Tag: Presidential campaign 2016

Biden His Time

Joe Biden, president, election, nuzzle, statue of liberty, photomontage, collage, illustration, Jim Gill, Paul Jacob, Common Sense

Vice-President Joe Biden announced, yesterday, that he will not run for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, ending many weeks of speculation.

The Veep’s exit from a race he never entered benefits Mrs. Clinton, who in those same polls has a larger lead head-to-head against Sen. Bernie Sanders (I‑Vt.).

Much of “Middle-Class” Joe’s speech was the usual laundry list of progressive pie-in-the-sky, money-can-too-buy-us-love shibboleths:

“President Obama has led this nation from crisis to recovery, and we’re now on the cusp of resurgence.”
The public schools fail to adequately educate kids — at stupendous cost. Rather than innovate, Biden demands we “commit to 16 years of free public education for all of our children.”
Biden’s biggest pitch was for “a moon shot to cure cancer.” (Cancer will be cured … but not by politicians.)

Still, Joe voiced something other candidates fail to emphasize:

[W]e have to end the divisive partisan politics that is ripping this country apart.… I don’t think we should look at Republicans as our enemies. They are our opposition. They’re not our enemies. And for the sake of the country, we have to work together.

That hasn’t been Hillary Clinton’s approach, having compared conservative Republicans to terrorist groups. Plus, to the question “Which enemy that you made during your political career are you most proud of?” she answered, “Republicans.”

“Four more years of this kind of pitched battle may be more than this country can take,” Joe Biden added.

I guess Joe’s not for Hillary.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags 2016 Presidential race, democracy, election, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Presidential campaign 2016

folly ideological culture meme nannyism national politics & policies political challengers too much government

All Those Egos, One Basket

Post author By CS Admin
Post date October 15, 2015
3 Comments on All Those Egos, One Basket

progressivism, meme, progressives, magic, Paul Jacob

In Tuesday night’s debate, Democrats put all their egos in one ideological basket: progressivism. Even Jim Webb managed to sound progressive … until he identified his prime personal enemy — the man he shot in wartime.

Bernie Sanders once again insisted on lecturing Americans on what it means to be a “democratic socialist.” Martin O’Malley relentlessly pursued an impossible dream, 100 percent carbon-free electric production by 2050 — far enough off to avoid any possible accountability. And Hillary Clinton said that, sure, she’s a progressive, “a progressive who likes to get things done!”

But what has she “got done,” ever?

It was her secrecy regarding the initial health care reforms back in her husband’s first term that helped spark the firestorm of opposition that led to the Revolution of ’94, and to the triangulating successes of the master of manipulative compromise, Bill Clinton. His was not a “progressive era,” though Democrats still use the 1990s as proof that their (“our”) policies “work.”

With exception of Bernie on gun control and Hillary on foreign policy and spying (Snowden gave out secrets to the enemy: traitor; she gave out who-knows-what via her insecure email server: blankout), the spend-spend-spend mantra of progressivism, mixed with “fair taxes” (higher tax rates) on the top 1 percent, was not challenged on the stage.

How far would they go to close ranks? Bernie sided with her regarding “your damned e‑mails.” That’s so ideological as to eschew any consideration of character or loyalty or trust.

Quite a revolution … in the party.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags 2016 Presidential race, Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, Presidential campaign 2016, progressives, progressivism

folly national politics & policies political challengers

Tonight’s Permitted Debate

Post author By CS Admin
Post date October 13, 2015
4 Comments on Tonight’s Permitted Debate

democratic debate, collage, photomontage, JGill, Paul Jacob, Common Sense

Tonight, the Democratic Party holds its first presidential debate of this cycle. Finally! It’s one of only six total throughout the entire campaign for the party nomination.

And all the other debates will be on weekends, with much lower TV viewership.

What does it suggest when a political party wants to minimize rather than maximize the degree to which the public gets to see its candidates and hear the party’s message?

“[I]t seems infelicitous,” writes The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent, “for Democrats to be embroiled in a very public fight in which party leaders are increasingly being accused of limiting the exposure of the candidates to voters.”

Is Supreme Democratic Party Commander Debbie Wasserman Schultz afraid that familiarity will breed contempt?

As party chair, Wasserman Schultz unilaterally decreed that debates shall be limited to just six. She also warned that “candidates will be uninvited to any debates if they accept invitation to any debates outside the 6‑debate schedule.” (Meanwhile, Republicans are holding nine presidential debates, but likewise, dictatorially, blocking participation in additional debates.)

Wasserman Schultz, facing protests and heckling, claims her only aim is to prevent the debate schedule from getting “out of control.”

Or out of her control, perhaps?

Presidential candidate and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley called it a “rigged process,” asking, “What national or party interest does this decree serve?”

The limited debate schedule serves as a huge advantage for frontrunner Hillary Clinton by limiting the breakout opportunities of her opponents.

