About that Nebraska accent.

There is truth in the observation that tariffs and immigration hurt agriculture but FFS there is absolutely no one in the state of Nebraska who has this accent, so I suggest consulting a professional dialog coach before filming your next Tik Tok https://t.co/92deSWanCZ

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) March 5, 2025

Keeping up with "The Great Gatsby."

This kid is the new Wint and will be making $1 million a year tweeting brilliant non sequiturs while his English professors collect piles of rejection letters for their failed Great American Novelshttps://t.co/aQdmHRgZxz

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) February 11, 2020

I had to look up Wint. He's "one of the most notable accounts associated with 'Weird Twitter,' a subculture on the site that shares a surreal, ironic sense of humor." Notable and duly noted. Don't let that distract you. Click on the image and read the wonderful English paper that still somehow gets a D.

ADDED: I think the 2 checks over "class role as a 'house cat'" suggest why he didn't fail outright. He'd absorbed some left-wing ideology. That was worth something.

PLUS: I had to look up "Midnight Society," written above "Submitted for the approval of English 101." To me "Submitted for your approval" is the classic line from "The Twilight Zone" (a show I watched when it originally aired and currently have 50+ episodes of on our DVR). The Midnight Society comes from a 90s TV show "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" where some teenagers who called themselves "The Midnight Society" told each other scary stories, beginning with "Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society..." The creator of the show intended that line as an allusion to "The Twilight Zone."

It's funny to me that the student wrote about Tom and Jerry instead of the older, grander "Great Gatsby" and the teacher wrote about "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" instead of the older, grander "Twilight Zone."

Do I watch those episodes of "The Twilight Zone"? Yes! I watched "Mr. Bevis" over the weekend after I read that Orson Bean had died. And I watched "The Howling Man" last night.

ALSO: Do I think the Tom & Jerry paper is real? No. I think it's a joke, a fantastic joke. Let's follow Alexis De Wokeville on Twitter.

It wouldn't work as fiction.

I mean come on, how did any of these characters get past the manuscript editor pic.twitter.com/n7OVgfQvN8

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) January 25, 2019

The American Beard.

my American beard is fraught with beer and pizza crumbshttps://t.co/PCy3FZDN2m

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) September 3, 2018

"The other crux of my discontent with The Simpsons comes from the way Marge is continually treated like a doormat. "

"Obviously, The Simpsons started in the 1989, before 'political correctness'—otherwise known as being tolerant and conscientious towards people—was a concern for a lot of folks. I didn’t go in expecting it to be free of prejudice, but the fact that people still love the show and considered it progressive for its time gave me a kernel of hope. Not so, at least not when it came to the abuse heaped on Marge. I don’t understand why she doesn’t just divorce Homer’s dumb ass."

From a Vice article I read because of this:

The Simpsons is horrible and problematic and not funny and Lisa is the only good part and stop laughing at it, explains Vice's expert millennial garbage babyhttps://t.co/cvs2OcX5oM

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) July 1, 2018

Imagine all the sitcoms you'd have to reject if you were distracted by thinking: Why don't these people get a divorce?

And maybe a better question is: Why don't married people quit thinking that divorce is a solution to their difficulties? Stick it out people! Like Roseanne and Dan! Or will the new Roseanneless "Roseanne" give us the Conner household after Dan has divorced the angry, incorrigible Roseanne?

"Sorry kids, you're SOL this Christmas."

Said Iowahawk, responding to this:

Santa Claus's tomb may have been discovered beneath an ancient church in Turkey https://t.co/Jzs2xVDxbt pic.twitter.com/WgILaP5YYc

— Newsweek (@Newsweek) October 3, 2017

"Summary of Clay Travis vs CNN."

Summary of Clay Travis vs CNN pic.twitter.com/8kNLuBZJa7

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) September 15, 2017

The perfect response to Joyce Carol Oates.

.@JoyceCarolOates you were great in 'The Shining' https://t.co/yeE4z7TW04

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) November 23, 2015

Beware, Duke.

Beware, Duke. #Wisconsin pic.twitter.com/jRfDuyPclK

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) April 5, 2015

#EndFathersDay.

Obviously satire. with stuff like:

because spousal rape, domestic violence, child abuse, and masculinity aren't things to be celebrated #YesAllWomen #EndFathersDay

And:

Fathers Day should be renamed to Semen Day, because that's what men contribute to families. #EndFathersDay

But it led to some pretty funny Iowahawk spoofing, like:

#EndFathersDay because no man wants another pair of pleated Dockers.
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) June 13, 2014

Violent mobs erupt in Wisconsin after the publication of crude Vince Lombardi cartoons.

"Protestors demonstrated against the images throughout the Badger State yesterday, with violent egging and cow-tipping incidents reported in Oconomowac, Pewaukee, Sheboygan, Ozaukee, Antigo, Oshkosh, Waubeno, Wauwautosa, Waunewoc, Wyocena, Waubeka, and Washawonamowackapeepee."

The Weiner Hacker Prize

"As much as I admire Congressman Weiner's Gandhi-like forgiving attitude toward his assailant - as well as his world class ninja programming skills - I'm afraid this incident doesn't just involve him. For, after all, what Internet user is safe when the person who hacked this unsuspecting Weiner remains at large? Okay, maybe not "large," but still, come on man. Who's to say this same criminal hasn't somehow hacked my last 5 federal income tax returns with fraudulent deductions for alcohol-related blogging expenses?"

Iowahawk puts up $1000.

"Please pardon this brief departure from my normal folderol, but every so often..."

