Ghislaine Maxwell Guilty, Yet Bigger Criminals Remain

By Tiffany Layne | The Black Sphere – The Kevin Jackson Network

While Epstein was too chicken to face his day in court, his girlfriend just received her verdict: Guilty As Charged.

Turns out, money can’t buy you everything.

While the Maxwell verdict is comforting for those of us who want to see our justice system still work, the government didn’t even scratch the surface. In fact, the real criminals remain.

If we really want to do Epstein’s victims justice, it’s time to go after everyone who was in bed with Epstein and Maxwell. And that’s a long list in a little black book.

Of course we know some of the bigger players. Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Bill Cosby, Chelsea Clinton, Prince Andrew, Alec Baldwin, etc. Then there are the “admin support” people such as Jim Kennedy, who is listed as a way to get in touch with Doug Bands. Who is Doug Bands? Well he works for Bill Clinton.

Then there are the hundreds of names we recognize, we just don’t know the role they played.

Were they just partiers there to partake of a good time? Were they traffickers there to purchase some innocent young girl? For example, there are a host of names listed under Karin Models, a modeling agency founded in Paris in 1978. They include: Jean-Luc Brunel, Eve, Michael, Brazil, and Pamela to name a few. And based on the way it’s written, it seems like Jean-Luc was somehow superior to the other names listed.

Further, Prime Minister Tony Blair, Prince Pierre d’Alembert, Paul Dietrich (President of Meridian Emerging Markets, Ltd.), former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and John Kerry, late Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, Ron Burkle (supermarket mogul), media titan Rupert Murdoch (New York magazine), Minnie Driver, Louis and Tiffany Dubin (The Athena Group), Robert Olney (a way to reach the Duke of York), Katie Ford of Ford Models, Tom Ford and Richard Buckley of Gucci, Mark Getty (co-founder of Getty Images), the list goes on and on. In fact, I barely made it down two pages. In total, Epstein’s little black book held 1,971 names! Before he could destroy it, Epstein’s butler scanned a copy to the FBI. And you can read every single entry here, along with notations chronicling who’s who.

Clearly, we know the names, and if Ghislaine wants any form of leniency in her sentencing, she might want to start filling in the blanks. Obviously, she knows who bought what and how the organization functioned.

Can Maxwell Avoid Prison?

If Maxwell is dead set against giving the authorities a run down of the inner-workings of Epstein Island, maybe she should run her case up to the Supreme Course.

Perhaps Justice Roberts can let Maxwell off the hook. Now, I can’t verify these allegations, but rumors put Roberts on Epstein Island and claim he was put on the Supreme Court because his own actions made him easy to bribe. Let’s hope that isn’t true, but it sure is out there on the gossip mill.

But to tell the truth, I’d call that a long shot. And with the possibility of 65 years in prison, the stakes are high.

CNN fills in some of the blanks:

A jury in a New York federal court has found Ghislaine Maxwell guilty on five of six counts related to her role in Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse of minor girls between 1994 and 2004.

Maxwell, 60, was found guilty of five federal charges: sex trafficking of a minor, transporting a minor with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity and three related counts of conspiracy.

She was acquitted on the charge of enticing a minor to travel to engage in illegal sex acts.

Maxwell, who now faces up to 65 years in prison, showed no reaction when the verdicts were read. Judge Alison Nathan did not set a sentencing date.

“The road to justice has been far too long. But, today, justice has been done,” US Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement. “I want to commend the bravery of the girls — now grown women — who stepped out of the shadows and into the courtroom. Their courage and willingness to face their abuser made this case, and today’s result, possible.”

…

Prosecutors argued Maxwell and Epstein conspired to set up a scheme to lure young girls into sexual relationships with Epstein from 1994 to 2004 in New York, Florida, New Mexico and the US Virgin Islands. Four women testified during the trial that Epstein abused them and that Maxwell facilitated the abuse and sometimes participated in it as well.

Her defense, meanwhile, said she was a “scapegoat” for Epstein’s actions and attacked the memories and motivations of the women who say they were sexually abused.

Maxwell’s lawyers are working on an appeal, attorney Bobbi C. Sternheim said.

“We firmly believe in Ghislaine’s innocence. Obviously, we are very disappointed with the verdict,” Sternheim said, adding her team believes Maxwell still will be vindicated.

Of course, Sternheim was paid to say that. Anyone else with a shred of common sense can clearly see Maxwell’s guilt. Who would stand by a man of such disgusting habits? A woman that shares his brand of insanity. Sixty-five years is a fraction of what she deserves. But I hope she faces her sentence, and doesn’t take Epstein’s way out.

https://theblacksphere.net/2021/12/ghislaine-maxwell-guilty-yet-bigger-criminals-remain/

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Ghislaine Maxwell Found Guilty of 5 Charges: “Deep and Lasting Harm to Young Girls”

By Faye Higbee | Conservative Firing Line

Ghislaine Maxwell, 60, was Jeffrey Epstein’s long time lover and acted as his “madam” to recruit and groom young girls for sex. She has been in custody since her arrest in 2020. After 6 days of deliberation, the jury found her guilty of 5 charges regarding sex trafficking of young girls. She faces 65 years in prison.

