Category: national politics & policies

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national politics & policies political challengers

Biden’s Big Lie

Joe Biden, good people hoax, liar, lies, DNC

“In war,” Aeschylus wrote in the fifth century BC, “truth is the first casualty.”

So, too, these days, in political campaigns. 

Last week, in accepting the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, Joe Biden promised to “draw on the best of us” and “be an ally of the light.” But then the 47-year Washington veteran pivoted, waving the bloody shirt from Charlottesville by claiming that President Donald Trump had declared “neo-Nazis and Klansmen and white supremacists” to be “very fine people,” and therefore “we were in a battle for the soul of this nation.”

Did Trump dub some neo-Nazis “very fine people”?

“And you had some very bad people in that group,” the president explained to a reporter. “But you also had people that were very fine people — on both sides. You had people in that group who were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statute and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.”

Noting that “George Washington was a slave-owner,” Mr. Trump asked, “Are we going to take down statues to George Washington? . . . 

“It’s fine, you’re changing history, you’re changing culture, and you had people,” he continued. “And I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally.”

Unequivocal.

Outraged by the Democratic contender’s false contention, cartoonist and podcaster Scott Adams called Biden a “Brain-Dead Race Hoaxer” . . . and worse.

But Biden is hardly alone. The Democrats and most of the media join in ignoring Trump’s explicit statements, pushing their myopically malevolent misinterpretation. 

Should this smear defeat Trump in November, an era of political truth-telling will not be ushered in.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Months ago, the Annenberg Center’s FactCheck.org determined that Mr. Biden, in asserting that President Trump had failed to condemn neo-Nazis, had made false claims against the president — ignoring numerous recordings in living color of the president making those exact censures.

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government transparency national politics & policies

A Glossary for Our Times

Trump Derangement Syndrome, TDS, Covid 19, infection, virus, meme

Reminder: SARS-CoV-2 is the name of the virus that is said to cause COVID-19.

Scientists and doctors are still learning about the novel virus and the new disease. Much of the information is uncertain, in part because it has become politicized, making it hard to navigate both medical and political subjects.

Making sense of the data or the arguments is more difficult because people confuse the terminology. The virus is not the disease, the disease is not the virus, though by metonymy, we do swap terms. Don’t let a mere figure of speech fool you.

As awful as COVID-19 is, in America, more citizens are affected negatively by the virus popularly known as TDS. 

Perhaps we should call it TDS-2016, since the three letters stand for “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” Though the mind-virus (meme) was rampant from the moment Donald Trump announced his candidacy in 2015, the illness is not the meme itself. The illness, or behavioral syndrome, is how host brains process the meme. And it did not really set in as a disease until Trump got the Republican nomination. That’s when Democrats stopped laughing so hard and began to take Trump seriously.

And drive themselves crazy.

As with COVID-19, the worst cases depend upon co-morbidities. In TDS-2016’s case, co-morbidities include a sense of entitlement (that your side must always win); a denial of culpability in ramping up political polarization (in such things as the corruption-challenged candidacy of Hillary Clinton); and in flirting with other memes (such as “democratic socialism” and “wokism”).

As we approach Election Day 2020, TDS-2016 will only grow. The meme itself has proven resilient. We appear not to have reached herd immunity yet.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Definitions:

meme n. 1. an element of a culture or system of behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means, especially imitation. 2. a humorous image, video, piece of text, etc., that is copied (often with slight variations) and spread rapidly by Internet users.

metonymy n. a figure of speech featuring the substitution of the name of an attribute or adjunct for that of the thing meant, for example suit for business executive, or the track for horse racing.

herd immunity n. a key concept in epidemiology where the resistance to the spread of a contagious disease within a population that results when a sufficiently high proportion of individuals become immune to the disease, through exposure by infection or vaccination: the level of vaccination needed to achieve herd immunity varies by disease but ranges from 83 to 94 percent. [Discussions of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 that do not mention herd immunity can only have limited value.]

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national politics & policies

Of Bats and Debates

bat, flag, debate, Trump, Biden, Obama

How batty is 2020’s politics?

Adding one absurdity upon another, a minor party candidate got attention this weekend for something even more bizarre than Biden’s bumbling or Trump’s trolling:

She got bit by a bat and is now undergoing painful treatment for rabies.

