Showing posts with label governor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label governor. Show all posts

Thursday, April 05, 2018

Is that kinda like whores who bellyache about prostitution?


And Mary Fallin is the shyster who'll sell 'em a 1974 Chevy Vega with sawdust in the differential and a spiel about how all cars burn a quart of oil every week.

Merle Haggard wept.

Monday, August 03, 2015

Coincidence? I think not



Of all the things Nebraska's bazillionnaire governor could throw his fortune behind that actually might benefit his state, what does Pete Ricketts choose to bankroll to the tune of $200,000?

Education initiatives for the state's poorest residents? Nope.

Higher education?  Nope.

Job training for the chronically unemployed? Nope.

Food banks? Nope.

After school programs for underprivileged kids? Nope.

Antiviolence efforts in north and south Omaha? Nope.

A petition drive to restore the death penalty, which was eliminated by the Nebraska Legislature over the veto of the governor, who likes to tout his pro-life Catholicism? Bingo!

Proceed to "GO" . . . and pick up a batch of black-market execution drugs on your way there. Gov. Pete still has hope.

FROM Saturday's Omaha World-Herald:
Gov. Pete Ricketts has doubled his monetary backing of the petition drive to restore the death penalty in Nebraska.

A report filed Friday shows the governor gave $100,000 to Nebraskans for the Death Penalty in early July, which comes on top of the $100,000 he gave to the campaign in June.

His donations account for nearly one-third of the funds raised by the group, which has less than a month left to gather signatures on a petition seeking to put the fate of capital punishment on next year’s ballot.

The referendum petition would ask voters whether they want to undo legislation repealing the state’s death penalty. 
Ricketts’ role in financing the petition drive appears to be a first, at least in recent decades. Past governors have signed petitions or thrown their political support behind them but have not been top contributors to the drives.
PERHAPS the governor's parish priest needs to have a loooooooong talk with hizzoner. For a "pro-life" kind of guy, Pete Ricketts surely does seem to be quite enamored with killing.

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
2266 The efforts of the state to curb the spread of behavior harmful to people's rights and to the basic rules of civil society correspond to the requirement of safeguarding the common good. Legitimate public authority has the right and duty to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense. Punishment has the primary aim of redressing the disorder introduced by the offense. When it is willingly accepted by the guilty party, it assumes the value of expiation. Punishment then, in addition to defending public order and protecting people's safety, has a medicinal purpose: as far as possible, it must contribute to the correction of the guilty party.
2267 Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically nonexistent."
AUSTIN POWERS, call your office. Nebraska needs your help.

Monday, February 02, 2015

The Great Leap Nowhere


If a corporation is too crooked and too big a polluter for China, and if it's likely that an African government won't put up with its guff . . . where do you open shop next?

Duh.

Obviously, you go to Louisiana, where the governor is more than happy to throw tax incentives at you to pollute Cancer Alley just a little bit more -- or maybe a lot more -- and not create that many jobs in the process.

Ah, Louisiana. If it looks like a Third World country, and it smells like a Third World country, and it does business like a Third World country . . . it just may be a Third World country. Unfortunately, this one happens to be an American state whose governor aspires to be president.

Of the United States.

AL JAZEERA AMERICA tells us all about China's latest industrial investment in the Third World, right here in the United States. Here's how the series of three articles begins:
A prominent Chinese tycoon and politician — whose natural gas company's environmental and labor rights record recently started coming under fire in the Chinese press — is parking assets in a multibillion dollar methanol plant in a Louisiana town. And he appears to be doing it with help from the administration of likely GOP 2016 presidential ticket contender Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.

Not many locals in a predominantly black neighborhood of St. James Parish — halfway between New Orleans and Baton Rouge — know that Wang Jinshu, the Communist Party Secretary for the northeastern Chinese village of Yuhuang and a delegate to the National People’s Congress, is the man at the helm of a $1.85 billion methanol plant to be built in their town over the next two years with a $9.5 million incentive package from the state. The details of the project are unclear, residents say, largely because they were not told about the project until local officials, amid discussions with state officials and Chinese diplomats, decided to move forward with the project in July 2014.

“We never had a town hall meeting pretending to get our opinion prior to them doing it,” said Lawrence “Palo” Ambrose, a 74-year-old black Vietnam War veteran who works at a nearby church. “They didn’t make us part of the discussion.”

The Chinese company has filed for expedited permits to construct and operate a plant on a sprawling 1,100 acres — situated between a high school, two churches and an assisted living facility for senior citizens — from the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, which is set to study the impact on the local environment and deliver its decision on March 6, 2015.

