Category: national politics & policies

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media and media people national politics & policies

SuperPressPAC Problem?

leftist, media bias, propaganda, Trump, fake news, lies

Who wouldn’t want the media behind them — air-brushing the public images of their candidates; telling stories to dramatize the political agenda items they’re running on? 

Back in November 2015, I agreed with then-Senator and presidential candidate (now Secretary of State) Marco Rubio’s characterization of the national news media as a “SuperPAC” for national Democrats. 

How to even place a monetary value on the relentlessly one-sidedly progressive news coverage on network TV and in print outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post?

But is there a downside? Could this Super-est of all SuperPACs possibly be, on balance, less than helpful?

Let me posit that (a) the Washington press corps is ideologically to the left of the Democratic Party and, accordingly, (b) the national news media lures liberal Dems to far-out leftist positions that they’d otherwise never dare entertain — all because there exists this massive supportive left-wing echo chamber.

Then, on Election Day, national Democrats discover quite abruptly that, unlike DC’s editors and reporters, regular folks don’t like high gas prices or men winning women’s sporting events or releasing violent illegal migrants to commit more crimes. And, doggone it, they cast a lot more votes than the Beltway’s fifth column, er, Fourth Estate.  

Take, for example, the current controversy regarding former President Biden’s cognitive abilities; consider, also, the decisions made by Mr. Biden and auto-pen possessing handlers. 

Would a Republican president and his White House advisors ever think for a second that they could get away with keeping the press away from the commander-in-chief of the Free World, holding only heavily staged public events? For months? Forever? 

I don’t think so. The mainstream media would — rightly! — question, berate, harangue and bloviate until the cognitive functionality of the POTUS had been popularly established. 

But the Washington media did not hold a Democrat president to that (any?) standard.

Thus enabled, Biden kept going. 

Costing Democrats!

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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Fifth Amendment rights ideological culture national politics & policies

Whose Principles?

immigration, illegal immigration, border, citizenship, due process

Partisan contest! You may start with principles, but — if you are careless — end up fighting, instead, for the things your opponent only thinks you stand for. You become the strawman your enemies put up as the dumbed-down version of your position.

This happens a lot: Democrats have long denied being socialists, but have accepted leadership from socialists; Republicans have long denied being authoritarian, but routinely act like authoritarians.

Case in point: the deportation of “criminal illegal aliens.”

This is not an authoritarian position as such; right or wrong, it can be done in a legally sane way.

But Donald Trump and Republicans have embraced an extremely authoritarian manner of deportation.

How? By denying the principle I defended in April: due process. Writing about the Abrego Garcia case, I made this simple point: “whether a dangerous criminal or an innocent, hard-working family man, Garcia’s status is hardly the issue. This is about whether our government must follow its written Constitution.”

Now we are learning a lot more about who has been sent to El Salvadoran dungeons: the innocent. 

According to an informative Cato article, “of the 90 cases where the method of crossing is known, 50 men report that they came legally to the United States, with advanced US government permission, at an official border crossing point.”

This is important: “Dozens of legal immigrants were stripped of their status and imprisoned in El Salvador.”

We are, today, shocked to read of how the ancient Athenian democracy would expel citizens from the polis. But Trump’s deportations are much worse: they’re being done without constitutionally required due process . . . without any chance for the accused to defend themselves.

And the innocents are being sent to a hell-hole prison, not merely banished.

Trump and his willing government functionaries are conforming not to their principles, but the ones imputed to them by Democrats.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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insider corruption media and media people national politics & policies

Sleepy’s New Clothes

Joe Biden, Jake Tapper, election, president, democracy, cover up, scandal

“I was shocked to see his condition,” CNN commentator Van Jones tells Jake Tapper on State of the Union. Mr. Jones is talking about when former (but then-) President Joe Biden stepped up to debate his challenger, current (but then former-) President Donald Trump.

“And so was the world,” he continues. “And that wasn’t the first time [Biden] was in that condition; the book makes it very, very clear.”

The book noted above being Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Decision to Run Again, written by host Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, a national political correspondent for Axios. 

