FOLLOW me on my popular Twitter feed. Just click this photo! @hbbtruth - David - Common sense on #Politics #PublicPolicy #Sports #PopCulture in USA, Great Britain, Sweden and France, via my life in #Texas #Memphis #Miami #IU #Chicago #DC #FL 🛫🌍📺📽️🏈. Photo is of Elvis and Joan Blackman in 'Blue Hawaii'

Beautiful Stockholm at night, looking west towards Gamla Stan

Saturday, June 22, 2013

Censorship? Guilty as charged! What do Miami Herald's Sergio Bustos, Marc Caputo, Mary Ellen Klas, Toluse Olorunnipa, Erika Bolstad, Patricia Mazzei and Amy Sherman all have in common? Of shirking their responsibilities as reporters! They have ignored all negative stories about Marco Rubio and immigration reform this week, and feign ignorance of what everyone else in the country is talking about -and reporting on: Ryan Lizza re #RubiosFolly

Censorship? Guilty as charged! What do Miami Herald's Sergio Bustos, Marc Caputo, Mary Ellen Klas, Toluse Olorunnipa, Erika Bolstad, Patricia Mazzei and Amy Sherman all have in common? Of shirking their responsibilities as reporters! 
They have ignored all negative stories about Marco Rubio and immigration reform this week, and feign ignorance of what everyone else in the country is talking about -and reporting on: Ryan Lizza re #RubiosFolly


Each one is a complicit member of the Hear No Evil/See No Evil/Speak No Evil reporting crew at the Miami Herald's feeble third-tier political blog, Naked Politics, that has completely ignored anything and everything over the past week about the furor erupting from Ryan Lizza's New Yorker column about the Schumer-Rubio immigration bill, S.744, i.e. Rubio's Folly



The influential piece which featured Rubio aide Alex Conant saying something controversial that won't win him any friends in Northwest Miami, and which has been discussed and analyzed in hundreds of national websites and blogs, but NOT in the main newspaper or political blog of the city where Rubio is from and the state that he represents in Washington. 
Not sure how I can make that any simpler for those of you who are late arrivals to the blog on this story.
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/


Conant doesn't mention that he's in the center of the storm:
https://twitter.com/AlexConant
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/21/us/politics/stealth-campaign-from-the-white-house-for-an-immigration-bill.html

As of 4 p.m. today, as these links prove, there NADA for the sixth day in a row in the Herald.
How do you simply ignore the story and pretend that nobody is noticing what you're doing?
http://www.miamiherald.com/search_results?aff=1100&q=%22Marco+Rubio%22

And as for Rubio's new penchant for continually talking but never actually explaining, nothing has changed at his Twitter account since I mentioned this matter on Wednesday
There's still nothing new there since June 7th about anything, and nothing in over a month on immigration.
Hmm-m...



There's a very good reason why I've hardly ever mentioned that blog on these pages, and it has everything to do with them ignoring so much news everyday that would be news in others cities, that Naked Politics is perhaps the least important media political blog on the entire East Coast of the United States.
Really.

Even in Miami, with its traditionally low standards for performance and competency, they don't give awards to professional reporters who go out of their way to ignore timely and relevant news about important public policy issues. 
But that's exactly what has taken place the past six days.

In fact, the Tampa Bay Times broke their own news blackout on the Lizza & Rubio story on Tuesday by running something by Alex Leary on their far-superior but-still very liberal political blog, The Buzz, which I mentioned her the other day and linked to.

But despite the fact that most of the best blog pieces on the Herald's site are from the West Coast, the Herald editors have consciously chosen NOT to post that story even though it's the most-important one of the week.
The same way they buried the Jeb Bush appearance that fell flat earlier in the week

The next time that you are somewhere in Florida and spot one one these reporters or Herald Executive Editor Aminda Marques or Managing Editor Rick Hirsch, walk right up to them and ask them why they were so afraid of printing the truth, and were content being seen as stooges.