The plant is part of a recent push by New Orleans–area officials to reach out to Asia’s growing economic powerhouse to redevelop communities still devastated by the effects of natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina. Some of those projects, it appears, have since gone sour. In one instance, which Al Jazeera will explore in the third installment of this series, a company contracted by the city government stands accused of stealing millions of dollars from Chinese investors seeking U.S. citizenship in exchange for building businesses in an underserved neighborhood.

Local economic development authorities told Al Jazeera that St. James Parish is an ideal location for the methanol plant because of readily accessible deep water and cheap fuel from the shale oil boom that will help cut production costs. But it remains unclear what the impetus is behind a methanol plant that plans to send the lion’s share of its product back to China, which is struggling to find a market for the methanol already being produced.

What is clear is that there are links between Wang’s U.S. subsidiary — Houston-headquartered Yuhuang Chemical Inc. — and the Chinese government and the Jindal administration.


READ the whole three-part series -- here, here and here.

Apart from urging you to read the whole series -- which obviously is a non-assimilationist Islamic plot against Bobby the Truth Teller -- I have little to say about this thing. I'm talked out, written out and outraged out when it comes to my home state. To quote the Steve Taylor song from 1987, "Since I gave up hope, I feel a lot better."

The reality of Louisiana is that Louisianians are basically incapable of effective self-government. The reality of Louisiana political life is that it's probably not too much worse than that of Guatemala, Honduras or some state in northern Mexico. The reality of the Louisiana economy and workforce is one where officials throw money at foreign companies to build plants that despoil the state's environment and poison adjacent communities (mostly poor and black ones, by the way) while state regulators look the other way and promises of many jobs become realities of not so much.

The reality of Louisiana is none of this is likely to change anytime soon. In fact, it's likely to get worse.

The reality is that Bobby Jindal's Louisiana -- just like Kathleen Blanco's Louisiana, Mike Foster's Louisiana and Edwin Edwards' Louisiana -- is that state government is likely to put up with a lot of Chinese corporate misbehavior that officials in . . . wait for it . . .  Zambia brought to a swift and dramatic end:

Last year [2013], Zambia's government seized control of a Chinese-run coal mine, saying Chinese managers had failed to address safety, health and environmental concerns.

In 2010, two Chinese managers at the mine were accused of shooting miners during a labour dispute, and clashes in August reportedly saw one Chinese worker killed and two others injured.
I THINK it is safe to say Louisiana will not be seizing control (or even much sanctioning) any industrial facility for failing to address pretty much anything. State government is much more accustomed to letting vested interests seize control of it. Billion dolla . . . cheap!

I can't change that. You can't change that. Short of a military invasion, street-corner firing squads and scores of re-education camps, the United States government can't change that.

Worst of all, Louisianians cannot -- or, more accurately, will not -- change that. I guess Third World is as Third World doesn't.

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

You want some assimilation, Governor?


Louisiana's embarrassment-in-chief is at it again.

This time, Gov. Bobby Jindal went all the way to London to say deeply stupid things, making his state a laughingstock internationally as opposed to scandalizing just a domestic American audience, as Louisiana has done time and again.

In a speech to the Henry Jackson Society, a British think tank named for the late U.S. senator from Washington state, Jindal took discredited Fox News assertions about Islamic "no-go zones" in the United Kingdom and France, then ran with them in decrying immigrant Muslims' failure to assimilate into Western societies. After all, what is truth, anyway?

According to an Associated Press  report:
In a speech prepared for delivery at a British think tank, Jindal said some immigrants are seeking “to colonize Western countries, because setting up your own enclave and demanding recognition of a no-go zone are exactly that.” He also said Muslim leaders must condemn the people who commit terrorism in the name of faith as “murderers who are going to hell.”

Jindal aides said he did not make significant changes to the prepared text.

The claims on “no-go zones” are similar to those a Fox News guest made last week about places where non-Muslims were not welcome in parts of the United Kingdom such as Birmingham, and “Muslim religious police” enforce faith-based laws.

Steven Emerson, an American author who often is asked about terror networks, told Fox News that in Britain “there are actual cities like Birmingham that are totally Muslim, where non-Muslims just simply don’t go in.”

Prime Minister David Cameron responded by calling Emerson a “complete idiot.”

Emerson later apologized and said his comments “were totally in error.” Fox News also issued apologies for broadcasting the comments.

Jindal, however, used similar rhetoric during a speech, warning of “no-go zones” in London and other Western cities. Jindal’s remarks come in the wake of the massacre by Islamic extremists at a Paris magazine’s offices and subsequent attack on a kosher supermarket in the city. Three gunmen killed 17 people in the attacks.

“I knew that by speaking the truth we were going to make people upset,” Jindal told CNN during an interview from London.

“The huge issue, the big issue in non-assimilation is the fact that you have people that want to come to our country but not adopt our values, not adopt our language and in some cases want to set apart their own enclaves and hold onto their own values,” said Jindal. “I think that’s dangerous.”

Jindal’s parents immigrated to the United States from India. As a young man, Jindal converted from Hinduism to Catholicism.
TO HIS CREDIT, the governor did not tell his British audience that he was "a recovering wog."
"My dad and mom told my brother and me that we came to America to be Americans. Not Indian-Americans, simply Americans. If we wanted to be Indians, we would have stayed in India," Jindal, who is seen as a potential Republican Presidential candidate, is slated to tell the Henry Jackson Society in London on Monday, according to an advance transcript of his speech released by his office.

"It's not that they are embarrassed to be from India, they love India. But they came to America because they were looking for greater opportunity and freedom," Jindal maintains, adding that he does not believe in "hyphenated Americans."

"They like to refer to Indian-Americans, Irish-Americans, African-Americans, Italian-Americans, Mexican-Americans, and all the rest. To be clear - I am not suggesting for one second that people should be shy or embarrassed about their ethnic heritage. But, I am explicitly saying that it is completely reasonable for nations to discriminate between allowing people into their country who want to embrace their culture, or allowing people into their country who want to destroy their culture, or establish a separate culture within," Jindal argues. 
THAT IS a fair point. But exactly what is "establish a separate culture within"? And exactly how credibly can the governor of Louisiana say such a thing?

For example, you have the United States of America. And then you have Louisiana. Technically, the state is part of the United States. Practically, not so much.

In Louisiana, you have an entire tourism infrastructure predicated upon how not typically American the state is. And if Louisiana ever were to be assimilated to the Borg level Jindal seems to advocate for immigrants to Western nations, it would cease to be anything one might recognize as Louisiana -- both for good and for bad.

If tomorrow, the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the federal government woke up and decided to make Bobby Jindal and his constituents eat a big heapin' helpin' of what the governor feels free to preach to Europeans, I doubt that would go down well. In fact, it might go down something like this:

You want assimilation, Louisiana Governor Boy? We'll give you some damn assimilation.

First off, the United States Army arrives tomorrow to resume Radical Reconstruction, thanks to Louisiana's woeful non-assimilation on matters of race, poverty, education and official corruption. Your whole high-functioning Third World vibe continues to give the United States of America an international black eye. Furthermore, your election -- twice -- proves that the Louisiana electorate is in need of some radical re-education and, frankly, an attitude adjustment.

Also, because David Duke.

About that civil-law, Napoleonic Code thing that screws up your legal dealings with the rest of the country and makes it quite difficult for attorneys educated elsewhere to practice in Louisiana . . . we'll be sending a Justice Department legal task force within the month to rewrite your statutes and begin the rewrite of your constitution. Two words for you, Governor: Unassimilated and un-American.

And you now have counties, not "parishes" . . . and all your remaining "police juries" will be known as either "county boards" or "county commissions," effective immediately.

Now, while we're at it, about your state flag and state seal. . . . 





WE DETECT medieval Catholic symbolism for the Eucharist there. They'll have to go. Separation of church and state, don't you know?

What, Governor? You are displeased by our heavy-handed, totalitarian cultural imperialism? Just the kind of thing we have come to expect from unassimilated, un-American separatists like yourself. If you people do not wish to live as Americans, we certainly won't make you stay, Governor. Comprenez-vous?

Listen, Gov. Jindal -- May we call you Piyush? -- you quite publicly have made your and your state's bed. Now lie in it.


We are America. You will be assimilated.



Love and kisses,

The United States of America

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

The watchdog rolls over, plays dead

Nebraska Watchdog, a political-news website, is blazing a journalistic trail in the United States today.

Unfortunately for it and for the rest of us, the trail ends at the edge of a cliff, and it's a one-way thoroughfare.

In the name of "objectivity," the website said last August that "in order to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest," it wouldn't cover the gubernatorial race because Republican candidate Pete Ricketts is one of its major financial contributors.
Perhaps because we have publicized it on our website since our 2009 launch, many of our readers know Omaha businessman Pete Ricketts is a founding contributor to the non-profit Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, of which Nebraska Watchdog is a part.

As you may also know, speculation is growing that Ricketts may soon enter the 2014 Nebraska governor’s race.

It is important to note that no donor to the Franklin Center, and there are many, have any editorial control over Nebraska Watchdog’s content.

