Category: national politics & policies

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First Amendment rights general freedom national politics & policies regulation

Mandatory Internet IDs

Parents Decide Act, privacy, law, OS

An assault on your freedom to use your computer without having to “verify your age” has migrated from states like California, Colorado, and New York to the United States Congress.

This is the so-called Parents Decide Act, which would “require operating system providers to verify the age of any user of an operating system.”

The honor system, the for-now method of the California law, doesn’t stop ten-year-olds from claiming to be 35. For such laws to “work,” the PC would have to require you to verify your age before you can use it.

That method cannot help but be invasive, like scans of your ID card or your face. Sure, many users of mobile computing devices have private security using their faces or fingerprints, but those users do not intend to share this secret information to third parties — which sure seems like what’s going on here.

PC Gamer observes that, although the method of age verification is crucial “in terms of privacy and data security,” the Energy and Commerce Committee will be deciding such things after passage. 

They’d have to pass the bill for us to see what’s in it.

Whatever the method, many users would obey, conscientiously giving the PC — and the PC or OS maker — ID or facial info that might be linked to purchase info in the company’s database.

Could such databases be hacked and provide criminals with new information with which to commit their crimes? Only if the umpteen stories per day on successful hacks of the databases of major companies are any clue.

“Save the children” is the familiar sales pitch, but if government is in charge of saving the children, our children are in trouble.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights national politics & policies

First Amendment Needs Help!

JAWBONE Act, free speech, censorship, internet, social media

Newly proposed legislation would make it harder for federal officials to censor speech by pressuring third parties to censor speech.

The bipartisan bill has been dubbed the “Justice Against Weaponized Bureaucratic Overreach to Networked Expression Act”— the JAWBONE Act — introduced by Senators Ted Cruz (R.-Tx.) and Ron Wyden (D.-Ore.). 

“Government coercion of such private speech intermediaries [like social media platforms] threatens freedom of speech and open inquiry,” it asserts, “particularly for users who have no say in, or knowledge of, how their speech or access to information is affected.”

Such censorship-delegation had been brought to light by lawsuits as well as by the willingness of a reconstituted Twitter — X, under the ownership of Elon Musk — to publicize communications between the federal government and Twitter employees during the COVID-19-era assaults on freedom of speech.

The JAWBONE act would prohibit federal agencies from coercing or threatening online and other services into changing content and would give victims the right to seek damages.

Now, you might be thinking, doesn’t the Constitution already prohibit the federal government from censoring us? Well, yes. It provides no exemption for government censorship implemented via plausibly (or implausibly) deniable delegation of the task. 

But we have had many legitimate debates about constitutional meaning. Further, we have also always had many illegitimate ones, in which people — including Supreme Court justices — seek to circumvent even the plainest and most unmistakable import of constitutional provisions. 

So the Constitution needs all the help it can get.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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inflation and inflationism national politics & policies political economy

Jump the Inflation

Donald Trump, inflation, Iran, war, economics

A term in pop culture analysis, now a bit passé, is worth reviving: “jump the shark.”

The term refers to the moment in the nostalgic TV show Happy Days when, running out of ideas, the writers cooked up something so out-there and silly that it’s cringe. (To use a more recent faddish term, now also passé.) An episode in the fifth season of the sitcom where the Fonz “jumped a shark” — in water skis. 

A spectacle so goofy that it can serve as a marker for any great moment when something really goes into steep decline.

The second Trump Administration has had many such moments, but are any as odd and stupid as the president’s recent remark about the Consumer Price Index?

Asked about the CPI having “jumped 4.2% over the last year,” according to Josh Boak’s June 10 AP article, the president replied, “You know what I really love? I love the inflation.”

The AP article quoted some Democratic politicians making hay of Trump’s quip, but then went on to Rep. Emilia Sykes (D-Ohio) pressing, in a hearing, Energy Secretary Chris Wright “whether he, too, loved inflation.”

‘I love ending Iran’s ability to have a nuclear weapon,’ Wright answered. He only conceded after being pressed: ‘No, I would prefer lower inflation.’”

