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

Christmas Is Coming

Trump, Santa, NAFTA, trade

When I was a kid, every December day was like a rocket-launch countdown ’til Christmas.

Republicans in the House of Representatives have fewer days to tick off: the days remaining to do something before Democrats take over. Days left in session? Eight.

We know what Trump wants them to do: pass his negotiated replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Last week, “Trump held a high-profile signing ceremony with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto at the G-20 summit in Argentina,” Eric Boehm writes at Reason. “The leaders of the three countries put their signatures to the final version of the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), but the deal must still be ratified by each domestic government.”

And some in the Republican House are uneasy, because they “disagree with the Trump administration on trade issues and correctly see the USMCA as moving North America further from free trade.”

Though Donald Trump has given us some reason to think he might have multilateral free trade in mind as his real goal, the current state of the USMCA does not bolster that.

But it could be worse — the Democrats could scuttle the rewrite, just to spite Trump. This would allow Trump to go “nuclear” and withdraw from NAFTA unilaterally without a replacement.

“This would be disastrous for the American economy,” Senator Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) says, “and would kick off a constitutional battle between the branches over trade power.”

That sounds like a lump of coal for Christmas. But I wonder: can a constitutional battle be all bad if it raises awareness of . . . the Constitution?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Categories
ballot access government transparency Popular

The Rank Reality of Math

Maine, Ranked Choice Voting, black box, elections, democracy

U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin (R-Maine) doesn’t like Ranked Choice Voting.

Last week, I suggested that’s because he lost his re-election to Congress in his state’s first use of Ranked Choice Voting (RCV). Perhaps I spoke too quickly? Congressman Poliquin argues that RCV is a “black-box voting system.”

“We heard from countless Maine voters who were confused and even frightened their votes did not count due to computer-engineered rank voting,” read a campaign statement.

Who wants frightened voters?

The “voting system utilized by the Secretary of State is secret,” Poliquin’s campaign spokesman further complained. “No one is able to review the software or computer algorithm used by a computer to determine elections. This artificial intelligence is not transparent.”

Computer-engineered elections? Artificial intelligence? Oh, my!

“I think it’s time that we have real ballots, counted by real people,” the congressman told reporters. “. . . instead of this black box that computes who wins and who loses.”

By all means, yes.

Nathan Tefft is a professor at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, and claims to be “a real person.” With a PhD in economics. He got all the election data and replicated the ranked -choice process used by the Maine Secretary of State in conducting the count, confirming the state’s results.

“The Maine secretary of state’s office has published all the election results on its website — every ballot, every ranking in every town,” the Bangor Daily News informed. “It’s all there in massive data files that can be inspected and downloaded.”

Wait a second . . . what about the black-box, the secrecy, the dreaded use of AI?

All a fable.

“Yeah,” Dr. Tefft noted, “it’s just math.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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crime and punishment media and media people Popular

What’s Up With Hate?

hate crime, FBI, report, statistics

Reported hate crimes are up.

Last year, you may remember, major media outlets noted an alarming pattern, quoting the work of a “nonpartisan researcher” who seemed more intent on linking Donald Trump to the perceived trend than anything else.

This year’s increase?

Well, the most recent FBI report shows hate crimes for 2017 up a whopping 17 percent!

Sounds alarming.

But is it? I mean, really?

Maybe. CNN offers a fascinating investigation of several rather big-story hate crimes that did not make it into the statistics. Yes, disturbing.

But what did CNN not report?

YouTuber Matt Christiansen drilled down, focusing on several aspects of the FBI report that are missing from accounts brought to us by major news outlets.

The uptick in sheer numbers of hate crimes may be mostly the result of the increased number of law enforcement agencies that have been brought into the data-collecting project. How many new agencies? One thousand.*

And consider the demographics changes year-to-year as well. Religious-based crimes saw a small increase in the number of anti-Jewish events and a similar decrease in anti-Muslim ones. All in all, notes Christiansen, there has been little change in the proportions of the statistical categories — which would not be what one would expect if Trump were the Malign Influence.

Also bad for that narrative? The biggest detectable change in the distribution of race-based crimes — more than twice the increase in numbers of crimes against Hispanics — was against (get ready for it) whites.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* That is from the FBI press release; oddly, I did not find that statement when looking directly at the report.

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Categories
Accountability general freedom individual achievement Popular

Settling the Science

climate, global warming, climate change, science, mistake

A paper in the august science journal Nature,* on the oceans’ “thermal inertia” and the ominous temperature rise therein, has been corrected. But not before the BBC (and other media outlets) ballyhooed the results in the usual “climate change”/“global warming” narrative: “Climate change: Oceans ‘soaking up more heat than estimated’” (Nov. 1).

The paper’s initial new (and alarming) estimate, however, proved wrong.

Over at Real Climate, one of the co-authors clarified the changes that had to be made: “The revised uncertainties preclude drawing any strong conclusions with respect to climate sensitivity or carbon budgets . . . but they still lend support for the implications of the recent upwards revisions in” . . . well, I will let you make sense of it.

