Common Sense with Paul Jacob

Not for the Swift

What if Rand Paul hadn’t been in the U.S. Senate?

For several years now, reports Reclaim the Net, lawmakers have been trying to pass legislation to require Americans to provide ID to do many of things on the Internet we can now do anonymously. In 2024, the bill — with the cuddly name of Kids Online Safety Act, it prompts us to ask, what brute would want kids to be unsafe online? — passed in the Senate but failed in the House. The Hill reports that “concerns over censorship and freedom of speech prevented it from ever hitting the House floor.”

The Senate bill doesn’t mandate age verification directly. But it does require the FTC, in assessing whether a platform has complied with “duty of care” requirements, to determine “whether a reasonable and prudent person under the circumstances would have known that the user is a minor.”

How could platforms avoid liability for sure without imposing some kind of ID verification on all users?

In a fourth attempt rushing the Act through, senators from both parties, last week, sought to get it passed by unanimous consent. Last Wednesday, the objection of one senator, Kentucky’s Rand Paul, prevented this.

The Act will still probably pass the Senate. Maybe it will be blocked in the House. But speed is on the side of those who are eager to sidestep examination and reflection. It may be the case that, with the help of Sen. Paul’s slow-down, friends of privacy and freedom of speech will get another reprieve.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags censorship, Rand Paul, surveillence

Thought

John Adams

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.
John Adams, Notes for an Oration at Braintree (Spring 1772), in Diary and Autobiography of John Adams vol. 2 (1960).

Today

America’s Germans

On October 6, 1683, immigrant families found Germantown, Pennsylvania, in the first major immigration of German people to America. More Americans, today, consider themselves as deriving from German ethnic stock than from any other ethnicity.

insider corruption media and media people national politics & policies

Bad Move

Donald Trump, political advertising, taxes, media

“Because the GOP is in such a bad spot, five weeks out from the midterms,” Ali Velshi told his The 11th Hour audience, “the Trump administration is now also using your taxpayer dollars to air . . . political ads that feature the president.

“Not only is that a blatantly wasteful misuse of taxpayer money,” Velshi continued, “it’s unethical and likely illegal.”

And here is the zinger: “But it’s also a bad political move.”

It’s not every day that I’m this simpatico with an MS Now host.

What is Mr. Trump thinking? It’s simply the wrong way to govern: Using the public purse to broadcast pro-yourself messages to the people.

And is there any constituency — outside of Mr. Trump — for these television spots? One that would override the stench from misusing public resources in broad daylight on Fifth Avenue?

The White House calls these ads public service announcements.

The whole thing smacks of leader-worship. Plus, the messages are purely political. The timing seems awfully vote-solicitous: “Together we will defeat.”

The third spot, “The Final Battle,” recycles a 2023 political ad, with Trump promising that (once again) “we” will “demolish the Deep State,” “expel the warmongers from our government,” “drive out the globalists,” “cast out the communists, Marxists and fascists,” and “throw off the sick political class that hates our country” and more.

Trump is not on the ballot, but his policies are. So, by all means, Mr. President, get the word out.

With private funds.

“It’s a great message. I like the message,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune offered, “but it shouldn’t be paid for with taxpayer dollars.”

That’s common sense, I agree. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Thought

Gouverneur Morris

Every Society from a great nation down to a club had the right of declaring the conditions on which new members should be admitted.
Gouverneur Morris, Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, August 9, 1787, according to James Madison’s notes. See Max Farrand’s The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, vol. 2 (Online Library of Liberty).

Today

A New Republic Created

On October 5, 1910, the Portuguese monarchy was overthrown and a republic declared.

Update

It Is The States

A post on X by Jack Tomczak gives us a story and a moral:

Judge rules that federal statute banning non-citizen voting is unconstitutional. The only way to address this is to amend the US Constitution with #uscva HJR152/SJR212.

An article on FoxNews fleshes out the story:

A Biden-appointed judge is being labeled an “activist judge” by conservative critics after ruling the federal government’s application of a law barring noncitizens from voting in elections violates the Constitution in a federal criminal case.

In a 31-page ruling, U.S. District Judge David Leibowitz of the Southern District of Florida dismissed federal charges against Chelsea Cox, a woman originally from Jamaica who voted in the 2020 presidential election despite not being a U.S. citizen.

The ruling comes as the Trump administration has intensified efforts to prevent noncitizens from voting, including through federal prosecutions and attempts to verify citizenship on state voter rolls, sparking legal battles with Democratic-led states and voting-rights groups.

The ruling is a great example of a federalist strict construction of the Constitution:

Leibowitz ruled that the Constitution gives states — not Congress — the authority to determine who qualifies to vote in elections, effectively ruling that a provision of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA) criminalizing noncitizen voting in federal elections is unconstitutional as applied to Cox.

“The Constitution commits to the States, and the States alone, the general power to set voter qualifications in federal elections,” Leibowitz wrote in his ruling. “This is clear from both the text of the document and the debates at the Constitutional Convention in 1787.”

One might argue, on that latter point, that the debates in the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia are not nearly as important as the debates in the state legislatures prior to ratification. But that is a quibble: the ratification conventions are more clearly federalist and state-centered than the fabled “Miracle in Philadelphia.”

So, as Paul Jacob has argued in these pages — most recently last Wednesday — the only legal way to prevent states from tallying non-citizen votes in federal elections is a constitutional amendment declaring it illegal.

Tags non-citizen voting

Thought

Jack Woodford

Few human beings are proof against the implied flattery of rapt attention.
Jack Woodford (1894–1971), Strangers in Love (1934).

Today

SpaceShipOne

On October 4, 2004, SpaceShipOne became the first private craft to fly into space, thereby winning for Mojave Aerospace Ventures the Ansari X Prize for private spaceflight.

Update

Milei Now

Readers of Le Monde got what most readers got, this week, about Argentinian President Javier Milei: “In Paris, Argentinian President Javier Milei seeks investors to support his country’s struggling economy.” But is that it? Is that all there is?

No.

The big story a week or so ago was Milei’s statements about the United Nations. Breitbart’s headline is worth clicking on: “Javier Milei Blasts U.N. as ‘Useless,’ ‘Arrogant Parasites’ at General Assembly.”

Milei organized his new condemnation of the United Nations into three separate categories: what the U.N. “should have done but did not,” what “should not have done, but did anyway,” and comments on the United Nations’ stance on the advance of artificial intelligence. President Milei also condemned the Islamic regime of Iran over its attacks against Israel, emphasizing that Argentina is still demanding justice over the two terrorists attacks the country suffered in the 1990s from Iran through its proxy terror group, Hezbollah.

The New York Times has something to say, and it may have been written by a human: “As A.I. Fears Grow, President Milei Pitches Argentina as a Rules-Free Haven.”

“On artificial intelligence, Argentina will stand at the forefront of freedom,” Mr. Milei told the United Nations General Assembly in New York last week, while asserting the country’s “commitment to not preemptively regulate A.I.”

Mr. Milei, who has proposed creating “nonhuman corporations” run by A.I. agents, is seeking to lure foreign investments to build data centers in Patagonia. He also relentlessly posts A.I.-generated content on social media.

Reuters takes a step back and looks at the larger economic picture: “Argentina announces citizenship-by-investment program.”

Argentina will launch South America’s first citizenship-by-investment program, Economy Minister Luis Caputo said ‌on X on Friday.

Applications will open in the fourth quarter of 2026 and will offer citizenship through a non-refundable contribution of $350,000 or the purchase of an $800,000 public bond, the Economy Ministry said in a statement.

Maybe it is time to move to Patagonia? Make it a Giant move.