"... a member of the chattering class issues a nugget of stupidity so egregious that no amount of mockery will suffice. Particularly when the issuer of said stupidity holds a Nobel Prize."

The Nobel Prize reference is to Paul Krugman. If you want something about the Obama Nobel Prize, there's this:

Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize.  A lot of his critics didn't think he deserved to win the Nobel Peace Prize, but he's got a shot now at showing the world he does deserve it by what he could be doing in the Middle East and North Africa.  Is he on a track to winning the Nobel Peace Prize again...?  What do you think?

Again?  These guys are taking bets on whether Obama is gearing up to win the Nobel Peace Prize again?  I mean you can arguably say that the world's imploding because of Obama.  The stabilizing force of the world has always been the United States of America, but nobody fears us.  There's no respect or fear of the United States, and he doesn't project any abject respect and love for this country.  These guys are speculating on whether he's qualified to win a second one?

"Because the Constitution is so old, it is written in the 'old-timey' language of people of more than one century ago..."

"... which leads many modern people to get confused and frustrated by it. 'What is this stupid boring thing?' they will ask, then go back to playing Super Mario Cart. These modern people could not be any more wrong, because hidden underneath all the 'so-called' confusing words is an exciting story with twists and turns everywhere. Fortunately, and most importantly, the Founding Fathers also invented the Supreme Court which does a good job of translating the Constitution into modern words and juxtaposing them for all of us, the American people of the United States."

Iowahawk spoofs young Ezra Klein, who's not impressed with the GOP's new requirement that legislation expressly identify the provision of the Constitution that supports Congress's exercise of power.

Here's Ezra Klein's actual column.

Over at Media Matters, Eric Boehlert is writing about me.

Eric Boehlert. Eric Boehlert? Oh, I know where I read his name recently. He's a character in Iowahawk's brilliant "I'll Take a Cashier's Check, Mr. Breitbart." He's the one handing out the assignments:

EZRA KLEIN: hey boehlert whats the assignment

ERIC BOEHLERT: 3 part essay

ERIC BOEHLERT: 1. Explain why unemployment report shows stimulus is working

ERIC BOEHLERT: 2. link BP oil spill to teabaggers

ERIC BOEHLERT: 3. spin latest Gallups

JOSH MARSHALL: crap crap crap and I have a lab assignment for global warming due

ERIC ALTERMAN: o fack me looks like an all niter...

Ha. But why is he on my case? "Ann Althouse continues to blog about Journolist; appears to have no idea what it was," he says. Well, then, release the archive so I can cure my terrible ignorance. That's all I want.

Althouse continues to post item after item about Journolist, despite the fact that... Althouse has no idea what Journolist was.

Stop me before I blog ignorantly again, Eric. Send me the archive. Or send it to Breitbart and collect $100,000 and I'll get to it that way.

Boehlert goes on to quote me saying that if I were to sue a Journolist member for defamation — something I'm not inkleined to do — I would be able to get discovery into the archive. Eric B. says:

Althouse, a law school prof and very public blogger, was thinking out loud about suing the owner of Journolist to find out if any of the 400 journalists on the listserv ever wrote anything nasty about her in their private emails. (Ego much?)

Eric Boehlert continues to write about me like that even though he has no idea what the thing I wrote that he just quoted says.  I cited a specific item of defamation against me that was published on the web and that remains there. If I were to sue based on that remark, I would be able to get discovery into relevant evidence about that claim. Moreover, I know that there are specific, related remarks about me in the Journolist archive, because that remark was tweeted, in Ezra Klein's own words, "after I was alerted to her thread on Journolist."

Boehlert imagines that one of my commenters nails his argument for him. Here's that comment:

I would think a law professor might have a better grasp of this. But on what grounds would you seek the archives? To borrow a popular argument of the right, where in the Constitution does it say you have the right to know what others are saying about you, especially when you have no proof they are saying anything defamatory about you.

Clue to Boehlert: Not all law is in the Constitution. The tort of defamation is a matter of state law. The extent of discovery is a matter of procedural law. I don't need a constitutional right. (Conceivably, there is a right that would bar my access to the archive, but I don't need a constitutional right to discovery if I bring a defamation claim.)

So, Boehlert, your post is incredibly lame, but, as a law professor, I'll give you a rewrite. I think Media Matters portrays itself as a champion of truth, so... see if you can get a little closer to something that feels a little more truth-y.

***

On a related note: Yesterday, James Taranto, in Best of the Web, opined that a journalist's shield law would prevent discovery into the Journolist archive in a defamation suit:

Seems to us it would depend on the venue. Most states have some sort of shield law protecting reporters from having to disclose confidential sources, but the specifics vary from state to state. In federal court, however, there is no such privilege.

The privilege is about shielding confidential news sources — informants. The Journolist archive contains the statements of journalists talking to each other. I don't see how the privilege could apply.

[Journalists] should, of course, have all the legal protections of the First Amendment, which among other things mean that Althouse almost certainly would not win her defamation suit against Klein. His offending tweet, it seems to us, is a constitutionally protected opinion rather than a false statement of fact.

One reason I have no interest in suing is that I want the broadest First Amendment rights here. I would not want to have to argue that the statement in question — "Ann Althouse sure has a lot of anti-semitic commenters" — is not an opinion but a false statement of fact. But I'm afraid it is, quite plainly, a false statement of fact.

"Welcome to the Journolist Top Secret Progressive He-Man Wingnut Haters Club and L33t H4xoR Chat Room."

Ha.

"Welcome to the JournoList Top Secret Progressive He-Man Wingnut Haters Club and L33t H4xoR Chat Room."

Iowahawk vs. Ezra Klein, et al.