Author: CS Admin

Hog-Wild Corruption

Arkansas State Rep. Micah Neal, Independent Citizens Commission, Senator Jon Woods

Former Arkansas State Rep. Micah Neal pled guilty last week to a felony charge of conspiring “with an Arkansas state senator to use their official positions to appropriate government money to certain nonprofits in exchange for bribes.”

Neal, who embraced graft his first month in office, received $38,000 in “legislating-around” money between 2013, when he entered the House, and 2015.

Court documents mention a number of seasoned conspirators, though not by name. There’s mysterious Senator A, who took Rep. Neal under his crooked wing.

Their scheme, reported Arkansas Business, “direct[ed] $600,000 in state GIF funds to the Northwest Arkansas Economic Development District, which then distributed it to two nonprofit entities.” Those two outfits — Entities A and B — then kicked back dough to Rep. Neal and Senator A through bagmen.*

Arkansas Business sorted out “the alphabet soup of unindicted people and entities.” It turns out Senator A, the ringleader, is someone we’ve encountered before: former State Senator Jon Woods.

Remember Issue 3, the dishonestly-worded 2014 constitutional amendment that weakened term limits (while telling voters it “established term limits”), imposed a gift ban so “tough” that now all legislators can get free meals from lobbyists anytime, and created an “Independent Citizens Commission” (a majority appointed by legislators) that gave legislators a 148 percent pay raise?

That was Woods’s.

His indictment appears imminent.

Meanwhile, Neal’s attorney extends to us his client’s wish that “this case does not overshadow all the good he did while serving as [a] representative.”

What good? The term limits scam.

Neal’s corruption doesn’t overshadow all he did as a legislator — it illuminates it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Three additional conspirators were engaged in delivering the bribe money to Rep. Neal and Sen. Woods. In court papers, these bagmen were referred to as Person A (a lobbyist for Entity A), Person B (“the president of Entity B and a friend of Senator A”) and Person C (“a friend of Senator A and Person B”).

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Tags Arkansas State Rep. Micah Neal, Independent Citizens Commission, Senator Jon Woods

folly ideological culture meme too much government

Don’t Worry!

Bernie Sanders, plan, socialism, government, efficiency, progressivism, collage, photomontage, cartoon, illustration, Paul Jacob, Jim Gill, Common Sense

Bernie’s plan will SAVE MONEY through Government Efficiency!

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Tags 2016 Presidential race, Bernie Sanders, big government, Presidential campaign 2016, socialism

free trade & free markets general freedom moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies

Best Plan Is No Plan

Obamacare, ACA, Healthcare, reform, replace, policy, insurance

“Republicans would create chaos in the health care system because they are stuck,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer says, “between a rock and a cliché.”

Oh. Off by a word or two. But I don’t need to fix it.

What needs to be fixed is the whole system. “Head clown”* Schumer gloats that it cannot be done. The “delicate balance” that is the Affordable Care Act makes it impregnable. For all Republicans’ talk of repeal, “for five years now they’ve had nothing to put in its place.”

Schumer sees the trap. He set it when he and his comrades voted Obamacare in without reading it. Any new program with any new constituency always presents a set of . . . political hurdles . . . that quickly become “impossible” to jump.

The President-elect, he notes, has supported three of the “most popular” regulations in Obamacare: “pre-existing conditions,” “26-year-olds on parents’ plans,” and sex equality re: insurance rates.

What Schumer fails to mention is that these are three huge drivers of spiraling insurance prices. The Affordable Care Act “delicately balances” medical markets by shifting who pays for what, hoping that the biggest losers† don’t complain too much and the obvious winners never cease protesting‡ any change.

The truth? Obamacare can be repealed. But replacing it would be a disaster. The best plan is no plan. Repeal all the regulations. The federal government should completely deregulate the markets, and prevent states from ruining interstate markets in insurance and health care.

Do what the Commerce clause was designed to do.

Schumer is counting on Republicans to do nothing. Despite signs they’re cooking up something.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

*What Trump called Schumer. And in the same tweet dubbed Obamacare “a lie.” Truer words never spoken?

† Obamacare presents a huge burden on the self-employed, self-insured, and on the previously insured, since it is these people who most obviously pay for all the newly insureds. Of course, in the end, everybody pays . . . from increasing prices and decreasing rates of progress.

‡ At least they are the focus of advocacy groups. The poor neatly serve as innocent shields of the spoliators.

N. B. Adapted from this weekend’s Townhall column.

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Tags ACA, healthcare, insurance, ObamaCare, policy, reform, replace

folly general freedom ideological culture nannyism privacy property rights too much government U.S. Constitution

Democratic Socialism. . .

Because BIG BROTHER is okay as long as enough people vote for him!

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Tags Big Brother, Democratic Socialism, egalitarian, meme, socialism, vote, voting

meme nannyism national politics & policies too much government

“Regulation” should not be confused with “rule of law”

Post author By CS Admin
Post date January 7, 2017
No Comments on “Regulation” should not be confused with “rule of law”

regulations, rule of law, control, bureaucracy, law, meme, Common Sense, Paul Jacob, Jim Gill

A “rule of law” is based on general principles, and makes room for — or, better yet, is based upon — the protection of individual rights.

It used to be common to say, “a rule of law, not of men”; it was even as common in political oratory as was spouted out over drinks at the Rotary. But as the modern Regulatory State has grown in scope and power, most folks seem to have lost track of the notion. It is now not even a cliché. Few even of our most educated folks can explain this idea. Vast swaths of the mis-educated public appear not to “get” the idea of limiting government to the enforcement of a few general principles; instead, they cry for more “regulations” (along with additional spending and maybe even a whole new division of the executive government) every time a crisis, tragedy or atrocity occurs.

So we are left with a political culture in which the words of Tacitus seem to a majority as implausible at best, evil at worst: “The more the laws, the more corrupt the State.” Contrary to today’s trendy prejudice, we do not need “more laws” — edicts legislated by representatives, or regulations concocted by bureaucracies — we need Law.

As in, “a rule of Law.”

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Tags meme, regulation, regulations, rule of law

Accountability ideological culture media and media people

Fake News Friday

Thirty-three years past 1984, we’re living in an Orwellian world of “fake news.”

In November, the Washington Post informed readers that a “Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during [the] election,” proclaiming a conclusion reached by “independent researchers.” The Post story noted, “There is no way to know whether the Russian campaign proved decisive in electing Trump . . .”

In his review for the New Yorker entitled, “The Propaganda About Russian Propaganda,” Adrian Chen skewered the Post. An obvious problem? One group of researchers cited in the Post article, ProporNot.com, compiled a list of so-called fake news websites so broad that, “Simply exhibiting a pattern of beliefs outside the political mainstream is enough to risk being labelled a Russian propagandist.”

At The Intercept, Ben Norton and Glenn Greenwald also slammed the Post exposé. Fretting about the enormous and uncritical reach of the article,* they noted that it was “rife with obviously reckless and unproven allegations, and fundamentally shaped by shoddy, slothful journalistic tactics.”

The problem with “respected” mainstream media outlets performing drive-by journalism is the same as with the fake news they decry: real people might believe things that aren’t true.

For instance, a recent poll found most Democrats think “Russia tampered with vote tallies in order to get Donald Trump elected president.” That’s a position devoid of any evidence. Likewise, 72 percent of Republicans still tell pollsters they remain unconvinced President Obama was born in the U.S.

What to do? Back to the basics: let’s gather and analyze the news with healthy amounts of skepticism and a mega-dose of Common Sense.

I’ll help. I’m Paul Jacob.

* In a follow-up piece taking the Washington Post to task for what proved to be a false report on Russian hacking into the nation’s electric grid, Glenn Greenwald argues that, “[W]hile these debacles are embarrassing for the paper, they are also richly rewarding. That’s because journalists — including those at the Post — aggressively hype and promote the original, sensationalistic false stories, ensuring that they go viral, generating massive traffic for the Post . . .”

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Tags fake news, journalism, lies, media

meme

Progressives – Useful Enablers of Corporate Power

Post author By CS Admin
Post date January 6, 2017
No Comments on Progressives – Useful Enablers of Corporate Power

political, Progressives, regulations, meme, corporations, outrage, collage, photomontage, poster, picture, illustration

Outraged progressives…writing regulations…that only rich corporations can afford to follow!

Progressives: useful enablers of corporate power for over 100 years!

Don’t believe it? Check out the writings of the esteemed leftist historian Gabriel Kolko…

Shared ideas matter. Please pass this along to friends.

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Tags corporations, progressives

Common Sense folly free trade & free markets general freedom ideological culture meme national politics & policies

Funny how that happened…

capitalism, progressivism, progressive, politics, child labor, 8 hour work day, living wage, achievements, accomplishment, meme, illustration

Funny how none of the progressive “achievements”happened before capitalism made them possible.

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Tags 8 hour work day, accomplisment, achievements, capitalism, child labor, living wage, politics, progressive, progressivism

general freedom ideological culture meme nannyism national politics & policies

A Childlike Faith. . .

SOCIALISM…

The childlike faith that a powerful, ever-growingGovernment couldn’t possibly pose a threat to freedom.

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Tags faith, freedom, progressivism, socialism

Accountability term limits

Trump’s Trump

President-Elect Donald J. Trump wasn’t my choice. Yet, as with any president of these United States, I say: work with him when he’s doing right.

And Mr. Trump is doing right by pushing Congress to vote on term limits.

Every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every week, month and year for many decades — going as far back as public polling goes — Americans have firmly and overwhelmingly supported term limits. According to a 2016 Rasmussen poll, 74 percent favor term limits for Congress, with only 13 percent opposed.

The support unites us: 77 percent of Republicans, 67 percent of Democrats and 79 percent of independents together want to limit Congress.

Don’t believe polls? How about election results?

Years ago, syndicated columnist George Will remarked, “To the question ‘Where most recently have term limits passed?’ the answer is: ‘Wherever most recently people were permitted to vote on them.” That remains the case.*

Still, the Washington Post’s Amber Phillips predicted in “The Fix” column that, “Trump’s term limits proposal won’t happen.” Why? Simple, she explained, “Congress doesn’t want it.”

Not to mention that sending the term limits amendment just introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) to the states for ratification requires a supermajority two-thirds vote of both the House and Senate.

Nonetheless, a clean up-or-down vote on a single term limits amendment puts every member of Congress on record. And Mr. Trump is certainly capable of using the bully pulpit of the presidency — and brash enough to remind voters — should their congressman vote against term limits.

It could be Trump’s trump card come 2018.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Support for term limits even brings Mr. Trump and outgoing President Obama together. “I think we want to see new voices and new ideas emerge,” Obama declared after the election. “That’s part of the reason why I think term limits are a really useful thing.”

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Tags Donald Trump, paul jacob, term limits