Tag: 2016 Presidential race

Work Longer?

Set aside all the snake oil that sleazy, slippery-tonged solons have sought to sell us, now comes the Bush behind Door #3 to tell the teeming masses of tailing media what we need to do … if Americans want to grow economically as a country, and succeed individually.

We need to work more.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush was just casually tossing about that four-letter word in a recent meeting with the editorial board of the Union Leader in Manchester, N.H.:

My aspiration for the country and I believe we can achieve it, is four percent growth as far as the eye can see. Which means we have to be a lot more productive, workforce participation has to rise from its all-time modern lows. It means that people need to work longer hours and, through their productivity, gain more income for their families. That’s the only way we’re going to get out of this rut that we’re in.

Work more? Harder? Longer?

How dare Jeb suggest that our future success, together or individually, should be dependent on us … of all people?

Democrats immediately pounced. A statement from the Democratic National Committee called Bush’s remark “easily one of the most out-of-touch comments we’ve heard so far this cycle.”

“Americans are working pretty hard already & don’t need to work longer hours,” tweeted John Podesta, chairman of the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, “they need to get paid more.”

We all “need” a lot of things. The point is we are all better off when we go out and earn what we need.

Well, that’s my point, anyway.

And, perhaps, Jeb Bush’s.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags 2016 Presidential race, economy, Hilary Clinton, Jeb Bush, Presidential campaign 2016

education and schooling national politics & policies

The Bloomberg Limit

Afraid that scandal-alluring Hillary Clinton may prove too flawed a presidential candidate, some Democrats are talking to billionaire and former three-term New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg about a 2016 presidential run.

Mrs. Clinton’s “slide is accelerating,” writes New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin. “A damaging new poll goes to the Achilles’ heel of her candidacy: People simply don’t trust her.”

Goodwin gushes, instead, at the “intriguing” possibility of Mr. Bloomberg.

“Wall Street wants Michael Bloomberg to run for president,” reports Business Insider, “but the billionaire isn’t budging.”

And for good reason. He can’t win.

It’s not just me saying so; it’s Michael Bloomberg himself. Last year, he told CBS Face the Nation that he’d consider running … “If I thought I could win.”

His honor should know, having spent more of his own money chasing public office than any person in American history.

Why did incumbent Mayor Bloomberg have to spend so much dough? He double-crossed voters on term limits. Bloomberg promised to oppose city council attempts to weaken the limits, but flipped to grab a third mayoral term for himself.

Voter anger “over his maneuver to undo the city’s term limits law,” reported The Times, became … well, a big problem. “To eke out a narrow re-election victory over the city’s understated comptroller, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg spent $102 million of his own money, or about $183 per vote,” explained the New York Times in 2009, “… making his bid for a third term the most expensive campaign in municipal history.”

A similar price tag in a presidential race stands at roughly $23 billion. That’s a lot for anyone.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags 2016 Presidential race, Bloomberg, Hillary Clinton, voting

ballot access general freedom national politics & policies

The Duopoly Rules

As Americans brace themselves for another presidential campaign, USA Today’s editors hazard that the “configuration” of the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) “certainly creates an appearance of a political duopoly designed to limit independent voices.”

In 1987, after the League of Women Voters displeased the two major parties, the duopoly’s respective chairmen cooked up the CPD. Both men indicated that including non-R-or‑D candidates was not part of the plan.

Thirteen years later, to keep the CPD’s tax-exempt status, the CPD established a “non-partisan” rule to “fix” an opportunity for minor parties: candidates must garner 15 percent support in the polls for inclusion in the debates.

Fast forward to today, and we witness a new group pushing the CPD to drop that requirement. Change the Rule wants one third-party nominee to be included, provided that candidate is on enough state ballots to mathematically have a chance to win the presidency.

“A third person in the general-election debates would make it harder for the major-party candidates to stick to talking points and platitudes,” agrees USA Today. But the newspaper worries about “unintended consequences,” that rather than the “centrist” they want in the debates, a new system might produce someone “on the far left or far right.”

Dear Editors, the election process ought not be designed to produce a certain pre-arranged ideological outcome.

Establishing a fair system entails not limiting voter choice ahead of time. Voters should get to hear from every candidate on enough ballots to be elected president.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags 2016 Presidential race, debates, democracy

general freedom government transparency national politics & policies privacy too much government

Rand to the Rescue

Nothing gets done in Washington?

Tell that to Kentucky Senator and presidential hopeful Rand Paul. Last night, he single-handily “repealed” Section 215 of the Patriot Act, ending the federal government’s mass collection of our phone records.

At least, for the next few days.

On the floor of the Senate, Paul blocked the USA Freedom Act, a “compromise” bill passed by the House. It would’ve required private telecoms to keep the data, allowing the government to query that data with a warrant.

“I’m supportive of the part that ends the bulk collection by the government,” said Paul. “My concern is that we might be exchanging bulk collection by the government [with] bulk collection by the phone companies.”

In a Time magazine op-ed, he argued, “We should not be debating modifying an illegal program. We should simply end this illegal program.”

