Category: national politics & policies

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crime and punishment national politics & policies

Trump’s Libertarian Promise

Ross Ulbricht, drugs, drug war, prison, law, Silk Road

“If you vote for me,” President-elect Donald Trump promised the delegates at the Libertarian Party national convention last May, “on Day One, I will commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht to time served.”

That is eleven years so far. “We’re going to get him home,” insisted Trump. 

Mr. Ulbricht, a libertarian cause célèbre, was sentenced in 2013 to double life terms, without parole, plus 40 years. 

So, who did he kill? 

At 26 years of age, Ulbricht created the Silk Road online platform, “an anonymous e-commerce website.” Used by some folks, certainly, to trade in drugs and other illegalities.

On a Change.org petition urging presidential clemency (which I’ve signed), his mother explains: “Ross is a first-time offender” and “an Eagle Scout, scientist and peaceful entrepreneur,” who faced only “non-violent charges at trial. He was never prosecuted for causing harm or bodily injury and no victim was named at trial.”

That’s why she and many of us simply cannot stand the idea that now 40-year-old “Ross is condemned to die in prison.”

Dudley Do-Right — no. Trump to the rescue!

Indeed, it was a very smart political move, courting the Libertarian vote both by showing up and, specifically, by pledging to free Ross Ulbricht. Libertarians suddenly had a tangible reason to support Trump.

Will Trump keep his word? “I do think he’s going to free Ross Ulbricht,” Libertarian Party Chair Angela McArdle told Robby Soave on his “Rising” program.

I think so, too. I sure hope so. It would be refreshing to see the awesome power our Constitution gives the president to pardon crimes and commute sentences used for someone deserving of mercy. 

Rather than someone escaping justice.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights free trade & free markets national politics & policies

Politically Exposed Persecution

fascism, freedom, business, censorship

National socialism, as operated by the actual Nazis, did not seize all the major industries and run them as collectives or state-owned businesses. The Nazis applied party control directly to big business, as a political-regulatory matter. 

How different is what woke Democrats have been doing to business today, here in America, using multiple agencies of the United States federal government’s regulatory apparatus?

Marc Andreessen, investor, innovator, business genius, and early Internet pioneer, explained how in a discussion on the Joe Rogan Experience, last month.

Start with debanking, which the regulators can tell banks to do to “politically exposed persons.” Mr. Andreessen told Joe about a friend who was debanked, apparently because his job title was involved in the business use of crypto-currency. 

And debanking is exactly what you think it is: de-platformed from the financial system.

Don’t worry, statist: you are not “politically exposed.” This only applies to critics of our quasi-fascist system.

This commercial censorship is run pretty much like censorship on the social media companies after 2016, by soft pressure . . . the “raw power” of a “privatized sanctions regime.” Government functionaries notify a bank that a person or business is “politically exposed,” and the bank — fearing getting on the bad side of regulators — kicks the customer off the rolls. 

Politicians can haughtily state that it was the bank that did it. Banks, after all, are not obliged to serve everyone! They can pick and choose their customers.

Besides, there is no First Amendment right to have a bank account.

This is how woke bureaucrats can rule like Nazis.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment national politics & policies social media

Morbid Meme Mania

insurance, healthcare, laugh emoji, assassination

Last week’s murder — assassination — of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on the streets of Manhattan has inspired something more than a mere resurgence of gallows humor. The proliferation, online, of laughter emoji reactions to the story is unsettling, to say the least. 

Then there are the hardcore “memes” scorning Mr. Thompson’s medical insurance company and mocking his death — what are we supposed to make of it all?

Well, the virtuous response is to condemn the schadenfreude and mean-spiritedness.

But some of the jesting is indeed pointedly funny. 

“All jokes aside,” runs the best of them (from BlueSky, the left’s alternative to X), “it’s really fucked up to see so many people on here celebrating murder. No one here is the judge of who deserves to live or die. That’s the job of the AI algorithm the insurance company designed to maximize profits on your health and no one else.”

Which brings us to the nib of it. 

As the prospective Trump Administration puts its ducks in a row to hit the ground running in January, the “health issue” that RFKj and others have pointed to is the heavily regulated and subsidized food and drug industries, which are making us sick. The question of paying for medical care was supposed to have been solved by “Obamacare” a decade ago, but prices have only risen . . . and resentments along with them. 

The author of that BlueSky tweet and virtually all Democrats today, think the answer to the insanity of our government-regulated “private” health insurance system is full-bore socialized medicine.

Our money-grubbing leaders know that would be a disaster, but they have only kicked the chaos we’ve inherited from the terrible policy choices of yesteryear down the road.

I’m left with nothing funny to say about that.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Note: As this episode was put to bed, the biggest update to the story was the announcement of a suspect, or “person of interest”: Luigi Mangione. Make of that what you will.

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general freedom national politics & policies regulation

No, Donald Trump, No

Chavez-DeRemer, unions, Trump, nominee

Here’s a deplorable turn of events — and just when we were so happy to have thwarted the socialist stylings of Harris and Walz.