I am not a climate scientist, nor do I pretend to be one on the Internet.

What is important to note is that the “strong conclusions” reported on were found to be groundless. 

Mistakes were made.

How were those mistakes identified?

They were caught at the ClimateEtc. — not an “august science journal” — published online at judithcurry.com.**

Nic Lewis, the astute blogger, identified a major source of the inaccuracy in the original paper as having arisen “primarily because of the inappropriate assumption of a zero error in 1991.”

We have just witnessed science in action — the public testing of published findings.

“The bad news,” Dr. Roy Spencer reminds us on his Global Warming blog, “is that the peer review process, presumably involving credentialed climate scientists” — note the dig — failed to catch the error “before publication.”

The crucial science happened afterwards, online. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* “Quantification of ocean heat uptake from changes in atmospheric O2 and CO2 composition,” by L. Resplandy, R. F. Keeling, et al.

** I have had occasion to mention climate scientist Judith Curry in the past.

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ideological culture national politics & policies Popular

No-Study Politics

The 200-plus “youth activists” who stormed House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s offices (see yesterday’s Common Sense) were protesting Pelosi’s leadership on climate issues. Soon-to-be Representative Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) was there to encourage Pelosi to listen to them.

“We need a Green New Deal,” Ocasio-Cortez informed her natural constituency, journalists, “and we need to get to 100 percent renewables because our lives depend on it.”

An impossible task, of course. Which means activists would always possess a reason to protest — forever and ever without end.

Still, Ocasio-Cortez and her friends seem earnest. The Representative-Elect insists “we have 10 years left and I — not just as an elected member, but as a 29-year-old woman — am thinking not just about what we are going to accomplish in the next two years but the America that we’re going to live in in the next 30 years.”

A little skepticism is in order. Prophecies to the effect that we have only “ten or 12 years left” after which “global warming will be irreversible” are made repeatedly . . . every ten years or so. Rinse. 

“I think in 2018, when fires, floods, storms are getting worse,” another Pelosi protester reiterated, “and when the U.N. climate report says we have 12 years to radically transform our entire economy at a scale that’s unprecedented in human history, I think studying climate change is absolutely the wrong thing to do.”

What pearls of wisdom to conclude the coverage. Of course “studying climate change is absolutely the wrong thing to do” to “fix” climate change! Who needs information?

To fight climate change . . . or  “radically transform our entire economy.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Categories
ideological culture meme national politics & policies Popular too much government

More of the More

trap, socialism, democratic socialism

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s triumphant entry into Washington, DC, as a United States Representative-Elect, is quickly proving a cautionary tale for Democrats. She’s an enthusiastic socialist. Or “progressive,” to use the preferred euphemism. And thus Democrats see her as a fresh breeze to air out the stodgy, musty chambers of . . .

Nancy Pelosi’s office. 

Ocasio-Cortez showed up in the House office building last week, along with other protestors “flooding,” as Politico put it, the Minority Leader’s work area. 

But what she is proving to be is not a breath of fresh air. And she is not merely “more of the same” in leftist agitation. 

She may be “more of the more.”

Progressives cannot seem to formulate an upper limit to their ideology. Dr. Jordan Peterson, trying to be “precise,” warns that this is the main problem of the left today: a lack of any sense of “going too far.” 

If government growth is always good, then . . . all the way to the socialism of Stalin, Mao and the Castros? The result of “always more” is “most.”

Real socialism is the  trap. “Democratic socialism” is the bait.

Their usual rebuttal? “We just want to be more like Scandinavian countries.” But these countries have less regulation on markets than America does currently. We should believe the “Scandinavian Limit” precisely when progressives earnestly push to repeal some regulations. 

Ideology aside, this may be mainly . . . politics. Ocasio-Cortez proclaimed herself “looking forward” to “working together” with former and likely new Speaker Pelosi, and left the protest before the police began making arrests.

A statesperson in the making.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Categories
free trade & free markets Popular tax policy too much government

Socialists and Capitalism

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio helped snag Amazon for his city. Yes, the long-awaited destination of Amazon’s HQ2 has been determined. Amazon is not putting all its eggs into the Queens borough, though: there’s another headquarters . . . to be placed near Washington, D.C.

The mayor seems quite proud of the deal.

I’ve not been de Blasio’s biggest fan; too often he sounds like a socialist. But this deal? It’s crony capitalism.

So it is with some satisfaction that I can make common cause with a self-professed socialist, newly-elected Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Claiming that her Bronx constituency is “outraged” by the Amazon announcement — I doubt that — she expressed her outrage at the “billion-dollar company” receiving “hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks.”

Exactly. No company, big or small, should get special treatment from a government.

Want to attract business? Make generally good business policy. Apply liberally, that is, equally.

Alas, the socialist-elect went on to complain that “our subway is crumbling and our communities need MORE investment, not less.”

Well, Amazon is investing in the community, providing jobs.

Then came the busybodyism, demanding to know, “What’s the quality of jobs + how many are promised? Are these jobs low-wage or high wage? Are there benefits? Can people collectively bargain?”

