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Accountability national politics & policies too much government

Dangerous, Incoherent

Hillary Clinton came out swinging against Donald Trump yesterday. She said electing the man would be an “historic mistake.”

As opposed to her past career in politics, which I would call an historical mistake.

Mrs. Clinton focused in on Mr. Trump’s foreign policy pronouncements. “She ran through Mr Trump’s foreign policy points and rejected each one,” reported the BBC, “calling him thin-​skinned, irrational and unprepared.”

Funny, though: I wouldn’t exactly call Mrs. Clinton the opposite: thick-​skinned, rational, or prepared.

Take her main charges, then look at the obvious demerit of each:

“Mrs Clinton said a Trump presidency could start overseas wars and ruin the US economy.” Don’t vote Trump — starting wars and ruining the economy is Clinton’s job!

Trump’s “proposals were vague and often nonsensical.” Unlike Clinton’s, whose murky specifics speak of evasion from a to z — and whose policies in Libya and elsewhere made no sense whatsoever, breeding more conflict and opposition in place of the regimes she helped undermine and remove.

“Questioning his relationship with Russian president Vladmir Putin, she said: ‘I’ll leave it to a psychiatrist to explain his affection for tyrants.’” And speaking of perverse affection, her and her husband’s Clinton Foundation has been milking foreign tyrants for years. All very above-​board, I’m sure.

“‘This isn’t reality television, this is actual reality,’ she said.” If you ask me, her reality is just as irreal as Trump’s.

We can do better, America.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Hillary Clinton, incoherent, Donald Trump, foreign policy, presidential

 

Categories
media and media people national politics & policies political challengers

#NeverTrump Red Herring

Neoconservative writer Bill Kristol doesn’t like the prospect of Donald Trump running as the Republican presidential candidate this year. And Kristol’s not just going to talk about it. He’s trying to get something done.

But instead of doing the rational thing and lobbying each and every delegate to the Republican convention, pleading with them to vote their consciences, not their fictional primary “commitments,” he’s trying to recruit an independent candidate to run against Hillary and Donald. (Donald isn’t worried.)

At first he mentioned, in fleeting, Mitt Romney as the type of candidate “coming soon.” But in discussing his mission, he kept the candidate’s identity secret. He was trying to create a stir of interest.

Yesterday it was leaked that Kristol’s Great White Hope is … David French.

Writer for National Review.

And the American people say, together, Who?

No matter Mr. French’s many virtues, the truth is that he’s the darkest of dark horses.

I’m sure his principles align somehow with Kristol’s. But be realistic: the Libertarian Party ticket sports far more plausibility — two former two-​term governors, former Republicans of blue states.

It’s still possible that this newest story is just a leak to get us to a false sense of … well, whatever this is.

After all, Kristol is a neoconservative. He has secrets and strategies above us mere mortals. Conspiracy buffs might contend that throwing another “right-​wing” candidate into the mix is his way of splitting “the right,” allowing his real (if secret) favorite, Hillary Clinton, to squeak by. She is the one candidate he could count on to keep throwing money at the Pentagon — and dropping bombs overseas.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Bill Kristol, National Review, President

 


Photo credit: Gage Skidmore on Flickr

 

Categories
general freedom national politics & policies political challengers

President Johnson?

An unusual year, far from over.

This week, the Libertarian Party holds its presidential nominating convention in Orlando, Florida. Next November, after all the votes are counted, the party’s likely nominee, former two-​term New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, and his likely vice-​presidential running mate, former two-​term Massachusetts Governor William Weld, may finally be going to Disney World.

To celebrate … before moving into the White House.

Crazy? Sure. But this is the year for crazy.

Polls show Gov. Johnson garnering 10 percent support. With both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton drowning in their own negatives, plenty more votes are winnable to the right, left and everywhere in between Crooked Hillary and the Trumpster Fire.

Okay, sure, but … win the presidency?

One needs 270 electoral votes to be elected president and to win states to nab those electoral votes. In 1992, Ross Perot received 19 percent of the vote nationwide, without winning a single state.

But what if Johnson won his home state of New Mexico? In 2012, he got only 3.6 percent in the Land of Enchantment. If that grew ten-​fold to 36 percent in a three-​way race, he could prevail.

And, as explained at A Libertarian Future, if Trump carried enough swing states (say, Colorado, Florida, and Ohio) to keep Clinton from reaching 270 electors, the whole shebang … would be thrown into the House of Representatives.

Who trusts Congress to choose responsibly?

Yet, with the Libertarian ticket sporting this much horse-​race relevance, more Americans might contemplate greater freedom and less Big Brother government.