However because of Ricketts’ financial relationship with the Franklin Center, Nebraska Watchdog has decided not to report on the governor’s campaign while Ricketts is a likely or actual candidate.
AND THAT'S exactly what has happened. Nebraska Watchdog hasn't reported on the race. The gubernatorial race. Because a disclaimer at the end of every story on the governor's race wouldn't be sufficient?

Because scrupulously fair and balanced coverage, combined with a disclaimer at the end of every story on the Nebraska governor's race wouldn't be enough to quash scurrilous talk about the "appearance of a conflict of interest"?

When a "news" site abandons its fundamental mission -- covering the news, and voters deciding who will be the next leader of their state seems like reasonably big news to me -- it begs a couple of questions. First, is it really true that "no donor to the Franklin Center, and there are many, have any editorial control over Nebraska Watchdog’s content"? Or is Watchdog managing editor Joe Jordan merely really, really afraid of what would happen to his operating expenses (or his future employment) if his reporting on Sarah Palin's favorite Nebraska gubernatorial candidate went somewhere a major sugar daddy didn't want it to go?

Oh, did I mention that the notoriously right-wing Koch brothers also are major donors to the Franklin Center?


Second, has Jordan's no-coverage stance made him boss of a news outlet which will end up with little to do and less reason to exist? If Pete Ricketts wins in November -- which he likely will in this bright-red state -- will Nebraska Watchdog, by that no-appearance-whatsoever-of-a-conflict-of-interest reasoning be unable to cover any political story to which Ricketts is somehow connected? Will there be zero coverage of the executive branch of Nebraska's state government, no reporting on the governor's legislative agenda, no mention of bills the governor has threatened to veto . . . or bills the governor says he'll sign?
 

Joe Jordan
WHEN EVERY story dealing with a major donor is too hot to handle, and when that major donor happens to get himself elected governor, what then? If logic and consistency is as important to the Nebraska Watchdog chief as not looking bad (no matter how bad that makes you look), he may have backed himself into an inescapable corner.

And we thought there was an inherent conflict between business and editorial functions in the advertising-supported media. Now it's looking like the non-profit mode -- when it relies on corporate or individual sugar daddies -- may be even more problematic.

That's a fine mess Joe Jordan has gotten himself into.


If this is how Nebraska Watchdog rolls, and how it will continue to roll, perhaps the Watchdog has had its day already. And perhaps the time has come to quit while it's behind . . . the eight ball.


HAT TIP: Romenesko.

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Cartoon of the year, Louisiana edition

http://www.theneworleansadvocate.com/multimedia/walthandelsman/8477682-171/walt-handelsman-for-feb-25

Bobby Brady would have been grounded for life had he pulled such a stunt. Maybe Carol Brady needs to have a loooooooong talk with Louisiana Gov. Piyush "Bobby" Jindal, being that the gub'na loves him some Brady family and Mrs. Brady might be one of the few people he'd listen to.

Or maybe she should just ground him for life -- no TV until he learns to mind his manners, and no governoring, either. And you can just forget about running for president right now, young man!

At least Edwin Edwards acted like a grown-up. A horny, crooked grown-up, but a grown-up nevertheless.

I miss Edwin Edwards. Never thought I'd ever write those particular words, but the Gret Stet has found out the hard way that there are worse things than having a felonious horndog in the governor's mansion.

Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman occasionally acts like a 3-year-old, but never in front of the national press. Tender mercies have we cornhuskers when it comes to chief executives.

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

The unimportance of being earnest


The Pillsbury Doughmagogue strikes again.

Let me explain Gov. Dave Heineman's latest smoove move as Nebraska's chief executive: It's as if Poppin' Fresh had appointed the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man to the Confectioners Council a few years after the big guy got busted for spreading malicious lies about Mrs. Smith. And after he never got around to paying his fines for an unfortunate 1984 incident in Manhattan.

Of course, the press learns of the whole deal, and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man abruptly withdraws, saying his dad had just been turned into a s'more. And Poppin' Fresh is left without even a hardy "Hoo hoo!" for curious reporters.

What the doughboy can't say is this, because it is true: "Who cares if the dude stinks up the kitchen? He's my kind of culinary hack!"

Or something like that.

I THINK you'll find my analogy reasonably close as you read about how terribly hard it is to be a D'oh!-magogue in a world where the press occasionally pays attention:
Shannon
Bellevue businessman Patrick Shannon said Monday the governor knew about Shannon's state fines for campaign violations before appointing him last week to the Nebraska Legislature.
Shannon withdrew Friday several hours after questions surfaced about an anonymous smear campaign he orchestrated against an opponent in a 2004 legislative race. Shannon cited a family medical emergency as the reason for his withdrawal.

