Category: national politics & policies

The Draft Goes Hollywood?

“Whether you’re able to recall the last military draft or not, if you watch the show This Is Us, then you may have some familiarity,” says a column at Medium.com apparently authored by the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service.

The commission was set up by Congress to explore the idea of extending draft registration to young women, as a federal judge has ruled, or ending it altogether, as should be done — or even go all the way to impose a one- or two-year compulsory national service requirement for every young high school grad.

According to the piece, headlined, “This Is Us and the Military Draft,” the “one thing” the commission, the military draft, and the October 21, 2019 episode of this NBC television program, “Nicky’s Number Is Called,” have “in common” is “the Selective Service System.”

Today, the agency threatens young men to register, keeping, at great expense, a badly out-of-date registration list that could be used to conscript those young men into the military. Back in 1970, Selective Service held a draft lottery live on TV whereby young men whose birthdates were picked first got involuntarily shipped off to Vietnam.

A This Is Us 1970 flashback “gives us a glimpse of what that was like in one powerful scene.” Two brothers are at a bar waiting to learn their fate. The commission explains that one brother “is adamant that his birthday will be called.” Drinking heavily, he is more terrified than “adamant.”

His birthdate is picked fifth out of 365 — making it a certainty he will be drafted. Immediately, his brother comforts him with, “We’ll get you to Canada.”

Is the commission signaling its support for my position?

The draft is unconstitutional, unjust and unnecessary.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Action Item: Go HERE to instruct the commission to tell Congress: Don’t extend draft registration to women, end it for everyone. No draft and no forced national service program.

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Tags draft, freedom, The Draft, war

ideological culture national politics & policies

Equal Wrongs

ERA, Equal Rights Amendment, ratify, Constitution,

Back in the 1970s, the late Phyllis Schlafly charged that, if the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) were ratified, women would be subject to the military draft.

Funny thing, though — the ERA was not ratified, yet any return to the draft means our daughters would be forced into combat just like our sons.

The 14th Amendment already requires equal protection of the laws.

Congress proposed the amendment in 1972 with a seven-year period for ratification by the necessary 38 states. Even with an extension, the ERA fell three states short . . . well, make that eight, since five states* rescinded their initial ratifications.

“One thing we are going to need to do right away,” declared Senate Democratic leader Dick Saslaw, “is pass the Equal Rights Amendment in Virginia.”

But it’s back, sorta. In recent years, Nevada and Illinois have ratified the timed-out amendment. And with Democrats taking control of both chambers of the Virginia Legislature in this year’s election, the state could now become the 38th to ratify.

Not so fast. Even Supreme Court justice and progressive action-hero Ruth Bader Ginsberg has made it clear that the amendment has expired, that the process must begin anew. No amendment should be bum-rushed into the Constitution.

Though some conservatives warn the ERA may undermine women’s rights. I support the language of the amendment as it plainly reads: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”**

Possible wrinkle: can anyone read plainly?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Idaho, Kentucky, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Tennessee.

** There were two boilerplate clauses, in addition: Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.

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Tags constitution, Equal Rights Amendment, ERA, ratify

ideological culture insider corruption national politics & policies

Deep State Consensus

Donald Trump was not elected with a mandate to “drain the ‘interagency consensus.’”

You can’t “drain” a “consensus.” More importantly, “the Swamp” that Trump promised to “drain,” is not the same thing as that “interagency consensus.” That latter, new phrase better serves as something coextensive with — or subset of — something distinct, “the Deep State.”

But the Swamp and Deep State are related.

Though the term, interagency consensus, was floated earlier, this new bit of jargon hit public consciousness as a result of the impeachment proceedings, the testimony of Alexander Vindman in particular.

Mr. Vindman — excuse me, Lt. Colonel Vindman — is an Army officer assigned to the National Security Council who became alarmed at “outside influences” in the Trump Administration that were upsetting the “interagency consensus” on the subject of his homeland. The new “narrative,” he testified, “was harmful to U.S. government policy. While my interagency colleagues and I were becoming increasingly optimistic on Ukraine’s prospects, this alternative narrative undermined U.S. government efforts to expand cooperation with Ukraine.”

