Republican Rep. Stephen Meeks of Greenbrier went viral on Twitter yesterday with this tweet. Oops.

He was “ratioed,” in Twitter parlance. In other words, thousands of critical responses poured in. He deleted the tweet and closed his Twitter account to only approved followers. I’ve sought permission to continue to receive his wisdom. No response yet.

His decision to go private takes us again to the contentious realm of whether public officials may prevent others from seeing their posts on social media. Sen. Jason Rapert, down the road from Meeks in Conway, has pioneered blocking people with whom he disagrees and been sued over the policy.

You can do a search on Twitter for “Stephens Meeks” and get a rich take of some of the responses. Critics noted the median income in Meeks’ district is in the $45,000 range. Losers!


Raw Story wrote him up.

I’d like to see the math on amassing $1 million in 20 years at $70,000 a year. Taxes, insurance, food, shelter, clothing and other miscellaneous expenses would cut into that $70,000, wouldn’t they?

The ease of finding a $70,000 job will come as a shock to thousands of Arkansas school teachers, newspaper reporters, cops, firemen, EMTs, convenience store clerks, sanitation workers, home health aides and on and on. Hard as they work, mitigating circumstances do indeed sometimes prevent them from becoming millionaires.


Being a legislator is a good place for the homeless to look for work. You need not be otherwise gainfully employed. The pay is more than $40,000. Per diem expense payments are tax-free and add another $20,000 or so for most. The health insurance is cheap and good. There are retirement benefits. A lobbyist is often lurking with a free meal. Corporate PACs happily pay the cost of campaigns for incumbents. There’s usually a state or lobby job to roll into after a few years in the legislature. Some get “consulting” work WHILE in the legislature. But careful or you might wind up rooming with Jon Woods down in the Fort Worth pen.

Meeks was called out by many for describing himself as a Christian and, in addition to this stray thought, opposing the Medicaid expansion that extended government-subsidized health coverage to the working poor. Perhaps the Meeks will not inherit the earth, said one respondent.

UPDATE: He’s tweeted an apology. Looks like he’ll be ratioed again.

Yesterday I sent out a poorly worded tweet expressing my belief in the American dream. Based on the responses there are a lot of people who believe the American dream is out of reach. That is something we need to change. I apologize to anyone I offended that was not my intent. — Rep. Stephen Meeks (@RepStephenMeeks) November 18, 2018