Gov. Dave Heineman declined to say Monday morning whether he knew about the $16,000 in state ethics fines levied against Shannon before appointing him to the vacant District 3 legislative seat.
Heineman: D'oh!
“He's withdrawn, and we're in the process of finding a new senator to appoint to District 3,” Heineman said. “That's the most important priority.”

Later Monday, The World-Herald contacted Shannon at his Bellevue tax and accounting business.

Shannon said the vetting process for the appointment lasted about three weeks. It included a private, in-person interview with Heineman that lasted about 40 minutes and “one or two” follow-up phone conversations with the governor.
Shannon said during the in-person interview that Heineman questioned him about the $16,000 in fines.

“He told me he knew (about the fines) and asked what did I learn from it,” Shannon said.

Shannon sent an email to the governor's office Friday, stating he couldn't fill the seat because his father had “just suffered a heart attack” in Oklahoma and it would be necessary for him to help provide care for his mother.

In an interview Monday from his Bellevue office, Shannon said the heart attack was mild and his father had been dismissed from an Oklahoma hospital and was recovering at home.
OBVIOUSLY, what Shannon learned from the ethics fines was that if you don't pay them, nobody notices . . . or cares. What he also learned is that the governor doesn't care if his appointments stink up the unicameral, just so long as it smells like Republican hackery.

What I love about Nebraska -- and what has been its saving grace since Boss Dennison's fall from power in Omaha -- is that Nebraska pols are just so bad at this stuff. Would that all politicians were so utterly incompetent at all the right things.

Monday, September 30, 2013

Louisiana jumps the shark


The Times-Picayune's J.R. Ball wants to know why Louisiana is so in love with Edwin W. Edwards, the ex-con ex-governor who, in his long public life, hasn't exactly covered the state in glory.

No doubt, that streak of ignominy -- more like a skid mark, actually -- won't be broken by his and his grandchild bride's new A&E "reality" show, The Governor's Wife. But the man's popularity persisted through thick and the federal pen, and no doubt it will continue to go up as he continues to drag the state's reputation down.

This mystifies the New Orleans paper's Baton Rouge editor and columnist. I don't know why, but it does:
Between pops of an adult beverage, my newfound friend informed me that Edwards, with a personality second-to-none, was the greatest governor to ever grace this state. My mention of Edwards' decade-long stay at a federal penitentiary brought, without hesitation, the explanation that "the governor" was simply robbing from those who could afford to be fleeced to help fulfill his larger, nobler quest to help the "little man" in Louisiana.

This bit of information prompted an epiphany: I need some new friends.

Before going our separate ways, my soon-to-be, newfound ex-friend dropped this nugget of wisdom: "Edwin Edwards would easily beat Bobby Jindal if he could run against him. Hell, there's not a politician in the state right now who could beat Edwards."

This was hardly my first exposure to this state's perverse love affair with Edwards. Most times, I adopt the learned Deep South behavior of smiling politely and simply walking away, silently stunned by the ignorance of such misguided opinions. As usual, I walked away without confrontation, but this time there was no incredulous internal laughter. Maybe it was latent hostility from having my television hijacked earlier that morning by a steady stream of commercials for "The Governor's Wife," a new reality show devoted to Edwards' ginormous ego. Maybe it was the ego of Edwards' attention-seeking trophy wife, using the show to introduce herself to a national cable audience. But this time I was angry. Or maybe it was just the increasing tempo of the "mist."

Regardless, can someone please explain this state's ongoing -- and seemingly never-ending -- fascination with one Edwin Washington Edwards?

SOMEONE doesn't need to explain it. I think Ball already knows; he's been around the Louisiana block more than a few times during his decades in the Gret Stet. As a journalist there, he's written about more stupidity, skullduggery, sleaze and stealing by those who run the state on citizens' behalf than most journalists from most other states would in three lifetimes.

You know and I know that in his heart of hearts, J.R. Ball knows.

The hard part is the admitting. And the accepting. And then acting upon what one has admitted and accepted. Yeah, that's the hard part. The longer one can prolong the "mystery," alas, the longer one delays some painful admissions and tough decisions.

In my opinion -- as someone born and raised in Louisiana, and as someone who lived there through more than half of Edwards' four terms as governor -- there are a few reasons you could be fascinated by the Silver Zipper. (Guess how Edwin got that nickname.)

One is that he's so foreign to you and your experience, you are fascinated by how exotic he is. That one's a non-starter in Louisiana. It just is.

Another is the Jerry Springer syndrome, otherwise known as "Look at the freaks!" and "Golly, I'm not as f***ed up as I thought!" But you don't elect your average Springero Erectus governor four times.

