Liberty Watch Episode 20: Liberal Media Bias on Display

The following is the outline text version of my YouTube video which can be viewed by clicking here:  https://youtu.be/8k0JGczKoxk

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Liberal Media Bias- Again

Samantha Bee flies but Roseanne dies

Shows media and corporate double standard

Rosanne Barr

Makes racist remark on twitter
Described former obama adviser valerie jarrett as the product of what would happen if  “the muslim brotherhood and the planet of the apes had a baby.”
Quickly apologizes

“I apologize to Valerie Jarrett and to all Americans. I am truly sorry for making a bad joke about her politics and her looks. I should have known better. Forgive me-my joke was in bad taste.”

gets fired anyway

Samantha Bee

Makes vile remark about Ivanka Trump
Uses the “c” word
makes a fake apology

“I would like to sincerely apologize to Ivanka Trump and to my viewers for using an expletive on my show to describe her last night,” Bee wrote. “It was inappropriate and inexcusable. I crossed a line, and I deeply regret it.”

Bees remark came one day after Roseanne Barr was fired for her offensive tweet.

backtracks on apology during tv academy awards broadcast

“Our piece attracted controversy of the worst kind,” Bee said of the segment about the Trump administration’s immigration and border policies that ended with her calling Ivanka Trump a “feckless cunt” who needed to “do something about [her] dad’s immigration practices.”

 

“We spent the day wrestling with the repercussions of one bad word, when we all should have spent the day incensed that as a nation we are wrenching children from their parents and treating people legally seeking asylum as criminals,” Bee added. “If we are OK with that then really, who are we?”

former comedy central host jon stewart comes to her defense

“I’m going to tell you something about Sam Bee, because I’ve known her for a very long time. You could not find a kinder, smarter, more lovely individual than Samantha Bee. Trust me, if she called someone a cunt…” Steward said, according to the Daily Beast, with a silence allowing the audience to finish his thought.

actress Minnie Driver

Academy Award-nominated actress Minnie Driver said Thursday that Ivanka Trump does not possess the intelligence or personality to be described as a “c*nt,” the profane term used by comedian Samantha Bee.

“That was the wrong word for Samantha Bee to have used,” Driver wrote on Twitter. “But mostly because ( to paraphrase the French ) Ivanka has neither the warmth nor the depth.”

keeps her job

Libertarian perspective

ABC should be able to fire Roseanne Barr

TBS should be able to retain Samantha Bee

If you are offended they did nothing, stop watching the show
Consumers can vote with their feet

Teachers Strike

Several states from West Virginia to Arizona

Asking for more pay and school funding

LMV Perspective

Education should be privately funded

Public schools are a monopoly

Home schooling or private school parents have to pay twice

“Too important to leave to the market”

Food more essential than education
tremendous variety provided by the market

No competition decreases quality

How much to pay teachers?

An example of the mises’ calculation problem
Problem solved by a free market

Teachers compensation underestimated by media

From the fee.org article entitled “How Media Outlets Misinform the Public about Teacher Pay.”

…During recent teacher walkouts in Oklahoma that captured national attention, many major media outlets reported misleadingly small figures for teacher pay. By failing to reveal all aspects of teacher compensation, these outlets hid the true costs to taxpayers—which now amount to an annualized average of about $120,000 for every public school teacher in the United States.

…CNN, for example, published an article by Bill Weir claiming that in “most districts” of Oklahoma, “a teacher with a doctorate degree and 30 years’ experience will never make more than $50,000 a year.” That claim, which CNN neglected to document, is at odds with comprehensive data from the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Labor. This information for Oklahoma and the entire nation follows.

 

…For the 2016–17 school year, the Department of Education reports that the average salary of full-time public school teachers was $58,950 in the U.S. and $45,245 in Oklahoma. Those figures generally exclude benefits, such as health insurance, paid leave, and pensions.

…According to the Department of Labor, benefits comprise an average of 33 percent of compensation for public school teachers. Including benefits, teachers’ average annual compensation jumps to $87,854 in the U.S. and about $67,429 in Oklahoma. This excludes unfunded pension liabilities and certain post-employment benefits like health insurance.

…That, however, still doesn’t tell the complete story because full-time private industry employees work an average of 37 percent more hours per year than full-time public school teachers. This includes the time that teachers spend for lesson preparation, test construction and grading, providing extra help to students, coaching, and other activities.

…Accounting for the disparity between the annual work hours of full-time public school teachers and full-time private industry workers, the average annualized cost of employing teachers in the 2016–17 school year was $120,578 per teacher in the U.S. and about $92,545 in Oklahoma.

…There is yet more to this picture because the costs of living vary between states. Adjusted for this, the average annualized immediate compensation of Oklahoma teachers in 2016–17 was about $102,943, or roughly twice what CNN says “a teacher with a doctorate degree and 30 years’ experience will never make” in “most districts” of Oklahoma.

Partial end to Federal marijuana ban?

Trump said probably would support Sen. Cory Gardner(R-CO) bill

Would end Federal prohibition in states that have passed laws already

Gardner had earlier threatened to hold up Trump’s DOJ appointments

Trump quote

“I support Sen. Gardner,” the president said before departing for the G-7 summit in Canada, as quoted by the Los Angeles Times. “I know exactly what he’s doing. We’re looking at it. But I probably will end up supporting that, yes.”

LMV opposition to Federal ban

Violates personal sovereignty

Smoking weed does not violate the non-aggression principle

Not a power delegated to Congress under article one section eight of the U.S. Constitution

Violates states’ rights

States can have a ban provided it does not violate their state constitution

GOP not a small government party

From the reason.com article entitled “Stop Calling the GOP the Party of Small Government.”

