Tag Archives: politics

Berkeley and Free Speech

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It seems that Steve Bannon and Milo Yiannopoulos have been invited by the The Berkeley Patriot, a student publication at the university, to speak at a four-day “Free Speech Week” later this month.

UC Berkeley spokesman Dan Mogulof is claiming that the organizers haven’t yet “submitted the information or forms required to ensure the events occur.”

“This is all about providing to them the security they want and we want to offer for their events, and it can’t happen overnight,” he added, noting that a speech given by conservative Ben Shapiro on Thursday requires the university bring in “a huge number” of police officers and “spending hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

Recall the violence with which the Left attacked those attending, or trying to attend, Shapiro’s speech.  There’s a hint in Mogulof’s remarks regarding the safety of those of whom the Left disapproves.  There’s a hint regarding Berkeley’s attitude toward the speech of which its management disapproves.

Medicare for All

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Senator Bernie Sanders (I, VT) is beating that drum, again, and has support from some Progressive-Democratic Party Senators.

The health proposal, dubbed Medicare for all, would offer the same suite of medical benefits required for some insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act and eliminate most out-of-pocket costs. Mr Sanders argues that although taxes would likely rise to support the new system, families would save money by no longer needing to purchase health coverage. The government, he says, could also secure lower prices for medical services.

Of course it has the same stuff as Obamacare—it’s the planned evolution of Obamacare into a Federally mandated single-payer system.  Because Government Knows Better, especially one run by Progressive-Democrats and their Social Democrat crony.

“Taxes would likely rise”—yewbetcha, to the tune of an additional $24,000 per family.  Whether we want that “benefit” or not.  Families can save money by not having actually to purchase coverage?  That’s rich: what do these guys think those 24 stacks are, if not coverage purchase costs inflicted on us whether we want or need coverage or not?  Aside from that, lots of folks, my family included, don’t use health care services very much; we don’t need coverage against costs we don’t incur.  That’s for one geezer family.  Those 24 stacks represent no net savings for us at all.  The young families also are healthy, don’t use health care services very much, and so have no need of health coverage.  And as they’re just starting their lives, they don’t have those 24 stacks to begin with.

Government can get lower prices?  That’s, um, rich.  Just like it (doesn’t) get lower prices on so many other “services” it provides, what with requiring contractors to pay prevailing union labor wages, whether the contractors employ union workers or not.

[P]rivate insurers wouldn’t be permitted to compete with the government plan for basic coverage….

This, I suppose, is one way in which Sanders’ government would get lower prices—competition raises prices, after all, in his and his Progressive-Democrat cronies’ fetid imaginations.

The 96-page bill offers no mechanisms to pay for the plan….

Of course not.  Money grows on trees.  Or, as I speculate Sanders will tout in his promised for “tomorrow” white paper on funding, money is in the bottomless wallets of the rich.

State’s Obligations

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These are the flip side of the 10th Amendment States Rights mantra that State government personnel are starting to tout.  And that makes State governors’ and legislators’ objections to the Trump administration’s moves to clip the intrusive wings regarding investment advice to retail investors and who should be permitted/required to give it a bit ridiculous.

[T]he Obama Labor Department’s fiduciary rule requires brokers to act in the best interests of retirement savers rather than sell products that are merely suitable and potentially more lucrative for the brokers.

Never mind that this would tacitly limit a retail investor’s investment options, limiting him to too-conservative alternatives, and price many out of the investment advice market.  Big Brother knows better.

Individual States are fully capable of enacting their own fiduciary rules, as Nevada and Connecticut have done, for better or worse for their citizens, and as New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and California are considering doing, as is their right, and obligation to the extent they seriously see such a thing as a public good and not just a shower look good, under the 10th Amendment.

I think such overregulation is idiotic, as well as insulting to American citizens.  We don’t need Government looking over our shoulder or telling us what to do and not to do in every aspect of our lives.  But let’s find out.

Patchwork regulation if the States are left to their own devices?  So what?  Let the 50 laboratories of democracy try out their various ideas.  We Americans can vote with our dollars as well as our feet regarding which experiments work and which don’t.

Barbara Lee Wants Her Obamaphone

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Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D, CA) thinks it’s cold blooded to view an economy in terms of dollars and sense.  In particular, she thinks President Donald Trump is “heartless” for taking that perspective on an economic question.

When it comes to federal spending, one thing has become clear over the past month. Republicans and this heartless president, they think about budgets in terms of dollar signs and decimal points, but as I’ve said over and over again, budgets are moral documents. They put on paper the principles and the priorities of the nation[.]

No, what’s heartless is spending money we don’t have until we’re so broke as a nation we can’t help anyone.  The first ones to help cannot be government, anyway; no matter how hard government personnel try, no matter how good the intentions of government personnel, they can only be second onto the scene, sometimes tragically late.  The non-government, citizen response to Harvey and Irma demonstrate that to all willing to see.

No, what’s immoral is a government mandate to give “assistance” to Government-favored groups and to do so in Government-mandated ways.  There is no more moral economic system than a capitalist, free market system, where each party to an economic arrangement, because it’s a voluntary arrangement, comes away better off than he was before the agreement.

And this from Lee:

Regardless of who you are, no child should go hungry at night. These devastating cuts are just the tip of the iceberg.

Indeed, no child should grow hungry at night.  And in a free market economy, unburdened by excessive Government regulation, unburdened by excessive Government spending-driven crowding out, and so prosperous economy, there would be far fewer hungry children to begin with.  And by “heartlessly” cutting out the $200 billion worth of fraud, waste, and abuse from Government’s plethora of duplicative food and other “welfare” programs, those $200 billion would be available for spending on a variety of truly useful programs—like those much fewer hungry children, like hands up (not hand outs) to folks who need a hand up and don’t want the trap of hand outs.

No—Lee just wants her Obamaphone, because manna from Leftist heaven.

And this, from House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D, MD):

Although we are in the minority, let me remind you of what I said at the beginning, the Republicans have not passed a fiscal bill, a continuing resolution, an appropriations CR or omnibus without significant Democratic votes and, in some instances, not in every instance, with the majority of votes being cast for that bill being Democrat votes.  So we have a lot of leverage…and we intend to use it.

Here is the Progressive-Democratic Party’s promise of continued obstructionism.  So much for any useful outcome of the deal President Donald Trump struck with the Progressive-Democrats.