OR, IT JUST might be that you think, on some level, that Edwin Washington Edwards is just like you -- or perhaps a better, smarter and more powerful you. Massive corruption is OK, just as long as I can get some crumbs from his larcenous feast at the public's table.

J.R.'s game-day pal said as much.

Generally, states, like individuals, get what they tolerate, and they tolerate what they find tolerable. There lies the key to the riddle of Louisiana and its taste for crooks in high places.

To paraphrase what one colorful son of south Louisiana once famously proclaimed, "It's the culture, stupid!" Which just might be why "reformers" there spend all their time spinning their wheels, yet getting nowhere.

What was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

That dead Russian egomaniac in the attic


Every man is an island . . . until it hits the fan.

Add this to the list of memos the fruitcake-dominated Republican Party never got. And not getting your memos has consequences.

Thus we had the spectacle today of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie -- a nationally prominent Republican once high on the party's presidential wish list -- singing the praises of the Antichrist, otherwise known as President Obama. The reason? Christie thinks the prez is doing a bang-up job coordinating the federal response to Hurricane Sandy, which has devastated the governor's state and inflicted great suffering on his waterlogged people and many others.

Things like massive hurricanes almost always aim right for the underbelly of the good-time Ayn Rand disciples who stole the brain -- not to mention the heart -- of a once-great political party as they lurch about like Stepford pols droning on about self-reliance, the evils of government, blah, blah, blah, blecch.

In other words, every man is an island. I got mine. Eff you.

Then the day comes when the island gets swamped by a massive storm surge amid a nasty hurricane. And your Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, once argued that the federal government ought to get out of the catastrophe-fixing business because catastrophes are expensive and we're broke.



IN OTHER WORDS, Romney was against FEMA until he was for it. Which was . . . right about now.

The Christian Science Monitor recalls one of the approximately 468 GOP presidential debates last year:
The topic under discussion was the role of the federal government, and which functions Washington keeps. Moderator John King turned to Mr. Romney and asked him about disaster relief, following the tornado that struck Joplin, Mo., the month before.

“FEMA is about to run out of money, and there are some people who say do it on a case-by-case basis and some people who say, you know, maybe we're learning a lesson here that the states should take on more of this role,” Mr. King said. “How do you deal with something like that?”

Romney’s response: “Absolutely. Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that's the right direction. And if you can go even further and send it back to the private sector, that's even better.

“Instead of thinking in the federal budget, what we should cut – we should ask ourselves the opposite question,” Romney continued. “What should we keep? We should take all of what we're doing at the federal level and say, what are the things we're doing that we don't have to do? And those things we've got to stop doing, because we're borrowing $1.6 trillion more this year than we're taking in. We cannot ...”

King interjected: “Including disaster relief, though?”

Romney replied: “We cannot – we cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids. It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we'll all be dead and gone before it's paid off. It makes no sense at all.”

Fast-forward to now. Contacted by the media, the Romney campaign asserts that Romney would not abolish FEMA, but still prefers that states take the lead in disaster response.

“Governor Romney believes that states should be in charge of emergency management in responding to storms and other natural disasters in their jurisdictions,” Romney spokesman Ryan Williams said in a statement to Politico. “As the first responders, states are in the best position to aid affected individuals and communities, and to direct resources and assistance to where they are needed most. This includes help from the federal government and FEMA.”
THE BOTTOM LINE of this amorphous public-policy Randianism so in fashion among conservatives is that if it's all about me, it's not all about you. Or about us.

That's a problem when the default for humanity is to live in community. Together. Not on our own private islands protected by the wide expanse of the Eff You Sea.

Protected, that is, until the Eff You Sea rises up to engulf you, and there's no one with the reach or strength to pluck your rational self-interest out of the storm-tossed waters.

* * *

SOMETHING just occurred to me: At what point does this present Republican nutjobbery actually become nothing more than an ongoing argument against the Constitution and in favor of the Articles of Confederation?

Which we recall worked out so well at the time. 

Monday, October 29, 2012

To every thing there is a season

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

There is a time and a place for everything. Even being an a-hole.
 
The press refer to Chris Christie as being "tough-talking," "straight-talking" or simply "blunt." Now you've seen the guy on TV, and you no doubt have read about some of his encounters with ordinary citizens of the Garden State who might be less than enthusiastic about his tenure as governor.

You know what the guy is, is what I'm trying to say here.

But, as the Good Book says, there is a time and place for all things, and if it's in the Good Book, it must be so:
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven;
a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
HURRICANE SANDY, my friend, is Chris Christie's time in Noo Joisey:
Governor Christie said during a 12 p.m. briefing Monday that conditions will worsen as Sandy makes landfall and anyone who stayed along the coast to ride out the storm is “now in harm’s way.”

