Social desirability bias is the tendency of respondents to answer questions in a manner that will be viewed favorably by others. It can take the form of over-reporting “good behavior” or under-reporting “bad,” or undesirable behavior. The tendency poses a serious problem with conducting research with self-reports, especially questionnaires. This bias interferes with the interpretation of average tendencies as well as individual differences.
Pete invited the man who blew the whistle on the CIA torture program, John Kiriakou, to come on the show and discuss the different factions on the America Left. They also discuss the Democratic primaries and who can beat trump in the coming November election, as well as how they see party politics going forward if Bernie doesn’t get the nomination
John Kiriakou is a former CIA operative and senior investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. A target of the Obama administration’s war on whistleblowers, he remains the only US official to serve time behind bars after revelations of CIA “enhanced interrogation” practices, despite openly opposing the torture program. He maintains that his case was about exposing torture, not leaking information, adding, he “would do it all over again.”
Can one consistently believe a majority of 535 congressmen have the right to coercively rule 330 million Americans, and believe in equality?
If you believe one group should monopolize AR-15s and taxation, do you believe in equality?
In this video, I attempt to refute the statist position on equality, and justify the claim that only the libertarian/voluntarist position is dedicated to achieving equality in the genuine sense; equality of rights under natural law.
Income inequality. Is it a problem? Did it cause the financial crisis? Is it the cause of all the woes of our society? Can it be “solved?” Should it be “solved?” How would it be “solved?” We address these questions–and more!
Episode 104 of the Liberty Weekly Podcast is Brought to you by:
Rand Paul has been considered Constitutional conservative and a non-interventionist. Both are admirable labels to have. However, over the last year, Senator Paul has failed at being either of these things.
As a self-described Constitutional conservative Senator Paul should do his best to oppose those that would step on our nation’s most important charter. Unfortunately, he has begun tow the party line more than he has championed our rights and liberties. Last October, Paul endorsed the Roy Moore’s U.S Senate campaign. This was a betrayal of his supposed constitutionalist beliefs. One would be hard-pressed to find someone who respects the Constitution less than Roy Moore. In 2006, Moore wrote an op-ed on why he believes Muslims shouldn’t serve in Congress. Not only was Moore’s opinion at odds with the First Amendment but he ignores Article VI, Section 3 of the Constitution. Also known as the No Religious Test Clause of the Constitution, Article VI, Section 3 states that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States”. Moore served as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama but was twice removed, once for violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment and later for ignoring the United States Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which found that gay marriage bans violated the Due Process Clause and Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Roy Moore felt that his personal religious beliefs were more important than the rights protected by the Constitution. Moore seems to have an incredibly limited understanding of the Constitution, as he incorrectly claimed that kneeling during the national anthem is illegal. Not only is it legal, it’s protected by the First Amendment. Roy Moore refused to respect the Constitution and, in many instances, lacked a basic understanding of the document. How Senator Paul thought this man could protect and uphold the Constitution is baffling.
Senator Paul has had an admirable history of speaking out against military adventurism and arming foreign conflicts. Last June, he voted to block a $110 million arms deal with Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately, the effort was rejected, and the Saudis obtained more weapons for their inhumane attacks in Yemen. Senator Paul’s actions, in this case, were commendable and principled. Senator Paul was right to grill Mike Pompeo over the constitutionality of Syrian strikes during Pompeo’s confirmation hearing. Unfortunately, that’s where Paul’s principals ended. On April 23, Senator Paul tweeted that he would support Mike Pompeo’s nomination as Secretary of State. This announcement was in direct contradiction to Paul’s previous statements that he would do everything he could to block Pompeo’s nomination. According to the senator, he was assured by both Mike Pompeo and President Trump that Pompeo is a newfound non-interventionist who believes regime change is a mistake and the United States should end its involvement in Afghanistan. This is a very spurious claim considering the president had recently appointed renowned hawk and regime change fanboy John Bolton as the new National Security Advisor. The fact that Paul took the word of the self-aggrandizing Pompeo and the truth-phobic Trump is extremely troubling. Although Pompeo would have been nominated even without Rand Paul’s vote, it showed that his principals are extremely flexible. Pompeo as Secretary of State and John Bolton as National Security Advisor place two foreign policy hawks in powerful positions. This should be extremely worrisome for anybody that is opposed to new wars. Senator Paul’s epic flip-flop set the board for more neoconservative style foreign policy.
