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insider corruption scandal

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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ideological culture media and media people partisanship

Not Now

“Reconsider Any Belief In Innate American Goodness,” Ken White advises at the Popehat Report. “A country that votes for Trump is broken in very complicated and daunting ways,” informs the attorney and podcaster.

“Fuck Civility,” he declares, and for good measure, “Stay Tuned For Violence.”

They do sorta go together, eh?

“Debate is preferable,” he notes for the record, “[b]ut most Americans would agree with what Thomas Jefferson said about the blood of patriots and tyrants. At some point violence is morally justified and even necessary. Americans will disagree on when.”

Though, let’s all agree, not now.

My thinking the day after takes a different route. 

First, the lawfare unleashed on Mr. Trump helped him more than it hurt. A majority of the public did not suddenly become enamored with the idea of 34 felony convictions but stuck by the former president, now president-​elect, because of their contempt for the New York Attorney General and the U.S. Department of Justice, seen as rogue players in partisan politics. 

America had come to look like Egypt.

Second, the establishment media’s years-​long campaign against Trump, hyperbolic and often dishonest (see Charlottesville narrative) failed miserably. Arguably, like lawfare, it was counterproductive.

“Americans don’t trust the news media,” asserted Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, explaining his paper’s 2024 A.D. non-​endorsement for president. 

In the aftermath of Mr. Trump being declared the winner, Matt Walsh offered on X: “Legacy media is officially dead.”

Not dead. Just in need of rebirth. Like Democratic Party leaders, news media professionals face a choice, either (a) blame the public for not being more appreciative or (b) reflect upon its own principles and performance.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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defense & war general freedom international affairs

Breaking Taiwan?

“Would you defend Taiwan against China?” Bloomberg News recently inquired of former President Donald Trump.

After mentioning his great “respect” for the Taiwanese — though complaining that the nation “did take about 100% of our chip business” — the Republican nominee responded: “I think Taiwan should pay us for defense. You know, we’re no different than an insurance company. Taiwan doesn’t give us anything. Taiwan is 9,500 miles away. It’s 68 miles away from China. A slight advantage …”

Indeed. But the Nazis and Imperial Japan once flaunted the same geographicadvantage. And note that the Japanese island of Yonaguni is closest to the big island of Taiwan.

Taiwan is much freer than China. And, accordingly, richer per capita … because the Taiwanese do give us (and the world) something: computer chip manufacturing, especially high-​end chips. An important commodity. The Chinese government encourages and facilitates the stealing of our intellectual property; Taiwan companies just kicked our butts in the marketplace. 

“Cool to the idea of the U.S. protecting Taiwan,” was how Nancy Cook, Bloomberg’s senior national political correspondent, not unreasonably characterized Mr. Trump’s comments. Still, Trump may have been simply negotiating up Taiwan’s military commitment, much as he did to NATO countries in his first term. 

Of course, “Taiwan has been paying for its own defense,” says the State Department. 

Taiwan has “consistently been one of the biggest buyers of U.S. weapons,” argues Michael McCaul (R‑Texas), acknowledging that Trump “is right that U.S. allies should” pony up “in their own defense.”

Lastly, is the United States like an “insurance company”?

Well, it’s certainly a breakable world. But the idea is to prevent more breakage, not pay out after a disaster. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Accountability crime and punishment national politics & policies

The Slope of Service

“Heads should roll at Secret Service,” I declared on Monday.

That was before I stumbled upon Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle explaining to ABC News the strategic situational thinking employed by the agency in determining not to place agents on top of the roof of a building where the assassin fired multiple rounds, hitting former President Trump in the ear, killing a man attending the rally with his family and seriously wounding two others. 

Director Cheatle offered that “the Secret Service was aware of the security vulnerabilities presented by the building Crooks took a sniper’s position on to aim at Trump,” Fox News reported. “However, a decision was made not to place any personnel on the roof.” 

So much for “awareness.” And why was this decision made?

“That building in particular has a sloped roof at its highest point,” she pointed out. “And so, you know, there’s a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof. And so, you know, the decision was made to secure the building, from inside.”

