Category: Accountability

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Accountability media and media people

Democracy Thrives in Out-​of-​Court Settlement

Nick Sandmann, MAGA, Washington Post

Nick Sandmann has won again. The Washington “Where Democracy Dies in Darkness” Post has agreed to settle out of court with young Mr. Sandmann — for an undisclosed amount. We learned this from Sandmann himself, on Twitter:

On 2/​19/​19, I filed $250M defamation lawsuit against Washington Post. Today, I turned 18 & WaPo settled my lawsuit. Thanks to @ToddMcMurtry & @LLinWood for their advocacy. Thanks to my family & millions of you who have stood your ground by supporting me. I still have more to do.

CNN settled in January. Suits against ABC, CBS, The Guardian, The Hill and NBC are still pending.

At issue?

“The Washington Post falsely reported in 2019 that a group of Covington Catholic High School students, including Sandmann, harassed a man named Nathan Phillips with taunts and racial slurs,” explains Beckett Adams in The Washington Examiner. “The students did no such thing, as video evidence available at the time made clear. In fact, footage of the incident shows the teens were accosted not only by Phillips, who clearly sought out a confrontation, but they were also being harassed by a nearby gathering of members of the racist, anti-​Semitic Black Hebrew Israelites. The Washington Post chose to give glossy, glowing news coverage to the Black Hebrew Israelites, a known hate group, all while portraying the Covington Catholic students (some of whom were black) as racists.”

Enflamed by the Post and CNN and other outlets, a self-​righteously woke online mob jumped on Sandmann and other students — included were many calls for violence, and much harping on the fact the kids wore MAGA hats.

If ever a lawsuit of this kind made sense, this one did.

But will these media outfits learn their lesson?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability incumbents

When More Is Better

Congress, representation, democracy,

On Monday, we considered how to get better representation in Congress for the 700,000 folks residing in our nation’s capital city, Washington, D.C.

Today, let’s tackle how the rest of us get any semblance of representation. We are sliced up into 435 congressional districts, each comprised of roughly 700,000 people electing a “representative” supposedly doing our business in Washington. 

Are they doing our business? 

The nearly universal and long-​standing public disapproval of Congress answers that question.*

As the framers of the Constitution saw it, Congress would be the first and most powerful branch of government, as it would be closest to the people. The original idea was to create in members of Congress a “fidelity to their constituents,” James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 57, which “would be found very insufficient without the restraint of frequent elections. Hence … the House of Representatives is so constituted as to support in the members an habitual recollection of their dependence on the people.”

Madison goes on to say that congresspeople “will be compelled to anticipate the moment when their power is to cease.”

Yet well-​funded congressional incumbents sporting 90 percent-​plus re-​election rates cycle after cycle, decade after decade — serving 20 and 30 and 50-​plus years — cannot plausibly feel either compelled or dependent.

Looming large over the problem? Huge population districts. 

The more voters in a district, the more expansive and expensive campaigns must be … and the bigger the need for help from special interests … and the more powerful those groups’ influence.

Conversely, the smaller a district is, the more influence constituents individually have on their representative.

It may seem paradoxical, but it isn’t: citizens will wield more power when there are more representatives in Congress.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* In April, after sending stimulus checks to the entire country, Congress did more than double its approval rating, though it is still seen unfavorably by a lopsided two-​to-​one margin.

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Accountability national politics & policies

Up, Up and Away?

Space Force

The new U.S. Space Force wants “flexibility.” It has requested from Congress the ability to purchase and use satellites and other developing technology with agility.

That is, it wants permission to follow an “alternative acquisition system” — as explained in a “23-​page report to Congress from the U.S. Air Force, the current parent of the Space Force,” according to Ed Adamczyk for United Press International. Adamczyk says that “Congress mandated a retooling of the Space Force acquisition system when it created the new branch of the military in December.”

What the new Space Force yearns for certainly looks like off-​budget funding of technological assets. 

The official wording speaks of a reduction in “space portfolio constraints via incremental funding,” which Adamczyk explains as an “expanded ability to pay for space systems without regular oversight or constant requests for congressional approval.” 

That, he writes, “is a constant in the report.”

The point? To “rapidly leverage industry innovation to outpace space threats.” 

While it is popular in ‘paranoid’ circles to warn of ‘one world government’ threats to form a ‘new world order,’ this is transparently a push to effect a breakaway above-​world government that sure would change the balance of world power.

Scurrying further down a long and winding rabbit hole, it might also be a way to legitimize currently unconstitutional military-​industrial complex programs, perhaps part of the black budget Pentagon/​HUD double-​digit unaccounted-​for spending and income. 

Space Force is ambitious. Good. But it craves scant constraint from Congress.

Not to mention the citizens of these earthbound United States. 

