Category: national politics & policies

Categories
national politics & policies social media

Low Fares. Something to Hide.

Southwest Airlines, Covid, vaccination, labor

“Southwest Airlines crews are walking out and so are FAA air traffic controllers,” Buzz Patterson tweeted on Sunday. “This is just the beginning.” 

Buzz’s running for a House seat in California’s Seventh District. But I saw the tweet as quoted on Facebook by Erin Leigh, who wrote “Exactly what needs to happen. Over 1800 Southwest flights have been canceled in the last 48 hrs . . . employees from other airlines are joining as well as Amtrak.” And she concluded with “Mandates have consequences!!”

But what really caught my attention was Facebook’s warning: “Independent fact-checkers say this information has no basis in fact.”

Really? None?

You see, much of what was tweeted and Facebooked was definitely true: Southwest Airline pilots and other workers have walked out. And though the airline and the union provide the silliest rationales for the mass cancellations as cover — including blaming non-existent bad weather — it seems pretty obvious this is tied to the vaccine mandates. Tucker Carlson is nearly alone in covering this angle of the story — bemoans The Guardian — while the rest of corporate media relays the “nothing to see here” official spin (or “media blackout”).

Meanwhile, Facebook promotes its guardian of truth, “Lead Stories” — but its “fact-check” was entirely about the Amtrak shutdowns!!

Candidate Patterson didn’t mention Amtrak. And Ms. Leigh noted Amtrak almost as an afterthought. 

And then, up on my screen, came Facebook’s altered image of the initial tweet, with “Regular Delay” super-imposed.

The Facebook post was mostly about airline business.

And while Amtrak officials and mouthpieces for the Transport Workers Union of America assure us that it’s all very regular . . . the jab mandate is in place, and labor . . . dislocations . . . are one consequence.

Our regularly scheduled re-scheduling will be re-explained by history.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Categories
deficits and debt folly national politics & policies responsibility

Biden Blames Business

inflation, cash, money, fire

Inflation’s up, and President Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., thinks he knows why.

Economist Bruce Yandle, famed for his “Bootleggers and Baptists” theory of regulation, reports in Reason that the aging president blamed “the country’s three largest meatpackers” for contributing to July’s CPI rate of 5.4 percent, and the fuel industry for its part in August’s 5.3 percent annualized rate. 

Profiteering!

I’ve always wondered how anyone can get away with this tired old accusation. Businesspeople aim to profit at all times and in every place. Profit is why they go into business. Are they making too much inflation-adjusted profit during an inflationary period but not when inflation is low? Seems unlikely.

But Biden’s looking into it! “There’s lots of evidence that gas prices should be going down,” the prez claimed, “but they haven’t.”

What evidence? Biden presented none. 

After throwing so much money into the economy to “stimulate” it after the big hit commerce has taken from state-perpetrated lockdowns, what could we expect but rising prices? “Inflation is always and everywhere,” a great economist has said, “a monetary phenomenon.”

Bruce Yandle is on that same page. Referring to Mr. Biden’s bizarre blame game, Yandle suggested that maybe — just maybe — Biden “should look inside the halls of the West Wing.”

Specifically at all the spending, like the current “$3.5 trillion spending package.” The puppet masters pulling Biden’s strings must, Yandle asserts, “be aware that calling for more spending to calm inflation is like pouring gasoline on an already smoldering fire.”

The real problem is “too much printing-press money” backing deficit spending.

Blaming excess profits? A distraction.

A big lie.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Categories
incumbents national politics & policies term limits

The Age of Octogenarians

Senator Chuck Grassley

As someone who fervently hopes to some day reach the age of 88 — and still actively contribute — I have only heartfelt well-wishes for Chuck Grassley, the senior U.S. Senator from Iowa.

Grassley celebrated his birthday earlier this month. Then, last week, after 59 consecutive years in elected office (six in the U.S. House, 41 years thus far in the Senate, along with 12 prior in the state legislature), the Republican incumbent announced he will be seeking re-election to the U.S. Senate next year.

