The View from Abroad

Hard hitting commentary from an American living overseas

Kenn Jacobine

Kenn Jacobine
Bio
Kenn Jacobine is an international educator currently teaching History for the American School of Doha, Qatar. He has also taught at international schools in Ecuador, Mali, and Zambia. His political transformation took place over the course of many years. Starting out naively as a big state liberal, he became a Reagan Republican in 1982. Disillusionment set in with the realization that small government rhetoric rarely translated into limited government actions. On Christmas day 1992, he became a libertarian. In 1994, Kenn ran for the State Senate in Pennsylvania on the Libertarian Party ticket garnering 5 percent of the vote. He has been active in freedom causes ever since.

Kenn Jacobine's Links

Salon.com
FEBRUARY 8, 2012 11:57PM

Romney Does Dislike the Working Poor

Many on the Republican right do not trust Mitt Romney.  That’s a foregone conclusion.  Recently he made a policy statement which will only increase that mistrust.  Last week Romney announced that his position on the federal minimum wage has not changed.  When he ran for goveRead full post »

It is an amazing thing how politicians believe that all you have to do is throw money at a problem and it will go away.  Or perhaps I give the scoundrels too much credit as their ultimate goal is to buy votes from an unsuspecting, naïve electorate.  Whatever the case, Barack/… Read full post »
JANUARY 19, 2012 9:58AM

The Internet as Savior

It is no secret that online piracy is a very serious problem in our Technology Age.  The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is a measure before Congress meant to confront the sale and distribution of pirated movies, drugs, music and other consumer goods by rogue overseas sites.  Supporters of th/… Read full post »

To listen to Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul’s speech after placing a strong second in the New Hampshire Primary you would have thought that he had just won the contest.  Filled with his usual attacks on the Federal Reserve, Military/Industrial Complex, the bloated federal goverRead full post »

Last month it was announced that only two candidates for president in the Republican Party had qualified for the Virginia Presidential Primary on March 6 – Ron Paul and Mitt Romney.  At the time there was a lot of grumbling by the other candidates and they eventually filed a lawsuit againsRead full post »

Americans should be used to the high political drama coming out of Washington.  Oh, there are the stories of marital infidelities, disappearing Congressional aids, toe-tapping senators and the like.  Then there are the great debates where both sides of an issue scrap and claw their way to pRead full post »

DECEMBER 20, 2011 5:18PM

Gingrich Plan Has Been Tried Before

In the debates for the Republican nomination for president, it is no accident that Newt Gingrich constantly invokes the name of conservative icon Ronald Reagan.  Gingrich continually reminds us that he was in Congress fighting for Reagan’s tax cuts and his military budgets in the early 198Read full post »

DECEMBER 17, 2011 10:28AM

Obama is Correct but for the Wrong Reason

In a recent interview with 60 Minutes’ Steve Kroft, President Obama was asked if he felt he overpromised during the last presidential campaign when it came to fixing the economy.  The President responded:

“I didn't overpromise. And I didn't underestimate how tough this was gonna be&h
Read full post »

DECEMBER 6, 2011 6:19AM

Gun Sales are a Sign of Things to Come

While the so-called “mainstream” media is reporting with great glee that 2011 Black Friday retail sales was up 6.6 percent over last year to a record $11.4 billion one other tidbit of data was ignored that probably says more about our social condition than anything: the FBI reported that… Read full post »
DECEMBER 3, 2011 8:12AM

Price Controls Never Work

When Richard Nixon signed the so-called Economic Stabilization Act of 1970 into law the hope was that wage and price controls would put a halt to rising price inflation.  The program was a reaction to the spendthrift ways of the federal government in the 1960s that attempted to finance both theRead full post »

NOVEMBER 29, 2011 11:26AM

Washington Should Follow Laissez-Faire

Things are really a mess economically in the United States and it isn’t really an exaggeration to say it is all Washington’s fault.  I mean through the easy money policies of the Federal Reserve and the legislative and monetary support of Congress and the previous administration many/… Read full post »
Editor’s Pick
NOVEMBER 2, 2011 11:14AM

Romney’s Foreign Policy would be Disastrous for America

Even though he continues to dwell in the “top-tier” of Republican candidates for president, former Massachusetts’s Governor Mitt Romney continues to draw the distrust of many Republicans primary voters.  Questions continue to surround his positions on the high priority conservaRead full post »

”I spent 33 years….being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street, and the bankers.  I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912.  I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 19Read full post »

By just about every measure the U.S. economy continues to be mired in a depression.  Unemployment remains high.  Housing prices are still falling. Retail sales are lackluster.  Since Barack Obama became president in 2009 the national debt has ballooned by about $4 trillion with very li/… Read full post »
The drumbeats for war with Iran are pounding fast and furious in Washington.  The Obama Administration claims that it foiled a plot financed and directed by the Iranians to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S. on American soil.  According to Attorney General Eric Holder, the/… Read full post »

On November 25, 2001, American citizen turned Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh was captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan by Afghan Northern alliance forces.  Eleven months later after confessing to fighting with the Taliban against the U.S. and its ally in Afghanistan he was sentenced to 2Read full post »

Unless you have been under a rock or possibly out of the country (a benefit of the doubt I am willing to extend to my overseas teacher colleagues) you know by now that there is great outrage in Washington, D.C. over the Obama Administration’s $535 million loan to green company andRead full post »

SEPTEMBER 21, 2011 12:06PM

A Return to the Gold Standard is a Must

Money printer extraordinaire and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is at it again.  He and several of his central banking buddies in Europe and Asia are going to lend dollars to non-U.S. banks that lack adequate liquidity to operate.  Many of the recipient banks are feeling the pinch be/Read full post »

SEPTEMBER 13, 2011 10:12AM

Bill O’Reilly Should Do His Homework

Last week, O’Reilly Factor producer Jesse Watters confronted Congressman Ron Paul at New England College to ask him why he was not interested in appearing on Bill O’Reilly’s show.  One thing led to another and eventually Watters asked Dr. Paul about his position on the Gold StaRead full post »

SEPTEMBER 9, 2011 12:46PM

Revisionism is Alive and Well

“There is no credibility left for the Republican Party as a force to reduce the size of government.  That is the message of the Reagan years.”

Ron Paul 1987

Politicians have a tendency to change history to suit their purposes.  The revising of history by Soviet dictators was le
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“Ghastly as it may seem to say this, the terror attack (911) -- like the original day of infamy, which brought an end to the Great Depression -- could even do some economic good.”

“If people rush out to buy bottled water and canned goods, that will actually boost theRead full post »

AUGUST 21, 2011 9:20PM

Ron Paul is Right about Iran

During the GOP Presidential Debate in Ames, Iowa, on August 11, the most significant exchange between any two candidates came when Rick Santorum called Congressman Ron Paul out for his position on our relationship with Iran.  Santorum, neoconservative extraordinaire, accused the congressman of bRead full post »

AUGUST 15, 2011 9:15PM

Ron Paul is the Only One

It has become cliché for political pundits to proclaim every four years that the presidential election campaign is the most important in the nation’s history.  Given that our economy is on the brink of collapse, we are currently engaged in 5 wars, and our civil liberties are under aRead full post »

It seems like every time I listen to a politician talk I always come away with more questions than answers.  Take President Obama’s nationally televised speech this week on the debt ceiling crisis.  The President spoke to the nation for about 15 minutes but I still don’t have aRead full post »

“The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government&rsRead full post »