Her name is Jo Jorgensen, Libertarian Party presidential candidate. 

So far, reports on this development have focused on her Twitter account, where jokes abound. 

But what dominates her Twitter feed are the usual-for-Libertarians demands that she be included “in the debates.”

What debates?

Is anyone certain that there will be debates at all? Behind in the polls, Donald Trump seems eager to debate, but . . . Joe Biden?

Well, the Biden camp has agreed to three debates and the candidate says he is “so forward looking [sic] to have an opportunity to sit with the president, or stand with the president, in debates.” But Trump wants more.

And some Democrats want none, for in that same interview (which has gone more viral than rabies), as elsewhere, Biden made so many bizarre gaffes that most folks are beginning to assume that, against the Donald, Biden might wilt worse than a vampire in sunlight.

Biden, who will not even attend his own ostensible nominating convention, remains largely sequestered, under cover of panicky pandemic protocols. Unless the Democrats somehow replace him, the odds of there being debates at all seem low. 

And if Trump’s too much for Biden, what is a Libertarian to the two major parties? The Libertarians have been excluded for a reason.* Introduction of substantive, orthogonal-to-the-duopoly ideas into a national debate might show the major parties for what they are: cognitively challenged.

What a year! Bats.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Amusingly, Donald Trump called the exclusion of challenger parties “disgraceful” . . . back when he was in the Reform Party. I doubt he’d be on board the #LetHerSpeak campaign today — unless he was certain there would be no debates.

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general freedom national politics & policies

Masking Upside Down

upside down, inside out, masks, surveillance

After initially being downgraded as worthless, perhaps even harmful, masks are now heavily promoted. There are even demands that the federal government step in to make mask-wearing mandatory.

Nationwide. 

Bad idea. And I could marshal a number of arguments to make the case. Indeed, one really sticks out: when the CCP virus is no longer the fear, but a bad flu season strikes at an unsuspecting populace, will the masks be required then, too? What’s the threshold? How do we decide when to go into all-panic mode?

How much better it would be to argue for mask-wearing as a matter of manners — consideration for others during pandemics or simply if ill — than as policeable government policy. 

And maybe we should look at it upside down. You know, like we can reflect on school closures in perpetuity as a possible blessing — because they encourage private and communal responses.

Maybe it is a downside up, but the current pro-mask state mandates mean that governments cannot stop you from wearing masks when they don’t want you to wear masks.

All around the world, but especially in Britain, and increasingly in the United States, mass surveillance with face-recognition AI is turning free peoples into the subjects of Big Brother’s watchful gaze.

Frightening.

And the easiest way to throw a monkey wrench into face-recognition systems is to wear masks when we are out.

They can hardly stop us when they are requiring masks because of contagion fears. So even if the forces of totalitarian control fail to mandate masks nationally, take the “new normal” as an excuse to mess up their larger agenda.

Big Brother?

You may lose this one after all.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment insider corruption national politics & policies

The Thick Blue Line

crime, criminal justice, Congress

In Minnesota — Land of 10,000 Lakes and a startling number of police killings of unarmed, innocent citizens, including George Floyd — the state legislature has “passed the most expansive criminal justice reforms in the state’s history.”

Though acknowledged as merely a start, it is good news. As are the banning in many major departments of neck restraints, and the kibosh placed on chokeholds in the nation’s capital.

Yet Eric Gardner died back in 2014 when placed in a chokehold by New York City police. Nevertheless, there is still no NYC ordinance against it. Numerous other cities also lack any such rule or law.

Why the glacial slowness?

It isn’t for lack of popular support. According to Cato Institute’s newly-released poll, 63 percent favor ending qualified immunity for police. 

So what is it? It’s no mystery; we do not need a blue ribbon investigative effort.

The Washington Post reports that reform-minded police chiefs and city officials “have repeatedly . . . run headlong into two formidable and interconnected forces: veteran officers who resist these efforts and the powerful unions fighting discipline.”

That second factor is key. Police unions are “powerful,” in part, because their political endorsement at election time means more to elected officials than the reform-minded opinions of mere citizens. 

