Beware what you wish for

Kim Vallez, KRQE:

”I told Chuck we would be polite and enjoy a free lunch and then say goodbye…but we talked about issues,” Martinez said. “When we left that lunch we got in the car and I looked over at Chuck and I said [I’ll] be damned…we are republicans.”

There were tweets out there Thursday with people talking about putting that phrase on t-shirts.

I’ll look forward to the T-shirts that say, “I’m a Republican. I’ll be damned.”

Your tax dollars at work

Allison Flood, The Guardian:

Ray Bradbury was investigated by the FBI during the 1950s, with government agents interviewing his peers and putting him under surveillance before concluding that despite being critical of the US government in his writing, the celebrated writer was never a member of the Communist party.

The 40-page cache of the late science fiction author’s FBI files was obtained by the Daily Beast following a Freedom of Information request, and shows the extent to which the FBI had Bradbury in its sights in 1959. “Raymond Douglas Bradbury, a freelance science fiction, television and motion picture scenario writer … has been described as being critical of the United States Government,” the FBI wrote on 8 June 1959, before laying out its issue with Bradbury’s classic collection of short stories, The Martian Chronicles. The stories “were connected by the repeated theme that earthmen are despoilers and not developers”, according to the FBI.
…
[An informant said] “the general aim of these science fiction writers is to frighten the people into a state of paralysis or psychological incompetence bordering on hysteria which would make it very possible to conduct a Third World War which the American people would seriously believe could not be won since their morals had been seriously destroyed”.

Look, there’s a pretty simple line that any police agency should follow. If something is a crime, it should be investigated. If it’s unpopular, leave it the f— alone. Criticizing the government or, for that matter, membership in any political organization is not a crime.

What Do Floridians Think Of The Romney-Ryan Kill Medicare Plan?

Not very much, as it turns out: