Musk’s pullout in Twitter deal is good news
Those menacing, democracycorrupting, Kremlin-cavorting Twitter spam bots never did anything good for anybody except Vladimir Putin — and maybe Elon Musk. After months of accusing Twitter of underreporting the number of bots it counts toward its user base, news broke Friday that Musk was terminating the $44 billion agreement to buy the platform that he once envisioned as a digital town square and free speech free-for-all. Twitter may have indeed been cooking the books or making “misleading representations,” as its billionaire suitor claims, on the number of real users it touts, although the San Francisco-based company strenuously denies that. Either way, the dispute gave Musk a convenient way to bow out of a deal that many questioned as unwise. Musk, a newly minted Texan, is known and even revered for high-stakes gambles on his companies Tesla and SpaceX, but his plan to buy a company whose influence greatly outweighs its ability to turn a profit seemed half-baked from the get-go. Musk claimed the acquisition wasn’t about money, and instead about free speech, a stance many on the far right read as tolerance for baseless or hate-filled discourse that might otherwise be banned. For Twitter outcasts, including former President Trump, Musk’s pullout is bad news. For Americans who’d rather not see our town square trashed and graffitied by the Proud Boys, it’s good news. For the troublemaker bots? Just another day at the office.
We’ve all been there. Famished after a late night out, screeching desperately into a fast-food line for some over-salted sustenance, only to find the place closed because of the post-pandemic labor shortage. What could be worse? One San Antonio woman found out when she peered inside a desolate-looking Taco Cabana just after midnight Monday and found bustling workers, though none of the human variety. In a video Rita Guarnero-Longoria posted on TikTok, a whole kitchen crew of rodents scurry around the floor and under the grill like they run the place. And they apparently did for a day or so. In an email reported by the San Antonio Express-News, Taco Cabana called the “pests activity” an isolated incident stemming from a recently migrated population of vermin that had since been eliminated. The company said it acted “swiftly and efficiently” to clean the facility, which it had reopened as of Tuesday. Some skeptics on TikTok had other ideas, like maybe the restaurant had posted one of those ubiquitous ‘now hiring’ signs and “Ratatouille and the gang showed up.” Au contraire! Remy, the main character in Pixar’s beloved film, may have been a rat, but we doubt the culinary sophisticate would employ his refined palate at a fast-food taco chain. “If you are what you eat,” he said, “then I only want to eat the good stuff.” Quick, somebody check the kitchens at Hugo Ortega’s restaurants!
Word came fast that approval ratings for one of Texas’ most
Rats in a restaurant; Cornyn’s ratings fall; fetus as a rider.
powerful politicians sank last week after voters had time to reflect on his seemingly bizarre political exploits. But it wasn’t Sen. Ted Cruz who was facing sagging support in the wake of his dust-up with Sesame Street’s Elmo. Nor was it Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton finally seeing early signs of a GOP revolt over his indictments and corruption allegations. Nope. It was U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, who had the nerve to work with Democrats and reasonable Republicans to make America a tad safer from gun violence. Turns out nobody was satisfied. His approval rate among all Texas voters fell from 32 percent to 24 percent, and the share disapproving of him surged from 39 to 50 percent between April and June. Forgetting that compromise means, well, giving a little to gain a little, Democrats panned his gun reform legislation as doing too little. Republicans were mad that it did anything at all. If you ever wonder why we can’t have nice things, here’s your answer.
Sure, the question of when a fetus is a legal person is no laughing matter. Just ask the abortion clinics closing one after another in states such as Texas. But we find a bit of humor in the confusion that arose recently on the side of a North Texas highway. Officers on U.S. 75 waved driver Brandy Bottone of Plano to a stop as she exited the HOV lane. Bottone had been running late to pick up her son when she swerved into the HOV lane, she told Dave Lieber, the Dallas Morning News watchdog columnist. When the sheriff ’s deputy leaned in to ask where her passenger was — the lanes are 2+ — she pointed to her pregnant belly. If a fetus is a person, she said, then she’s carpooling. “But they still gave me a ticket,” she told the newspaper. “This has my blood boiling. How could this be fair? According to the new law, this is a life.” The deputy told her to challenge her $215 ticket. She plans to. Will she win? You can’t tell what the courts will do nowadays. It’s true that the Texas Penal Code considers a fetus a legal person, but the Texas Transportation Code? Not so much.
Along with Olympic gymnast Simone Biles, another great Texan was awarded this week the Presidential Medal of Freedom: Juliet Villarreal Garcia, a Brownsville native who was the first Latina to lead a U.S. college or university. The former longtime president of the University of Texas at Brownsville was presented with our nation’s highest civilian honor Thursday in Washington by President Biden. Her impact could be felt by her tireless, and successful, efforts to thwart an 18-foot border wall on campus (instead, the federal government built a 10-foot fence) and by the countless students she inspired throughout a career devoted to education. “I always believed that educating the next generation of citizens was our primary mission because once educated, they would help nurture, defend and sustain the democracy of the United States. I believe that now more than ever,” she said. So do we. Thank you, Dr. Garcia.