Welcome to #SMH Fridays! Obviously, that’s Internet speak for “shaking my head” Fridays, but you already knew that.
Here at Red Alert Politics we spend entirely too much time on the internet and some of the things that we see out there are just absolutely astonishing/mind-blowing/horrifying/disgusting/trendy/weird/insert any adjective here. As such, we have decided to start #SMH Fridays as a way to share those stories with you.
In this weekly series, our staff members will share their favorite “That’s So Internet” story in this post, along with their unfiltered commentary. Here’s last week’s edition for the gist of what it’s all about. Enjoy!
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This is the most fitting post for this day of the week.
Remember Rebecca Black?
Remember now?
The girl behind the viral and oh-so-annoyingly-catchy hit “Friday” is back.
Buzzfeed caught up with the now-18-year-old, who apparently never actually went away. She just hasn’t been super successful since appearing in that Katy Perry music video.
The profile offered up some excellent quotes like this:
“It would be great if I could eliminate some of the backlash and hate and dealing with death threats at the age of 14,” Black says, thinking carefully. “But at the same time, I don’t know if it was any different if I’d be in the same place I am now, and if I’d have the same opportunities.”
There is one specific line in the song Black admits she would change. It comes up often, even now, whenever she has to ride in a car with friends. “The ‘front seat, backseat’ thing,” she says, shaking her head, sounding as close to exhausted as she has all day. “That’ll stick with me forever.”
There wasn’t anything really groundbreaking or shocking in it. Mostly I’m just #SMHing about how damn easily “Friday” can still get stuck in my head at the mere mention of her name.
You’re welcome for getting it stuck in yours.
Women from the Alpha Phi sorority at the University of Alabama were forced to take down their recruitment video after receiving intense criticism and an op-ed on AL.com that called it “worse for women than Donald Trump.”
“It’s all so racially and aesthetically homogeneous and forced, so hyper-feminine, so reductive and objectifying, so Stepford Wives: College Edition. It’s all so … unempowering,” the author wrote. She then related it to the Donald Trump/Megyn Kelly controversy, which supposedly shows that women in 2015 “must still work diligently to be taken seriously.”
As someone who was part of a sorority myself, I will be the first to admit that the recruitment process can be a bit ridiculous. But at the end of the day, these women should get to choose how they want to recruit members. Telling them they’re not allowed to make a video flaunting their sisterhood? THAT is really unempowering.
BTW these women are not the first to post a YouTube video to let freshman know their house is the best on campus.
Let’s throwback to the Kappa Rap. (I don’t remember hearing any objections to this video…)
Birthright citizenship was the story all over the news this week because Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, once again led the conversation in 2016.
Most people understand the 14th Amendment was created to give citizenship to the children of former slaves. Not for lesbians to bring their dates to prom, gay marriage, or any other various finding of the Supreme Court throughout the years.
The changes to the understanding of the 14th as far as birthright citizenship have been small. American Indians were not even given citizenship until Congress passed a law in 1923.
Illegal immigrants were only brought into to fold because of a Supreme Court case Plyler v. Doe (1982) where in a 5-4 decision the Court said Texas had to give all rights of the 14th Amendment (in this instance public education) to all immigrants, even if they were illegal. In one footnote, Justice Brennan made that declaration and changed our immigration laws forever.
That’s right, 1982. That’s when illegal immigrants started receiving birthright citizenship.
Here are a list of things older than birthright citizenship for illegal aliens:
Star Wars (1977)
Batman (1966)
Hillary Clinton (1947)
Betty White (1923)
In a portion of F.A. Hayek’s 1960 classic, The Constitution of Liberty, he elaborated why he couldn’t consider himself a conservative, and gave a brief definition. Hayek conceded that “conservatism proper is a legitimate, probably necessary, and certainly widespread attitude of opposition to drastic change,” but notes a root opposition that tempers his support.
Again, Hayek’s analysis was proven correct with Scott Walker and Marco Rubio announcing their plans to “repeal and replace” Obama’s healthcare law. Radical and sweeping free-market proposals they are not. Obamacare has set the tone and defined the limits of the debate, and the Republicans’ driving conservatism either cannot combat it, or resigns itself to accepting battle along those terms.
Megan McArdle’s prediction of the future of the debate seems fitting: “Republicans become the party of universal, but lean, benefits that won’t be enough to lift people out of poverty, while Democrats become the party of generous benefits for the poor, redistributing money and benefits downwards from the middle class while paying lip service to middle-class problems.”
In other words, the pandering is unaffected, along with the quality and accessibility of health care in America. Democrats will talk of the poor, Republicans of the middle class. Democrats will call Republicans heartless shills for the reach, wanting to push grandma off a cliff. Republicans will call Democrats ignorant of economic reality and coddlers for those too lazy to take initiative.
Some of that is inevitable politicking. Yet the explanation seems inadequate for ideas on how to improve a health-care system for an increasingly aging and diverse country in the midst of a great stagnation.