With all the amazing technology in the world that makes it easier than ever before for a reporter to do their job well, these particular Herald reporters are ostriches who put their heads firmly in the sand and wait for it all the uproar to be over.

And then, MAYBE, just maybe, Marc Caputo will write another one of his famous after-the-fact pieces that are painfully defensive in nature, and totally unpersuasive on the facts, which here, could not be more clear that the herald has shirked their responsibilities.
Yes, if they gave a Pulitzer Prize for THAT, Caputo and the Herald would be standing pretty every year..

The Schumer-Rubio merit-based immigration farce
http://washingtonexaminer.com/the-schumer-rubio-merit-based-immigration-farce/article/2532223

http://www.miamiherald.com/search_results?aff=1100&q=%22Marco+Rubio%22




Friday, June 21, 2013

Glad midsommar till alla mina vänner och läsare i Sverige. Jag önskar jag kunde vara med dig just nu!; Awesome turnout at Battery Park on Friday night at Swedish Consulate of New York's Swedish Midsummar Festival; ♥ #midsommar, #sweden, @MarieSerneholt, #nycmidsummer, #swedennewyork, #FIKA,

glad midsommar photo: Glad Midsommar glad_midsommar.jpg

Glad midsommar till alla mina vänner och läsare i Sverige. Jag önskar jag kunde vara med dig just nu! ♥


Location: Tingaröd, Skivarp; Photo: Carolina Romare/imagebank.sweden.se

Even Marie Serneholt, one of our favorites, played the role of garland-clad siren on the rocks of the lake yesterday, as these great photos from her blog at Swedish ELLE's website prove quite conclusively, down to the gold and blue ribbon on her left wrist:
http://marie.elle.se/gardagens-80/
In a word -heavenly!

I found out a few days after I got back from my trip to Stockholm in January that I missed running into Marie at Fotografiska, which is the crazy amazing and beautiful Museum of Photography, by only a few days.
To have been able to meet music dynamos like Anni Bernhard at the beginning of the trip, as I did, and Marie Serneholt at the end, as I could've, would have been perfect bookends in my book.

Here are some sweet photos that Matie snapped there that also appeared on her very popular blog: http://marie.elle.se/en-onsdag-pa-fotografiska/

Marie is also the new host of TV4's Bingolotto singing show.
Here's a recent interview on TV4's Nyhetsmorgon about the new gig and her having grown up watching the show like so many other people, but it's in Swedish.

As some of you who know me reasonable well already know, when I see her, I always think of American singer Mandy Moore, too, and how much I expected her to have a larger profile in the U.S. doing TV shows and variety things, just like Marie does now in Sweden.

Marie%20Serneholt:%20%22Jag%20%C3%A4r%20uppvuxen%20med%20Bingolotto%22

Marie Serneholt, @MarieSerneholt


More on Midsommar traditions at 
http://www.sweden.se/eng/Home/Lifestyle/Traditions/Celebrating-the-Swedish-way/Midsummer/



Strandvägen in Stockholm; Photo: Henrik Trygg/imagebank.sweden.se

Meanwhile, here I am in hot & humid Hallandale Beach -and missing out on delicious Swedish strawberries!


Awesome turnout at Battery Park on Friday night at Swedish Consulate of New York's Swedish Midsummar Festival!









More photos at their Instagram site:  http://instagram.com/swedennewyork 
https://twitter.com/swedennewyork



Midsommar commercial for a sale at Elgiganten Sverige that crams as many traditions into 21 seconds as is humanly possible.  http://youtu.be/ldNrI8hlP40

Now starting #newsblackout Day 5 at Miami Herald re Ryan Lizza's New Yorker column & Marco Rubio; Tampa Bay Times gave up Tues., Orlando Sentinel on Wednesday; Miami, often still barely part of America, and almost completely journalism-free this Summer.