There was a time when GOP lawmakers called for the elimination of entire federal agencies. Today, milquetoast promises to pursue smaller government are followed by votes for ever bigger government.

As Milton Friedman noted, the true size of the state is measured by how much money it spends. Budget data show that all modern presidents, regardless of party affiliation, have increased the federal fiscal footprint—but Republican administrations have generally increased the amount spent at a faster rate than Democratic ones.

Under George W. Bush, who was elected on a platform of fiscal restraint, total federal spending increased in real terms by 53 percent. Enabled and encouraged by a Republican-led Congress, his administration adopted the politically self-serving notion that “deficits don’t matter.” No Child Left Behind, Medicare Part D, and bank bailouts serve as a vivid reminder that shrinking the state doesn’t stand a chance.

The only way to decrease the spending?

Cut the purse strings

End coercive taxation

LMV solution:  Constitutional amendment to make all taxation voluntary

Liberty Watch Episode 19: Sports Gambling Legalized

The following is the outline text version of my YouTube video which can be viewed by clicking here:  https://youtu.be/UubIS1N8Xl8

You can subscribe to my YouTube channel by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIb4k41f3A1lftMXivcvj5g.

You can make a donation at patreon.com/libertymanvan

Sports Gambling Legalized?

The libertarian perspective on issue

Does not violate the non-aggression principle

No one takes your stuff without your consent

No one beats you up

Who gets to choose if you gamble on sports?

You

Someone else

The supreme court’s view

Justice Alito writes majority 6-3 opinion

PASPA ruled unconstitutional for wrong reason

The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act

 

The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) makes it

unlawful for a State or its subdivisions “to sponsor, operate, advertise,

promote, license, or authorize by law or compact . . . a lottery,

sweepstakes, or other betting, gambling, or wagering scheme based

. . . on” competitive sporting events, 28 U. S. C. §3702(1), and for “a

person to sponsor, operate, advertise, or promote” those same gambling

schemes if done “pursuant to the law or compact of a governmental

entity,”

 

And the Constitution indirectly restricts the

States by granting certain legislative powers to Congress,

see Art. I, §8, while providing in the

 

Supremacy Clause

that federal law is the “supreme Law of the Land . . . any

Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the

Contrary notwithstanding,” Art. VI, cl. 2. This means that

when federal and state law conflict, federal law prevails

and state law is preempted.

[Actual text of the article VI clause 2 supremacy clause:

This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.]

[Laws passed that are unconstitutional are not the “supreme law of the land.”  Reductio ad absurdum.  Congress passes law that says you must kill your firstborn child.]

 

The legislative powers granted to Congress are sizable[see Madison contradicting statement],

but they are not unlimited. The Constitution confers[should be delegates] on

Congress not plenary legislative power but only certain

enumerated powers. Therefore, all other legislative power is reserved for the States, as the Tenth Amendment confirms.  And conspicuously absent from the list of powers given to Congress is the power to issue direct orders to the governments of the States.[How about the power to prohibit gambling not in article 1 section 8?]

 

…The PASPA provision at issue here—prohibiting state

authorization of sports gambling—violates the anticommandeering

rule.

…It is as if federal officers were installed in state legislative

chambers and were armed with the authority to stop

legislators from voting on any offending proposals. A more

direct affront to state sovereignty is not easy to imagine.

…Congress can regulate sports gambling directly but if it elects not to do so each state is free to act on its own.[Again, no authority in article 1 section 8 to regulate sports gambling]

Article 1 Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution

Does not authorize much of what Congress has done

Social security

Providing health insurance

Involvement in education

Prohibition of alcohol and drugs

18th amendment established alcohol prohibition
21st amendment repealed the eighteenth amendment

Prohibition of gambling

The text

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

 

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

 

To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

 

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

 

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

 

To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;

 

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

 

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

 

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;

 

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

 

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

 

To provide and maintain a Navy;

 

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

 

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

 

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

Comments by the Founding Fathers

Federalist 45- James Madison

“The powers delegated by the proposed constitution to the federal government are few and defined,” not “sizable” as Justice Alito writes in this opinion.

Federalist 39- James Madison

“The local or municipal authorities form distinct and independent portions of supremacy, no more subject in their respective spheres to the general authority than the general authority is subject to them within their own sphere.  In this relation then the proposed government cannot be deemed a national one because its jurisdiction pertains to enumerated objects only and leaves to the states a residuary and inviolable sovereignty over all other objects.”

Federalist 83- Alexander Hamilton

“An affirmative grant of special powers would be absurd as well as useless if a general authority was intended.”

Madison in 1792 on the House floor regarding the Constitution’s commerce clause

“I venture to declare it as my opinion, that, were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited government established by the people of America.”

 

… “If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare and are the sole and supreme judges  of the general welfare they may take care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every state, county and parish; they may pay them out of the public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume provision for the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post roads.  In short, everything from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police would be thrown under the power of Congress, for every object I have mentioned would admit the obvious application of money that might be called provisions for the general welfare.”

 

LMV:  In other words, the general welfare, necessary and proper, and commerce clauses were not powers of their own but descriptions of the purposes of those limited and enumerated powers already mentioned in the Constitution.

Libertarian Humor

This graphic shows some people crawling under a barbed wire fence.  The caption reads “Look at me crawling under barbed wire to escape free market capitalism.  Said no one ever.”

Reminiscent of the wall separating East Berlin from West Berlin

Reagan “tear down this wall” clip

LMV:  That’s the show.  See you next time.