Category: national politics & policies

insider corruption national politics & policies

Rage Against the Machine

Tulsi Gabbard, Democrats, socialism, moderates,

The Democratic Insider Machine’s pushing of sorta senile Biden against socialist Sanders is quite breathtaking.

But that isn’t even the entirety of the Machine’s anti-democratic agenda.

“The establishment narrative warfare against [Representative Tulsi] Gabbard’s campaign dwarfs anything we’ve seen against Sanders,” writes Caitlin Johnstone on her popular blog, “and the loathing and dismissal they’ve been able to generate have severely hamstrung her run.”

No kidding. But why would the Machine prefer Sanders over Gabbard?

“It turns out that a presidential candidate can get away with talking about economic justice and plutocracy when it comes to domestic policy,” Ms. Johnstone goes on, “and some light dissent on matters of foreign policy will be tolerated, but aggressively attacking the heart of the actual bipartisan foreign policy consensus will get you shut down, smeared and shunned like nothing else.”

This pro-war, anti-Tulsi agenda was seen right after SuperTuesday.

You see, Representative Gabbard got a delegate, from American Samoa (where Michael Bloomberg’s vast fortune also nabbed a delegate). And, by the rules that have been followed so far, a delegate gets you onto the big debate stage.

But almost immediately, word from the Democratic National Committee hit the Twittersphere: “We have two more debates — of course the threshold will go up. By the time we have the March debate, almost 2,000 delegates will be allocated. The threshold will reflect where we are in the race, as it always has.”

The DNC — the Machine — is rewriting the rules.

Tulsi must not speak.

Even if her competence and ecumenical appeal might actually save the Democratic Party, were her name to replace Biden and Sanders in the second or third voting round of a contested convention.

Such a fierce opponent of regime-change wars is obviously unacceptable to the Machine.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags Democrats, moderates, socialism, Tulsi Gabbard

media and media people national politics & policies

In, Over and About

Sometimes losing track of a story pays off.

Last week, Facebook and Twitter and that minor player, the “major” news media, erupted with Democrats glorying in and gloating over and harrumphing about a story from Reliable Liar & Leaker Adam Schiff — I think that may be his semi-official position in the House of Representatives.

Schiff’s office confirmed that the House Intelligence Committee — which, in fact, Schiff chairs — had been briefed on February 13th to the effect that Russia favors the Trump Administration and will again, this year, ‘interfere’ in U.S. presidential elections.

Meanwhile, Senator Bernie Sanders, who is running for the presidency as a Democrat but who calls himself a ‘democratic socialist’ (but of whom Nobel Laureate in Amnesia Paul Krugman dubs a mere ‘social democrat’) . . . well, he got in the news with the story that he had been briefed with “intelligence” that Russia was trying to throw the race towards him. Sanders sputtered his protests.

In 2016, it has been determined, Russian operatives had placed lame social media ‘memes’ into the political mill, impressing no one at the time, but scandalizing Democrats after the ‘inexplicable’ loss of their much-hated candidate, Hillary Clinton.

Perhaps they are priming their Excuse Reservoir for another ignominious defeat?

Anyway, last week I was so distracted that I did not comment on the whole story. Which, conveniently, has now received enough “pushback,” denials and contradictions to close the chapter on it.

In record time, it was over.

That’s about it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags elections, interference, Putin, Russia, Vladimir Putin

national politics & policies political challengers

The Superdelegate Zombie Apocalypse

Post author By Redactor
Post date February 26, 2020
2 Comments on The Superdelegate Zombie Apocalypse

Back in 2016, this commentary was perhaps the first howl in the political wilderness against the unfairness of the Democratic Party’s use of “superdelegates” — office holders and party officials who by party rules automatically serve as unelected but voting delegates at the national convention . . . which chooses the presidential nominee.

Four years ago, the superdelegates, who account for roughly 15 percent of the total delegate vote, favored Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders by an incredible 97 to 3 percent.

Fast forward to 2020 and Dems have made what DNC Chair Tom Perez called “historic” changes to this ‘super-delegation’ — now referred to as “automatic” delegates. These non-elected insiders may not vote on the first ballot.

That’s a big deal.

But with so many candidates still in the contest, and those contests front-loaded — next week’s Super Tuesday features primaries in 14 states, including populous California and Texas — it appears unlikely that any candidate will garner a majority of delegates on the first ballot.

