Category: national politics & policies

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general freedom national politics & policies too much government

It’s Over But It Isn’t

Covid, emergency, Dr. Fauci

Is the pandemic over?

On March 29, House Joint Resolution 7 passed with a 68–23 margin in the Senate: 47 Republicans and 21 Democrats voting Yea. Earlier this week, Joe Biden signed it into law.

But, as The Epoch Times explains, that resolution “states that the pandemic national emergency ‘is hereby terminated,’” but “does not impact the public health emergency, which is still scheduled to terminate on May 11.” 

But that lag — why terminate one (“national”) emergency footing and leave the other (“public health”) to linger for another month?

It’s worse than that, though. Back in September, President Biden told 60 Minutes that the pandemic was over, noting then that “no one’s wearing masks; everybody seems to be in pretty good shape.”

The administration offers bureaucratic rationales for the lagtime. But its impact on you and me is said to be zero: “To be clear, [the] continuation of these emergency declarations until May 11 does not impose any restriction at all on individual conduct with regard to COVID-19,” explains a January letter from the Biden administration to Congress.

Repeat that: the continuation of the emergency declarations does not impose any restriction at all on individual conduct. Which should have been true from the beginning, for the Constitution does not provide any powers to the general government over individuals on these matters.

Does public health really need another month of crisis . . . after acknowledging there isn’t a crisis anymore?

At least, there is a May 11th at the end of the tunnel.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights national politics & policies social media

A Package Deal

Tik Tok, app, China, censorship

Suppose suggested legislation outlaws both murder and walking. How could you oppose it? Are you, a dedicated perambulator-peripatetic, also a murder-supporter?

Obviously, this would be an attempt to foist a package deal consisting of unrelated or mutually contradictory elements.

Consider a more true-to-life example.

In the Wall Street Journal, Philip Hamburger argues that a congressional bill targeting TikTok would do much more than counter Chinazi spying on Americans (“The TikTok Bill Is a Sneak Attack on Free Speech”).

If curbing or even outlawing TikTok were the sole focus, one could argue the merits of the legislation given what is known about the company’s collecting of data and its relationship with the Chinese government. There’s no free-speech protection of foreign espionage.

However, as Hamburger points out, the bill gives the federal government “sweeping power over communications” and could be used to stifle speech protected by the Constitution.

The proposed statute would allow the Department of Commerce to undertake open-ended mitigation of “undue or unacceptable” risk regarded as arising from use of communications technology in which any entity subject to the jurisdiction of a foreign adversary “has any interest.”

This is very vague and very all-encompassing. The legislation thus confers power over domestic communication companies “that could be used to extort their cooperation in censorship.”

Attempts to resist such “mitigation” or censorship would risk administrative fines of $250,000, criminal penalties of $1 million, two decades in prison. For supporting freedom of speech?

Please walk away from this, Congress.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Small District Democracy

election reform, voting, Democracy, districts

Virtually every election-related reform one could imagine was discussed this week at INC ’23 in Austin, Texas. INC stands for Independent National Convention, a gathering of non-partisan pro-democracy activists with Tulsi Gabbard and Dennis Kucinich, two former congresspeople and presidential candidates, headlining the event. 

Speaking on a panel on Election Systems Reform, I highlighted the rhetoric of expanding voting rights. For example, the New York City Council decided to swell those rights by giving non-citizens the vote — even while a solid majority of New Yorkers were opposed. Recently Washington, D.C.’s Council bestowed local voting rights to people in the city (and country) illegally, as well as to foreign nationals working for foreign governments at the city’s many foreign embassies. 

Allowing the staff at the Chinese and Russian embassies to cast ballots is clearly an expansion of voting rights. But does it make sense?

I also pointed out that making it easier to vote by having, say, six weeks of early voting (as we do in my home state of Virginia) comes with a cost: more expensive campaigns. And anything that increases the price tag of running for office decidedly benefits incumbents.

My key message, however, was this: In a representative democracy, even if the rules and mechanics of the election process are spectacular, we still need someone to vote for, someone to actually represent us.

