Category: national politics & policies

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:

the increase tobacco use is wholly the result of increased e-cigarette usage, which is less harmful than smoking;
very few of the increased number of vapers actually vape regularly, with less than 6 percent vaping daily; and
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

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

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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national politics & policies

The Biggest Turkey of All

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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national politics & policies The Draft

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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