And next come the superdelegates.

And, again, they are likely to hurt the Vermont senator.

“Sanders . . . could win the most pledged delegates — those allocated on the basis of votes during the marathon Democratic primaries,” explains The Guardian, “but be swindled, at the last, by the Democratic party elite.”

That is not all. “DNC members discuss rules change to stop Sanders at convention,” reads a recent Politico headline.

Reporting from the “sidelines of a DNC executive committee meeting,” Politico discloses discussions regarding “the possibility of a policy reversal to ensure that so-called superdelegates can vote on the first ballot at the party’s national convention.”

Democratic process does not appear to be the Democrats’ strong suit.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags Democrat, primary elections, superdelegate, zombie

national politics & policies political challengers

The Mandela Effect

People have been known to plagiarize college term papers. Even a few political speeches have been surreptitiously copied and brazenly re-orated without proper attribution. But you can’t plagiarize getting arrested, can you?

Not really. What you can do is lie about being arrested — just make it up out of whole cloth.

That may be what former Vice-President and once-upon-a-time Democratic Party presidential front-runner Joe Biden has been doing in recent days “as he confronts challenging political headwinds,” following fourth and fifth place finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire, respectively — though he came in (a distant) second in Nevada over the weekend.

“I had the great honor of meeting [Nelson Mandela],” Biden told a South Carolina crowd last week. “I had the great honor of being arrested with our U.N. ambassador on the streets of Soweto trying to get to see [Mandela] on Robbens Island.”

“No, I was never arrested,” U.N. Ambassador at that time, Andrew Young, now 87, told The New York Times, “and I don’t think he was, either.”

Back in 1977, Mr. Biden was Senator Biden from Delaware. Methinks the arrest of a U.S. Senator by a foreign government might spark at least a single news story. Be informed: “A check of available news accounts by The New York Times turned up no references to an arrest.”

The Times also notes that Biden “did not mention it in his 2007 memoir when writing about a 1970s trip to South Africa.”

Plagiarism sunk Biden’s 1988 presidential campaign. This time out, the politician’s gaffes, bouts of bizarre truculence, and age-related physical failings have hampered his quest. Add to all that, now, the apparent fact that Joe can’t even get arrested.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

N.B. The upshot of the Biden candidacy may amount to nothing more than an increased interest in “the Mandela Effect.”

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Tags Joe Biden, Nelson Mandela, plagiarism

crime and punishment national politics & policies

Frisky Friends

Michael Bloomberg, Donald Trump, stop and frisk,

“WOW, BLOOMBERG IS A TOTAL RACIST!” tweeted President Donald J. Trump.

He was reacting to a recording, recently unearthed, of Democratic presidential aspirant Michael Bloomberg speaking to the Aspen Institute in 2015 about his controversial “stop-and-frisk” police policy while mayor of New York City.

“Ninety-five percent of your murders, murderers and murder victims fit one M.O.,” Bloomberg told his audience. “You can just take the description, Xerox it and pass it out to all the cops. They are male, minorities, 16 to 25. . . . that’s where the real crime is.”

“And the way you get the guns out of the kids’ hands,” explained Mayor Mike, “is to throw them up against the wall and frisk them.”

Bloomberg has since apologized for targeting young male minorities to be regularly detained, searched, harassed and thrown into walls by police on the basis of nothing more than being young male minorities. Ultimately, a federal court struck down Bloomberg’s program as an unconstitutional mass violation of Fourth Amendment rights.

“We did it in New York, it worked incredibly well and you have to be proactive and, you know, you really help people sort of change their mind automatically,” Trump argued in 2016, floating a national roll-out and defending Bloomberg as “a very good mayor.”

Back in 2009, Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Trump were together on something else: Bloomberg disregarding a campaign promise and defying two clear citywide referendums to run for a third mayor term.

“Well, I’m not a believer in term limits,” Trump said then, adding, “Michael is a friend of mine.”

Funny, asked about then-Sen. Hillary Clinton, Trump offered, “I think she’s a wonderful women,” but “she’s a little bit misunderstood.”

Not long after posting the racist-baiting tweet noted above, the president deleted it.