Making it easier or more efficient or transparent to go through the frustration and angst of our current contests between candidates Bad and Worse, both soon to be bought off, seems of limited appeal.

The change that would best overcome big money political influence and provide real representation to citizens — improving both elections and governance — is simple: a far smaller ratio of citizens to elected representatives. 

Stephen Erickson, executive director of Citizens Rising, specifies “small political districts of 30,000 inhabitants or less, at all levels of government throughout the United States.” Compare that to the average of over 700,000 people in today’s congressional districts.

The audience seemed to think this “Small District Democracy” made common sense. 

I’m Paul Jacob. And I think it is the very best reform we could make.

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government transparency insider corruption national politics & policies

The Regime Shows Its Fangs

IRS, corruption, power

“No one thinks it’s a coincidence,” says Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. “Everyone thinks this was done for intimidation reasons.”

The “this” was a visit by the Internal Revenue Service to the home of journalist Matt Taibbi while he was testifying to Congress about his Twitter revelation research.

Normally, the Regime’s collection wing, the IRS, does not just ‘stop on by’ unannounced.

The timing, Rep. Jordan suggested, is suspicious.

And the condemnations are coming in from more than just the “right.” A journalism professor at DePauw University joined the tide of free speech advocates to note that the “this” indeed “runs contrary to every principle” of the American press freedom as instituted in the First Amendment. 

The IRS has not so far clarified the visit, and Jordan is threatening to subpoena all documents related to the event.

Journalist Sharyl Attkisson — who “has long contended the Justice Department during the Obama administration illegally surveilled her while she was at CBS News,” explains Fox News — not unreasonably contends that the “IRS would have to know how their visit to Taibbi’s house would be construed, which suggests that’s exactly as they wanted it.”

The chilling effect is by design.

But why would The Regime be so blatant?

So clear in intent and corrupt in method?

Does The Regime feel impregnable?

Maybe the old lore of deviltry and contracts with the Principalities and Powers is true: evil feels compelled to signal what it is doing, at least nominally. Leaving it up to good people to see the signs.

Which we now cannot unsee.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom international affairs national politics & policies

Why We Fight

Biden, war, draft

A recent Senate hearing addressed a big problem facing America’s All-Volunteer Force (AVF): recruitment. 

The Army fell 25 percent short of its 2022 goal; the Air Force is 10 percent below; the Navy met its target for enlisted folks but not officers; and the Marines hit their mark but said “never before” has it been so challenging.

“The Pentagon has attributed its difficulties to a variety of factors,” reports The Washington Post, “including the nation’s low unemployment rate, school closings during the coronavirus pandemic that limited recruiters’ access to high school students and faculty, and a shifting culture in which more teens gravitate to jobs with work-life balance.”

As The Post paraphrased Army Undersecretary Gabe O. Camarillo, “the most significant barriers to service [include] fears of death or injury, suffering psychological harm, and leaving behind friends and family.” 

Indeed, what with possibility of overseas deployment and combat, the job of soldier certainly does not score well in the “work-life balance” category. While a sense of mission — and the country’s need — has helped spark interest in the past, that need has been blurred by a long string of misguided military adventures in recent decades.  

Sure, President Joe has repeatedly promised American military force in defense of Taiwan against repeated Chinese threats to invade.* But do young Americans perceive this as anything to them? Has the wokeness mission, stressed by the administration and the Pentagon and interrogated during the Senate hearings, occluded the more traditional sense of mission upon which the AVF has relied?

It’s time for Mr. Biden to speak to the people on the military’s core mission — including his promises, and those of other politicians. Asking them to keep his word. 

Plus, a personal presidential request might add an element of responsibility and accountability from the commander-in-chief to the soldiers recruited.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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insider corruption national politics & policies partisanship

Breaking the Jell-O Mold

jello, Congress, term limits

American politics has become amazingly “gerontocratic.” 

Congress is run by really old people, the faces of the Supreme Court Justices are as wrinkled as the Constitution they allegedly serve, and the oldest U.S. president in our history is a Silent Generation stumbler with one foot in the grave and the other in his mouth. 