At 88, Mr. Grassley isn’t the oldest Senator — Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) is three months his elder, and U.S. Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) owns the title of Oldest Octogenarian in Congress, born 13 days before Feinstein back in 1933. 

We all remember Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-SC) turning 100 while supposedly still “serving” in the Senate. That wasn’t pretty. 

Grassley, on the other hand, appears in great shape, both mentally and physically — doing 22 push-ups before cameras and a crowd at a recent event.

He would be only 95 years old when completing that full term. And he is very likely to be reelected.

“Grassley has proved to be the most reliable vote-getter in Iowa for the entirety of his four decades in the Senate,” The Washington Post informed, concluding: “Grassley’s candidacy effectively then takes Iowa off the board as a competitive race.”

I have no problem with Sen. Grassley’s age. I do have a problem with the power of incumbency, a system that allows one man to wield power for decades and leaves our elections so much less competitive.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Categories
deficits and debt folly national politics & policies

Catastrophic! Calamity! The Debt

U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Penn.)

“Once again, the stability of the U.S. financial system is at risk,” warned CNN State of the Union host Jake Tapper, “thanks to political brinksmanship in Congress.

“If lawmakers do not act, the federal government will shut down this week. And, next month, the Treasury secretary says, the U.S. will not be able to pay its bills . . . which . . . could be catastrophic for the U.S. economy.”

Incredulous, Tapper further bemoaned, “that has not convinced a single Republican lawmaker to get on board to raise the debt ceiling.”

But he made the mistake of inviting retiring U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Penn.) on the Sunday program.*

“[O]n combining the debt ceiling increase or suspension with the continuing operations of the government,” Toomey declared his vote is NO. 

“And there is no calamity that’s going to happen, Jake.”

Toomey explained that “after Republicans vote no, Chuck Schumer is going to do what he could have done months ago, what he could have done weeks ago, what he could do tomorrow, and that is, he will amend the budget resolution so that Democrats can pass the debt ceiling all by themselves.”

Noting that Democrats were “in the midst of an absolutely unprecedented, very damaging spending spree on a scale that we have never seen,” Toomey emphatically refused to “authorize the borrowing to help pay for it.”

Over the weekend, a Washington Post editorial attacked Republicans for being “unwilling to lift a finger to avoid financial calamity,” while excusing Democrats. 

“For their part,” The Post justified, “Democrats . . . want the same political cover they gave Republicans during Mr. Trump’s presidency by raising the debt limit in a bipartisan fashion.”

The nation’s newspaper of record in full-throated advocacy of political cover.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Sen. Toomey has been a stalwart term limits supporter in Congress. He leaves having kept a pledge to serve only six years in the House, left the Congress for six years before winning a Senate seat and now stepping down after two terms in the U.S. Senate.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Categories
ballot access national politics & policies Voting

Ballots, Barriers and Buncombe

voting, citizenship, democracy, immigration

“The right to vote is a sacred civil right that empowers naturalized citizens to participate in our democracy,” LaVita Tuff, policy director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta, informed the media.

Yet, that same news release declared, “Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta and the Asian American Advocacy Fund collectively condemn the statements made by Georgia’s Secretary of State this morning emphasizing that ‘only American citizens should vote in our elections in Georgia.’”

These groups specifically attach voting rights to “naturalized citizens,” that is, immigrants who go through the process to become American citizens . . . like millions before them. But then AAAJ-A and AAAF denounce Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger for asking the Georgia General Assembly, last month, to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot to clarify that only U.S. citizens can vote in all state and local elections. 

“[D]on’t disenfranchise the people of Georgia on this important issue,” Raffensperger urged. “Let’s put it on a ballot.”

No argument is offered by either AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islander) group opposing the substance of Sec. Raffensperger’s proposed amendment. Not a single word.

Instead, they contend that “preventing noncitizens from voting is unnecessary and misleading,” before mentioning a non-citizen voting “measure previously considered in Clarkston, Georgia” and the possibility of changes “that could expand the right to vote to include noncitizens in local elections.” Hmmm . . . thus providing a very real and recent justification for Georgia voters to weigh-in.  