Competing safety factors, eh? The former president’s and that of novice roof-​climbers in the Secret Service.

Instead, three local law enforcement sharpshooters were stationed inside the building as the shooter easily climbed up onto that ever-​so-​dangerously slanted roof and opened fire.

The finger-​pointing at local police by Secret Service officials, who claimed that securing that building was a local law enforcement responsibility, is simply passing the buck.

Cheatle acknowledged that her agency “is responsible for the protection of the former president,” adding “the buck stops with me.”

Good, I’m looking for immediate change.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Accountability crime and punishment ideological culture too much government

Fifteen Days to Flatten America

The most important lesson of “Fifteen days to flatten the curve!” occurred on the 16th, when  governors kept lockdown measures going.

No state limited its lockdown measures to a mere 15 days.

The public rationale for the lockdowns had been to save hospitals from being swamped with COVID patients — though the Army Corps of Engineers had built emergency COVID care centers near pandemic hot spots around the country, which were unceremoniously dismantled, without having been used, even as governors continued their hysterics.

And tyrannies.

Out west in Washington, for example, Governor Inslee shut down the whole state with a March 24, 2020, order, and, on April 3, unilaterally extended it to May 4, despite the fact that most of the state had hardly experienced the virus yet. On May 29, the stay-​at-​home order was still in effect, with the governor dictating a county-​by-​county re-​opening order that he fiddled with incoherently for the next year

Across the country, most hospitals suffered from under-use.

John Stossel just “celebrated” the four-​year anniversary of the lockdowns with an article titled “‘15 Days To Slow the Spread’: On the Fourth Anniversary, a Reminder to Never Give Politicians That Power Again.” Mr. Stossel provides a concise litany of the idiocy of that brief, if far too long, epoch of .… what he calls “government incompetence.

But does incompetence exhaust the fault?

At the beginning I had expressed caution, even suggesting a little lenience for our leaders. Then came the enormity of the mass liberticide.

It was President Trump who put out the “guidelines” for shutting down the country; it was Trump who stuck to his guns on the efficacy of the lockdown “mitigations.” Trump did so because he was mesmerized, perhaps, by Drs. Fauci and Birx — whom he had promoted into the spotlight.

Little did Trump know, however, that Fauci had funded the very disease he was allegedly fighting, and that Birx, privately, had pushed lockdowns not in good faith for reasons stated, but with every intention of pushing “longer and more aggressive interventions.”

Trump? Played, yes; incompetent, sure. 

But Birx and Fauci? Malevolent. Evil. Pick the word.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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ballot access election law ideological culture

The Colorado Gambit Crushed

The Supreme Court unanimously nixed the clever scheme to keep Donald Trump off the Colorado ballot. The court explained its actions in the second paragraph of its anonymously written March 4th ruling: “Because the Constitution makes Congress, rather than the States, responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates, we reverse.”

That’s it. The 14th Amendment, which the Colorado gambit relied upon, does make Congress the instrument for preventing “an insurrectionist” from serving in office.

So Colorado’s ploy to rig the 2024 election out in the open has been stopped. And good thing, too, since the political repercussions could have been … harrowing. 

A lot of commentary and reporting on the ruling has been devoted to pushing what was not covered. Take the CNN article by John Fritz and Marshall Cohen, “Trump’s on the ballot, but the Supreme Court left key constitutional questions unanswered.” It is hard not to interpret such headlines as providing excuses to partisan Democrats — in this case those at CNN — who had put so much hope in Colorado’s (and other states’) taking of the Trump matter into their own hands. 

“But while the unsigned, 13-​page opinion the Supreme Court handed down Monday decisively resolved the uncertainty around Trump’s eligibility for a second term,” the article explains, “it left unsettled questions that could some day boomerang back to the justices.”

True enough, but so what? Take the first mentioned: “Could Democratic lawmakers, for instance, disqualify Trump next January when the electoral votes are counted if he wins the November election?”

Well, no. 

The 14th’s third section does not list presidents as barred by insurrection: “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-​President,” it says. Electors of. But not the President and VP.

I’m sure the Supreme Court would be happy to expedite an opinion to that effect should the Democrats attempt anything that stupid.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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