Enter Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, sporting an “I” and not an “R” or a “D” next to her name, followed by a hyphen and the state from which she hails: “AZ” for Arizona. She won office as a Democrat in 2018 but with some ballyhoo left her party last December. Wikipedia says she still caucuses with the Democrats, but in recent reporting Sinema has denied this: “I’m formally aligned with the Democrats for committee purposes,” Sinema was quoted in The Daily Wire. “But apart from that I am not a part of the caucus.”

Indeed, she stopped going to the Democrats’ bi-weekly caucus lunches because, as she puts it, they are “ridiculous”: “Old dudes are eating Jell-O, everyone is talking about how great they are.”

Ah, Washington!

“The Northerners and the Westerners put cool whip on their Jell-O, and the Southerners put cottage cheese,” she adds, laying it on a bit thick.

While Senator Sinema makes much of her status as an Independent, and the increasing popularity of that stance in her home state, getting re-elected without a major party is tricky business. Politico quotes Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) as being on the verge of endorsing her, as well as expressing hopes that Republicans can seduce her to the GOP side.

There is nothing wrong with slurping down Jello, per se. The real problem is unbridled power that calcifies our career politicians . . . and with them our political system.

We need term limits. If not age limits.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets ideological culture national politics & policies

Old Woke, Not New

SVB, Silicon Valley Bank, interest rates, collapse, FED

Last week’s collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank gets more interesting with each revelation. But one of them is probably not that it was “woke.”

Contrary to rumor, I see no real evidence that SVB gave millions to Black Lives Matter. The bank did pledge $50 million towards an internal program dubbed “Access to Innovation.” This, we are told, “sought to connect women, Black people, and Latinos with startup funding, networking, and leadership development in the venture capitalist ecosystem.” 

Sounds great in a press release, though what it has to do with making profits is a bit hard to determine. 

Very feel-good, not very bottom-line.

And that’s where the bank failed, on the bottom line. 

Its clientele was concentrated in one industry, which has been hit by rising interest rates. Thus stressed, it was exceptionally prone to “bank run” pressures. Its core asset class was long-term Treasury Bonds, whose value decreased with rising interest rates — and these were not hedged. 

As Forbes put it, “Whether it was fully or semi-deliberate, Silicon Valley Bank was betting heavily on interest rates not rising.”

An extremely bad bet.

But you can see why the bankers would make it, right? Why wouldn’t they expect the giveaway mentality of Zero Interest Rates Forever?

Their hopes dashed, they nevertheless turned to their friends . . . in power. The Biden Administration that failed to keep interest rates down then pledged to cover SVB’s clients — the super-rich corporations that true progressive Democrats pretend to hate for all their “profits” and “under-taxed” income — well above the FDIC-insured levels.* 

We may learn real data about the banks’ wokeness levels, rather than mere rumor, but the bedrock truth reveals itself as all-too-familiar: it’s all about monetary policy. 

That is, the “woke” ideas of a century ago, when the Progressives’ beloved Federal Reserve was created.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Like Signature Bank, which was closed on Sunday, the overwhelming bulk of SVB’s deposits were uninsured by FDIC. 

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First Amendment rights national politics & policies partisanship

Invitation to a Beheading

Twitter, Taibbi, hearings, Congressional Committee, stupidity

I don’t gawk at car crashes. I did not watch the ISIS beheadings. Bloody slasher movies aren’t my thing. 

And neither was the recent hearing held by the House Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. It was so hard to watch I could hardly take more than a few minutes at a time.

Before the committee appeared two of the three heroes of Twitter Files fame: Michael Shellenberger, listed as “Author, Co-founder of the Breakthrough Institute and the California Peace Coalition”; and Matt Taibbi, Journalist.

Or, as Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-U.S. Virgin Islands) referred to them, “so-called journalists” — before she asked her first question.

Mr. Schellenberger testified about “The Censorship Industrial Complex” and Mr. Taibbi’s testimony was a less elaborate narrative about how he got involved in the Twitter censorship issue, and what he discovered in working through the files. But Del. Plaskett and Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-Fl) were far more interested in discrediting what they said by attacking their qualifications and methods, not dealing with the facts they found.

Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-Tx) was the worst. I hand it to you if you can stomach her full interrogation — I came away wondering mostly about her IQ.

