For fun let’s assume that the real reason behind the DOJ’s and FBI’s unprecedented raid on former President Donald Trump’s Florida home was that the Dems were desperately searching for child molester Jeffrey Epstein’s little black book of guests who visited his fantasy island of underaged girls in the Caribbean.
Prince Andrew, a very young friend, and Ms. Maxwell on Epstein’s fantasy island.
The late Epstein’s girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, has been tried and convicted for abusing and trafficking underage girls and has been sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Those who were guests of the two child molesters are probably sweating bullets wondering where the book containing their names, details, and dates of trips on Epstein’s jet might be stashed. They know she knows who they are.
The United Kingdom’s Prince Andrew was exposed as an Epstein frequent flier and got the royal boot from his no-nonsense mum, the Queen. He disappeared from public view faster than a disgraced Cold War era Soviet Union politburo member on the Kremlin Wall above Moscow’s Red Square at a May Day parade.
Ms. Maxwell is no stranger to intrigue and the ways of the media. She’s the daughter of the late Robert Maxwell, an impoverished Czechoslovakian refugee who become a decorated war hero, a businessman, a British Labor MP and then a media mogul, owning the Mirror Group newspapers and the New York Daily News. He mysteriously fell to his death from his massive yacht in 1991 in the Canary Islands and was eventually exposed as a fraud, embezzler, and suspected spy. His daughter, Ghislaine, was frequently photographed by his side during his business trips and at various social events. She may have picked up his methods if only by exposure.
The location of the book, if it exists, could be Ms. Maxwell’s life insurance policy. Why aren’t the media interested in pursuing the story and revealing the identities of the businessmen, politicians and celebrities who were guests of the sordid Epstein-Maxwell duo? Are they covering up for their Democrat pals and party donors? As one prominent politician says: “Come on man.” Bill Clinton’s name is rumored to be in it, probably many times, and a lot of folks suggest that’s probably true. Are celebrated media figures also on the list? A number of wealthy businessmen have been alleged to have cavorted at Epstein’s fantasy island as have prominent senators, congressmen, and appointed government officials. These would all be people desperate not to be exposed.
Now let’s suppose the book does exist and Donald Trump has it stashed in an undisclosed location. Was it at Mar-a-Lago? Is that why federal agents ransacked every room there including the former First Lady’s closets and even cracked a safe?
If Trump has it wouldn’t the opportune time to reveal it be when he announces his candidacy for president in 2024? Or for an even more dramatic effect he could spring it on his opponents on a debate stage. That would be a very Trumpish thing to do. Don’t underestimate the guy. Remember when during the 2016 debates he told Hilary Clinton he’d put her in jail?
I haven’t read this theory anywhere, not even in the grocery store tabloids and am just making it up as I go along. But what if it’s true? If it is or isn’t, it would make a page-turning novel.
A very talented Twitter user named “Stevenvoiceover” was clever enough to produce the following that satirizes the inept Biden administration’s Mar-a-Lago raid. Click on it and be prepared to chuckle.
(An abridged version of this commentary was published in Biz Pac Review this week at https://www.bizpacreview.com/2022/08/24/come-on-man-wheres-the-black-book-1276938/)
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A Prophetic Sign? 100,000 more Republican voters turned up at the Florida polls this past Tuesday than Democrat ones, a signal that all those folks with the New Jersey, California, Michigan, and New York license plates that recently arrived here have had enough of the woke garbage that inspired them to flee those blue hellholes.
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Blowing Smoke: The Fernandina Beach City Commission passed a totally ridiculous, unenforceable and contradictory no smoking ban for city parks, city beaches, and city marina this past week championed by Mayor Mike “Left Coast” Lednovich, an enthusiastic supporter of liberal lost causes and loony legislation.
City Attorney and consigliere Tammi Bach signed the new ordinance, which makes it illegal to smoke on beaches and parks within the city limits. Violators will be fined $75.
However, the ordinance (2022-16) states that not all smoking is banned. Section 42-64, titled “Smoking Prohibited Beaches and Parks,” paragraph (a) says: “Smoking is a public health nuisance and is strictly prohibited in all City parks and on City beaches, with the exception of the smoking of unfiltered cigars.” I have a copy of the ordinance and that is exactly what it says.
What! What? People can’t light up a cigarette, pipe, or suck on one of those plastic vaping gizmos, but stogies are OK? A guy with a lit cigarette is slapped with a $75 fine while his pal next to him puffing away on a massive $10 stogie gets a thumbs up? How does that make any sense? Is cigar smoke nontoxic? Does it contain healthy airborne properties?