The guilty verdict was on five charges, according to The Epoch Times:

• Count One: Conspiracy to Entice Minors to Travel to Engage in Illegal Sex Acts
• Count Three: Conspiracy to Transport Minors With Intent to Engage in Criminal Sexual Activity
• Count Four: Transportation of a Minor With Intent to Engage in Criminal Sexual Activity
• Count Five: Conspiracy to Commit Sex Trafficking of Minors
• Count Six: Sex Trafficking of Minors

She was found not guilty of count two: enticement of an individual under the age of 17 to travel with intent to engage in illegal sexual activity.

Her sentencing will be in 2022. Judges in these kinds of cases reportedly do not “go light” on convicted defendants.

https://conservativefiringline.com/ghislaine-maxwell-found-guilty-of-5-charges-deep-and-lasting-harm-to-young-girls/

Racist School Board Votes to Segregate Minority Teachers, Pay People Less Based on Skin Color

BY KEVIN DOWNEY JR. | P J MEDIA

(AP Photo, File)

Racism and segregation are back!

The Mankato, Minn. school board has decided that racism is okay after all. The board voted unanimously to pay additional stipends to teachers who aren’t white. They also voted to segregate teachers by race, though they prefer to call it “placing American Indian educators at sites with other American Indian educators and educators of color at sites with other educators of color.”

Apparently, the word “segregation” has a bad, Jim Crow-like taste to it.

“When you’re one [minority] of a [white] majority it can be very isolating and lonely. To have a support system in place for them is not to segregate them, it is absolutely to support them,” board member Erin Roberts stated. “It’s not about trying to throw the few [BIPOC] individuals we have into one building. It’s about showing them they aren’t alone.”

According to State Rep. Jeremy Munson, the state of Minnesota adopted a similar plan.

“Our largest local school district just voted to pay people differently, not on merit, or by the content of their character, but based solely on the color of their skin,” Munson wrote on Facebook. “This is allowed and encouraged under a revision to Minnesota state Statute 122A.70. Mankato Area Public Schools Policy number 466 provides pay for black and native American school staff above which is paid to white employees.”

I thought perhaps the bigotry was only in Mankato. Now it sounds a lot like state-wide, “systemic” racism to me.

FACT-O-RAMA! The Mankato School Board recently banned concerned parents from mentioning “unapproved topics” at school board meetings and from criticizing board members. They also have to declare their address publicly when speaking.

Jodi Sapp, apparently the queen of the white guilt brigade, spearheaded the move to pay white people less money. She chairs the racist school board and was also the juice behind the ridiculous “rules” of speaking at a school board meeting, including shutting down meetings if people respond to a speaker. This harridan is nuts.

The board is clearly too woke to see that they are everything the left portends to hate. Twitter responses to this blatant racism are exactly what you’d expect.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/kevindowneyjr/2021/12/28/racist-school-board-votes-to-segregate-minority-teachers-pay-people-less-based-on-skin-color-n1544961?utm_source=pjmedia&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm&bcid=97dcba5b3836df02659d13cdaaceb7725e0831d49eea234e5b9b5647e5a46308&recip=28551147

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Oprah Demonstrates Modern Slave-Owner Habits by Branding Her Staff With Masks

BY MEGAN FOX | P J MEDIA

(Alyssa Pointer /Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)

In ancient Mesopotamia, slaves were marked with brands or tattoos. Marking bodies permanently for identification purposes was practiced by slave-owners for three millennia in the cuneiform record. The Greeks and Romans also used this form of slave marking as well as driving an awl through the ear to identify a servant. The Bible mentions the practice of piercing the ear to identify a slave for life.

And it shall be, if he [the bond-servant] say unto you [the master], I will not go away from you; because he loves you and your house, because he is well with you; then you shalt take an awl, and thrust it through his ear unto the door, and he shall be your servant for ever. And also unto your maidservant you shall do likewise” (Deut. 15:16-17).

This practice of physically identifying slaves was widespread in every culture from Babylon to Egypt and went into the New World with American slaves being branded as a form of punishment so everyone would know which slaves were disobedient or rebellious. In recent times it is reported that human traffickers will also use brands and tattoos (sometimes with bar codes) to mark their property.

But the most visible marking of the lower class in America these days is the mask. You will see it everywhere you look. Starlets on the red carpets of awards ceremonies smile seductively at masked cameramen. Masked people dressed in black run behind them carrying their purses while masked reporters try to ask them questions. The rich and famous don’t live by the same rules as everyone else, which has always been true but is now so much more apparent.