“I read some joker in the newspaper…saying he’s never run away from one of these [storms]. Well, you might end up under it…this is not a time to be stupid,” said Christie.

The governor urged residents to stay off the roads, use caution and heed warnings.

He also had a warning regarding power outages.

“If you do not have power, please do not choose today to tap into your creative juices and jerry-rig a [power source],” said Christie. “If it looks stupid, it is stupid.”
LISTEN to the a-hole. If it looks stupid, it is stupid.

Stay safe out there on the Joisey shore. Hurricanes ain't nothing to mess with.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

The smoking lamp is off

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The black eye the Pillsbury Doughmagogue got Wednesday from the Nebraska Legislature means that babies will live.

That Medicaid money will be saved.

And that, here in this beautiful corner of the Great Plains, the founders' words mean a little more than they did the day before.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Not white men. Not Anglo-Saxon men. Not American men.

All men . . . and women. And children in the womb.

ONCE AGAIN in this state, future American citizens in the wombs of their mothers -- whether those mothers be poor, undocumented or both -- won't be regarded by the state as throwaway stepchildren of a lesser god. No thanks to our petulant and Mexican-baiting governor, Dave Heineman, who consistently has seen feeding on the bottom as a sure path to coming out on top.

God don't sleep, and this time neither did the unicameral, which ended its session with multiple political bitch slaps for the Doughmagogue. The
Omaha World-Herald was there for the festivities:
Teary-eyed supporters predicted Wednesday that the Legislature's decision to restore taxpayer-funded prenatal care for illegal immigrants will result in fewer newborns with birth defects and fewer expenses for intensive care stays and delivery room complications.

“For the women, it means they won't have to worry anymore. They can come and get care,” said Andrea Skolkin of South Omaha's One World Community Health Center.

Lawmakers voted 30-16 to override Gov. Dave Heineman's veto of Legislative Bill 599.

The governor predicted that the 2012 legislative session will be remembered most for providing free health care for illegal residents while allowing cities to raise sales taxes on legal residents — referring to the lawmakers' override of another veto.

“I strongly disagree with their decisions,” Heineman said in a prepared statement. “Providing preferential treatment to illegals while increasing taxes on legal Nebraska citizens is misguided, misplaced and inappropriate.”

The vote on the prenatal care bill came at the end of the session's last day, providing an emotional finale to what has been a rough-and-tumble session.

“I like soft landings,” said State Sen. Mike Flood of Norfolk, the speaker of the Legislature. “We had to foam the runways this year. But any landing you walk away from is a good landing.”


(snip)

A similar prenatal care bill was withdrawn from the agenda two years ago, lacking enough votes to pass. This year, a new estimate of the expected fiscal impact of providing the care placed the state's annual cost at about $560,000.

That was less than the cost to taxpayers and hospitals for just two cases of extended neonatal intensive care for babies born to women lacking prenatal care. One case cost more than $800,000.

Sen. Kathy Campbell of Lincoln, a leading supporter of LB 599, said charities and private donations cannot be counted on to finance the care.

Clinics in Omaha and Columbus reported dramatic increases in the number of women seeking free prenatal care, but also several cases of women skipping the care or coming in too late to address early developing problems in their babies. Health professionals have said that for every $1 invested in prenatal care, savings of up to $4 is expected.

“Fiscally, this makes sense,” Flood said. “This is an innocent child in the middle of a red-hot debate about immigration.”

Despite lobbying by Heineman and other foes of the bill, only one previous supporter — Sen. Tom Seiler of Hastings — switched from supporting the measure to opposing the override.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

A confederacy of dunces


Getting between the oil industry's posterior and Louisiana politicians' lips is a tight spot only Rhett Butler could love -- "I've always had a weakness for lost causes once they're really lost."


Odd that it was a Yankee academic and not Capt. Butler embarking on such a quixotic scheme Monday before a joint meeting of state House and Senate natural-resources committees. Either he was making the kind of profit the fictional Butler did from running guns to the Confederates, or the man just had no idea what he was walking into.

The Oregon economics professor's first mistake, sad to say, was in going to Louisiana in the first place. Nothing good could come of it.

His second mistake was in telling Louisianians --
politicians, no less -- what he took to be the truth, instead of what they wanted to hear.

THE THIRD mistake, as reported by The Advocate in Baton Rouge, was a doozy. He told the legislators that an LSU professor was dead wrong (and guilty of sloppy research) in his report arguing that the state was losing beaucoup revenue and jobs by not throttling lawsuits over environmental damage from old oilfields.
W. Ed Whitelaw, a professor of economics at the University of Oregon, said the widely quoted analysis omitted relevant facts, including any mention of two hurricanes.

