Tag: President Obama

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crime and punishment general freedom moral hazard national politics & policies

Guantánamo Gestures

Guantánamo, detention, Cuba, Obama, terrorism

It’s a fun word to say: “Guantánamo!”

Almost like “Geronimo!”

Of course, Guantánamo and Geronimo are nearly opposites. Geronimo was an iconic Native American warrior against the U.S. military. Guantánamo is the famous — or infamous — American military prison located at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

President Obama wants to shut the prison down. Why? Symbolism. He argues the prison “undermines” our national security by reminding the world of the harsh interrogation techniques used on prisoners — the Red Cross called it “torture” — and the indefinite detention of people — so far for 14 years — without any due process.

Republican presidential candidates countered, with Ted Cruz telling Obama, “Don’t shut down Gitmo, expand it and let’s have some new terrorists there.” Donald Trump promised, “We’re going to load [Gitmo] up”

Meanwhile, Obama’s plan to close Gitmo lacks any destination for more than a third of the remaining 91 prisoners. Apparently, part of the plan is to come up with the rest of the plan.

What’s not part of Obama’s plan? Ending the American policy of indefinitely incarcerating suspected terrorists and denying them any opportunity to defend themselves in either a civilian or military court. The president’s scheme is simply to relocate these detainees to U.S. soil and continue to hold them without charge — forever.

That’s why lawyers for the Center for Constitutional Rights panned Obama’s plan, which “does not ‘close Guantanamo.’ It merely relocates it to a new ZIP Code.”

The Guantánamo Bay facility isn’t the problem. Shut down the policy of holding people indefinitely without any system of justice. Let’s show the world more than symbolism; let’s give them (and ourselves) a little peek at truth, justice and the American Way.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Guantánamo, detention, Cuba, Obama, terrorism

 

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Categories
free trade & free markets national politics & policies too much government

A Million for Each Congressperson

A business filed for bankruptcy last week. 

These have been tough times, so that’s not a shock. What makes the story juicy is that the FBI raided the company’s headquarters two days later.

The company? Solyndra, a solar panel manufacturer. A few months earlier, it had been boasting a profitable return on investment. And, as President Obama had proclaimed the previous year in a visit to the California outfit, Solyndra was precisely the kind of company that deserved federal government assistance. It was so cutting edge, so innovative, that it deserved a huge loan guarantee, to the tune of $535 million. 

The raid occurred on the same day as the president’s “jobs” speech last week. Yet, Mr. Obama neglected to include an update on his administration’s previously self-​praised policy of industrial subsidy pertaining to that very company.

Republicans are making much of this. They are themselves not immune to (indeed, during the Bush years they excelled at) just this sort of corruption.

And it is corruption. The Solyndra deal went down after major investors in the company gave millions in support of the Obama presidential campaign. It was fast-​tracked as part of the federal government’s Keynesian “stimulus” spending.

This is how the politics of modern mercantilism — of systematic “business-​government partnerships” — works. The moneymen support the politicians who support the moneymen.

It’s one way to get rich.

And gain (and maintain) power.

But it’s not good for the country.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
national politics & policies too much government

Off to See the Wizard?

Tonight, President Barack Obama will ride down Pennsylvania Avenue with his sinking approval ratings, to stand beside our most unpopular Congress ever, so he can give a speech about jobs (before the football game starts). Our prez is a good speaker, but I doubt this speech will do any more to soothe our economic stress than have past speeches.

Speeches don’t create wealth — or jobs.

But image can entice votes, and with the election year rapidly approaching, he needs to look like he has a plan. 

Or at least a clue. 

So, the White House back room boys have been busy re-​packaging. News reports say the president will suggest spending $300 to $400 billion to stimulate the economy. But he won’t use the word “stimulus.” For some reason, that word rings hollow.

Rest-​assured, his non-​stimulus stimulus will be “revenue neutral.” In other words, the spending will happen now while the offsetting spending cuts (or tax increases) will happen … later.

Not every provision of whatever plan Obama orates will be a terrible idea, but the thrust of it — the notion that with proper central planning and fiddling by our wizard-​in-​chief the federal government can create prosperity — will be tragically mistaken.

We need a president who understands that Americans could pick themselves up, dust themselves off and get moving economically … if only Washington politicians would stop stage managing the whole show.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
general freedom national politics & policies too much government

Lawlessness, American-​Style

When President Obama granted to himself the power to execute American citizens without due process, it wasn’t just Judge Napolitano who became alarmed. Now, citizen activists are honestly nervous, some now thinking that the government is targeting them with assassination.

