A bizarre conversation between journalist Christiane Amanpour, of CNN, and Brexit’s most articulate champion, MEP Daniel Hannan:
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No man will get my help in robbery, and therefore no governor will take me on his staff.
Juvenal, Third Satire
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Lee Resolution
On July 2, 1776, the Continental Congress un-tabled the Lee Resolution and voted to sever ties with the Kingdom of Great Britain.
One year later, to the day, Vermont became the first American territory to abolish slavery.
Earlier in the week, I noted how media manipulation of presidential poll results by not considering the Johnson and Stein campaigns distorting the race. I speculated why journalists would do such a thing, but didn’t have space for an exhaustive list.
But it’s clear that one of the things journalists aim to do is retain their once-vaunted position as gatekeepers, as the idea-people and fact-dispersers who define the terms of allowable debate.
By ignoring the competition, they narrow the terms of this year’s presidential campaign, allowing their inexplicable favorite, Hillary Clinton, an advantage going to the polls.
But poll taking and reporting is not the half of it. Tim Graham, writing at Newsbusters, notes how the Gray Lady rigs the intellectual field. “The New York Times appears to be playing games again with conservative authors, trying to keep them off its vaunted (and secretively manipulated) Best Sellers list. This has happened to Ted Cruz, to Dinesh D’Souza, and to David Limbaugh.”
And now, Graham tells us, it’s happening to Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel, whose new book, The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech, has been doing gangbusters on BookScan’s bestseller list.
The new exposé is sixth on BookScan’s hardcover list. But it’s not even made an appearance on the Times’ “list of the top 20 hardcover bestsellers, despite outselling books that did make the list.”
Would the Gray Lady dare manipulate the figures . . . just to suppress an idea it doesn’t like?
That is, the idea that the Left suppresses speech.
It’s almost too rich to be true.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Lew Rockwell
On July 1, 1944, American activist and founder of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, Lew Rockwell, was born.
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Milo Yiannapoulis
[I]t is an ironic and remarkable feature of the American Left that there is no longer space for liberals within American liberalism.
Milo Yiannapoulis, preface to Vox Day, SJW’s Always Lie, 2015.
After the Orlando massacre, isn’t it time to get guns out of the hands of . . . licensed security guards?
Omar Mir Seddique Mateen, who murdered 49 people and wounded 53 others in The Pulse nightclub, worked for the globe’s largest security firm, Britain’s G4S. He passed two background checks conducted by the company.
Mateen’s government credentials included “a Florida state-issued security guard license and a security guard firearms license.” Twice, he was investigated by the FBI, in 2013 and again in 2014, and cleared — investigations closed.
Should we talk about security failures?
Instead, a filibuster by Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy and a sit-in protest by House Democrats changed the channel to gun control. The Senate voted on four bills that threatened more than the Second Amendment. Our Fifth Amendment rights to due process were also in the sights of crusading Democrats and appeasing Republicans and still are.
Not to mention the Ninth Amendment, freedom to do all manner of things, including travel.
Hillary Clinton says that “if you’re too dangerous to get on a plane, you’re too dangerous to buy a gun.” Yet, the problem comes in government simply declaring someone too dangerous to fly or to buy a gun, without ever publicly bringing a charge — you know, with evidence — much less convicting that person of a crime.
Having a government agent place a name on a secret list doesn’t even approximate due process of law. And, accordingly, doesn’t justify stripping a person of fundamental liberties.
Terrorism is terrifying . . . but not any more so than politicians who, in pursuit of their political agendas, don’t think twice about our freedoms or their constitutional limitations.
It’s not all right.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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John Norman
If an ideology produces unhappiness, misery, grief, division, sickness, boredom, and hatred, surely this is not a commendation but an indictment.
John Norman, GorChronicles.com
On June 30, 1801, Frédéric Bastiat was born. Bastiat became one of the most important French Liberal School economists, following Condilliac and Jean-Baptiste Say, best known for his books Economic Harmonies and Economic Sophisms and two monographs, “The Seen and the Unseen,” and “The Law.” He was a brilliant stylist and perceptive critic of state-managed trade. His influence on conservative, libertarian and “limited-government thought” has been vast.
The emergency number of “999” was introduced in London, June 30, 1937, the first of its kind — arguably the best innovation in better government service in modern times.
Romanticism. The yearning for greatness; the need for speed. Efficiency! It’s all there in California’s high-speed rail project — hopes and dreams and a sense of the grandeur of progress.
And yet the bullet train project, approved by voters in 2008, is a fiasco.
One can blame the voters, I suppose. At least the 53.7 percent who said yes to a referendum authorizing a 9.95 billion bond. Just to get the project started.
But we shouldn’t, really. All the people pushing the bullet train notion (from Los Angeles to the Bay) said that most of the investment would come from private investors. Further, it would require no ongoing subsidies.
Those assurances, however, “were at best wishful thinking, at worst an elaborate con,” writes Virginia Postrel for Bloomberg.
How bad is it? Total construction cost went from a $33 billion to $68 billion — despite route trimming. The first segment, which is understood to be the easiest to build (shooting through an empty stretch), is four years behind schedule, and still lacks necessary land.
The list of failures goes on and on, and includes a dearth of investors. And then there’s the estimate of the company who got the first bid on the project. It says that the line will almost certainly not be self-sustaining.
“The question now,” Postrel concludes, “is when they’ll have the guts to pull the plug.”
Corruption, hope without realism, business as usual — all these are revealed in the project. And wasn’t the second season of True Detective about this? Let’s hope this real-world fiasco ends with less bloodshed.
Californians have already lost enough in treasure!
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