The mask has become a physical symbol of the servant class. Oprah Winfrey’s extravagant Christmas decoration setup is the perfect example of this. Here she is explaining how she has people come in and decorate her sweeping staircase with evergreens—but she’s maskless and the help are all wearing masks. Is there anything more elitist than this?

Hilariously, Oprah was quoted during the 2020 lockdown as saying, “Wearing a mask for me is living the golden rule: ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Well, unless they’re decorating your staircase in your mansion and then you don’t have to do unto others because they work for you, right? The worst part about this to me is signaling that the help is dirty and diseased while the owner of the big house is not. Why are people putting up with this? More and more this all feels like a giant experiment in control. How much will you put up with before it’s enough?

Here’s a tweet from Oprah nagging people to “mask up.” I guess she just means other people besides her.

The New York Times surprisingly picked up on this disturbing trend.

At an Apple store in Midtown on a recent Friday, mask-free customers could be seen buying $1,500 iPhones from masked salespeople who may not make that much in a week. At a nearby Sweetgreen, food workers in black masks and matching aprons, and who were mostly people of color, prepared $14 berry and burrata salads for a largely white clientele.

“It sends a message — one that’s been internalized on both sides — that the body of the mask wearer is ‘riskier’ than the body of the consumer,” Dr. Vearncombe said. “It shows that certain groups have, and even deserve, more civil liberties than others.”

I would argue that it’s not a white vs. black issue but a rich vs. poor issue. The rich will always have more privileges, and COVID has made the divide even starker than ever before. There is a new slave class in America expected to serve the elite without complaining, and now everyone knows who they are.

https://pjmedia.com/columns/megan-fox/2021/12/28/oprah-demonstrates-modern-slave-owner-habits-by-branding-her-staff-with-masks-n1545012?utm_source=pjmedia&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm&bcid=97dcba5b3836df02659d13cdaaceb7725e0831d49eea234e5b9b5647e5a46308&recip=28551147

SEE IT: COVID Revolts Begin in USA as Crowds Storm NYC Burger King

By Andrew West

Is this just the beginning?

As the coronavirus crisis continues to evolve here in the United States, there are several disparate reactions coming from the populace.

Many are simply adhering to the advice that the government give us, which we learned this week might actually be coming from powerful CEO’s who are watching their stocks tank on account of continued staff shortages.

But then there are those who are growing anxious and annoyed.  Angry, too.  These are the folks who are ready to take their freedoms back, and who want the government to know that it is not their role to decide on what risks we allow ourselves to take individually.

This latter group is growing, as evidenced by the scene at a New York City Burger King just days ago.

Five people were arrested after a group of protesters stormed a Burger King in New York on Monday night to protest the city’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

The mask-less protesters were filmed screaming at employees for refusing to serve them at the fast food restaurant in downtown Brooklyn around 7:30 p.m.

Cops said they were called in after the group repeatedly refused to leave.

Video of the incident was soon trending on Twitter.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO.

New York City requires that anyone eating indoors show proof of their vaccination before entering.

https://flagandcross.com/see-it-covid-revolts-begin-in-usa-as-crowds-storm-nyc-burger-king/

Elderly Man Who Took Off His Mask To Eat Assaulted by A “Delta Karen” Who Was Not Wearing A Mask

By TOMMY TAYLOR FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

Raiders cheerleader turned high-flying realtor is revealed to be the 'Delta Karen' - arrested for vicious assault on 80-year-old passenger who took his mask off to eat (and she wasn't wearing a mask either!)

Here are the highlights of this story:

• Delta passenger Patricia Cornwall was arrested by the FBI on Thursday after getting into an altercation with a male passenger for not putting his mask on
• Cornwall, 51, was a former cheerleader with the Las Vegas Raiders, according to her social media
• She worked as a real estate agent in Los Angeles but appeared to have relocated to the Florida panhandle in recent months 
• The older male passenger had been eating at the time he was approached by an unmasked Cornwall and told to 'mask up'
• The pair shouted expletives at each other with Cornwall hitting, scratching and spitting at him during the row
• She was then pulled to the back of the plane by crew members and other passengers where she was detained for the remainder of the flight
• Cornwall was taken into custody when the plane reached Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport
• Other passengers and flight crew members reported also being injured as a result of the attack 
• An FBI source told DailyMail.com that Cornwall is due for an initial hearing on Monday at the Federal Courthouse in Atlanta 

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE DISGUSTING VIDEO.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE AND SEE THE ADDITIONAL PHOTOS.

Sowing Winds and Reaping Whirlwinds

By Victor Davis Hanson |American Greatness 

"For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind. "

— Hosea 8:7

The Left is being consumed by its own hatreds and hubris. 

