Common Sense with Paul Jacob

The C-Word

It’s a truism of popular political discourse: corruption in Washington is endemic.

The fact that so many people who serve in Congress come out far richer than when they went in is testament to the corruption, not selfless service. Studies document how it is done, regulatory regimes monitor the money and a line of cases have put some of the easiest-to-nab offenders into the pokey.

Nevertheless, the corruption continues.

Yet, the festering congressional slime may be nothing compared to what’s in the White House.

How the corruption has worked may vary president by president, though.

Remember that the Clinton clan’s Clinton Foundation was brought out into The Almost Open, in 2015, for all to see (if they wished), which certainly had something to do with the triumph of Donald Trump in 2016.

The response of the insiders against Trump, however, showed corruption going much deeper. He was attacked throughout his term in office by “his own” agencies, for corruption. And now we know for certain that many of these attacks were without foundation. Just made up.

It is not with the billionaire who left office less wealthy than he entered that official corruption is revealed, but with the ghastly Biden family.

“Sen. Chuck Grassley has accused the FBI of trying to keep quiet,” explains a recent Epoch Times story, about the “information provided by 40 human sources about possible Biden family wrongdoing.”

Though none of this has been proven in a court of law, the brazenness of it all — the corporate board spots, the payments to multiple Biden family members — swamps the senses. Still, the biggest part of the story remains — elusive. Not because there’s no evidence, but because major media and government agencies simply and continually deny the evidence as it stands, refusing to report or pursue the truth.

Allowing corruption to thrive.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Today

Continental Congress

On October 26, 1774, the first Continental Congress adjourned in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Exactly one year later, King George III of Great Britain went before Parliament to declare the American colonies in rebellion. And one year later yet, to the day, in 1776, septuagenerian Benjamin Franklin (pictured, above) departed from America for France, seeking financial support for the American Revolution.

Thought

Gore Vidal

Happily for the busy lunatics who rule over us, we are permanently the United States of Amnesia. We learn nothing because we remember nothing.
Gore Vidal, “The State of the Union,” The Nation (September 13, 2004).

international affairs Internet controversy media and media people

Stop the Chinazis

Ours is a warring world. Long into the second year of Russia’s major incursion into Ukraine, there are not unreasonable fears in Poland and the Baltic countries that the hostilities might cross their borders as well.

Now the Middle East erupts following the bloody Hamas attack on Israel, and the IDF’s response, which our Secretary of State says carry “a likelihood of escalation.”

And I’ve yet to mention the most serious threat the people of this planet face: the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

In the throes of the largest military expansion in modern history, China now wields the world’s biggest army and navy. Along with the second largest economy on the planet. By comparison, Russia’s economy holds 11th place, roughly 10 percent of China’s, and Iran ranks 42nd, one-fiftieth of China’s.

Historically, the CCP is the “greatest” killing machine of all time. And now dictator-for-life Xi Jinping seems intent on bringing back those gloriously murderous Mao days — only with greater technological efficiency.

There is:

The ongoing genocide against the Uyghurs in Xinjing.
The long-running and viscous pogrom against Falun Gong.
Organ harvesting from political prisoners.
The totalitarian surveillance state crushing of peaceful political dissent.
The breaking of an international agreement in order to kill civil liberties in Hong Kong early and block the push for democracy.
Brutal repression continues in Tibet.
Constant harassment and threat of military invasion against free, democratic and peaceful Taiwan.
Killing Indian soldiers in border clashes in recent years.
Sinking Vietnamese fishing boats.
Harassing Philippine vessels.

After building islands in the South China Sea against international law and then militarizing those islands (after telling the world they were not doing so), the CCP is today increasingly aggressive and belligerent in this essential waterway, which carries one-third of the world’s total shipping. China claims 90 percent of this international waterway — even swaths of the exclusive economic zones of the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and other countries, long recognized by international treaties.

The CCP position is ridiculous . . . but don’t laugh, because these Chinazis (as Hongkongers call them) must be taken seriously.

And by preparing to meet their threat, by demonstrating our ability to mount a credible defense of Taiwan, the Philippines, and other allies in the region, hopefully we can prevent hostilities.

As individuals, we can help as well. To better “know” this enemy and to track their Chinazi aggression against their own people and those of other countries, we have launched a new website whose name says it all: StopTheChinazis.org.

