On September 21, 1897, the “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” editorial was published in the New York Sun. Note how long before Christmas this is. The Christmas season has long been a long affair.
I like publicity stunts as much as the next activist. But haven’t we had enough of the whole Greta Thunberg bit yet?
On Wednesday, the 16-year-old Swede provided testimony on an apt stage, let us grant her that — the U.S. House of Representatives’ foreign affairs subcommittee joint hearing on the global youth climate change movement.
She didn’t prepare any remarks, though. She merely “attached” the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming “as her testimony.” Her rationale? “I don’t want you to listen to me, I want you to listen to the scientists.” And “to unite behind science.”
You know, for “real action.”
It was what happened right after she demanded “real action,” though, where the stark reality of the situation became clear: a grown man in a suit, elected to Congress, asked, “Could you expand on why it’s so important to listen to the science?”
And then the non-scientist spoke . . . not very expansively.
Forget that science qua science isn’t to be “listened to,” it is to be engaged in, with conjectures, research and refutations. (There was nothing like that at the hearing.) Forget also that the science is increasingly less clear on the severity of what warming we see. Remember only that an elected official used a girl to imbue a text (the IPCC report) with moral legitimacy, dubbing it “best available ‘united science’” — the better to push an unargued-for massive coercive government intervention into the life of our civilization.
Is no adult in the room ashamed of what they are doing . . . exploiting a cute youngster to subvert rationality?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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On September 20, 480 BC, Greeks defeated Persian forces in the battle of Salamis.
Truth would quickly cease to be stranger than fiction, once we got as used to it.
Does the Federal Bureau of Investigation have a file on you?
Does it — or some other agency — have an active file on you?
If so, does it have good reason for such an investigation?
Well, refine that last question a bit: does the FBI have a good reason under the principles of a democratic republic, abiding by the limits set by the rights listed (and not listed) in the Constitution?
Eight years ago, the folks at AntiWar.com learned that they had been subject to FISA snooping and multiple “threat assessment” memos of the FBI. Eric Garris, founder, managing editor, and webmaster of the anti-war site sued, under the Freedom of Information Act, for discovery, and, under the 1974 Privacy Act, to have the memos expunged. On September 11, the court instructed the bureau to expunge one of them, mainly because no crime was under investigation.
You can read a good account of the story at The American Conservative, by Kelly Beaucar Vlahos. It is not a simple story. But the gist is that a journalistic enterprise was targeted for a spy operation because the American Deep State disagreed with — or just plain feared — the journalists’ policy of opposing never-ending war.
Never-ending war being, of course, the health of the ever-expanding state.
This may not unreasonably remind you of the Obama Era suppression of Tea Party activism via the Internal Revenue Service’s discriminatory doling out 501(c)3 statuses. But the FBI is even more ominous, as Angela Keaton, Director of Operations, acknowledged: “donors became scared.”
That is all the evidence we need to recognize how dangerous Deep State spying can be to the freedoms — political and personal — of Americans.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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On September 19, 1778, the Continental Congress passed the first budget of the United States.
Congress last passed a budget in 1997.
Every man feels that perception gives him an invincible belief of the existence of that which he perceives; and that this belief is not the effect of reasoning, but the immediate consequence of perception. When philosophers have wearied themselves and their readers with their speculations upon this subject, they can neither strengthen this belief, nor weaken it; nor can they shew how it is produced. It puts the philosopher and the peasant upon a level; and neither of them can give any other reason for believing his senses, than that he finds it impossible for him to do otherwise.
“Are you proposing taking away their guns?”
“I am,” replied former Texas Congressman Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke to ABC World News Tonight anchor David Muir’s question. If, anyway, “it’s a weapon that was designed to kill people on a battlefield.”
“Hell, yes,” he added, later in last week’s Democratic presidential debate.
“We’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.”
Yesterday, I noted that U.S. Senator Kamala Harris seemed oblivious to any consideration of the constitutional rights of citizens to “bear arms.” Today, consider the constitutional work-around both Democrat presidential contenders support. You see, when they talk about confiscating your guns, they do not intend to go to all the hard work of changing the law of the land. They plan, instead, merely to change the High Court — something the president, with a majority of Congress, can do — and have the new justices re-visit the legal interpretation.
O’Rourke “spoke openly after launching his run,” informs Politico, “about expanding the high court to as many as 15 judges.” Fox News reported that he “is open to making drastic changes to fundamentally reshape the Supreme Court — essentially court-packing, with a twist.”
The “twist” is the scheme that I wrote about in March. In a bizarre nod to bipartisanship, O’Rourke would have Republicans select five justices, Democrats select five more, and then have those ten judges select yet another five.
Only tradition and public opinion have kept the highest court in the land from previous hijackings.
Is Republican opposition all that stands in the way now?
Gives a whole new meaning to the question: Are you packing?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Every government that has cheapened its currency has been knavishly false to a trust; so have those which, like ours, use public funds to subsidize large-scale gambling and swindling.
On September 18, 1793, George Washington laid the cornerstone of the Capitol building.
It has grown, since.
On September 18, 1838, Richard Cobden established the Anti-Corn Law League, which proceeded to bring free trade to Britain.