One hates to continually harp on the president and his scandals, but he and his big government keep producing them. So here we go again!

Obamacare was supposed to save money. It hasn’t. And it should be no shock to learn that the plan has already overshot its budget. Its implementation budget. And Congress balked at throwing more money at the “Affordable Care Act,” perhaps on the grounds that  we can’t afford it.

So Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius passed around the hat to the major players in the managed medical insurance industry — the folks previously demonized by Democrats as the greedy bloodsuckers who singlehandedly caused industry price inflation — to push the plan through on a “shoestring budget.”

Trouble is, it’s not obvious that this is legal. Sen. Orrin G. Hatch called Sebelius’s private fundraising effort “absurd,” and promised to inquire about conflicts of interest.

It’s easy to see why the Republicans in the House and Senate are suspicious. Such a move rubs up against the grain of what a republic is. But I’m sure Democrats are shrugging. It is just another business-government partnership, after all.

Well, it’s not “just another.” It might end up being the biggest ever. And you have to draw the line somewhere. Ancient Romans drew the line to protect their republic at the Rubicon — which Caesar crossed, ushering in empire.

It’s not just armies that cross important boundaries.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

The current brouhaha is only part of the story. Here’s another part. Frank VanderSloot is a businessman who donated to the Romney campaign. In April of last year, an Obama campaign website chastised several Romney supporters for such high crimes as being “high-dollar donors” with “less-than-reputable records,” interested in “pursuing a specific agenda.” Just the kind of persons that government agencies might like to especially investigate, perhaps?

In any case, within two weeks of the publication of this enemies list, a recent employee of Senate Democrats began rooting around in VanderSloot’s divorce records. Next, the IRS launched audits of his tax returns for 2008 and 2009. He’d never before been audited. Next, the Department of Labor decided to audit the three workers he employed on a cattle ranch under the terms of a visa program for temporary workers.

Coincidence(s)? VanderSloot himself suspects that the audits were retaliation for his political leanings. Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberly Strassel noted at the time that to what extent the harassment had been centrally planned was both undiscoverable and somewhat beside the point. “If this isn’t a chilling glimpse of a society Americans reject, it is hard to know what is. It’s why presidents are held to different rules, and should not keep lists.”

At least, not lists of political enemies.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Click on over, and then come back for more reading.

Note, though there are a number of links in the article, a few more are worth looking at:

• Breitbart.com’s headlined coverage of the recent Rasmussen Report
• Breitbart.com’s coverage of an earlier Rasmussen Report — it’s worth noting that responses on the issue of gun violence have changed rapidly in recent months
• Wikipedia’s list of cognitive biases
• Herbert Spencer’s The Study of Sociology
• Herbert Spencer’s From Freedom to Bondage, (introduction to A Plea for Liberty, Thomas Mackay, ed.)

As students of history, the Founders understood that tyranny — the routine use of government power to violate rather than protect individual rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — is a constant threat. They counseled eternal vigilance against this threat.

Bad advice, says President Obama.

Obama seems to think (à la certain notions of Rousseau) that tyranny ain’t really tyranny if you participate, however nominally, in the political processes that spawn the tyranny. So he instructs a 2013 graduating class to ignore those who warn that tyranny is “always lurking just around the corner.”

“You should reject these voices . . . because what they suggest is that our unique and creative and brave experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we can’t be trusted.”

Come again, Mr. President?

The American republic was built on mistrust. There have to be checks and balances for a republic to work, and skepticism is key to the whole experiment. The “self-rule” idea becomes a sham precisely when we pretend that people with power can always be trusted.

Obama wants the young people he’s addressing to ignore any evidence of present or impending tyranny. Don’t be fooled by people who point to this evidence! Reject these voices! Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!

That citizens inertly obey such instructions is certainly in the interest of all aspiring tyrants.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

A matter worth investigating, as are wider questions regarding U.S. involvement in Libya.

But as the deceptions unravel, too few ponder the fate of one Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, ostensibly jailed for parole violations. The terms of his parole had prohibited him from using computers or the Internet without his parole officer’s approval. Obviously, Nakoula did use that technology to produce and distribute his anti-Islamic video, widely condemned for being cheesy, among other sins.

It was this video that Clinton and others blamed for inciting the attack in Benghazi.

Okay. The man violated parole. But many were eager to see Nakoula punished not because of that violation but because he exercised his freedom of speech in a way that offended people. We have also learned that soon after the attack, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Charles Woods, father of one of the slain, that the U.S. would make sure that “the person who made that film is arrested and prosecuted.”

At the least, Clinton was boneheaded to thus imply that the right to freedom of speech was or should be no safer in the U.S. than in Egypt. And considering all the circumstances here, it’s also fair to ask whether Nakoula would have ended up back in a jail cell sans Benghazi cover-up.