The news release smears Republican Raffensperger for supposedly “using immigrants as a scapegoat to create additional barriers to the ballot.” 

But the measure is clearly designed to protect existing barriers, not prohibit any currently eligible citizen from voting. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Categories
free trade & free markets general freedom national politics & policies

Subminimal Morality

Matt Thibodeau

He’s been at the job fourteen years. Congress may kill it.

Matt Thibodeau has disabilities that severely limit how productive he can be and thus how much he can contribute to the bottom line of his employer, Associated Production Services.

Under a longstanding exception to the federal minimum wage, Matt is paid $3.40 an hour for tasks like shrink-wrapping and assembling packages. The rate makes his employment feasible. (The current federal minimum is $7.25.)

Some congressmen want to scrap this exception to the mandatory minimum, calling it unfair and “out of date.”

“I felt like they were being targeted because they couldn’t speak for themselves,” says Matt’s mom, “and so that made us parents even more determined to speak for them.”

What’s out of date, or was never justified to begin with, is Congress’s federal minimum wage regulation.

Any mandatory minimum wage discourages employers from hiring persons not yet productive enough to justify the cost of being employed at the dictated minimum. It prevents low-skilled workers — on the outs of the economy — from getting a foot in the door.

Some employees initially paid only a few dollars an hour will soon improve their productivity and earn a higher wage. Others, like Matt, simply cannot advance further but can provide steady, conscientious labor within the compass of their abilities.

That’s fine. Each party to such an arrangement benefits. And his work enables Matt to be productive and valued, which is tremendously important to him. 

As it is important to all of us.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Categories
national politics & policies social media

Rand on Rumble

Rand Paul, 2016 Presidential Race, Common Sense

“Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, has been suspended from YouTube for seven days,” CNN Business reports, “over a video claiming that masks are ineffective in fighting Covid-19, according to a YouTube spokesperson.”

He is not alone. Videos of other doctors, too, have been taken off YouTube for doing precisely what Dr. Paul has done: quote scientific papers, relate common knowledge, and draw reasonable conclusions … of which, quite apparently, governments, social media companies, and Dr. Fauci don’t approve.

CNN went on to explain: “YouTube indicated that examples of the offending content in the video included the line: ‘Most of the masks you get over the counter don’t work. They don’t prevent infection.’” And this line too: “Trying to shape human behavior isn’t the same as following the actual science which tells us that cloth masks don’t work.”

How anyone at YouTube could take issue with these statements, in a free country, sort of boggles the mind. No wonder Rand Paul called his suspension a “badge of honor” and referred to his censors as “Leftwing cretins.”

The senator expanded his thoughts regarding YouTube’s left-induced/state-supported cretinism on an alternative video sharing site, Rumble — which you can easily access from the Summit News report on Paul’s suspension. “Saying cloth masks work, when they don’t, actually risks lives,” the senator pointed out, in what seems to me as common sense a point as possible. 

We aren’t saved by wishing upon a star, but by helping ourselves and each other. 

Bad means don’t achieve good ends, they hinder.

YouTube increasingly is an enemy of the truth.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Note: Sen. Paul told libertytree.com, “As a libertarian-leaning Senator, I think private companies have the right to ban me if they want to, but I think it is really anti-free speech, anti-progress of science, which involves skepticism and argumentation to arrive at the truth.”

Categories
Fifth Amendment rights national politics & policies subsidy

The Moratorium on Survival

Bill of Rights, property, law

If only Lincoln Eccles were a property owner in Franklin County, Ohio, instead of Kings County, New York. He’d have more of a chance.

Franklin County is defying the latest national moratorium on evictions. Early in August, caving to pressure from socialist Democrats, President Biden directed the CDC to outlaw the evicting of tenants for another 60 days.

A Franklin County court has announced that the county will not obey the ukase. The county cites a recent court of appeals ruling that disputes the authority of the CDC to impose the nationwide moratorium.

