Common Sense with Paul Jacob

We’ll Keep It

An answer is warranted.

When a former president of these United States asks a question of such magnitude, as Donald J. Trump did last week on Truth Social, how can we not respond?

“So, with the revelation of MASSIVE & WIDESPREAD FRAUD & DECEPTION in working closely with Big Tech Companies, the DNC, & the Democrat Party,” Mr. Trump inquired, “do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION?”

Trump is, presumably, referring to Elon Musk’s recent release of information about FBI communications with Twitter during the 2020 campaign, with the Feds suggesting that stories about the Hunter Biden laptop were likely Russian disinformation — even though the FBI knew at the time that that it was Hunter’s laptop. For the FBI to work to discourage media platforms from providing such information to the public is deceptive and wrong. It should be investigated and, depending on the evidence, prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Such collusion is even more destructive of our democratic system when done with partisan political motives. Which may now be SOP at the Bureau.

So, let’s answer Mr. Trump’s questions. “No,” per declaring him the winner and sending President Biden packing. And a no-go on a new election. Of course, there is one in 2024, and Trump is a declared candidate.

Yes, the news media is largely dishonest, drunk with their power and deluded into thinking they should keep information from us if it might make us vote contrary to their desires. Moreover, the Deep State is actively colluding with them (and vice-versa) to warp public opinion.

Trump argues that this new information “allows for the termination of all rules, regulations and articles, even those found in the Constitution.” He’s dangerously mistaken.

Who would “terminate” these laws and constitutional provisions? His dear friends in Congress, The White House, the FBI and DOJ? Unelected judges — who’ve already ruled against his campaign? A mob, pray tell?

No, thanks. That Constitution? We’ll keep it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags constitution, media, news, Trump

Thought

Joseph Conrad

The real significance of crime is in its being a breach of faith with the community of mankind.
Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim (1900).

Today

13th & Paul Jacob

On December 6, 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, banning slavery in all states and territories.

One-hundred-and-nineteen years later, to the day, in 1984, Paul Jacob (of ThisIsCommonSense.org, LibertyiFund.org, and the Citizens in Charge Foundation) was arrested by the FBI for his refusal to register with Selective Service System (the draft people). The Government was probably not attempting to make a commemorative point about involuntary servitude.

general freedom individual achievement meme

Jimmy Lai

Tags democracy, Hong Kong, Jimmy Lai

First Amendment rights Internet controversy social media

The Medium Is the Messenger

Post author By Redactor
Post date December 5, 2022
3 Comments on The Medium Is the Messenger

In all the talk of the “stolen election” of 2020, perhaps too much has been made of accusations of specific and vague acts of vote fraud, and not enough of the chief dirty trick: The suppression of the news about the Hunter Biden laptop, a story about Biden Family corruption that was banned from Twitter and more subtly underplayed algorithmically by other Internet services.

Deleting this one cache of information from voters made a huge election difference.

Then, in the inglorious post-election debacle, a sitting president of the United States was removed from the Twitter platform.

It was, in a sense, a coup d’media.

In a democracy, freedom of the press and independence of the press is crucial. The fact that Twitter had been captured by partisans, and that the “social media platform” became a sub rosa partisan political media platform was an epochal shift.

But when Elon Musk took over, changes started happening. And chaos ensued.

What was not chaotic, though, was the reinstatement of @RealDonaldJTrump to the platform.

Musk took an informal Twitter poll, and reinstated the former president.

There has of course been much wailing and gnashing of teeth since then, but, also since then, another poll by Mr. Musk: “Should Twitter offer a general amnesty to suspended accounts, provided they have not broken the law or engaged in egregious spam?”

The result was a 74.4 percent YES plebiscite.

“The people have spoken,” tweeted the current Twitterer-in-Chief, Mr. Musk. (Trump not having resumed his activity on the platform, still limited his e-bursts to Truth Social). Amnesty begins next week.”

And then: “Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” just for a classic touch.

That Latin phrase translates as “The voice of the people is the voice of God.” It is not. I want a Twitter with the freedom to speak, for myself and others, not determined democratically, but by right — as customers.

That’s the way to ensure people have access to information.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Thought

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Woe to that nation whose literature is cut short by the intrusion of force. This is not merely interference with freedom of the press but the sealing up of a nation’s heart, the excision of its memory.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Nobel lecture (1970), as quoted in TIME (February 25, 1974).

Today

Prohibition Ends

On December 5, 1933, nationwide alcohol Prohibition in the United States ended after Utah became the 36th U.S. state to ratify the 21st Amendment to the United States Constitution, thus establishing the required 75 percent of states needed to enact the amendment that overturned the 18th.

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