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general freedom insider corruption media and media people national politics & policies political challengers responsibility too much government

We Take the Bullet

“[I]f someone puts a gun to your head,” argues David Boaz of the Cato Institute, “and says you have to choose between Clinton and Trump, the correct answer is, take the bullet.”

Then, proving the axiom “it can always get worse,” came Friday’s twin revelations: the Washington Post broke the story of Donald Trump caught on a hot microphone bragging about groping women, and WikiLeaks released hacked emails with unflattering revelations about Hillary Clinton “principled” duplicity.

The Clinton camp huffs about the hack of campaign chairman John Podesta’s emails, but denies nothing.

In those speeches for which Wall Street firms paid her millions, Clinton’s progressivism evaporates. She suggests Goldman Sachs and other large financial firms should regulate themselves, because they “know the industry better than anybody.”

While publicly bashing the rich, she privately complains before her wealthy audience about the “bias against people who have led successful … lives.” Moreover, Hillary explains that it’s bad “if everybody is watching” public policy being made, adding: “[Y]ou need both a public and a private position.”

And to think some folks don’t trust her.

Mr. Trump likewise confirmed our worst fears. During a 2005 taping of a television soap, he boasted that “when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”

And then gave a “rapey” example of what “anything” means.

This man deserves political power?

Forget which is worse. Note how much alike they are. Both seem to think they can say — even do — anything. Without consequences.

Without caring one whit about the rest of us.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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folly free trade & free markets moral hazard national politics & policies too much government

Trump’s Road Rage

There is no reason why the states shouldn’t handle their own infrastructure. Not only in funding, but in direction and method of production and “distribution.”

But politicians aiming for the presidency tend not to even consider that heresy. And journalists, of course, tend to rah-​rah for the nationalist planning notion, too. It’s easier to cover everything from Washington. I remember much talk of “our crumbling infrastructure” back in the 1980s.

Thankfully, Shikha Dalmia has not jumped onto that bandwagon. The Reason writer notes that Trump is trumping Obama’s fling with “shovel-​ready jobs,” demanding that the federal government spend up to a trillion in infrastructure “stimulus.”

Forget for the moment the obvious contradiction: pretending to be an outsider, Trump is pushing as “insiderish” a program as imaginable.

I wonder: is Trump playing the cuckoo here, placing an alien idea into his constituents’ nests? Are his supporters about to be “cucked”? (As alt-​rightists like to put it.)

Trump looks abroad for models of beautiful roads and bridges and trains and all the rest. If you travel “from Dubai, Qatar, and China,” he bemoans, our biggest cities give off a certain “Third World” vibe.

Dalmia blanches: “the countries Trump is praising as models for a better America are all autocracies that have made a complete hash of things.”

Boy, we do not need to find another way to make a complete hash of things here in the States. And our federal budgets are strained (and pushing us further into debt) as it is.

Besides, it is not written in stone, concrete, or even asphalt, that these United States’ roads and bridges must be made the federal government’s business.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Accountability national politics & policies political challengers responsibility too much government U.S. Constitution

How to Corrupt Politicians Without Really Trying

In a Townhall​.com column last January, I argued that politicians weren’t “stupid,” as Mr. Trump had loudly proclaimed — to few objections.

The problem is worse: too many politicians lack honesty and integrity. They’re in the politics biz for their own lucrative ends.

Six weeks ago, I declared — again, to few objections — that “Politicians Must Suffer.” Despite the provocative, sizzling-​with-​Schadenfreude title, my point was simple: “lavish pay, pensions and other benefits for city councilmen, state legislators and congressmen constitute a serious problem.”

“It breeds,” I added, “bad behavior when politicians line their own pockets.…”

Well, I’m right.

At least, I’ve got some academic back-​up from a new study by Mitchell Hoffman of the University of Toronto and Elizabeth Lyons of the University of California-​San Diego, entitled, “A Time to Make Laws and a Time to Fundraise? On the Relation Between Salaries and Time Use for State Politicians.”

Sounds like a fascinating read, eh?

“Using data on time use and legislator salaries, we show that higher salary is associated with legislators spending more time on fundraising,” the study’s abstract reads. “In contrast, higher salary is also associated with less time spent on legislative activities and has no clear relation to time spent on constituent services.” [Emphasis added] 

While their study jives with my experience, the Wall Street Journal reports that others were surprised. Authors Hoffman and Lyons explain: “When salaries are higher, politicians face a greater incentive to get re-​elected (as the value of serving in office is greater). Thus, they will optimally respond by increasing the time spent on fundraising.”

Sounds like in addition to lower pay for politicians, we need term limits, too.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Accountability nannyism national politics & policies tax policy

The Year of Translucency

Barack Obama promised transparency in government. He didn’t deliver.

But others stepped up to the plate.

It’s now possible to see through a lot of political, elitist, and bureaucratic bunk courtesy of fugitives like Snowden, convicts like Manning, and citizens using FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) procedures.

And we are learning more about Hillary Clinton with each info dump from Julian Assange’s Wikileaks and every court-​ordered disclosure thanks to lawsuits to enforce FOIA by organizations like Judicial Watch.

Some folks demand that Donald Trump release his tax returns. On the one hand, hooray for public demands for more information about candidates. But on the other hand, the richer you are, the longer and stranger your tax returns become. One shifts income around to avoid taxes — indeed, you take every “loophole” the law allows. As Justice Brandeis advised. Some folks may be shocked by Trump’s creative-​but-​legal accounting.

To avoid future confusion, we should demand simple tax returns from the rich. That would require jettisoning most of the tax code, simplifying the system. But ask your congressional representative why he or she will not support such a reform.

The reason we have an opaque and complicated tax code is … well, transparent. Under a simple tax system, there would be fewer favors to “trade” … and thus less power to accumulate, less oomph to parlay into pomp and splendor.

Which is why politicians rarely provide much transparency, and why it must often be wrested from them.

Merely by being merchants of opacity, our pols reveal, if inadvertently, the nature of our Too Big Government.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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crime and punishment First Amendment rights media and media people national politics & policies political challengers

A Suit of a Different Color

Donald Trump has threatened to use lawsuits against people he says are lying about him. Even if elected President.

Well, enter the third Mrs. Donald Trump, Melania. She is suing Britain’s Daily Mail* for suggesting that she may have worked as a “part time escort in New York,” explains the BBC, “and met husband Donald Trump, who is now running for the White House, earlier than previously reported.”

We know from published nude photographs that she was in the U.S. before the time specified by her presidential-​hopeful husband. And for some, those nude photographs lend credence to a rumor about escort service work. (She’s made money for being photographed in sexual congress before.)

The Daily Mail has withdrawn its article, insisting that it had not “suggested the sex work claims were true but said that, even if false, they could affect the US presidential campaign.” Sounds like a defense to me.

Earlier this week I confessed to my lack of accounting expertise. Now I should do the same regarding law. Yet, the claim by the Trumps’ lawyer, Charles Harder, seems hard to take seriously — that is, that the defendants’ statements were “so egregious, malicious and harmful to Mrs. Trump that her damages are estimated at $150 million dollars.”

Really? That much?

Besides, it’s her husband’s career on the line. And a sex morals rumor about Mrs. Trump wilts next to the long list of rumors and established fact in the scandal department of actual candidate (and former First Lady) Mrs. Bill Clinton.

Seems with either major party candidate, we’re guaranteed a soap opera … and full employment for lawyers.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* She is also suing an American blogger.


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folly ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies political challengers

Naked Came the Pickle

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.


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