Not good.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability crime and punishment

Minneapolis Burning

police brutality

Minneapolis is up in smoke, after protests became rioting became looting became conflagrations became nightmare. At issue is the police killing of civilian George Floyd.

It was the biggest story in the news, this week, and you can see why. Watch the video of a white policeman with his knee on the neck of a black man, Mr. Floyd, as he pled for his life — as bystanders pled for his life.

It is harrowing.

Scott Adams notes that this became a race issue … in which everybody agrees that the police were in the wrong. The best kind of race issue?

Except it shouldn’t be merely a race issue. It should also be an issue of accountability. There are too many killings by police where the perpetrators face zero accountability. 

Jay Schweikert, a policy analyst with the Cato Institute’s Project on Criminal Justice, advocates a direct, practical approach for restoring police accountability: End what is known as “qualified immunity.” 

That’s where police and other public officials are held to a lesser legal standard when it comes to court cases charging them with violating our rights. This is the reason, argues Schweikert, that “members of law enforcement routinely get away with horrific misconduct.” 

There are several petitions currently pending before the U.S. Supreme Court that could lead to a legal reconsideration of the idea.* But without regard to any legal judgement, lawmakers in legislatures and citizens by petition can expressly repeal qualified immunity.

And should.

Without police accountability, what freedom is there?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* “[Q]ualified immunity is a legal doctrine that was invented from whole cloth by the Supreme Court,” Schweikert explains, “in open defiance of Congress’s decision to provide people with a federal remedy for the ‘deprivation of any right[]’ at the hands of a state actor.”

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Photograph by mpeake

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Accountability general freedom

Pandemic Turning Point

map, coronavirus, Covid, Wuhan Flu, deaths,

While reading an article in The Hill, about the loss of life that the lockdowns will cause — “millions of years of life” — I saw news anchor Judy Woodruff, on PBS News Hour, put on a dour face to intone the latest U.S. coronavirus death count: over 98,000.

But the United States is not just one unit. The United States are … very different. Fifty different. Most states have had few coronavirus deaths. Indeed, the map of mortality shows only a few hot spots, with New York City the worst. 

Why? One key factor appears to be population density, particularly housing density and living quarters crowding. Lots of that goes on in New York City — and, PBS tells us, on Navaho lands.

Yet not all crowded conditions are as worrisome as once thought. Many were much exercised about Florida’s Spring Break beachgoers, but no major outbreaks occurred there.

This may be the result of the virus not being spread as experts initially thought: by asymptomatic carriers — as “A study on infectivity of asymptomatic SARS-​CoV‑2 carriers” indicates.

Japan’s prime minister, Shinzō Abe, has withdrawn the nation’s state of emergency … with less than 900 dead. Back in the U.S., the states are responsible for the lockdowns, but President Trump urges an end to them, and the other day even Dr. Fauci acknowledged that lockdowns also kill.

Emile Phaneuf, writing at FEE​.org, makes clear what has been foggy in popular discourse: it’s not “lives versus ‘the economy’” but “lives versus lives.” Mr. Phaneuf explains the economic logic of better policy regarding contagions.

Will our “leaders” listen in time for Round Two of the virus expected in the Fall?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability general freedom The Draft

Of Honor and Horror

army, twitter, public relations, veterans,

Last year, when the public relations wing of the U.S. Army asked, on Twitter, “How has serving impacted you?” the bulk of the responses were not what was hoped for. 

What came like tear drops and bursts of rage were thousands of horrific tales, expressions of sorrow, bitterness and despair.

No doubt the intention was to elicit, if not patriotic uplift, at least stories of learning, moral growth, centeredness, and personal victory out of sacrifice and suffering. Almost certainly the Army wanted what the promoters of “national service” now want.

The outcome was far messier.

Now, the Army handled the Twitterflak very well, with a tweet thanking people for their expressions. But a response by Mike Schmidt (@MikeSchmidt69) was probably as upbeat as could be expected, given the ‘writing on the wall’— er, Twitterfeed: “Some say this thread back-​fired but this is just the thread that is needed each [M]emorial [D]ay so we remember the sacrifices military members and their families make and how we as a country need to understand the true cost of service and improve our support.”

Most of the tweets I read were decidedly not upbeat. The anger and pain over battle deaths, wounds, PTSD, mental illness, suicides, and so much indifference to it — it was deep and wide … and heartbreaking.

And needs to change NOW.

‘War is hell.’ In the defense of freedom, in self-​defense, the brave soldier and general are honorable. But that honor is informed by the reticence that comes from actual knowledge of war’s true costs.

Maybe this Memorial Day President Trump and the Congress can also agree to review the use of military manpower around the world, looking to need to memorialize as few Americans as possible in the future. 

In fact, that sort of public policy debate is for all of us holding the hot dogs.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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