Tag: Obama

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national politics & policies

Of Bats and Debates

bat, flag, debate, Trump, Biden, Obama

How batty is 2020’s politics?

Adding one absurdity upon another, a minor party candidate got attention this weekend for something even more bizarre than Biden’s bumbling or Trump’s trolling:

She got bit by a bat and is now undergoing painful treatment for rabies.

Her name is Jo Jorgensen, Libertarian Party presidential candidate. 

So far, reports on this development have focused on her Twitter account, where jokes abound. 

But what dominates her Twitter feed are the usual-​for-​Libertarians demands that she be included “in the debates.”

What debates?

Is anyone certain that there will be debates at all? Behind in the polls, Donald Trump seems eager to debate, but … Joe Biden?

Well, the Biden camp has agreed to three debates and the candidate says he is “so forward looking [sic] to have an opportunity to sit with the president, or stand with the president, in debates.” But Trump wants more.

And some Democrats want none, for in that same interview (which has gone more viral than rabies), as elsewhere, Biden made so many bizarre gaffes that most folks are beginning to assume that, against the Donald, Biden might wilt worse than a vampire in sunlight.

Biden, who will not even attend his own ostensible nominating convention, remains largely sequestered, under cover of panicky pandemic protocols. Unless the Democrats somehow replace him, the odds of there being debates at all seem low. 

And if Trump’s too much for Biden, what is a Libertarian to the two major parties? The Libertarians have been excluded for a reason.* Introduction of substantive, orthogonal-​to-​the-​duopoly ideas into a national debate might show the major parties for what they are: cognitively challenged.

What a year! Bats.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Amusingly, Donald Trump called the exclusion of challenger parties “disgraceful” … back when he was in the Reform Party. I doubt he’d be on board the #LetHerSpeak campaign today — unless he was certain there would be no debates.

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First Amendment rights insider corruption national politics & policies

Worse Than Hypocrisy

Joe Biden, Obama, medal, money, campaign finance,

“You shouldn’t accept any money from a Super PAC,” former Vice-​President Joe Biden claims he advised his presidential rival Sen. Bernie Sanders, “because [if you do] people can’t possibly trust you.”

Now it must be impossible to trust Mr. Biden.

“Joe Biden is apparently dropping his long-​held opposition to the creation of an outside group,” the media tepidly informed last week, “that would supply an infusion of money to benefit his campaign.”

That is: the dreaded Super PAC.

In his 2017 book, Biden claimed he would not have accepted such “outside” support had he entered the 2016 contest — even though he “knew there was big money out there for me.” 

Why not? “[I]n a system awash with money,” the former VEEP wrote, “the middle class didn’t have a fighting chance.” 

What changed? Now this drowsy Democrat actually needs campaign cash! 

“Biden has struggled to raise money, and last week, his campaign reported having $9 million on hand,” reports The Washington Post, “roughly a third as much as some of his top Democratic rivals.”

Necessity is the catalyst of hypocrisy?

“As president, Joe Biden will push to remove private money from our federal elections,” his campaign explained. “He will advocate for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and end the era of unbridled spending by Super PACs.”

Your private money and mine has as much right to engage in federal elections as Mr. Biden does. And I’ve warned  many times about the free-​speech repealing amendment the doddering Democrat frontrunner is pushing.

There may be worse things than hypocrisy, but there are few things worse than opposing First Amendment rights.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Joe Biden, Obama, medal, money, campaign finance,

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They Aren’t Lying Now?

you lie, Obama, Pelosi, Biden, Congress, Speech,

“You lie!”

When U.S. Representative Joe Wilson (R‑SC) shouted this at President Barack Obama during 2009’s State of the Union — scandal!

How dare he?

At issue was whether federal tax dollars would aid illegal immigrants under Obamacare. Democrats denied that any such thing would happen. Indeed, the very idea constituted a calumny, a mere paranoid Tea Party delusion.

This came to a lot of people’s minds after last week’s televised Democratic Party presidential candidates’ debates. 

On Thursday, all ten on-​stage candidates assented, with hands held proudly high, to giving undocumented aliens free health care. And several from the previous night’s debate are also on record for the same thing, none of them more insistent than Senator Elizabeth Warren, who proclaims that health care is a right.

Democratic opinion leaders now eagerly assert what they took offense at a mere ten years ago. 

There are two very basic things we can learn from this.

First, what politicians say about what they want changes over time.

A decade ago, Democrats took offense when called socialist; now they revel in the term. So what are we to make of Democrats’ current s‑word usage? Now they insist they don’t want to nationalize the means of production — but will they tomorrow?

Second, the debate over immigration is not really between restrictionists and open borders supporters. It is between proponents of restricted immigration, on the one hand, and those who demand subsidized immigration, on the other.

A true open borders policy could look very different from what Democrats now push.

Less socialistic.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Syria & Sanity

TulsiGabbard, Democrat, Syria, arms, rebels, war, Obama, Trump, Russia

President Trump has decided to end the CIA’s covert* program to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels battling the government of Bashar al-​Assad,” the Washington Post first reported last week, immediately adding that it was “a move long sought by Russia.”

This insinuation that the policy change was simply a concession to Russia belies the recent history of U.S. involvement — and failure — in Syria. 

President Barack Obama had intervened.

Very ineffectively.

“Calling” for regime change. 