My negative reactions? Hardly an outlier. 

“Journalists Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger were a credit to their profession and to all Americans who genuinely care about a free press and the First Amendment,” wrote Maud Maron in an op-ed for The New York Post explaining why she was walking away from the Democratic Party: the party has fully endorsed censorship. The Democrats at the hearing “questioned, mocked, belittled and scolded [Taibbi and Schellenberger] for not meekly accepting government knows best” — proving themselves “an embarrassment.”

It might be good for our side when our enemies make fools of themselves. But it’s hard to watch.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Can You Bank On It?

Old Glory, bank, money, savings

With major financial institutions going belly up lately, now may not seem the best time to start a new bank.

But economic conditions are always dicey. 

In any case, much depends on whether the partners in such a venture follow sensible policies or treat depositors’ funds as gambling chips to be flung about in accordance with wishes, prayers, and prejudices.

Singer John Rich, doctor and politician Ben Carson, and pundit Larry Elder are teaming up to run Old Glory Bank. They’ve got at least one thing right. They see a market for “digital-first banking solutions” that is expressly anti-cancel-culture.

The three purchased an existing bank, First State Bank of Elmore City, Oklahoma, and are giving it a new name and modified mission.

According to Elder, Old Glory Bank, currently accepting account reservations, will be guided by principles of “liberty, privacy, security, community, family, and faith.” It’ll eschew what Rich calls “the political weaponization of the financial system.”

This sentiment contrasts with the animus animating outfits like PayPal, which cancels customers for having PayPal-disapproved views or political goals. (A pro-democracy group in Hong Kong is one victim of this policy.)

Some standard banks, too, have begun spurning customers involved in certain legal but politically controversial industries, like the firearms industry.

According to a press release issued late last year, Old Glory Bank “will never cancel law-abiding customers for their beliefs or for exercising their lawful rights of free speech.”

We will hold you to that.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Alien National Capital

Joe Biden, democracy, voting, illegal immigrants

While the 58th anniversary of the Selma, Alabama, Bloody Sunday seemed an apt occasion to address the right of all citizens to participate democratically in their government, leaving the job to President Joe Biden was . . . awkward. He said nothing of consequence.

But back in 2020, candidate Biden said this: “In order to be able to vote, it’s important that you be a U.S. citizen.” That’s consequential.

In 2021, however, when the New York City Council extended suffrage to foreign nationals living legally in the Big Apple, against the will of the majority of New Yorkers, I don’t recall hearing even the slightest peep from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Now the wackos in Washington, D.C., have enacted a non-citizen voting measure that goes further. It allows Russian nationals working for Mr. Putin at their embassy in our nation’s capital to vote on city candidates and ballot issues and welcomes onto Washington’s voter rolls Chinese citizens here promoting Xi Jinping and the interests of his genocidal regime. 

The District of Columbia’s ordinance extends the franchise even to people here illegally, allowing anyone from anywhere in the world able to avoid deportation to cast a ballot. Legally.

Thankfully, House Joint Resolution 24, which seeks to block the D.C. non-citizen voting ordinance passed the U.S. House last month, garnering support from every Republican present as well as roughly one in five Democrats. Action now moves to the Senate. 

“After years of lamenting so-called ‘foreign interference’ in our elections,” argues Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), “every single Democrat ought to join in invalidating this insane policy.”

But will they? 

Congressional Democrats might claim that their support for local control in D.C. excuses them for allowing this non-citizen voting measure to become law. But it’s not even a fig-leaf after Biden declared he would sign the congressional Republicans’ repeal of another D.C. council enactment, a controversial crime “reform” law, which District officials then hurriedly withdrew to placate nervous national Dems.

Talk about awkward!

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

Note: Biden certainly has a cavernous credibility gap on election integrity. After he attacked Republicans as “un-American” and the 2021 election reform legislation enacted in Georgia as “Jim Crow in the 21st Century,” the Peach State saw “record breaking turnout” in last year’s election. Sadly, much of the media merely ignored reality; CBS News headlined one report, “Effect of Georgia’s voting law unclear, despite high turnout.”

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