June 3, 2024
Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.
Brazen Trump prosecutions threaten constitutional order
By Rick Manning
Former President Donald Trump’s verdict is in: guilty on all accounts.
After observing the convoluted jury instructions, the denial of the Trump defense team to demonstrate that the federal election crime that the Manhattan district attorney depends upon didn’t exist, and the judge effectively shutting down the only witness Mr. Trump offered who directly contradicted Michael Cohen, the prosecution’s star witness demonstrates how brazen the leftists are in their attack on the former president. For them, the ends justify the means.
Civil libertarians and criminal defense attorneys across the nation should be up in arms over the disgraceful abuse of power by the George Soros-funded DA and a judge whose family is personally profiteering from the case.
Political activist and journalist Laura Loomer uncovered another example of this profiteering when she revealed that one of the judge’s daughter’s top clients, the Brennan Center for Justice, has been afforded a coveted seat in the courtroom so it can provide breathless play-by-play commentary to its funders. Ms. Loomer notes that the judge’s daughter brags that she has doubled the size of the far-left Brennan Center on her website, pitching other potential clients to hire her.
But a corrupt local New York City judge using the Biden family enrichment model is not the story.
The story is that the obvious injustice in this case and the silence of a vast majority of the left demonstrates clearly that a two-tiered system of justice has now been accepted and normalized by the Democrats and their supporters.
America’s system of laws depends upon the consent and compliance of a vast majority of the people in the country. When those people see that entering the country illegally puts you at the head of the line for public housing and other assistance, they rightfully question why they are following the law.
When workers making minimum wage see hordes of people overtake the retailer they are employed by and steal as much as they can carry with no legal ramifications, they ask why they are working to pay their rent when others can come in and steal more than they make in a week.
When the average American sees a series of court cases brought against a former president, whether they support him or not, that are effectively little more than “orange man bad” fairy dust depending on judges and jurors who are little more than partisan hacks in deep blue areas, it is fair for them to question whether our justice system is irretrievably broken.
There is a battle going on among those who support former President Donald Trump, with one side urging that legal retribution be sought and achieved against those who have so callously abused both the criminal justice and the nation’s intelligence gathering systems. The other urges a return to civility to prevent our nation’s politics from devolving into what has been the historical norm for nations worldwide, where winning and losing is a matter of life and death.
In the past, one of the key distinctions to American-style governments is that the loser of an election is not jailed or executed but instead plays an important role in leading dissenting opinion and, at times, coalescing with the victor on issues where they come together.
The Obama-Biden wholesale attack on the expectation of a politically blind justice system, combined with their willingness to use every federal intelligence gathering mechanism at their disposal to discredit and harm their political opponents, has put the idea of returning to a civil norm in the crosshairs.
If the liberals were going to prosecute a former president, the charges should have been clear, concise, and easily proven. Instead, they chose a “trust me, Trump must have done something wrong, we just aren’t quite sure what it was” approach.
If what is good for the goose is good for the gander, Americans can expect the dirtiest, most corrupt election in history. The Democrats cannot afford to lose, now that they have set a prosecution standard where the opposition party can be subjected to a trial without even the basic protections of needing the jury to agree unanimously on a specific crime being committed.
The far-left liberals know that if they were subjected to the Trump prosecution standard, they would all be sitting in Leavenworth, and from what we have witnessed over the course of the Biden administration, it is clear that they have no intention of returning to the norms of civil society should they win.
Should Mr. Trump eventually win, from a jail cell or not, the question will be either “Is it possible to turn back the clock to 2008?” or “Is it time to face the new reality and do unto the Democrats as they have done unto you?”
In 2008, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama called for the “fundamental transformation of America.” Little did anyone expect that a mere 16 years later, we are witnessing the collapse of the belief in the rule of law.
As one nursery rhyme has ingrained in many of us, once Humpty Dumpty falls, it is very hard to put him back together again. The same can be said of the social fabric of American society.
Rick Manning is president of Americans for Limited Government.
To view online: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/may/31/brazen-trump-prosecutions-threaten-constitutional-/
The Spark: ‘In the Minds of the People.’