In June, the Supreme Court had narrowly refused to lift a previous moratorium in evictions, even though at least one justice in the majority acknowledged that the CDC had exceeded its authority. Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s exact words: “Yes, this is unconstitutional, but . . . well, okay.” (Fine, not his exact words.)

Property owners have bills too. (Not to mention rights.) The less money they get from a property, the less money they have to maintain it, let alone earn profit.

Lincoln Eccles owns a 14-unit building in Crown Heights. Several tenants owe him rent. One owes $40,000. Which has put Eccles behind on utility bills and property taxes. The boiler must be fixed before winter. 

But Kings County is not defying the CDC.

“At this point they’re just abusing us,” Eccles says. “And it’s some version of slavery to me, forcing people to work and produce a product for free, and there’s no compensation.”

Were one to consult the Constitution, one might find a prohibition about public taking of private property “without just compensation,” but governments throughout the union haven’t been consulting that relevant document much lately.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Categories
national politics & policies subsidy

Maxine and Nancy Sure Need Joe

Pelosi, Biden, Congress, Constitution, rent, moratorium

“We thought that the White House was in charge,” explained Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), after the Democratic majority had failed to act on a key pandemic subsidy.

 “Action is needed,” implored a panicky Speaker Pelosi in a statement also signed by the Democratic House leadership, “and it must come from the Administration.”

“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-imposed moratorium [on home evictions] lapsed Sunday — five weeks after the Biden administration said it would extend the measure ‘one final month’ to July 31 and four weeks after the Supreme Court let the ban stand but signaled any new extensions would require Congress to act,” The Washington Post explained.

“But Congress didn’t act.”

Then, yesterday, President Biden responded to exhortations from his party’s left flank by announcing the CDC would extend the federal moratorium regardless of the unmet constitutional requirement.

“The bulk of the constitutional scholarship,” the president acknowledged, “says that it’s not likely to pass constitutional muster.” 

You don’t need to be a constitutional scholar to conclude that this sort of thing is wholly Pelosi’s bailiwick. But forget the Constitution, spending is the supreme law.

Also forgotten are the landlords devastated by the moratorium. They likewise have bills to pay. 

“Congress set aside nearly $50 billion to help families . . . pay the back rent they owe and avoid eviction,” National Public Radio reported. “But that money flowed to states and counties, which . . . have managed to get just a small fraction of the money to the people who need it.”

While the political “need” for bailouts directly resulted from government action — the pandemic lockdowns — blame for the current unconstitutional mess lies squarely with the Democratic Congress.   

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts

Categories
free trade & free markets national politics & policies

First, Fire All the Freelancers

freelance, law, Congress

Congress is about to make the lives of an awful lot of people an awful lot harder.

So what else is new?

But the legislation in play does seem new — in suddenness and scope. 

It would impose massive newfangled regimentation on how we make a living. And it would kill the livelihoods of millions of people.

I refer to people who do gigs and freelance assignments for a living. One might ask why Democrats have it in for this kind of worker. Is it to appease unions? Is it the result of the same ideological forces that drove Karl Marx to despise the professional classes, needing to turn everyone into a prole? 

After all, this anti-freelancer agenda is not new. Similar legislation, called AB5, was tried a few years ago in California, instituted at the behest of activists eager to reduce competition with union work and remove chances for non-9-to-5 ways of making a living.

The premier target was ride-share companies Uber and Lyft. But many were caught in the net. AB5 created havoc throughout the state. Even socialist freelancers hated its mass murder of options and opportunity.

AB5-style congressional legislation to outlaw gig or freelance work except under very restricted circumstances is now being discussed in the U.S. Senate after having passed the U.S. House. It would also give unions many ugly new weapons to use to impose themselves on employees and employers.

In California, AB5 was mostly repealed by a citizen initiative.

Will there be a national citizen initiative to also promptly repeal the Protecting the Right to Organize Act? Unlikely, since Americans currently lack the right to enact national citizen initiatives.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts