jmatonak

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124700261179807839.html

This situation developed because Alaska's transparency laws allow anyone to file Freedom of Information Act requests. While normally useful, in the hands of political opponents FOIA requests can become a means to bog down a target in a bureaucratic quagmire, thanks to the need to comb through records and respond by a strict timetable. Similarly, ethics investigations are easily triggered and can drag on for months even if the initial complaint is flimsy.

Let. me. get. this. straight.

Sarah Palin. Was chased out of office. By FOIA requests??!?

The prospect of having to tell people what their state government was up to was so daunting that the governor had to quit. As opposed to hiring two new college-educated minions to deal with the massive onslaught of documents.

Look, having to deal with discovery-as-harassment sucks. I admit this freely. But this woman, who has the First Amendment exactly backwards, gets none of my sympathy. The government is accountable to the people, period, end of story. If it took her this long to realize she'd be subjected to more scrutiny as a governor than as a private citizen...

... Sweet Zombie Jesus.

I await the inevitable chorus of FOIA baad!, led by the usual evil suspects.

Karl Rove acknowledges the unusual battering Ms. Palin has endured in recent months, but told Fox News that GOP leaders are still puzzled by her decision. "If she wanted to escape the ethics investigations and save the taxpayers money, she's now done that," he said. Unfortunately, he added, her decision "sent a signal that if you do this kind of thing to a sitting governor like her, you can drive her out of office."

Oh, gee. Karl Rove has an opinion about this. Shock.

This is a comment I posted in digital_eraser's journal, extensively revised because I am really getting pissed off here.

( Marriage needs defending. Because if the law doesn't *force* heterosexuality, it will die out. )

Legal hackery: not just for torturers anymore!

ETA: The sarcasm quotes around the word "marriage" in the congressional report on DOMA are a particularly classy touch.

"The decision leaves intact the holding of the Marriage Cases that
gays have the fundamental "right to marry" under the California
constitution, now and in the future; but unless and until the
California constitution is again amended to the contrary, such unions
cannot be called marriage." -- some lawyer guy on the net

When I was in college, someone asked me if I was "partners" with my
lab partner, and I said yes. About two weeks later, I sat up and said
"hey, wait..."

I like words like "married", "husband", "wife", "spouse", "boyfriend",
"girlfriend". They are short and unambiguous. Everyone knows what
they mean. So, apart from any questions about anyone's rights and the
pernicious effects of separate-but-equal, I intend to use the
conventional words when they apply to a gay couple, purely out of
self-interest. The law, being the law, can be as abstruse as it
wants. Over the long term, I expect most folks will go with the
familiar words, because they are the right ones.