Category: national politics & policies

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ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies

Vasily Goloborodko for President?

Putin, Trump, VEEP, collusion. NPC,

Vladimir Putin may not be as powerful as feared.

Not only does he apparently not pull the strings of the much-accused-of/now-cleared-of-collusion “Trump Puppet,” Putin also does not write comic lines for the “acting” president of Ukraine.

You see, a few days ago Ukrainians held a run-off election to choose a new leader, and the man who won — Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelensky — is, like the U.S. president, a celebrated entertainer. 

In 2015, he began playing the role of Vasily Goloborodko in the TV show, Servant of the People. His character is a high-school history teacher who rants in class against government corruption. Soon a video of his extemporaneous tirade goes viral, and, voila, Goloborodko ascends to the presidency! 

Zelensky’s actual transit to the real presidency may be less funny but is just as remarkable.

A Kiev teacher quoted by the Los Angeles Times admitted the election was rather crazy. “But at least we have a choice. They don’t have that in Russia.” In the Times’ lede, Putin is identified as “by far the biggest loser of the night.” The anti-Russia trajectory of Ukrainian politics is reported to be steadfast. 

The anti-corruption movement, however, may be a bit iffier. 

Meanwhile, the eighth season of HBO’s political satire Veep is underway, and I am told it is as chillingly accurate as ever. Last week the anti-heroine Selina Meyer, played by Julia-Luis Dreyfuss, again stumbled her way into political success, this time by “accidentally” “colluding” with the Chinese Government.

Is this meant as a nod to Russiagate or a pointed Hillary Clinton commentary?*

Seems a lot like Ukrainian politics.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 * Two decades ago the “Chinagate” scandal roiled the second term of the Bill & Hillary Clinton Administration.

Putin, Trump, VEEP, collusion. NPC,

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general freedom national politics & policies Popular The Draft

No Need

“So, my bottom line is there is no need to continue to register people for a draft that will not come; no need to fight the battle over registering women, and no military need to retain the MSSA.”

The MSSA is the Military Selective Service Act. It authorizes the Selective Service System (SSS) to register young men for a possible draft and, should conscription resume, manage that process. The law allows the government to imprison those who do not register.* I know, I violated the Act 38 years ago by refusing to sign my name on a draft registration form.

But the quoted statement, above, wasn’t mine. No sirree. That was testimony from Dr. Bernard Rostker, the director of Selective Service back in 1980, when President Carter re-instituted mandatory registration. 

Rostker made two cogent points at yesterday’s National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service hearing:

  • First, the modern military neither needs nor wants a massive manpower infusion, which would only dilute the quality of the All-Volunteer Force. 
  • Second, the list of young men registered with SSS is woefully inadequate, “systematically lack[ing] large segments of the eligible male population and for those that are included, the currency of information contained is questionable.”

Come some future emergency, the former director contends that a draft could be instituted just as quickly without this ongoing registration program. Sure, but that misses the bigger picture: This country has never needed conscription to raise an army. Americans — from Pearl Harbor to 911 — have always stepped up voluntarily.

Mr. Rostker advises “suspending draft registration.”

He took the words right out of my mouth — though I prefer “abolish.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* The maximum penalty is five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, but no one has been prosecuted for decades. Most of the enforcement effort comes in denying driver’s licenses, college loans and government jobs to men who don’t register. Commission Chairman Joe Heck explained at yesterday’s hearing that 75 percent of registrants do so in order to complete a license or college application.

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initiative, referendum, and recall national politics & policies Popular

The Cost of Reparations

slavery, reparations, blacks, guilt, white

Nearly 180 years ago, the Jesuits who ran Georgetown University sold 272 enslaved persons to save the institution from insolvency. In a non-binding referendum earlier this month, the university’s undergraduate students voted to impose a student fee of $27.20 per semester to fund reparations for the descendants of those slaves.

Small potatoes? Well, when the slavery reparations idea catches fire outside of a student body, the dollar amounts talked about expand beyond mere double digits. 