Joe Biden, first as a candidate and then in the White House, from the outset saw the COVID-19 pandemic mainly as a means of leveraging political support, from the manner in which the lockdowns allowed him to run a virtual campaign from his basement to equating Donald Trump with the COVID-19 virus.

Like many on the Left, Biden was overt in such cynicism. So were Hillary Clinton, Gavin Newsom, and Jane Fonda—who claimed that COVID was a “never-let-a-crisis-go-to-waste” moment. Panic and lockdowns could help achieve single-payer health care, or a recalibrated capitalism, or the end of Donald Trump himself. 

At the height of the last presidential campaign, Biden in September 2020 declared that Trump was responsible for the then-current 200,000 COVID deaths: “If the president had done his job, had done his job from the beginning, all the people would still be alive.”

Biden felt no need to list details where Trump had lethally erred or had not “done his job.” 

He did not explain how any president should be able to prevent all deaths from a plague. And in 2020, Biden certainly had no expectation that before his own first year as president was over the cumulative deaths from the pandemic would exceed 800,000. He would have found it surreal to even imagine that soon there would be far more deaths under his own tenure than during Trump’s presidency—despite being the beneficiary of ubiquitous vaccinations, new therapies, and antiviral drugs unavailable throughout most of 2020.

During the 2020 campaign, both Biden and vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris also had cast doubt on the safety and efficacy of the Operation Warp Speed vaccines. They repeatedly implied that any forthcoming jabs would be tainted by Trump’s sponsorship. 

Yet, later in office, both would publicly deplore any doubt similar to their own about vaccination safety or efficacy. Indeed, they equated remaining unvaxed to being unpatriotic. In addition, when Biden was inaugurated, he claimed that no Americans had been vaccinated. In fact, on some days under Trump more than a million people were receiving vaccinations. 

Given that the new daily cases and COVID fatality rates had begun to decline shortly before Trump left office, and due to the growing ubiquity of the Warp Speed vaccinations, Biden gladly took ownership of the virus and boasted it would be essentially gone by July 4—due to his own rebranding of Trump’s vaccination programs.

Biden had assumed he could blame Trump for all 2020 COVID-19 deaths, while few would die from the pandemic in 2021, and that, again, he could take credit for the Warp Speed vaccination program. 

But fate, not Biden, was the master of our COVID-19 destinies. Soon both the Delta and Omicron variants arrived, and we are now back to a Groundhog Day of possible lockdowns and mask mandates. Certainly, Biden would not wish a political rival to do to him what he did to Trump: question the efficacy and safety of the vaccines, blame Biden for more than 400,000 deaths on his watch, and claim the continuance of the pandemic was Biden’s fault alone. 

Truth and Consequences

What’s the moral of Biden’s current troubles? From the Bible and the Greeks and throughout the Western tradition, there is a constant refrain of being wary of hubris, the lying and arrogance that are innate to it, and the divine power that ultimately levels things out. 

Biden and the Left so despised Donald Trump that they lost all sense of moderation, of proportion, of logic itself. Thus, they find themselves in the current ridiculous situation of suffering the consequences of their own unhinged rhetoric and actions. 

This madness was birthed in part because Trump’s newly calibrated populist Republican Party had the potential to permanently draw the working class away from Democrats. In part, they found Trump’s salesmanship and braggadocio repulsive and contrary to bicoastal manners. Partly his agenda had more success since any first term since Ronald Reagan. Add it up, and the result was toxic hatred and mindless rejection of the successful policies. 

Biden’s undoing was claiming not just to be antithetical to Trump, but the antithesis of all that Trump did. His hatred blinded him to the reality that Trump’s record on Afghanistan, the border, COVID-19, the economy, foreign policy, energy, and regulation was in each instance either adequate or very good. To simply nullify all of it, and to claim Trump was an ungodly disaster, meant Biden’s own one-dimensional rejectionist policies had to be winning and successful. And when they were neither, he suffered not just the wages of failure, but of hypocrisy and nemesis as well. 

This irony of blindly speeding over the cliff to one’s own destruction is not limited to COVID-19. 

How did the once omnipotent, omnipresent Hillary Clinton descend into a caricature of a shrill, mean-spirited, and pathetic has-been? Even more so than Biden, she assumed that her hatred of Trump would excuse anything. And anything not excusable could simply be fobbed onto Trump as if it was his own doing. 

Illegal to use a private, unsecured private email server to avoid government audit? When caught simply cry that Donald Trump encouraged the Russians to hack it. 

Was Clinton’s “Russian reset” a failure? Was her campaign’s opposition research via British ex-spy Christopher Steele a dud and a lie? Then simply amp up the Russian collusion hoax, accuse Trump of being a Vladimir Putin asset, and count on the “friends of Hillary” in the administrative state to seed and fuel the lie. 

