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Private Notes
It is the story of who we are and of what we believe. The story of ordinary people who have created an extraordinary place – America.
Politicians spend so much time creating new laws that they rarely pay attention to one law even they can't repeal: the law of unintended consequences. For every upside to a new law, there is usually at least one downside, often one that doesn't reveal itself right away. Featured: Cash for Clunkers, the minimum wage, Title IX, sports arenas, alpaca subsidies, credit card regulations, health care reform, ethanol subsidies, programs to increase home ownership, and pledges of fiscal responsibility.
John Stossel takes a look at how the government has turned people into freeloaders. One can make over $20,000 a year, tax-free, from panhandling. Any black person who has "attempted to farm" can collect $50,000 from the federal government. The most egregious freeloaders are big corporations like General Electric. Stossel interviews American Indians who say that the only reason their tribe is not poor like most others is because they do not receive government funds, as well as operators of a web side that advises people not to pay their mortgages.
John Stossel takes a look at how the government has turned people into freeloaders. One can make over $20,000 a year, tax-free, from panhandling. Any black person who has "attempted to farm" can collect $50,000 from the federal government. The most egregious freeloaders are big corporations like General Electric. Stossel interviews American Indians who say that the only reason their tribe is not poor like most others is because they do not receive government funds, as well as operators of a web side that advises people not to pay their mortgages.
John Stossel's latest special is titled after an item from The Onion: "Should the Government Stop Dumping Money Into a Giant Hole?"
We will soon spend ourselves into oblivion. But finally... movement! Budget slashing proposals from Paul Ryan, the Republican Study Committee, Ron Paul, Rand Paul and even Tim Pawlenty! But politicians and real people across the spectrum still resist change. What should government do? What's its role? What have other countries done?
Slashing spending is a good thing.
From John Stossel's blog:
Exciting things are happening in education suddenly. In some places, charter schools bucked the unions, and got results. Inner-city kids do well on benchmark tests. They are excited to learn! When I told fourth graders that school is boring, they yelled, "No, it's not!" Says one boy: "Reading is rockin' awesome!"
I report on the innovations at the Success Charter Network and Harlem Village Academy in New York, and at the American Indian Public Charter School in Oakland, California. "Let's destroy the system... create a system that serves kids," says charter school director Deborah Kenny. Hurricane Katrina made that experiment possible by destroying much of New Orleans. Now most of New Orleans students attend charters, and they're learning more.
Aside from such bright spots, most of education in America is still a mess. The cost has skyrocketed, but performance is flat.
Why? One big reason is that the government monopoly - the "BLOB"- makes it nearly impossible to fire a bad teacher. Former Washington DC school chancellor Michelle Rhee talks about her attempt to change that, including firing her own daughters' principal, and the backlash that led to her losing her job.
I confront union leaders, like DC union boss Nathan Saunders, who opposes judging teachers by student test results. "I know my kids are learning when I look in their eyes," says Saunders. New Jersey union leader Joseph Del Grosso opposes charter schools: "Over my dead body, they're gonna come here."
When Saunders and Del Grosso were kids, they attended private schools, but now they oppose vouchers. This is a common phenomenon amongst members of the BLOB: choice for ME, but not for THEE.
Virtual education innovator Sal Khan, founder of the Khan Academy, is on the right track. He's a great teacher who now reaches millions of kids via the internet. Some fifth graders who watch his videos do high school level math. Before radio and TV, every big town had a best
From John Stossel's blog:
I argue that America has become a country where no one can know what is legal.
Kids who open lemonade stands are now shutdown by police. I tried to open a lemonade stand legally in NYC. That was quite an adventure. It takes 65 days to get permission from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
With government adding 80,000 pages of rules and regulations every year, it's no surprise that regular people break laws without even trying.
