New paper on the Affordable Care Act

A great article by Prof. Sachs on the constitutionality, or lack thereof, of the Affordable Care Act, AKA Obamacare.  Thankfully objective and confined to sound legal argument rather than the over the top rhetoric usually seen on this subject. Find it here.

GM a success?!?

President Obama is still trying to convince voters that the GM bailout was a Good Thing(tm) in his “I swear it’s not a campaign” speech in front of the UAW.  I wonder how much of their record year was from one-time asset sales, how much was crony handouts from the administration to a major supporter, and how much was actual sales.

 

At least they have the hottest car on the market.

In case anyone still cares about a Nobel Prize

Bradley Manning, the accused traitor on the fast track to an eternity of breaking big rocks into little rocks at Ft. Leavenworth, KY, has been nominated for a Nobel Prize.  I think I would rather have a felony conviction on my record than a Nobel Peace Prize at this point, it seems to be an “honor” reserved exclusively for traitors and terrorists.

How is it that someone else hasn’t crushed these guys yet?

Jon Stewart gets it right. Seriously, is it too late to write in another option?

 

A war you can’t win

Janet Napolitano is back in the news, defending the war on drugs.  And what a defense it is.

Money line:

“I would not agree with the premise that the drug war is a failure, it is a continuing effort to keep our peoples from becoming addicted to dangerous drugs.”

I’m not an energy expert…

…so I found one with some ideas. The President says there’s no silver bullet for high gas prices.

Here’s a man in the energy industry who says he’s wrong.

Iron Fisk of Rick Santorum’s “Economic Freedom Agenda”

The original as published in The Wall Street Journal can be found here.

OK Ricky boy, let’s see what you’ve got.

Not all newspapers are clueless

I know, it’s news to me too.

The Chicago Tribune got this one right. I wonder if anyone noticed?

Yes, I am in fact qualified to tell you that that’s a terrible idea

One thing I seem to hear pretty regularly from the sheeple crowd is that I am not qualified to criticize (insert public official of their political persuasion or law their team is pushing).  The slightly more nuanced version is that my criticism is “unhelpful” and that I need to “offer a better alternative” rather than just criticize.

 

To this I say: to hell with you.

 

I am well qualified enough to read a bill or court decision or listen to a speech and detect special favors, handouts, poorly thought out plans, sops to a political base, and other Washington shenanigans.  I can also tell when a law isn’t working, or isn’t working well.  I call them like I see them.  I am under no obligation to then come up with some other asinine idea to alleviate whatever societal ill some politician decided to use to justify their naked power grab, social engineering scheme, or political campaign move.  That’s their job.  I can see someone preparing to light himself on fire and say “hey, lighting yourself on fire is a bad idea.”  It doesn’t matter what that person wanted to accomplish by lighting himself on fire, it’s still a bad idea, and someone should speak up.  Well, some people want to light everyone on fire because they’re cold, and they object to me pointing out that being cold is better than being on fire.

 

And if anyone thinks that I’m being disrespectful to our elected officials?  You’re damn right I am.  In case you forgot, if you pay taxes these people work for you.  And I happen to think the lot of them are doing a piss-poor job.  I wouldn’t tolerate the rampant sloth, indolence, and insubordination I routinely get from my congresscritter in an employee, and neither should you.  You don’t owe them anything except your taxes.  You certainly don’t owe them your vote or your respect, those should be earned.  We kicked the English out of here so that we would have a government than answers to the people instead of the other way around, it’s time to act like it.  If your congresscritter isn’t doing a good job (and based on congressional approval ratings, they aren’t) then why aren’t you doing something about it?  Letters to your representatives are your performance reviews.  Elections are retention interviews.  Tell them what they’re doing wrong, and if they don’t listen fire them.

Welcome to The Glomar Response

Now that I’ve laid down how this page will be run, let me tell you what it is about.

First, the name.  The Glomar Response is an answer to a FOIA request where the government refuses to confirm or deny that it has the information requested.  It is the most stereotypical men-in-black government statement ever made.  I happen to think it makes a great name for a blog about government and politics.  That, and it wasn’t taken.

About the author:  My political views are unique.  I am generally libertarian (small “l”), as I believe the government doesn’t belong in your bedroom or your bank account.  However, I also believe in strong national defense, including secure borders.  I have enough government experience, legal training, and time on earth to realize that we can’t go without government regulation in some instances, so I am not a pure Randian anarcho-capitalist.  However, I also have enough government experience, legal training, and time on earth to know that government does nothing well, that power attracts evil men like flies to shit, and that government should therefore be limited to the smallest size possible while still accomplishing its proper functions.  I despise poorly-written laws, regulations and rules.  I loath with the flaming hatred of a thousand suns the politicians and pundits who misrepresent what their poorly-written laws and rules actually do, whether intentionally or not.  It is a lawmaker’s job to consider the effects of the laws they write BEFORE they vote them into law, and I hold them responsible even for the unintended consequences of those laws.  The only thing I hate more than these politicians are the stupid sheeple who blindly pull the lever for “their team” every election.  I know these people exist in mass quantities, because much of politics is about simple name recognition.  These people need to be rounded up and placed in a pen with the other farm animals.  They are the reason for the state of politics in the United States today.

Some common subjects:  I will semi-regularly post on politics, the law, world events, guns, college football, alcohol, cars, and stupid people.  Other topics as they arise.

Some Ground Rules

Before I begin, I thought it would be helpful to lay down my rules here.  Questions will be fielded when I am sober enough to do so.  Violators will be executed.

1.  I have absolute dictatorial control and editorial discretion over this site.

I write about the things that interest me, when they interest me.  There is no such thing as a scheduled update or regular feature.  And if I don’t cover something that you think is important, too bad.  Go write about it yourself, WordPress is free.  Which brings me to my next point:

2.   Comments are moderated.

Yeah, I went there.  All comments will be moderated and approved before publication.  It is my goal to moderate very lightly, allowing all viewpoints to be presented.  However, I reserve the right to delete comments for any reason, or for no reason at all.  Again, if you don’t like it start your own blog.

3.  Reasons you will be moderated or banned.

The following will always result in being moderated and/or banned:

a) Spam.  You know what it is.  Don’t do it here.

b) Repeat posting.  Not the same as spam, but continuing to re-post the same comment over and over, for whatever reason, will cause me to lose my patience and prevent you from commenting altogether rather than continue to filter your crap.

c) Threats.  I am all for name-calling, especially witty name-calling, so not only will abuse be tolerated but if it is especially good I may feature it in a separate post.  However, real-world threats of violence are unacceptable, and will result in immediate and irrevocable use of the unholy ban stick.

d) Support of nazi, neo-nazi, communist, anarchist, jihadist, or any other groups that support the violent overthrow of the government of the United States.  This is where my viewpoint neutrality is not absolute.  Sorry, your crap is not welcome here.

4.  I WILL report to law enforcement any post which, in my opinion, leads me to believe that you have violated or intend to violate the law.  This includes any threat against any public official and threats against other commenters.  By posting it here you make it my business, and I will deal with you swiftly and without mercy.  It’s all fun and games posting your fantasies on the interwebz, until the nice men from the Secret Service show up at your door with questions.

This page may or may not exist

Welcome to The Glomar Response.  At this time I am unable to confirm or deny whether or not this blog exists.  Check back regularly for your fix of information that may or may not be true.