We understand.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags crime, Donald Trump, law, Michael Bloomberg, stop and frisk

First Amendment rights national politics & policies political challengers

Dem Noodles

Tom Steyer, Michael Bloomberg, Citizens United, free speech, money,

Though skipping Iowa and New Hampshire, Michael Bloomberg’s advertisements are ubiquitous on television and YouTube seemingly everywhere in America.

“New Hampshire voters to Steyer: Make it stop!” reads a Politico headline sparked by that taller, poorer billionaire’s unbearable barrage of spots.

At Reason, Eric Boehm notes that Bloomberg and Tom Steyer — both very rich and both running for the Democratic nomination for the presidency — are proving that money cannot buy elections. “Given how Bloomberg and Steyer have struggled to gain traction despite their willingness to set fire to their respective campaign war chests, it’s a bit ironic to hear some of their Democratic primary opponents repeatedly bemoaning the influence of money in politics.”

But Senator Elizabeth Warren’s complaints about the two billionaires are almost certainly just playing to partisan prejudice, which has been seeded for years by the left’s relentless complaints about the Citizens United decision.

Eric Boehm argues that the reality is the opposite of the propaganda: overturning Citizens United would make it easier, not harder, for rich folks to game the system.

But in Free Speech America, the Bloomberg and Steyer advertising efforts are proving unimpressive. “While it is foolish to rule out any electoral outcome in a world where Donald Trump is president,” Mr. Boehm writes, “voters have responded to both Democratic billionaires with a resounding meh, and there seems to be little reason to think that will change next year, no matter how much money the two candidates pour into the race.”

You don’t eat spaghetti by pushing wet noodles. You gotta entice voters to slurp down your message.

Bloomberg and Steyer, the very soggiest of noodles, are living proof..

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags Citizens United, Michael Bloomberg, Tom Steyer

general freedom national politics & policies The Draft

Draft Winds Blowing

draft, conscription, slavery, registration, force,

A month ago, the U.S. drone strike against an Iranian commander in Baghdad sparked enough public concern over military conscription to overwhelm the Selective Service System’s website.

“With the ongoing military conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan unlikely to end any time soon,” former Congressman Ron Paul writes, people are “right to be concerned about a return of the draft.”

“There is not going to be a draft,” SSS Director Don Benton emphatically declared. “At least, we don’t think so.”

The current context? Last February, a federal judge ruled male-only draft registration unconstitutional. On March 3, the Fifth Circuit will hear the government’s appeal of that ruling.*

A few weeks later, the National Commission on Military, National and Public Service will release their report to Congress on what to do with draft registration — jettison or keep and expand to young women — as well as the advisability of a year or two of compulsory government service after young people graduate from high school.

The issue is really very old unfinished business. “The U.S. draft proposal that no one supported,” reads the headline of a February 8, 1980, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation article on then-President Jimmy Carter’s proposal to register both men and women.

Back then, women were not permitted in combat units, and Carter’s proposal did not propose putting women into such positions. Still, as the CBC’s Washington correspondent at the time explained, “On Capitol Hill, the reaction was overwhelmingly negative.”

Especially because of a Catch-22. “Those who are for the draft are mostly against women being included,” he found. “Those who favor equal treatment for women are mostly against the draft.”

Nowadays, support for the draft is, if anything, even less enthusiastic.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* See National Organization for Men v. Selective Service System.

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Tags conscription, draft, force, registration, slavery

initiative, referendum, and recall national politics & policies

Impeachments Are Forever?

Pharaoh Thutmose III, history, myth, memory,

The impeachment of President Donald J. Trump, just concluded in the Senate with an acquittal, was — so far as the Senate trial portion of the exercise is concerned — the least partisan presidential impeachment in U.S. history.

That’s because Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah) was the first senator ever to vote against his own party in such a proceeding.

Before we give the notorious flip-flopper a ticker-tape parade, or query too deeply into his personal animus against Trump, let’s acknowledge that the House impeachment, proper, was heavily partisan, and is only going to get more-so.

What? you ask.

How can a past event get more or less of anything?

Well, House Republicans, expecting a big backlash against Democrats next November, are already plotting to “expunge” the impeachment from the record.

As if to stick it to Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s bizarre point that her House’s action would be “an impeachment that lasts forever.”