Which can be awkward. The leader of the Congressional Black Caucus, Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.), complains that slavery reparations are often “used . . . to ridicule African-Americans, as if what black people are interested in is a check.”

Nonetheless, White House aspirant Rep. Julián Castro (D-Tex.) reminds Democrats that “when it comes to Medicare for All” as well as “tuition-free or debt-free college, the answer has been, ‘We need to write a big check.’” Castro contends Uncle Sam ought not skimp on “compensating the descendants of slaves.”

The slicker Democratic contenders for the 2020 presidential race have conveniently embraced legislation introduced in the House by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.) to establish a commission to study the idea — allowing presidential aspirants to talk up the proposal to black audiences while assuring less enthusiastic audiences that they are merely committed to studying it.

One lesser known candidate, author Marianne Williamson, didn’t get the memo, however. She proposed “a $100 billion plan of reparations to be paid over 10 years,” to be disbursed for purposes of “economic and educational revitalization to be achieved within the black community.”

By federal spending standards, a tiny figure. But even at ten times that figure, check-propelled revitalization seems unlikely.

Students of politics take note.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ideological culture national politics & policies Popular

The Debate Begins?

UBI, universal basic income, $1000, welfare,

The Green New Deal? So yesterday! 

“Millionaires and billionaires” paying “their fair share”? Well, after Bernie Sanders’ millionaire status hit the news, Democrats have some reason to shy away to . . . the Universal Basic Income!

“UBI” for short.

Right now the big pusher of the panacea is a Democratic presidential candidate, Andrew Yang.

Entrepreneurially minded, he insists that he is “pro-capitalist.” Which is refreshing in the current state of The Democracy, but, uh, he is also pro-UBI. “Nicknamed his ‘Freedom Dividend,’” Reason magazine reports, his proposal would “give $1,000 a month to every adult between the ages of 18 and 64.”

The Reason article contrasts Yang’s version of the UBI with Charles “What It Means To Be a Libertarian” Murray’s, who wants to chuck every welfare state program and replace it with a basic stipend.

Another libertarian, economist and political scientist Mike Munger, makes a similar pitch: replacing all of the welfare state (including Social Security!) with just the one transfer program. Murray and Munger both tout the beneficial effects for those trapped in poverty, earnestly wanting people trapped in the current welfare system to pry themsleves free from its grasp. But this method strikes me as a fantasy: replacement will not happen. It is politically nearly impossible. 

We would be lucky to nix even one measly program. 

For a freedom-oriented case for the program, consult Mike Munger’s debate with Antony Sammeroff, author of Universal Basic Income: For and Against. Unfortunately, you cannot vet a debate between Sammeroff and Andrew Yang, the latter having recently pulled out of a scheduled debate at New York’s Soho Forum.

Maybe before any political decisions, we insist upon a Universal Basic Debate.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability national politics & policies

Salty Tears of the Guilty

crying smiley, Congress, Independent Counsel, Willam Barr, The Mueller Report,

The Mueller report has not calmed the partisan enmity roiling Washington.

Many in Congress complain about Mueller not reaching a prosecutorial decision on the issue of obstruction of justice, thus leaving Attorney General William Barr to determine that actions by President Trump did not reach a criminal threshold. 

But who wrote the rules for such investigations?

“If Congress does not like the decision, because it was made by the attorney general,” explained Jacob Frenkel, an attorney who formerly worked in the independent counsel’s office, “Congress has only itself to blame for not renewing the independent counsel statute.”

“Analysts noted that lawmakers, in effect, gave Barr authority over Mueller when they let the independent counsel law expire in 1999,” reports The Washington Post. “That law created a prosecutor position with even more autonomy than Mueller, who was appointed under more restrictive special counsel regulations.”

Of course, in 1999, Republicans controlled both houses of Congress. Had they a crystal ball to see 20 years into the future, for partisan reasons they might celebrate that they allowed that law to lapse. 

Then again, Democrats have controlled both houses since then, even sporting a filibuster-proof Senate majority in 2009. Yet did nothing to legislate a solution to the problem they see today.

