Category: national politics & policies

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media and media people national politics & policies political challengers

The New Centrism?

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Have you noticed that CNN has been offering multiple “town hall” presentations of the Libertarian and Green Party presidential candidates?

I think this is not only great for the Libertarians and the Greens, but also good for the country — and I hope it proves good for CNN.

When the Cable News Network started, it was the only player in its league. Then Fox News pulled away its right-leaning viewers. MSNBC followed, offering a safe space for the far left. And there remains the center-left of the rest of major media.

So CNN has to distinguish itself. Why not appeal to those left . . . out of the political process?

By opening up to libertarians and radical environmentalists, CNN may bring in more viewers. And temper its well-known bias.

With the libertarians, though, CNN may really be just appealing to the new center.

Which is now libertarian . . . -ish.

Surely, with Trump harrumphing from the apparent “right” and Hillary Clinton dominating the neo-con left — and Dr. Jill Stein trying to soak up the far left — moderates need a voice.

And with moderate libertarian Gov. Gary Johnson and libertarian-leaning centrist Gov. Bill Weld, there does exist a reprieve from the scary extremes. Surprised? Well, that is precisely the case Johnson and Weld make. They pitch themselves, as Walter Olson perceptively argues in Reason, as “the ‘sane’ choice, the ‘responsible’ and ‘adult’ ticket . . . campaigning not on fear and anger but on a positive message of problem-solving.”

More of that, please.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability initiative, referendum, and recall nannyism national politics & policies responsibility too much government

Governments Against the People

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Is it odd to see government employees and politicians — public servants — hold onto particular laws with a death grip?

Maybe not. In Texas, municipal government employees have been working mightily to prevent citizens from repealing local ordinances. According to a report by WOAI News Radio, the Texas “State Senate Intergovernmental Relations Committee on Monday heard horror story after horror story from citizen groups which have tried to circulate petitions calling for repeal of local ordinances.”

It’s not shocking, I suppose, since those laws may give politicians and bureaucrats more power. And perhaps there’s pride of authorship.

But, despite any merit (or demerit) these laws may possess, public servants are still public servants, which means: serve the public.

Which means: uphold democratic processes.

Government is all about processes, really. This shouldn’t be too hard.

Which is why there’s no excuse for what has been going on:

  • “municipal governments . . . employ ‘tricks’ and intimidation in an attempt to halt citizen petition drives”;
  • they cite “bogus city ‘statutes’ which invalidate signatures”; and
  • “will claim that more signatures are required than the citizens group has managed to collect.”

Basically, these government bodies are setting unreasonably high and arbitrary hurdles for petitions to get on the ballot — such as requiring “birth dates and Social Security numbers” of signers.

That often does the trick. One would have to be very careless to put one’s Social Security number onto a public document — one that anyone could see. And photograph.

For later nefarious use.

The fact that these government tactics are all illegal justifies the Senate committee probe into the malfeasance — and demands action.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability ideological culture media and media people moral hazard national politics & policies political challengers Popular

Smash the Duopoly

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When Donald Trump called our country’s electoral process a “rigged system,” he was not wrong. The system is a legally secured duopoly.

I’ve discussed a number of the elements of this system previously. But one I may not have explored enough is the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD).

The League of Women Voters sponsored the first televised presidential debates in 1952, and from 1976 till 1988 ran a “tight ship,” as How Things Work puts it. After the League refused to cooperate with the bullying major parties, the CPD was established by former R and D bigwigs aiming to fully accommodate the major party candidates.

And no one else.

The CPD calls itself “non-partisan,” but that’s a misnomer. It is a bipartisan commission, as everyone who knows its history knows. The commission raised the bar on minor party candidates to polling 15 percent in a number of polls.

Recently, we’ve been hearing that the commission is preparing a third place on stage, for Libertarian candidate Gov. Gary Johnson. But he still hasn’t quite yet hit the prescribed percentage, though he has met the most important qualification: he is the only minor party candidate likely to be on all state ballots.

And now there’s a kicker. According to Brian Doherty, historian extraordinaire of Reason, “The Socially Liberal and Fiscally Conservative PAC (Solifico) [yesterday] morning sent a letter to Janet Brown, executive director of the [CPD], threatening to send the IRS after them over their policy of not allowing all legitimate candidates for president in their debates.”