Also last week, the Tea Party Patriots joined the ACLU in agreeing with Paul’s position: the USA Freedom Act doesn’t go far enough … to protect our civil rights.

Others warn we aren’t safe without maximum snooping and info-scooping by government:

CIA Director John Brennan called the metadata program “integral to making sure that we’re able to stop terrorists in their tracks.”
Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the expiration amounted to “a serious lapse.”
James Clapper, director of National Intelligence — most famous now for lying to Congress about the existence of the metadata program — declared we “would lose entirely an important capability that helps us identify potential U.S.-based associates of foreign terrorists.”

Yet, there’s not a single case where this bulk phone data helped capture a terrorist or stop an attack.

Sen. Paul believes “we can still catch terrorists using the Constitution.”

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Tags 2016 Presidential race, freedom act, patriot act, privacy, Rand Paul, security, Senate

folly free trade & free markets general freedom national politics & policies

Raise Your Hand, Dry and Secure

Post author By CS Admin
Post date May 29, 2015
5 Comments on Raise Your Hand, Dry and Secure

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders made a splash last week with an off-the-cuff comment. “You don’t necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants or of 18 different pairs of sneakers when children are hungry in this country.”

The candidate whose initials are “B. S.” doesn’t call himself a Socialist for nothing.

The Democratic-caucusing “Independent” Senator from Vermont was expressing a tired old sentiment. See his error? (Raise your hand if you know.)

To make any connection between “feeding the hungry” and cutting back on competitive products one would have to believe there is a fixed stock of wealth, and that we waste it on different brands and whole varieties of antiperspirants and sports shoes.

But there is no such fixed supply.

Supplies are concocted to meet consumer values, wants, and getting rid of competitive products means that some values are not being met … and that some folks are not being employed at the rates they could be with more diversity of commodities.

The best way to “feed the hungry” is for the hungry to feed themselves, by being productive — if children, then being fed by productive parents. And to do that, folks need to find their market niche. Which might very well entail another deodorant or shoe.

There is a realm where one person gains at the expense of someone else: redistributive government. If Sen. Sanders wants government to give more money to feed hungry people, he should consider cutting back on some other government expenditure.

Why didn’t B. S. suggest that? Perhaps more than feeding the hungry, he’s interested in feeding government, and his own pride in his own b.s. ideology.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags 2016 Presidential race, Bernie Sanders

general freedom national politics & policies

Promises of Murder

Senator Lindsay Graham kills me.

The hawkish Republican from South Carolina isn’t exactly standing up for limited government. His latest oration, on the presidential stump in Iowa, warned Americans far and wide that, were he sitting in the White House with his finger poised above The Button and “you’re thinking about joining al-Qaeda or ISIL [Islamic State] — anybody thinking about that? — I’m not gonna call a judge.”

Adding mucho macho-flash: “I’m gonna call a drone and we will kill you.”

Like you, it never crossed my mind to join either the Islamic State or al-Qaeda. So, a big “meh,” eh?

Neh.

The attacks on civil liberties, committed under the cover of fighting terrorism, must end. I hope that Section 215 of the ridiculously-named USA Patriot Act will expire. I also want to halt the secret, process-less, law-less, global drone-strike program.

And I don’t think I am asking too much for the next president to not regularly threaten audiences with wider, more gleeful and less accountable use of drones.

Remember, Sen. Graham said “thinking about.”

Even with the NSA tracking our every key-stroke, government could still make a mistake about what we’re thinking.

Moreover, even if you disagree with me — perhaps wanting the War on Terror to be fought with more fury — it still seems counter-productive for the wannabe POTUS: (a) to imply that Americans must be bullied out of joining the latest jihadist gang in the Middle East and (b) to suggest the Prez has the dictatorial power to summarily execute an American on the mere suspicion of a thought crime.

Graham, president? Don’t die laughing.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags 2016 Presidential race, war on terror

Common Sense national politics & policies too much government

The Ultimate Result of Campaign Finance Regs

Post author By CS Admin
Post date May 5, 2015
2 Comments on The Ultimate Result of Campaign Finance Regs

Last Thursday I tried to be magnanimous. Of campaign finance regulation proponents, I wrote, “I suppose a reasonable person could blanch at rich people giving money to political causes … if they objected to all super-rich donors.”

My expectation of reciprocity was dashed at the non-reciprocal gambits of the Koch-hating campaign finance regulation advocates. It all really does come down to how they hate having others spend lots of money … against their causes.

Hardly democratic, that. Sorta ‘live and don’t let live.’

But they could (and will) defend themselves. They could say something like this: “We don’t like our billionaires having to give so much either. We’d like to cap our billionaires’ giving, too!”

It’s tough to have to keep up with your opponents’ spending, a pain having to give and give to get what you want and want.

We’d all like to get our way without having to spend time and money. But that doesn’t seem to be the way the world works — everything has a cost.

I sympathize. Economists call the problem of political campaign spending a “Tullock auction,” which sports no rational upper limit on spending, because winners take all.

Still, to bitch about your opponents’ spending but never your own gives away your game.