We’ve always known that Donald Trump doesn’t advocate 100 percent laissez faire capitalism. As if to confirm his inconsistencies and disabuse us of any hopes of clear sailing toward greater freedom, or even toward keeping the freedom we’ve got, he has named Republican Congresswoman Lori Chavez-DeRemer as his Secretary of Labor.

Labor-union darling DeRemer supports the Pro Act: anti-worker, anti-freelancer legislation that was barely blocked in Congress and that the current Labor Department has tried to impose by regulation. I doubt the incoming Congress will enact it either. But if DeRemer is Labor Secretary she, too, may try to impose it by regulation.

The Pro Act would kill laws in 26 states that let workers choose whether to join a union. There’s a novel concept, letting employees decide whether to join an organization supposedly devoted to their interests.

The Pro Act would also undermine the secrecy of the ballot in union elections. A secret ballot is a fundamental tenet of our democratic republic. 

Worst of all, at least for gig workers and freelancers, are its provisions to make life much harder to function as an independent contractor.

Unions that favor the Pro Act, and Mrs. DeRemer, are eager to do all they can to cripple the ability of non-unionized labor to compete with above-market-rate union labor.

This isn’t just a No, Mr. President. 

It is, as Jennifer O’Connell puts it, a “Hell No.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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national politics & policies too much government

Elon & Vivek to Cut Government?

Will it happen this time?

Even the most profligate taxers and spenders sometimes talk about making our federal government “more efficient” or about “cutting waste.” Commissions are set up, reports issued, and then — we still see the same runaway trajectory.

This time, former President and President-Elect Donald Trump has announced that two heavy hitters, entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, will be heading up a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to do the job. They’re already planning and hiring.

Trump says that DOGE is determined to “dismantle government bureaucracy, slash regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies.”

The project of cutting wasteful expenditures is the same going-nowhere notion that we have seen before. If we get actual demolition of merely destructive agencies — which would require congressional cooperation, I believe — this would be great.

I can provide a list. But that would make me a part-timer in this endeavor, and “We don’t need more part-time idea generators,” DOGE says.

“We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting. If that’s you, DM this account with your CV. Elon & Vivek will review the top 1% of applicants.”

Let us see what happens. Trump would have to push this forcefully and continually, getting his supporters to forcefully and continually pressure Congress, to get enough done fast enough to actually reduce Leviathan. And he’ll have a lot of other stuff to cope with.

But . . . boy, do we need it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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national politics & policies partisanship

Abolish. Or Set in Stone

Senate, Filibuster, Senators

The filibuster is racist. 

That’s what Progressive House Caucus Chairwoman Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) claimed . . . as long as Democrats were to control the U.S. Senate. 

“The choice is clear,” she once tweeted. “Abolish the Jim Crow filibuster.”

The filibuster demands a 60-vote supermajority in the 100-seat Senate in order to shut off debate and vote on most legislation. Yet, in recent times, both parties, when in the majority, have carved out exceptions.

To be clear, the majority party could at any time kill the filibuster. It is simply a Senate rule — not a law, not a constitutional provision.  

Why get rid of it?

If “we had the trifecta” (meaning control of both chambers of Congress and the White House), Jayapal urgently supports ending it: “because we have to show that government can deliver.”

Why keep the rule?

She wants to use the 60-vote threshold against Republicans; she certainly wants to block them from delivering.

Mock Jayapal’s hypocrisy, as we may, but it is ubiquitous in the capital. Besides, there are more consequential issues to address. 

Either the United States Senate should have a filibuster rule or not. Let’s debate and decide. But one thing is clear: the Senate should not have a 60-vote majority requirement that either majority party can jettison whenever it so desires. 

Put the filibuster into the Constitution. 

Or — because an amendment is such a long, arduous process — pass a statute establishing the filibuster in law. This would at least provide a presidential check on Congress monkeying around with it. 

And on this one matter, abolish the hypocrisy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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initiative, referendum, and recall national politics & policies

The Battle Ahead

Tonight — or hopefully sometime before Christmas — we will know who the next president of these United States shall be. 

I’m also anxious to find out who wins control of the U.S. Senate and House — and most excited to see the outcome of 11 statewide ballot measures that I’ve been engaged in — across ten states, including eight states with Citizen Only Voting Amendments on the ballot, most critically North Carolina and Wisconsin. 

But my elation in expectation on this fine day is greatly tempered by the sobering reality that awaits on Wednesday. No matter who wins . . . something approaching half the country will be deeply distraught. 

I’m tired of hearing that America is “over” — that this experiment in freedom and democracy has run its course and is destined to soon fail. But on Wednesday I’ll no doubt hear that chorus again from the losing side.

No one gets a prize for predicting America’s demise — only for preventing it. 

What worries me most, however, are the challenges Wednesday’s winner will face from a world at war in Europe and the Middle East, with conflict rapidly approaching in Asia. 

