Strange Love

… a star woman teaches:

  • The above link goes to Snopes, where you will learn: (a) the theme from Star Trek (original series) had lyrics; (b) they were awful; (c) Gene Roddenberry was kind of a slimeball.

  • Don Boudreaux has a good response to a recent USA Today editorial entitled "Who's buying this election? Who knows?" USA Today advocates "disclosure" by "special interests" on campaign ads.

    I was happy to see Don make the same point I made previously:

    The headline of your Sept. 28 editorial reads "Who's buying this election? Who knows?"

    I know. Incumbent politicians.

    Not all of them will succeed in their shopping sprees, thankfully. But farm subsidies, tariffs, export assistance, funding for science, funding for the arts, funding for education, bloated military procurements, bailouts of Detroit and Wall Street, and politically directed "stimulus" spending are just some of the expenditures -- all of money taken from both present and future taxpayers -- made by sitting politicians to buy the election. Reducing the amounts that private citizens spend of their own money to influence elections will only worsen the consequences of this detestable reality.

    Don appends a small correction: it's not just incumbents.

  • At Cato, Michael F. Cannon asks: what's the matter with the ex-Governor of Kansas, Kathleen Sebelius?
    • Her department is forcing millions of Americans to finance speech that they oppose, by using taxpayer dollars to broadcast (misleading) television ads that promote ObamaCare.

    • She is using the powers granted her under ObamaCare to threaten insurers with bankruptcy if they publicly disagree with her about the law's cost.

    • Now, she is decrying the growth of anonymous political speech in congressional campaigns.

    When the boss lacks respect for the First Amendment, it's predictable that his underlings will enthusiastically follow his lead.

Last Modified 2017-12-04 7:36 AM EDT