And we all know what the ultimate progressive game is: tax-funded elections. Tightly controlled, with more and more intrusions into how citizens assemble and cooperate to promote their candidates and causes.

So if the promotion, debate, and decision process is to be government-funded, government-controlled, we might as well call it Socialism and be done with it.

Could such a system be biased, just possibly for the pro-government growth side?

All mysteries solved.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags 2016 Presidential race, campaign finance reform, elections

ideological culture national politics & policies Popular

Sanders Didn’t Say

What can we make of the leftist hatred of the Koch brothers, David and his elder brother Charles? For their support of libertarian and Tea Party causes, and a few Republican candidates, the left doesn’t just demonize them, the left singles them out.

I suppose a reasonable person could blanch at rich people giving money to political causes … if they objected to all super-rich donors.

But that’s not what’s happening here.

Leftist hatred of the Kochs is especially weird, considering that Koch causes include gay marriage and opposition to war in the mid-East. And yet it’s the Kochs who get called out … by Bernie Sanders, who wants to mobilize “millions of people to say ‘enough is enough — Koch brothers and millionaires can’t have it all.’”

Sanders didn’t say, “Soros and millionaires cannot have it all.” Leftist billionaire George Soros gives millions to organizations working to turn the U. S. into a European-style “social democracy.”

Sanders didn’t say, “Bloomberg and millionaires cannot have it all.” Super-rich statist Michael Bloomberg has spent fortunes to undermine the Second Amendment and make America more of a Nanny State.

Sanders didn’t say, “Steyer and millionaires cannot have it all.” California billionaire Tom Steyer sure spent a lot of money to raise taxes and elect Democrats.

Bernie Sanders, a self-proclaimed socialist now running for the Democratic presidential nomination, is blinkered: others are greedy; his side is pure.

Enough is enough — what’s important to Sanders is that his opponents be silenced by government order. There’s nothing democratic about that.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags 2016 Presidential race, Bernie Sanders, Koch brothers, Presidential campaign 2016

national politics & policies political challengers

My Mom for President

My musing, yesterday, about Hillary Clinton’s hat throw into the presidential ring failed to recognize that yesterday was also my mother’s 81st birthday.

Jane Jacob is not yet an announced presidential candidate, but when I think of a hard-working, organized, smart and always-optimistic woman — someone who keeps promises and looks out for the other person; someone with commitment to principle — I think of her.

Not Hillary Clinton.

Maybe Mrs. Clinton would have put in the hours playing catch with me as a tyke. But can Hillary even catch? My mom can. And throw too. (Not like a — well, incorrectly, either gender.)

My mom has a soft heart. I remember coming home from school and seeing her crying from watching a soap opera.

Nonetheless, she can dish out tough love. During a family clean-up effort (like a Bataan death march, but in English) she asked if one of us six kids could do something or other. I stepped forward to say, “I’ll try.”

Mom looked at me plainly and explained, “I need someone to do it, not just try.”

She is still full of fun and passion. Her deep love and concern for America’s freedom has certainly had an enormous impact on my life.

Too bad my mom’s not running.

Hillary Clinton has demonstrated none of the presidential timber my mom has, and yet Clinton is very likely to enjoy a large electoral advantage among women voters. So, here’s my idea: the Democratic Party’s competition should each nominate a woman for the top of the ticket. There are plenty of women qualified to serve as president. Not just my mom.

May the best woman win.

Have I started a stampede to office supply stores to buy binders?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags 2016 Presidential race, paul jacob, Presidential campaign 2016

media and media people national politics & policies political challengers

Humble Hillary Heads Off

Hillary Clinton, collage, photomontage, illustration, editorial, election, presidential, campaign, poverty, accomplishments, election

Hillary Clinton announced, yesterday, that she wants to be the next president of these United States. She made it official via an Internet video, which starts off with all kinds of normal, regular folks expressing their hopes and plans for 2015.

The small boy singing about “little tiny fishes” steals the show.

After a minute and a half of innocence-by-association, Hillary Clinton comes on to say that she, too, has big plans: “I’m running for president.”

Mrs. Clinton continues: “Americans have fought their way back from tough economic times, but the deck is still stacked in favor of those at the top.”

She should know, what with her family’s struggles after leaving the White House in 2000 — multiple mortgages on multiple multi-million-dollar domiciles. I’m sure we all relate to that.

“Everyday Americans need a champion and I want to be that champion,” she states, “so you can do more than just get by, you can get ahead and stay ahead.”

Apparently, without Hillary at the helm of our Leviathan federal government, all we can do is “just get by.” Barely. Never “get ahead” and “stay ahead.”

“Because when families are strong,” intones Clinton, “America is strong.”

Yes, the woman who wrote It Takes a Village now extols family strength.

“So I’m hitting the road to earn your vote,” she pledges. “Because it’s your time.”

Or so says this Everywoman, a former first lady, U. S. Senator, presidential candidate, Secretary of State, and savvy cattle futures trader.

Hillary Clinton has had a long career in government. It will be interesting to see what she runs on — what she identifies as accomplishments — as opposed to what she runs away from.

Or deletes.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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