Paul Manafort’s jeopardy: There’s a leftist link 

The syndicated game show Jeopardy! has been In the news recently after the debonair host Alex Trebek shockingly disclosed he’s been diagnosed with a stage 4 pancreatic malignancy. 

Longtime viewers of the popular quiz show will remember former contestant Matt Jackson, a young paralegal who had one of the long-running show’s most memorable winning streaks —- 13 episodes. The intellectually gifted 23-year-old was impossible not to cheer for. The Yale philosophy major never caught up with all-time winner Ken Jennings who topped out at a record 74 episodes in a row, but Jackson won $413,612. He recently appeared with other top winners participating in the All-Star Tournament.

Wondering what this has to do with Paul Manafort, President Trump‘s former campaign manager who has been charged in connection with fraud unrelated to the campaign?

Early in the show, Trebek asked Jackson to talk about his “very different” parents.

He responded, “My mother is white, liberal and Jewish, and my dad is black, Christian and conservative.”

Matt Jackson comes from an intellectual gene pool. Both of his parents are lawyers. His father is Washington, D. C. attorney Darryl Jackson, who served as a Commerce Department official under former President George W. Bush.

His maternal grandfather, Barnett Berman, was a physician at Johns Hopkins University. Matt Jackson cited him as an early influence in becoming well-read.

And Jackson’s mother — the woman her own son described as “liberal”? Barack Obama nominated Amy Berman Jackson as United States District Judge for the District of Columbia. She was confirmed by a 97–0 vote on March 17, 2011, and was commissioned the next day. The roll call vote can be seen here.  Following their established pattern, Arizona Senators John McCain and Jon Kyl both voted to confirm the leftist nominee.

It was Judge Jackson who added three-and-a-half years on top of the nearly four-year sentence Manafort received last week in a separate case in Virginia, though he’ll get credit for nine months already served.

This is the statement the nearly 70-year-old delivered to the court prior to the sentence being handed down. It was met with an icy reception from Judge Amy Berman who said she was not satisfied with Manafort’s apology, accusing him of trying to avoid punishment.