A small businessman spent 6 years in federal prison for breaking Honduran regulations (and, to make it worse, the Honduran government said he didn't). A family in Idaho can't build a home on their land because the EPA says it's a wetland-but it only resembles a wetland because a government drain malfunctioned and flooded it.
TAXI TROUBLE: Want to start a taxi business? Too bad - it's illegal. Illegal, that is, unless you buy a government-issued "taxi medallion" that can cost as much as a million dollars. One city has a free market for cabs - Washington, DC - but lobbyists there are pushing to regulate.
ILLEGAL FOOD: Increasingly, government tells us what we can and can't eat -- bans on trans-fat, happy meals, "raw" foods. California officials raided a raw food club, and arrested clerks for selling unpasteurized milk. Farmer Joel Salatin, author of "Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal," explains why Americans DON'T have the freedom to choose the food they eat.
ILLEGAL DRUGS: Drug use is illegal - but should it be? Where drugs are legal, businessmen replace gangs as the dealers and pay taxes. Portugal decriminalized all drugs 10 years ago--including crack, ecstasy, and heroin. What has happened since then? We go to Portugal and get the facts from police, politicians, and drug addicts.
ILLEGAL SEX: Our government bans prostitution because people think it's a dirty, dangerous business. But in brothels where prostitution is legal there is no crime or disease. On this show, three sex workers
Government vs. private initiatives are explored. Topics include the Dobb-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, job creation, affordable college tuition, the Americans with Disabilities Act and Head Start.
John Stossel goes behind the scenes to show viewers what goes into winning the presidency. From the message of the day and deciding on which TV channel a given advertisement will air, to the height of the podiums at the debates and the placement of signage at rallies, everything is micromanaged, rehearsed, planned, negotiated, regimented, and controlled.
Government should help people make healthy choices for themselves. The post office should deliver the mail. Fracking is dangerous. Lawsuits protect consumers. Obamacare is good for business. Government must build infrastructure. Washington D.C. is about serving the public.
What you think you know... is often wrong.
From John Stossel's blog:
MEET THE VICTIMS: Marty the Magician uses a rabbit in his act, so the USDA told him he needed a written "disaster" plan to deal with potential problems like hurricanes and tornadoes. Marty is just one of many victims of government's endless rules.
ENTREPRENEURS: Bill Main started a clever business called Segs in the City. It's a guided tour on Segways in Washington, D.C., but government says you need a license to talk on these tours.
ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has designated more than 1,500 acres in Louisiana as critical habitat for the dusky gopher frog, even though no frogs currently live anywhere near the land. I talk to the landowner who says designation makes it almost impossible for him to use his land.
GUN RULES: The Constitution says individuals have a right to bear arms. But some cities make it nearly impossible to carry one. I test the system by applying to carry a gun in New York City. Will they accept my application?
MOUNTAIN MAN: Eustace Conway runs a popular camp in North Carolina called "Turtle Island" where he teaches people how to live like a pioneer. Local government shut him down because it didn't meet building and health codes. In the end, he's so popular, that he wins.
MOVING COMPANIES: RJ Bruner started one. People loved his service and his company grew... until state regulators told him to stop. He needed a "Certificate of Necessity and Convenience". Basically he needed to prove his business was needed and won't hurt existing businesses.
TECH TROUBLE: I become a taxi driver using an innovative phone application called Lyft, which connects people with a car with people who need rides. Passengers are kept safe because users give them ratings. People love it. But the regulators crack down.
THE GOOD NEWS: Technology also helps people rent out extra rooms in their apartments to make extra money, through websites like Airbnb and Roomorama. Regulators are fighting this, t
From John Stossel's blog:
PREVIEW: President Obama gave a preview of what he will talk about at his State of the Union. He said, "Tomorrow night, it's time to restore opportunity for all." Wow, I wish he'd just stop regulating opportunities away.
ALL-STAR PANEL: I will be joined by a politician who I wish would get to give the State of the Union address... former Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson, along with Independent Women's Forum's Hadley Heath and The National Review's Charles Cooke. They will discuss the State of the Union speech through a lens of liberty.