“There are people who knew and said nothing and that is a crime against this Republic,” argues Jones, “and I think the Democrats are gonna pay for a long time for being a part of what is now being revealed to be a massive cover up.”

“It was obvious to the American people before the debate,” former Obama strategist David Axelrod offers. Obvious to politicians, too, but not “politically wise to speak out.”

“[T]his is The Emperor’s New Clothes playing itself out in real time,” Jones elaborates. “Everybody knew but everyone was afraid to say.”

Later in the program, still pitching his book, Tapper blames a “small, secretive group of advisors” as the culprits, clarifying that “the original sin of the 2024 election” was “President Biden’s decision to run for reelection, even though he would be theoretically 86 years old at the end of his second term and was showing every day of it.”

One can only wonder how Mr. Tapper and so many other journalists missed in real time what a president of these United States was “showing.”

Democrats remain focused on the disaster of losing the election, but the real disgrace? After the June 27, 2024, debate non-performance, they and their fawning media allowed a person clearly not up to the job to remain in this most incredibly powerful position for another seven months. 

Silly me, I’m focused on the presidency and the job he’s supposed to do for Americans. Not just wielding political power.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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defense & war national politics & policies

Gift Horses & Pocketed Putts

trojan horse, Qatar, Air Force One

“Over the past nine months, undocumented communication devices, including cellular radios, have also been found in some batteries from multiple Chinese suppliers,” according to a Reuters story. The “rogue communication devices” were not listed in the documentation.

No one should be surprised. Though China pretends to be all sweetness and light, a former director the U.S. National Security Agency offers the basic truth: “We know that China believes there is value in placing at least some elements of our core infrastructure at risk of destruction or disruption.”

It is in this context that I place the recent discussion of Qatar’s offered Air Force One replacement. President Donald Trump has been clear regarding the Persian Gulf state’s seemingly generous offer. He’s for it. Why pay for something when you can have it for free?

“If they give you a putt, you pick it up and walk to the next hole and say ‘thank you very much.’”

But Air Force One, which carries the United States president across the country and around the world, is more than an ordinary plane. It’s a military device.

And outsourcing military devices to other countries is a dubious activity at best. The dangers are readily understandable. “Beware of Qatarians bearing gifts”; the horse mentioned in The Aenid, presented to Troy — is the classic case.

Why trust the state of Qatar?

Just as “U.S. energy officials are reassessing the risk posed by Chinese-made devices that play a critical role in renewable energy infrastructure after unexplained communication equipment was found inside some of them,” so too should Trump’s team reassess the gift horse from the Middle East.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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national politics & policies regulation

If This Be Price Control

drug prices, pharma, drugs, price controls

In the recent pandemic, we learned that government and pharmaceutical companies do not have the least bit of an antagonistic relationship. It’s all buddy-buddy, a Big Gov/Big Pharma partnership.

And an expensive mess, sadly, in which Americans routinely pay prescription prices many times higher than folks around the world.

Now that President Donald Trump has signed an executive order aimed at “Delivering Most-Favored Nation Prescription Pricing to American Patients,” you have probably heard complaints that Trump’s plan amounts to “price controls,” which Republicans say they are against, and Trump, too, says he adamantly opposes. 

But the The Wall Street Journal editorial that mounted this case, and Joe Lancaster’s argument in Reason, assume that the current order makes sense. The present system is in no way a free market in drugs. It’s the result of patent policy, massive subsidies to consumers, an insane approach to insurance regulation, and abridgements to free trade.

“There are many good reasons why we should pay more for earlier access to new medications than our trading partners,” write Darius Lakdawalla and Dana Goldman, quoted in Lancaster’s Reason article.  

And then they go on to recommend an elaborate government scheme that itself is more a form of price controls than Trump’s workaround.

While I doubt that all of Trump’s boasted benefits will pan out, the status quo is a rigged market, and Congress — which could debate and fix it, theoretically — does nothing to restore a free market, thereby earning its low ratings from the public.

