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crime and punishment free trade & free markets general freedom

Rogue City Government?

repair shop parking

Is it a coup?

Two years ago, Azael Sepulveda, a mechanic, sued the city of Pasadena. The city had demanded that he provide 28 parking spots before he could open a shop to fix things. The property his shop is on can accommodate only a few parking spaces.

With the help of Institute for Justice, which fights for people’s right to earn an honest living all over the country, Sepulveda reached a settlement with the city. He would be allowed to open.

Hurray. Big hassle, but now he could go on with his life.

Except that for two years the city has still blocked him from opening up.

So IJ had to sue again. And get this. Members of the Pasadena City Council recently said that for the past year they have been kept in the dark about developments in the case. This, “even though the city’s attorney claims to be acting on ‘instruction from city council.’”

That attorney, Bill Helfand, has been arguing that the city should be immune from litigation to enforce the city’s own settlement.

So … is it a coup? Is Helfand running local government himself, unauthorized, randomly ignoring settlements and whatnot?

Could some weirdly pervasive and persistent miscommunication be the problem? It just seems unlikely that mislaid telephone messages are why Sepulveda is still being stonewalled.

Whatever the problem is, Pasadena, fix it. “Stop with the games,” as IJ says. And let Azael Sepulveda get started fixing other things.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Today

Astronaut Edgar Mitchell

I happen to be privileged enough to be in on the fact that we have been visited on this planet and the UFO phenomenon is real, although it’s been well covered up by all our governments for the last 60 years or so, but slowly it’s leaked out and some of us have been privileged to have been briefed on some of it.

Edgar Mitchell, lunar module pilot on NASA’s Apollo 14 mission, as quoted in the July 23, 2008, edition of The Daily Mail UK.
Categories
Today

Year of Our Ford

On this day in 1903, the Ford Motor Company sold its first car. Less than 30 years later, Aldous Huxley satirized Ford’s assembly line procedures in his novel Brave New World. Arguably, both the assembly line and the satire advanced freedom.

Categories
nannyism national politics & policies

President Next

Kamala Harris

I’ve never liked Joe Biden. Not as a U.S. Senator, or Vice-​President, or President. But I’ll be the first to acknowledge that his decision, announced yesterday, to relinquish his party’s presidential nomination, which he was set to formally receive at the Democratic National Convention next month, was the right thing to do. 

Way to go, Joe!

First, however, Democratic Party bigshots decided — most importantly with money — that Mr. Biden was not cognitively up to the mighty arduous task of running for president. This fact became ever clearer to many Democrat representatives and senators the more they envisioned themselves becoming collateral political damage. 

President Biden held out against their calls for his ouster for weeks after that fateful June debate. The subsequent campaign stops and high-​profile interviews designed to showcase his abilities illustrated, instead, that our commander-​in-​chief was frail, feeble, feckless. 

Now the president has endorsed his Vice President Kamala Harris to be the Democrat’s new standard bearer this fall. Still, stay tuned for an interesting DNC convention where Harris may face other challengers for the nomination. 

And, as Detective Columbo used to say, “Just one more thing.” 

There has been no word on whether in the coming days, not weeks, we will see the first female president of these United States, Kamala Harris. 

If Democrats are too scared to have Biden as their leader this fall, should the American people really be okay with Biden sticking around for six months to be ours? Giving national and world leadership a continued go?

Thanks, but no thanks. Hello, President Harris.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Thought

Richard Nixon

Short of changing human nature, therefore, the only way to achieve a practical, livable peace in a world of competing nations is to take the profit out of war.

Richard Milhous Nixon, 37th President of the United States, in his book Real Peace (1983).
Categories
Today

Holding at Nine

On July 22, 1937, the U.S. Senate voted down Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s court packing scheme.