Sorta like Pharaoh Thutmose III chiseling his mother’s name — Hatshepsut — off the monuments of Egypt.

The Republicans’ planned “damnatio memoriae” is a good clue to the moral of this story: the impeachment process is . . . “not good,” to apply a Trumpian mantra.

Now, the process of impeachment has long seemed to me like a great idea — another one from those wise framers of the Constitution.

But with persistent partisanship, this constitutional recourse has not worked out very well.

Overall.

Historically.

Whether in 1868, with Democrat Andrew Johnson, or 1999, with Democrat Bill Clinton, or today, with Trump’s failed ouster, the impeachment process has proved (Romney notwithstanding) maddeningly partisan, and looks like it will only get more partisan — with House Democrats already talking about a second impeachment of Trump.

We need some new form of recall.

Citizen-based, perhaps?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags history, memory, myth, Pharaoh Thutmose III

ideological culture national politics & policies

The Blue Plate Special

Blue Plate Special, Democrats, socialism,

The biggest stories don’t always come in threes, but they sure did this week.

The Iowa Democratic Caucus debacle, President Trump’s State of the Union Address, and the Senate’s acquittal of the president after the House’s impeachment — big stories of big losses for Democrats.

As I write this, we still lack a “winner” on the Democratic side in Iowa. Blame is publicly given to the goofy “app” the Iowa Democratic Party bought to make the caucusing and counting oh-so-much easier. But I wouldn’t blame Bernie supporters for engaging in a little conspiracy conjecturing — the maker of the app has close ties to the Clinton machine.

And if you cannot sniff a concerted anti-Bernie agenda on the part of establishment Democrats, your sniffer is broken.

Indeed, The Young Turks ably showed how major-media news sources skew stories away from the socialist from Vermont — by emphasizing the candidacies of Biden and Buttigieg.*

One can see why centrist Democrats would want to scuttle a serious socialist movement within their party, but it may be too little too late. After decades of courting the Gimme-Gimme vote with Loot the Rich demagoguery, socialistic attitudes have long been on the menu. So getting a hot, steaming socialism served back at them as a Blue Plate Special?

Priceless.

Literally.

But not costless.

For the cost is reasonability and decorum. After Trump ceased speaking before Congress yesterday, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi ripped up copies of the president’s address just to show her disdain for the president.

But it also shows frustration. The speech is over. Impeachment is over. Iowa is, incredibly, not yet over. And Pelosi’s party — under her guidance — is in complete and utter disarray.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Ana Kasparian makes a pretty convincing case that Senator Bernie Sanders is the most popular of the three, and could even bring in independent voters.

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Tags Blue Plate Special, Democrats, socialism

national politics & policies political challengers

Defamed by the Devil

Challenged to a push-up contest at a town hall campaign meeting in New Hampshire, Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) hit the floor and won.

The presidential candidate (polling at 5.4 percent in the Granite State) probably will not win the nomination, alas.

Or her lawsuit against Hillary Clinton.

Lawsuit?

Yes, a slander suit against the author of What Happened.

It is one thing to publicly call out Mrs. Clinton for her prevaricative snipes — but sue her?

Boldness, at the very least.

Would you dare to stand directly in Hillary’s way?

Not to give credence to old #ClintonBodyCount conjectures, which connected a number of strange deaths in close proximity to her and her husband’s transit through the firmament of power, including old and more recent “suicides” . . . but the hashtag #TulsiDidntKillHerself is now trending on Twitter.

The lawsuit — dubbed a publicity stunt by David Frum in The Atlantic — involves Hillary’s public speculations (or conspiracy theory, if you will) that Tulsi is a “Russian agent.”

“Tulsi Gabbard is running for President of the United States, a position Clinton has long coveted, but has not been able to attain,” explains the lawsuit, filed in the State of New York. “In October 2019 — whether out of personal animus, political enmity, or fear of real change within a political party Clinton and her allies have long dominated — Clinton lied about her perceived rival Tulsi Gabbard. She did so publicly, unambiguously, and with obvious malicious intent.”

I am not a lawyer, but . . . while Mrs. Clinton’s insinuations-and-worse were malicious and almost certainly untrue, perhaps even diabolical, in our politics lying is the norm and hardly legally actionable.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags Hillary Clinton, Russia, Tulsi Gabbard