Of Constipated Yaks and Reality

¡Hola! Everybody...

I have to admit that I was pleased beyond words watching those tight-assed neocons squirm while our (yes, he’s your president too Kansas!) delivered one of the great speeches (in style and substance) in recent memory. I mean you could almost hear their anal sphincters under the tightening pressure.

And, yes, I’m happy that Barry reminded everybody we inherited the current mess...

But what struck me most, was the incompetent, intellectually bankrupt, laughable Republican response as personified by Louisiana governor Jindal. Can you say out of touch?!! BTW, call me mean, but is it just me, or do you also note a resemblance between Jindal and a constipated yak? I’m sayin’!

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-=[Reality Testing ]=-

“Delusions, errors and lies are like huge, gaudy vessels, the rafters of which are rotten and worm-eaten, and those who embark in them are fated to be shipwrecked.”

-- Siddhartha Guatama Buddha (563–483 BC)

Okay! Here’s reality

::points left::

And here are the neoCONS

::points right::

And never the twain shall meet! LOL In case you missed it, last night President Obama hit the ball out of the park. He bitched-slapped some silly neocon butt early on, gave some substance in the middle, and left off with a message of hope and can-do. Whatever your political affiliation, you can’t deny it was a masterful performance. I’m willing to bet even some of Red State Randy’s family members secretly wet themselves.

Jindal, and some other Republican governors, notably Haley Barbour of Mississippi, are actually making some noise about turning down millions in federal funds for their own state’s unemployed out of fear that, four years from now, they may have to maintain full unemployment insurance -- like the rest of America.

Barbour’s excuse, mimicked by Jindal, is that the Obama payments to the unemployed of their states would mean, when the economy recovers, that their state would have to increase unemployment insurance taxes and payments (hence bringing it out of the Dark Ages and commensurate to the US average) scaring away new employers. Barbour squeals that he wants more jobs. Hello!! This is Mississippi. Exactly what new “jobs” is he talking about? An economist would be hard put to explain what job sector that state leads in. Sure, they can boast of growing employment at several casinos and cathouses sprouting in what the locals call the “Coon-ass Riviera,” but otherwise it’s zips-ville in Louisiana and Mississippi. On second thought, Jindal’s Louisiana was the state that solved its unemployment problem by sending its unemployed to Texas in FEMA trailers.

And it’s true that the two states lead the nation in a few important indicators. Like poverty: Mississippi has America's highest poverty rate. Louisiana is third worst in America.

And how about their commitment to education? Louisiana ranks 5th and Mississippi 2nd worst in school kids’ math scores.

::blank stare::

Jindal himself is a product of a more advanced culture: His parents are Democrats. The Jindals are Hindus who came from the Punjab in India, a state known for its welfare safety net. Jindal apparently has gone native, becoming a born-again Christian Republican who doesn’t accept Darwinian evolution nor Keynesian economics. Next thing you know, he’ll be marrying his cousin at a tractor pull in order to complete his redneck makeover.

For over a century, Louisiana and Mississippi have been trying to attract employers by selling their citizens to the lowest bidder. The results, according to economic indicators, are blindingly visible: Mississippi and Louisiana, under the Barbour/Jindal Republican regime, maintain the lowest per-capita incomes in the nation (50th and 46th respectively). MississippiLouisiana infant mortality rates (1st and 3rd in deaths in the USA) would shame Third World nations. and

The Louisiana State Legislature has seriously considered demanding the requirement that schools teach evolution as merely a theory equal to the Bible’s creation myth. Sure, big time employers salivate at the thought of basing their headquarters in a state filled with Bible-thumping, dumb-fuck rednecks.

I know, I know! It’s cruel to make jokes about America’s own “special” Third World states. And before anyone gets their knickers in a twist, I’ll be the first to point out that Jazz was purportedly invented in Nawlins’.

Still, Jindal’s rejection of funds for his state’s own unemployed is simply a consequence of Republican plantation-mentality cruelty. I still find it hard to believe Jindal had the cojones to mention Hurricane Katrina as a rationale for continuing the lie that “Gub’mint is evil.” That was so out of touch with even rednecks that the Red line (denoting people who voted for McCain) in the video above flat-lined in favor of Obama! (I think that was Randy getting moist, personally.)

To evoke the drowning of New Orleans and the “let 'em drown” rescue plans of the Bush Administration was more than incompetent; it was sickening, heartless and, well, Republican. Marie Antoinette at least offered cake.

In the face of a courageous and honest speech by a sitting president, the neoCONS sent up Jindal and what we witnessed was the dismantling of a young career (I can see the SNL skit already) and a refusal by the Republicans to come up with anything other than tax cuts for the rich in the face of a once-in-a-lifetime economic crisis.

SMH

Love,

Eddie