Rand Paul’s vote for Mike Pompeo isn’t his only failure in recent memory. In February, Mike Lee, Bernie Sanders, and Chris Murphy introduced S.J.Res.54 to the Senate floor. This bill would end the United States’ unauthorized participation in the Yemen conflict. Congress had not declared war and therefore U.S. participation in the war is in violation of Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11 of the Constitution, which gives Congress the power to declare war. A bill that not only ends America’s involvement in an unjust war but also ends an unconstitutional action should be in Senator Paul’s wheelhouse. Yet, his name was absent from the list of 14 cosponsors of the bill. This bill is the exact thing Rand Paul should be championing. In March, the Senate voted 55 to 44 to table the bill. Paul at least showed up to vote nay against the motion, but had he added his name to the bill it could have had more weight and perhaps helped get it through the Senate. This was a missed opportunity to create a bipartisan motion that would do right by the Constitution and end America’s shameful actions in Yemen.
I used to admire Rand Paul for his outspokenness and the importance he placed on the American Constitution. He has spoken out against military adventurism and promoted peace through diplomacy and trade. Sadly, he has become all bark and no bite, and in some cases, he has gone from barking to sitting and obeying. If Rand Paul wants to back partisan agendas and throw his full support behind anything the White House does that’s his prerogative, but he should stop pretending to be a man of principals when he abandons them so willingly.
Why are there so few liberty-oriented societies compared to the number of places with statist governments?
And why does it seem like the size and scope of government keeps expanding around the world?
If I’m feeling optimistic, I’ll disagree with the tone of those questions. There are reasons to be cheerful, after all. the Soviet Empire collapsed and there’s solid data that global economic liberty has increased over the past few decades. And for those who care about evidence, there’s a slam-dunk argument that smaller government means more prosperity.
But if I’m feeling pessimistic, I’ll look at grim numbers suggesting that the burden of government automatically will expand because of demographic change. And I also worry about eroding societal capital, with more and more people thinking it’s okay to live off the government. And let’s not forget “public choice,” the theory that explains why politicians have an incentive to make government bigger.
I go back and forth on whether the glass is half full or half empty, and I’m not sure which side is winning. All I can say for sure is that Americans are getting increasingly polarized as we have big fights about the proper role of government. Read the rest at danieljmitchell.wordpress.com.
Warren proposal would leave poor Americans to mercy of IRS
If you believe the IRS should be even more expensive, inefficient and bloated, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren has a plan for you.
Last year, Warren concocted the so-called “Tax Filing Simplification Act.” The scheme actually puts the federal government in the tax preparation business. With Tax Day approaching, the senator appears to be dusting off the proposal for another go.
Warren’s legislation would “direct the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to develop a free, online tax preparation and filing service that taxpayers can use to prepare and file their taxes directly with the federal government.”
Not surprisingly, Warren’s plan socialist-style bureaucracy has garnered the backing of socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and several other misguided members of the U.S. Senate.
Apparently Warren and her band of supporters aren’t aware of what most Americans already know: Free tax prep and e-filing services are widely available. In fact, thanks to a public-private partnership between the IRS and the tax software industry, 70 percent of all Americans already have access to free tax preparation and filing. The federal bureaucracy created by Warren’s bill would obliterate these successful partnerships.
Clearly, Warren’s proposal is little more than a solution in search of a problem.
What actually is a problem, however, is the clear conflict of interest created by the proposal. The IRS exists for the purpose of collecting taxes – and snagging as much tax money as possible in the process. Putting the agency in charge of tax preparation creates serious concerns over how the IRS could possibly look out for the best interest of Americans on its tax prep side when its overall goal is to squeeze every last dime out of taxpayers.
It creates a scenario where the fox is guarding the henhouse. And it will harm poorer taxpayers the most.
Wealthier Americans will be able to continue to hire tax attorneys and accountants to reduce their tax burdens. Because Warren’s proposal would kill the market for free and low-cost tax prep solutions, however, lower income Americans would be out of luck. Their only option will be to rely on the IRS to try to lower their tax bill – to the IRS. Good luck with that.
