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Accountability national politics & policies partisanship

The AOC-Schiff Thesis

Congress, AOC, Adam Schiff, Eric Swallwell, controversy

I wonder how many others were amused, as I was last week, to hear Senator Adam Schiff praise members of his party for the ouster of his fellow Californian and Democrat, Rep. Eric Swallwell, from Congress.

The tale, as told on this website on Sunday, is that Swallwell — one of Schiff’s closest colleagues pushing the Russiagate gambit against the first Trump administration — was pressured to resign over the massive amount of complaints against him for sexual harassment and other unwanted sexual advances. There is even an accusation of rape. 

Also resigning was a Republican from Texas, Tony Gonzalez, for similar reasons.

Schiff — who claimed to be “sickened” and “aghast” at the accusations and what Swallwell “has done” — followed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in scorning the Republicans for postponing dealing with the Gonzalez problem. He accused the Republicans of not wanting to abandon Gonzalez because they wanted to continue to maintain their majority in the House.

But this works both ways. Sure, Republicans postponed pressuring the ousting of Gonzalez until Democrats likewise agreed to pressure Swallwell to resign. Both parties maintain the previous balance. This is politics. Not great high-mindedness. On either side.

Further, the big issue was Swallwell’s gubernatorial run — contributing to the splitting up of Democratic votes thereby threatening to allow two Republicans to appear on the run-off on Election Day in November in California’s screwy Top Two system. 

Finding an excuse to undermine Swallwell’s run was surely a big part of the magnanimous Democratic effort to remove him from Congress.

“You think you know someone, and it turns out you don’t,” said Schiff about Swallwell. “I didn’t socialize with Eric Swallwell, but I worked with him on the Judiciary Committee — I would never have imagined that he was capable of something like this.”

I think we know quite enough about Schiff and his partisanship, as we do so many in Congress. They are capable of anything.

Meanwhile, the vote to expel Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-Fla.) — accused of expropriating FEMA funds to the tune of $5 million — has not exactly proven the AOC-Schiff thesis on swift Democratic self-policing. She’s still in Congress, though a vote may occur tomorrow, we’re told.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Thought

George Saintsbury

The Law of Nemesis — the law that every extraordinary expansion or satisfaction of heart or brain or will is paid for — paid for inevitably, incommutably, without the possibility of putting off or of transferring the payment — is one of the truths about which no human being with a soul a little above the brute has the slightest doubt.

From Saintsbury’s preface to The Wild Ass’s Skin by Honoré De Balzac (New York: The Review of Reviews Company, Volume Five).
Categories
Today

Rome, VP, Fairs

In history:

April 21, 753 BC, is the traditional date on which Romulus founded Rome.

April 21, AD 1789, John Adams was sworn in as first Vice President of the United States nine days before George Washington was sworn in as President.

In 1962 on this date, the Seattle World’s Fair opened — the first World’s Fair in the United States since World War II. Three years later, to the day, the 1964–1965 New York World’s Fair opened for its second and final season.

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Fourth Amendment rights litigation

The C-word in Surveillance

4th Amendment, search, surveillance, Constitution, cars

Is unconstitutionality like obscenity? — we can’t define it, but know it when we see it.

Take San Jose, California, and its automatic license plate reader system. I might not win an argument explaining how San Jose’s public surveillance relates to the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. But. . . .

That amendment insists that people have a right “to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,” and that governments may not search and seize property without a warrant “upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

How does one’s public goings-about in cars that are drivable only with a state-mandated license plate amount to something that must not be searched or surveilled? Our driving on roads is all out in the open, after all, not private. 

Maybe we should stress the Fourth’s narrow guideline: warrants must describe the place to be searched, and the persons.

Broad-based tracking flouts that narrow stricture.

But really, I’m biased: mass surveillance is Orwellian. Do we want our government keeping track of us that much?

Especially as in San Jose, where not only can over a thousand police department employees scour the data sans any legal warrant, but the department also shares this resource with over 300 agencies across the state.

Creepy. That’s the word for it.

And that’s the word used by Institute for Justice lawyers who filed a lawsuit against San Jose’s practice.

Jacob Sullum’s article in Reason explains the legal arguments carefully as well as the many ways the information can be weaponized to, for example, retaliate against protesters. 

Information is power, after all. And in the wrong hands . . . creepy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Lawrence Durrell

A state-imposed metaphysic or religion should be opposed, if necessary at pistol-point. We must fight for variety if we fight at all. The uniform is as dull as a sculptured egg.

From the “Obiter Dicta” attributed to the character Pursewarden, in Lawrence Durrell, Balthazar (1958), p. 245.

Categories
Today

New Amsterdam

On April 20, 1657, freedom of religion was granted to the Jews of New Amsterdam, which was later renamed New York City.

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Update

Five-hundred thirty-three to Go?

Not mentioned in Wednesday’s report on withheld information about the Trump “telephone call” is an odd “coincidence”: just a day earlier, one of the main Russiagate-mongers in Washington, D.C., Rep. Eric Swallwell (D-Calif.), resigned from Congress.

