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Thought

Joseph Warren

Our country is in danger, but not to be despaired of. Our enemies are numerous and powerful; but we have many friends, determining to be free, and heaven and earth will aid the resolution. On you depend the fortunes of America. You are to decide the important question, on which rest the happiness and liberty of millions yet unborn. Act worthy of yourselves.

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Today

Committee of Correspondence

On November 2, 1772, Samuel Adams and Joseph Warren formed the first Committee of Correspondence, which were instrumental in preparing the colonies from their 1776 breakaway from the British Empire of George III.

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incumbents national politics & policies political challengers

Taking Out The

At last Sunday’s Trump Rally in Madison Square Garden, Tony Hinchcliffe, a reputed comedian, told a very unfunny joke, referring to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.”

The outcry was understandably loud, so noisy in fact that it apparently awakened Sleepy Joe Biden. “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters,” declared the man who is — remember? — currently still president of the United States.

Mr. Biden has since clarified that he did not mean what he said. That’s good. 

Though, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre sounded a different note: “So, just to clarify, he was not calling Trump supporters garbage, which is why he put out . . . a statement that clarified what he meant and what he was trying to say.”

But Mr. Biden did say what he said. That’s not in dispute — it’s on videotape

Yet . . . the reporting seems fuzzier now about whether President Biden uttered what our ears heard. 

On NBC Nightly News, anchor Lester Holt began a segment by referring to Biden’s “apparent reference to Trump supporters as garbage.” 

At Vox, Eric Levitz defends the president, arguing that he “ended up spouting a garbled stream of words,” sure, but those words “may or may not have dehumanized all Trump supporters as ‘garbage.’”

How could Levitz know for certain? He’s not an etymologist, after all.

Washington Post analysis also found the president’s lack of noticeable cognition to absolve him of any ill intent. “Biden’s increasing tendency to stumble over his words, which marred these very comments,” the paper explains, “makes it entirely plausible that he didn’t intend to tar large numbers of Trump supporters.”

At best, we have a commander-in-chief who can no longer communicate coherently. With his finger on the nuclear button. 

What — me worry?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 


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Thought

Isabel Paterson

The humanitarian in theory is the terrorist in action.

Isabel Paterson, The God of the Machine, 1943, p. 242.
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Today

French Revolution

On November 1, 1790, Edmund Burke published his Reflections on the Revolution in France, predicting that the French Revolution would end in disaster. Though many have disputed his premises and reasoning, few dispute his prophecy, which proved spot on.

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government transparency national politics & policies

Gnashing of Teeth

Congressman Tim Burchett (R-Tenn) “doesn’t trust the Pentagon; never have.” But he does put some hope in a Trump presidency. 

“I’m convinced that if he’s elected, there’ll be disclosure.”

He’s not talking about about JFK assassination disclosure — not his bailiwick.

He’s talking about UFOs — or Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, as they are now called.

Burchett thinks Trump will be our Disclosure President.

UFO enthusiasts shouldn’t get their hopes up. Trump is not the first president to have been touted as a UFO truth-teller. 

Jimmy Carter infamously admitted that he saw a UFO once, and had hoped to bring transparency to the Pentagon on the subject. The lore about how this fizzled is . . . odd. 

William Jefferson Clinton went in to office hoping to get to the bottom of two mysteries, UFOs and the JFK assassination. He admitted he got nowhere. 

Hillary Clinton promised to disclose as much as she could about UFOs to the American people — her right-hand man was John Podesta, a well-known UFO disclosure advocate — just so long as the information did not jeopardize national security.

A big proviso, that.

Anyway, Hillary didn’t get elected, and the hoped-for disclosure . . . started anyway. A workaround spearheaded by Luis Elizondo, a Deep State man from way back, put UFOs back in the headlines in 2017, and we’ve been talking about them ever since.

But Elizondo’s intel background screams “psy-op” to some people, and it crosses most folks’ minds that the slow disclosure we’re witnessing now is not entirely on the up-and-up. Actual disclosure would lead, Burchett says, “to much gnashing of teeth.” But he believes that Trump has learned something. 

“He gets it now.”

Well, we don’t. Hand over the information.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Karl Popper

There are many difficulties impeding the rapid spread of reasonableness. One of the main difficulties is that it always takes two to make a discussion reasonable. Each of the parties must be ready to learn from the other. You cannot have a rational discussion with a man who prefers shooting you to being convinced by you.

Karl Popper, “Utopia and Violence,” address to Institut des Arts in Brussels, Belgium (1947); later published The Hibbert Journal 46 (1948), and in Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1963).
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Today

Hallowe’en

As if to perform a Day of the Dead act, Josef Stalin’s body was removed from Lenin’s Tomb on October 31, 1961.

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. Randall Carlson notes that this autumnal celebration is ancient and global, and speculates that it originates in ancient comet approaches that had terrifying and deadly results on the surface of the planet.

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crime and punishment education and schooling national politics & policies

Forever Be Changed

I’ve discussed Kamala Harris’s support, as district attorney and attorney general in California, for an abusive law enabling the arrest of parents if their children miss “too much” time at school, how the law has been deployed against parents like Cheree Peoples, whose daughter has sickle cell anemia.

I’ve quoted Harris’s words.

Now I will quote more of them. But let’s also listen to those words and observe her demeanor and tone, how Kamala Harris gloats about her use of power.

“As a prosecutor . . . I have a huge stick. So I decided I was gonna start prosecuting parents for truancy. . . . ‘If you don’t go to school, Kamala’s gonna put you and me in jail.’ [laughs] . . . I said [to prosecutors] ‘when you go over there, look really mean.’

“I learned that with the swipe of my pen, I could charge someone with the lowest-level offense. That person could be arrested, they could lose time from work and their family, maybe lose their job. They’d have to come out of their own pocket to help hire a lawyer. . . . Weeks later, I could dismiss the charges. But their life would forever be changed.”

Video of Harris saying such things is part of a political attack ad about why men needn’t be prejudiced against female candidates in order to oppose giving Kamala Harris power over everyone in the country.

In the waning days of the campaign, we could do worse than to share this evidence, her own candid, joyous testimony about herself.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Isabel Paterson

But when the good people do know, as they certainly do, that three million persons (at the least estimate) were starved to death in one year by the methods they approve, why do they still fraternize with the murderers and support the measures? Because they have been told that the lingering death of the three millions might ultimately benefit a greater number. The argument applies equally well to cannibalism.

Isabel Paterson, The God of the Machine, 1943, p. 250.