After the election of Donald Trump, the American people have been subjected to several different theories to account for the outcome. These theories have been offered by leading political figures and major media outlets. And each time one theory fails to prove sufficiently persuasive, it is either ratcheted up further or replaced–usually by a claim that is more sensational.
To date, the most prominent theories offered to explain the election have been the following, each proceeding in quick succession after the other:
FBI Director James Comey deliberately threw the election to Donald Trump by announcing new investigations into the Clinton email server were occurring a week prior to the election.
And finally, Russian President Vladimir Putin directed the Russian government to hack the DNC and John Podesta’s Gmail account and shared embarrassing emails with WikiLeaks in order to help Trump win.
As shown in the links above, there is good reason to be skeptical of each of these claims. True or not, however, I would argue they are also irrelevant. In fact, there is a much simpler explanation for why the Democrats lost the presidential election–namely, they nominated Hillary Clinton.
Now, I have nothing personal against the good Secretary–at least no more than I do against any comparably dangerous warmonger. But she was a very weak candidate for the general election. She brought all the scandal of Bill Clinton with a fraction of the charisma. She also had an active FBI investigation ongoing, which regardless of whether one thinks that was legitimate or not, remained a substantial political liability. This was never going to be a strong political combination.
Of course, it is true as her supporters often noted, that she was qualified–if by qualified we mean that she held many high governmental offices previously. Unfortunately, that doesn’t count for much in US politics. Al Gore had considerably more experience and qualifications than George W. Bush in 2000, and he still lost. The same would be true of John McCain who lost to a first-term senator, Barack Obama, in 2008.
Importantly, it is not a surprise that Hillary Clinton turned out to be a weak candidate. Polling data throughout the primary season clearly indicated this. Clinton’s main opponent, Bernie Sanders, consistently performed better in hypothetical match-ups against Republicans than Clinton did. Notably, Sanders performed best against Donald Trump. Additionally, Sanders’ favorability ratings grew as the campaign proceeded and more people learned about him while Clinton’s favorability decayed as the public gained more exposure. Over at The Intercept, Glenn Greenwald compiled a helpful summary of this data from February 2016 here, laying out a prescient case that Clinton had an electability problem. I’ve included a few key updated charts through the end of the election below:
Sanders vs Trump over time
Clinton vs. Trump over time
Sanders favorability rating over time
Clinton favorability rating over time
From these charts, a few observations emerge. Sanders’ lead against Trump was generally and more consistent than Clinton’s–thus, he was comfortably ahead for all of 2016 as the primaries finished. And unlike Clinton, his favorability ratings grew over time and then held constant.
From these simple observations, it also seems reasonable to conclude that Sanders would have almost certainly won the election if he received the Democratic nomination. Clinton supporters might suggest that Sanders fared better in polls only because he wasn’t victimized by the allegedly Russian-sponsored leaks and Comey’s conduct regarding the private server email investigation. But that’s sort of the point. It should not have been altogether surprising that there was additional fallout from the Clinton Foundation and the private server. The degree of the damage could not have been known, but the risk was certainly there at the beginning of the primary. Democrats nominated her anyway and lost because of it.
Critically, this suggests the election result was not about policy. Republicans may want to believe the election was a repudiation of Obama’s legacy, but at least in the presidential race, the evidence doesn’t support that. If voters were reacting to Obama’s decisions and policies, why would they be poised to overwhelmingly support a candidate in Sanders who wanted to double-down and expand on those very same policies? Clearly, they would not.
It’s also good news for Democrats and center-left elites in the media that have spent the last two months grasping for an explanation of Trump’s victory. It seems they were afraid that voters really were rejecting Obama’s legacy. So as an alternative, they promoted external factors as the cause instead–eventually settling on Russian hacking as a preferable explanation to believing that US public opinion had shifted dramatically to the right. In the process, these same officials and pundits have been willing to significantly escalate tensions between the US and Russia, as a political coping mechanism.
In fact, there was no need for this hysteria. The reality being avoided is not worth avoiding. Democrats did not lose because Americans suddenly rejected the Democratic policy agenda; Democrats lost because they nominated a bad candidate.
Once more people understand this, maybe we can all take a step back from the political ledge and start focusing on what matters. Donald Trump becomes president this week. The chance that he might ease tensions with Russia is one of the only things we have to look forward to.
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