Here’s my belated comment on the deal that Gov. Snyder struck with Canada. Some politicians talk; others get things done. To put it another way, some are show horses, some are work horses. It’s easy to dismiss the show horse, the politician who is often on the losing end of a 440-1 vote in the U.S. House (I’m looking at you, Ron Paul), or is […]
John LaPlante
About John LaPlante
Posts by John LaPlante:
The Daily Grope: TSA employee forgets to make sure the machine is ON
Oops! Hundreds (thousands?) of people went through a TSA metal detector at an airport in New York City before the employee realized that the machine … wasn’t plugged in. Inconvenience for passengers ensued, according to the New York Post
iPhones and the dangers of government experts
Ever since LBJ’s “Great Society,” laws have been enacted and government programs established on the belief that we (politicians, bureaucrats, “stakeholders” in government, etc.) are smart enough to fine-tune life. In other words, experts will save us. Witness, for example, the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), by which the federal government (and to a much lesser extent, state governments) will overhaul one-sixth of the U.S. economy. […]
Government union amendment draws national attention
The American Spectator, a conservative opinion website, is just the latest media outlet to publicize the fact that the government unions-v-the people battle has moved from Wisconsin to Michigan. At issue: A proposed constitutional amendment called “Protect Our Jobs.” The proposed amendment is “already being billed as an anti-right-to-work measure, but the major impact would be the reversal of reforms to government union privileges.” So says […]
Happy Doofus Day!
Happy Father’s Day, or as it might be more appropriately called in today’s entertainment world, Happy Doofus Day! Look at any number of TV shows, movies, or other elements of pop culture, and you’ll often, though not always, see fathers–when they’re even around the kids–portrayed as buffoons and doofuses. At the same time, we’re suffering, as a nation, from an epidemic of fatherlessness, leading to […]
Summer at highway speeds
What happens when you raise speed limits on highways? Slate has some answers. In brief: more severe crashes, but no increase in their number. And here’s something with implications for law more generally: Compliance with the law goes up. In other words, people are able (at least in the context of driving on the highway) to use their own self-interest and judgement to self-regulate. Making a […]
Sen. Stabenow: American ag is so successful it needs government help
People who write about federal policy, such as Sallie James, have so many opportunities to comment on the foolish remarks and doings of our elected officials that they can’t cover it all. But recently, Sen. Debbie (I can feel global warming when I fly) Stabenow uttered a “pretty obvious logical fallacy” that needed to be pointed out. Said the senator, who is chairman of the […]
Solyndra-like boondoggles receive majority, bipartisan support; but let’s give a cheer for Conyers and Dingell
You’d think that after all the controversy over money poured down the rathole known as Solyndra, members of the U.S. House of Representatives would ax the program that wasted taxpayer dollars. But you’d be wrong. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) sponsored an amendment to shut down the Department of Energy program that funded Solyndra. It failed,receiving only 136 votes. Republicans are […]
Minnesota Legislative Leadership Defends Voter ID in Court
During this biennium, the Minnesota Legislature proposed a new constitutional amendment: Shall the Minnesota Constitution be amended to require that all voters present an approved form of photographic identification prior to voting; all voters be subject to identical eligibility verification standards regardless of the time of their registration; and the state provide at no charge an approved photographic identification to eligible voters? If voters approve, […]
Who watches the watchman? You do!
Government regulations and laws can be bad in at least three ways. First, they can simply be bad on their face. Obamacare, for example, requires people to buy something (health insurance) simply because they are alive. Call it a tax on breathing. Second, they might have been created questionable legislative practices. A law that both set the state budget for funding of public schools and […]