Common Sense with Paul Jacob

Today

The Twenty-Fifth

On Feb. 10, 1967, the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified by Nevada, the necessary 38th state to do so. The amendment sets the process for presidential succession, and reads:

Section 1. In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.

Section 2. Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.

Section 3. Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.

Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.

meme

Government Efficiency!

If government is the main buyer for prescription drugs, then prices will go down… just like prices go down at the Pentagon!

References:

Here’s a report from the lefty magazine “Mother Jones” on the wastefulness of military spending. The same magazine also promotes the idea that prescription drugs would be cheaper IF ONLY government were the sole buyer for them. So much for consistency…

“Should the Government Use Its Monopsony Power to Reduce the Price of Drugs?” by Gary Becker and Richard Posner (Monopsony: a market structure in which only one buyer interacts with many would-be sellers of a particular product)

Wikipedia on Reagan’s Packard Commission

Click below for high resolution version of the image:

Tags inefficiency, monopsony, packard commission, prescription drugs

ideological culture national politics & policies

War on Young Women

Madeleine Albright, Gloria Steinem, HIllary Clinton, girls, women, voters, Common Sense, illustration

According to a weekend CNN-WMUR poll in New Hampshire, Sen. Bernie Sanders leads former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by eight percentage points.

Among women.

“Hillary Clinton’s quest to become the country’s first female president has encountered an unexpected problem,” begins a Washington Post report on Hillary’s “trouble persuading women, young and old, to rally behind her cause.”

Younger women seem to pose the biggest “problem.” The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC/Marist College poll of New Hampshire Democrats found Mrs. Clinton nine points ahead of Sen. Sanders among women 45 and over. But Sanders bests Clinton by a remarkable 29 percentage points with women under 45 years of age.

Not to worry, the faces of establishment feminism have been mobilized. Madeleine Albright, appointed to be the first woman Secretary of State in 1997 by then-Pres. Bill Clinton, stood at a Granite State rally with Hillary to shout, “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other.”

Persuasive?

On his HBO show, comedian Bill Maher asked feminist icon Gloria Steinem to explain why younger women “really don’t like Hillary.” Ms. Steinem postulated, “When you’re young, you’re thinking: ‘Where are the boys? The boys are with Bernie,’”

In her subsequent Facebook “apology,” Steinem claimed she “misspoke” and had “been misinterpreted as implying young women aren’t serious in their politics.”

Imagine that.

Dana Edell, the leader of an “anti-racist gender justice advocacy group,” offers a less controversial explanation. “While the historic aspect of the first woman president is hugely powerful and important,” she told the Old Gray Lady, Hillary Clinton “might not be the right first woman.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags 2016 Presidential race, Bernie Sanders, Gloria Steinem, Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Presidential campaign 2016

Thought

Thomas Paine

“When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.”

Tom Paine, Common Sense (1776).

Today

The Age of Tom Paine Begins

Post author By Redactor
Post date February 9, 2016
No Comments on The Age of Tom Paine Begins

On Feb. 9, 1737, Thomas Paine was born in Thetford, England.

Paine would come to America in 1774 and by 1776 publish Common Sense, urging American independence. Later works included The Rights of Man (1792) and The Age of Reason (published in three parts in 1794, 1795, and 1807).

Paine died in 1809.

Accountability folly national politics & policies

Hillary Clinton, Double-Agent?

Post author By CS Admin
Post date February 8, 2016
5 Comments on Hillary Clinton, Double-Agent?

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton rails against a “political system hijacked by billionaires and special interests.” Billionaire George Soros just wrote a $6 million check to a pro-Hillary SuperPAC.

“Our democracy should work for everyone,” states HillaryClinton.com, “not just the wealthy and well-connected.” Last week, we discovered Mrs. Clinton was paid a whopping $675,000 by Goldman Sachs, the politically-connected Wall Street investment firm, for three speeches after she left the State Department.

Nice work if you can get it.

“Her top donors read like a Who’s Who of Wall Street,” editorialized Investor’s Business Daily. “But sure, she’s going to clean up campaign finance.”

Not only that, Hillary also claims she’ll take on and harshly regulate those same powerful Wall Street interests.

In last Thursday’s debate, Mrs. Clinton took umbrage at the idea that rival Senator Bernie Sanders “would characterize me, a woman running to be the first woman president, as exemplifying the establishment.”

This led columnist Danielle Allen, also a woman, to opine: “Clinton does not merely exemplify the establishment. She and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, are the Democratic Party establishment. . . . That candidate Clinton could deliver her line with a straight face goes to the heart of her trustworthiness problem.”

Responding to Bernie Sanders’s questions about her significant financial support from powerful interests, Hillary told the debate audience, “I know this game. I’m going to stop this game.”

Mrs. Clinton is very believable as to the first claim. The second? Not so much.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags 2016 Presidential race, Hillary Clinton, Presidential campaign 2016

Today

Delaware and Slavery

On February 8, 1865, Delaware voters rejected the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, voting to continue the practice of slavery. Delaware belatedly and symbolically ratified the amendment on February 12, 1901.

Thought

Walter Bagehot

In modern days, in civilised days, men’s choice determines nearly all they do. But in early times that choice determined scarcely anything.
Walter Bagehot, Physics and Politics (1872), p. 29.