Category: national politics & policies

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general freedom ideological culture international affairs national politics & policies

Becoming France

France, Democrat, Democratic Party, democracy, socialism, Islam, anarchy

“I come from your future.”

This isn’t science fiction. It’s a warning. From today’s France.

Don’t let the U.S. become tomorrow what France is now. 

The words are from Brivael Le Pogam, co-founder and “tech emperor” of a French a.i. company. He addresses Americans who “are about to vote Democrat,” directing his words thus because the Democratic Party is the ever more openly socialist of this country’s two major parties. 

But Republicans need to heed him too.

As great as France may have been and is, don’t emulate the way it’s hurtling toward a cliff.

“In France we did everything your progressive politicians promise,” says Le Pogam. “Free healthcare, free college, generous welfare, strong unions, heavy regulation, high taxes on the rich, a state that takes care of everything. . . .

“France hasn’t passed a balanced budget since 1974. Our debt is above 3,300 billion euros. . . . Our hospitals are collapsing despite record funding. Our schools rank lower every year. Young people with degrees can’t afford an apartment in the city they were born in. . . .

“And the rich you wanted to tax? They left too, and took the jobs with them. . . . The result is stagnation.”

Nobody voted for the accumulating costs of all the “free” goodies and assaults on free enterprise. They voted for the fairy tale.

“Before you vote, ask yourself . . . is the program you’re voting for making America more like America, or more like France?”

Listen to the time traveler. 

I mean, the Frenchman.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment fraud national politics & policies

Fraud’s a SNAP

Seattle, EBT, scam, welfare, crime, corruption

This may shock you . . . or not . . . but independent reporters led by Nick Shirley have confirmed that food-stamp fraud is rampant. At least it is in the streets of Seattle. Their work supplements a police investigation reported in October 2025.

One scheme involves fraudsters approaching “groups of unsheltered individuals . . . who had an EBT [electronic benefits transfer card] with money on it,” a Seattle police captain reported last year. They would “then take that person to a store with a shopping list.”

The fraudsters keep the goods for resale while paying the original card holder half the card value in cash. Alternatively, the fraudsters buy EBT cards at half-price directly from card holders.

Sometimes fraudsters let drug dealers know which persons living on the street have just gotten cash for their cards. The dealers then swarm into a homeless camps to sell their wares.

Shirley’s work shows that although police arrests of eleven of the scammers made a dent, the scams still go on — in Seattle and doubtless many other cities.

He found that local store clerks proved willing to adjust food prices charged to match the balance on an EBT card, say $120. Then, if all goes “well,” the clerk and the fraudster presumably split the take. 

Shirley’s video doesn’t document the last part of the process because, to avoid being complicit in the scam, he kept entering a false PIN.

Welfare fraud is, apparently, easy to perpetrate, hard to patrol. 

It used to be understood that the only way to distribute general benefits to the poor was to refuse to make it easy to receive, and to administer such programs as locally as possible. Incentives for bureaucrats and disincentives for abusers must always be made painfully clear. And punishments swift.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ideological culture insider corruption national politics & policies

Ineffectiveness, Please

Slotkin, lawfare, corruption

“I’m into effectiveness,” Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) told an audience last week at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics.

Maybe effectiveness isn’t what we want from government, after all.

Recognizing that, in the next Congress, Democrats are unlikely to have the votes to remove President Trump from office by impeaching him in the House and convicting him in the Senate, Slotkin called for an alternative strategy: pursuing aggressive criminal prosecutions in what she called “signature cases” of the people who have “enabled” President Trump. 

Calling for the prosecution of someone who has committed a crime — I mean a real crime, not simply working for one’s political enemy — is not very controversial, of course. But Slotkin’s stated reasoning is.

“I want young people coming out of school to say, ‘Should I go work for the Trump administration?’”

She imagines them thinking, “‘Like, that sounds fun, I might get an opportunity.’” 

But opportunities for young conservatives need to be effectively squelched, dontcha know . . .

“I want them to be like, ‘Lord, that might be buying myself a ton of problems I don’t want and so let me avoid participating in that,’” explained the senator.

“I want that deterrence message sent,” she concluded.

Yes, more lawfare is coming . . . in the name of “effectiveness” . . . to chill political participation. 

Slotkin presents herself as a moderate Democrat. Really?

Even moderates are now in favor of using the judicial system to prosecute political opponents . . . the better to frighten and intimidate young people . . . who might be looking for a job with those political opponents?

That’s not change. That’s more of the same.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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national politics & policies term limits

Power to the Last Grasp

term limits, politicians, age

Remember congressional term limits? The idea, I mean. I know we don’t have them yet, though U.S. Term Limits is starting to make real progress through the states.

There was a big push or pseudo-push for congressional term limits in Congress in the mid-1990s. Later, first-term President Trump sort of promoted congressional term limits for a little while.

Don’t we all wish we had congressional term limits or age limits, or both, whenever a congressman of extremely advanced tenure or age, or both, drags himself through yet another reelection campaign?

Age limits would have been academic for Chuck Grassley, however, had he been subject to limits of, say, two six-year terms when he first became a senator in 1981. This is not an issue of people in their 70s, 80s, and 90s getting elected to Congress for the first time.

Grassley, for example, has been in Congress for the last 52 years: 46 years in the Senate and six years before that as a U.S. Representative. And let’s note 16 years in the Iowa State Legislature before that. Grassley has been in elected office non-stop for 68 years. 

Five years ago, we were told that Grassley, filing to run for yet another term, would be 95 by the end of that term if he ran and won and survived. Now, at 93, he has just filed paperwork to run for yet another term. He would be 101 by the end of it if he runs and wins . . . and survives.

Which, accordingly, would be 74 consecutive years in public office.

Time to give someone else a chance? Or will Grassley run again in 2032?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets national politics & policies political economy regulation subsidy

Progress Regardless

electric cars, subsidy, markets

There’s an easy way to know when people want various products and services: they pay for them using their money. It’s true! We have markets, and people buy and sell on these markets, even often risky investments as sellers and spending their own money as buyers.

Goods aren’t always procured this way. But market exchanges are common in any country containing even much-hampered markets.

One feels a need to remind the world of such truths whenever one, for example, peruses The New York Times.

According to a recent Times article on how “E.V. Road Trips Went From Impossible to Easy,” this transition to ease happened even despite alleged Trumpian hostility to electric vehicles!

Huh? Yawp! “E.V. fast-charging stations in the United States have soared in number from around 1,000 a decade ago to 12,000 today. . . . And despite the Trump administration’s hostility toward electric vehicles, and its attempts to end federal funding for public chargers, new stations are still going up — around 2,000 so far this year.” [emphasis added]

The correct wording is “despite reversal of federal hostility to gas-powered vehicles.”

Those fast-charging stations may be going up for a variety of private and public reasons. But no industry that emerges to meet persistent consumer demand requires any impetus to succeed beyond the desire and ability of capable producers to earn profits by satisfying that demand. 

In the early days of automobiles, gas stations didn’t spring up by government edict or subsidy.

Let consumers decide which mode of transportation, gas, electric, hybrid, if any, will triumph.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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national politics & policies

Not for the Swift

Rand Paul

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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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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election law ideological culture national politics & policies partisanship

Cheating with Democracy

Republican, elections, voting, democracy

They’re cheating, she says.

Kamala Harris insists that the Trump administration and Republicans across the union are “cheating with all this redistricting that they are doing.

“They are cheating,” she goes on, “by changing polling locations so that our elders who are used to voting at the elementary school down the street may go there on Election Day and find out it is no longer a polling place.

“They are cheating by purging voter rolls,” and . . . well, she breathlessly moves on, explaining why leaders like her have to remind people that “not only must you regislur [sic] to vote, but you must check your registration status to make sure you haven’t been purged from the rolls!”

Well, it is a good idea to check your registration status every now and then.