Lose a supposedly sure-thing presidential election? Then blame the terrible, failed campaign on voting fraud, or on the Electoral College, and then claim the winner was illegitimate, while joining #TheResistance. 

What Hillary Clinton could not abide was that the loud Trump had outsmarted her hip campaign experts, that his agenda was more applicable to the times and the national mood, that she was a nastier and more egocentric candidate than Trump, and that dislike for her grew in proportion to her public appearances. 

Weapons of Self-Destruction

The military traditionally polls as the most popular of all major U.S. institutions. No longer. In a recent Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute survey, only 45 percent of Americans expressed trust and confidence in our armed forces. That is a stunning, almost inexplicable reversal—until we remember what has transpired over the last four years. 

Why would our most esteemed retired generals routinely violate the Uniform Code of Military Justice in smearing and slandering the commander-in-chief between 2016 and 2021?  

They did so freely and arrogantly on two assumptions. One, they were assured that the bipartisan establishment would applaud their political attacks and provide them legal and political exemptions in a way unthinkable had they compared, say, Barack Obama to a Nazi, a fascist, a Mussolini, a death camp jailer, a fraud, and a liar deserving removal “the sooner the better.” 

Second, they were so taken with their stars and epaulets, their high public profiles, and their entry into the corporate monied class upon retirement, that the public would surely listen to their supposedly sage, insider advice. 

Instead, their hubris earned them the opposition of half the country—ironically the half once most supportive of the military. 

Just as importantly, the high-ranking officer class, fairly or not, was humiliated in Afghanistan. China and Russia now assume the United States has lost much of its prior deterrence. The Pentagon was seen as reckless and wasteful: gone in a matter of days were a $1 billion embassy in Kabul, a $300 million refitted air base at Bagram, and some $80 billion in U.S. weapons and equipment. 

When the people looked for contrition, for apologies, for explanations, they got instead the opposite: generals blaming Biden off the record; Biden blaming generals on the record; the sense that China has reached parity with the U.S. military; the chairman of the joint chiefs apologizing for usually routine photo-ops with the president, unlawfully interfering in the chain of command, and claiming a pandemic of mythical “white rage”—all done with the full acquiescence of his superior, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, another retired general. 

Meanwhile, suspicion continued to grow that much of the woke agenda was fast-tracked through the military because it served the careerist trajectories of the compliant officer class. Again, those who felt their self-importance had earned them commensurate influence and power well beyond their tasks of ensuring deterrence and military preparedness, lost both influence and power—both for themselves and the military itself. 

The Rot Spreads

The Green New Dealers assumed that by the sheer force of their own superior morality that they could abruptly curtail fossil fuel use, with little if any concern that millions of the lower-middle class depend upon inexpensive natural gas and gasoline for their daily survival. 

After bragging they would end fossil fuel use in a decade, these same purists ended up begging the carbon autocracies of Russia and the Gulf Arab states to produce more of the toxic fuels they had done so much at home to curtail. The radical climate changers had little idea how unlikeable and unpopular they had become—not just because of their credo, but due also to their own hypocrisies, arrogance, and preening.

Black Lives Matter is similar. In summer 2020, it assumed the role of arbiter of all race relations. Corporations rushed to send it cash. District attorneys competed to drop charges of the arrested. Mayors stampeded to defund police departments. And criminals vied to commit crimes on the assumption that they would not be caught, or not be indicted, or not be convicted, or not be jailed—and that societies were culpable, not the criminals, for the damage wrought. 

And now? BLM is polling even lower than Joe Biden and the U.S. military. 

The lessons from these hypocrisies? There are natural, eternal laws that transcend personalities and are the ultimate adjudicators of right and wrong. 

Good leaders acknowledge the talent of those they despise. They are not so obsessed in their hatred that they mindlessly fixate on the negation of unwelcomed success. General George S. Patton found General Bernard Montgomery a poseur, affected, and condescending—but Patton also appreciated that Monty was methodical, professional, and, as a defensive tactician, admirably tough and stubborn. 

Churchill privately saw Charles De Gaulle as vain, exasperating, and narcissistic. But he publicly acknowledged that no other man of France in 1940 would have, or could have, rallied the defeated in exile, orchestrated a triumphant return, brought order to chaotic France, and restored French sovereignty, and, yes, chauvinism, to a defeated and humiliated people. 

Republicans who joined FDR on the eve of World War II knew him to be vain, duplicitous, treacherous, and an egomaniac. But also, they conceded that he had the rare talent to galvanize the nation to defeat its enemies, and to charm and cajole the capitalist classes to produce weapons and goods as no other nation in history had done. 