What is Trump trying to communicate? The idea that when crude oil prices come down, inflation rate increases will level off too. And that’ll be good.

But that all depends on a cessation of the Iran conflict, which keeps dragging on with no end in sight.

Trump’s said dumb things. And funny things. But we who have been living in the Age of Inflation are . . . not amused. This response wasn’t funny and it wasn’t insightful. Or clever. Or worthy of the president’s past hits.

Donald Trump has jumped the shark.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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national politics & policies too much government

The Long, Long Two Weeks

covid, hysteria, protest, obedience, disgrace, freedom

Nothing is so permanent, wrote Milton Friedman, as a temporary government program.

Six years ago, Americans learned that not only vaguely temporary measures go on and on, even precisely marked-out periods with clear starts and stops stated at the outset can be dragged on well past their expiration date.

Last week, Robby Soave “celebrated” the most astounding example of this in an article for Reason titled “This Was the Moment the COVID-19 Experts Betrayed Us,” about how the “two weeks to slow the spread” rationale for the lockdowns was shown to be a lie.

I wonder how many people were like me, at the time, noticing that the lengthening of the lockdown period was almost never justified by hospital numbers — a key point in the initial rationale, since we feared overwhelming the hospital system. The opposite happened almost everywhere, with hospitals becoming ghost towns in most locations, stressing the system in the opposite manner. By extending the duration of the near-universal quarantine, government officials and employees and their hangers-on showed how little interest they had in taking our health seriously.

What Soave focuses on is one tweet by National Public Radio, about how all crowds were bad for public health except those marching in protest of the death of George Floyd, a criminal with a long, violent rap sheet. NPR’s post began “by condemning the protests against lockdowns” and then drew “an explicit contrast with the racial justice protests, which are explicitly condoned.”

Soave calls this “junk science.” 

But it wasn’t any kind of science at all. It was pure ideological perversity.

Knowledge of that moment must be kept alive. Our expert class betrayed us by prioritizing their riot apologetics over our health.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

NOTES:

See Milton Friedman, Tyranny of the Status Quo (1980) p. 115.
For a “Timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States (2020)” see Grokipedia.
The encouragement of the riots was, many hazard, an opportunistic psy-op to unseat President Trump in the 2020 election. It seems to have succeeded.

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ideological culture national politics & policies partisanship

Promising & Not

Endorsements, Democratic Party, socialism, Mamdani

“We are capitalist, not socialist.”

Those words are from the “Promise to America” pledge promoted by a new group of the same name and unveiled last week by Reps. Tom Suozzi (D-New York) and Rep. Adam Gray (D-California). 

“Two Democrats in Congress who flipped Republican-held seats in 2024 are launching a pledge for their party’s candidates they hope will act as a rallying cry for centrists,” explains a Washington Post article, dubbing it “a direct rebuke to the party’s leftward tilt as democratic socialists such as New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) capture the party’s energy and activism.”

"We Are Capitalist, Not Socialist." Adam Gray, Tom Suozzi, Democratic Party

“We want safety,” their “Promise” continues, “not lawlessness.”

“No, duh,” would have been the response to such a statement years ago. But today? “Refreshing!”

These Democrats call for “secure borders, safe communities, honest government, and an orderly immigration system that protects the country, strengthens the economy, and treats people with dignity.” It’s a far cry from: Free healthcare for those here illegally!

“We believe America remains indispensable to global stability, democratic values, international security, and strong alliances,” the document expounds. “In a dangerous and uncertain world, America must lead with strength, purpose, and partnership.”

In closing, they declare: “We are proud, not ashamed of America.”

The Post suggests, however, that this slogan “could be polarizing on the left.” 

Sure, it is a much different message than Maine Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner has expressed. On an online forum back in 2021, in a discussion on securing disability benefits from the VA, a fellow veteran vented, “Fuck Uncle Sam,” to which Platner added a clarification: “Fuck him and take his money.”

Which message for Democrats?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Note: Sorry for the foul language but, frankly, I did not want to cushion the blow.

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national politics & policies partisanship

King & Kingslayer

Donald Trump, Thomas Massie, revenge, Republican, endorsement, elections

Two weeks ago, five incumbent Indiana state senators “weren’t just defeated,” as NBC’s Steve Kornacki explained, “they were defeated in landslides.” 

The five had bucked President Trump’s call to redraw the state’s congressional map, blocking the creation of two additional Republican-leaning districts and drawing the ire of the president and his supporters, who got behind their opponents. 

On Saturday in Louisiana, Sen. Bill Cassidy, a 12-year Republican incumbent, became the first elected U.S. Senator to lose in a primary since 2012. Again, Dr. Cassidy wasn’t simply eclipsed by a challenger; he came in a distant third place with less than 25 percent of the vote. Cassidy was one of seven GOP Senators who found Mr. Trump guilty in his second impeachment trial, following the U.S. Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.*

I cannot recall a president of either party ever wielding so much electoral clout within his own party — perhaps partly because other presidents did not attempt to reshape their party as aggressively as Trump has, and partly because no president has enjoyed the outsider status required to mobilize the disgruntled grassroots.

Today, Kentucky’s Republican Primary offers another stop on what the media has dubbed “Trump’s revenge tour.” The Bluegrass State’s 4th congressional district sports 14-year incumbent Rep. Thomas Massie facing Trump-endorsed challenger Ed Gallrein, a businessman and former Navy SEAL, in “the most expensive House primary on record.” 

President Trump called Massie “a third rate Grandstander” in 2020 but then endorsed Massie in 2022. After Massie’s opposition to the “Big Beautiful Bill,” the Iran War, tariffs, and support for releasing the Epstein files, Trump has gone after him.

Latest polling shows “the race to be evenly deadlocked,” but if anyone can withstand the Trump onslaught, it may be Massie . . . who is so thoroughly not a Washington insider.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

* Of the other six U.S. Senate Republicans, four chose not to seek reelection (Sasse, Neb.; Burr, N.C.; Toomey, Penn.; Romney, Utah), while Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski won re-election in 2022, and Senator Susan Collins of Maine is on this November’s ballot.

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international affairs national politics & policies regulation tax policy

How to Lower Gas Prices

Iran, gas prices, oil, spending, taxes

Gasoline prices have skyrocketed. The Iran War is to blame, but the President has not been able to bring it to an end.

Still, he has offered a small fix. A federal gas tax suspension!

In its favor, this temporary measure would offer some relief. In addition, the federal government shouldn’t be attaching an excise to fuel sales anyway. The states already burden our fuel bills with their own taxes.

As if to seize a political win, Senator Josh Hawley (R.-Mo.) declared he will introduce a bill to enact that suspension.

Cutting off a source of revenue would increase the deficit, of course. But there is a simple solution to that: spend less. For example, the fuel taxes are supposed to fund road repairs. All but two percent of U.S. roads are state roads now. During the emergency, suspend the two percent spending on repairs and let the 98 percent of spending carry on, as it does now, at the state level.

Adam N. Michel at Cato argues that the best way to spend less would not only reduce the deficit but also lower gas prices: end the Iran War. 

And not just rhetorically. 

But Michel and his Cato colleagues offer a more politic plan, too: don’t merely suspend the tax, end the tax forever and end the highway spending burden along with it. “States know what their infrastructure needs are,” he contends, “and they have the fiscal tools — gas taxes, sales taxes, user charges, debt, and privatization — to meet them without a federal middleman.” 

Before October, Congress is supposed to re-authorize the federal highway program. Don’t. Dismantle it all. 

For good.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment First Amendment rights national politics & policies

Prosecutorial Shell Game?

FBI, Federal Bureau of Investigation, James Comey, 86, sea shells

The Department of Justice’s case against the egregious former head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, James Comey, is as weak a case as he could hope.

Comey had shared an image on social media — a photo of shells on a beach gathered together to markout “86 47” — and, when people interpreted it as a possible threat, he deleted it. “He said he thought it was a political message, not a threat,” an NPR story summarizes, “but now a grand jury in North Carolina has made a federal case out of this. It’s charged Comey with two felonies, including allegedly threatening the life of the president.”

So why do I call it weak? While “86” may have originally meant “kill” or “delete,” amongst gangsters, real or Hollywood, it’s often used colloquially to mean “get rid of.” And though “47” is the number of Trump’s second administration, it’s possible — indeed likely — that Comey didn’t mean “Kill Trump.” He could have meant “impeach Trump” or “prosecute Trump” or any other politically acceptable way to force the president out of office. 

Don’t get me wrong. Was it a dumb thing for the disgraced former government official to share? Sure. But even outstandingly horrible former FBI heads have freedom of silly speech.

This is not the first time Comey’s been prosecuted by the Trump DOJ. The last time it fizzled. And, considering the First Amendment, this one will fizzle.

Bringing forward dumb charges looks bad, like Democrats looked prosecuting Trump. The political persecution of enemies is not all that popular. 

And in a country filled with political corruption, it sets the cause of “draining the swamp” back, not forward.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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government transparency ideological culture national politics & policies

Die, DEI, Die!

DEI, Texas, discrimination, quota, race, racism, sexism

Banning DEI doesn’t necessarily end DEI. 

So-called diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies mandate guilt-inducing collectivist indoctrination about race and sex and/or impose race and sex quotas. The Texas legislature rightly concluded that DEI indoctrination is pernicious and required that it be removed from public universities in the state.

Suspecting that the law would not be obeyed with perfect grace, the organization Accuracy in Media (AIM) has been doing undercover work to gather evidence on whether university staffers formerly determined to propagandize for DEI and impose DEI-based requirements are now backing off.

Many are not.

Two of the renegades recently caught on video:

“Rest assured, the work that we do is still the same. It’s just classified differently,” bragged Melissa Cruz, an academic recruiter at the University of Texas at Arlington at the time the AIM investigator talked to her. “The intention is still the same. The research is still the same. The practice is still the same. It’s just called something different now. Our job is to push back and to cause some good trouble and all of those things.”

At the University of North Texas, Paige Falco, gave the same explanation. “Our class might be titled something a little different to just not specifically have DEI as the class name,” she told the AIM investigator. “But it’s still an element that’s taught. It’s definitely still a focus.”

These two have been fired. 

Thankfully.

But while these two were caught in the sting, many more no doubt exist, breaking the law of the state that employs them.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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national politics & policies progress voluntary cooperation

Dream & Achieve More, Not Less

Artemis, moon, space exploration, private enterprise, NASA

The successful Artemis II mission is one answer to what we have been told for way too long, that exploration “beyond known boundaries” is unaffordable and “too risky.”

“We are told not only to consume less but to dream less,” writes John Tillman. “Always the same chorus: lower your expectations. Stop reaching.” SpaceX and Artemis II have interrupted this tune.

And Artemis II has a lot to do with SpaceX, Tillman stresses. It’s NASA, it’s a government program, but one heavily reliant on markets.

NASA deserves credit for managing a complex mission. But 2,700 private companies were involved in providing crucial components.

Lockheed Martin. Made the Orion spacecraft that carried the crew.

Boeing. Made “the massive core stage of the Space Launch System rocket.”

Northrop Grumman. Made rocket boosters and an abort system.

Aerojet Rocketdyne. Made engines and thrusters.

“That’s just the prime contractors. Beneath them sat a supply chain of extraordinary depth.”

There’s more. In the five decades that NASA avoided lunar exploration and colonization, private enterprise had been providing reminder after reminder as to just how much could be accomplished by tapping dispersed knowledge and talents — from feeding the masses to connecting everyone via computer networking — making any lingering timidity or depressive preconception ultra-passé.

“SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launches for $67 million, lands its boosters, and flies again within weeks. That’s a nearly twenty-five-fold cost reduction through competition and innovation. When companies bear the risk, they solve problems creatively. When taxpayers bear the risk, you get decades of stagnation.”

That’s how markets and dreams work — when they’re allowed to.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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