But the assumptions undergirding these charges, which she made on the 22nd in front of the Detroit NAACP, is that the evil Republicans are trying to disenfranchise American blacks by such horrific and unheard of practices as redistricting, by altering polling locations, and by scouring the official lists of voters for people who have moved without informing officials, for those who are ineligible because of lack of citizenship, and for the inconvenient lack of existence.

A democracy cannot run well without careful attention to all three of these things. 

What’s happened with redistricting is that the Democrats have used race — illegally — as an excuse to concentrate blacks, and recently Republicans have re-instituted non-race-based standards for districting. 

Changing polling places always occurs, every election year, and the biggest changes in this regard have been in the eight states (and D.C.) that have established mail-in only voting. Talk about a change of polling places!

And then there is the purging of voter rolls of non-citizen, non-resident, and non-existent voters! Who could complain about that?

Only unserious people. Like Democrats. Like Kamala Harris.

And those who seek to game elections.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Coda: “That’s how I feel about this moment,” concluded Harris, “I feel about this moment like this.”

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Accountability fraud national politics & policies

Who’s Against Fraud?

Obamacare, fraud, corruption, healthcare

While one might assume that the most enthusiastic proponents of extending the federal government’s assistance programs would also be the most ardent fraud hunters — since fraud weakens the system they promote — one would be wrong. When individual assistance and healthcare fraud actually receive effective scrutiny, socialists and progressives can reliably found among the chief protesters.

This is something to watch for, especially in light of what Vice President J. D. Vance announced yesterday — that the federal government has removed hundreds of thousands of Obamacare enrollments created for people who either do not meet eligibility requirements or . . . don’t exist. 

“The action, initiated by the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud,” explains The Epoch Times, “targets 760,000 accounts and will save taxpayers an estimated $2.2 billion, according to federal officials.”

“We had a system in this country that rewarded brokers,” said the vice president, “that made people rich for enrolling fake people in programs that are meant to ensure that our fellow citizens have healthcare. This was a scandal.”

How did the task force determine ineligibility? These were the red flags: no payments received; no claims made. 

Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, shared the stage with Vance, saying that lax enforcement allowed brokers to enroll people sans income verification or even Social Security numbers.

Which is why the administration also removed hundreds of brokers and agents likely to have “knowingly enrolled people who did not qualify or did not exist,” The Epoch Times clarifies. 

Also imposed was a “six-month moratorium on the enrollment of new brokers.”

Obamacare seems to have had incentives for fraud built in. It’s a pity but perhaps not surprising that the advocates of such systems cannot be counted on to police those systems.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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deficits and debt folly national politics & policies

Minus the Five Grand

Trump, $5000, bribe, National Debt

“If the Republicans win, you win with us, and you get $5,000,” President Donald Trump promised last week before assembled Republicans at the party’s midterm convention as well as a national television audience. “It will be called the Trump dividend.”

The cost of making good on his pledge, bribe, deal? A cool $1.3 trillion.

I don’t believe Mr. Trump has that much money.

“Because of our tremendous strength and success economically, I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000,” intoned the president. “Very much like a successful company will do a cash distribution to its shareholders.”

Dividends are paid out of profits; this operation known as the federal government doesn’t turn a profit. Instead, it’s running past $40 trillion in debt.

Can we afford to go trillions further into the red? Or pay more in taxes for this additional trillion-dollar-plus giveaway?

As if trying to outdo the president in folly, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick declared “we’re going to deliver” but “not from taxpayer money,” detailing several precarious plans . . . to come up with less than half the needed dough.

On Fox News, Bret Baier brought the vice president into the conversation. J. D. Vance described the current deficit budget in terms of revenue — there is “an extraordinary amount of revenue,” he said — as if the revenue that is not extraordinary enough to cover all current spending is somehow enough to spend $1.3 trillion more without additional debt. 

Eric Boehm at Reason says the $5,000 bribe shows that MAGA has run out of ideas.

In an election year when Democrats are featuring wannabe communists, why are Republicans demonstrating a similar lack of sanity?

I think the American voter might be more persuaded by even the smallest dose of common sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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