Our age is an age of moderate virtue
Thomas Stearns Eliot, Choruses from The Rock (1934), VIII.
And moderate vice
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T. S. Eliot
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Kavanaugh Balks
Last Wednesday, Paul Jacob wrote, in “Maddened in Michigan,” of a group he chairs, Americans for Citizen Voting – Michigan, and its problems with that state’s Board of State Canvassers. The board consists of “two appointed Democrats and two appointed Republicans.” The four members “deadlocked repeatedly, 2-2” — on partisan grounds — “on counting petition signatures even when they agreed that the signer was a registered Michigan voter, and then, on whether to certify the issue” for the November ballot.
What was going on in Michigan was an attempt to throw out perfectly acceptable petition signatures. Why? Apparently to make sure that a ballot measure would not be voted on by Michigan voters. The measure would require that only citizens vote in elections.
“Two unelected members of an obscure state board,” [Sen. Ruth Johnson] concluded, “cannot be allowed to strip away the constitutional rights of nearly one in 10 adults in our state who signed a petition to place this issue before voters.”
That’s why we and the 700,000 Michiganders who signed our petition want our day in court. Left without any response at all from Michigan’s Democrat-dominated Supreme Court, on Monday we filed an emergency petition with the U.S. Supreme Court.
Paul closed his report by noting that Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh had “ordered the Michigan Secretary of State, Bureau of Elections and Board of State Canvassers to respond to our appeal by noon today.”
Were the corrupt decisions of Michigan countered with by Justice Kavanaugh? He did review them to some extent.
But no.
What happened next is explained by Joseph Lord in an Epoch Times article from yesterday:
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to grant an emergency request from a group seeking to put a proof-of-citizenship measure on Michigan’s November ballot.
Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh on Thursday rejected the request from Americans for Citizen Voting. The group has been pushing for a state vote on a constitutional amendment requiring state officials to confirm that voters in the state are U.S. citizens.
Kavanaugh provided no explanation of the decision.
A few hours later, the Michigan Supreme Court also rejected a bid from the group to place the measure on the November ballot.
The required date for Michigan election officials to finalize the ballot in the state is Sept. 4, leaving the petitioners with little hope of getting judicial approval before the deadline.
Americans for Citizen Voting claimed in its emergency petition that it was making the request because state officials refused to certify that the measure had received enough signatures to move forward.
“The Michigan Board of State Canvassers refused to certify a petition for Michigan’s November 3, 2026 election despite the petition garnering more than 700,000 signatures and needing only 446,198,” the group wrote.
The group has concentrated its effort against instances of noncitizens voting in municipal and school board elections. These elections, with the agreement of local legislators, allow voting by some noncitizens—often requiring a green card or lawful residency.
Note that two-thirds of the 24 cities that allow noncitizens to vote do not require the noncitizen to be legally present in the United States.
The article then makes a dutiful nod to the official story about non-citizen voting: “Outside of these exceptional elections, outcome-altering voting by noncitizens is practically nonexistent in the United States, according to the American Immigration Council.”
Wait, should people wait until enough noncitizens are voting to alter the outcome of the election before making reforms?
The Michigan campaign for requiring citizenship for voting and checking the voter list for noncitizens and requiring voter ID has never claimed that noncitizens are voting in massive numbers.
The idea that precautions should be taken to prevent such influences on elections — you might call it “election integrity” — never seem to be accepted among the ruling class.
Relevant VIDEOS on Facebook:
Bureau Admits Another Error in Invalidating Signatures
Board Ignores Sworn Notarized Voter Affidavit
Handwriting Expert Ignored & Unqualified Bureau Staff Invalidates
Poetry teaches the enormous force of a few words, and, in proportion to the inspiration, checks loquacity.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Parnassus (1874) Preface.
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First President of Congress
Responding to British Parliament’s enactment of the Coercive Acts in the American colonies, the first session of the Continental Congress convened at Carpenter’s Hall in Philadelphia, on September 5, 1774. Virginian Peyton Randolph (pictured) was appointed as the first president of Congress. John Adams, Patrick Henry, John Jay and George Washington were among the delegates.
It may be the president’s goofiest idea yet.
His Monday brainstorm was for the federal government to get into the movie business. In a Truth Social post, Mr. Trump floated the notion of creating a “Federal Production Incentive to create Entertainment Jobs in America.” So this isn’t exactly a socialist proposal — where the government would seize the means of production and go about making movies — it’s a subsidy proposal: tax breaks; to “benefit ALL
Trump posts as if he has worked the math out, where the booty the government loses in direct taxation “will be made up tenfold by the money pouring into the Treasury’s coffers.”
A familiar rationale. But does it work? Do tax credits incentivize producers so much that taxes downstream of the productions make up for all the bother and paperwork?
Well, no need for theory. States already have such programs.
Tosin Akintola, in his Reason article — “State Film Subsidies Lose Money. Trump Wants To Try the Idea Nationally.” — found that “the film and TV industry in eight states returned between 3 cents and 31 cents for every dollar.”
Entertainment projects do not create that many jobs.
We used to talk about the states as “laboratories of democracy,” by which we meant “laboratories for policy.”
The point isn’t to take the failed experiments and run them at the federal level, hoping for something different.
Sure, Hollywood is lame. But don’t make Washington the new entertainment capital of the world. It’s doing bad enough as the capital of more serious business.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Kit Marlowe
What strange arts necessity finds out.
Christopher Marlowe, speech of Venus in Dido (c. 1586), Act I, scene i, line 169.
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Odoacer Rex
On September 4, A.D. 476, child emperor Romulus Augustulus (Dominus Noster Romulus Augustus Pius Felix Augustus) was deposed by barbarian soldier (and Arian Christian) Odoacer, who proclaimed himself “King of Italy,” yet represented himself as the client of Zeno, the Eastern Roman Emperor in Constantinople.
September 4, 476, is the traditional end date for the Western Roman Empire.
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Humbled in Humboldt County
For years, the county clobbered property owners with fines of “$10,000 or more per day for offenses they did not commit,” reports the Institute for Justice, which has represented several of the harassed residents.
More than 1,200 property owners in Humboldt County, California, were hit with such fines for growing pot despite only one form of evidence: old satellite images of their property. Followed by, often, no
Among the victims: Corrine and Doug Thomas, whom the county charged more than a million dollars. They were also supposed to pay $200,000 to demolish a barn near their home because a prior owner had grown marijuana there. Another owner, Blu Graham, tried in 2018 to get a hearing to show that his greenhouses contained vegetables, not marijuana. As he waited year after year, the fines piled up.
Finally, in 2022, these and others targeted by the county sued in federal court with IJ’s help.
After some ups and downs, a court of appeals affirmed the plausibility of the plaintiffs’ claims, and the prospect of a trial motivated county officials to settle.
The county has withdrawn the fines, retracted the arbitrary allegations, and agreed to give owners 30 days warning in which to counter an accusation before the county acts further. No fines are to be levied until a case is decided. New owners cannot be punished for what previous owners did. Etc.
And the county must pay the plaintiffs’ litigation costs.
This is Common Sense. Let’s hope it sticks.
I’m Paul Jacob.
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Man is always inclined to regard the small circle in which he lives as the center of the world and to make his particular, private life the standard of the universe. But he must give up this vain pretense, this petty provincial way of thinking and judging.
Ernst Cassirer, An Essay on Man (1944), Ch. 1, p. 31.
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San Marino
On September 3, A.D. 301, San Marino, one of the smallest sovereign political organizations in the world and the world’s oldest still-existing republic, was founded by Saint Marinus.
San Marino is bounded on all sides by northeastern Italy.