musha hadeen YouTube Channel: Syndicated radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh discussed the fact that the old cliché about U.S. Big Business always supporting the Republican party is no longer true, and explains why that has changed. "At the root of this is money." Exactly. 
Now, instead of publicly fighting government encroachment and red-tape, Big Business supports and even depends upon Big Government programs -and the cheap loans that they can receive via crony capitalism. It's for this reason and many others -including cheap labor in places like Florida- that Big Business is now so intent on pressuring the GOP to pass the pro-amnesty Schumer-Rubio immigration bill, S.744, or else risk getting no campaign contributions in the future. This has led been led by many large and powerful GOP donors who have become conditioned to getting their way because of their money -and the GOP consultant class that are always hip to act morally superior and act as go-betweens for the folks with big checkbooks! Now both groups are acting like they are the ones who are casting the votes, not Congress, not unlike lots of schlocky films of the '70's involving political intrigue, mindless conspiracies and a basic premise that business people owned elected officials. 
Rush Limbaugh mentions GE, the Koch Brothers and Sheldon Adelson by name as examples of this elite class who are pushing hard for amnesty for all 11 million illegal aliens in the U.S., regardless of what it actually does to the country and whether it actually solves any problems. That's OUR problem, not theirs!
Uploaded June 17, 2013. http://youtu.be/_jzVx8QTGJU

Whether you're a conservative, moderate or liberal, this far-ranging discussion is by far the most-accurate thing that has been broadcast on U.S. radio so far this year, and yet I'm sure it was quite upsetting to many of his listeners across the country who weren't quite prepared to believe it when Rush said it. 
Yes, it looks like many of his millions of listeners will have to let go of their old ways of thinking and quickly adapt  their political calculations and accept that the political world hasn't just changed, but changed dramatically as a result of what is being attempted by the GOP Establishment.
Time to push those old clichés out the door and see the world for what it truly is -full of opportunistic, know-it-alls who in some cases are Republican-leaning business people -and their hired hands- who want pols to sell their principles in exchange for their campaign checks, leaving you to have to watch from the sidelines. 

As most of you who have been paying attention know, the Once Upon a Time decent-but-never-great Miami Herald has really fallen down the journalism rabbit hole the past 15 years, due largely to some consistently poor management, a lack of commitment to quality local reporting and an abject refusal to evolve with the times and give customers the sort of compelling original content they want about the area they live in.

The sad reality for me is that they cover Cuba about as much if not more than they cover Broward County where I live, less than 14 miles north of where the Heat played the Spurs Thursday night in downtown Miami. 

As I've stated here on the blog before, Broward County is largely terra incognita to the Herald, especially now at their new HQ in the make-believe city of Doral, the city of warehouses and persistent street flooding that strands citizens and commerce even worse than in Hallandale Beach.

That has been even more the case as the paper has cut back on frontline reporting personnel, and in my opinion, keeping more of the problems instead of trading them out for fresh eyes that can see what's right in front of them.

Real Clear Politics
Top 10 Newspapers in Trouble
#4 Miami Herald
05.22.12, 08:54 AM CDT

I mention this because the Herald's longstanding pro-amnesty bias, obvious for quite some time, regardless of the facts or the circumstance, has allowed their other biases on behalf of Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, that is, ONCE THEY GOT ELECTED to Tallahassee and D.C., to again cloud their news judgment and any claim to news objectivity.

In case you forgot, I commend to you, 
The Atlantic Wire
Miami Herald Is Better at Marco Rubio Damage Control Than Rubio
By John Hudson

Here's what I posted early Thursday morning
http://www.hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/republican-votes-for-gang-of-eight.html
Republican votes for the Gang of Eight immigration bill continue to fall away even 
as the Miami Herald continued their news blackout for a third day regarding Ryan
Lizza's New Yorker column and the truth about S.744, and the bad news for Marco
Rubio and the newspaper continues apace, as the truth about both continues to seep
out over the Internet

It's the perfect book-end to Wednesday.

Yes, lots of genuine frustration that an important public policy issue that directly affects this area of the country more than any 95% of the U.S., negatively in my opinion, is being completely ignored -on purpose

Not surprisingly, this being South Florida, and the Summer, it's not like the four English-language TV stations are doing anything to fill the news vacuum.
They've done nothing about it and are, in fact, resorting to their usual summer habits: -either sleepwalking or taking a siesta for the whole summer.

But don't worry, they'll wake-up and pretend they're serious reporters again around Labor Day, esp. if it looks like a hurricane may pass thru South Florida.
Yes, then they are all Edward R. Murrow speaking gravely into their microphone.

In fact, Thursday night, even given the unique circumstances of the NBA Finals, during 90 minutes of ABC's Miami affiliate, WPLG's newcast from 5-6:30, other than the 4 breaks for weather updates, the only non-Miami Heat story was the George Zimmerman trial.
That's the whole list.

(I even watched it again on my DVR before writing this just to make sure I wasn't hallucinating.)

Miami, often still barely part of America, and almost completely journalism-free this Summer.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Republican votes for the Gang of Eight immigration bill continue to fall away even as the Miami Herald continued their news blackout for a third day regarding Ryan Lizza's New Yorker column and the truth about S.744, and the bad news for Marco Rubio and the newspaper continues apace, as the truth about both continues to seep out over the Internet

Republican votes for the Gang of Eight immigration bill continue to fall away even as the Miami Herald continued their news blackout for a third day regarding Ryan Lizza's New Yorker column and the truth about S.744, and the bad news for Marco Rubio and the newspaper continues apace, as the truth about both continues to seep out over the Internet
The stridently pro-amnesty Miami Herald is STILL refusing to end their news blackout and mention anything at all re the Ryan Lizza column and the role of Rubio and his staff in S.744 since news about the column began. 
The Tampa Bay Times ended their news blackout Tuesday afternoon. 

As of 1 a.m. Thursday morning, absolutely nothing's changed at McClatchy's under-performing Miami Herald -nothing in print and nothing on their blogs- since my post of yesterday bringing this to everyone's attention.

But in the Miami Herald that's run by Executive Editor Aminda Marques Gonzalez, while there wasn't space for real news about Marco Rubio, there was plenty of space for faux news about imaginary polls and imaginary candidates, him and Hillary Clinton, that are the very picture of the word meaningless.

When the history of how bad this once-decent newspaper got before there were either big corporate changes that respected readers expectations, or they merely allowed the female captain of the S.S. Herald to crash into the iceberg like The Titanic, and slowly receded into insignificance, we now know the name of who will get the lion's share of the blame locally:
Aminda Marques Gonzalez.

Yes, the same woman who never responded to my two fact-filled emails in 2010 and 2011 to her, Managing Editor Rick Hirsch and others in position of power at Herald management in Miami and at McClatchy HQ in Sacramento, pointing out a whole host of tangible problems that weren't being solved or mentioned in any other forum or venue.
Despite how specific I was and even giving concrete examples, Aminda Marques never did anything to fix the problems -and here in 2013, still STILL hasn't

I know that we've all been taught that, theoretically, there's a wall between editorial and news, but if there was one there, it's crumbled under the present crew working for McClatchy..

At that newspaper now, on a matter of great public policy, especially to this area, IF you aren't supportive of the newspaper's editorial point-of-view, pro-amnesty, you don't see the light of day there, and their lopsided, one-sided "news coverage" has reflected this the entire time that Marques has been in charge.
It's not your imagination or mine, it's the truth, and the record is clear.

The Hill
Right rips Rubio as Republican immigration votes slip away
By Alexander Bolton
06/19/13 08:05 PM ET
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/306717-right-rips-rubio-as-gop-votes-slip-away

Even while Miami-area TV stations also continue to completely ignore the Ryan Lizza story, too, Rubio's short-term future within the party is being decided as people decide that he is simply too naive and untrustworthy to have the large public role he has.
once.
And the reporters and columnists around the country who know what Rubio has been up to also know what the Herald has been doing, too, which is all to the good.

































