President Abraham Lincoln, according to Gore Vidal’s historical novel, Lincoln, addressing his Secretary of Treasury’s “personal desire to have printed on […] bank notes […] ‘In God we Trust’”:
“Well,” said Lincoln, getting to his feet, “if you are going to put a Biblical tag on the greenback, I would suggest that of Peter and John: ‘Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee.’”
Gore Vidal, Lincoln (1984), chapter six.
On April 22, 1864, the United States Congress passed the Coinage Act of 1864 that permitted the inscription In God We Trust be placed on all coins minted as currency.
Former Trump campaign manager and advisor Kelly Anne Conway, substituting for regular host Sean Hannity, opened the program by showing a picture she explained was “Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen staring affectionally into the eyes of admitted illegal immigrant and accused serial wife abuser and human trafficker with suspected gang ties, who was recently deported to his home country.”
Others claim Garcia is “a loving father and husband,” who “has never been charged with or convicted of a crime in the United States.”
But whether a dangerous criminal or an innocent, hard-working family man, Garcia’s status is hardly the issue. This is about whether our government must follow its written Constitution.
In court filings, the Department of Justice acknowledged that Garcia’s deportation was an “oversight” and “an administrative error,” as it violated a previous court order not to send him back to El Salvador.
A unanimous Supreme Court clarified that the administration is required “to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.”
My question is: Why are Trump and Republicans willing to die on this hill?
It could kill their future political chances.
I believe in due process, and I vote.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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What makes it so plausible to assume that hypocrisy is the vice of vices is that integrity can indeed exist under the cover of all other vices except this one. Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core.
Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (1963), ch. 2.
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.
On Friday, the White House relaunched its COVID-19 information website, unveiling a sleek new landing page dedicated to the “true origins” of the pandemic.
COVID.gov, previously ballyhooing the testing, treatment and vaccination against the coronavirus, now redirects to this website.
Criticizing both the Biden administration and former Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s handling of the pandemic, the website indicates that the Trump administration now embraces the theory that COVID-19 leaked out of a laboratory in Wuhan, China. One section reads as follows:
PROXIMAL ORIGIN PUBLICATION:
“The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2” publication — which was used repeatedly by public health officials and the media to discredit the lab leak theory — was prompted by Dr. Fauci to push the preferred narrative that COVID-19 originated in nature.
GAIN-OF-FUNCTION RESEARCH:
A lab-related incident involving gain-of-function research is the most likely the origin of COVID-19. Current government mechanisms for overseeing this dangerous gain-of-function research are incomplete, severely convoluted, and lack global applicability.
ECOHEALTH ALLIANCE INC. (ECOHEALTH):
EcoHealth — under the leadership of Dr. Peter Daszak — used U.S. taxpayer dollars to facilitate dangerous gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China. After the Select Subcommittee released evidence of EcoHealth violating the terms of its National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) commenced official debarment proceedings and suspended all funding to EcoHealth.
New evidence also shows that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has opened an investigation into EcoHealth’s pandemic-era activities.
NIH FAILURES:
NIH’s procedures for funding and overseeing potentially dangerous research are deficient, unreliable, and pose a serious threat to both public health and national security. Further, NIH fostered an environment that promoted evading federal record keeping laws — as seen through the actions of Dr. David Morens and “FOIA Lady” Marge Moore.
And that’s not the half of it; there’s a lot more.
At the bottom of the page it says that the page’s content was “sourced from the House Oversight Committee website, a Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability in the U.S. House of Representatives.”
Readers of Paul Jacob’s weekday commentary on this website (thisiscommonsense.org) will be surprised by none of this — except, perhaps, that the administration of the president who awarded Dr. Fauci a “Medal of Freedom” admits to so much of the anti-freedom nature of the pandemic response.
Some excusing, though, of Trump’s role in the pandemic debacle can be seen in this passage: “Prolonged lockdowns caused immeasurable harm to not only the American economy, but also to the mental and physical health of Americans, with a particularly negative effect on younger citizens. Rather than prioritizing the protection of the most vulnerable populations, federal and state government policies forced millions of Americans to forgo crucial elements of a healthy and financially sound life.”
Just “prolonged” lockdowns? No mention of the president’s early support of them?
Finally, one aspect is catching some attention: a short section on President Joe Biden’s pardon of Dr. Fauci. Tim Pool speculates that this indicates that the Trump administration is readying itself — or at least sending out “feelers” — for an arrest and indictment of Fauci.
As to be expected, Dr. John Campbell has expressed, with candor, his approval of the White House’s newfound candor.
We are sorely deficient in talking with each other and listening to each other. We lack mobility, criticism and self-criticism. We incline to doctrinism. What makes it worse is that so many people do not really want to think. They want only slogans and obedience. They ask no questions and they give no answers, except by repeating drilled-in phrases. They can only assert and obey, neither probe nor apprehend. Thus they cannot be convinced, either.
Karl Jaspers, The Question of German Guilt (1947), E.B. Ashton, translator.
On April 20, 1657, freedom of religion was granted to the Jews of New Amsterdam, which was later renamed New York City.
“We have weaponry that nobody has any idea of what it is. And it is the most powerful weapons [sic] in the world that we have, more power than anybody even . . . not even close,” President Donald John Trump informed journalists, in his usual informal manner.
While it may seem that the president just dropped a memetic “bomb” of huge importance, it’s mostly being taken with a grain of salt, as a curiosity. As just one of the things Trump says.
But he said it in a context. It was his response to a question about rising concerns about an escalation of conflict resulting from Trump’s increase in duties on goods from China. Trump appeared unruffled.
“President Xi,” he said, referring to China’s head man, is “a very smart guy” and is “one of the very smartest people of the world, and I don’t think he’d allow that to happen.”
The president had made a similar statement back in his first term, in September 2020, referring to awesome weapons of destruction that had best remain secret.
President Trump made these statements on April 9, 2025. A few days later, on April 14, Michael Kratsios, Trump’s new Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, stated that “Our technologies permit us to manipulate time and space.”
Uh, what?
It is no wonder, then, that the ufology community has taken notice. But all this has played out in science fiction in the past — both as “super science” and psy-op.
Man cannot be free if he does not know that he is subject to necessity, because his freedom is always won in his never wholly successful attempts to liberate himself from necessity.
Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (1958), part 3, chapter 16.