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Serious Times

Former President Donald Trump came a half-​inch from being assassinated on Saturday. Thank goodness he’s alive. 

Let’s reflect for a moment on what would have happened to our country had Mr. Trump not turned his head slightly just before the bullet hit his right ear. 

Potentially serious violence and unrest? Even if the sorrow, despair, and anger millions would feel at having their presidential candidate murdered in cold blood were to be completely peacefully received, what is the takeaway? 

It is destructive. We are less free if political power is dictated by the barrel of a gun. And it is the government’s job to prevent that from happening. 

Political talking heads are calling for a different tone and I’m all for that, so far as it goes. But it is a vague concept that no one agrees upon. And the answer certainly isn’t less freedom of speech. 

“You know the political rhetoric in this country has gotten very heated,” President Biden told the nation last night. “It’s time to cool it down.” 

I think, instead, it is time for Mr. Biden to turn up the heat: on the Secret Service. 

This weekend’s deadly* shooting represents an epic failure. To allow a would-​be assassin to climb onto the roof of a building 140 yards away, a rifle in hand and in line of sight of a former president giving a speech, demonstrates an incredible level of incompetence

Heads must roll at Secret Service. (Figuratively.) A new and beefed-​up detail should be protecting Trump. And it is past time for RFK, Jr., to be granted Secret Service protection as well.

I don’t say this often but … spend the money! 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 


* Corey Comperatore, a father sheltering his family with his body, was struck by a bullet and killed. Two others were seriously injured by the gunfire. Also, the shooter was killed by Secret Service snipers. 

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Thought

William Whewell

In art, truth is a means to an end; in science, it is the only end.

William Whewell, Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences (1840), Aphorism 25.
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Today

“Malaise”

On July 15, 1976, Jimmy Carter accepted the nomination of the Democratic Party to run for the presidency.

Three years later, as president, he gave his infamous “malaise” speech, in which he focused on energy but did not mention the one thing that actually helped turn the 1970s’ energy crisis around: the phased deregulation of oil prices that had started three months earlier, under his own directive. Instead of touting this deregulatory effort, Carter did the politic thing, promising a number of new government programs while extensively grinding a “crisis of confidence” message and vaguely speaking of a spiritual challenge.

The deregulation was startlingly effective, in the long run — though the immediate effect was a rocketing of prices. These high prices presented profit opportunities, and (lo and behold!) domestic production greatly increased, allowing for many, many years of lower prices. Those high prices would have worked better as market signals had not Carter and Congress also established “windfall profits” taxes, to take away those temporary gains to existing business.

Had Carter deregulated prices earlier, he would probably have been re-​elected president. Had he emphasized deregulation, he probably would have beat back Ronald Reagan’s free market rhetoric — with actual action.

The price controls had been put in place earlier in the decade by the Republican president at the time, Richard M. Nixon, with the great help of his aides Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.

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FYI

What We’re Reading

  • Democrats are staging a coup by the elite’s elite,” by J. T. Young — ‘As party brass scramble to oust President Biden, America is witnessing an attempted coup by the elite’s elite. Gone is any pretext that this is the “demos” or the people, governing. Today’s Democratic Party is about the aristocracy ruling.
  • Why Are There So Few Assassinations?” by Richard Hanania — ‘The era from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century was a kind of golden age of political assassinations. Over a twenty-​year period, the political leaders or reigning monarchs of the US, France, Russia, Italy, and Spain were all murdered. … And then things just stopped. Other eras would see isolated political assassinations, but the period from 1881 to 1914 was like nothing that happened before or since. It might seem natural to ask what went wrong during this one period in history. But given what we know about the world, I think the better question is why there have been so few political assassinations in other eras.’
  • Donald Trump Assassination Attempt: 2023 Television Ad Features 20-​Year-​Old Shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks,” with video — ‘Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-​year-​old shooter who tried assassinating former US President Donald Trump at his campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on Sunday was allegedly featured in a BlackRock advertisement in 2023.’
  • 5 lessons from working at a homeless shelter,” by Ed Latimore — ‘I watched about 500 homeless people get processed.… Most of them were guys who’d done 5 – 10+ years in prison, and their friends/​family moved on. Since they’re convicted felons, the criminal justice system makes it virtually impossible for them to get work.’
  • The Temu App Is Like the TikTok App,” by Scribbler — ‘The app for China-​based TikTok isn’t the only one to avoid if you worry about cybersecurity and whether any of your personal data might end up on the servers of the Chinese Communist Party.… Any app made by a company based in China and thus answerable to the party-​state is suspect.’
Categories
Thought

Donald Trump

Fight, fight, fight!

Donald John Trump, former president running for a second term, in Butler, Pennsylvania, just after an assassination attempt, surrounded by Secret Service, pumping his right fist into the air, defiantly. These words are interpreted from his lips, the audio being obscure.

I was shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear. I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin. Much bleeding took place, so I realized then what was happening. GOD BLESS AMERICA!

Trump’s first Truth Social post after the event. The assassination attempt occurred about a quarter after Six O’Clock EDST on July 13, 2024.
Categories
Today

The Bastille Stormed

On July 14, 1789, Paris citizens stormed the Bastille.

The word “storm” in its various forms is almost invariably paired with “Bastille” in discussions of the event. It is one of the great clichés of historical chitchat.


On the same date nine years later, in America, the Sedition Act was signed into law, prohibiting the writing, publishing, or speaking false or malicious statements about the United States government.

The passage of this repressive law spurred the formation of the first opposition party in the United States, with Thomas Jefferson as its leader and figurehead.