So when you learn that, at the federal level, Democrats recently killed all prospects for criminal justice reform this year, you will not find yourself flummoxed.

Sadly, this festering dysfunction in our representative system corrupts our justice system.

And deaths result.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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initiative, referendum, and recall national politics & policies

Greater Idaho Goes Forward?

Greater Idaho, state, secession,

An Oregon case, People Not Politicians v. Secretary of State Clarno, was decided last week in favor of People Not Politicians, a group that has struggled obtaining signatures to qualify Initiative Petition 57 (IP 57) for the November 2020 ballot — while observing the governor’s stay-at-home orders.

It is hard to collect petition signatures under social distancing.

So the court is forcing the Secretary of State to give the group some leeway in advancing their redistricting measure.

This is good news for another citizen activist group, Move Oregon’s Border. Chief Petitioner Mike McCarter wants to place initiatives on county ballots in eastern, southern, and southwestern Oregon. His idea is to split off from Willamette Valley politics altogether, leaving wokester Portland — of the comedy Portlandia and antifa riots fame — in the distance.

But he does not want to form a new state. The secession is mere prelude to accession . . . to Idaho!

It has been a long time since the United States has fissioned a state, West Virginia during the Civil War being the most recent — Maine and Kentucky before that.

Great idea? Well, this goes far beyond these two western states. California is ripe for break-up, for by such a political reformation the ratio of citizens to representatives could be increased in favor of citizens.

The idea of calling the proposed new, larger State of Idaho “Greater Idaho” seems a bit much. Surely “Idaho” would do.

But the idea is politically more possible because it wouldn’t change the partisan complexion of the United States Senate, thus avoiding riling up one of the two major parties.

Other fissions, and fusions, would be much harder. Too bad. People should be able to insist on better representation. Democratically.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment national politics & policies property rights

Dereliction of Duty

police, riot, law, protection,

Must governments act to protect you when you or your property are attacked — for example, by rioters who vandalize and burn your store? 

Is the government liable if it willfully lets it happen?

Protection of life and property is the moral obligation of governments constituted for this purpose. But whether officials who ignore the obligation can be held to account is another question.

A Madison Avenue shop, Domus Design Center, is suing the mayor of New York City and the governor of New York State. In late May and early June, hundreds of businesses were damaged by rioters while Mayor de Blasio and Governor Cuomo refused to act to oppose them.

“Where are our tax dollars going?” asks the Center’s attorney, Sal Strazzullo. “Not protecting commercial properties is negligence of duty. Paying taxes that help pay the salary of the NYPD, we expect protection in return. Government is responsible to protect its citizens and businesses against criminals who want to do bad.”

Yes. 

But Strazzullo’s client faces the precedents of rulings in cases like Warren v. District of Columbia, Castle Rock v. Gonzales, and a lawsuit by Parkland, Florida students against the local sheriff’s office. In these cases, plaintiffs argued that law enforcers had a positive duty to protect the plaintiffs when they were being clearly threatened. 

The courts disagreed.

We must hope that there are limits to the willingness and ability of judges to avert their gaze. Otherwise, we are paying everyone in the system to look the other way when trouble comes.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Photo by Georgia National Guard

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national politics & policies too much government

A Modest Anti-Capitalism?

Sawant, Seattle, socialism,

Socialists are so “modest”!

But how modest?

Ask Rep. Ilhan Omar, who recently proclaimed to be “fighting to tear down systems of oppression that exist in housing, in education, in health care, in employment, in the air we breathe.” 

Gasp?

Well, maybe that isn’t so clear. So listen to Seattle City Councilwoman Kshama Sawant.

“I have a message for Jeff Bezos and his class,” Sawant warned. “If you attempt again to overturn the Amazon Tax, working people will go all out in the thousands to beat you. And we will not stop there.”

Does that sound like a threat? Or is it really just a harmless expression of politics-as-usual?

“You see, we are fighting for far more than this tax,” the self-proclaimed socialist elaborated. “We are preparing the ground for a different kind of society, and if you, Jeff Bezos, want to drive that process forward by lashing out against us in our modest demands, then so be it. Because we are coming for you and your rotten system. We are coming to dismantle this deeply oppressive, racist, sexist, violent, utterly bankrupt system of capitalism. This police state. We cannot and will not stop until we overthrow it, and replace it with a world based, instead, on solidarity, genuine democracy, and equality: a socialist world. Thank you.”