Could it possibly be that he is a political prisoner?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

More precisely, it would create a federal database of info on everybody. An increasingly intrusive national identification regime would follow.

An article in Wired alerts us that the 800-page bill provides for an “innocuously-named ‘photo tool,’ a massive federal database . . . containing names, ages, Social Security numbers and photographs of everyone in the country with a driver’s license and other state-issued ID.” Employers would have to check the database before hiring.

That’s intrusive enough. But this database would also lay the basis for all manner of further surveillance and authorization protocols.

A push for a national ID card as a way to combat terrorism has been ongoing especially since 9/11. Worries about illegal immigration have been another major rationale for planning an expansive surveillance regime.

Whether from fear of immigrants, fear of terrorists, fear of drugs, fear of cash or fear of unmonitored actions of any kind (what do people do when they draw the blinds?), the huddled masses are invited to eagerly submit to ever-more-invasive oversight. And, hey, unless we have “something to hide,” why wouldn’t we have boundless faith in the motives and powers of Big Brother?

Who should object to the database? Civil libertarians, libertarians, conservatives, liberals, or, really, anybody who gets a creepy-crawly feeling at the prospect of the surveillance state’s monitoring and approving our every move.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

But there has been no apology.

Instead, last Friday, Lois Lerner, the head of the tax-exempt division of the Internal Revenue Service, confided to a group of tax attorneys at an American Bar Association conference in Washington. She admitted that the IRS had indeed been guilty of unfairly delaying and blocking Tea Party and conservative groups from establishing tax-exempt organizations, as these dissident groups had been complaining about for years.

Who was to blame? Only mere “low-level employees” — no senior management, heaven forfend.

Then it was disclosed that senior IRS muckety-mucks actually knew in 2011 — well before the IRS commissioner assured Congress that the agency wasn’t doing precisely what it was doing. Now, latest disclosures put the beginning of the political bias policy all the way back to 2010.

Of course, the IRS vehemently denies that politics played any role.

And what about Barack “buck-stops-here” Obama?

“I first learned about it from the same news reports that I think most people learned about this,” the president said in response to a question, adding, “I think it was on Friday.”

In denial, the president spun, “If, in fact, IRS personnel engaged in the kind of practices that had been reported on and were intentionally targeting conservative groups” and “if you’ve got the IRS operating in anything less than a neutral and non-partisan way, then . . . it is contrary to our traditions.”

Well, if these ifs weren’t so (traditionally?) evasive, we might take the prez seriously.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

“We should eliminate the initiative to change the constitution,” she wrote in the bimonthly magazine of the Colorado Municipal League, “but continue the process for the statutes.”

Then, only the legislature would have the power to propose amendments — or, I should say, not propose amendments — like term limits or tax-and-spending limits.

Plus, legislators can repeal any statutory initiative they don’t like. That happened with campaign finance reform.

Anderson complains that Colorado’s “constitution has been amended repeatedly by initiative” and that all those amendments “have made it the wordiest and longest in the nation.”

True?

No. Colorado doesn’t have the longest state constitution. Or the second longest. Or third or fourth or the fifth longest. Colorado’s ranks seventh in word count.

Moreover, the campaign finance measure noted above accounts for nearly 10 percent of the constitution’s verbiage.

Besides, most of the amendments to Colorado’s constitution have come from legislators, not through citizen-initiated petitions. Since voter initiatives began, roughly two-thirds, 63 percent, have come from the legislature.

Forget the facts, though, Anderson and her fellow politicians have had enough of popular government.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Oops. No, it isn’t. It’s about those awful Obamanian “progressives” using government to suppress opposition and help establish etc. etc.

Click on over to Townhall for the scoop. Come back here for a few extra scoops.

• BREAKING NEWS: Politico reports “IRS knew Tea Party targeted in 2011“
• Transcript of Lois Lerner’s Remarks at Tax Meeting Sparking IRS Controversy
• CBS: IRS apologizes for targeting tea party organization
• New York Times: I.R.S. Apologizes to Tea Party Groups Over Audits of Applications for Tax Exemption
• New York Times: Scrutiny of Political Nonprofits Sets Off Claim of Harassment
• The Blaze: IRS Admits To Targeting Conservative Groups During 2012 Election, Apologizes
• NPR: IRS Apologizes For Singling Out Conservative Groups

Bill Maher doesn’t understand, but Greg Greenwald does?

Everything’s a go, except . . . your project is against the law. A zoning law. Therefore, you are out of luck, as are the persons who would rent from you.

Such bans don’t proliferate in a vacuum, of course. Enforcement of zoning laws is often ardently demanded by the residents of the neighborhoods in which developers wish to build.