In 2012, Reuters disclosed that the president had signed “a secret* order authorizing U.S. support for rebels seeking to depose Syrian President Bashar al-​Assad and his government.” In 2013, after accusing the Assad regime of using chemical weapons, Obama announced the U.S. would provide direct military aid to rebel groups. 

But Obama’s execution seemed more designed to make it look like the U.S. was trying really hard than actually toppling Mr. Assad.** 

This may have been a good thing, though, seeing that some of the best-​organized rebel groups in Syria are aligned with al-​Qaeda and ISIS. 

U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D‑Hawaii) has introduced “The Stop Arming Terrorists Act”*** to prevent American weaponry and material from being handed to terrorists. She cheered Trump’s move, explaining to Tucker Carlson on Fox News that “providing direct and indirect” aid to the “very same terrorist group that attacked us on 9/​11” made no sense.

Also lacking in sense is the Obama Administrations claim that the congressional Authorization for the Use of Military Force, which specifically authorizes action against al-​Qaeda, also covered the attack upon Assad’s regime. Surely arming rebel groups aligned with al-​Qaeda couldn’t be justified under such an AUMF.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* It was not very covert. And not secret. 

** In 2015, the Administration abandoned a separate $500 million program to put together a moderate rebel force opposed to both ISIS and the Syrian Government of Basher al-​Assad after training only 4 or 5 soldiers. The BBC suggested much of the problem was indecisiveness, observing that, “US President Barack Obama never seemed to want a train-​and-​equip programme for Syrian rebels.”

*** The Senate bill is SB 532, introduced by Sen. Rand Paul (R‑Ky).

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Accountability crime and punishment government transparency media and media people national politics & policies responsibility

A Handy Evasion

Susan Rice, National Security Advisor, Obama, Trump, Russia, spying, surveillance

Susan Rice, National Security Advisor in President Barack Obama’s administration (2013 – 2017), is being picked on, she speculates, for reasons pertaining to her race and gender.

Handy evasion.

At issue is not her infamous prevarication in the Benghazi affair. We are used to being lied to about foreign policy, so that was barely a shock.

What is news now? The Trump-​Russia story. 

Background: Ever since her defeat to Donald Trump, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has provided the very model of how to deflect attention from one’s own defects. She’s blamed FBI Director James Comey, the vast right wing conspiracy, and, of course, Russia.*

Amusingly, the Russia biz still boils down to how Russian hackers, apparently directed from high in the hierarchy of the Eastern warlord state, illegally liberated information from private servers. Those revealed emails showed Mrs. Clinton and her campaign in a negative light. Excuse-​makers call this “hacking the election.”**

It turns out, the biggest crimes committed during the campaign, and somewhat regarding Russia, were engaged in by the Obama Administration, perhaps especially by Rice herself. She is accused of illegally surveilling the Trump campaign and those around it by “unmasking” their identities in the course of surveillance reports, which are legally required to be anonymous … when catching in the net folks tangential to the target. 

The law requires FISA court go-​aheads for such identifications. And the Obama administration was roundly reprimanded by a FISA court for not following protocols.

In any case, the idea that only women and African-​Americans are hounded by opposition parties and the press does not hold up to scrutiny.

Nixon, anyone?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Her team has also blamed President Barack Obama

** A private server was hacked, not an election.

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Accountability folly ideological culture moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies responsibility too much government U.S. Constitution

Tough Luck, Chumps

Obamacare, Affordable Care Act, Obama, Trump, Sanders, debate, CNN

Advertised as a big deal ahead of time, the debate didn’t get much play afterwards.

Especially from the Left blogosphere.

Why?

Billed as about the “future of ObamaCare,” it was really about what should replace ObamaCare.

The CNN debate pitted Sen. Ted Cruz, well-​known Republican opponent of the Affordable Care Act*, against Sen. Bernie Sanders, well-​known “independent” proponent of what he likes to call the “Medicare for All single-​payer program.”

Upshot? While either Bernie or Ted may possibly be construed to have won, there was indeed one certain loser, ObamaCare itself.

Sen. Sanders conceded nearly every charge Sen. Cruz lobbed at the program. He merely countered with his support for treating health care “as a right, not a privilege” (a leftist farrago from days of yore) and moving on to single-​payer medicine.

That’s how bad ObamaCare really is. Its chosen champion refused to champion it.

The basic tension was best summed up between “town hall” questioners Carol, suffering from multiple sclerosis, who asked Cruz to promise continued coverage for cases like hers, and LaRonda, a woman with a chain of hair care shops who cannot afford insurance for herself or her employees and also cannot expand her company because at 50 employees the ACA would force her to provide insurance.

Cruz expressed his sympathy for Carol, but seemed to meander around her request for a guarantee. He also evaded** a straightforward answer re: “healthcare as a right.”

Sanders was a tad more honest, in effect giving the “tough luck” answer that the entrepreneur just “should” pay*** for her employees’ medical insurance.

Well, we sure are all “paying” for ObamaCare, one way or another.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Which is the same thing as ObamaCare. Some folks purportedly hate ObamaCare but love the ACA. No reader of Common Sense, of course.

** Cruz concluded the debate better, alluding to an old SNL skit about a recording session wherein the cowbell ringer always wanted “more cowbell” in every take. “It was government control that messed this all up. And Bernie and the Democrats’ solution is more cow bell, more cow bell.”

*** “[I]f you have more than 50 people, you know what, I think — I’m afraid to tell you — I think you will have to provide health insurance.”

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