Category: national politics & policies

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Accountability crime and punishment moral hazard national politics & policies property rights Regulating Protest responsibility U.S. Constitution

It’s Morning in Wisconsin

Assault on Free Speech in Wisconsin, police abuse, harassment, militarization, democracy, intimidation, collage, photomontage, illustration, editorial, violence

Regarding mornings, put me in Sheriff Hopper’s camp. He’s the Stranger Things character, repeatedly informing folks: “Mornings are for coffee and contemplation.”

Speaking of stranger things, who expects an early morning SWAT-like police raid on their home?

Three years ago, yesterday, that happened to Cindy Archer, and other conservatives in Wisconsin. Near dawn, a dozen police officers in flak jackets pounded on her door, carrying a battering ram just in case. Her dogs were freaking out and she feared they’d be shot. The police ransacked her home, confiscating her computer and smart phone.

This was a secretive John Doe investigation, so Ms. Archer was informed she could discuss the raid with nobody but her lawyer. The raid was public, the media tipped off, but Archer was prevented from defending herself publicly. Or even privately, among friends and relatives.

Her suspected crime?

Like her fellow targets, she had supported Gov. Scott Walker’s effort to reform the law regarding public employee unions. And for fundraising “coordination” in pursuit thereof.

The gag order slapped on conservatives in 29 groups might have prevented us from knowing the partisan political assault taking place, but Eric O’Keefe, the head of the Wisconsin Club for Growth, courageously spoke out.

“Had I honored their secrecy order, I couldn’t have organized our defense,” Eric O’Keefe told Blaze TV. “I decided quickly — look, this is supposed to be a free country, I’m going to operate as though it is, even if it isn’t today.”

First, John Doe Judge Gregory Peterson ordered the probe to close. Prosecutors appealed.

O’Keefe went to federal court and soon Judge Rudolph Randa agreed that Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm and the Government Accountability Board were violating their rights. Randa warned: “[A]ttempts to purify the public square lead to places like the Guillotine and the Gulag.”

Randa’s ruling was stayed pending the appeal to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. “It is utterly clear that the special prosecutor has employed theories of law that do not exist in order to investigate citizens who were wholly innocent of any wrongdoing,” read the that court’s majority opinion.

Still, the persecutors persisted, asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case. Yesterday morning, the High Court denied Milwaukee County’s appeal.

Calling the three-year dystopian odyssey “a disgraceful episode in Wisconsin history,” this morning Mr. O’Keefe is pushing the state legislature to have some coffee and contemplate (and then legislate) ensuring this never happens again.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Assault on Free Speech in Wisconsin, police abuse, harassment, militarization, democracy, intimidation, collage, photomontage, illustration, editorial, violence

 

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Accountability folly general freedom moral hazard national politics & policies political challengers responsibility

The Choice That Isn’t

politics, Obama, Hiillary Clinton, lies, elections, FBI Director, James Comey, war president

Americans are used to being betrayed by their political representation.

This long series of infidelities has led to the current predicament, where the Republican and Democratic parties present us with the opposite of what most Americans want.

Why this vexing stalemate?

History.

The current Democratic President, Mr. Obama, gained both notoriety and trust for his stance against war. Rank-and-file Democrats rejoiced. The Bush Wars were over!

Nope. Obama grew into his role as war president.

Like his predecessor.

Under his watch, the U.S. expanded regime change to Libya, stretched the Afghanistan incursion into our longest war, and now sends more troops into Iraq. (Sans their boots.)

The peacenik manqué has discovered his talent for killing foreigners. His supporters, in consequence, “cling to” his other paltry achievements: a weak, ephemeral recovery; the imperiled, perilous Obamacare.

And a long series of lectures.

No wonder Democrats are demoralized enough to vote for hawkish Hillary Clinton, the least qualified presidential candidate in American history.

But wait, Obama hath ballyhooed: she is “the most qualified”!

Why “least”?

Because FBI Director James Comey just admitted* that any underling of his that had behaved as recklessly as she had with national security would be “disciplined” and “in big trouble.”

Instead, Americans may wind up hiring her . . . for Commander in Chief!

Republicans, on the other hand, have enthusiastically kicked at that “small government” football so many times, only to witness their “leaders” yank it away. Have they now given up? Donald Trump has no interest in limiting government; he talks of new spending programs.