Think liberty, America.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Gary Johnson, Williamn Weld, libertarian, party, president, election

 

Categories
national politics & policies political challengers

Fat Lady Score

You’ve heard the news: Donald Trump is now the Republican Party’s “likely presumptive nominee” for president. It’s a very modern-​sounding term.

His 16 opponents have, one by one, suspended their campaigns. In coming weeks, as the billionaire businessman wins uncontested primaries, we’re told he’ll be “awarded” enough delegates to reach the magic number of 1,237 — a majority.

For weeks, Mr. Trump had been yelling that the Republican National Committee was rigging the process to block his nomination. Now, RNC Chair Reince Priebus and a host of establishment Republicans have endorsed Mr. Trump, including former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, Sen. John McCain, the 2008 nominee, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

“You have to listen to people that have chosen the nominee of our Republican Party,” John McCain told CNN. “I think it would be foolish to ignore them.”

McCain raises several interesting issues, worth considering over the next few days.

Let’s consider foolishness, first. There is a pragmatic argument against Trump as the nominee. While polls show Trump losing to Hillary, with 28 percent viewing him favorably against 65 percent unfavorably, a Politico story argues that, “A generic Republican might have been a favorite for the White House.”

Yet, most of the opposition to Trump isn’t pragmatic, it’s a matter of hardworking, grassroots Republicans who sincerely believe his positions don’t fit the party’s principles, or that his behavior has fallen short. Agree or disagree, but those are worthy considerations.

It’s a time for choosing. More tomorrow.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Donald Trump, Statistics, popularity, strategy, Hillary Clinton, president

 


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Categories
ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies

Negative, Positively

In art class, students learn about “negative space,” how positively one can react to artistic representations and indications of absence, of the space between objects, “blank” space. This land of shadow and reified Absence can have a powerful impact on our perceptions.

Well, behold, the piece of work that is major-​party politics in America, 2016.

Usually we pretend that our elections are about what we approve of, about who and what we are for. But this year, with Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton the likely nominees of their respective parties (Ted Cruz having pulled out after being trounced, Tuesday, in the Hoosier State, and John Kasich, likewise, yesterday morning), the positive spin on negativity will ramp up to new levels. As Anthony L. Fisher observed primary night on reason​.com, Trump and Clinton are the most- and second-​most hated major party politicians ever, polling the negatives “even higher than 2004-​era George W. Bush.” (Who won.)

With the negatives of both candidates looming so large, is it too obvious to take note of the high likelihood of an extremely negative campaign coming up?

Maybe we should gamble on the terms of opprobrium that will be let loose:

Traitor, incompetent, corrupt crony-​pushing insider, harpy of modish feminism.…

Buffoon, racist, corrupt crony capitalist, chauvinist of the vulgar tongue.…

Into this negative space we can expect a rush of interest in minor-​party challengers, Libertarians and Greens. Protest votes could hit new heights. And they might make a difference.

But can anyone really profit from such negative space? Color me dubious.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Negative space, positive space, election, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump

 


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Categories
Accountability free trade & free markets general freedom nannyism national politics & policies

You’re Fired! Hillary-style

“I’m the only candidate,” Hillary Clinton boasted at a town hall back in March, with “a policy about how to bring economic opportunity — using clean renewable energy as the key — into coal country. Because we’re going put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business, right Tim?”

First, who is this “Tim” fellow? Aren’t you curious? The news media, typically unhelpful, provides no context.

Clearly, Mrs. Clinton supports the Obama Administration polices that have been disastrous for the coal industry. “Now we’ve got to move away from coal and all the other fossil fuels,” she explained.

Monday, in West Virginia, Clinton met unemployed coal worker Bo Copley, who teared-​up talking about his family and being out of work. He asked Hillary, “I just want to know how you could say you are going to put a lot of coal miners out of jobs and then come in here and tell us how you’re going to be our friend?”

Mrs. Clinton told Copley that it was “a misstatement.” And that what she said was “totally out of context” from what she meant … whatever that means.

“[T]he way things are going now, we will continue to lose jobs,” she explained. “I didn’t mean that we were going to do it. What I said was, that is going to happen unless we take action to try to and help and prevent it.”

Yes, Hillary has a plan — not to “prevent” losing coal jobs, but, instead, to spend $30 billion in tax dollars to help those her policies hurt.

As one West Virginian passionately put it: “We don’t want your handouts; we want work.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Hillary Clinton, coal, renewable energy

 


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Also, please consider showing your appreciation by dropping something in our tip jar  (this link will take you to the Citizens in Charge donation page… and your contribution will go to the support of the Common Sense website). Maintaining this site takes time and money.

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