That’s what happened a few years back in Darien, Connecticut, where townsfolk were up in arms over a proposal to build condos for seniors. Residents felt entitled to forcibly prevent others from moving in. (It is dangerous to play with fire, though. Zoning laws can be used against insiders as well as outsiders. Some Darrien dwellers recently learned, for example, that the eaves of their homes were “too big” for regulators’ tastes.)

Another zone-ified town mentioned in John Ross’s review of Lisa Prevost’s new book Snob Zones: Fear, Prejudice, and Real Estate is Ossipee, New Hampshire, where workers sometimes live in tents to save on rent. The zoning code prohibits the building of new apartment buildings.

Observes Prevost: “The market is hungry for apartments, condominiums, and small homes, if only zoning restrictions would get out of the way.”

Of course, “the market” is simply shorthand for the needs of lots of people, and the freedom to meet those needs.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Unfortunately, sometimes it’s the governments that cheat.

Take the airline industry. Though substantially deregulated by the early 1980s, government has not treated it in an exactly laissez faire manner since. First there are the taxes, quite heavy. And recently the Department of Transportation decided that it must regulate the way in which airlines may advertise their prices . . . and the taxes. That is, the DOT insists that the “total price” — by which it means the price-plus-tax — must be shown prominently, with the tax portion “presented in significantly smaller type than the listing of the total price.”

Talk about regulatory micromanagement!

Now, this rule isn’t something Congress cooked up. It’s the result of a bureaucracy gone wild.

And the rule has one obvious effect: It shields government from consumer criticism, showing bureaucrats at their most self-serving. About one fifth of every airline ticket goes to the government, and folks in government don’t want you to know that.

This being the case, you might think — as George Will does — that the First Amendment would apply, especially since the First Amendment is now routinely held as protecting political speech more strictly than commercial speech. But, so far, courts have ruled for the taxing and regulating bureaucrats, not the competitive airlines. Or consumers.

Frequent fliers (I’m one) should hope the Supreme Court justices take up the case, which shows why economic and political freedom go best together.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

A recent Rasmussen survey asked whether “states have the right to block any federal laws they disagree with on legal grounds,” and 38 percent of likely voters surveyed said “Yes.”

Cutting to the quick of the Commerce Clause, a new Kansas law — Senate Bill 102, the Second Amendment Protection Act, signed by Governor Sam Brownback last month — states that firearms manufactured and owned in Kansas that do not cross state lines are not subject to federal law.

Of course, the Supreme Court thinks otherwise. In Wickard v. Filburn, the Court allowed the federal government to regulate darn near anything on the grounds that any conceivable act of consumption affects demand, and thus “commerce.” Goofy ruling? Yes. But by tradition it’s the Supreme Court justices who get the final word.

Yet even that has been denied by many constitutional theorists, including Thomas Jefferson and James Madison — “Mr. Constitution” himself — both of whom supported nullification, as recently explained by historian Tom Woods. No compact joined into by multiple parties may only be interpreted by one of the parties alone, unless specified to that effect. The Constitution doesn’t even mention judicial review, so the tradition of the Supreme Court’s final word is itself a matter of dispute.

Standing up for the status quo, Attorney General Eric Holder has written to Brownback against the new Kansas law, citing the Supremacy Clause. Problematic? Yes. But not easily dismissed.

Brownback has volleyed back.

At least we can expect the old issues of constitutional law to gain a new and lively hearing.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Letting individuals again govern their own beverage intake, unimpeded! How is that not tantamount to shoving them over a cliff?

On the other hand, if you live in Denmark, enjoy soda, and dislike being harassed for doing so — thank goodness for tax competition.

Steep new taxes on drinks like beer and soda have been sending Danes across the border for these items. They have long shopped in Germany anyway, but the “sinful drink” taxes have inspired an increase in the international jaunts. Research by a Danish grocers’ association suggests that over the past year, members of some 57 percent of Danish households have zipped over to Germany to buy beverages onerously taxed at home. Denmark officials therefore plan to phase out the new taxes.

The government has already abandoned a notorious “fat tax” on foods with saturated fats. It seemed that Danes disliked the higher prices and unemployment caused by the tubby tax.

At least for now, then, Denmark officials have declared defeat on key fronts in the paternalistic war on soda, fats and liberty.

So, take heart, victims of America’s nanny state! The incursions are reversible.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Also for the fifth time, the Post’s email asking for my “thing” was obviously snagged by my spam filter. Computers!