With a “choice that isn’t” in these two losers, no wonder “we don’t win anymore.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

*Comey’s exact words, in July, were “They might get fired, they might lose their clearance” — expertly hedging with those mights — “There would be some discipline.” Though he could find no evidence of intent to commit a criminal act, Comey did judge Mrs. Clinton “extremely careless” and “negligent.”

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general freedom moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies Regulating Protest responsibility too much government

Undefeated

Missouri Ethics Commission, lobbyist, lobbying, Ron Calzone, Missouri First

It’s over . . . but it’s not.

A conscientious Show-Me state activist has won his case, but . . .

A year ago, the unethical Missouri Ethics Commission fined Ron Calzone $1,000 for not paying a silly $10 fee. To register as a lobbyist. They also ordered him to stop talking to legislators until he complied.

Citizen Calzone didn’t register.

He didn’t pay.

And he didn’t shut up.

On principle.

Instead, he contacted the Freedom Center of Missouri and the Center for Competitive Politics, a national outfit that defends our rights to participate in our supposedly participatory and representative democratic republic.

On Monday, a judge ruled in Ron’s favor, tossing out the “ethics complaint” against him. On a technicality, actually.

Winning is better than losing. But even if someone bothers to try again against Calzone, filing the suit properly*, Calzone would win.

You see, we have rights . . . including the freedom to talk to those pretending to represent us. It is not at all certain that government has any constitutional authority to regulate paid lobbyists.

But Ron is not a paid lobbyist. He volunteers for Missouri First, a citizen group.

So why did the speech police’s long arm reach out to grab him?

He’s effective.

More than a forthright advocate for what he believes, he has proven smart enough to find ways to allow fellow freedom-lovers to weigh in on bills they favor or oppose.

This has endeared him neither to legislators nor the lobbying “community” — professionals paid handsomely to lose to Calzone’s grassroots network. They will strike back. You can count on it.

But as long as there are citizens like him, the people will not be defeated.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* The charges weren’t filed by a “natural person,” as the law requires, but by the attorney for the Missouri Society of Governmental Consultants, the state lobbyist guild.

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general freedom nannyism national politics & policies too much government

A Federalist Prescription

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California has become the 32nd state to stand up for the dying.

Gov. Jerry Brown just signed the “right to try” law that the Goldwater Institute has been pushing. It allows diagnosed terminally ill patients with only a few months left to live to try “experimental” medications.

These are drugs that haven’t passed through all the Food and Drug Administration’s many hoops.

The rationale for the law is that the FDA’s decade-long, costly process is ostensibly designed to prevent “dangerous” drugs from being regularly prescribed and sold and used in the United States. To save lives, you see. But it is simply cruel to hold patients in the process of dying to the strict standards of the slow, bureaucratic federal bureaucracy. Cruel because purposeless.

The Goldwater Institute’s press release clarifies the law like this: “Right To Try is limited to patients with a terminal disease that have exhausted all approved treatment options and cannot enroll in a clinical trial. All medications available under the law must have successfully completed basic safety testing and be part of the FDA’s on-going approval process.”

Hardly radical. Indeed, it seems such a meek and mild move, to me. If you are dying, and your doctor is obliging, who is harmed?

Two things, though:

  1. Had Americans a right to self-medicate — like we did before the Progressive Era nanny state bureaucracies were set up — this issue would not even come up. These reforms are necessary because we are not Once upon a time, all Americans could choose any medication.
  2. This is yet another example of states effectively nullifying federal law.

More please.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability national politics & policies political challengers responsibility too much government U.S. Constitution

How to Corrupt Politicians Without Really Trying

politicians, public servants, service,

In a Townhall.com column last January, I argued that politicians weren’t “stupid,” as Mr. Trump had loudly proclaimed — to few objections.

The problem is worse: too many politicians lack honesty and integrity. They’re in the politics biz for their own lucrative ends.

Six weeks ago, I declared — again, to few objections — that “Politicians Must Suffer.” Despite the provocative, sizzling-with-Schadenfreude title, my point was simple: “lavish pay, pensions and other benefits for city councilmen, state legislators and congressmen constitute a serious problem.”

“It breeds,” I added, “bad behavior when politicians line their own pockets. . . .”

Well, I’m right.

