On November 12, 1905, Norwegians established, by referendum, a monarchy — not a republic. Exactly 14 years later, to the day, Austria became a republic.
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New Monarchy, New Republic
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Disaster Relief Pass-Over
It’s the kind of scandal that makes you wonder, briefly, whether somebody made it up.
But nobody made it up.
In the wake of Hurricane Milton, a sub-boss of the Federal Emergency Management Agency named Marn’i Washington told FEMA workers who had the job of assessing storm damage in Lake Placid, Florida, to skip any houses with Trump signs.
A Microsoft Teams memo outlining “best practices” for performing the work included injunctions like “not one goes anywhere alone” and “avoid homes advertising Trump.” No one can peruse the latter instruction and not know the kind of animus informing Washington’s memo.
Thanks to whistleblowers distressed by these orders, which were delivered both in writing and verbally, the Daily Wire obtained the revealing internal communications.
At least twenty Trump-advertising homes were passed over by FEMA workers who complied with the memo.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and others have announced investigations of the incident.
Regarding what went down in this one Florida town, at least, there is currently no cover-up by FEMA. We don’t know whether similar orders were given to damage assessors in other hurricane-hit regions. But had there been, let’s hope that somebody would have spoken up.
A FEMA spokesman admitted that the agency is “deeply disturbed” by Washington’s actions. According to a Daily Wire update, the agency has now fired her.
“This employee has been terminated and we have referred the matter to the Office of Special Counsel,” says FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell.
This is how to handle partisanship in federal bureaucracies.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Herbert Spencer
What is essential to the idea of a slave? We primarily think of him as one who is owned by another. To be more than nominal, however, the ownership must be shown by control of the slave’s actions — a control which is habitually for the benefit of the controller. That which fundamentally distinguishes the slave is that he labours under coercion to satisfy another’s desires. The relation admits of sundry gradations. Remembering that originally the slave is a prisoner whose life is at the mercy of his captor, it suffices here to note that there is a harsh form of slavery in which, treated as an animal, he has to expend his entire effort for his owner’s advantage. Under a system less harsh, though occupied chiefly in working for his owner, he is allowed a short time in which to work for himself, and some ground on which to grow extra food. A further amelioration gives him power to sell the produce of his plot and keep the proceeds. Then we come to the still more moderated form which commonly arises where, having been a free man working on his own land, conquest turns him into what we distinguish as a serf; and he has to give to his owner each year a fixed amount of labour or produce, or both: retaining the rest himself. Finally, in some cases, as in Russia before serfdom was abolished, he is allowed to leave his owner’s estate and work or trade for himself elsewhere, under the condition that he shall pay an annual sum. What is it which, in these cases, leads us to qualify our conception of the slavery as more or less severe? Evidently the greater or smaller extent to which effort is compulsorily expended for the benefit of another instead of for self-benefit. If all the slave’s labour is for his owner the slavery is heavy, and if but little it is light. Take now a further step. Suppose an owner dies, and his estate with its slaves comes into the hands of trustees; or suppose the estate and everything on it to be bought by a company; is the condition of the slave any the better if the amount of his compulsory labour remains the same? Suppose that for a company we substitute the community; does it make any difference to the slave if the time he has to work for others is as great, and the time left for himself is as small, as before? The essential question is — How much is he compelled to labour for other benefit than his own, and how much can he labour for his own benefit? The degree of his slavery varies according to the ratio between that which he is forced to yield up and that which he is allowed to retain; and it matters not whether his master is a single person or a society. If, without option, he has to labour for the society, and receives from the general stock such portion as the society awards him, he becomes a slave to the society.
Herbert Spencer, “The Coming Slavery,” The Contemporary Review (April 1884), p. 474. See also The Man versus the State (1884).
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Eleven/Eleven/Eleven
On November 11, 1889, the State of Washington was admitted as the 42nd State of the United States.
In 1918, German officials signed an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car in the forest of Compiègne, France. The fighting officially ended at 11:00 a.m. — the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. The war officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919.
In 1921 on this date, U.S. President Warren G. Harding dedicated the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery.
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CNN, Donald Trump & Grover Cleveland
“Donald Trump will be America’s 47th president,” explained CNN on Saturday, “after mounting the most momentous comeback in political history.…”
But is it?
Consider the three federal elections that 19th century Democratic politician Stephen Grover Cleveland participated in (winning two non-consecutive presidencies):
Note the course of Grover Cleveland’s three Electoral College returns: 219; 168; 277. Compare with Trump’s: 304; 232; 312*. Cleveland’s popular vote went up each time. Trump’s did too: 62,984,828; 74,223,975; 74,535,879*. You do the math, but it a quick look suggests that Trump’s comeback is no more momentous than Cleveland’s.
The real anomaly in the recent series of three elections was the whopping turnout for the 2020 outing, where Joe Biden, who did not engage in anything like a normal campaign, garnered a whopping 81,283,501 votes. Compare that to Hillary Clinton’s 65,853,514 votes in 2016 and the less-than 71 million votes for Kamala Harris in 2024.
The real question is what happened, in 2024, to 2020’s over ten million “eager” voters. The question may be easy to answer, but it is nevertheless a huge one, and has elicited a popular graph online, widely shared:
Note that it has at least one obvious inaccuracy: the Republican presidential vote did not go down from 2020 to 2024.
Also note that CNN, quoted above, characterized the election as one that “will hand [Trump] massive, disruptive power at home and will send shockwaves around the world.” Accurate, or just CNN being CNN?
The asterisk, above, for 2024 returns is there to remind us that the election counts are not final.
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Antoine-François Momoro
There is one thing that one must not tire telling people: Liberty, reason, truth are only abstract beings. They are not gods, for properly speaking, they are part of ourselves.
Antoine-François Momoro as quoted in Emmet Kennedy, A Cultural History of the French Revolution (1989). See also “20 Brumaire, Year II.” Momoro was guillotined on 4 Germinal, Year II (March 24, 1794).