Category: national politics & policies

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national politics & policies The Draft

Five Days Left!

draft, registration, slavery, war, freedom,

You may have noticed me take notice . . . repeatedly . . . of an otherwise little-noticed National Commission on Military, National and Public Service (NCMNPS). It was established by Congress in 2017 to look into the issue of extending draft registration to women or let the federal courts end registration for not including women.

While I protested the atavistic practice, loud calls could be heard to bring back military conscription partially or universally . . . or to impose a year or two of national “service” on all young people when they turn 18 — despite its utter lack of value.

The last day of the year — Dec. 31, 2019 — is your deadline to quickly and easily express your thoughts on the draft here. 

Thankfully, as the Commission is finishing its work (making its report in March — don’t forget to share your thoughts!), Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) and Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) have introduced House Resolution 5492. “To repeal the Military Selective Service Act, and thereby terminate the registration requirements of such Act . . .”* 

“Today, with the introduction of H.R. 5492, the report of the NCMNPS due in March 2020, and Congress likely to be forced by pending legal cases to choose between ending draft registration and trying to expand it to women as well as men,” 1980s draft registration resister Edward Hasbrouck writes at AntiWar.com, “we are closer to ending draft registration than at any time since the requirement for all young men to register with the Selective Service System was reinstated in 1980.”

Speak loudly to the Commission now and let’s carry all the big sticks we can to Congress in the new year with one simple message: Pass H.R. 5492.  

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* The legislation would also end what are sometimes lifetime penalties imposed by federal agencies and state governments against those who fail to register.

Draft Links of Note: https://thisiscommonsense.org////2019/01/01/paul-jacob-on-the-draft/

Archive of Posts on the Draft: https://thisiscommonsense.org////category/the-draft/

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national politics & policies too much government

Income Inequality Takes Leave?

family leave, rights, privileges,

While addicts of partisan politics overdosed on impeachment, the Trump Administration wheeled and dealed with Congress to give more than two million federal workers 12 weeks of paid family leave and start up plans to establish a new and separate military service, the Space Force.

“It is long overdue. It doesn’t go far enough,” declared The Washington Post editorial board. 

And the editors weren’t referring to the Space Force. It is paid family leave that “represents an important step in the effort to make paid leave a guaranteed right for all U.S. workers.”

Hey, I’m a big fan of paid family leave, but as an earned, negotiated benefit of employment, not some pretend “human right.” 

Certainly, the legislation enacted did not bestow a right, but a benefit . . . to be paid for by hard-working taxpayers who likely do not themselves enjoy such generous employment bennies. 

“[A]ccording to the Bureau of Labor Statistics,” informs The Post, “only 17 percent of workers have access to paid family leave.”

Once upon a time, government workers did not make as much money as private sector workers but enjoyed far greater job security and more generous benefits. But by measure after measure, public sector employees today make more money too.*

Which brings us to another Post worry: income inequality. 

“The Washington, D.C. area, home to the federal government and noted for ‘double-dipping’ salaries,” writes Paul Bedard in the Washington Examiner, “is the wealthiest region in the country.”

The new family leave bill throws more money at the nation’s top five richest counties — all in the capital’s metro area.

We are not talking about “rights,” here, but about political “privilege.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Federal workers also receive generous pensions, while 87 percent of the folks paying taxes to fund those pensions lack their own. 

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education and schooling national politics & policies

A Flip-Flop, Not an Echo

Joe Biden, school choice, meme, flip-flop,

“If I’m President, Betsy DeVos’s whole notion [of school choice], from charter schools to this, are gone.”

That’s what Joe Biden, presidential candidate, had to say this December at an education forum.

Charter schools are K-12 schools that are publicly funded but managed semi-independently— not by the standard educational bureaucracy. Biden’s repudiation represents a break with the Obama administration, which had voiced support for charter schools. 

One reason for Obama’s support may have been that so many Democratic voters, like other voters, want an alternative to standard public schools. 

According to a survey conducted by Beck Research, 56 percent of Democrats “favor the concept of school choice,” with “school choice” understood to mean giving parents “the right to use tax dollars designated for their child’s education to send their child to the public or private school which best serves their needs.”