And thank you, Ms. Sawant, for making yourself ultra-understandable.

You want to destroy private property and free markets and robust political debate and replace them with . . . well, let’s just say that if you complain about a police state now, wait’ll you get a load of what follows from your “modest” demands.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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international affairs national politics & policies scandal

WHO Don’t You Love?

WHO, World Health Organization, Coronavirus, Covid,

“It leaves Americans sick,” tweeted Sen. Robert Menendez, the Foreign Relations Committee’s top Democrat, “and America alone.”

Feeling lonely? 

The Trump administration has officially informed both the United Nations and Congress that the U.S. will withdraw from the World Health Organization effective July 6, 2021. 

“China has total control over the World Health Organization,” the president asserted, and covered up critical information about COVID-19, thereby enabling a very deadly worldwide pandemic.

And did so with the WHO’s help, he argues.

“Elements of Trump’s critique have resonated well beyond the White House,” notes the virulently anti-Trump Washington Post. “Foreign governments and current WHO advisers have questioned why the WHO amplified false Chinese claims in the early days of the outbreak and repeatedly praised Beijing as the virus spread.”

Back in April, President Trump demanded the WHO agree to “substantive improvements” within 30 days. “We will be terminating our relationship,” Trump announced a month later, “and directing those funds” to other global health efforts. This week, it was made official.

Funds? The U.S. is the largest donor nation, providing 15 percent of the WHO budget — more than $400 million in 2019. The BBC reports, “The withdrawal will call into question the WHO’s financial viability.”

Of course, many Democrats, global health experts, and editorial pages attacked the move as “dangerous,” “likely to cost lives” and lead to a loss of U.S. “influence.”*

Influence? 

Those running the United Nations or its agencies cannot now ignore U.S. complaints. 

The threat of funding cuts? 

No longer are they mere bluster only for show.

Mr. Trump may feel lonesome . . . what other U.S. president would buck** the establishment to stop our tax dollars from flowing to an unaccountable U.N. agency? 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* “On my first day as President,” Democratic Party candidate Joe Biden pledged on Twitter, “I will rejoin the WHO and restore our leadership on the world stage.”

** Some have disputed the president’s constitutional authority to unilaterally withdraw from the WHO. “[T]he U.S. joined the WHO via a joint resolution rather than through the mechanism set out in the Constitution’s Treaty Clause, it is what is sometimes termed an ex post congressional-executive agreement,” explains University of Pennsylvania Law Professor Jean Galbraith. “Presidents have withdrawn the U.S. from such agreements on a few prior occasions.”

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national politics & policies political economy too much government

The Slow Bullet

slow motion bullet, debt,

Modern government finance is like Russian Roulette . . . but with incredibly slow bullets.

We spend money. We create money out of thin air. We borrow it. We promise the Moon. We deliver rocks. With each action, we spin the chamber and pull the trigger. That slowround doesn’t immediately hit, so we do it again.

Calling the perennial deficits and ballooning debt a “predictable crisis,” Nick Gillespie at Reason writes that our federal government’s debt “is already choking down economic growth, but in the future, it could lead to ‘sudden inflation,’ and ‘a loss of confidence in the federal government’s ability or commitment to repay its debts in full.’” And worse: “‘Such a crisis could spread globally’ causing some ‘financial institutions to fail.’ That’s all according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which has been warning Americans about the long-term consequence of the ballooning debt for years.”

This is an old warning. I have been talking about it for years, too. So have you. But once politicians start playing the game, it’s hard for them to stop. They see and we see the benefits, but that slow motion slug has yet to strike the target. 

Gillespie makes a better analogy than “slow bullets” (which don’t exist): “Like the coronavirus, the debt problem has the potential to seemingly appear out of the blue and turn our world upside down in a matter of weeks.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb gained fame talking about “black swans,” major events we cannot predict. But he insists that the financial crisis resulting from government overspending is not a black swan. It’s predictable. We just do not know when.

Here’s a fourth analogy:

In free fall, you don’t feel a thing . . . until you hit the pavement.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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