Leaving it to the executive branch. 

Which is not supposed to legislate this sort of thing at all.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

NOTE: Jeffrey Tucker wrote a much longer piece defending Trump’s plan — arguing that in a rigged system such as ours, calling Trump’s most-favored-nation policy a form of price regulation, and the status quo not, is witless.

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government transparency international affairs media and media people national politics & policies

Lying About Killing for Votes

AOC, Gaza, Israel, war

Some foreign policy issues, such as regarding Israel and Palestine, are confusing enough that many of us tend to be wary of sharing our opinions. 

But no matter how reticent we may be, we can agree on this: there should be no outright lying about our positions. 

Mitchell Plitnick is a progressive who is willing to confront this prevarication problem forthrightly. Of the many “disheartening moments” during the last presidential campaign, “few,” he admits, “were quite as deflating as that moment when the ostensibly progressive, leading member of The Squad, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stood at the podium at the Democratic National Convention and told the audience that then-Vice President Kamala Harris was ‘working tirelessly to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and bring the hostages home.’

“We knew she was lying,” Plitnick confesses. “AOC herself knew she was lying. But it was just the message that the crowd — who were more than eager to show their support for the Democrats despite the party’s utter refusal to allow even the most conciliatory and moderate Palestinian voice to be heard — wanted to hear, and they ate it up.”

This willingness of the few to promote a blatant lie, and of the masses to believe it, might be the most disheartening thing about modern politics.

And as for the truth, how do we know Plitnick is right about the prevarications? “The utterly shameless nature of the lie has now been confirmed by no less than nine officials from Joe Biden’s administration and reported on by Israel’s own Channel 13 news program, Hamakor. . . .”

We, the people — pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian and otherwise — may all wish for a ceasefire.

But it’s clear that the last administration wanted nothing to do with it.

And lied about it. For votes.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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media and media people national politics & policies subsidy

Trump vs. Big Bird

NPR, PBS, Big Bird, public television, public radio,

For decades, taxpayers have been forced to fund PBS and NPR, and with them any political tilts that we disagree with.

For decades, some lawmakers have nominally agreed that taxpayers should be liberated from this unchosen obligation.

But nothing has changed.

Now, however, President Trump has issued an executive order to simply end “Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media.”

“Americans have the right to expect that if their tax dollars fund public broadcasting at all, they fund only fair, accurate, unbiased, and nonpartisan news coverage. No media outlet has a constitutional right to taxpayer subsidies. . . .”

I say we have a right that our tax dollars not be used at all to fund public broadcasting. And that, also contrary to the text of the order, the government is not “entitled to determine which categories of activities to subsidize.” 

It should have no authority to pay for any activities unrelated to the proper functions of government.

I will, however, accept the result of the executive order, defunding of public broadcasting. If we do get this result.

“The federal funding that supports Public Media,” PBS is alerting its viewers, “is at risk of being eliminated.” 

But this public media is also — and famously — supported by pledge drives and other non-governmental funding sources.

Zero public funding doesn’t mean a world without Big Bird; an absence of subsidy does not mean an absence of the MacNeil Lehrer NewsHour — or its successor show, PBS News Hour. These and many other much-loved shows might well thrive solely on voluntary funding.

“Now is a critical time to act,” urges PBS.

Yes. Tell Congress to ratify the elimination of federal funding of public media now.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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incumbents national politics & policies term limits

Old as the Hills

Congress, term limits, age limit,

“I’ll give up power when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.”

This is the operative principle for today’s politicians.

The examples are so obvious: 

  • Nancy Pelosi, born in 1940, continues to represent California’s 11th District despite having lost the Speakership for the second time, despite having spent nearly four decades in the House of Representatives. 
  • Senator Chuck Schumer, a decade younger than Mrs. Pelosi (and thus not yet an octogenarian), is still serving his fifth term as a senator from New York State.
  • Senator Dianne Feinstein demonstrated extreme mental fragility before dying in office at age 90 — after serving more than three decades.