Fernandina Beach Mayor Mike “Left Coast” Lednovich.
None of this makes sense because nothing Lednovich does or proposes ever makes sense. I’m not a smoker, and I’ve never been annoyed by folks smoking on the beach. I’ve never walked into a cloud of exhaled smoke as the constant ocean breezes quickly blow it away. In fact, most smokers I’ve witnessed on the beach have a tough time even firing up their tobacco products due to the always constant breeze.
Commissioner Bradley Bean was the lone sensible vote against this unenforceable and silly piece of codswhallop. The rest of the folks running amok in city hall are in need of some serious adult supervision or therapy.
In addition to the contradictory and nonsensical law, many of the poor saps (Beach Ranger volunteers and law enforcement) charged with administering this bit of foolishness have told me privately that it is “unenforceable.” They say that would be the case even without the inexplicable “cigar” clause.
The city’s consigliere Bach and liberal California transplant “Left Coast” Lednovich are blowing smoke up your, well you know….
Oh, and for you folks that don’t know what Mayor “Left Coast” Lednovich looks like I’ll be running this photo of him every week up until the November 8 general election so you can easily recognize him. He’s shown here publicly supporting the Marxist Black Lives Matter organization in downtown Fernandina about 20 months ago while that group was actively rioting, burning, and looting when they weren’t destroying public property and beating and shooting citizens in numerous U.S. cities.
BLM supporter Mayor Lednovich, the driving force behind the beach and park smoking ban, said at the Commission meeting last week that smoking in public places “infringes on his rights.”
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Hupp, Hupp Hooray! Local musician and novice public office seeker Hupp Huppman received more votes than any other Nassau County elected official this past Tuesday, marking the affable music man as a guy to keep an eye on in area politics hereabouts. Based on the latest information I have following are the top five voter getters in Nassau County:
1. A. M. “Hupp” Huppman (13,612 votes) – County Commissioner – District 2
2. Justin Taylor (12,062 votes) – Ocean Highway and Port Authority Member – District 3
3. Aaron Bean (10,267 votes) – Representative in Congress – District 4
4. Alyson McCullogh (10,067 votes) – County Commissioner – District 4
5. Shannon Hogue (9,720 votes) – School Board – District 1
Hupp’s in rarified company. He’s like a rookie baseball player winning the batting title in a league featuring Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Babe Ruth, and Lou Gehrig.
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Speaking Of Winners & Losers: Other than Hilary Clinton the biggest loser in the November 2016 presidential election were the national pollsters that predicted Clinton winning by wide margins.
They’re at it again, predicting that the Democrats are gaining ground in midterms and that the races will be closer than most folks think.
Despite what the pollsters say and based on what I’ve heard and read the GOP will win big in November. The same failed 2016 pollsters say: “not so fast.”
I’ve never been contacted by a pollster, ever. They must all live in Washington, D.C., the biggest blue bubble in America, with 91 percent of its populace voting Democrat in the last presidential election. They ought to wander outside the city limits and survey folks other than their tax dollar consuming federal employee swamp-dwelling neighbors who want things to stay just the way they are.
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Read All About It: If you haven’t done so yet, you should take a peek at the new Citizens Journal Florida, an online news outlet that thoroughly and objectively covers Nassau County and the rest of northeast Florida as well as national items that impact area residents
After surveying the news gathering scene hereabouts newly arrived conservative thinking Californian George Miller determined correctly that there was a vacuum that required filling.
The bi-weekly print News Leader is showing its age and treads cautiously editorially, not wanting to step on any current or prospective advertiser’s toes. The only other local outlet, the online Fernandina Observer, is blind as a bat and its founding editors, Susan Steger and Suanne Thamm, were content to have their “paper” serve as a pandering newsletter for the Fernandina Beach city government. Its new editor Mike Phillips doesn’t appear to be much better with two of his recent top stories being snoozers about the painting of the city’s water tower and a nature feature about ants in the Egans Creek Greenway. Wednesday morning, the day after the Tuesday, August 23 elections, the Observer’s only posted story was about the guest speaker at a local garden club while The Citizens Journal had a complete summary of each race posted. It wasn’t until two days after the election that the Observer managed to observe the election results.
If you haven’t already done so check out the Citizens Journal website at https://www.citizensjournal.net/. Subscriptions are free and its readership is increasing rapidly. The reporting is timely, crisp, and far-reaching.
