Hay yaw! We r 2 smaart 2 vote 4 dimokraps!

(Editor’s Note: The reader should recognize the following commentary as sarcastic and comedic. Butt if’n yew don’t, pleez kuntinyew ta votes Teapublican.)

Maryland State Police have classified anti-immigration graffiti spray-painted July 13, 2014, on the former Army Reserve Center in Westminster, Maryland, as a hate crime. The facility recently became embroiled in controversy when the Obama administration considered using it to house immigrant children caught crossing the US-Mexico border illegally. (Christian Alexandersen, Baltimore Sun Media Group / July 14, 2014)

Hay yaw!

Eye nose wot u r dewin!

U plane too takke ovur thu worl!

UR bad 4 thu ekonommy!

UR lak eye rak eze.

Wii nose haw too and kin spil!

Wi haz un edjewmuhkayshun and wii don need no edjewkayshun!

Ar tacks munny wuz will spennt.

Ar graded 5th gurade.

VOTE REPUBLIKKKlan!

 

Anti-immigrant graffiti removed from Westminster Army Reserve Center, July 15, 2014 – The act of vandalism is being investigated as a hate crime.

It’s still true: Alabamians are “largely poor, uneducated, and easy to command.”

One must understand the audience to whom Mr. Archibald writes his Birmingham News OpEds.

They’re the same ones who found hometown favorite criminal Richard Scrushy – monikered as “America’s First Oblivious CEO” – “Not Guilty” of violating the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, who to date, remains the solitary individual ever charged with its violation. Alice Martin, then Federal Prosecutor for the Northern District of Alabama, who failed to obtain a guilty verdict in the case, could have moved the trial to New York City – home of Wall Street – or “in Washington, D.C., or in New York City where pecuniary intricacies are understood,” but rather chose Birmingham, Alabama as the trial venue. John C. Coffee, professor of securities law at Columbia Law School, accurately said of the case, that “much of the information was over their heads” and jurors were “sick of trying to understand evidence that was beyond them.”

This remark – right, or wrong (but mostly right) – remains true for Alabama:
Citizens in the state are “largely poor, uneducated, and easy to command.”

In context of course, historically, one should recognize

To send $25 to the political candidate of your choice, text “GO” to 43468

Here’s your WTF moment.

It’s not as if our nation doesn’t have enough problems already with unlimited political donations, Super PACs, and the concern for the influx of money from foreign concerns – although, SCOTUS justice Samuel Alito mouthed otherwise during the 2010 State of the Union address given by President Obama.

Retired Justice John Paul Stevens – in a speech at the University of Arkansas – said that,

“[T]he Court must then explain its abandonment of, or at least qualify its reliance upon, proposition that the identity of the speaker is an impermissible basis for regulating campaign speech,” Stevens said Wednesday night, according to prepared remarks. “It will be necessary to explain why the First Amendment provides greater protection to the campaign speech of some non-voters than to that of other non-voters.”

He further noted that the court’s majority opinion in the Citizens United case, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, specifically did NOT address the possibility that foreign entities could bankroll U.S. elections.

There are – believe it, or else – Supreme Court Justices with level heads. One of them is Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She petitioned the SCOTUS to reconsider the Citizens United case, arguing that by granting certiorari, it “will give the court an opportunity to consider whether, in light of the huge sums currently deployed to buy candidates’ allegiance, Citizens United should continue to hold sway.”

If you think we have difficulty tracing campaign contributions now, just wait.

Now, the Federal Election Commission is about to open wide the doors to…

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FEC Poised to Allow Campaign Donations Via Texts

June 7, 2012, 5:10 PM, By Amy Schatz

Giving money to political candidates could soon be just a few taps away, thanks to federal campaign-finance officials who are close to approving a plan to allow political donations via text message.

Several Federal Election Commission commissioners signaled their interest in approving a plan from two political consulting firms to allow campaigns to accept donations via text message at a meeting Thursday.
The FEC rejected a similar wireless industry proposal to allow text message donations two years ago but

What’s the deal on a Facebook Privacy Notice?

Are people really that stupid?

Wait… that’s a rhetorical question.

But this does beg the question: It’s your information, it belongs to you because it’s about you – even if you use FaceBook. Why shouldn’t you have a say in how it’s harvested & used?

I’m not the only one predicting a new era of lawmaking pertaining to this type of electronic stalking.

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Don’t Bother Posting the “Facebook Privacy Notice” That’s Spreading Around

By David Sydiongco

Posted Tuesday, June 5, 2012, at 12:13 PM ET

Just because Facebook has gone public does not mean its user terms and conditions have changed. (Photo by EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/GettyImages)

Since late last month, Facebook users have been posting a legal-sounding “privacy notice.” By putting the notice on their timelines, they hope, they will become exempt from the terms and conditions of Facebook’s “Data Use Policy,” which users agree to upon initially signing up.

Unfortunately, that couldn’t be further from the truth. As the urban-legend-debunking site Snopes explains, “[T]he basic premise is false.”

“We have noticed this recent status update that is being widely shared implying the ownership of your Facebook content has recently changed,” Alex Kirschner, a member of Faceook’s PR team, told me. “This is not true and has never been the case.”

While there are some variations, most of the warnings look like this:

THE SKY IS FALLING! THE SKY IS FALLING! Or… maybe not.

Believe it or else, there were opponents to air bags, seat belts and child safety restraints.

Some time, someone will oppose everything… even vanilla ice cream and Mother’s Day.

There are, I suppose, several ways to consider the following.

One could presume the psychotic Chicken Little, paranoid delusional “the-sky-is-falling” approach, or, one could suppose the device is only an extension of someone who cannot tell a lie… or, at least is very difficult to deliberately fabricate falsehood.

And then, there’s something in the middle.

I would imagine that’s where the truth resides.
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A Black Box in Your Car?

By Sam Favate, April 23, 2012, 1:40 PM

If you thought having EZ Pass in your car would make it too easy for the government to track you, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

The Senate passed a bill in March that calls for “mandatory event data recorders” (or black boxes) to be installed in all new passenger motor vehicles, starting with the 2015 models, and which would record data before, during or after a crash, according to KurzweilAI.net.

The bill, which can be seen here, has a privacy provision but gives the government the authority to access the black box in a number of circumstances, including court order, consent of the owner, an investigation or inspection, or to determine the need for emergency responses.

The same bill would allow the IRS to