Uh, wages will be high enough to attract workers from their current employment or out of unemployment. And so on.

Socialists feel a need to meddle.

New Yorkers, anyway, can breathe easier knowing they sent Ocasio-Cortez far away, to D.C. — de Blasio as mayor being bad enough.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Categories
general freedom ideological culture Popular Second Amendment rights too much government

Il Duce Cuomo

Cuomo, Mayor, New York

A federal judge has ruled that the National Rifle Association has a plausible case against New York Governor Andrew Cuomo; the NRA’s lawsuit, alleging that the organization’s rights have been violated by the governor, is going ahead.

As related by Jacob Sullum in two pieces over at Reason, Cuomo sure looks guilty. 

Indeed, the governor’s own words convict him: “If the @NRA goes bankrupt because of the State of New York, they’ll be in my thoughts and prayers. I’ll see you in court.” 

Precisely.

What has Cuomo done? “I am directing the Department of Financial Services,” he commanded, “to urge insurers and bankers statewide to determine whether any relationship they may have with the NRA or similar organizations sends the wrong message to their clients and their communities.”

Is this just regulatory business as usual, as defenders of Cuomo harrumph? Or is it a real violation of rights?

It can be both. 

This is more than “bully pulpit” power, it is actual, gun-under-the-table power — the kind you give to regulators when you set up regulatory bodies rather than establish general principles under a rule of law.

It is a problem on every level of our society, especially the federal government. But states like New York are obviously not immune.

And it reminds me of Mussolini’s method, of The Leader taking control and bullying businesses and groups to do his bidding. (For the “public safety” and to “end violence” — of course.) The essence of fascism.

It’s good to see Il Duce Cuomo get some legal pushback. 

In this Land of the Allegedly Free.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Categories
general freedom initiative, referendum, and recall political challengers Popular

Spoiler Season

libertarian, spoiler, porcupine, snake, politics

“Libertarians poll high enough to tip key races,” informs The Washington Times — citing contests for governorships and both houses of Congress.*

Libertarian Lucy Brenton is one example, running for U.S. Senate in Indiana. She grabbed 7 percent in a recent poll, greater than the margin between incumbent Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly, who had 44 percent, and Republican challenger Mike Braun with 40 percent. The Times says Brenton is just one of “a number of Libertarians whose poll numbers are high enough to more than account for the difference between Republicans and Democrats in key midterm races.” 

She had garnered 5.5 percent in 2016, when she sought the state’s other U.S. Senate seat. 

There is disagreement over whether Libertarians help or hurt Republicans. Most folks suspect that Libertarians take votes away from Republicans, but polling appears to show Libertarians snagging more otherwise Democrat-inclined voters.

No matter. As often discussed here, enacting Ranked Choice Voting is the rational institutional solution to the so-called spoiler effect Libertarians present. It’s a win-win for both so-called major and minor political parties. 

“Libertarians bristle at the term ‘spoiler,’” the newspaper notes, “saying it’s a belittling term for a party that presents a viable option to voters.”

Which brings me to a second solution to Libertarians luring away your voters. Steal their issues. Take them and make them your own.

There’s no law against it.

No reform required.

“Libertarians are running against President Trump’s tariffs, immigration policy and record on spending . . .” explains The Times, and “are embracing . . . less taxation as well as marijuana legalization, criminal justice reform and ending the war on drugs.”

Fresh elections. Happy voting.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* It won’t change the outcome, but on Monday the Boston Globe endorsed Libertarian Dan Fishman for state auditor, writing: “An auditor without any partisan axes to grind could shake up the state.” That’s a different kind of spoiler.

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Categories
crime and punishment ideological culture Popular

Propaganda Bombs

panic, explosion, fear, hysteria, terrorism

“In these times, we have to unify,” President Donald Trump said in response to reports of bombs sent to high-level Democratic public officials, “we have to come together and send one very clear, strong, unmistakable message that acts or threats of political violence of any kind have no place in the United States of America.”

He also assured that “a major federal investigation is now underway.”

It sure looks like a concerted operation, considering the number of targets: political funder George Soros, former CIA director John Brennan, former President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Rep. Maxine Waters, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, et al.

Given the political affiliations of the recipients, many people assume it was a partisan terrorist from the Republican side of the proverbial “aisle.”

But note the obvious: not one putative bomb went off. Or even got close to the ostensible targets.

Massive incompetence?

One device seems to have “ISIS” scrawled on it, but experts tell us that device is well below ISIS standards. It turns out that the marking is an ISIS parody symbol. The perp is not likely a jihadist “lone wolf” wannabe.

Bombs going off is serious terrorism, deadly evil. But bombs not going off is serious . . . propaganda by the dud.

What if the point is not to explode and hurt people, but to “explode” in human minds?

Could this be an “October surprise,” the false flag of some demented person or “cell” on “the left” to impugn “the right”?

As Matt Walsh hazarded at The Daily Wire, “It does not take a conspiracy theorist to wonder about the timing and methods in this case.”

We do not know much yet. Questions will hopefully soon be answered.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Illustration: pixabay