“World War III,” as columnist George Will wrote weeks ago, “has begun.”*

Yet, the election has been largely devoid of serious foreign policy discussion. “The U.S. presidential campaign is what reckless disregard looks like,” quipped Will. “Neither nominee has given any evidence of awareness of, let alone serious thinking about, the growing global conflagration.”

Whoever wins today (or whenever): Buckle your seatbelts. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

* Mr. Will believes history will look back to mark the beginning of the Third World War with “Russia’s 2014 seizure of Crimea,” during the Obama administration. 

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incumbents national politics & policies political challengers

Taking Out The

Joe Biden, Alfred E. Newman, MAD,

At last Sunday’s Trump Rally in Madison Square Garden, Tony Hinchcliffe, a reputed comedian, told a very unfunny joke, referring to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.”

The outcry was understandably loud, so noisy in fact that it apparently awakened Sleepy Joe Biden. “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters,” declared the man who is — remember? — currently still president of the United States.

Mr. Biden has since clarified that he did not mean what he said. That’s good. 

Though, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre sounded a different note: “So, just to clarify, he was not calling Trump supporters garbage, which is why he put out . . . a statement that clarified what he meant and what he was trying to say.”

But Mr. Biden did say what he said. That’s not in dispute — it’s on videotape. 

Yet . . . the reporting seems fuzzier now about whether President Biden uttered what our ears heard. 

On NBC Nightly News, anchor Lester Holt began a segment by referring to Biden’s “apparent reference to Trump supporters as garbage.” 

At Vox, Eric Levitz defends the president, arguing that he “ended up spouting a garbled stream of words,” sure, but those words “may or may not have dehumanized all Trump supporters as ‘garbage.’”

How could Levitz know for certain? He’s not an etymologist, after all.

A Washington Post analysis also found the president’s lack of noticeable cognition to absolve him of any ill intent. “Biden’s increasing tendency to stumble over his words, which marred these very comments,” the paper explains, “makes it entirely plausible that he didn’t intend to tar large numbers of Trump supporters.”

At best, we have a commander-in-chief who can no longer communicate coherently. With his finger on the nuclear button. 

What — me worry?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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government transparency national politics & policies

Gnashing of Teeth

UFO, disclosure, UAP

Congressman Tim Burchett (R-Tenn) “doesn’t trust the Pentagon; never have.” But he does put some hope in a Trump presidency. 

“I’m convinced that if he’s elected, there’ll be disclosure.”

He’s not talking about about JFK assassination disclosure — not his bailiwick.

He’s talking about UFOs — or Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, as they are now called.

Burchett thinks Trump will be our Disclosure President.

UFO enthusiasts shouldn’t get their hopes up. Trump is not the first president to have been touted as a UFO truth-teller. 

Jimmy Carter infamously admitted that he saw a UFO once, and had hoped to bring transparency to the Pentagon on the subject. The lore about how this fizzled is . . . odd. 

William Jefferson Clinton went in to office hoping to get to the bottom of two mysteries, UFOs and the JFK assassination. He admitted he got nowhere. 

Hillary Clinton promised to disclose as much as she could about UFOs to the American people — her right-hand man was John Podesta, a well-known UFO disclosure advocate — just so long as the information did not jeopardize national security.

A big proviso, that.

Anyway, Hillary didn’t get elected, and the hoped-for disclosure . . . started anyway. A workaround spearheaded by Luis Elizondo, a Deep State man from way back, put UFOs back in the headlines in 2017, and we’ve been talking about them ever since.

But Elizondo’s intel background screams “psy-op” to some people, and it crosses most folks’ minds that the slow disclosure we’re witnessing now is not entirely on the up-and-up. Actual disclosure would lead, Burchett says, “to much gnashing of teeth.” But he believes that Trump has learned something. 

“He gets it now.”

Well, we don’t. Hand over the information.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment education and schooling national politics & policies

Forever Be Changed

Kamala Harris, power

I’ve discussed Kamala Harris’s support, as district attorney and attorney general in California, for an abusive law enabling the arrest of parents if their children miss “too much” time at school, how the law has been deployed against parents like Cheree Peoples, whose daughter has sickle cell anemia.

I’ve quoted Harris’s words.

Now I will quote more of them. But let’s also listen to those words and observe her demeanor and tone, how Kamala Harris gloats about her use of power.

“As a prosecutor . . . I have a huge stick. So I decided I was gonna start prosecuting parents for truancy. . . . ‘If you don’t go to school, Kamala’s gonna put you and me in jail.’ [laughs] . . . I said [to prosecutors] ‘when you go over there, look really mean.’

“I learned that with the swipe of my pen, I could charge someone with the lowest-level offense. That person could be arrested, they could lose time from work and their family, maybe lose their job. They’d have to come out of their own pocket to help hire a lawyer. . . . Weeks later, I could dismiss the charges. But their life would forever be changed.”

Video of Harris saying such things is part of a political attack ad about why men needn’t be prejudiced against female candidates in order to oppose giving Kamala Harris power over everyone in the country.

In the waning days of the campaign, we could do worse than to share this evidence, her own candid, joyous testimony about herself.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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