At least, I’ve got some academic back-up from a new study by Mitchell Hoffman of the University of Toronto and Elizabeth Lyons of the University of California-San Diego, entitled, “A Time to Make Laws and a Time to Fundraise? On the Relation Between Salaries and Time Use for State Politicians.”

Sounds like a fascinating read, eh?

“Using data on time use and legislator salaries, we show that higher salary is associated with legislators spending more time on fundraising,” the study’s abstract reads. “In contrast, higher salary is also associated with less time spent on legislative activities and has no clear relation to time spent on constituent services.” [Emphasis added]

While their study jives with my experience, the Wall Street Journal reports that others were surprised. Authors Hoffman and Lyons explain: “When salaries are higher, politicians face a greater incentive to get re-elected (as the value of serving in office is greater). Thus, they will optimally respond by increasing the time spent on fundraising.”

Sounds like in addition to lower pay for politicians, we need term limits, too.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability media and media people national politics & policies political challengers

The Crooked News Network

HIllary Clinton, CNN, bomb, bombing, bias, illustration

A recent Gallup poll found Americans’ trust in their news media has fallen to the lowest level ever recorded. Only 32 percent expressed either “a great deal” or “a fair amount” of confidence in the press “to report the news fully, accurately and fairly.”

Trust among Republican is down to a mere 14 percent.

Sad statistics . . . but not surprising. Remember Rathergate in 2004?

Over the weekend, CNN earned its “Clinton News Network” nickname by blatantly misreporting Hillary Clinton’s and Donald Trump’s responses to the terrorist bombings in New York and New Jersey.

Both candidates initially called these incidents “bombings” — even before government officials had definitively confirmed the obvious. But in its reports, CNN edited out Mrs. Clinton’s remarks to that effect and ran with the angle that Mr. Trump was irresponsible for saying . . . well, what she said.

“The press has since largely slammed Trump for referring to the explosion as a ‘bomb’ too soon,” reported The Hill, adding that major media outlets have somehow “also failed to mention Clinton in focusing on Trump.”

Some blame the public’s low esteem for the media on Mr. Trump’s scathing attacks. The Donald dubbed CNN, for example, “disgusting and disgraceful” over this latest controversy.

He’s right.

Enough. CNN’s desire to propagate stories favorable to one candidate and unfavorable to another has spiraled down to the withholding of relevant information, for no better reason than to mislead the public. As a news junkie with an itchy trigger finger on my TV remote, I’ve stopped clicking over to CNN.

Now, Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown will be even more so.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment ideological culture media and media people nannyism national politics & policies

The Other Half of the Truth

Jason Falconer, terrorism, gun, gun control, media bias, illustration, meme

Another terrorist event. And another.

Douglas A. French, of the National Review, while writing about Islam and terrorism, innocently drew up a half-truth: “In Saint Cloud, Minn., Dahir Adan’s family identified him as the man who stabbed eight people in a mall before being shot and killed by an armed civilian, an off-duty police officer named Jason Falconer.” So, what is the missing half of the truth?

The heroic Mr. Falconer was armed, sure. And an off-duty cop. But he was more civilian than cop, for the weapon he had on him was concealed (by permit), and he is the owner of a gun range.

Actually, a firearms training business that teaches “individuals the mindset, knowledge and skills needed to be successful with firearms in order to secure their personal safety or that of their family, at home or in public.”

Falconer used to be a police chief, and still works part-time as a police officer. But, we should emphasize, his main gig is training. Indeed, he’s an advocate concealed carry and a member of the dreaded National Rifle Association.

I am not criticizing Mr. French. His focus was on something else. And he did use the word “civilian,” which is not the case in most coverage. But that “off-duty cop” meme is everywhere — pushed by most journalists.

Could they not want us to think that mere civilians can do good in a world of too much conflict and crime — if armed?

Let’s honor Jason Falconer. And let’s also reaffirm his message, the importance of concealed carry and trained firearms use by good people.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

Poor Obama, gun control script in hand

 

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Accountability ballot access folly general freedom media and media people national politics & policies Regulating Protest too much government

The Two-Product Economic System

election, duopoly, rotten choices, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trumpk

What if our economy worked like our political system?

Only two major companies would provide any particular product for sale. But don’t worry — we’d still have a solid choice between “This Product Is Obnoxious” and “I Don’t Trust This Product.”

