ὅπου γὰρ ἰσχὺς συζυγοῦσι καὶ δίκη
ποία ξυνωρὶς τῆσδε καρτερωτέρα
For where might and justice are yoke-fellows —
Aeschylus, Fragments of Uncertain Plays (#209), the Herbert Weir Smith translation (Loeb Library, Aeschylus II).
What pair is stronger than this?
On April 4, 1841, William Henry Harrison died of pneumonia, becoming the first President of the United States to die in office and the one with the shortest term served (he died on his 32nd day as president). A renowned Indian killer (having risen to fame for his part in 1811’s Battle of Tippecanoe), a proponent of the expansion of slavery into Northwest Territories, and a Whig, Harrison won the presidency in part by turning the Democrats’ “log cabin and hard cider” aspersions on his character as the basic symbols of the campaign.
Though hardly a “limited government man,” some limited government history buffs proclaim him the Greatest President, on the ostensibly droll and possibly cynical grounds that he spent so little time in office.
The campaign slogan of 1840, “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too,” proved an actual campaign promise, as Vice President John Tyler took over the job of the presidency, establishing a precedent on presidential succession that would later be enshrined into constitutional law, in the form of the Twenty-fifth Amendment.
We still do not know much about Trump’s would-be assassin on that roof in Butler, Pennsylvania. Nor does there seem much media interest in that still mysterious criminal episode. But we are learning more about Joe Biden’s stepping down from the campaign, and Kamala Harris’s taking the reins of the Democratic ticket.
Most recently, from a insider-exposé just out by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House (Apri 1, 2025), we learn that Barack Obama, former president and key Democratic Party insider, not only pressured Biden to step down (along with Nancy Pelosi), but he also opposed Kamala Harris’s hasty top-of-the-ticket switcheroo. Strongly. For five days. Then he gave his endorsement.*
It’s widely reported that the Bidens dislike Kamala Harris. It’s also well known that Obama is not exactly Joe Biden’s biggest fan — the Obama/Biden pairing was political, making the match perhaps the most fraught since Kennedy/LBJ.
We learn from co-author Jonathan Allen that Obama refused to endorse Ms. Harris on that infamous first day, after Biden’s endorsement,* and that Obama was pitching for an open convention.
Obama’s political instincts are unmatched within the Democratic Party. That his advice was resisted says a lot about where the party was headed.
And where it’s at now.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* If you, like me, are looking for why Biden, so soon after stepping down, publicly endorsed Kamala Harris, the sample on Amazon won’t tell you. But Ms. Harris entreated Biden immediately upon his resignation: “You need to endorse me,” she said, according to co-author Amie Parnes. Pressure was applied.
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“So the princes thought, the fools!” . . .
Lin Carter, “Vault of Silence,” in Robert Hoskins (ed.) Swords Against Tomorrow (1970), p. 99 [ellipsis represents elision of a short descriptive passage].
“Why ‘fools’?” she demanded.
“Because they confuse that which they wish to be true with that which is true.”
On April 3, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech.
Starmer’s Labour government wants the whole world to obey its censorship demands. The latest is that its Office of Communications, called Ofcom, is threatening the American social media platforms Gab and Kiwi Farms with mega-steep fines for unwaveringly safeguarding the freedom of speech of users.
Which of course Gab and Kiwi Farms have every right to do.
Ofcom says it’ll sock Gab with fines of up $23 million USD for refusing to censor its users per UK orders.
“We will not pay one cent,” says Gab CEO Andrew Torba.
Gab is not only not cooperating with Ofconjob’s insanity, it has also reported the Starmer government to the U.S. Trade Representative and the U.S. Department of Justice in hopes that the U.S. government will retaliate against the United Kingdom for trying to gag social media in the United States.
Kiwi Farms, threatened with the same fine of up to 10 percent of worldwide revenue, is telling UK users who want to use the site to access it through a VPN or Tor in order to protect their online traffic and disguise which country they’re from. Otherwise, they’re out of luck.
Kiwi has also reported success in obtaining pro bono counsel for dealing with “the UK’s attempts to enforce its censorship regime in the United States.”
As the U.S. president famously said in Butler, Pennsylvania: “Fight! Fight! Fight!”
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Trouble comes looking for you if you’re a fool.
Gregory Benford, “To the Storming Gulf”(Fantasy & Science Fiction, April 1985).
With the Acte de déchéance de l’Empereur (“Emperor’s Demise Act”) of April 2, 1814, France’s Sénat conservateur officially recognized the downfall of Napoléon I of France. The original resolution to remove the Emperor was moved on the legislative body’s floor, by Thomas Jefferson’s friend Destutt de Tracy (according to Tracy himself — official records do not name the member), and was drawn up by Charles Lambrechts. The final paragraph summarized the new reality concisely:
The Senate declares and decrees as follows: 1. Napoleon Buonaparte is cast down from the throne, and the right of succession in his family is abolished. 2. The French people and army are absolved from their oath of fidelity to him. 3. The present decree shall be transmitted to the departments and armies, and proclaimed immediately in all the quarters of the capital.
Nine days later, after attempting to put his son on the throne, Napoléon abdicated unconditionally. The Allies exiled him to Elba, which was to be the whole extent of this reign as “Emperor.”
This arrangement proved unstable, with Napoléon staging a comeback, eventually leading to more war, his defeat at Waterloo, and his exile to an island in the South Atlantic.
American author, art critic, and commentator Camille Paglia was born April 2, 1947.
In “Tariffs Are Awful, But The Income Tax May Be Worse,” economist Walter Block seems less confused. “Donald Trump supports them on the ground that the McKinley administration was prosperous, and relied upon tariffs,” Walter’s Eurasia Review op-ed posits. Our free-market economist notes that this rests on a fallacy: “since A precedes B, A must be the cause of B.”
Professor Block offers a better “historical episode to shed light on this matter, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930.” You know, the tariff hike that worsened the Great Depression.
The best part of Walter Block’s refutation, however, follows his explanation of the Law of Comparative Advantage. He discusses the gains to our economy if the expert workers Trump fires from the IRS were to find work in the private sector.
And, contemplating the idea of switching from income taxes to tariffs, our widely-published octogenarian notes that “it takes relatively little labor to run a tariff system. Hey, we already have tariffs in place. An increase in their level would hardly call for much more manpower, likely hardly any more at all.” The gains of nixing income taxes would be vast; the harms of higher tariffs would be comparatively minuscule.
An interesting argument? Sure. But I don’t see politicians giving up the income tax any time soon.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish.
Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound (c. 478 BC), David Grene translation.