The problem with this is obvious. It is not the job of junior diplomats and spies to work against the policies of a constitutionally-elected and -authorized U.S. president.

Sophisticates in Washington and in the press corps sometimes pooh-pooh the term “Deep State.” Vindman’s testimony justifies the term. Yet, he sure seems earnest in thinking that government hirelings should develop policy that must be defended from tampering, including by we who wade in the shallow end of government, stuck with our piddling votes.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags hearings, impeachment, Schiff, Vindman

national politics & policies political challengers

Billions Of, By and For Bloomberg

Post author By Redactor
Post date November 11, 2019
No Comments on Billions Of, By and For Bloomberg

Michael Bloomberg, president, democracy,

Might Gotham’s gun-and-Big-Gulp-grabber-in-chief catapult to Commander in Chief?

Michael Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor, “is actively preparing to enter the Democratic presidential primary,” writes Alexander Burns in The New York Times.

Bloomberg’s estimated $53 billion could financially pummel even Democratic candidate Tom Steyer, working with a mere $1.6 billion.

“More billionaires seeking more political power surely isn’t the change America needs,” chimed in Faiz Shakir, presidential campaign manager for Vermont socialist and Senator Bernard Sanders.

Billionaires are the really evil ones.

Millionaires? Not so bad anymore.

In 2016, Bernie badmouthed both “millionaires and billionaires” . . . until found to be a millionaire himself — worth $2.5 million to be specific.

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, Mr. Sanders’ rail-against-the-rich presidential rival, offered Mayor Bloomberg her “Calculator for Billionaires” — showing how much those sorts of people would have to pay per her Wealth Tax.

No mention of what her own family, worth $12 million would pay.

Bloomberg’s entrance into the race is expected to hurt former Vice-President and multimillionaire Joe Biden the most, both appealing to the more “moderate” wing of the Democratic Party.

Still, Bloomberg is no Democrat messiah, however. He’s not particularly popular. In fact, Bloomberg’s last political campaign for a third term as New York mayor ten years ago was “the most expensive campaign in municipal history.” After double-crossing voters on term limits by supporting a council change allowing him (and them) a third term, Bloomberg had to spend a whopping $183 per vote to win an “unexpectedly close race.”

To garner as many votes for president as Hillary Clinton’s 2016 effort, at that same cost, adds up to $12 billion!

Bloomberg’s good news? He has it.

Bloomberg’s bad news? Hillary lost.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags democracy, Michael Bloomberg, president

ideological culture national politics & policies

Hillary’s Hot Sauce — Reflux

Post author By Redactor
Post date November 6, 2019
3 Comments on Hillary’s Hot Sauce — Reflux

The one thing the Elizabeth Warren for president campaign cannot afford is ‘I’m With Her’ redux.

Hillary ‘the “her”’ Clinton came off as ultra-phony. She tried too hard to be something she is not — that is, likable and not an elitist. Mrs. Clinton’s attempts to seem normal were transparently clumsy. Even cringe-worthy, as when on The Breakfast Club with ‘Charlemagne the God,’ she said that she carried hot sauce in her purse.

You know, because, just like black Americans, she really loves her hot sauce.

The faux-Cherokee Senator from Harvard already has an honesty problem to deal with, just like Hillary. She doesn’t need a Witless/Senescent Boomer aura on top of that.

But that she suffers from just this sort of insincerity became clear in her first livestream, the most inauthentic aping of normalcy most of us have ever seen. And now there is ‘Warren’s Meme Team,’ a Twitter account designed to marshal young people to make ‘memes’ that will support Warren just the way Trump’s supporters Pepe-d Trump’s success in 2016.

Publicizing the notion of “saving the nation with selfies and memes” (in the words of the account) sinks Warren below Hillary down to Biden-level cluelessness. As Dave Cullen relates on Bitchute, the ham-fisted and “unintentionally hilarious” scheme “smacks of sterile, joyless corporate marketing jargon.”

If Warren loses to Trump next year, it won’t be cause of sub-par memes, of course. It will be because of mimesis — that is, mimicry — of Hillary Clinton.