The case looks solid.

And could secure for Johnson a podium at the debates.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.   

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Accountability ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies

The False Fairness of Bias

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“If the disgusting and corrupt media covered me honestly,” Donald Trump tweeted on Saturday, “I would be beating Hillary by 20%.”

Argue the percentage, sure, but acknowledge the obvious bias.

Asked by MediaBuzz host, Howard Kurtz, about a “tilt against Donald Trump,” Larry Sabato, the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, replied, “I don’t think there’s any question about that.”

“But look,” continued Sabato, “there was a media tilt against Mitt Romney. There was a media tilt against John McCain. There was a media tilt against George W. Bush. It has more to do with party and personal characteristics of journalists than anything else.”

The bias is as old as it is obvious, “but of course I’ve never seen anything like this level of vitriol,” Kurtz clarified.

Kurtz noted a front-page New York Times column by Jim Rutenberg, which argued that reporters who believe Trump is “potentially dangerous” must “throw out the textbook American journalism has been using” and become “oppositional” — regardless of the fact that the stance “threatens to throw the advantage to his news conference-averse opponent . . . who should draw plenty more tough-minded coverage herself.”

According to Rutenberg, an unbalanced approach during the campaign’s homestretch would help remedy the $2 billion in free coverage the media gave Trump during the primaries.

Notice that the anti-Trump bias now helps the Democrat, whereas the pro-Trump bias previously helped the GOP nominate a candidate likely to lose to the Democrat.

Perhaps there’s a method to such media madness.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability folly general freedom ideological culture meme moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies

Two Headed Beast

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More War, More Cronyism, More Corporate Give-Aways, More CrowdedPrisons, More Taxes, More Regulations, More Drug War, More PoliceMilitarization and Civil Rights Violations, More Assaults on Free Speech, More Economic Bungling, More Debt, More Control, More Corruption.

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Accountability moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies responsibility too much government

Population to Government, “Hello”

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Government “central planning”? I’m against it.

But it’s socialism, fascism, and allied isms that I oppose. I’m not against “government planning.”

We could use some.

Take population. When government sets up complicated institutions, like Social Security or Medicare, those institutions must match the general trend of the number and make-up of those served.

Or else fail spectacularly.

But as everyone knows, Social Security was set up when the population was growing, and expected to continue . . . at a positive rate. The whole logic of the system depended on population growth.

What if populations shrink?

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now reports that the general U.S. “fertility rate has dropped back to its all time low of 62.5 children per 1,000 American women ages 15 to 44 years,” informs science writer Ronald Bailey.

The “total fertility” rate is now “1.84 children over the course of an American woman’s lifetime.”

A steady-state population replacement rate is thought to be 2.1 children per woman.

Trouble is, if your main institutions depend on population growth, and instead, population declines, things are liable to go catawampus.

No wonder European nations, which are undergoing even more startling negative population growth, flirt with allowing huge influxes of hard-to-assimilate refugees. At the back of governmental minds may be: how do we keep going?

Some of today’s social anxiety may have to do with this shift in population growth, and government strategy.

Before politicians try to plan a whole industry — like, say, “single-payer” medical services — maybe they should learn how to arrange the existing government, to accommodate the direction society demonstrably wants to go.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul is Jacob.

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meme nannyism national politics & policies

Robert A. Heinlein on Political Labels

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“Political tags such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.”

–Robert A. Heinlein

 

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ideological culture national politics & policies Second Amendment rights

Second Amendment People

Donald Trump, 2nd Amendment, gun rights, Hillary Clinton, assasination

Donald Trump states things in a manner simultaneously ambiguous and incendiary.

Of course, he has help from the media, the Clinton camp and other embittered opponents, all elated to act as firestorm propellants . . . through as many 24-hour news cycles as possible.

At a rally this week, Trump claimed that a President Hillary Clinton would appoint justices to the Supreme Court committed to undermining our individual right to bear arms. “If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do folks,” he told the crowd, before adding, off-the-cuff, “Although the Second Amendment people — maybe there is, I don’t know.”