RIGHT AND LEFT LIBERTARIANS: Deroy Murdock, a nationally syndicated columnist, and Thaddeus Russell, author of A Renegade History of the United States, will discuss the right and the left Libertarian views on the State of the Union.
KRONIES: President Obama will undoubtedly call for more government programs to fix problems he sees. Often this involves "investments" in things like green energy, which has been a recipe for cronyism. I will talk to John Papola, the producer of the "Kronies" video.
MY STATE OF THE UNION: I will give the State of the Union speech that I wish President Obama would give. Here is part:
I cannot imagine what I was thinking entrusting government, which cannot balance its books and routinely loses track of billions of dollars, with even greater power over healthcare than it already possessed. If something as simple as a website for Obamacare is too much for government to get right, imagine what government will do to complicated medical pricing and insurance plans. It would be better to end government involvement in healthcare altogether and let people shop around for the best free-market plans.
POLICING AMERICA: SECURITY VS. LIBERTY
Where's the line between security and liberty? American police are now armed like the military; they use their power more often and forcefully than ever before. The state has new and expanding powers to spy on almost everything you do.
THE WARRIOR COP: SWAT teams were once called out only in emergencies. Now there are almost 100 raids a day. The weapons and tactics they use come straight from the military. Sometimes innocent people are killed. Why use so much force so often? What would you do if armed men in masks broke down your door in the middle of the night?
CONSTITUTION-FREE ZONES: Lots of Americans are getting upset about being detained by armed border patrol agents not on the border but miles away from the border. Some push back, sometimes with violent results.
MANDATORY MINIMUMS: Do mandatory minimum sentences work? Prosecutors like them because they give them more power when they plea bargain with suspects. But judges often object, and sometimes people serve long sentences for trivial crimes. Or no crime.
NSA SPYING: New revelations surface almost daily on ways the Feds spy on Americans. Does this make us safer? Or invade our privacy in destructive ways?
I SPY: Government spying is one thing. Now new, cheaper, "personal" drones make it easy for anyone to spy on anyone. Some say: "I've got nothing to hide. Why should I care?" But then why do you have drapes? Stossel goes to Florida to test the spying power of personal drones.
LEGALIZE WEED: Washington State and Colorado just legalized marijuana for recreational use. Could this be the start of America's trillion dollar drug-war coming to an end? Former advisor to the president Kevin Sabet says: "Colorado will show why legalizing marijuana is a mistake."
**UPDATE: Hope you enjoyed the "Policing America: Security Vs. Liberty" program. Robert Trudell was kind enough to let us use footage from his YouTube Channel of his experience at internal checkpoi
Stossel offers some new ideas on parenting to help your kids GROW UP!
FREE-RANGE KIDS: Lenore Skenazy was called "America's Worst Mom" because she let her 9-year-old ride the subway alone. She says kids benefit from less supervision and more independence. Critics say "free range" parenting is irresponsible and dangerous. They could get abducted by a stranger! They could, but why so much fear now when abductions are extremely rare, and crime is at a 50 year low?
WUSSIFICATION: Trophies used to be an award for winning. Now, kids get a trophy just for showing up. Does this turn them into wimps? VICE co-founder Gavin McInnes says yes, because kids "learning to lose, learning to fail" is "what childhood is all about." Parenting blogger Jenn-Anne Gledhill says, "you call it wussification, I'm going to go ahead and call it a spiritual awakening."
THE TIGER-MOM: Western parents were shocked by Amy Chua's strict Chinese parenting methods: her daughters were forced to practice piano several hours every day; they couldn't have sleepovers or watch TV. Chua even called her own daughter "garbage" once. Is it too extreme? What do Chua's daughters say, now that they're older? We asked them if they even like their mom.
