On December 24, 1973, the District of Columbia Home Rule Act was passed, allowing residents of Washington, D.C., to elect their own local government.
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Kamala Harris
You know, every election cycle we talk about ‘this is the most election of our lifetime’ — Lawrence, this one is.
Kamala Harris, Vice President of the United States, talking to MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell on Tuesday’s Last Word.
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A Resignation
On December 23, 1783, George Washington resigned as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, at the Maryland State House in Annapolis, Maryland.
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Theft Thwarts Thieves
It happens plenty in fiction.
Thieves or ex-thieves like John Robie (“To Catch a Thief”), Alexander Mundy (“It Takes a Thief”), and Slippery Jim DiGriz (The Stainless Steel Rat) are among the many beloved reformed or semi-reformed criminals who thwart the criminality of others.
It happens in real life too. Con artist Frank Abagnale eventually taught people how to spot fraud (though apparently still committing it in his memoir Catch Me If You Can). Former black-hat hacker Kevin Mitnick taught people how to protect themselves from hacking and social engineering.
The role of criminals stopping criminals can also be played entirely accidentally.
Last Saturday, three armed men robbed a business called Hi Lo Check Cashing out in Commerce City, Colorado.
“In an unexpected and ironic twist,” says a Facebook post by the Commerce Police Department, “as the trio was robbing the business . . . a fourth criminal stole their getaway vehicle . . . which may have already been stolen.
Police are seeking the third robber and the car thief. I guess they may offer a curt “Thanks” to the latter bad guy just before jailing him.
The Goddess Fortuity won’t always intervene thus. And we don’t want to people to start stealing cars on the off chance that one of their thefts will foil some other theft.
On the other hand, it would be criminal to decline any strokes of crime-stopping luck that come our way, since the politicians and prosecutors aren’t really doing it for us these days.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Theodore Parker
Truth never yet fell dead in the streets; it has such affinity with the soul of man, the seed however broadcast will catch somewhere and produce its hundredfold.
Theodore Parker, A Discourse of Matters Pertaining to Religion (1842).
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For a Red Christmas
On December 22, 1989, Communist President of Romania Nicolae Ceaușescu was overthrown by Ion Iliescu after days of bloody confrontations. The deposed dictator and his wife fled Bucharest with a helicopter as protesters erupted in cheers.
The couple was quickly caught and, on Christmas day, tried by a military tribunal and executed by firing squad.
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Voting Unbound, Democracy Unhinged
In our nation’s capital, local voting rights are expanding and metastasizing so fast it is hard to keep up.
Exhibit A, a 12-1 vote of the City Council last year, telling the world: It is absolutely crucial to our democracy that China’s ambassador to the United States be given the same vote on who should be mayor, council member, or decide ballot measures, that any American citizen living in the District of Columbia would be entitled.
Hey, let’s not disenfranchise the spies working out of the Russian embassy, either. Let ’em all vote!
After all, they pay taxes. Might have their kids in the schools.
In the country illegally? Fuhgeddaboudit! You can vote in DC. In fact, if an invading army took Washington by military force, and then held it for 30 days, the enemy soldiers could legally vote themselves into office.
If only this were hyperbole!
A year ago, all the Republicans — along with 1 in 5 Democrats — in the U.S. House voted to nix the District’s crazy foreign citizen voting plan, as is Congress’s constitutional authority. But the Democrat-controlled Senate refuses to act.
Last week, Abel Amene, whose Ethiopian family was granted asylum more than 20 years ago, became the first non-citizen to be elected to a D.C. office. Abel won one of nearly 300 seats on the Advisory Neighborhood Commission, where the average district contains roughly 2,000 residents.
My only question: why hasn’t he become a citizen?
While the ANC has absolutely no power whatsoever, it is likely that its commissioner, Vanessa Rubio, lusts for more power and authority. Earlier this week she was fined $500 for voting twice in the 2020 election — once in Maryland and another time in Washington, D.C.
She originally told authorities she did not recall voting twice. Later she suggested that because D.C. isn’t a state, voting there didn’t count . . . as if everyone gets one vote in Washington and another where they actually live.
Rubio’s 2020 fraud reminds us that not every vote should count.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Karl Kraus
A weak man has doubts before a decision, a strong man has them afterwards.
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Rock & Rebellion
On December 21, 1620, William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims landed on what is now known as Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
American settlers in Nacogdoches, Mexican Texas, declared their independence on December 21, 1826, starting the Fredonian Rebellion.
Avant-garde rock ’n’ roll guitarist, band leader, and composer Frank Zappa was born on this date in 1940. In 1985, Zappa testified before the United States Senate Commerce, Technology, and Transportation committee, attacking the Parents Music Resource Center or PMRC, a music organization co-founded by Tipper Gore, wife of then-senator Al Gore. Zappa was a passionate advocate for freedom of speech, self-education, political participation and the abolition of censorship. Describing his political views, Frank Zappa categorized himself as a “practical conservative,” or “independent.” He died in 1993.
How to spark a civil war?
“A divided Colorado Supreme Court on Tuesday declared former President Donald Trump ineligible for the White House under the U.S. Constitution’s insurrection clause and removed him from the state’s presidential primary ballot,” wrote David Knowles for Yahoo News. This will, of course, induce a “showdown in the nation’s highest court to decide whether the front-runner for the GOP nomination can remain in the race.”
The idea — half plausible, I suppose — is that President Trump’s actions on January 6 spurred an insurrection attempt, therefore he is ineligible to run for any federal office.
But emphasize the half-plausible, since, no matter how often Democrats repeat it, the rally-turned-mini-riot-turned-incursion into the Capitol Building did not amount to anything like an insurrection. Capitol Hill interlopers on January 6 were neither prepared nor demonstrating a plan to overthrow the peaceful succession of power.
They certainly didn’t try to take over the government.
Nor has Mr. Trump been convicted of any such thing.
But, as we all know, this is a controversial matter falling mostly on partisan lines (the Colorado State Supreme Court being made up entirely of Democratic
The state-by-state lawsuits have been sponsored by progressive interest groups trying, desperately, to stop Donald Trump from pulling off a Grover Cleveland: returning to office after a fluke one-term “pause.”
Yet, even if the Supreme Court balks at putting down this too-clever-by-half-plausible scheme, the best Democrats could hope for is preventing Trump from running in blue states with blue courts. Trump might still win despite not being on some state ballots.
Or lose in an election obviously rigged because he is barred.
A recipe for deep distrust, resentment and anger.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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