There are Republican examples, too, but age, as The Wall Street Journal puts it, “is a bigger headache for Democrats than Republicans for one central reason: Democrats have a lot more old members.” While the median ages are nearly identical between the two parties, “of the 20 oldest House members elected in 2024, 16 were Democrats. In the Senate, where tensions over age are more subdued, nearly all of the oldest senators — 11 of the 14 who were older than 75 at the start of this Congress — were Democrats.”

This may strike a sense of dissonance, I know. The old cliché is that Republicans are tired old men and Democrats are wild young (and female) firebrands. But the true nature of the establishment doesn’t quite fit the old saws and preconceptions.

The Journal notes that 70 percent of Americans support an age limit on holding office.

Sure, as the next best thing to term limits! We know the crux of the problem is not age, it is the advantages of incumbency, and the length of time in power.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability crime and punishment national politics & policies

The State & Child Rape

kids in cages, immigration, border, trafficking,

Four billion bucks: That’s what Los Angeles County has confirmed it will pay “to settle nearly 7,000 claims of ‘horrific’ child sexual abuse related to their juvenile facilities and foster care homes over a period of decades,” according to a BBC report. “Survivors say they were abused and mistreated by staff in institutions meant to protect them — with many of the claims linked to MacLaren Children’s Center, a shelter that permanently closed in 2003.”

A lawyer for the plaintiffs offered the perfectly apt cliché, of foxes and hen house: “they were raping boys and raping girls.”

Meanwhile, something odd’s going on with the “children in cages” issue.

Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., head of Health and Human Services, said, in a Cabinet meeting Wednesday, that “we have ended HHS as . . . the principal vector in this country for child trafficking.” He went on to say that “during the Biden administration, HHS became a collaborator in child trafficking and for sex and for slavery. And, we have ended that, and we are very aggressively going out and trying to find these children — 300,000 children that were lost by the Biden administration.”

Last year, a whistleblower claimed that the Biden-Harris administration had “created a ‘white glove delivery service’” funneling migrant minors “into the hands of criminals, traffickers, and cartel members throughout the United States.” 

The federal government has failed worse than LA County.

Not so much by intention of politicians (we hope) but by abusive acts of government workers and contractors.

However, a major lawsuit against the worst contractor has been dropped, and the contractor re-engaged in “servicing” migrant children.

On this issue, government failure has been massive.

So, maybe when we hear calls for taking kids away from parents at local and state levels, for, say, “gender acceptance” rationales, we should demand that proponents come up with guarantees that such interventions will make things better.

For the children.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability media and media people national politics & policies

A Cuomo Indictment?

New York City, Mayor Andrew Cuomo, covid

Can there be “pandemic justice”?

On June 11th of last year, the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic of the House of Representatives interviewed former Governor of the State of New York, Andrew M. Cuomo, in pursuance of getting to the bottom of the disaster that was COVID in New York and beyond. 

Cuomo had counsel; the interrogation was transcribed.

The focus? The governor’s disastrous decision to send coronavirus patients back to his state’s nursing homes, where they quickly spread the new disease to its most vulnerable targets.

On October 30th, the Select Subcommittee sent an official letter to then-Attorney General Merrick Garland, “a detailed referral for criminal charges against Mr. Cuomo pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 1001,” which Garland unsurprisingly ignored. 

Partisans sometimes stick together; fearing being hanged separately.

On Monday, Representative James Comer, chair of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, sent a repeat request, but this time to the new AG, Pam Bondi.

The case against Cuomo is fairly clear: “Mr. Cuomo provided false statements to the Select Subcommittee in what appears to be a conscious, calculated effort to insulate himself from accountability.”

Cuomo made multiple criminally false statements, including that he was neither involved in the drafting nor the review of the state’s report, “Factors Associated with Nursing Home Infections and Fatalities in New York State during the COVID-19 Global Health Crisis” (2020).

It is worth remembering that the legacy news media made Governor Cuomo their pandemic hero and sex symbol, even as his policies killed as many as 10,000 people.

How to hold media folk accountable?

You already have: the media’s low ratings.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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