GENDER NEUTRAL KIDS: Some parents say kids should choose if they want to be a boy or a girl. Dr. Leonard Sax says it's a grave mistake "to put our heads in the sand and pretend that gender doesn't matter."
DELAYED GRATIFICATION: Some psychologists say success on the famous marshmallow tests (can the child delay eating one, to get two treats 15 minutes later?) is the biggest predictor of success in kids' lives. Kids who can delay gratification do much better in life, get better grades in school, make more money, and are happier than those who can't.
ACCORDING TO PLAN: Politicians always say they can make things better with a "plan." But most of life works better when it's not planned by government. Economists call this free-flowing innovation, "spontaneous order."
RINKONOMICS: Suppose you'd never seen a skating rink, and we said we were going to have skaters strap sharp blades on their feet and zip around ice. The only rule: go counter-clockwise. Central planners would say it's impossible! You need an expert to direct them! Stossel tried to direct them, but that took the spontaneity away! The rink works because people are free to make their own decisions. Each individual knows where he wants to turn, how fast he wants to go, etc. No central planner will make that better.
DISASTER RELIEF: After Hurricane Katrina, the NY Times ran the headline: "A Big Storm Requires Big Government." But FEMA did an awful job. By contrast, after a big storm, private businesses like Walmart, and charities like Oklahoma Baptist Disaster Relief help many people, much more quickly.
CROWDFUNDING: Need money to expand your home, make a movie, to start a business? Crowdfunding is a spontaneous way to bring people and new ideas together without central planners. "Anybody can raise money for absolutely any idea anywhere in the world," says Indiegogo's Slava Rubin.
FREE MARKET MEDICINE: LASIK eye surgery is one area of healthcare where quality goes up, but costs go down. That happens because LASIK is rarely covered by insurance, so patients and doctors negotiate directly. Patients shop for the best deal. That spontaneity leads to better service.
BRITISH TOLL ROAD: In Britain, a local highway was damaged by heavy rains. When government said it would take a year to repair it, entrepreneur Mike Watts built a "private road" in just 12 days.
TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES: Government planners slow innovation with burdensome rules. In 1931, workers built the Empire State building in just over a year. Now it takes 13 years to finish the
One can love nature but still hate the tyranny the green movement imposes.
SHUTTING DOWN PROGRESS: America is blessed with abundant resources but cursed with boneheaded regulators. Now the EPA has been caught colluding with environmental activists to shut down a mine in Alaska. The Green Tyrants say the mine might hurt fish, but the fish are 90 miles away. Stossel asked Bob Deans of the Natural Resources Defense Council, "are any mines okay?" He didn't name one that the NRDC would approve.
Green Tyrants opposed to the Keystone pipeline say it will never be finished. Even if President Obama finally approves it, they say, "we will tie it up in court, and get in the way of construction crews." It makes Stossel wonder why anyone would try to build anything big today. "NIMBY" used to be the chant (Not In My BackYard!). Now it's "BANANA" (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anybody).
THE CHURCH OF CLIMATE CHANGE: Global warming alarmism has turned into hysteria. Yes, the globe has warmed. Climate changes! We can adjust to it. But climate scientists who dare say that, like Judith Curry of Georgia Tech, are shunned as heretics.
SEAWORLD: The CNN film "Blackfish" says SeaWorld cruelly imprisons killer whales. SeaWorld's attendance and stock price dropped after they ran the film repeatedly. SeaWorld wouldn't speak to the "Blackfish" producers, but they did speak to us. We investigated and learned that much of "Blackfish" is utter deceit.
PROPAGANDA: "There may be no alternative but to cancel Christmas!" threatens Santa in a Greenpeace video on global warming. Hollywood runs propaganda that tells kids: global warming will kill you! Kids are scared.