My point isn’t to bemoan the special counsel or independent counsel statute, about which good people might disagree. Instead, let us acknowledge the essential role our system reserves for Congress. Yes, again and again, from tariff policy to foreign policy to these current issues, Congress punts its power away to the executive and judiciary branches. 

And then cries about it.

Well, wipe your eyes, solons: it’s We the People who feel the pain.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom national politics & policies The Draft

Big Issue 2020

Buttigieg, draft, selective service, national service, involuntary servitude, slavery, Rachel Maddow,

“National service will hopefully become one of the themes of the 2020 campaign,” said Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and Democratic Party presidential candidate.

Why?

Talking to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, Mayor Buttigieg explained: “we really want to talk about the threat to social cohesion that helps characterize this presidency, but also just this era.”

Oh, goodie, another threat from which the wannabe wizards of Washington can save us.

“One thing we could do that would help change that,” announced Buttigieg, “would be to make it, if not legally obligatory, then certainly a social norm that anybody after they’re 18 spends a year in national service.”

What does he mean by “if not legally obligatory”? Perhaps it is nothing more than this: he is considering a program of forced service, but wants plausible deniability, a way to back off in the heat of an election campaign . . . when moms and dads are voting. 

Buttigieg wants “the first question on your college application” or “the first question when you’re being interviewed for a job” to be whether a young person did national service. 

Hey, I want a lot of things. Does a President Buttigieg plan to force all colleges and employers to ask his question first?

What seems obvious to citizens seems lost on politicians, the rather clear difference between offering jobs to the nation’s 4 million 18-year-olds and dragging them away from their lives to make them work for Washington. 

Host Maddow, for her part, supports a draft, but expresses doubts about its feasibility, noting “we seem wired as a country to reject that at every level.”

She is correct: Land of the free, home of the brave and all.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom meme national politics & policies The Draft

Save the Young

ask not, draft, selective service, slavery, National Commission on Military, public service, involuntary servitude

Freedom is good, sure . . . for most of us, most of the time. 

But the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service was funded by Congress to study whether perhaps just a smidgen of short-term slavery for young people might be a smart program, a nice change of pace, a big help to all involved — both our nation’s youth and our nation’s government.

Involuntary servitude — a year or two of military service or mandatory civilian national service, i.e. helping this government agency or that one — might force these whipper-snappers to grow up faster, the argument goes. Not to mention assisting them by engineering an enlighteningly involuntary point-of-view from which to better sort out their futures.

But enough about what’s good for young people. Let them heed the famous words of President John F. Kennedy: “Ask not what we can do for you, ask what you can do for us.”

Consider the awesome benefits we can accrue from an army of four million well-mannered, bright-eyed 18-year-olds, like the kids on The Facts of Life or Saved By the Bell — or whatever newfangled TV show dances in front of today’s youthful eyes.  

Imagine, young people solving all our problems: cleaning up the environment, ending illiteracy, reversing global warming, wiping out poverty, curing cancer. 

Or at least mopping up the lobby at the EPA, filing documents close to alphabetically at the Department of Education, picking up trash in a park.

All while becoming fully-actualized citizens.

Green energy isn’t the answer, youthful energy is! Remember: It cannot be bottled, but it can be conscripted.

Oh, and actually paying for 4 million make-work jobs?*

Ssshhhh.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* At minimum wage, it would cost more than $60 billion a year to hire every 18-year-old American. Oh, well, I guess freedom is much less expensive. 

NOTE: If for any reason, you are skeptical of the wonders forced governmental service can provide, please join me today (April 10, 2019) at 4:00 pm ET for a webinar on how to “Save the Young People.”

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Accountability government transparency national politics & policies too much government

Long Gone Rogue

Chuck Schumer, Rachel Maddow, deep state, Donald Trump

Back in the 1990s, we used to talk about “rogue agencies” of the U.S. Government. And for good reason: the Branch Davidian massacre and the Ruby Ridge fiasco were hard to forget.

After 9/11/2001, however, we cut the agencies some slack. Why? Their incompetence and our hope.

But it became obvious from the NSA’s illegal metadata collection program, as revealed by Edward Snowden, the core agencies of the military-industrial complex do not like playing by rules that the American people have a say in.

How bad is it?

On New Year’s Day this year, Sen. Chuck Schumer was talking to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow about their favorite conspiracy theory. Maddow, as we all know, had gone Full Nutter on this “collusion”/“corruption” story, and Democratic politicians (along with nearly the whole of the mainstream news media) ran with the story for two years. Then, the Mueller report is “no collusion.”

But on that first Tuesday of 2019, Ms. Maddow was talking about Trump’s tweets which she characterized as “taunting” the CIA and other agencies obsessed with the “Russian hacking” angle of the brouhaha. And Schumer’s response? 

“Let me tell you: You take on the intelligence community — they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.”

We should take this as a signal. It is like making prison rape jokes. It says something about the situation: prison rape or Deep State machinations. And about the speaker: leveraging a rogue element as a threat.

No wonder many now think the Russiagate/Mueller investigation was a “Deep State Coup” attempt.

A republic with rogue agencies is hardly a republic at all.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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

Just Like That!

socialism, magic wand, economics, healthcare, prescription drugs, drugs,

“We will do that,” he said.

Do what?

“We will look at the average costs of prescription drugs in Canada, the UK, Germany, Japan and France,” says Sen. Bernie Sanders (I/D-Vt.), “which are 50 percent lower than they are in the United States,” he told Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation. 

And Sanders promises: “if I am elected president I’m going to cut prescription drug costs in this country by 50 percent so that we are not paying any more than other major countries are paying. Maybe we can do better than that.” 

When Ms. Brennan asked how, he replied as above — looking at “average costs” as directly priced to consumers (patients) —  and then . . . “we will do that.”

Socialism is so easy!

Why have we waited so long for utopia?

Well, saying is not the same as doing. We must think “beyond Stage One,” as Thomas Sowell advises. For if “Medicare for All” tells a company it will pay only so much for a drug, that company cannot just sell that drug and all others below cost. No wonder that in socialized medicine schemes around the world, not all drugs are even available.

The world prescription drug market is set up . . . peculiarly. Americans in effect pay more (because of patents and trade agreements) thereby covering development costs. If we pay less, others may have to pay more (which would be an odd thing for a “socialist” to want) and we would all come to get even less.

Bernie is no wizard, and socialism has no magic wand with which to wave away scarcity.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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folly national politics & policies

Kiss Biden Goodbye?

Joe Biden, creepy Joe, Uncle Joe, sexual, inappropriate

Lucy Flores was standing in front of the twice-elected Vice President of these United States at a 2014 campaign rally when, “unexpectedly and out of nowhere,” she recounts, she felt “Joe Biden put his hands on my shoulders, get up very close to me from behind, lean in, smell my hair and then plant a slow kiss on the top of my head.

“You don’t expect that kind of intimacy from someone so powerful,” she said yesterday — or to be publicly fondled by “someone who you just have no relationship whatsoever.”

Flores is not alleging sexual assault, and certainly no ongoing harassment. But the former Nevada State Assemblywoman certainly does object to Biden’s “completely inappropriate” behavior. And she believes it “should” be considered in judging a presidential candidate.

“In my many years on the campaign trail and in public life,” responded Biden in a statement, “I have offered countless handshakes, hugs, expressions of affection, support and comfort. And not once — never — did I believe I acted inappropriately.”

Not buying this at all, Flores links (in her article for The Cut) to numerous “stories that were written” of “creepy” behavior by Biden, noting she came forward in large part because that evidence had been “dismissed by the media and not taken seriously.”

“It’s apparently a Senate rite of passage,” comedian Jon Stewart explained in a 2015 Daily Show segment entitled, The Audacity of Grope, “you’re not actually sworn in until Delaware Joe has felt up one female member of your immediate family.” 

As the chortling subsides, the Biden presidential bid may be over before it begins.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Joe Biden, creepy Joe, Uncle Joe, sexual, inappropriate