So, there were reasons why Socrates advised “Know thyself,” why the oracle at Delphi emblemized “Nothing too much”—and why you reap what you sow.

https://amgreatness.com/2021/12/26/sowing-winds-and-reaping-whirlwinds/

Please -- Stop the Coup Porn

BY VICTOR DAVIS HANSON  | P J MEDIA 

In a recent Washington Post op-ed, three retired generals, Paul Eaton, Antonio Taguba, and Steven Anderson, warn of a supposedly impending coup should Donald Trump be elected in 2024.

The column seemed strangely timed to coincide with a storm of recent Democratic talking points that a re-elected Trump, or even a Republican sweep of the 2022 midterms, would spell a virtual end of democracy.

Ironies abound.

From Election Day in 2020 to Inauguration Day 2021, we were told by the Left that democracy was resilient and rightly rid the nation of Trump.

The hard Left, for one of the rare times in U.S. history, was now in complete control of both houses of Congress and the presidency.

Spiking inflation, supply-chain shortages, near-record gas prices, open borders, the flight from Afghanistan, multi-trillion-dollar deficits, and polarizing racial rhetoric all followed.

In response to these events, Joe Biden’s popularity utterly collapsed. His own cognitive challenges multiplied the unpopularity of his failed policies.

In reaction, the Left again pivoted. It suddenly announced that should it lose congressional power in 2022 or the presidency in 2024, democracy was all but doomed.

Apparently, what changed Democrats’ views was that democracy was working all too well in expressing widespread public disgust . . . with the Left.

Even more ironies followed.

The three retired generals shrilly write of the dangers of insurrection and coups. Yet the FBI found no such insurrection or conspiracy in the buffoonish riot on January 6.

Only serial media misinformation and lies turned a ragtag band of misfits into an existential threat to the nation.

Almost every media talking point turned out to be untrue. No Capitol police officer died at the hands of the mob. (Early reports that Officer Brian Sicknick had been beaten into a coma by protesters were incorrect. The Washington, D.C., medical examiner ruled Sicknick died the next day of a stroke.) The media all but ignored the lethal police shooting of a military veteran and unarmed petite female trespasser, for the apparent crime of trying to enter Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office through a broken window. There were no gun-toting “insurrectionists” arrested inside the Capitol.

Another irony. The three retired generals say nothing about the Russia collusion hoax in which Obama administration officials at the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the CIA helped to seed a fake dossier — paid for by candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Ex-British intelligence operative Christopher Steele’s made-up opposition research was designed first to derail Trump’s campaign, then to disable his transition and finally sabotage his presidency. All that seems rather coup-like.

In truth, coups were regularly discussed during the last four years — but only in the context of a by-any-means-necessary way of deposing Donald Trump extralegally before his term ran out.

In August 2020, two retired officers John Nagl and Paul Yingling, urged Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley to remove Trump from office if Milley felt it necessary after a contested election.

Both officers knew that the law forbids Milley from interfering in the chain of command, given his mere advisory role to the president.

Yet Milley himself had dangerously violated his purview at least twice. He once ordered subordinate officers to report to him first should Donald Trump consider any nuclear action against China. And Milley additionally called his Chinese communist counterpart to warn him that he would tip the Chinese off about any preemptive American strike on China.

Earlier, Rosa Brooks, a former Obama Pentagon legal official, wrote a now infamous essay in Foreign Policy, listing the choices available in removing Donald Trump from his less than two-week-old presidency. Among the possible means, she listed a potential military coup.

Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice forbids even retired military officers publicly attacking or disparaging their current commander-in-chief. Yet several retired generals and admirals serially did just that during the last administration, smearing their president in every imaginable way, from being a Mussolini-like fascist to a veritable Nazi.

The officers published in the Washington Post are clueless as to why the military is now suffering its most dismal public approval ratings of the modern era — with only 45 percent of the public registering trust and confidence in their armed forces.

The nation is clearly not blaming the courageous soldiers in the enlisted ranks. But it has had enough of the Pentagon’s loud top brass who seem more interested in stirring up political divisions at home than adopting winning strategies in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, or deterring China and Russia.

The officer corps too often broadcasts its woke credentials, calibrated for career advancement. Top-ranking officers upon retirement too predictably head for corporate defense contractor boards and procurement lobbying firms.

To restore the military’s reputation, officers should eschew politics to focus on restoring strategic deterrence and military readiness. They should keep clear of divisive domestic issues. They should stop virtue signaling to the media and influential members of Congress.

But most importantly, officers should quit all their coup porn talk — either to remove a president they don’t like, or to project their own reckless, insurrectionary behavior onto their political opponents.

https://pjmedia.com/columns/victor-davis-hanson/2021/12/23/please-stop-the-coup-porn-n1543876

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Why Is the Left Suddenly Worried About the End of Democracy?

By Victor Davis Hanson | Townhall.Com

What is behind recent pessimistic appraisals of democracy's future, from Hillary Clinton, Adam Schiff, Brian Williams and other elite intellectuals, media personalities, and politicians on the Left? Some are warning about its possible erosion in 2024. Others predict democracy's downturn as early as 2022, with scary scenarios of "autocracy" and Trump "coups."