Sounds paranoid. But, as is often said, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you. Any one instance of paranoia may or may not be warranted, but the fact remains that the government is out to get some people without due process. 

We can’t shrug that off with a “Ho, hum.”

Let’s also not ho-​hum the FDA raiding a business, guns drawn, for selling raw milk, or a defendant facing “jail time of up to 65 years for helping people play cards over the Internet.”

That last quotation comes from Gene Healy, who chalks up our government’s over-​lawed lawlessness to the subject of his recent book, The Cult of the Presidency, explaining that “[y]ou’re not a real president until you fight a metaphorical ‘war’ on a social problem. So, to LBJ’s ‘War on Poverty’ and Reagan’s ‘War on Drugs,’ add Obama’s ‘War on Fun.’”

But the problem, it seems to me, is not merely a “war on fun.” It’s a revamped war on citizens by disregarding limits on government required by the rule of law. 

For example, to keep government going without a raised debt ceiling, Timothy Geithner took funds from federal employee pensions.

Crime, if you and I do it.

“Clever statesmanship” if Geithner does it. 

Lawlessness, American-​style.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ideological culture media and media people

The AP’s Memory Hole

In our age of the Internet, cheap digital video recorders, etc., it’s harder than it once was to enforce an “official” version of an event .… the un-​airbrushed knowledge of which might embarrass some potentate.

Memory-​tweakers keep trying, though. Including Winston-​Smith wannabes at the Associated Press.

An example is President Obama’s appearance at a wind turbine plant, where he made a pitch for “energy independence,” a concept presidents have been pitching at us at least since the long gas lines of the 1970s. One concern of attendees was the latest bout of high gas prices, caused by inflationary pressures and uncertainty about the Middle East.

According to an early version of the AP’s report, “Obama needled one questioner who asked about gas prices, now averaging close to $3.70 a gallon nationwide, and suggested that the gentleman consider getting rid of his gas-​guzzling vehicle. ‘If you’re complaining about the price of gas and you’re only getting 8 miles a gallon, you know,’ Obama said laughingly, ‘you might want to think about a trade-​in.’” The passage downplays how jovially patronizing the president was even after it became clear that the questioner had ten kids to support.

Obama’s unscripted condescension toward a struggling plant worker is not so outrageous as the AP’s strange memory-​hole behavior. The incident was later scrubbed from their report. But InstaPundit’s Glenn Reynolds saved a screenshot of the original passage. And there’s video.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
crime and punishment national politics & policies U.S. Constitution

Indefinite Detention, Definitely Wrong

“No western government has ever claimed the power to do this,” said Judge Andrew Napolitano, on Fox’s The Plain Truth. “Not the King of England, not Hitler, not Stalin, not even the Russian and Chinese Communists.”

Hitler comparisons are a dime a dozen these days, but Napolitano was not referring to something minor. He was talking about the power to hold someone for the whole of his or her natural life, even after being acquitted in a U.S. court of law. 

By a jury. 

Yes, on March 7, 2011, Barack Obama, President of the United States, signed an executive order detailing how detainees will be held. Key word: “continued” — which is code for Indefinite.

The president’s supporters squirmed. Obama had promised to close the Guantánamo Bay facility during his campaign. On AlterNet the story was covered as a “step forward.” The Washington Post, on the other hand, quotes Republican Representative Peter T. King saying the order vindicates George W. Bush, whose administration had established the practice of indefinitely holding suspected terrorists at the site.

The order does affirm the right of habeus corpus for detainees. But its aim is to merely provide a review of cases. It doesn’t question “the executive branch’s continued, discretionary exercise of existing detention authority” — which is what rightly bothers Judge Napolitano. 

The order is legalese; non-​lawyers may nod off. It’s hard to see the Hitlerian element.

But that’s what the “banality of evil” is all about.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets

Defrosting the Obamalogic

I thought I was done talking about Obama’s Chamber of Commerce speech. But the Mises Institute’s Jeffrey Tucker has tackled another goofy element in it. The president claimed that government regulators “make our lives better” and “often spark competition and innovation.” In his example, the government’s “modest” regulatory targets imposed “a couple decades ago” allegedly mean that “a typical fridge now costs half as much and uses a quarter of the energy that it once did — and you don’t have to defrost.”

One wonders what profit-​seeking folks like the Rockefellers and Carnegies, Edisons and Fords did without regulatory impetus. Hide the innovations people are happy to pay for until regulators come along and force entrepreneurs to make money from them?

As it happens, there’s a history to refrigerators. Patents for auto-​defrosting fridges were first issued in 1928, and by 1951 these fridges were making their way into homes. In the 1970s they proliferated. As Tucker explains, this is normal market practice. “A company found a way to package [frost-​free freezers] as a luxury good available in some markets. Another company saw the advance and emulated it.…” 

Nobody had to point guns at fridge makers.

In “Blow Hot, Blow Cold,” Robert H. Miller reveals the usual way government “helps progress” — by struggling to rebuild what it previously destroyed. Example? The electric-​generating windmill industry that the New Deal’s Rural Electrification Act so handily suppressed.

Progress is built into markets. Governments? Not so much.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets

Do the Business, People!

What can we do to help commerce? the French finance minister asked a group of businessmen in the late 17th century. The reply became famous — was, indeed, the snappy comeback heard ’round the world: “Laissez-​nous faire!”

Let us be; leave us alone.

Or: Get out of the way! No onerous taxes, no playing favorites with subsidies or regulations or “protection.”

It’s unlikely that President Obama keeps the works of the French Physiocrats, or later “political economy” writers, by his bedside. Speaking before the Chamber of Commerce recently, he enjoined businessmen to “hire and invest,” “get in the game,” etc.

“Ultimately,” he explained, “winning the future is not just about what the government can do to help you succeed. It’s about what you can do to help America succeed.”

Stop dithering! Hire!

But what competent capitalist, enjoying a huge and lasting increase in demand, and having the means to hire new employees to help meet it, would refuse to do so? Obama speaks as if “helping the economy” were the point of getting staff. No. One hires to produce, sell and make money. This does “help the economy”; it is the economy. But companies only hurt themselves and the economy if they hire persons not yet needed just to “win the future.”

Responding to Obama’s remarks, Harold Jackson, CEO of Buffalo Supply, says it’s “a little outside the bounds to suggest that if we hire people we don’t need, there will be more demand.”

A little? Understatement.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets too much government U.S. Constitution

Not His Job

President Obama will address the State of the Union, today, speaking before Congress. These annual efforts are almost uniformly unbearable, with too much applause and too much rah-​rah-​boy politicking. And far too little thought.

Scuttlebutt has it that the president will concentrate on the economy, on “jobs.”

After the sea change of the last election, one might hope that he’d stay on topic and address constitutionally-​mandated issues of his office.

“Jobs” are none of his business. “Jobs” — by which I mean the number of people employed this way or that out there in the non-​governmental sector, and by which he means the number of jobs total, including those paid for out of taxpayer expense — should not be his chief worry.

No president in recent memory has excelled by fiddling with policy to micromanage “the economy.” No one knows this stuff. Not even college professors specializing in macroeconomics.

What government operatives know is how to get elected, stay in office. How to preen for television cameras, read a prompter.

You know, the essentials.

But they cannot possibly know enough to “run the economy.”

And yet, Obama talks about making the country “more competitive.” Oh, come on. Just open up trade — which promotes widespread co-​operation as well as competition — stop micromanaging the money supply through the Fed, make regulations fit a rule of law and not a vast bureaucratic command system, and let it go. Let individuals and businesses worry about “competiveness.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
First Amendment rights national politics & policies

The Ad Hominem Bias

Can you discredit an opponent’s opinion by demonizing the opponent or his or her supporters, rather than addressing the opinion itself?

The President recently spoke on the horrors of the Citizens United v. FEC decision, in which evil corporations retained (or regained) a right to support political speech. Obama hates the decision, but insists he’s no censor. What he really wants is to force supporters of political messages to disclose the financing used to promote said speech. Who it comes from.

The Disclose Act, currently working its way through Congress, aims to do just that.

The odd thing, as former FEC Chairman Bradley Smith relates, is that the legislation is, well, redundant. Corporations that spend money on political speech during final election blitz-​time are now required to report their funding sources. 

So why pile on?

Perhaps the President and his confrères see disclosure as less about information and more about blocking the message by taking up half of a 30-​second television spot with the names of various corporate executives.

But the stated rationale bespeaks of an underlying belief that arguments for or against something stand or fall depending on who supports them. It’s the argument ad hominem all over again. Someone for policy X? If A or B supports it, that’s bad; if C or D supports it, that’s good.

And that’s a fallacy. And evidence of a certain simple-​minded partisanship, giving voters less credit than they are due.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.