Maria Butina -- Sour Grapes for Lemonade Stands -- A Social Media Frankenstein's Monster

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told his U.S. counterpart Mike Pompeo in a phone call on Saturday that the charges against alleged spy and National Rifle Association-linked gun activist Maria Butina are “fabricated” and urged her immediate release, according to news media reports.

Newsweek

So when is a spy not a spy?

When ev'ryone's willing to lie.

This innocent gal

was just a pen pal

whose love life went sadly awry.

Reports of kids’ lemonade stands being shut down for breaking local health or permitting laws have long left grown-ups feeling sour. Now, a growing movement of adults is fighting back.

WSJ

All children of the world unite --

you have the very proper right

to sell your swill

and make folks ill

cuz your tap water's full of blight. 

But widespread censorship and chasing down every falsehood ought to be acknowledged as bad ideas. Vera Eidelman, an ACLU fellow, rightly noted last week that already marginalized voices — activists of color, for example — are likely to be silenced first if Facebook expands its censorship powers. 

Washington Post

When Frankenstein his blunder made,

his monster into trouble strayed.

Now Zuckerberg has done the same,

and Facebook lacks both truth and shame.

We don't have James Whale on the job

to call a cinematic mob;

instead a boycott might repair

the creature's fabricated fare.