The voice of the frog is the glory of the marsh waters.
Proverb from the city of Susa, a Mesopotamian city; Shush now exists on the site of ancient Susa. Frog illustration courtesy of Alexas Fotos on Pixabay.
On September 10, 2001, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld gave a speech about an “adversary that poses a serious threat to the United States of America.” Describing it as “one of the last bastions of central planning,” he said it “governs by dictating five year plans” and that “with brutal consistency it stifles free thought and crushes new ideas.”
The adversary? “The Pentagon bureaucracy — not the people, but the processes.” And he went on to state that the Pentagon could not account for more than $2.3 trillion.
The next day, the twin towers of the World Trade Center fell, along with Building No. 7 of that complex, after those two major towers were hit with commandeered jet airliners. And the Pentagon was also hit with a major explosion. It just so happened that Rumsfeld’s big news was drowned out by the story of terrorism.
It was not universally praised.
“The controversy erupted on Saturday when Vance wrote on the social platform X,” Sabina Eaton reports, quoting the vice president: “’Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military,’ referencing the September 2 military strike.”
The idea that the “best use” of our armed forces is to destroy — without arrest or declaration of war or even a serious legal case set before world opinion or, for that matter, U.S. opinion — sounds all too modern but not very American.
Does it matter that they were, or merely might have been, “narco-terrorists,” as the president called the eleven people wiped out on the fast-moving boat? Or that Mr. Trump asserted their service to Venezuela’s strongman Maduro — against whom the U.S. has not declared war?
“Sen. Rand Paul all but accused the vice president of celebrating war crimes,” Eli Stokols and Dasha Burns wrote yesterday at Politico. “The Kentucky Republican ripped Vance over the weekend in a social media fight that could offer a preview of future skirmishes between President Donald Trump’s heir apparent and another Republican with 2028 ambitions.”
The Kentucky senator asked, rhetorically, if the vice president had “ever read To Kill a Mockingbird?
“Did he ever wonder what might happen if the accused were immediately executed without trial or representation??
“What a despicable and thoughtless sentiment it is to glorify killing someone without a trial.”
Rand is right. The use of unlawful or unaccountable power can never advance American interests. Because one of our interests is holding power to account, to the rule of law.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Who can compare with justice? It creates life.
Proverb from the city of Ur, an ancient Mesopotamian city. Image does not show this specific text.
The Continental Congress officially named its union of seceding states the United States on September 9, 1776.
Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States, was named after President George Washington, on September 9, 1791.
Translation: “I’m just a dog! I was framed! I had nothing to do with it! I oppose fraudulent voting on principle! Growl!”
The culprit is the dog’s owner, an Orange County, California woman, Laura Lee Yourex.
In 2021, Yourex mailed in a ballot in the name of her dog — not Lucky or Fluffy but “Maya Jean Yourex,” which cognomen the canine, no longer with us, is also on record as disavowing. We’ll call the dog MJ for short and leave your ex out of it.
In 2021, the MJ ballot was accepted. When Laura Lee tried the same thing in 2022, the ballot was rejected. The 2021 election was state level. For state elections, California eschews the voter-verification requirements of federal elections.
According to a local official: “Proof of residence or identification is not required for citizens to register to vote in California elections nor is it required to cast a ballot in state elections. However, proof of residence and registration is required for first-time voters to vote in a federal election.”
You see the problem.
Laura Lee Yourex faces up to six years in prison.
Voter fraud doesn’t exist, we’re told whenever there’s another report of such fraud — except maybe just a little.
But if we keep adding up documented instances, we’ll come up with a bigger number than “just a little” (I’ll let mathematicians notate that in symbols) — and that’s not counting legalized voter fraud and fraud that people got away with.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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On September 8, 1264, Boleslaus the Pious, Duke of Greater Poland, promulgated the Statute of Kalisz, guaranteeing Jews safety and personal liberties and giving battei din* jurisdiction over Jewish matters.
On the same date in 1883, former U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant drove in the final “golden spike” completing the Northern Pacific Railway in a ceremony at Gold Creek, Montana.
* battei din, plural for beth din, a rabbinical court of Judaism.
“‘I love the smell of deportations in the morning,’ reads the caption for the meme Trump shared on his Truth Social platform,” an Epoch Times article informs us.
“The caption was superimposed over an image of Trump in a military-style uniform, squatting in front of a fiery backdrop, with a series of helicopters flying past a city skyline.
“‘Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,’ the meme caption continues.”
Uh, what?
It turns out that the president, in defiance of the Constitution and Posse Comitatus, aims to use the military to round up criminals (illegal aliens).
And he now insists upon calling the “Department of Defense” the “Department of War” again!
The social media post also comes a day after the president signed an executive order to refer to the Department of Defense as the Department of War, and to the position of the Secretary of Defense as the Secretary of War. A full renaming of the department and its Cabinet secretary will require an act of Congress but Trump has said the rebranding has “a stronger sound” and evokes a focus on winning wars.
President Trump, once again, is proving himself to be an old-fashioned brand management expert.
He likes the kick-assedness of “Department of War.” Secretary Hegseth appears to be gung ho on Trump’s side regarding the name preference. The date of Trump’s Executive Order is September 5, 2025, and its title is “Restoring the United States Department of War.”
The original shift to “Department of Defense” occurred in 1949 as an act of Congress, and was part of a major post-World War II reorganization to create a unified, modern military structure amid the emerging Cold War. It appeared to emphasize national security, deterrence, and efficiency over aggressive “war-making,” thus conforming to global efforts (such as the UN Charter’s ban on wars of aggression) to promote peace through strength rather than overt belligerence.
Amusingly, under the aegis of the Department of Defense, the U.S. has been at war almost uninterrupted since the name change.
Arguably, the 1949 name change was a euphemism. Also arguably, Trump’s reversal is a dysphemism.
Trump’s meme (see above) riffs on Francis Ford Coppola’s classic 1979 film, Apocalypse Now.
It is cheering to see that the rats are still around — the ship is not sinking.
Eric Hoffer, “Thoughts of Eric Hoffer, Including: ‘Absolute Faith Corrupts Absolutely,” The New York Times Magazine (April 25, 1971), p. 24.