The Clinton campaign and much of the media (but I repeat myself) immediately took this as a clear call to Second Amendment activists to . . . well, summarily execute Mrs. Clinton.

A leap? As Hillary would say, “Let’s unpack this.”

Would Mrs. Clinton curtail gun rights as Trump charges? She recently told Fox News that she would not choose justices seeking to overturn the High Court ruling in the Heller case, which interpreted the Second Amendment as guaranteeing an individual gun right.

Do I trust her? Stop laughing and read on.

Was the Donald attempting to incite violence against Hillary? No.

But what should be the people’s response were a future president or court to declare our right to defend ourselves null and void?

Remember, musket-armed American patriots met the British redcoats at Lexington and Concord for the shot heard ’round the world. Why? Specifically to stop the Brits from rendering the colonists defenseless by confiscating their arms and ammunition.

The implication? Clear.

So, with a chill down the back of our necks, let’s hone and redouble our peaceful support for our most basic right, self-defense.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability general freedom moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies too much government

Politicians Must Suffer

politicians, public servants, service,

Politicians make us suffer. Isn’t turnabout fair play?

No. Two wrongs don’t make a right. And equal suffering is not a worthwhile goal.

Nonetheless, politicians do indeed need to “suffer” — by which I mean to bear a serious and sobering cost for their service in pubic office, to view their relationship with power through the lens of sacrifice . . . not as cashing-in.

Like every other decent person, I’ve always been offended by midnight pay raises and the myriad sneaky, sleazy ways that our so-called servants enrich themselves at our expense. But, until recently, I considered politicians being over-compensated as a symptom of the problem and not a big problem in and of itself.

Now I’m convinced that lavish pay, pensions and other benefits for city councilmen, state legislators and congressmen constitute a serious problem. It breeds bad behavior when politicians line their own pockets — and laugh their way into retirement.

But even without the tricks, when our representatives receive too many treats for their, ahem, “service,” they tend not to serve us very well.

Some contend that compensation must be “competitive” to attract the best and the brightest. But with rare exceptions, we’re not getting those folks to run for office. Instead of enticing successful people or those committed enough to public service to accept less lucrative pay, we’re getting folks who see public office as their path to success — personal financial success.

One cannot serve two masters. If our representatives are in it for their own benefits, as opposed to making a sacrifice for the greater good . . . well, we wind up with government like we have now.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment general freedom national politics & policies too much government

Loose Cannon as Prez

Rodrigo Duterte, Philippines, President

“If I order the killing of someone,” Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte said last Friday, “you cannot arrest me: I have immunity.”

Yikes. Nearly everything negative imputed, perhaps dubiously, to Donald Trump applies double to Duterte, without a hint of dubiety.

Ordering killings with impunity? Only the U.S. president can do that.

The former mayor of Davao City was in the news during his presidential bid, for his ultra-Trumpian outbursts, saying daring, ugly, even wicked things.

Most scandalous was his remark about a young woman who was gang raped in his home town. It was “only a tragedy,” as Breitbart.com phrases it, “because he himself did not get to have sex with her first.”

Vile, yes; downright evil.

And terrifying coming from a politician entrust with protecting his countrywomen’s rights.

But then, Duterte is clear: he doesn’t care about human rights.

In his ruthless war on drugs, he’s instructed drug-warrior police to shoot first, ask questions later. The nation’s “narco-mayors” (politicians who cooperate with drug dealers) are begging for protection, leniency, anything. If those mayors have armed defenders, Duterte threatens to have the Air Force bomb them.

The American ambassador to the Philippines has publicly censured Duterte, but not (that I’m aware of, anyway) for humans rights violations, but for Candidate Duterte’s earlier rape comment. Duterte struck back calling the ambassador names and claiming his public condemnation was out of line, undiplomatic.

True enough.

I guess that’s why Secretary of State John Kerry just “inked a deal,” says Breitbart, sending $32 million to support Duterte’s war on drugs.

Duterte’s response? “[L]et’s insult them again so these fools try to make amends again.”

Fools, indeed.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.  

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Rodrigo Duterte, Philippines, President