To answer that question, understand first what is not behind these shrill forecasts.

They are not worried about 2 million foreign nationals crashing the border in a single year, without vaccinations during a pandemic. Yet it seems insurrectionary for a government simply to nullify its own immigration laws.

They are not worried that some 800,000 foreign nationals, some residing illegally, will now vote in New York City elections.

They are not worried that there are formal efforts underway to dismantle the U.S. Constitution by junking the 233-year-old Electoral College or the preeminence of the states in establishing ballot laws in national elections.

They are not worried that we are witnessing an unprecedented left-wing effort to scrap the 180-year-old filibuster, the 150-year-old nine-person Supreme Court, and the 60-year tradition of 50 states, for naked political advantage.

They are not worried that the Senate this year put on trial an impeached ex-president and private citizen, without the chief justice in attendance, without a special prosecutor or witnesses, and without a formal commission report of presidential high crimes and misdemeanors.

They are not worried that the FBI, Justice Department, CIA, Hillary Clinton, and members of the Obama administration systematically sought to use U.S. government agencies to sabotage a presidential campaign, transition, and presidency, via the use of a foreign national and ex-spy Christopher Steele and his coterie of discredited Russian sources.

They are not worried that the Pentagon suddenly has lost the majority support of the American people. Top current and retired officers have flagrantly violated the chain-of-command, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and without data or evidence have announced a hunt in the ranks for anyone suspected of "white rage" or "white supremacy."

They are not worried that in 2020, a record 64 percent of the electorate did not cast their ballots on Election Day.

Nor are they worried that the usual rejection rate in most states of non-Election Day ballots plunged - even as an unprecedented 101 million ballots were cast by mail or early voting.

And they are certainly not worried that partisan billionaires of Silicon Valley poured well over $400 million into selected precincts in swing states to "help" public agencies conduct the election.

What then is behind this new left-wing hysteria about the supposed looming end of democracy?

It is quite simple. The Left expects to lose power over the next two years - both because of the way it gained and used it, and because of its radical, top-down agendas that never had any public support.

After gaining control of both houses of Congress and the presidency - with an obsequious media and the support of Wall Street, Silicon Valley, higher education, popular culture, entertainment and professional sports - the Left has managed in just 11 months to alienate a majority of voters.

The nation has been wracked by unprecedented crime and non-enforcement of the borders. Leftist district attorneys either won't indict criminals; they let them out of jails or both.

Illegal immigration and inflation are soaring. Deliberate cuts in gas and oil production helped spike fuel prices.

All this bad news is on top of the Afghanistan disaster, worsening racial relations, and an enfeebled president.

Democrats are running 10 points behind the Republicans in generic polls, with the midterms less than a year away.

Joe Biden's negatives run between 50 and 57 percent - in Donald Trump's own former underwater territory.

Less than a third of the country wants Biden to run for reelection. In many head-to-head polls, Trump now defeats Biden.

In other words, leftist elites are terrified that democracy will work too robustly.

After the Russian collusion hoax, two impeachments, the Hunter Biden laptop stories, the staged melodramas of the Kavanaugh hearings, the Jussie Smollett con, the Covington kids smear, and the Rittenhouse trial race frenzy, the people are not just worn out by leftist hysterias, but they also weary of how the Left gains power and administers it.

If Joe Biden were polling at 70 percent approval, and his policies at 60 percent, the current doomsayers would be reassuring us of the "health of the system."

They are fearful and angry not because democracy doesn't work, but because it does despite their own media and political efforts to warp it.

When a party is hijacked by radicals and uses almost any means necessary to gain and use power for agendas that few Americans support, then average voters express their disapproval.

That reality apparently terrifies an elite. It then claims any system that allows the people to vote against the Left is not people power at all.

https://townhall.com/columnists/victordavishanson/2021/12/16/why-is-the-left-suddenly-worried-about-the-end-of-democracy-n2600675?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&bcid=ba9118a6368f7f5f11df885c43389d53975726fb259d7177fc73f9889065c1a1&recip=26772260

Christmas Eve 1776 changed the world forever

By William Haupt III | The Center Square contributor

General George Washington and the Continental Army crossing the Delaware River in boats on Christmas Day

"We must remember, mankind allows that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community, are equally entitled to the protections of civil government." – George Washington

The greatest Christmas gift the world received was the night of our savior's birth. And its greatest gift to world freedom came on Christmas Eve, 1776, on the banks of the Delaware River – America.

The birthing of America was not easy. Only a third of the colonists supported a Revolution. It pitted neighbors against neighbors. These patriots were not only rebelling against the British. They were fighting other colonists who were loyal to British King George, parliament and the English church.