Once upon a time, Biden supported greater educational opportunity — explicitly, not just tacitly as a member of the Obama administration. But now he slams charter schools for taking money from public schools. (But in a different way from how public schools take money from taxpayers.) More and more, this man’s “moderation” seems indistinguishable from opposition to any even halting expansion of our freedom.

Andrew Cuff of the Commonwealth Foundation suggests that a Democratic presidential candidate who advocates school choice will gain an edge over his competitors — given the popularity of school choice among Democratic voters.

How about it, Joe? Flip-flop again.

But this time in favor of freedom.

And better education.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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national politics & policies

Impeachment Day, 2020

Adam Schiff, impeachment, Donald Trump,

“The difference between this and parody?” asked Loserthink author Scott Adams, referring to Adam Schiff’s latest rationale for impeaching the president. His answer: no difference. 

“It’s completely merged.”

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Cal.), repeating a theme he had been pushing all week on talk shows, had tweeted to explain why the Democrats “had to move forward with articles of impeachment:

The threat persists. 

The plot goes on.

And Trump’s efforts to cheat in the next election will never stop.

The President — and his lawyer — continue to make the case for his own removal.

Scott Adams found it impossible not to see this as an appeal to ‘pre-crime’ to distract us from the paucity of evidence the two impeachment committees had collated. 

After yesterday’s deed had been done, Schiff castigated Republicans for failing to vote for the “historic” impeachment. “They have made their choice and I believe they will rue the day that they did.” 

Adams thinks it will be Schiff to rue Impeachment Day, 2020. By genius or luck, President Trump has egged Democrats to do the one thing that will help him most: play Bad Boy and survive impeachment, making Democrats look ridiculous in the process.

He knows it: “It doesn’t really feel like we’re being impeached,” Mr. Trump said as the impeachment votes were tallied in the House, using the Majestic Plural. 

Only if the Senate convicts Trump will this scenario not help the president. 

“We” for Trump refers (obviously) to himself and the people . . . who voted for him.

But he had made a more telling remark earlier: “I’m the only politician in history that have [sic] kept more promises than I made.” 

Impossible? Sure. 

But funny.

The president’s Yogi Berra-ism was deliberately hyperbolic.

The Democrats’ form of comedy seems . . . less advertent.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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national politics & policies partisanship Popular

Between the Devil and the Deep State, See?

Donald Trump, Imperial Presidency, President, crown,

“If it turns out that impeachment has no sting, has no bite,” exasperated Princeton University professor Eddie Glaude, Jr., speculated on Meet the Press, “and we are in the aftermath, what it will mean is that there will be an unlimited, an imperial, executive branch that can do whatever it wants to do.”*

Per the “imperial presidency, actually, that ship sailed a while ago,” the American Enterprise Institute’s Danielle Pletka quickly responded. 

“I mean, it was a problem under George W. Bush. It was a growing problem under Obama. And it has come to its apotheosis under Donald Trump.”

There appears a left-right consensus among TV chatterers that, a Constitution of enumerated federal powers notwithstanding, the president can “do whatever [he] wants to do.” 

But considering what we are learning about “the interagency” machinations to take down the current imperator, the imperial guard may be as big a problem. 

Last week, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz released his report on the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign, code-named “Crossfire Hurricane.” Though the IG did not find conclusive evidence that political bias inspired the launch of the investigation, he did detail “many basic and fundamental errors” that “raised significant questions” . . . adding portentously, “we also did not receive satisfactory explanations for the errors or problems we identified.”

“[A]s as the probe went on,” reported The Washington Post, “FBI officials repeatedly decided to emphasize damaging information they heard about Trump associates, and play down exculpatory evidence they found.”

The evidence piles up: Washington is dangerously out of control, and our career-politician Congress can only muster to provide a constitutional check on the flimsiest grounds and partisan manner.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Somehow Professor Glaude seems to have forgotten President Bill Clinton, who reached his highest ever public approval rating — 73 percent — in the aftermath of his 1998 impeachment by the then-Republican-controlled House. Been there, done that.

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free trade & free markets national politics & policies too much government

Plunger Politics

plunger, flag, regulations, laws, Trump, flush,

President Donald Trump may win re-election because he dares speak the truth about toilets.

A Washington Post tweet presents the president talking about the insanity of American plumbing: “People are flushing toilets ten times, 15 times, as opposed to once. They end up using more water.”

Jeffrey Tucker, in a terrific piece for the American Institute for Economic Research, focuses on our national disgrace: “I know a man — a proxy for tens of millions — who came from a foreign country, threw down $500 per night at a New York hotel, and was astonished to find himself plunging the toilet within the hour of checking in. 

“Not surprising,” Tucker writes. “Not unusual. American toilets don’t work right. This is why there are plungers next to every toilet.”

And Tucker suggests that Trump may beat whoever ends up as his Democratic challenger for no better reason than because, every now and then, Trump sides with common sense against bureaucrats, regulators, and politicians. And, in this case, seeks to do something about it.

Would any Democrat dare mention that it is Congress that ruined our commodes? 

Of course, Republicans let it happen. 

Our toilets, I have long insisted, provide a perfect object lesson for what is wrong with government today. Early in the history of this Common Sense commentary, I explored the theme: it has been over 20 years ago since I wrote of “A Congressman in Your Bowl”; a few years later, when I started writing columns for Townhall.com, I offered “Flush Congress.”

I don’t know precisely what Trump can do regarding either the plumbing issue or the clogged-up Congress issue, but I — plunger in hand — salute him for trying to do something.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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national politics & policies

Won But Not Over

smoking, vaping, ban, prohibition, teenager,

The Office on Smoking at Health at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is not telling the truth about the war on tobacco use.

In an article at Reason, Jacob Sullum convincingly argues that the CDC persists on portraying tobacco use amongst teens as in crisis.

According to the CDC, past progress has been “erased.”

Looked at one way, the stats are alarming: “The share of high school students who reported using e-cigarettes in the previous month jumped from 11.7 percent in 2017 to 20.8 percent in 2018,” Sullum summarizes. 

Sounds bad, eh?

But Sullum noticed something: 

  1. the increase tobacco use is wholly the result of increased e-cigarette usage, which is less harmful than smoking;
  2. very few of the increased number of vapers actually vape regularly, with less than 6 percent vaping daily; and
  3. smoking has dropped dramatically, with “past-month cigarette smoking among high school students [falling] from 28.5 percent to 5.8 percent.”

So, why isn’t the CDC proclaiming victory?

Well, there is something called “Spencer’s Law.” Taken from Herbert Spencer’s essay “From Freedom to Bondage,” it goes like this: 

“The degree of public concern and anxiety about a social problem or phenomenon varies inversely as to its real or actual incidence.” 

“In plain English,” philosopher Stephen Davies explains, “this means that when a social problem is genuinely widespread and severe it will attract little notice or discussion. It will only become the object of attention, concern, and controversy precisely when it is in decline and its severity is diminishing.”

Why?

In the CDC’s case, could it have something to do with unlikely funding for a war already won?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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From a photo by Airman 1st Class Brittany Perry

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national politics & policies Popular

After Them, the Deluge

Hillary Clinton, deluge,

One might be forgiven for finding Sen. Kamala Harris the perfect presidential candidate for Democrats after the Hillary Clinton debacle. Adding Harris’s skin color to her status as a woman, she had the intersectionalist angle covered. And for the power elite, she offered a ruthless, moraline-free ambition.

But no, her candidacy never really took off. She has dropped out, for lack of funds.

Her exit leaves a full field, however, including two billionaires — one unelectable (Bloomberg), the other mostly undetectable (Steyer).

Joe Biden has become a living, breathing Mr. Magoo, having just playfully bitten his wife’s finger while she was making a public speech. And his ridiculous ‘hairy legs’ rant just resurfaced for universal ridicule.

Yet some polls say he’s still leading the pack.

How?

This is how:

Bernie Sanders, a self-proclaim “democratic socialist,” is, like Biden, too old to be a Boomer, and is “recovering” from a recent heart attack, giving his future all the promise of Venezuelan socialism — which he has in the past praised.

Seems Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s star is falling. It may be the result of floating a multi-trillion-dollar healthcare plan that didn’t add up . . . or for backing away from that bold mistake . . . or the combination. 

Pete Buttigieg’s star is now ascendent, in Iowa and New Hampshire. Which is ominous, for the silver-tongued mayor of South Bend, Indiana, sports at least one badge of official disadvantage — he’s gay — and has that uncertain magic that suggests having been anointed by whichever fallen angel selects future tyrants. The millennial embraces “national service” and big government.

But fear not: there’s still Hillary Clinton who, reports The Epoch Times, “says she’s ‘deluged’ with requests to run for the presidency for the third time and declined to rule out a bid for 2020.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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international affairs national politics & policies too much government

The New Arms Race

Space Force, war, foreign policy,

We who grew up in the time of the Apollo missions are more than aware of the arms-race angle to the Soviet and American forays into Earth orbit and beyond. 

Now, we must recognize that the space race is no longer mere ornamentation over earthly military competition.

“The United States and China are rapidly building space warfare capabilities,” writes Bill Gertz in the Washington Examiner, “as part of a race to dominate the zone outside Earth’s atmosphere.”

Of course, much of this remains ground support. WHNT News 19 in Alabama quotes the Commander of the U.S. Space and Missile Defense Command at Redstone Arsenal — a Lieutenant General who “will soon become Deputy Commander of the U.S. Space Command in Colorado” — explaining that current space resources must be ever-ready in support of “the war fighter, the soldier on the ground.”

But the “satellites in space” he refers to, the ones with “very unique capabilities,” are not just about ground support. For when Donald Trump proposed a new Space Force military division last year, he wasn’t blowing smoke.

Billions of future dollars, maybe, but not smoke. 

In the works?

  • “AI for space war to stop anti-satellite weapons”;
  • Capabilities to treat “Space [a]s a warfighting domain similar to air, land and sea”;
  • Space planes, such as the in-dev X-37B;

and much more.

The Chinese are looking for “space superiority,” says American intelligence, and of course “you know what this means,” as Bugs Bunny liked to say.

War?

At least war profits.

Even France is talking about militarizing space.

Brave new world? Or more of the same, just higher up?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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The Biggest Turkey of All

turkey, thanksgiving, Trump, pardon,

Though President Donald Trump has one of the best stand-up acts in America, his bit, on Tuesday, about the ‘traditional’ pardoning of turkeys, was not his best. But it was mildly amusing, and what the occasion required.

Now, I’ve written about this goofy tradition before: “For a photo-op,” I explained seven years ago, the president “saves the gift bird’s life, only to have another unpublicized turkey killed and then devoured behind closed doors.” 

Gruesome? Bizarre? Or all-too-symbolic?

I suggested the latter, arguing that “the fake pardon symbolizes more than Washington insiders can comprehend. 

In our nation’s capital, politicians

    • argue for fiscal responsibility one minute and then plunge us further into debt the next,
    • demand sacrifices from the people while living high on the hog, and
    • decry the influence of special interests at press conferences and then deposit their checks at the bank.

One famous turkey lives, thanks to the powerful public kindness of our potentate; another, unknown (no doubt “middle-class”) bird dies for the benefit of that same boss.

With Trump rather than Obama in office, that quip about class warfare falls a bit flat.

But our Stand-up-in-Chief was more topical:

The two turkeys, which he told us were named Bread and Butter, were raised “to remain calm under any condition,” he riffed, “which will be very important because they have already received subpoenas to appear in Adam Schiff’s basement.”

Not bad; worth a chuckle.

“It’s not the first time Trump has used the traditional turkey pardoning to make jokes about his political opponents,” USA Today informs us. But unfortunately the paper misquoted one of the president’s lesser quips. 

“It seems the Democrats are accusing me of being too soft on turkeys,” USA Today tells us. But what Trump clearly says is “Turkey.” Yeah, just a pun.

Does that ‘land’?

Seems like a laid egg.

But on Thanksgiving we can pardon the president.

And even USA Today.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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