There is time enough for a great many things to happen in a thousand centuries.
John Fiske, The Discovery of America, Vol. 1, p. 15.
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John Fiske
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The Nixon Tapes
On July 13, 1973, the minority (Republican) counsel on the Senate Watergate investigative committee, Donald Sanders, asked Nixon aide Alexander Butterfield [pictured] if he knew of any recordings made in the Nixon White House, and Butterfield responded, “everything was taped” at least while Nixon was in attendance, and that “there was not so much as a hint that something should not be taped.” 
This revelation of the Nixon Tapes transformed the Watergate scandal into a major legal as well as political event, and proved to be one of the most astounding examples of “government transparency” in modern times — indeed, it helped demystify and desanctify the Office of the Presidency, a very republican (if not pro-Republican Party) development.
Virginia delegate Beau Correll won’t cast his first ballot vote at the Republican National Convention for Donald Trump, and won’t go to jail, either.
As discussed last Thursday, at issue is a state statute requiring* delegates to vote for the plurality winner of the party’s primary. On the Republican side, that’s Mr. Trump. Yesterday, Federal Judge Robert Payne ruled the law unconstitutional, no law at all, because it violates Correll’s First Amendment rights to speak and associate politically.
“In sum, where the State attempts to interfere with a political party’s internal governance and operation,” the federal judge wrote, “the party is entirely free to ‘cancel out [the State’s] effort’ (Def. Resp. 28) even though the state has expended financial and administrative resources in a primary.”
Love ’em or hate ’em, political parties are private associations, properly protected by the First Amendment.
But is it fair to hold primary elections, at taxpayers’ expense, and then ignore the votes of so many people?
Easy answer: NO.
Sure, Judge Payne correctly struck this statute, but it doesn’t follow that states must foot the bill for party primaries and national conventions or provide legal preference. Up to now, incumbent politicians have quietly legislated a relationship of too-friendly collusion between government and the major parties.
It’s time for citizens to look at initiatives to mandate separation of political party and state.
More immediately, the implications for the coming GOP convention in Cleveland are obvious and far-reaching. “The Court’s decision,” as Correll’s attorney David Rivkin summarized, “follows more than 40 years of precedent in firmly rejecting Donald Trump’s legal opinion that delegates are obligated by law to vote for him.”
The delegates are free.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* Penalty for non-compliance? One year in prison.
Original photo credit: Gage Skidmore on Flickr
On July 12, 1817, American poet, abolitionist, businessman, and Transcendentalist philosopher Henry David Thoreau was born. He is perhaps best known, today, for his book of meditations on the simple life, Walden, and his influential essay on civil disobedience.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, “English Traits” (1856).
Solvency is maintained by means of a national debt, on the principle, ‘If you will not lend me the money, how can I pay you?’
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Algal Mess
Florida’s inland waters are clogging up with algae. You can now see the “algae bloom” from space.
What’s the big deal? Well, it stinks. “The blue-green algae, also known as cyanobacteria, contain toxins that are highly dangerous to humans,” explains Harry Sayer at the Orlando Weekly. “Ingestion may cause nausea, vomiting, and liver failure.” No wonder, then, that the State of Florida is in alarm mode, preparing to spend millions of dollars to fight it.
The problem is: fighting water plants is not easy.
Easy or no, it’s a crisis. Animals are “in distress, some are dying,” says a resident of a beach town to which the algal mess has spread. Tourism? Gone. Who wants to smell that mass of green gunk? Gov. Rick Scott has declared a state of emergency. Understandable.
Over at ClimateProgress, Samantha Page has found something else to attack: “Climate Denier Marco Rubio Tries To Tackle Toxic Florida Algae, Is Baffled By Cause.” Now, Florida Senator Marco Rubio (R) is not a “climate denier” — a term of art that should make everyone, including environmentalists, cringe. He doesn’t deny the existence of climates. Or climate change. Page quotes him as being skeptical of the effectiveness of proposals to turn the direction of climate change around, back to its previous conditions, to which we have comfortably adapted.
Well, that’s his job.
Still, it is almost certain that increased CO2 in the atmosphere has aided algae growth here and elsewhere. It’s nature’s response. Algae converts the gas to biomass and oxygen.
But Page is also right: the state should look into industrial and agribiz pollution, too, as causes. That is, after all, a basic function of law and government.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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P. T. Barnum
In fact, as a general thing, money-getters are the benefactors of our race.
P. T. Barnum, Art of Money Getting (1880).
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Townhall: These Are the Times
Violence. Animosity. Lawlessness. And Paul Jacob is not just talking about these things on the streets, amongst protestors.
Click on over to Townhall. Come back here. Figure out the age; testify.
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Anti-Bankster
On July 10, 1832, U.S. President Andrew Jackson vetoed a bill to re-charter the Second Bank of the United States, in effect ending formal central banking in the United States until the establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1913.
The featured image incorporates a bank note from the Second National Bank signed by Daniel Webster.
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Video: The Age of the Virtual Nuke
This week the police in Dallas, Texas, used a robot to kill a sniper. It is said to be a first, a historical moment of great significance. But wait: a bigger, more dangerous and more destabilizing form of warfare began a few years ago. This video explains it: