Common Sense with Paul Jacob

Today

Halloween

Ireland, Canada, United Kingdom, United States and other nations celebrate Halloween on October 31.

The word Halloween or Hallowe’en dates to about 1745 and is of Christian origin, meaning “hallowed evening” or “holy evening.” It comes from a Scottish term for All Hallows’ Eve (the evening before All Hallows’ Day). In Scots, the word “eve” is “even,” and this is contracted to “e’en” or “een.” Over time, (All) Hallow(s) E(v)en shortened into Halloween.

It is one of those darker-themed celebrations, often conjuring up images of death and horror. As if in keeping with this theme, Josef Stalin’s body was removed from Lenin’s Tomb on October 31, 1961.

To acknowledge a horrifying possibility, Common Sense marks the occasion with images of the two major-party candidates for the presidency, both seeking votes in early November. One of these will (likely) become president!

Thought

Rep. Bill Pascrell

He [Anthony Weiner] might run in Alaska.* I don’t think it’s a good idea that he think about it in the next five years, but who’s to say what’s going to happen in five years.**

Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.), in “The backstory: Weiner’s final undoing,” Jonathan Allen and Maggie Haberman, Politico, June 16, 2011 07:23 PM EDT, as forwarded in an email to Hillary Clinton from Cheryl Mills, 2011-06-16 02:23, courtesy WikiLeaks.

* Allen and Haberman characterize the first sentence as a joke, and the next sentence as said seriously.

** This past June marked five years from Pascrell’s utterance. We may be now witnessing Weiner’s FINAL “Final Undoing.”

pictured, above: Anthony Weiner

links

Townhall: Hillary, You Have Mail

Post author By Redactor
Post date October 30, 2016
No Comments on Townhall: Hillary, You Have Mail

Well, with Election Day nearly a mere week away, the scandals just keep coming in. One doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Instead, click on over to Townhall and maintain some perspective.

Then come back here for even more:

New York Times: Emails in Anthony Weiner Inquiry Jolt Hillary Clinton’s Campaign
New York Times: Letter to Congress From F.B.I. Director on Clinton Email Case – Oct. 28, 2016
FBI: Statement by Director Comey on the Investigation of Secretary Hillary Clinton’s Use of a Personal E-Mail System – July 2016
Washington Post: Hillary Clinton’s campaign sounds pretty angry with the FBI right now
Johnson/Weld 2016: Clinton Investigation
FiveThirtyEight: The FBI is Back – This Time with Anthony Weiner
New York Post: Anthony Weiner accused of sexting relationship with 15-year-old
New York Post: Weiner revelation proves Comey dropped the ball on Hillary probe
The Guardian: Former Miss Finland is 12th woman to accuse Donald Trump of sexual assault

Today

Martha and Rose

Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson’s wife, was born on October 30, 1748. On the same date in 1968, American journalist, novelist and author Rose Wilder Lane died. Lane is perhaps best known, today, for her editorial work — some say “ghost writing” — of her mother’s Little House on the Prairie books for children. Her non-fiction The Discovery of Freedom was published in 1943, the same year as a similarly themed book, The God of the Machine, was published by her friend Isabel Paterson.

Thought

Maria Edgeworth

We cannot judge either of the feelings or of the characters of men with perfect accuracy from their actions or their appearance in public; it is from their careless conversations, their half-finished sentences, that we may hope with the greatest probability of success to discover their real characters.

Maria Edgeworth, “Preface” to Castle Rackrent (1800) in Tales and Novels, vol. 1, p. 9.

video

Video: Colorado’s 71

Jon Caldara interviews an expert on Measure 71 and the whole initiative and referendum issue, statewide, nationwide:

Today

Cyrus

On October 29, 539 BC, Cyrus the Great entered the city of Babylon as conqueror. His general policy of religion toleration would be extended to the Jews, who were not long after allowed to return to their homeland.

On the same date in 1923 AD, the Ottomon Empire’s dissolution marked the start of the Turkish Republic.

Thought

James Huneker

The penalty of misrepresentation and misinterpretation seems to be attached to every new idea that comes to birth through the utterances of genius.

James Huneker, in Egoists: A Book of Supermen (1913), p. 256.

ideological culture media and media people moral hazard national politics & policies responsibility too much government U.S. Constitution

Pigs in Pokes

Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, war, danger, president, illustration

On Tuesday, Former Massachusetts Governor William Weld exhorted Americans to stop Donald Trump at all cost.

The Donald, he asserted, is dangerous because too touchy, too childish in his egoism, to withstand the pressures of the presidency of these United States. “In the statement, Weld made no mention of Clinton,” writes the AP. He focused on Trump and the GOP, instead.

Both progressive and conservative outlets interpreted this as a de facto endorsement of voting for Democrat Hillary Clinton — an uncomfortable conclusion, considering that Weld is Libertarian Party presidential nominee Gov. Gary Johnson’s VP running mate.

Looking at the statement itself, it is apparent that Gov. Weld prefers The Devil We Know to The Devil He Fears.

Which is where he loses me.

One need not like Trump to understand his appeal. Trump is a smoking sack of Who Knows What placed upon the doorstep of the Establishment, the insider classes running the federal government and the Fourth Estate. By taking offense at Trump but not Clinton, Weld sides with the insiders. My longtime respect for Weld aside, how can one plausibly do that?

We know what the Establishment wants most: perpetual war, permanent debt, and secure power.

Meanwhile, the ostensible Republican has been awfully vague on policy. Voting for Trump is buying a pig in a poke.*

The Democratic poke is fairly well known. But Hillary, the war-monger who accuses Trump of being Putin’s “puppet” and repeatedly plays chicken with the world’s other great nuclear power, puts her own policies in a poke by proclaiming her personal prerogative of telling the voters one thing and her insider crowd another.

Neither sack of . . . uh, please.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Old idiom: synonym for swine in a sack.

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Questions Answered:
Who is Gov. William Weld most fearful of this election year?
How plausible is a preference of Hillary over The Donald?
What can we make of Hillary’s and Donald’s foreign policies?

The Next Question:
If pigs could fly, which one would you vote for?