Wednesday, June 19, 2013

News blackout at Miami Herald re Marco Rubio & Rubio's Folly is no accident! STILL nothing new about immigration @MarcoRubio. Ryan Lizza's great New Yorker piece on immigration reform and the roles of Marco Rubio, #gangofeight and their staffs, continues to be part of news blackout at Herald and their second-rate politics blog; Tampa Bay Times and their Buzz politics blog finally gave up on their blackout re Lizza story on Tuesday afternoon; What happened to the wall between editorial and content? Where is it at the Herald? But then they never replaced their Ombudsman over 2 years ago -and let Marc Caputo do articles & columns; #rubiosfolly


These screen captures are from shortly after Midnight this morning and they paint quite a picture of how truly low bad journalism has gotten in South Florida in the year 2013.
This is what an intentional news blackout looks like when the management and the editors of an American newspaper doesn't want its readers to know about a certain bit of news that reflects poorly on one their central editorial tenets.
In this case, reflects poorly on their pro-amnesty for illegal immigrants position and the role of Florida senator Marco Rubio, whom I voted for in 2010.


News blackout at Miami Herald re Marco Rubio & Rubio's Folly is no accident! Still nothing new about immigration @MarcoRubio. Ryan Lizza's great New Yorker piece on immigration reform and the roles of Marco Rubio, #gangofeight and their staffs, continues to be part of news blackout at Herald and their second-rate politics blog; Tampa Bay Times and their Buzz politics blog finally gave up on their blackout re Lizza story on Tuesday afternoon; I thought there were was supposed to be a wall between editorial and content? What happened to the wall between editorial and content? Where is it at the Herald? But then they never replaced their Ombudsman over 2 years ago -and let Marc Caputo do articles & columns; #rubiosfolly
























@Miamiherald, @NakedPoliticsFL, @rickhirsch, @MarcCaputo scared silly about the prospect of having to report fairly about Rubio and Co.'s terrible PR problem -the truth actually came out! 

Their whole attempt to go without honestly telling both sides of the immigration reform story has been exposed. How can they possibly spin the words of Ryan Lizza and dozens of other people who were witnesses to what happened? 

So far the Herald's management has done that by completely ignoring it and treating the story like a non-story.

But even as the Herald's management and editors dawdle and put their heads in the sand, influential people in the country are taking names and lighting sticks of long-fused dynamite.
And boom goes the dynamite!









Yes, nothing about Ryan Lizza, his penetrating New Yorker piece, Marco Rubio's chameleon-like maneuvers on matters of principle and the uncouth comments of Rubio aide Alex Conant tossing poor Floridians under the bus.

But then that's the sort of condescending and patronizing view of too many Miami Cubans towards poor Blacks and Whites that we've seen over the past forty years. 
Nothing particularly new there.

Of course after the Mariel boatlift, as we all recall, these were the same people who were forever telling us that their nephew -who was then in the M-D jail- was a political dissident back in Cuba, which is why they were in jail over there.
Sure, not because they were a criminal or a rapist or...
Always with the Cuban exceptionalism, which does NOT naturally flow to others in their minds, especially native-born Blacks.














That's especially true for poor African-American in Miami of whom there are plenty who don't speak Spanish, but the Miami news media, just like the woman who supports the immigration bill who represents those constituents in Miami, Rep. Frederica Wilson, FL-24, who is completely ignoring that angle and is no doubt despertaely hoping no reporters ask her any hard questions, just like always.
Not that they ever do.
Most Miami-area reporters are lapdogs, not watchdogs.

Dear South Florida press corps:
Do you believe the poor African-Americans in Rep. Frederica Wilson's congressional district are going to love the new immigration bill? I don't.Thanks for completely ignoring that issue like so many others you have ignored since I returned to the area from D.C. over nine years ago.
Obvious issues involving public policy that would be raised publicly in other media markets but which is beyond the ken of the local Miami press corps.
Hmm-m... maybe that attitude of yours is part of why Blacks in Miami feel so alienated.
YOU completely ignore them unless something bad happens in their neighborhood or you have some cheesy story about a community park to show how much you -cough- "care." They're just props, not real people. 
Too bad they don't speak Spanish, eh Alex?

