Another thin-skinned GOP asshole caught being an asshole — Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback got his panties in a bind when a high school student Tweeted that the good governor, “#heblowsalot:”

Emma Sullivan, 18, was hauled into her principal’s office and ordered to write letters of apology after one of Governor Sam Brownback’s office contacted the tour organizer to complain about the offending note on the social networking site Twitter.

Ms Sullivan, however, will not backtrack, saying she isn’t sorry and doesn’t think such a letter would be sincere.
And her mother agrees: I raised my kids to be independent, to be strong, to be free thinkers. If she wants to tweet her opinion about Gov. Brownback, I say for her to go for it and I stand totally behind her.”

(Illustration found here).

Reportedly, young Emma had disagreed with Brownback’s veto of the Kansas Arts Commission’s entire budget, making it the only state in the nation to eliminate arts funding — join the crowd, Emma.

“I think it would be interesting to have a dialogue with him,” she said.
“I don’t know if he would do it or not though.
And I don’t know that he would listen to what I have to say.”

And Emma is most-perceptive about the two-faced GOP — Think Progress reports Brownback’s baby-like over-reaction caused Emma’s high school to violate her First Amendment rights: Moreover, because the school district violated Sullivan’s clearly established federal constitutional rights, she is likely entitled to have the district or the principal pay her attorney’s fees if she decides to bring a lawsuit challenging this unconstitutional disciplinary action. In other words, the district could be wise to settle this case immediately if Sullivan decides to bring them to court.
Republicans don’t seem to care about the US Constitution, the rule of law or even for the general welfare of US peoples — the GOP is most-likely the most anti-American group in existence today.

And maybe, too, anti-life-as-we-know-it.
The biggest catch for action on climate change comes from the right-sided GOP, even as COP17 starts today in South Africa.
From Agence France-Presse via Raw Story:

When lawmakers cannot agree that climate change is a problem for which solutions must be sought, gridlock ensues, according to Democratic lawmaker Henry Waxman.
“During this Congress, the Republican-controlled House has voted 21 times to block actions to address climate change,” he said at a hearing this month.
“History will look back on this science denial with profound regret.”

Henry, it’s a profound regret right this freakin’ now.
And even right-wingers know it — Norm Ornstein, a congressional scholar with the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank, says the GOP needs to get a good beating: “The best way to reach a deal for Obama is to pull out the partisan cudgel and slam them between the eyes repeatedly,” says Ornstein. “They’ll only come to the table if their political brand is damaged. They’re not coming for the good of the country.”
The dollar, they’re coming for the dollar.

One must also keep in mind the kind of country the US is today, thanks to Republicans with aid from spineless, chickenshit Democrats.
From Peter Van Buren at Tomdispatch yesterday:

As the occupiers of Zuccotti Park, like those pepper-sprayed at UC Davis or the Marine veteran shot in Oakland, recently found out, the government’s ability to limit free speech, to stopper the First Amendment, to undercut the right to peaceably assemble and petition for redress of grievances, is perhaps the most critical issue our republic can face.
If you were to write the history of the last decade in Washington, it might well be a story of how, issue by issue, the government freed itself from legal and constitutional bounds when it came to torture, the assassination of U.S. citizens, the holding of prisoners without trial or access to a court of law, the illegal surveillance of American citizens, and so on.
In the process, it has entrenched itself in a comfortable shadowland of ever more impenetrable secrecy, while going after any whistleblower who might shine a light in.

Read the whole post, it gets even more shitty.
Anything the GOP does should be scorned and pushed way-aside, or else the mourning will be in earnest.