By Bill Wilson
What really happened in New York this past week in the prosecution of Donald Trump? The breathless paid script readers of the controlled “press” wanted to gloat and heap disdain on the former President. Their glee was only matched by the vapid analysis of how the verdict might impact the election this year. And a few of the quislings of the Republican In Name Only (RINO) persuasion began to daydream about a return to the Republican Party that played the role of shill to the state, supporting ever more wars of imperial design and furthering the “project” of globalization.
But of course all of these things are mere momentary delusions. In the scheme of things, the Soviet show trail in New York will have little impact on any of these things. It will, however, leave a lasting mark.
Millions of Americans have now come to understand that the narrative of the United States is simply not true. The justice system is not designed to dispense justice, it is designed to torture. Confess and give us what we want or we will bankrupt you. Do as we say or we will go after your children. Bend your knee and bow to us or there is no end to the humiliation we will pile onto you. That is what America saw. A so-called justice system that is analogous to the Third World, that is devoid of anything other than the pursuit of power.
What else did America see? It got to see smug, self-righteous elites condemn them; not just Donald Trump, but all of us who supported him. America got to see up close and personal the raw hatred our elites have for us.
Anything more? Oh yes. We got to read article after article about how the deep state was preparing to block anything the people may want in the event Trump is elected in November. The regime openly talks about how to make it impossible for the Make America Great Again (MAGA) crew to tame the reckless, arrogant bureaucracy, control the warmongers killing millions in the name of “democracy,” or dismantle the intel state that has grown up since 1947.
So, the very concept of America – individual liberty and representative government – is exposed as the biggest lie of all. If the government can spy on you, prosecute you without naming a crime, and crush anyone or anything that opposes it, where is representative government?
These realizations will take time to spread and to grow. Two of our founding Fathers understood this very well and their words are prophetic and a bit terrifying. In 1815, John Adams, the 2nd President, wrote to Thomas Jefferson, the 3rd. In his letter he wrote:
“What do We mean by the Revolution? The War? That was no part of the Revolution. It was only an Effect and Consequence of it. The Revolution was in the Minds of the People, and this was effected, from 1760 to 1775, in the course of fifteen Years before a drop of blood was drawn at Lexington”
“In the Minds of the People.” And that is the spark the tyrants and thugs in New York and Washington have struck. Having dealt a possible death blow to the binding narrative of America, they are likely to have begun the process of their demise. I’m sure there are some, mostly in the halls of the Atlantic Council or Council on Foreign Relations or other such castle of the World Order, that believe or hope the People will forget about all of this and just merrily fall into line with the construction of a world government totalitarian state. And, I am equally sure that these people will double their efforts to subvert the education of our children, destroy our religion and crush any non-governmental organization that competes with the state.
But I also believe they will fail. I do believe that John Adams knew exactly the process that led to the United States and were he alive today he would smile knowingly about the futile, destructive actions of the regime.
How will this spark grow, what is the process by which the arrogant and stupid – when even Mitt Romney concedes it was way out of line, you know it was dumb – act develop. We do not know for sure. But there is guidance on how it may.
In a 1928 case before the Supreme Court on the issue of government spying, a powerful dissent in the 5 – 4 ruling by Justice Louis Brandeis set out exactly how the people respond to unethical and unconstitutional actions by the government. At issue was whether or not the government needed a warrant to conduct an electronic wire tape. The majority said, no, the government does not. Brandeis clearly stated the opposite. He wrote in his dissent:
“Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes a law breaker, it breeds contempt for law, it invites every man to become a law unto himself, it invites anarchy.”
It would take 40 years for Brandeis position to be validated by the Court and the requirement of a warrant for a wire tape was created.
And this is the key, final point. We know from Adams it took 15 years for the consciousness of the people to lead to Lexington and Concord. It took 40 years for the wisdom of Louis Brandeis to be realized – even while it is still under attack today by the deep state. So, the time needed for a spark to catch tinder and grow into a raging conflagration is not short. But be assured, that spark will grow until the edifice of tyranny that has grown up in Washington is consumed by the people’s rage.
Bill Wilson is the former president of Americans for Limited Government.
To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2024/06/the-spark-in-the-minds-of-the-people/
Urge State Attorneys General To Sue New York At U.S. Supreme Court To Stop Election Interference And Overturn Trump Conviction!
To view online: https://limitgov.salsalabs.org/free-donald-trump/index.html