Bernie’s plan will SAVE MONEY through Government Efficiency!
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Don’t Worry!
Tag: 2016 Presidential race
Don’t worry…
Bernie only wants “the good kind of socialism.”
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“At a certain point, you have to let go for the democracy to work,” President Barack Obama told HBO’s Bill Maher last week, praising “the wisdom of the founders.”
“There has to be fresh legs,” he continued. “There have to be new people. And you have to have the humility to recognize that you’re a citizen and you go back to being a citizen after this office is over.”
Maher failed to ask Mr. Obama how this “fresh” viewpoint squared with his support for Mrs. Clinton. Nevertheless, let’s applaud the president’s endorsement of term limits.
Speaking of the founders, and limits on power, and this being Election Day, I’m reminded of a commentary in Forbes, back on Election Day four years ago, written by Ed Crane, the man who built the Cato Institute into one of the nation’s preeminent think tanks. Bemoaning the “interminable presidential race,” Crane wished for “a nation in which it really didn’t matter who was elected President, senator or congressman.”
“Don’t get me wrong, because I’m not saying it doesn’t,” explained Crane, “only that it shouldn’t.” He added, “I believe the Founders had a similar view.”
His point is simple: Getting to vote for your next president and senator and congressman is swell, but it’s important to have a Constitution that restrains those elected, so they “don’t have a heck of a lot of power over you or your neighbors.”
“We are a republic of limited governmental powers,” or should be, argued Crane. “Such a nation allows for sleep on election night.”
Instead of gnashing of teeth.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
I support neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump for the presidency. Still, I do understand several reasons to vote for Trump, including, most obviously, “he’s not a Clinton.”
The most persuasive strategic reason given for voting for the man, however, and the one that has most purchase with me, is that he would appoint better Supreme Court justices than would Mrs. Clinton.
Note: if the Democrats gain hold of the U.S. Senate, an elected Donald Trump would “negotiate.” And the next set of Supremes might be quite bad.
But is all this irrelevant? It does not look like Trump will be elected, so any vote thrown at him will be just as “wasted” as a vote for Johnson, Stein, or Mickey Mouse.
More importantly, if Hillary wins, no biggie on the Supreme Court front IF (a big “if”?) the Republicans maintain congressional dominance.
Why?
Our Senators are not required to vote for any of a president’s appointees. But, alas, that is not what Democrats are saying now! Forget such self-serving nonsense. The Constitution does not specify the number of justices on the Supreme Court. It is nine now, sure, but the Highest court in the land was first manned by five justices, then seven.
So, after the election, unpack the court.* Back down to seven, at least.
And then let’s talk terms for the currently “serving for life” justices, and term limits.
In any case, the best case for Trump isn’t so much a case for him, as a plan of action no matter who is elected.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
*This notion is more doable, I think, than Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s infamous court packing scheme, in which he threatened to put more justices in to over-rule those justices who thought his “New Deal” program unconstitutional. Congress, not required to vote in any proposed Supreme Court candidate, could balk at all and then, by law, reduce the number, even removing one justice from office if need be.
Questions Answered:
Does the best reason to vote for Donald Trump really hold water?
Does the Constitution specify the number of justices that should be on the Court?
Is Congress really at the mercy of any bully who occupies the Oval Office?
The Next Question:
Will voting for someone other than Trump be more of a “wasted vote” than voting for Trump himself, if, as polls indicate, he loses?
Trust must be earned; Hillary Rodham Clinton hasn’t earned it.
And yet, if the polls hold, Mrs. Clinton will be elected the next president of these United States — the first-ever female commander-in-chief, sure, but viewed by a clear majority of Americans as untrustworthy.
Part of the problem is her husband Bill. The former president has been accused of inappropriate sexual advances and liaisons … and even sex crimes. Hillary’s campaign rightly keeps reminding people that he is not on the ballot. But wasn’t Hillary going to have Bill “run the economy”?
Besides, what’s most relevant is how she defended her philandering husband against his women accusers, with threats, intimidation, and a decided lack of feminist solidarity.
Older folks remember “Travelgate” (a self-serving gaucherie); even Millennials should recall the Bosnian “sniper fire” (self-aggrandizing fib). Then there’s Benghazi. Documents obtained by Congress show Mrs. Clinton immediately telling her daughter that the attack was a planned terrorist attack by an al-Qaeda affiliate. Nonetheless, Hillary publicly blamed the attack on an Internet video.
It was “extremely careless” for Hillary to have set up a private email server, vulnerable to foreign hacking. But how sly to use BleachBit to destroy her hard drive, erasing any money trail. And then, she responded to reporters asking if she wiped her server: “Like with a cloth or something?” Chutzpah.
Ugliest, though, was one of the earliest: cattle futures.
Evidence convinces me that Hillary took a nearly $100,000 bribe disguised as profits from trading cattle futures that she did not actually trade. James Blair, “who at the time was outside counsel to Tyson Foods Inc., Arkansas’ largest employer,” helped Clinton supposedly “out of friendship, not to seek political gain for his state-regulated client.”
The windfall profit was more than lawyer Hillary and Attorney General (and then Governor) Bill earned together annually from their two fulltime jobs. Quite a risky “gamble.” Does Hillary seem like a reckless gambler?
So many scandals and lies. From the next president.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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.
Last week, Donald Trump’s enemies staged an “emperor has no clothes” gag in full view of the public. It was a caricature of Trump, and featured him fat, old, and nude … and gave us a full view of the pubic.
Titled “The Emperor Has No Balls,” it failed to qualify as highbrow.
Kristin Tate, author of Government Gone Wild, was one of many non-left commenters to take note of the double standard in plain sight: while media folk chuckled and even gloried in the short-lived art placements, their reaction to a similar graven image of Hillary Clinton would almost certainly have been viewed with horror and outrage.
This week, the real (non-effigy) Hillary proffered another stunt.
Facing rumors that she is not well, that her fall several years ago left her with a host of neurological and physical disabilities — rumors that focus on her weird leave of the stage at one of the Bernie debates, her strange, uncomfortable and borderline autistic bouts of laughter, her exaggerated motions, and much more — Mrs. Clinton went on Jimmy Kimmel Live to open a jar of pickles.
Considering the pickle she placed America in throughout the Middle East, perhaps there was a message here.
Whatever feat of strength this was supposed to amount to, Kristin Tate is having none of it. On Fox News’s RedEye, Ms. Tate insisted she heard no telltale “pop” that would indicate the unsealing of a sealed jar.
Somehow, this whole election season is symbolized in one lame stunt.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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.
“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.
