On November 21, 1620, Plymouth Colony settlers signed the Mayflower Compact.
On this day in 1922, Rebecca Latimer Felton of Georgia took the oath of office, becoming the first female United States Senator.
November 21st birthdays include:
1694 – Voltaire, French philosopher (d. 1778) — portrait above
1729 – Josiah Bartlett, American signer of the Declaration of Independence (d. 1795)
1870 – Alexander Berkman, anarchist (d. 1936), who shot but did not kill industrialist Henry Clay Frick
Donald Trump was not elected with a mandate to “drain the ‘interagency consensus.’”
You can’t “drain” a “consensus.” More importantly, “the Swamp” that Trump promised to “drain,” is not the same thing as that “interagency consensus.” That latter, new phrase better serves as something coextensive with — or subset of — something distinct, “the Deep State.”
But the Swamp and Deep State are related.
Though the term, interagency consensus, was floated earlier, this new bit of jargon hit public consciousness as a result of the impeachment proceedings, the testimony of Alexander Vindman in particular.
Mr. Vindman — excuse me, Lt. Colonel Vindman — is an Army officer assigned to the National Security Council who became alarmed at “outside influences” in the Trump Administration that were upsetting the “interagency consensus” on the subject of his homeland. The new “narrative,” he testified, “was harmful to U.S. government policy. While my interagency colleagues and I were becoming increasingly optimistic on Ukraine’s prospects, this alternative narrative undermined U.S. government efforts to expand cooperation with Ukraine.”
The problem with this is obvious. It is not the job of junior diplomats and spies to work against the policies of a constitutionally-elected and -authorized U.S. president.
Sophisticates in Washington and in the press corps sometimes pooh-pooh the term “Deep State.” Vindman’s testimony justifies the term. Yet, he sure seems earnest in thinking that government hirelings should develop policy that must be defended from tampering, including by we who wade in the shallow end of government, stuck with our piddling votes.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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On November 20, 1789, New Jersey became the first U.S. state to ratify the Bill of Rights.
In 1805 on this date, Ludwig van Beethoven’s only opera, Leonore, oder Der Triumph der ehelichen Liebe (in English, Leonore, or The Triumph of Marital Love, later renamed Fidelio), premiered in Vienna. Beethoven wrote four overtures for the opera, all part of the orchestral concert repertoire. The opera tells the tale of the rescue from unjust imprisonment of Florestan by his wife Leonore, who disguises herself as a boy, Fidelio.
Mens sana in corpore sano.
“You should pray for a sound mind in a sound body.” (From the tenth satire of Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis.)
When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hands out its awards, the presenters say, “And the Oscar goes to . . .”
We should hand out an award for lying in government — and name it after President Obama’s Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper. On March 12, 2013, Clapper lied to Congress about NSA collection of data on U.S. citizens.
Clapper roams free, while Lieutenant General Michael T. Flynn ran afoul of lying to the FBI, in his bizarre case. Flynn seemed merely to misremember, yet being caught in a flub was enough to leverage a plea deal.
Now The Epoch Times adds a wrinkle to the story. “The prosecutors handling the case of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn said they mixed up notes from the FBI interview that served as a basis for making Flynn plead guilty to lying to the FBI,” we read in the November 7-13 paper edition. The jumbled notes in question were those of the infamous Peter Strzok and his assistant.
“It’s now impossible to take [the DOJ’s and FBI’s] word for anything,” says Sidney Powell, Flynn’s lawyer.
A former prosecutor herself, Ms. Powell has written a relevant book, Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice.
In her motion for Flynn, she argues that a formal FBI summary of the Flynn interview contains information not in the notes, yet it formed the basis for the prosecution.*
On November 5, prosecutors apologized for their error, which they admit “caused some confusion.”
In a just world, their flub would be called a lie and they’d face major consequences.
As it is, the Clapper goes to them.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* It gets worse, if murkier, with apparent editing of the notes to implicate Flynn and the allegation that Clapper himself directed a reporter to “take the kill shot.”
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To each as they choose, from each as they are chosen.
Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974), Ch. 7: Distributive Justice, Section I, Patterning, p. 160.
On November 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address at the ceremonial dedication of the military cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, appropriating an old phraseology for republican government — “of the people, by the people, for the people” — and giving it its most memorable usage.
On the same date in 1955, National Review published its first issue.
News stories about death- and illness-by-vaping keep hitting us. But in most of these stories it is what is left out that is most alarming.
From Washington State’s King County we learn of another case of severe lung disease “associated with vaping.” But the reportage doesn’t mention how the maladies relate to vaping. “KING-TV reports there have been 15 cases of severe lung disease associated with vaping in Washington state since April 2019. . . .” Interesting as far as that goes, but. . . .
In addition to no discussion of causality, the most obvious thing not mentioned in this and similar reports? The numbers diagnosed with severe lung disease caused by smoking — which is the relevant vaping alternative.
The U.S. Government’s agency devoted to diagnosing potentially widespread pathogens and practices is, thankfully, a bit more useful. In a recently published study, scientists have narrowed down the real culprit: “Vitamin E acetate was detected in all 29 patient” samples taken from those under study.
Most had been vaping THC.
There are organizations worse than sloppy news outlets, however. In Massachusetts, the House of Representatives has passed a bill not merely to ban flavored e-cigarettes, but also to levy 75 percent tax on all e-liquids and vaping devices.
Typical government overkill.
But not overkill enough, for the bill doesn’t stop there. Whopping fines against those caught with unlicensed vaping products are also in the bill, as is — aaargh! — civil asset forfeiture.
The “representatives” of Massachusetts’ citizens want to take away their automobiles, boats and airplanes if they cannot prove, on the spot, their vaping products’ legality.
Politicians are far more dangerous than vaping.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Benjamin Lay, All Slave-Keepers That keep the Innocent in Bondage, Apostates, page 56, published by its author in Philadelphia in 1737, printed by Benjamin Franklin. The depiction of Lay, above, is as painted by William Williams in 1750. Lay was short, standing at just over four feet.
The many Hundreds of Thousands, that are now in Slavery, were they at Liberty, as we are, had the same Education, Learning, Conversation, Books, sweet Communion in our Religious Assemblies; I believe many of them would exceed many of their Tyrant Masters in Piety, Virtue and Godliness; and their bright Genius, which I know they have, would be inlivened; for I have converst with many of them, for Liberty is Life, and Slavery is Death, nay the very thoughts of it to the right thinking Animal, as Man or Woman.
On November 18, 1307, legend has it, William Tell shot a crossbow bolt to pierce an apple, toppling it off his son’s head. He was forced to do this by the local Austrian authority, whose hat hung on a pole in the Altdorf town square Tell had refused to bow to when entering the village. Tell endures as a Swiss folk hero, and provides the subject of a famous opera by Rossini — the music of which is associated with, in many ears, Bugs Bunny and the Lone Ranger.
In 1926, on this date, George Bernard Shaw formally refused to accept the money for his Nobel Prize for Literature, saying, “I can forgive Alfred Nobel for inventing dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize.”