overseeing special counsel Robert Mueller’s case against President Donald Trump’s short-lived national security adviser, Michael Flynn, may have just blown a massive hole in the Deep State’s attempts to railroad an honest man who has served his country well for decades.

On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Emmitt Sullivan demanded to see the FBI’s 302s — interview summaries — of agents’ ambush interview with Flynn on Jan. 24, 2017, just a few days after POTUS Trump was inaugurated.

According to Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton: “Big: Judge Sullivan, who is overseeing General Flynn’s case, demands to see the infamous FBI 302 and other FBI doc about the ambush Flynn interview set up by Yates, McCabe, and Strzok.”

This is a huge development because, as we reported yesterday, Mueller’s sentencing memo makes it very clear that the FBI agents sent to ‘interview’ Flynn — one of whom was, at the time, one of the bureau’s top counterintelligence officials, Peter Strzok — was a setup to purposely catch the former three-star Army general in a perjury trap as part of the James Comey-Loretta Lynch-Barack Obama-led operation to destabilize the incoming Trump administration.

According to a portion of the memo posted online, FBI agents were sent to question Flynn at the White House on Jan. 24, 2017, just four days after POTUS Donald Trump was inaugurated.

The memo makes it clear that Flynn had no idea he was being interrogated. What’s more, fired Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Comey’s second-in-command, instructed the agents — one of whom was former counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok, who has also been fired — not to inform Flynn he was being interrogated for the specific purpose of ensnaring him.

As for Sullivan, he’s obviously been suspicious of Mueller and his so-called...

Fired former FBI Director James Comey is at it again.

Last week, Comey testified before members of the House Judiciary Committee and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. In a single appearance, Comey, on 245 separate occasions, while under oath, stonewalled questions with “I don’t know,” “I don’t remember,” or “I don’t recall,” according to a congressional interrogator, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.

If any private citizen tried Comey’s gambit with federal IRS auditors or FBI investigators, he would likely be indicted for perjury or obstruction.

Why did Comey, the nation’s former top-ranking federal investigator, avoid telling “the whole truth and nothing but the truth” while under oath?

The answer is, unfortunately, obvious. Comey has been called to testify before members of Congress on numerous occasions. He has written a long book and gone on an extensive book tour, and his paper trail is long.

He tweets almost daily and is often on television—and in those venues never seems to admit to any memory lapse. And Comey has been at the center of every major scandal involving the 2016 election.

In other words, Comey is realizing that almost anything he might say will likely be at odds with something he has said, done, or written prior—and could potentially subject him to perjury charges.

So, Comey dodges and hedges.

Oddly, Comey has long posed as a modern-day Jeremiah. He thunders almost daily about the moral lapses of his perceived antagonists—mostly President Donald Trump, the Trump administration, and the Republican Party that Comey left.

Comey has tweeted under the pseudonym “Reinhold Niebuhr”—the celebrated 20th-century German-American theologian and ethicist. Comey apparently wishes to remind us of their similar moral insight.

Comey’s memoir is grandly titled “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership.” He writes to remind readers of his sterling character, which has always guided his career. Most recently, the self-righteous Comey said that the interim attorney general, Matthew Whitaker, is not very bright.

What is odd about the professed ethics of the sanctimonious Comey is that his assertions are belied by his own often-unethical conduct.

The Justice Department’s inspector general criticized Comey in...