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Today, the agency threatens young men to register, keeping, at great expense, a badly out-of-date registration list that could be used to conscript those young men into the military.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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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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