Often overlooked are the "fence sitters" who were content living free from monarchical dominance. They enjoyed colonial religious and economic freedoms, and tolerated the British as a necessary evil. The patriots needed to earn the support from these neutralists in order to win the Revolution.

The patriots humiliated the Loyalists in public and subjected them to violence, intimidation, ridicule and harassment. They vandalized their property and burned down their businesses. Even families were divided. Ben Franklin's son William, governor of New Jersey, was loyal to the king.

“He that would live in peace and at ease must not speak all he knows or judge all he sees.” – Ben Franklin

Colonists who did not join the patriots united with the British as obedient subjects. Others thought they could profit from selling arms and war supplies to the British without true allegiance to anyone.

Patriots had been building support for the Revolution since the end of the French and Indian War in 1763. In severe debt, the British enacted the 1765 abusive Stamp and the 1767 Townshend Acts. Following the patriots 1773 Tea Party in Boston Harbor, they passed The Coercive Acts in 1774. And that was the final insult the patriots needed to win the war of propaganda against the British!

Gifted orators like Patrick Henry and Enlightenment thinkers John Locke and Thomas Paine kept the momentum for revolution growing with colonial statesmen, politicians and with uneasy patriots.

“If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, so that my children may have peace.” – Thomas Paine

No man in the colonies was more persuasive with the commoners and the peasants in promoting the Revolutionary War than Enlightenment thinker and gifted English writer Thomas Paine. He had led reform movements in Europe and Paine inspired farmers, workers and commoners to revolt.

Paine went from towns, hamlets and villages distributing copies of his 90-page booklet, "Common Sense." Paine preached the rewards and the substantiality of independence to patriots who never dreamed it was an option.

“The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark.” – Thomas Paine

On April 18, 1775, the British marched from Boston to Concord, Massachusetts, to seize stockpiled colonial weapons. Paul Revere rode through the streets of Boston rallying the patriots: "The British are coming, the British are coming!" The next day, when the patriots and the Redcoats clashed at Lexington and Concord, it was "the shot heard round the world.” This signified the beginning of the Revolution and, most importantly, it marked the birthing of America as the guardian of global liberty.

When the minutemen fired the first shots of the Revolution, the Redcoats were well prepared. They had superior weapons, ammo, uniforms and abundant food and medical supplies. They were ready to defend their turf. They were prepared to fight a marathon battle to stop the colonial insurrection.

On the other hand, the colonies had a volunteer army with no central government and little money. They sent troops to the Continental Army, but kept many behind to protect themselves. Many of the colonies were more concerned for self-survival, while the British were determined to win the war.

Late in 1776, the Revolutionary War looked like it was a lost cause. The patriots lacked uniforms, food, ammunition and weapons and some were even shoeless. There was tremendous suffering from cold and starvation. A series of defeats had depleted morale, and many had already deserted.

In the bitter cold on Christmas Eve 1776, dogged by pelting sleet and snow, George Washington knelt in prayer at McKonkey's Ferry asking the Lord for the right words to inspire his troops to keep going. They needed to cross the Delaware River for a surprise attack on the British.

Historian James Cheetham wrote: "As Washington mounted his horse that night he pulled a draft of Thomas Paine's 'American Crisis' from his saddle bag. As he began reading it, he knew that it was the answer to his prayers. When he returned to camp he ordered it read to his troops immediately.''

“The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives a thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.” – Thomas Paine

The next morning, Christmas Day 1776, Washington’s army crossed the icy Delaware and won two crucial battles. He defeated the British at Trenton and a week later he executed a daring night raid to capture Princeton on January 3. This gave control of New Jersey to America and turned around the morale and unified the colonial army. Washington's insightful reading of "The American Crisis" on Christmas Eve 1776 turned a humbling defeat into a glorious victory for the American patriots!

Shortly after the war John Adams remarked: “Without the pen of Paine, the sword of Washington would have been wielded in vain.” 

Washington’s men basked in its victory at Trenton since they had defeated a much mightier foe. Moreover, they realized Washington was a true leader and he could unite the colonies into a strong nation. Washington's faith in the Lord and his respect for the scholarly works of our Enlightenment thinkers like Thomas Paine, John Locke and others would help him articulate the Philadelphia Convention and write the world's longest lasting constitution.

The Lord guided Washington to victory on Christmas in 1776 at a time America needed a miracle to become a nation. He showed our founders how to form a more perfect union of states in 1787. He has continued to bless this nation in so many ways since 1776. Let us pray He will help us unite this divided nation so we can always defend our liberty. 

"It is written in the Bible that the Great Author of the Universe has provided man the authority for self-government. It is His providence we shall respect to guide this nation.” – George Washington

Merry Christmas!

https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/op-ed-christmas-eve-1776-changed-the-world-forever/article_382b7efe-6198-11ec-b2d8-373f21ddcd3e.html