But, at least tonight, all the world’s a stage.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags 2016 Presidential race, Bernie Sanders, Democratic Debate, Hillary Clinton, Presidential campaign 2016

Accountability folly government transparency national politics & policies

Democrats’ Own Private Government

Post author By CS Admin
Post date October 7, 2015
2 Comments on Democrats’ Own Private Government

Rahm Emanuel, Chicago Tribune, Chicago, transparency, government, collage, photomontage, JGill, Paul Jacob, Common Sense

Don’t feel lonely, Mrs. Clinton. You’re not the only public official shielding public actions from the public by using private modes of communication — a private email account and server, or texts on a personal cell phone.

Meet fellow Democrat Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. The Chicago Tribune* recently took the Emanuel administration to court for the second time in three months. The paper charges the mayor is “[violating] state open records laws by refusing to release communications about city business conducted through private emails and text messages.”

Still pending is the World’s Greatest Newspaper’s first lawsuit against the mayor’s office, seeking the full disclosure of emails specifically concerning a $20-million-dollar no-bid public school contract, over which the Feds have now launched a criminal investigation.

The Trib argues in its legal complaint that Freedom of Information Act requests “have been met with a pattern of non-compliance, partial compliance, delay and obfuscation.” But on Chicago Tonight, Mayor Emanuel offered that, “[W]e always comply and work through all of the Freedom of Information [requests] in the most responsive way possible.”

Probably all just a big misunderstanding …

What’s especially droll is to find presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, two Democrats who have long fought against privatizing any government function or service no matter how inefficiently performed or delivered, suddenly embracing a creative new approach to privatizing government … beginning with their own transparency and accountability.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* In full disclosure, my brother, Mark Jacob, works for the Tribune.

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Tags 2016 Presidential race, Chicago, Chicago Tribune, Hillary Clinton, Presidential campaign 2016, Rahm Emmanuel, transparency

Common Sense

Weekend with Bernie: Sanders’ Eleven

Post author By CS Admin
Post date October 2, 2015
1 Comment on Weekend with Bernie: Sanders’ Eleven

Weekend with Bernie Sanders, http://cognitivebiasparade.prosite.com/, Paul Jacob, James Gill

Bernie Sanders has a horde of helpers. Consider the attached visual meme; “Occupy Democrats” seem to have captured Bernie’s philosophy: spend and meddle.

All of the spending in the first item of Bernie’s 11-Step Economic Plan are best directed at the state level. Bernie voters should wonder: why haven’t politicians in the states kept up infrastructure?

There are reasons why some of us want to privatize more infrastructure: more responsible upkeep.

Oh, and why hasn’t the doubled amount spent on public K‑12 schooling in my lifetime led to better schools or better-educated grads?

Just let that one hang there, and then contrast it with the disaster the feds have made of college costs while trying to “make college more affordable.”

Expanding Medicaid in one plank, and making “healthcare available to all,” in another, I take as repetition for emphasis. But the fact that Bernie’s backers want to expand spending in programs that recently have seen dramatic expansion — Social Security (in the form of radically increased rates of disability retirements), Medicaid (Obamacare), and food stamp participation (SNAP) — even while the programs lurch into insolvency, along with the whole federal budget, sends up a red flag … for irresponsibility.

Then there’s all the fiddling with free employment contracts that they pretend helps the poor, but can’t: unionization, raised wage minimums, and “equal pay” … for, presumably, unequal work, since we already have laws enforcing equal pay for equal work.

Several points are vague enough that, as stated, I could jump on board: I, too, want to reform the tax code and … “close corporate loopholes.” So does, famously this week, Donald Trump.

But what I mean by this and what progressives like Sanders mean? Big differences, I suspect.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags 2016 Presidential race, Bernie Sanders, food stamps, Medicaid, Presidential campaign 2016, SNAP, Social Security, Weekend with Bernie

folly ideological culture national politics & policies political challengers too much government

Fiorina Fires Back

Fiorina, employment, HP, CEO, Hillary Clinton, Barbara Boxer, jobs, Presidential, collage, photomontage, illustration, JGill, Common Sense

Politicians love talking up job creation. Presidential candidates, especially, pretend to a Svengali-like virtuosity in producing paychecks and, if only handed the keys to the White House, creating — presto! — a bunch more.

This year, Republican Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, has been repeatedly attacked by Democrats, democratic socialists and her Republican opponents for firing 30,000 workers during her tenure running the company. As if she did so out of meanness.

Sunday, on Meet the Press, Chuck Todd went at her again.

“I find it very rich,” Fiorina fired back. “Barbara Boxer, Hillary Clinton, all the Democrats who are attacking me, they’ve never created a job, they’ve never saved a job, and their policies destroy jobs, including Mrs. Clinton’s latest position on Keystone Pipeline.”

Mrs. Fiorina offers context for her “failure”: “I led HP through a very difficult time. The NASDAQ dropped 80 percent. Some of our strongest competitors went out of business altogether, taking every job with them.” As she sees it, her team “saved 80,000 jobs. We went on to grow to 150,000 jobs. We quadrupled the growth rate of the company, quadrupled the cash flow of the company, tripled the rate of innovation of the company. And went from lagging behind to leading in every single product and every single market. I will run on that record all day long.”

I’m not endorsing Fiorina, either as candidate or as CEO. Just sayin’ that those attacking her on 30,000 jobs don’t know anything at all about actually creating even one real one.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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