On May 29, 1790, Rhode Island became the last of North America’s original Thirteen Colonies-turned-states to ratify the Constitution.
On the same in 1913, Igor Stravinsky’s ballet score The Rite of Spring received its premiere performance in Paris, France, provoking a riot.
“I believe only American citizens should be voting in our elections,” replied Raffensperger. “I’m the first secretary of state in Georgia to ever do 100 percent citizenship verification,” adding that Georgia officials discovered “about 1600 people that attempted to register, but we couldn’t verify citizenship, so they weren’t put on the voter rolls.”
The Secretary also explained that his office “just won a court case which came from the left, the Coalition of the People’s Agenda and the New Georgia Project, which was founded by Stacey Abrams.”* Raffensperger points out that the lawsuit “tried to stop us from doing citizenship verification before people were put on the voter rolls.”
“Good news, good news for everyone,” Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson chided, dismissively. “All of us want to make sure only U.S. citizens are voting in our elections. And all of us follow the law, ensure the federal provisions are protected, and that we’re ensuring that only valid votes are counted in our state.”
Democrat Benson reiterated that “regardless of our party affiliation, we’re doing all that we can and more to ensure, as the facts show, in all of our states, that only U.S. citizens are voting.”
“What you just said there was ‘federal provisions,’” responded Raffensperger, noting that non-citizens have been given the vote — legally — at the local level in a number of states.
He argued that states should place in their constitutions “that only American citizens are voting in any election in your state.”**
Still, Welker inquired, “Is it a red herring?”
No, Raffensperger answered, arguing that “already there’s the left-wing groups trying to get noncitizens voting in local elections in Washington, D.C., New York City and in other places.” And he asked, “Why are we getting sued by the left to stop us from doing citizenship verification?”
Many Democrats and much of the media continue to dodge such questions.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
*In her first run for Governor, Abrams said her “blue wave” was “comprised of those who are documented and undocumented” and specifically acknowledged that she “wouldn’t oppose” allowing non-citizens to vote at the local level.
** Americans for Citizen Voting has worked closely with the Georgia Secretary of State to place such constitutional amendments on six state ballots this November: Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, South Carolina, and Wisconsin. North Carolina may soon become the seventh state to do so.
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As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.
Gore Vidal, The Decline and Fall of the American Empire (1992).
On May 28, 1952, the women of Greece gained the right to vote.
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Facts are facts! And if they’re impossible, they’re still facts!
Murray Leinster, Time Tunnel (1964), ninth chapter, p. 140.
On May 27, 1860, Giuseppe Garibaldi began his attack on Palermo, Sicily, as part of the Italian unification.
In 1927 on this date in May, the Ford Motor Company ceased manufacture of the Ford Model T (pictured above), the last of this model coming off the line the day previous. Over 16 million Model T Fords had been sold; it was a world-transformative product. On the 27th, the company began to retool plants to make the Ford Model A.
Exactly 70 years later, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Paula Jones could pursue her sexual harassment lawsuit against President Bill Clinton while he was in office.
In 2015 on the 27th of May, the commercial space company SpaceX was approved as a contractor to the U.S. military for satellite launches; SpaceX has since led the world in its use of
On May 3, Paul wrote about the then-upcoming appearance of former President (and current candidate) Donald Trump before the Libertarian Party quadrennial presidential nominating convention, amusingly and perhaps tellingly given the motto “Become Ungovernable.”
Much has been made of the invitation. The same invitation was also extended to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (who, like Trump, accepted) and to President Joe Biden (who did not accept). A typical reaction to Trump’s scheduled appearance at the convention can be gleaned merely by reading the title of a recent Washington Post op-ed by Peter Goettler, President of Cato Institute: “Trump is hardly libertarian. But neither is today’s Libertarian Party” (May 23, 2024).
Well, the horror and dark thoughts about the appearance can now be judged by the facts, not speculations. The event happened. On Friday, RFK spoke, and was mostly courteously received. On Saturday — yesterday — Trump gave a perhaps too-long but mostly rational case for why Libertarians at the convention should endorse him, or at least, as citizens, vote for him. He also promised to place a libertarian in his cabinet. Additionally, Trump pledged to commute Ross Ulbricht’s sentence “on day one” if elected. It was an extraordinary occasion. But the crowd was restless, and there were a lot of boos.
Most truthful statement? “This is the first time in U.S. history that a presidential candidate of a rival party will address the convention of a party that is presumably gathering to nominate its own candidate.”
Juiciest statement? “[T]he Libertarians want to vote for me, and most of them will.”
But is it true? Will libertarians vote en masse — or even as a majority — for Trump?
Today the Libertarians vote among their candidates for the presidency and vice presidency to choose the party’s 2024 presidential ticket. Which will presumably garner the mere (?) 3 percent of the vote that Trump mocked them for.
I know you’re sane and you know you’re sane. But what if we’re both wrong?
Robert Sheckley, “Death of the Dreammaster,” published in Martin H. Greenberg (ed.), The Further Adventures of Batman (1989), p. 24.
On May 26, 451 AD, the Sassanid Empire defeated the Armenians at the battle of
On May 26, 1328, scholastic philosopher and Franciscan friar William of Ockham and other Franciscan leaders secretly exited Avignon, fearing a death sentence from Pope John XXII. On the same day in 1538, the city of Geneva expelled John Calvin and his followers, who headed to exile in Strasbourg.