But that non-story from two weeks ago about David Beckham being interested in having an MLS team in Miami -something that literally nobody was ever interested in, even me, a huge soccer fan- well, they were all over his appearance at a Heat-Pacers playoff game, where their coverage like all Miami press corps coverage of him being in town -the hysterical 14-year old girl.
It sure wasn't journalism and the fact that so much of it was from female reporters, esp. on TV, only made it more cringeworthy.











In case you forgot or never knew, within the recent past, it was not unusual for the Herald's constipated political blog to go 2-3 days without anything, until they started posting Tampa Bay Times Buzz posts there to fill up the space.

It's the same reason they'd shove little nothings about education there as well rather than running them on an Education blog they've never started.
I wanted you to see the evidence for yourself.

A propos of the Tampa Bay Times Buzz politics blog, they finally broke their many days of silence this afternoon on the Ryan Lizza story. 

Tampa Bay Times
Buzz politics blog
Rubio distances self from unnamed aide's perceived slam on American workers
By Alex Leary, Times Washington Bureau Chief
Tuesday, June 18, 2013 1:28pm

It was so obvious what was going on, and people besides myself were asking questions publicly about whether they were ignoring the news just like Herald, whose editorial p.o.v. is stridently pro-amnesty.
Never is heard a discouraging word.

Not even about Rubio himself:

The Atlantic Wire
Miami Herald Is Better at Marco Rubio Damage Control Than Rubio
By John Hudson

But eventually, they'll have to reconcile their obvious attempt to hide news from readers that deal with such an important issue, especially one where they have such a strong public point-of-view for amnesty, which has been their policy for years.

Alfonso Chardy has churned out dozens and dozens of biased and one-sided pieces on immigration, year-after-year, as has been detailed on this blog with great specificity.
Always very sympathetic to the illegal immigrant no matter how contrived thei story.

And almost all of the so-called "news articles" seemed like they were written and edited by Cheryl Little, the woman who arranged the dog-and-pony shows for Miami-area print and TV reporters to meet the brainy Illegal teens.

Those carefully-arranged meetings where the parents who deliberately snuck in illegally or deliberately over-stayed their tourist visas 15-20 years ago are never asked reasonable questions by reporters about why they intentionally broke the law and refused for years to show up for Customs or ICE or DOJ meetings? 
And be asked why they never learned even a modicum of English in over 15 years?

Those inconvenient facts and useful context that never appeared because it was likely a condition of the interviews as set-up by Little.

Yes, Alfonso Chardy as corporate publicist not reporter, the Herald as PR agency whose job is to sell the merits of no border fences, no meaningful security measures, only unlimited cheap workers to be exploited by Florida businesses, esp. its powerful agribusiness industry.

I have a manilla folder somewhere full of those articles as well as the one-sided Guest Op-Eds that were supposed to be contrary to the Herald's Editorial Board's pro-amnesty, look-the-other-way point-of-view, but which, amazingly, always seemed to agree with them.
What sort of crazy, free community newspaper "journalism" is that?

If there was such a thing as an anti-Pulitzer Prize, in my opinion, the Miami Herald would be the leader of the pack among the second-tier newspapers in this country after their management's conscious decision over the past week to completely ignore important news that was already starting to come out at the end of the week.
This, even while the Herald was busy trying to lionize one of the pro-amnesty folks last Thursday in some particularly amazing logrolling by one the McClatchy's D.C. drones
"Miami’s Leon Fresco: The immigration mover and shaker you don’t know"(Pictured sitting with Schumer to show he's important! LOL!)
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/13/3450219/miamis-leon-fresco-the-immigration.html





As for the Naked Politics blog run by The Miami Herald: "The raw truth about power and ambition in Florida.'
No, not really.

