If you wou’d be reveng’d of your enemy, govern your self.
From Poor Richard’s Almanack (1734).
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Benjamin Franklin
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Uncle Tom’s Cabin
On June 5, 1851, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slavery serial, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly, started its ten-month run in the National Era abolitionist newspaper. It had been announced earlier, in the May 8th issue of the paper.
After more than a quarter century of litigation against gun makers, it’s over. The Indiana Supreme Court has called a definite halt to the town of Gary’s long streak of legal harassment by dismissing its lawsuit in a 4-1 ruling.
Gary’s petition to transfer jurisdiction of the lawsuit had been made in order to keep it alive. The court had to decide the fate of that maneuver. After stating briefly that all materials had been reviewed that needed to be reviewed and all parties heard that needed to be heard, the court announced that it “DENIES the petition to transfer,” affirming the decision of an appeals court. The USACarry story about the case links to the appeals court’s lengthy decision.
Both rulings had been preceded by a state law passed in 2024 stipulating that only the state itself — basically, the attorney general — can file such a suit on behalf of cities or counties. The incumbent is uninterested in doing so.
Gary, Indiana, initiated its action against a laundry list of gun makers, distributors and dealers in August 1999. The suit accused them of culpability for crimes committed with the weapons they had brought into the marketplace. At the time, making and marketing guns was legal; still is.
So the suit was manifestly absurd from the outset.
Perhaps cities contemplating litigation against baseball bat makers and steak knife vendors will accept the lesson.
So it’s finally finished. At least this particular attempt to nullify our Second Amendment rights is finally over.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Simon May
The only ‘natural enemies’ are those who take one’s very nature as an offence.
Simon May, The Little Book of Big Thoughts (2005).
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Remember June 4
On June 4, 1989, student protests at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square were brutally suppressed by the People’s Liberation Army.
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“These are character flaws that I’m tired of hearing about,” offered Whoopi Goldberg, Monday, on The View.
She was speaking about Graham Platner, the leading Democratic Party candidate for the U.S. Senate seat in Maine currently held by Republican Sen. Susan Collins . . . and of his litany of scandals — the latest to garner attention being his sending of sexually explicit texts to as many as a dozen women during his marriage . . . while having been married for only two and a half years.
“Platner has faced criticism for a series of inflammatory Reddit posts and, more recently, for a Nazi symbol tattooed to his chest,” The Free Beacon reported last year. Mr. Platner says he was unaware that his tattoo was a Nazi symbol but, according to the Beacon, “Two Platner associates have contradicted his claim of ignorance.”
The Reddit posts included calling himself an “antifa supersoldier” and a “communist,” while also using anti-gay slurs and belittling veterans, police, rural white people, and African Americans.
After counting all his various scandals, The View regular Sunny Hostin concluded, “So he’s a liar, a racist, an antisemite,” then added, “He’s a homophobe.”
Nonetheless, Hostin said she is “conflicted.” Meaning she might still want him to be Maine’s next senator?
Now making a play for the Senate, Platner has kindly covered up the tattoo and deleted those deeply offensive Reddit posts.
The 41-year-old presents himself as a working-class guy, though he comes from a wealthy family that placed him in a $75,000 a year prep school. He is an oyster farmer, but most of his income derives from disability payments. He told reporters that he bought his home with a VA loan, but his father loaned him the money.
“You’ve shown me who you are,” The View’s Sara Haines said of Platner, “and I heard you.” She declared, “This man should be nowhere near Congress.”
Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont socialist, begs to differ: “We desperately need somebody like him here in the U.S. Senate.”
Graham Platner should fit right in.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Benjamin Franklin
Thou canst not joke an Enemy into a Friend; but thou may’st a Friend into an Enemy.
From Poor Richard’s Almanack (1739).
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Singapore’s Constitution
On June 3, 1959, Singapore adopted a constitution.
Though Angelinos started voting early in the mayoral race, today is L.A.’s election day. It’s a race watched with varying degrees of enthusiasm and alarm across the country. Polls show no candidate close to a majority, which means the top two will likely face-off in a November runoff.*
Spencer Pratt, a former reality TV star, has run a study-worthy campaign and could finish close to the top. He’s a former Palisades homeowner. He now lives in a trailer on his property, upon which he cannot yet re-build after the fires that swept through the area in January 2025. And he’s built his campaign around the government’s absolute failure on every level to assist — or just get out of the way — of a recovery.
His video ads — and satirical contributions by fans — have been magnificent.
Erstwhile Castro-loving incumbent Mayor Karen Bass — who was celebrating in Ghana during the conflagration, basking in the glory of the continent’s first woman president — is in no small part responsible for the city’s worse-than-inept response to the fires. And candidate Pratt isn’t letting anyone forget it.
A month ago, Mayor Bass blasted Pratt for “exploiting the grief of people in the Palisades,” calling it “reprehensible.” A weird twist of the reality of Pratt’s righteously indignant stance. What she did and didn’t do during and after the Palisade Fires are better described as “reprehensible.”
The other major candidate is Councilwoman Nithya Raman, an outspoken homeless advocate who didn’t like it at all that homeless started camping outside her home.
Yesterday, the race was described as “neck-and-neck” by KTLA-5, with Hollywood actors Jane Fonda and Samuel L. Jackson cited as “supporting Mayor Bass, while Chelsea Handler and Mindy Kaling are backing Councilwoman Raman.”
In most other cities these endorsements would likely fizzle.
But in L.A. . . . ?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* The latest UC Berkeley/LA Times poll shows Mayor Bass with 26%, Councilwomen Raman with 25% and Pratt with 22% support. Los Angeles does not use the same Top Two system that California uses statewide, whereby the top two vote getters move on to the General Election. In L.A., if a candidate garners a majority, the race is over.
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The shaft of the arrow had been feathered with one of the eagle’s own plumes. We often give our enemies the means of our own destruction.
From “The Eagle Wounded by an Arrow, Aesop’s Fables (c. 600 BC).