September 30 has served as Blasphemy Rights Day since 2009, when it was initiated by the Center for Inquiry.
Botswanans celebrate their independence from Great Britain with an official day on September 30.
Hillary Clinton: always wrong.
Oh, I’m sure that when she tells the maid “We need milk,” she’s accurate enough. Otherwise — forget it.
Her latest howlers pertain to the movement to convene a Convention of States. If two thirds of the states call for the convention, it “will be” convened, per the U.S. Constitution. If 38 states approve a convention-proposed amendment, it will be added to the Constitution.
Different pro-convention groups support different amendments, on everything from a balanced budget to spending limits to term limits. U.S. Term Limits is promoting a Term Limits Convention to propose an amendment for congressional term limits.
A great idea.
Clinton, though, sees calamity: “The right wing, aided and funded by the Mercers, Koch brothers, etc. [sic], is very serious about calling a constitutional convention,” she warned recently.
“Part of their gerrymandering is to control state legislatures, elect Republican governors, and to call a constitutional convention [no, a convention of states] and,” the author of What Happened elaborates, “if you really get deep into what they are advocating, limits on the First Amendment, no limits on the Second Amendment, limits on criminal justice . . . [A] very insidious right-wing agenda.”
Gee, the old multiple-fallacies-and-vague-ominous-assertions-per-second trick!
First, how to “gerrymander” statewide gubernatorial elections?
Or “gerrymander” the enthusiasm of millions for restraints on government?
Or apply the districting concept to the Founders’ constitutional provision for end-running Congress?
As for the political issues she blunderingly raises, Clinton seems to regard any political disagreement whatever with herself as proof of billionaire-funded “right-wing conspiracy.”
Well, left-wing conspirators always say such things.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
On September 29, 1789, the first Congress of the United States under the new Constitution adjourned.
On the same date in 1881, economist Ludwig von Mises was born in Lemberg, Galicia, of the Austria-Hungary Empire (now Lviv, Ukraine).
Nothing can serve as a substitute for an ideology that enhances human life by fostering social cooperation — least of all lies, whether they be called ‘tactics,’ ‘diplomacy,’ or ‘compromise.’ If men will not, from a recognition of social necessity, voluntarily do what must be done if society is to be maintained and general well-being advanced, no one can lead them to the right path by any cunning stratagem or artifice.
Ludwig von Mises, Liberalism, first published in German as Liberalismus, 1927, and in English as The Free and Prosperous Commonwealth, 1962.
Ninety-three-year-old Robert Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe with phony elections and brutal repression for the last 30 years. Conversely, only one president in U.S. history has served more than two four-year terms, and after that single exception a constitutional amendment was enacted, limiting the terms of future presidents to the traditional two terms.*
Americans are better for the limited tenures; Zimbabweans worse for the longevity.
Recently, Illinois was declared the most dysfunctional state in the union. Illinois also boasts the nation’s longest-serving — and by far the most powerful — Speaker of the House, Michael Madigan. What irony that incumbency should wreck the Land of Lincoln, when favorite son, Honest Abe, represented his Illinois district in Congress for only a single term and then stepped down as was the custom for the local party.
In bankrupt Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, former Mayor Stephen Reed held power for 28 years (nearly as long as Mugabe and Madigan) during which time he managed to plunge the city into insolvency.
After leaving office, Reed also pled guilty to 20 counts of theft from the city. But was mysteriously sentenced to merely two years of probation.
“There’s no question that the city of Harrisburg was traumatized by power being concentrated in one individual for an enormously long period of time,” current Mayor Eric Papenfuse acknowledged. “I don’t think anyone wants to see that again.”
The Harrisburg City Council hasn’t taken any action yet, but there appears to be ample support for term limits across the board, including from council members.
Understanding the correlation between long-serving politicians and long-suffering constituents is the keystone to critical reform.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* Technically, a president could serve up to ten years, as the 22nd Amendment prohibits a person from being elected president more than twice or if the person has “held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President . . . more than once.”
On September 28, 2008, SpaceX launched the Falcon 1, the first private spacecraft to go into orbit around planet Earth.
First, do no harm. Second, stop harming.
You might think that these would be the Two Commandments of Government.
But no.
Politicians make a good show of saving us, sure. Sadly, appearance alone suffices. For them. Much easier to announce a new program than get rid of a harmful old one.
Latest case? Courtesy of a storm and a new president, we now get to witness hurricane recovery mismanagement all over again, but this time outside the continental United States.
“The administration announced some bad news for Puerto Rico,” writes Scott Shackford at Reason. It will not, Mr. Shackford explains, “be waiving the Jones Act, which significantly restricts the ability of foreign or foreign-owned ships from bringing goods to Puerto Rico.”
The “unincorporated U.S. territory” that is the island must take its lumps.
The Jones Act* limits foreign ships port access . . . down to one. The mandate allowing port-to-port commerce only to American-manned ships is designed to save a few jobs and grease a few union wheels in the mainland.
And now, especially, that old, ongoing “centralized government planning for the benefit of a small group of powerful U.S. shipping interests” amounts to a real kick to a people already devastated by Hurricane Maria.
Closing ports to much needed help doesn’t help. An emergency order could suspend the ongoing harm of throwing roadblocks in the way of a swift recovery and rebuilding.
Or Congress could repeal the Jones Act entirely.
Neither is likely.
So the wounded Puerto Ricans — prior to the storm hobbled by years of territorial misgovernance — can expect more fake government help.
This is Common sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* Not to be confused with the Jones-Shafroth Act of 1917, which set up territorial governance of the island.
Lancaster, Pennsylvania — home to James Buchanan, Jr., the nation’s 15th president, and to congressman, abolitionist and “Radical Republican” Thaddeus Stevens — served, during the American Revolution, as the capital of the United States for one day, on September 27, 1777.
This occurred after the Continental Congress fled Philadelphia, which had been captured by the British. The revolutionary government then moved still farther away, to York.
Deep Throat to FBI agent Fox Mulder The X-Files in the first season episode, “E.B.E.” (1993), written by Glen Morgan and James Wong.
A lie, Mr. Mulder, is most convincingly hidden between two truths.
At last Friday’s event to rally support* for Sen. Luther Strange, the Mitch McConnell-financed establishment candidate in today’s GOP runoff in Alabama, President Donald J. Trump veered — as he is wont to do — off topic: the NFL players refusing to stand for the national anthem.
“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners,” the commander-in-chief asked the crowd, “when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He’s fired!’?”
Trump’s trash-talking touched off bigger protests before Sunday’s games. Some argued the president was undermining freedom of expression. But, of course, the president was freely expressing himself.
And no doubt speaking for many others.
Polling conducted last year, after former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick first took a knee during the pregame anthem — which started this trend — found a majority opposed to his actions.
“NFL ratings are down massively,” the President correctly remarked.
The National Football League’s television ratings dropped 8 percent last year, and so far 2017’s ratings are down an additional 15 percent. Moreover, in a massive JD Power survey, the protests during the anthem were the top reason given for not watching the NFL.
Of course, Kaepernick was making a political statement, not trying to maximize his dollar-value in the marketplace. The now mysteriously unemployed quarterback said a year ago, “If they take football away, my endorsements from me, I know that I stood up for what is right.”
Whether one agrees with Kaepernick or not, he is paying a steep price to make a point. Firing folks won’t silence the message.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* The president oddly quipped of his Strange endorsement: “There is something called loyalty, and I might have made a mistake and I’ll be honest, I might have made a mistake.” Trump added that Strange and his GOP opponent, Judge Roy Moore, were “both good men” and he would campaign hard for either Republican.