Still, ten is a number I can easily count to — here’s the Post’s list:

1. Ben Bernanke? The measure carries! Wait . . . do we get to vote?
2. Compliments? Really? Well . . . good try.
3. Retweets are not endorsements? Skip.
4. Flip-flops? Wrong channel.
5. Innovation? Love it. And yet I look forward to the new, upgraded version of any computer program like a shot of the Ebola virus with a long, dirty needle.
6. Red Lines? Foreign Policy’s Editor Susan B. Glasser tossed out red lines, noting that in Syria “The ‘red line’ has been crossed . . . And Obama is backed into a predictable corner.” By all means, if the Great O cannot live up to his red-line proclamations, let’s been done with such lines. And the color red, too.
7. The term “Working Mother”? Meaning: ALL mothers are working mothers. Heck, I can testify; I probably made the mess.
8. College Rankings? It’s unanimous.
9. Texas? Couldn’t we just move the Dallas Cowboys from the Eastern Division of the National Football Conference so Washington doesn’t have to play them?
10. Automatic Tax Withholding? This was Milton Friedman’s idea to get money into the government faster during World War II. Since regretted. But not going anywhere anytime soon.

Too bad that doggone email didn’t arrive, but let me present the eleventh thing to toss out: Career politicians.

Time again to clean both House and Senate.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

But the president’s sanctimonious talk is cheaper yet, because his actions are about everything but high-minded principles. Including freedom.

Click on over to the column, and then come back here for more links to more reading.

• LobeLog: Obama Condemns Indefinite Detention (And His Own Record)
• New York Times: Amid Hunger Strike, Obama Renews Push to Close Cuba Prison
• Slate: President Obama Can Shut Guantanamo Whenever He Wants
• Breibart: Jon Stewart Mocks Obama for Guantanamo Bay Posturing
• MSNBC: Obama signs 2013 defense authorization, minus indefinite detention ban

On a pedantic note, Mr. Mann apparently had not read (at the time of this interview) E.M. Forster’s classic essay on political systems, “Two Cheers for Democracy.” And he mentioned “Two Cheers for Capitalism,” a famous essay not by William F. Buckley (whose name he suggested as the work’s author) but, instead, neo-conservative Irving Kristol. But, no matter, this remains a fascinating discussion, and makes me want to read his books. Or at least buy them. (Finding time to read a book is getting harder and harder, it seems. One of the points made in this excellent discussion is that labor is the only thing getting more expensive, over time. Reading is work, if very fun work.)

John Tierney conducts the interview, and has a great segment in the question-and-answer period towards the end.

But a fracas in Athens, Greece, yesterday, demonstrates that punching people, not to mention threatening them with firearms, is a bad idea, and too often apt to harm the wrong people.

In this case, the pugilist, Giorgos Germenis, was himself something of a “wrong person.” He’s one of 18 lawmakers in the Greek parliament representing the Golden Dawn Party, which is often described as “neo-Nazi” for its ugly nationalist, anti-foreigner sentiment — and for an awfully suspicious party logo.

Germenis had been part of a charitable effort held in Syntagma Square to hand out free food . . . but only to Greek natives! The government shut down the giveaway, and the scuffle, hours later, was part of the fallout. Reportedly blocked from reaching for his gun by security, Germenis threw a punch at Athens’s mayor, Giorgos Kaminis.

He missed the mayor, but hit a young girl.

Bruised, but not seriously hurt, the 12-year old did manage to escape becoming the centerpiece of the showdown between the anti-foreigner activists and the Athens City government.

Greece’s troubles don’t really have much to do with foreigners. Greek troubles, instead, have everything to do with Greek politicians, and the sad, once politically attractive but now quite bankrupt (fiscally and morally) habit of trying to live at the expense of everyone else.

Blaming foreigners is the wrong way out. (Here in America, too.)

Germenis’s group should have been allowed to give only to natives, but a hallmark of civilization is the respect for strangers, traders, wanderers. The Golden Dawners don’t have their hearts in the right place.

Which is shown by the wild punch and who it hit. An innocent. As usual.

This Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Most folks don’t see a full dollar-value listing of their benefit package at time of payment, either.

Of course, some things just can’t be accounted for in money terms.

In charming, smaller towns — like, say, Traverse City, Michigan, or Port Townsend, Washington — folks have been known to explain those towns’ somewhat depressed wage rates with a rhyme: “The view of the bay is part of your pay.”

And then there’s job security.

In a 2012 report comparing private sector jobs to federal government jobs, the benefit of public sector job security went unacknowledged. Naturally enough.

What we learn is that government employees tend to make a bit more that private sector employees, but, when you include benefit packages, their rates of remuneration are much higher — 16 percent higher.

But then, if to prove that the government really is all about equality, it’s not at the top end that government workers prove wildly overpaid; it’s at the less-credentialed “low end.” These job pay 36 percent more than comparable private sector jobs.

What is often not addressed in the wage and benefit debate is the fact that lower-skilled private sector workers are also disproportionately harmed by federal regulation, subsidies and other misguided policies.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.