URLs du Jour

2011-11-28

  • Geraghty notices an Official White House Twit:
    There will be more We Can't Wait actions coming this week.
    So if you want to know what those We Can't Wait actions are? Sorry, you have to Wait. Even though you Can't.

    Is that irony? I can never tell.

  • Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, a Republican, doesn't really get the whole First Amendment thing.
    An 18-year-old high school senior was scolded by her principal after she criticised her state governor in a tweet.

    Emma Sullivan, of Fairway, Kansas, was reprimanded by the head of The Shawnee Mission East High School.

    She was summoned to the principal's office and was ordered to apologise to Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback.

    The tweet in question was delivered with the eloquence of your typical 18-year-old Kansan airhead:
    Just made mean comments at gov brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot
    Ah, Kansas doesn't make 'em like Dorothy Gale any more.

    Anyway: the principal was prompted to spring into action by a call from Governor Brownback's office. But maybe I'm too hard on the Gov. Alex Knapp provides more details:

    Ms. Sullivan didn’t actually make any critical comments in person, but the tweet, sent out to a following of about 60 people (though it’s over 800 now), somehow caught the eye of the Governor’s Director of Communication, Sherriene Jones-Sontag, during her daily monitoring of social media mentions of Governor Brownback. Shocked – shocked! – that a teenager’s tweet about a politician was “disrespectful,” she complained to the high school. “It’s also important for students to recognize the power of social media, how lasting it is. It is on the Internet,” she said.
    Thanks to Jones-Sontag, Ms. Sullivan's tweet got orders of magnitude more attention than it would have otherwise received. Is that irony? I can never tell. But anyway: heckuva job, Sherriene!

    Here's the shocking thing: someone on the Kansas state payroll has job duties that actually include trolling the Internet for "social media mentions". Pun Salad's advice: that position can safely be eliminated, saving both (a) money and (b) further insults to the Constitution.

  • Mark Krikorian thinks Newt Gingrich is being way too dishonest when he says (emphasis Krikorian's):
    I am not for amnesty for anyone. I am not for a path to citizenship for anybody who got here illegally. But I am for a path to legality for those people whose ties are so deeply into America that it would truly be tragic to try and rip their family apart.
    Krikorian describes Newt's efforts to come up with yet another euphemism for "amnesty" as "Orwellian".
    If illegals are permitted to stay, that’s an amnesty, whatever the conditions. If you want to make a case for amnestying long-established illegal aliens, that can be an honorable position, but call it for what it is. Don’t lie to voters, imagining they’re too stupid to see through your deceit. There’s nothing brave about euphemism.
    But Newtophile William Jacobsen says Newt is "crazy like a conservative fox".
    I believe it’s a fully acceptable and conservative immigration policy: Secure the borders first and impose strict employer penalties, and once all that is done create a deportation policy with some humanitarian exceptions based on preserving family units, but no preferential pathway to citizenship (except for those who serve in the U.S. military).
    In addition, Jacobsen claims, liberals hate a position like Newt's because it's "hard for them to demagogue".

    Who's right? I don't know. My head hurts.

  • Pun Salad is no fan of the Constitutional gimmickry known as the Balanced Budget Amendment, and neither is Stephen Chapman.
    The reason politicians don't balance the budget is that they and their constituents aren't ready for the unthinkable realities this option would entail: higher taxes, reduced government benefits, or both. Those choices won't get any less excruciating if a balanced-budget amendment is ratified.
    The most recent version of the BBA came up short in the House a few weeks back, only receiving 60% support, when it needed two-thirds.

    But—here's the deal—if those CongressCritters who voted for the BBA just voted for reduced spending instead we would, voilà, have a balanced budget.

    Once again: is that irony? I can never tell.