As if to drive home the Nazi-esque nature of today’s CCP, most of the people writing for the site have chosen to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation by the CCP . . . even against Americans . . . even here in America.

But we won’t be silenced.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags China, protest, StopTheChinazis.org, Tank Man

Today

Max Stirner

Adapted from a sketch by Friedrich Engels

On October 25, 1806, German philosopher Max Stirner was born. Stirner was known for his radical individualism, which under the name of “egoism” became culturally chic in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In addition to Der Einzige und sein Eigentum, a major work that was famously attacked by Karl Marx, he translated into German Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations from its original English and J.-B. Say’s A Treatise on Political Economy from its original French.

Thought

Ernest Bramah

One may ride upon a tiger’s back but it is fatal to dismount.
Ernest Bramah, Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat (1928), “The Story of Kin Wen and the Miraculous Tusk.”

political challengers

The Ultimate Outsider

“We do not make a pact with communists.”

That’s how Argentine presidential candidate Javier Milei characterized his China policy. Now that he’s achieved second place in the recent election, and will face the nation’s current economic minister in a runoff on November 19, it’s time to take a second look at the Milei phenomenon. Three things:

Dollarization.

Argentina is going through economic chaos right now. And it’s no surprise, considering how the country — once rich and admired — adopted fascistic economic and political models, flirting with hyperinflation . . . and worse. Peronism in Argentina is not unlike Progressivism in America: de-stabilizing, prone to leadership cults, waffling on term limits: deeply corrupt and corrupting. Milei’s establishment competition has presided over a 123 percent inflation rate, while Milei proposes to abolish its central bank.

And adopt the U.S. dollar as the backing for the Argentine monetary system.

When you resort to the debt-ridden dollar as the anchor to your economy, you know you are desperate!

Spectrum characterization?

One thing that policy says about Milei, who calls himself a liberal, or — in American terms — a “libertarian,” is that he is not quite so radical as establishments might fear. He’s not talking about gold, or Bitcoin! (Except, he is — just not as the basis of legal tender.)

Note that characterization. In the recent Epoch Times article on Milei’s challenge to Peronism, the independent paper called him a “right-wing libertarian” while dubbing “[f]ormer president and current Vice President Cristina Kirchner” a “hard-left politician.”

Yet it is traditional to call the Peronism she practices a form of “fascism,” which is considered “right wing.”

Lashing out.

Argentine insiders are not taking this lying down; prosecutors have launched a legal case against Milei for upsetting the economy. A bizarre case, on its face, but not so unfamiliar, though, is it?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Thought

Gore Vidal

The rhetoric of hate is often most effective when couched in the idiom of love.
Gore Vidal, Julian (1964), sixth chapter.

Today

Thirty Years’ End

On October 24, 1648, the Peace of Westphalia was signed, marking the end of the Thirty Years’ War.

First Amendment rights Internet controversy social media

Memester to the Pokey

It was a joke. For which he’s been sent to prison.

A political joke online.

Admittedly, it wasn’t very funny. It certainly wasn’t new. That is, the general idea has been floating around for as long as there have been ballot boxes.

The ur-form of the joke is “Hey, [political opponent], why don’t you deposit that ballot right here in this handy receptacle [trash can]?”

The specific joke that got Douglass Mackey into big trouble sported an image of a smiling black woman in front of a white-on-blue “African Americans for Hillary/President” sign, along with the message: “Avoid the line. Vote from home. ¶ Text ‘Hillary’ to 59925 ¶ Vote for Hillary and be a part of history.”

It arguably flirted with dirty tricks of the sort honest people don’t engage in. But a lot of partisans do that sort of thing, not just Mr. Mackey, who posted the joke to his now-defunct “Ricky Vaughn” Twitter account. A better version of the joke about the same time was not only never prosecuted, the link to it’s still on Twitter (X). It just so happens, however, to have been made by a Democrat . . . against Trump voters.

Trolls flirting with Dirty Trick status are not criminals; there is the First Amendment. But what Mackey was successfully prosecuted for (he was sentenced last week to seven months) was “Election Interference.”

Tellingly, ZERO is the number of voters stepping up to testify that they were tricked into texting 59925 and then not voting by his lame meme. If there were any, they might understandably be too humiliated to bear witness.

Curiously, the law he violated does not mention misinforming a person as a criterion for criminality.

A country that selectively prosecutes this sort of thing — can it be said to be free?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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