Man lands gyrocopter on Capitol lawn, wants campaign finance reform
What do you get when you cross Citizens United, an unlawful single-pilot airborne vehicle, the Postal Service and Florida? Apparently, the dude who decided to land his “gyrocopter” on the U.S. Capitol lawn this morning in order to protest the negative influence of money in politics.
As no one was hurt, and the Secret Service quickly scrambled to tackle the guy (though not too quickly, as I believe they knew he was in a gyrocopte, and that should have been public humiliation enough), feel free to be both completely concerned for the state of mental health treatment in this country and amused that this is all coming courtesy of America’s craziest state.
Obviously, had Mr. Doug Hughes, employee of the U.S. Postal Service and emissary of the people, been a right-wing lunatic instead of a left-wing lunatic, as Conn Carrol points out, we would have quickly been subjected to hours of endless cable television analysis of how America’s law enforcement communities had utterly failed in their charge of curbing the nation’s burgeoning right-wing lunatic problem. All of those domestic terrorists and their ridiculous flying machines! Lucky for us, despite much evidence to the contrary, published fairly routinely in the Tampa Bay Times, as the man was some sort of local Florida folk hero that even Floridians found crazy, I’m sure we will see next to nothing about his voting record in any upcoming coverage.
There is no indication that any unions — which have led the charge against the Citizens United decision, since they prefer to be the only organizations allowed to pump large sums of money into political races — have raced to Mr. Hughes’ side to thank him, possibly because it was #FightFor15 day, in which the unions work diligently to convince Americans that burger flippers are worth every penny you pay them to screw up your order.
This world would be so much better if more things were run by robots. Except, of course, campaign finance reform.