Because it’s a free publication there is no profit motive, a sure way to go broke. So, to make ends meet Mr. Miller is seeking folks who can string together a coherent sentence, tell the difference between a newspaper and a church bulletin, and who are willing to volunteer their talents. He’s also seeking folks with deep pockets who may be interested in keeping the outlet afloat. The paper is offering a few paid positions including advertising sales. It’s all on the website. Or contact George at 805/807-5114 or by email at publisher@citizensjournal.net
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Government Larceny: Linda and I are proud that when our kids graduated from college they did so debt-free. We paid their tuition, room, board, and books and they got part-time jobs to help. Our son paid for his graduate degree on his own once he was employed full time and was able to take advantage of his company’s tuition refund program.
They also graduated with practical degrees in fields they enjoyed and ensured they would land decent-paying jobs. It paid off as they are prospering in their chosen fields and now have children of their own to educate.
So, since they have no college debt and will have to pay to educate their own children, why are they being told by the Biden administration that they’re now on the hook for the education of their neighbors’ kids?
President Clouseau announced Wednesday that he would cancel up to $20,000 in federal student loan debt for Pell Grant borrowers and up to $10,000 for other borrowers with an income of less than $125,000 for an individual and $250,000 for a household. There’s also a continued pause on student loan repayments until Dec. 31. Additionally, there are limits on accrual of interest on these debts. The administration estimates about 43 million borrowers would benefit, including 20 million who’d see their remaining debt erased.
Biden’s student loan cancellation is estimated to cost each American taxpayer more than $2,000 a year. Now watch as the colleges jack up their tuition by that same amount. These are the same institutions that misrepresent and sell shoddy products, and prosper at tax payer expense. They’re the ones who end up with our tax money, so why aren’t they responsible for giving it back, particularly when they have endowments of billions of dollars?
Biden and his band of Democrat thieves are telling us we now have to subsidize the education for children whose parents earn a combined income of up to $250,000 annually. Using our tax money and that of our children, these kids go off and join Antifa, march in Marxist BLM parades, protest for an end to capitalism, and pick up degrees in gender and African-American and oppression studies, diversity administration, and other worthless fields. As Fox News host Tucker Carlson said: “It’s like subsidizing an NPR pledge drive. The message? They do not care about you at all, and they’re no longer pretending.”
Why should the American people including truck drivers and farmers and welders and small business owners and members of the military, waiters and waitresses and bartenders and taxpayers who never went to college, or maybe already paid off their student loans be forced to pay for college for a bunch of elite twits that contribute nothing to society but chaos? They’ll take your money, then gleefully run over you in their goofy tax payer- subsidized electric cars that dad gave them as graduation gifts. At the same time these colleges and universities that teach their students to hate America, laugh hysterically as they continue to rake in our tax dollars from a dimwit Biden who is buying votes from college students and graduates who can barely read at an 8th grade level.
I encourage everybody who receives a fund raising letter from their alma mater to forward it to the White House.
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Speaking Of Student Loan Forgiveness: The last poll here asked if readers approved of the Fernandina Beach budget proposal presented by City Manager Dale Martin. “No” said 98 responders while just 6 said “Yes.” City elections hereabouts have been decided by a lot less votes than that. A new poll posted today asks if folks agree or disagree with Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness.
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Drinking, Dining & Dancing: Tomorrow, Saturday, August 27, locals are invited to American Legion Post 54 to hear piano-man John Springer and his sidekick drummer, Rob Taylor, perform from 5-7 pm. Guests can purchase an Italian dinner for just $16 and enjoy a full bar. The Legion is located at 626 South 3rd Street, Fernandina Beach. If there’s a better deal in town please let me know. Despite the city’s and Mayor Mike “Left Coast” Lednovich’s best efforts to shutter and tear down the local 30-something-year-old landmark restaurant Brett’s, a judge has ruled against them in the matter regarding the safety of Brett’s supporting pilings/beams says City consigliere Tammi Bach. “The Judge ruled against the City and overruled or quashed the decision of the Board of Adjustment. We are back at square one where the City will have to post a new Notice of Unsafe Structure,” whines the distaff city legal enforcer. How much in lost revenue, legal fees, inspections, etc. has the city cost this private enterprise that is constantly harassed by the loony Lednovich-led crowd that wants to tear down the pier and build a park. I thought city government was supposed to work hand-in-hand with local businesses for mutual prosperity. But as long as the loopy lefty Lednovich remains in office they’ll have to contend with some whacky and expensive nonsense. November 8 can’t get here fast enough.