More like the late-arriving smug Conventional Wisdom that passes for intelligence in Miami but which has been off their game for many years, and which has a pro-amnesty bias so obvious that even liberals don't bother to pretend that it isn't obvious.
Look for yourself and see how right I have been about the blackout!
https://twitter.com/NakedPoliticsFL








-----
And a follow-up to what I wrote here a few days...


@marcorubio -No activity there since June 7th and nothing about immigration in over a month; Hmm-m.. who's really tweeting for Marco? Hallandale Beach Blog plays detective -and gets results!
Hmm-m... interesting. 
Out of curiosity, lasts Thursday night, June 13th, during halftime of Game 4 between the Heat and the Spurs, I checked @marcorubio.
It turns out that Florida's junior senator and member of the pro-amnesty Gang of Eight behind S.744, the amnesty first immigration bill, hasn't tweeted ANYTHING about immigration in well over a month. No tell-tale sign of his flip-flopping!
But tons of tweets about the Heat!

I checked again this morning after the Heat won Game 6 against the Spurs.
No change -nothing about immigration, #gangofeight, S.744

@marcorubio -No activity there since June 7th and nothing about immigration in over a month; Hmm-m.. who's really tweeting for Marco Rubio these days?

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Are zero-tolerance policies at American schools targeting harmless kids and actually backfiring? Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit blog is spot-on in his assessment: YES. NEXT QUESTION?; Rules-are-rules, and optics are optics. But at The White House, it's all fun and games with plastic guns with our do-as-I-say, not-as-I-do president!





The sort of plastic gun you see above gets you suspended or expelled from lots of American schools these days, no matter how young or innocent you are, or even whether what's in your hand is actually a Pop Tart.
Really.

Rules-are-rules, and optics are optics. 
But at The White House, it's all fun and games with plastic guns with our do-as-I-say, not-as-I-do president!

Prof. Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit blog is spot-on: YES. NEXT QUESTION? 
Are zero-tolerance policies at school targeting harmless kids and actually backfiring?

Deseret News
Are zero-tolerance policies at school targeting harmless kids?
Compiled by Eric Schulzke, Deseret News
June 11 2013 12:05 a.m. MDT
School officials around the country have been reacting to the specter of the Sandy Hook shooting by targeting harmless behavior among some very young students, University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds argued in a USA Today op-ed.
The most recent case Reynolds cites was a Maryland kindergartner suspended for 10 days after being interrogated and wetting his pants because he brought an orange-tipped cap gun on the bus to show a friend.
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865581435/Are-zero-tolerance-policies-at-school-targeting-harmless-kids.html

The Blaze
8TH GRADER SUSPENDED, ARRESTED OVER NRA T-SHIRT NOW FACES $500 FINE AND A YEAR IN JAIL
By Madeleine Morgenstern
June. 15, 2013 3:55 p.m.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/06/15/8th-grader-suspended-arrested-over-nra-t-shirt-now-faces-500-fine-and-a-year-in-jail/


Fox News Channel
Gun play: 'Zero tolerance' toward schoolkids could backfire, says expert
By Perry Chiaramonte
Published June 11, 2013, 
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/06/11/gun-play-zero-tolerance-toward-young-schoolkids-could-backfire-says-expert/


Reason Magazine
Zero Tolerance Watch: Teen Faces Felony Charges for Science Experiment 
By Jesse Walker
May. 1, 2013 9:45 am  
http://reason.com/blog/2013/05/01/zero-tolerance-watch-teen-faces-felony-c

Orlando Sentinel
Kiera Wilmot will not be expelled from school, attorney says Polk County teen was suspended for mixing chemicals on campus, causing firecracker-like 'pop'
May 29, 2013
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2013-05-29/news/os-kiera-wilmot-not-expelled-20130529_1_alternative-school-leah-lauderdale-school-police-officer

-----
Glenn Reynolds is at http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/

@instapundit  https://twitter.com/instapundit