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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