Great column, once again, Dave! I worked summers in both high school & college. My parents paid for my, and sisters,’ college educations—at an in-state university, since none of us wanted to major in something not offered there. We started saving for our daughter’s college education right after she was born, which, we learned as my parents did before us, disqualifies the student from even getting a loan unless the student’s parents declare him/her to be “financially independent.” This declaration is also required to get a Pell GRANT, with the emphasis on the ‘g-word,’ which means IT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE PAID BACK, President Clouseau! So we, the taxpayers, are just handing $20K each to college graduates who HAVE no student loan debt. As they say, reality is stranger than fiction—a literary category into which this entire ‘Administration’ fell.
And regarding the shenanigans at City Hall in Fernandina Beach, I’d better not get started or my comments might be longer than your column, Dave. Let’s suffice it to say that Left Coast Lednovich must go: Obtuse, overgrown, over-zealous government doesn’t belong at the beach
It just gets worse and worse…
Liz Cheney’s Husband Works The Law Firm Representing Hunter Biden
https://americanwatchdog.com/liz-cheneys-husband-works-the-law-firm-representing-hunter-biden/
Emissions from gasoline engines infringe my right to not breathe automobile fumes.
Please pass an ordinance banning gas powered vehicles within the city–soonest, please, as our collective health is at risk. Out with cigatette butts and other detritus.
Agree with Art that the student loan bailout is nothing more than a vote buying scheme for the Dems to hold onto the House and Senate in the mid-terms.
Fully agree with Peg that the real issue with smoking at the beach are the butts left behind by the butt-heads and not the smoke. Guess the next step will be banning smoking in your car within the City limits as one only need to look at the shoulder of the roadways at traffic light intersections and see the mass of butts.
Common sense is alive and flourishing in Fernandina Beach, Florida.
No wonder so many New Yorkers, Californians and Chicagoans are moving there!
Wide range of commentary this week, Dave- 9 topics – and all right on target (as usual) 🙂 !
Thanks for the plug for Citizens Journal. Readers- if you’d like to get involved, please contact me.
I went to college-my parents payed most of the costs, but I worked at college, and at home during Christmas and summer breaks. I worked at both Rayonier and Container (Westrock) two summers. I was a brick mason’s helper two summers. I worked one year in a hellhole of a mobile home manufacturing plant and went to school at night. That said, I studied hard, BUT, I also partied! And mixed in time at the gym, intermural sports, business league softball, and a bit of raquetball. It was probably the easiest time of my adult life. I graduated UF with a degree in Marketing. What if I had huge student loans? I”d bet my buddies back home who went straight to work in the mills, the brewery, and construction should be super pissed at the grand time I had. On their dime.
Dump the Chumps – vote Red in November !
I know enforcing the smoking ban is going to be difficult, but smokers are their own worst enemy! The beach is not their personal ashtray, If they would just take their butts, including cigars, and dispose of them without leaving them in the sand no one would care. The smoke isn’t the problem, the butts are. Like all other trash – pick up after yourself! And Dave, like you, we worked hard to save for our kid’s education so they wouldn’t have to owe immense amounts of money when they graduated. Like your kids, ours waited for grad school to let their employer help pay for it. So now I have to pay for someone else’s loans? What happens in a few years when the kids in college now graduate with debt, do we then forgive theirs too? I’m all for low or no interest now, but let these kids learn if you play the tune you have to eventually pay the piper!
There’s also Florida 529 Prepaid & Savings plans. Of course it requires budgeting discipline but the earlier you start the less painful it is – kind of like 401Ks. I firmly hold on to the belief that a failure to plan on your part doesn’t constitute an emergency on my part. Or another way of stating it, I shouldn’t have to pay for your choices when I opted against making those same choices.
I was not surprised when Ol Hiden Biden came up with the
plan to forgive some of the current student loan debt.He and his leftist cohorts will do anything to buy votes.
My wife and I put our two kids
thru college on the “Pay as you
go Plan” a novel idea in today’s
world.Now Academia raises its
tuition to match student loan
rates and goes happily to the
bank.What a mess our country
is in the midterms can’t get here soon enough.
“Biden’s student loan cancellation is estimated to cost each American taxpayer more than $2,000 a year.”
I think this is gonna backfire on the buying votes idea. Those that get the bailout are pretty much Dem voters anyway. The rest of the nation is pissed.
Correct me if I am wrong but the city owns the beach? Wasn’t this a debate a few years ago in regards to beach front property owners and water line?