Those two companies would create a non-profit entity — a Commission on Product Debates — empowered to determine the rules under which any upstart company could present its “third-choice” product to consumers.

That Commission would prevent any third-choice product from standing on the marketplace stage where consumers could compare it face-to-face with the two established choices . . . until it captured 15 percent of the market.

Last week, in real life, the Commission on Presidential Debates announced that its upcoming September 26th debate would feature only Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Neither Libertarian Gary Johnson, averaging 8.4 percent in the five commission-approved polls, nor Dr. Jill Stein, the Green, at 3.2 percent, met the 15 percent threshold set by the Commission.

Forget that polls also show nearly two-thirds of consumers — er, voters, want Johnson and Stein in the debates. You can’t win ’em all.

Or any at all . . . if you can’t take your product to market. And the presidential debates are an essential space in today’s political marketplace.

No third-party or independent presidential candidate has been allowed on that debate stage since Ross Perot qualified in 1992, at the time polling at 8 percent — below Johnson’s current percentage.

That was before the Commission required a polling threshold. After those debates, one in five Americans voted for Perot on Election Day.

Duopolies do not serve us well. They cannot. That is not even their aim.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability incumbents initiative, referendum, and recall nannyism national politics & policies

Colorado’s Problematic Solution

Colorado, initiative, amendment, 71, incumbents, illustration

There’s a problem in Colorado, or so we’re told. And a solution. But the one doesn’t seem to match the other.

The problem, according to the supporters of Amendment 71, is too many constitutional amendments.

Their solution? Pass another constitutional amendment.

Moreover, even though two-thirds of constitutional changes have been proposed by legislators, not by citizen initiative, Amendment 71 makes it much tougher for citizens to propose amendments, while not altering the legislature’s power.

Maybe that’s because their committee, Rig the Bar . . . er, Raise the Bar, is a bipartisan group of politicians and political insiders. Their amendment would (1) increase the vote required to pass a constitutional amendment to a 55 percent supermajority, and (2) mandate that citizens qualify petitions statewide, as currently required, but also in each of the 35 state senate districts.

This means that to get an issue on the ballot citizens must successfully run 36 petition drives, not just one. And falling short in any single senate district would doom an entire effort. In short, future citizen initiatives would be much more expensive and likely to fail.

Meanwhile, the supermajority vote threshold provides well-heeled special interests with an ability to win even when they lose. Expect the powers-that-be to beat up reform measures with negative ads, knowing that simply by holding YES votes down to 54.9 percent, the establishment wins.

In a recent debate, Elena Nunez with Common Cause explained, “The problem with Amendment 71 is it’s designed to allow the wealthiest special interests in the state to act as a gate-keeper, because the cost of initiatives will go up dramatically.”

This Special Interest Protection Act sure is a problematic solution.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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folly insider corruption moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies porkbarrel politics responsibility

Settled Science?!?

sugar, lobbying, science, corruption, illustration

You probably know that America’s sugar industry is protected, making astounding profits because of high tariffs and artificially raised consumer prices.

And you likely know that government has worked hand-in-hand with agribiz interests to cook up (and regulate) a competitive sweetener, high fructose corn syrup. You understand that there are various types of sugar, and almost certainly suspect that refined sugar is bad for you, with high fructose corn syrup perhaps worse.

In fact, the scientific evidence for the danger of a high sugar diet has been around since the 1950s.

Well, what we now know, Elizabeth Nolan Brown writes at Reason, is “how the sugar industry essentially bribed Harvard scientists to downplay sugar’s role in heart disease — and how the U.S. government ate it up.”

Before Reason weighed in, my colleague Eric D. Dixon sent me a New York Times story, which stated the main proposition plainly: “How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat.” But Reason’s Brown is right: it was government that really made this a nationwide disaster. The imprimatur of government sanctified the anti-fat craze, and the government’s own dietary guidance (and regulations) proved grossly wrongheaded.

Now we’re the ones who are gross.

Scientists and government (bought off by a protected industry) fed us a line that many swallowed. We increasingly swapped fat for refined sugars, causing health to decline as girths went out and weights went up.

So when I hear outrageous claims for the “settled science of climate change,” I look at my middle and doubt that “settled” part. And I nurture an unsettling thought. . . . it’s the political science that’s settled: government lies to us.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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