Or because Warren, the self-professed capitalist, is viewed as a socialist.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags beer, Elizabeth Warren, Hillary Clinton

Fourth Amendment rights national politics & policies The Draft

Rich Kids for Ransom

Elliot Ackerman, conscription, war, slavery, soldiers,

Elliot Ackerman wants peace so badly that he is willing to conscript our sons and daughters into the military in hopes of achieving it.

“From Somalia to Syria, American forces are engaged in combat,” the author and decorated Marine veteran writes in Time. “With recent military posturing against Iran, against North Korea, it is also easy to imagine our country sleepwalking into another major theater war.”

Mr. Ackerman is not arguing the draft would help in current or future combat operations, or appreciably improve the military. In answer to the obvious question, “Why would you degrade the finest fighting machine the world has ever known?” he replies, “[W]e must move the issues of war and peace from the periphery of our national discourse to its center.”

How?

Ackerman proposes a “reverse-engineered draft.”

His idea is to call up 65,000 young men and women by lottery for two-year terms of servitude. This would represent roughly 5 percent of the armed forces. “And no one could skip this draft,” he claims . . . though obviously not everyone sent a “Greetings” letter will be physically able to serve.

Lastly, he insists that “the only ones eligible” would be “those whose families fall into the top income tax bracket.”

In short, conscript the rich kids!

Of which Ackerman was one.*

Maybe his stance of theatrical class self-sacrifice distracted him from his proposal’s blatant violation of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.

All this to stir up more angst from allegedly influential high-income earners by turning their children into political hostages.

Doesn’t make Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* In the 1990s, I served with Peter Ackerman, Elliot’s father, on the board of directors of U.S. Term Limits.

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First Amendment rights insider corruption national politics & policies

Worse Than Hypocrisy

Joe Biden, Obama, medal, money, campaign finance,

“You shouldn’t accept any money from a Super PAC,” former Vice-President Joe Biden claims he advised his presidential rival Sen. Bernie Sanders, “because [if you do] people can’t possibly trust you.”

Now it must be impossible to trust Mr. Biden.

“Joe Biden is apparently dropping his long-held opposition to the creation of an outside group,” the media tepidly informed last week, “that would supply an infusion of money to benefit his campaign.”

That is: the dreaded Super PAC.

In his 2017 book, Biden claimed he would not have accepted such “outside” support had he entered the 2016 contest — even though he “knew there was big money out there for me.”

Why not? “[I]n a system awash with money,” the former VEEP wrote, “the middle class didn’t have a fighting chance.”

What changed? Now this drowsy Democrat actually needs campaign cash!

“Biden has struggled to raise money, and last week, his campaign reported having $9 million on hand,” reports The Washington Post, “roughly a third as much as some of his top Democratic rivals.”

Necessity is the catalyst of hypocrisy?

“As president, Joe Biden will push to remove private money from our federal elections,” his campaign explained. “He will advocate for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and end the era of unbridled spending by Super PACs.”

Your private money and mine has as much right to engage in federal elections as Mr. Biden does. And I’ve wa r ned many times about the free-speech repealing amendment the doddering Democrat frontrunner is pushing.

There may be worse things than hypocrisy, but there are few things worse than opposing First Amendment rights.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags barack obama, campaign finance, Joe Biden, medal, money, Obama

national politics & policies too much government

NowhereCare

Even people who get their information only from major network news know that, in their mad rush to promise free health care, Democratic presidential hopefuls would raise taxes for nearly everybody including the “hard-working middle class.”

How do they know?

Because at least one of the eager promisers won’t give a straight answer.

Her name is Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Like Bernie Sanders (but not Amy Klobuchar and Joe Biden) she is offering “Medicare for All,” which Fox’s Tucker Carlson calls straight-up socialism.*

George Stephanopoulos, Chris Matthews, and “other strident Democratic partisans” have been pressing her on the tax hike issue, and at the recent, fourth national primary debate, Warren continued to evade. Even Sleepy Joe knows that universal single-payer health care spending would require more taxes than can be squeezed out of the very rich and the big corporations (which Warren, Sanders, and other Democrats incessantly push). But Warren just will not say the words: yes, your taxes will go up. She continually feints to her follow-up argument, that since overall health care costs would [according to plan] go down, we would all come out ahead.