ZERO IMPACT: All the trash Lauren Singer produced in 2 years fits inside a mason jar. She proudly lives a "sustainable lifestyle." This makes her feel "empowered," but such "extreme recycling" is a pointless gimmick only indulged in by privileged people in rich countries--countries made rich by fossil fuels that
America is the first country to say to its people: all of you have a right to speak. But today speech is under siege.
ISLAM: Americans fear speaking about Islam - and with good reason. Ten cartoonists were recently murdered for drawing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad. Other critics have been shot, firebombed, and hacked to death. I interview people brave enough to speak out, like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who is on an Al Qaeda "Wanted Dead or Alive" hit list, and Bosch Fawstin, who won the "Draw Mohammad" cartoon event in Garland, Texas that was attacked by Islamic gunmen. They argue that if Americans want freedom, everyone must refuse to be censored by violent extremists.
CAMPUS CENSORSHIP: Students today are kept away from words and ideas they may find disturbing. "The Silencing" author, Kirsten Powers, says colleges are "ground zero" in the fight for free speech, but George Mason Professor Jeremy Mayer says complaints about censorship are right wing paranoia. Powers also argues that leftists have gone from opposing censorship to supporting it. They even attack their own for stepping outside left-wing orthodoxy; people who say the wrong thing lose jobs.
HOME RAIDS: In Wisconsin, police raided the homes of political activists, accusing them of illegal "collusion" with campaign staffs. Authorities confiscated their computers and cell phones, and ordered them (and their children!) not to speak to anyone about the raids. Recently Wisconsin's Supreme Court revoked the speech ban, saying prosecutors "employed theories of law that did not exist." But by then, Republican activists had been silenced for 5 years.
VICTIMS: The former CEO of Mozilla Brendan Eich, Pax Dickinson of Business Insider, Paula Deen of the Food Network, and real estate entrepreneurs David and Jason Benham all lost jobs because of something they said.
MY AND MARK STEYN'S TAKE: Mark Steyn was prosecuted by the Canadian government for criticizing Islam. He spent his own money defending his right
Aired on 11-14 but was slated to air 11-10 after the debates. The debates ran long and this was bumped.
NOT WRITTEN BY STOSSEL
PANEL PRESENT THROUGHOUT ENTIRE EPISODE.
Stossel is joined by an all student audience and 3 panel members. AUSTIN PETERSEN of "The Libertarian Republic", HADLEY HEATH MANNING of the "Independent Women's Forum", and DEROY MURDOCK of "National Review Online". Tax plans, who is out, Rand Paul vs Marco Rubio, Syrian no file zone, foreign policy, ISIS, China, spending, Kacich, Rubio's support for sugar subsidy, social security, and disability.
BREAK
Did tonight's debate change your opinion on who is going to win? Trump and Carson, according to polls, are leading by a hefty margin. But Stossel says that polls are garbage. But when it comes to predicting election results they've got nothing on prediction markets. Marco Rubio is the big favorite. The panel briefly discusses.
The first comment from a candidate that made Stossel want to scream was when Donald Trump said, "We don't win anymore." He says we're being beat economically, what does that even mean? The panel mirrors Stossel's distaste of Trump.
BREAK
Republican candidates always want to strengthen the military. Stossel was happy to hear Rand Paul say that he wants a strong national defence - but he doesn't want us to be bankrupt. The panel discusses that sound bite.
Stossel was happy to hear some candidates views on minimum wage. Rubio said that if you raise the min. wage it'll make people more expensive than machines, and Carson said that if you raise it you'll create more unemployment.
Fiorina wants a free market for healthcare. Stossel probably does, too. (Can't tell - devil's advocate and all that.) But does the American public really want a free market for healthcare?
BREAK
In the presidential debate most of the candidates supported legal immigration. But Kasich and Trump said we gotta build that wall! Also apparently Mexico will pay for it. Afterwards
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Chris Wilson, director of Research and Analytics for Cruz for President, discuss how technology helped lead to victory in the Iowa caucus; prediction markets; driverless cars; 'education hackathon.'
