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crime and punishment media and media people partisanship

So Low

“I have to admit: none of this is playing out like I thought it would,” Fareed Zakaria told viewers of his CNN program last weekend.

“Trump is now leading in almost all the swing states,” Zakaria noted, adding that he is “someone worried about the prospects of a second Trump term.”

The host’s opening monologue on Fareed Zakaria: GPS went on, complaining that, “The trials against [Trump] keep him in the spotlight, infuriate his base — who see him as a martyr and even may serve to make him the object of some sympathy among people in general who believe that his prosecutors are politically motivated.”

Leave it to the Democrats to turn Mr. Trump into a sympathetic figure . . . with Zakaria then agreeing that these prosecutions are politically motivated.

“This happens to be true, in my opinion. I doubt the New York indictment would have been brought against a defendant whose name was not Donald Trump.”

And Fareed is not alone, even at CNN, where Elie Honig also acknowledged that, had the prosecution been brought in a less rabidly Democrat area than New York City, “there’s no chance of a conviction.”

No statement is more compelling in a court of law than what is known as a statement against interest, the admission of facts that do not serve the person so conceding or that person’s side. That’s what we now witness . . . as even CNN commentators recognize that the former president is being politically railroaded.

No one is above the law. That phrase loses some punch, however, when “the law” sinks so low.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Thought

Leszek Kołakowski

A modern philosopher who has never once suspected himself of being a charlatan must be such a shallow mind that his work is probably not worth reading.

Leszek Kołakowski, Metaphysical Horror (1988).
Categories
Today

Oregon Trail

On May 16, 1843, one thousand pioneers from Elm Grove, Missouri, set off for the Pacific Northwest, blazing what became known as the “Oregon Trail.”

Categories
First Amendment rights general freedom ideological culture

Library Against Liberty

In order to conduct a forum “on Fair and Safe Sport for Girls,” Moms for Liberty reserved and paid for a room at a library.

Then, the librarians ambushed them.

Yolo County Public Library Regional Manager Scott Love “invited disruptive protesters” to the August 2023 forum and then shut it down as soon as it started. He disagreed with Moms for Liberty that men who demand the right to participate in women’s sports are men. So the matter couldn’t even be discussed. Not in the library’s reserved and paid-for meeting room.

With the help of the Institute for Free Speech and Alliance Defending Freedom, Moms for Liberty sued, arguing that Yolo County Library had acted unconstitutionally.

According to the complaint, “Defendants are not required to agree with Plaintiffs’ views about protecting women’s sports. The First Amendment, however, requires that Defendants allow Plaintiffs to speak freely about the integrity of female athletics in library meeting rooms. It demands public library officials not enable — let alone participate in  — the disruption and cancellation of Plaintiffs’ events on account of their viewpoints.

“The Court should hold Defendants accountable for the damage they caused in censoring Plaintiffs’ event and ensure that such censorship never happens again.”

The library has now settled, revising its policies to (we hope) protect the freedom of speech of patrons who use its meeting rooms. It must also pay plaintiffs $70,000 in damages and legal costs.

Sadly, those funds come from taxpayers. Seems Mr. Love should pay a price.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Thomas Szasz

Formerly, when religion was strong and science weak, men mistook magic for medicine; now, when science is strong and religion weak, men mistake medicine for magic.

Thomas Szasz, The Second Sin (1973), “Science and Scientism,” p. 115.
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Today

Virginia for Independence

On May 15, 1776, the Virginia Convention instructed its Continental Congress delegation to propose a resolution of independence from Great Britain, paving the way for the United States’ Declaration of Independence.