Tucker Carlson, citing an Urban Institute study, gives the answer the democratic socialists won’t: their promise would require spending 3.4 trillion tax dollars per year — $10 grand per person per year, including every child, retiree, and prison inmate.** Warren expects us to repress our common sense and believe that cramming all health care spending through the federal government will increase efficiency.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar has the right word for Medicare for All: utopian.

Noting that Obamacare failed to live up to its promises, Azar predicts the ultimate result, “Medicare for None.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* And not altogether implausibly, since medicine is a fifth of the American economy and (presumably) since socialism is an economy run by government.

** Tucker’s list.

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Illustration from a photo by Gage Skidmore

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Tags Elizabeth Warren, healthcare, Medicare, tax policy

insider corruption international affairs national politics & policies too much government

Mrs. Clinton’s Fevered Nightmare

Post author By Redactor
Post date October 22, 2019
1 Comment on Mrs. Clinton’s Fevered Nightmare

Hillary Clinton, Tulsi Gabbard, Russia, conspiracy,

Hillary Clinton’s recent statements linking Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) to the Russians — Mrs. Clinton’s current favorite enemy — provided Rep. Gabbard with an opportunity for a return volley, dubbing Mrs. Clinton “the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long.”

But what was shocking was Clinton’s confidence in making such a charge sans evidence.

Or not, considering her long history of “vast rightwing conspiracy”-mongering.

Should we wonder about projection, here? Could Clinton see conspiracies everywhere because she is herself at base a conspirator?

Ask Julian Assange.

His Wikileaks site provided evidence of Clinton campaign malfeasance and sheer creepy weirdness before the 2016 election, and also, more famously, evidence of U.S. military war crimes. No wonder he earned the ire of Clinton and the superstate within which she has worked.

Assange is now in a British court, trying to resist extradition, a wounded man. “I can’t think,” he lamented. “I can’t research anything, I can’t access any of my writing. It’s very difficult where I am.”

What his barrister said is even more chill-inducing: “This is part of an avowed war on whistleblowers to include investigative journalists and publishers. The American state has been actively engaged in intruding on privileged discussions between Mr. Assange and his lawyer.”

Though we know little for certain, between a “sunlight” publisher and the dark, secretive Deep State, I trust the journalist at least a bit more. After all, the Deep State has Hillary Clinton on its side, along with known liars like James Clapper — who just had the temerity to call Trump’s lies “Orwellian”!

And no wonder Mrs. Clinton hates Rep. Gabbard, for the Hawaii congresswoman would halt the prosecution of Assange.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags Hillary Clinton, James Clapper, julian assange, Russia, Tulsi Gabbard

national politics & policies Popular

MediocreCare — Guaranteed!

Post author By Redactor
Post date October 21, 2019
2 Comments on MediocreCare — Guaranteed!

When Senator Bernie Sanders demands that the government “guarantee health care to all people as a right, not a privilege,” does anyone think about how governments currently provide more basic services as rights?

You have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in America — or so we say — but

our police aren’t legally obliged to defend us,
prosecution and compensation for real crimes is iffy,
one can ruin oneself in court either as plaintiff or defense in civil cases, and
the whole legal system is kludgy in the extreme.

And this is the core function of government!

Why expect better government performance in medical care?

Bernie’s plan, which Democratic front-runner Senator Elizabeth Warren wafflingly endorses, is “Medicare for All.” But the current Medicare-for-seniors doesn’t cover all of seniors’ medical bills. Seniors pay out of pocket for a portion of their medical costs, often buying “supplemental” insurance to help in the process. If they can afford it.

Medicare does not pay for all medical costs incurred at the supply end, either. The federal government operates with schedules of compensation, limiting charges and procedures in customary bureaucratic fashion. That’s why doctors and clinics increasingly refuse to take Medicare patients. This is what we want to roll out to the whole population?

“Polls show that voters are more willing to pay higher taxes in return for lower cost health care,” Jake Novak explains at CNBC. “What they won’t tolerate are reduced services, especially when it comes to health care, higher taxes or not.”

What assurance can politicians provide that mediocre-care, their latest schemes for socializing medicine, won’t amount to higher taxes for reduced services?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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