His resignation was not about the Russiagate nonsense, of course. Or a telephone call. Or anything of direct relevance to the voters. It was about sex. Sexual misconduct. Rape even. Reaction has included some gallows humor:

I had to laugh when I read this headline from the Babylon Bee, the conservative satire site: “With Swalwell Resigning, Just 534 Perverts Left In Congress.”

It’s funny (and sad) because there is some truth to it. 

Ingrid Jacques, “Swalwell, Gonzales rightly resigned. Let’s elect better people,” USA Today (April 17, 2026).

Swallwell resigned in tandem with Tony Gonzalez (R-Tex.), actually. But the focus of most articles has been on Swallwell. Maybe it’s the name, maybe it’s his prominence as a Trump critic.

While the House investigations against him have ceased, other inquiries are ongoing, “including one announced Saturday by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office,” reports an article in the San Francisco Chronicle. “The office plans to look into an alleged sexual assault reported by the Chronicle, which the former Swalwell staffer said took place after a charity gala in New York City in April 2024.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the main banana concocting and promoting the Russiagate psy-op, says he is “sickened” and “aghast” at the charges against Swallwell:

Had Schiff known what he now knows, why — he insists — he would not got near Swallwell “with a ten-foot pole.” His and AOC’s comments about partisanship are . . . interesting, if not quite believable.



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Thought

George Saintsbury

The Book of History is the Bible of Irony.

From George Saintsbury: The Memorial Volume (London: Methuen, 1946) p. 120.
Categories
Today

The Revolution Begins

On April 19, 1775, the American Revolution began when the “shot heard around the world” was fired between the 700 British troops and the 77 armed minutemen under Captain John Parker waiting for them on the Lexington town green.

The British troops were on a mission to capture Patriot leaders Sam Adams and John Hancock and to seize a Patriot arsenal.

The Battle of Lexington ended with eight Americans killed and ten wounded, along with one wounded British soldier.

In Concord, a couple of hours later, British troops were encircled by hundreds of armed Patriots. The British commander ordered his men to return to Boston without directly engaging the Americans, but on the 16-mile journey they were constantly attacked by Patriot marksmen firing at them Indian-style from behind trees, rocks, and stone walls. By the time the British reached the safety of Boston, nearly 300 soldiers had been killed, wounded, or were missing in action. The Patriots suffered fewer than 100 casualties.

On April 19, 1782, John Adams secured the Dutch Republic’s recognition of the United States as an independent government.

Categories
Update

Hallucinogenic State

The War on Drugs made another retreat this week, as the Washington Post covered the story early in its development:

President Donald Trump is planning to sign an executive order on Saturday to boost research into psychedelics and potentially make the drugs available in controlled therapeutic environments, according to three people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the administration’s plans.

Trump’s planned order will direct new steps from the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates drug safety. The agency would issue new guidance to researchers on how to design clinical trials for drugs such as psilocybin, ibogaine and other serotonin receptors. Those drugs, which also include LSD and MDMA, can cause hallucinogenic effects and are illegal in the United States.

Dan Diamond, “Trump plans to ease access to psychedelics like psilocybin, ibogaine,” Washington Post (April 18, 2026).

But a later report in the Washington Examiner shows that the deed’s already been done:

President Donald Trump signed an executive order allowing the use of some psychedelic drugs to treat post-traumatic stress disorder.

Flanked by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., podcaster Joe Rogan, and other cabinet officials, Trump said his new executive order “directs the FDA to expedite their review of certain psychedelics already designated as breakthrough therapy drugs.”

Brady Knox, “Trump signs order boosting psychedelic drugs for PTSD with Rogan looking on,” Washington Examiner (April 18, 2026).

According to the New York Post, the signing was today, Saturday. “The drug is currently classified as a Schedule I controlled substance in the United States.” Specifically, the “order will remove legal restrictions that have prevented extensive studies into the medicine and how it works.”

Of course, there exist many hallucinogenic compounds — enough to make the phrase “the medicine” seem a little odd — and the federal government’s stance on its usage has not just been of suppression: consult Stephen Kinzer’s Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control (2019) for some real mind-blowing information.

But the current executive order is astounding enough to blow some minds:

Individuals suffering from major depressive disorder and substance abuse disorder, among other serious mental illnesses, can relapse or not fully respond to standard medical and psychiatric therapies.  Despite massive Federal investment into researching potential advancements in mental health care and treatment, our medical research system has yet to produce approved therapies that promote enduring improvements in the mental health condition of these most complex patients.  Innovative methods are needed to find long-term solutions for these Americans beyond existing prescription medications.

Psychedelic drugs, including ibogaine compounds, show potential in clinical studies to address serious mental illnesses for patients whose conditions persist after completing standard therapy.  Indeed, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Breakthrough Therapy designation to specific psychedelic drugs, and there are numerous products currently in the clinical trial pipeline for review of safety and efficacy.  It is the policy of my Administration to accelerate innovative research models and appropriate drug approvals to increase access to psychedelic drugs that could save lives and reverse the crisis of serious mental illness in America.

Donald J. Trump, Executive Order: “Accelerating Medical Treatments for Serious Mental Illness” (April 18, 2026).