David Dismukes, an LSU professor who works for the LSU Center for Energy Studies, released an analysis in February that found that during the past eight years, Louisiana missed out on more than 30,000 oil and gas jobs and support positions because of what
are called “legacy lawsuits.”

The lawsuits are over the extent of cleanup of environmental damage caused by oil producers’ drilling practices years ago.

A joint hearing of the Louisiana House and state Senate committees on Natural Resources met Monday to “informally discuss the issues” involving legislation that would change the procedures leading to lawsuits over the environmental damage.

“Legacy lawsuits are strongly and negatively correlated with Louisiana drilling activity,” Dismukes’ report says. “Increases in legacy lawsuits are correlated with reductions in conventional Louisiana oil and gas drilling.”

Whitelaw, founder of ECONorthwest, a Portland, Ore., company that provides financial
analysis for businesses and governments, said Dismukes’ widely quoted analysis has several major flaws.

“Understand that these errors, and there are three or four big ones, any one of which is enough to render his analysis nonsense,” Whitelaw said. “These are rookie errors.”
OOOOOOOOOH. Bad move.

In the Gret Stet, legislators reserve the right to starve Louisiana universities to death, but they'll be damned if some damn Yankee is gonna come down and tell 'em they're getting what they pay for. Or not getting what they refuse to pay for.

At any rate, ancestral hatred, a raging inferiority complex, a genuine lack of intelligence and good old bayou buffoonery combined for a quite predictable display of pique and posturing. Like I said, I hope Whitelaw's making obscene money for his expert testimony.
In the joint committee hearing, state Sen. Norby Chabert, R-Houma, came to Dismukes’ defense, asking former U.S. Rep. Chris John, who now heads the Baton Rouge-based industry group Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association, how he felt about Whitelaw’s testimony.

“It always chaps my hide when folks come in here from out of state and degrade our universities and our faculty,” Chabert said.

John agreed, saying the oil and gas industry works closely with LSU, his alma mater.

“It is something that we should consider when a person from the Oregon Ducks would actually sit at this table; we’ve had our issues with the Oregon Ducks,” Johns said.
WHAT (expletive deleted) morons. What clowns.

It says nothing good about Louisiana that it's occurred to no one that so many of the state's political maladies could be solved by no longer reminding its politicians to breathe.

It also says nothing good about the place that it's occurred to so few there that the rest of America isn't laughing
with Louisiana, but instead at Louisiana.

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Uneasy lies the head of the Doughmagogue


When you hit bottom in politics, you have only yourself to compete with for King of the Muck.

In which case, put a crown on the Pillsbury Doughmagogue -- Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman. And if you're an all-'Mercun mouth-breather, the king wants to hear from you at 1-800-LYIN SOB. He's ready to talk "illegals" and "anchor babies" if you are; the fewer actual facts, the better.

And know that your "pro-life" monarch -- the one who vetoes funding for prenatal care for poor fetuses -- has what it takes to once again make the Cornhusker State (both in taxes and in complexion) "the white spot" of America.
Sorry . . . 'Mercuh.
As promised, Gov. Dave Heineman on Friday vetoed a controversial bill that would restore prenatal services for illegal immigrants.

But the pro-life governor's veto message included a new and potentially explosive new charge: that some of the prenatal funds could find their way to a leading pro-choice organization, Planned Parenthood.

“I oppose providing taxpayer benefits to illegal immigrants,” Heineman said in a press release. “I oppose providing taxpayer funding to vendors that perform or promote abortions.”

A Planned Parenthood of the Heartland official said Friday that the organization doesn't provide prenatal services at its Nebraska clinics, which are in Omaha and Lincoln.

Supporters of the bill, including some anti-abortion officials, said the charge was a last-minute attempt to derail an attempted override of the governor's veto. The Legislature's override vote on Legislative Bill 599 is scheduled for Wednesday.

“This is nothing more than an eleventh-hour attempt to scuttle LB 599,” said Julie Schmit-Albin, the executive director of Nebraska Right to Life, the leading anti-abortion organization in the state.

State Sen. Kathy Campbell of Lincoln, the chief sponsor of the bill, said she was “disturbed” that the comment about Planned Parenthood wasn't raised until after the measure had progressed through three rounds of debate in the Legislature.

But Campbell said she did not think it would erode support for LB 599, to which 31 lawmakers gave final-round approval — one vote more than necessary to override the governor's veto.
OF COURSE, there is that veto-proof majority thing in the Legislature. Sigh.

"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown."