Christmas in July

It's Christmas in July for Ginger & Slim, and we got so much schadenfreude we're thinking of re-gifting some to our less sassy loved ones. Ensign. Sanford. Palin. FRANKEN COMES ALIVE.

What's next? Will Arnold go ballistic over the CA budget clusterfuck and murder a fourth of the Kennedy clan? Will one of Bobby Jindal's exorcisms go terribly awry in The Exorcism of Emily Rose 2? Where is Mitt Romney's illegal immigrant Hispanic love child? How many dead prostitutes are in Tim Pawlenty's basement?

But enough evil cackling for now. All of this Republican embarrassment has led pundits to their own severely embarrassing conclusion: Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour could be a 2012 contender. Barbour is truly a GOP powerhouse, and he makes no apologies for disenfranchising black voters, denying Medicaid to the poor, encouraging ten-year-olds to smoke, or eating five rare steaks a day for lunch. He is influential, he is likeable, and he is one shrewd dick. Sanford's emo love affair has resulted in Barbour becoming chair of the RGA a year early, and he's been drumming up money for the party in Iowa and New Hampshire recently. But he won't run.

A recent piss poor article talked about Barbour's "murky past," but nothing in the profile would preclude him from running, in part because he's no worse than any other Republican and in part because it's all common knowledge. Barbour won't run because he loves being insider power broker, and he's kind of old, and he's super fat, and he's ready to semi-retire to the farm, play party grandfather behind the scenes, and await the major coronary. 

Barbour doesn't make mistakes. He is well aware of his weaknesses, and he went ahead and took himself out of the race some time ago. Barbour would never pardon murderers-turned-mansion-gardeners if he was looking towards the big prize. By hyping Barbour's chances, pundits and reporters are simply showing their ignorance of American politics by actually considering that the GOP is so fucked that Haley's their last best chance. 

The 2012 GOP presidential nominee isn't even on the radar. So if the media could go ahead and stop trying to find him/her and get me some more scandal, that would be great. 

~Slim

Bobby Jindal, Voice from the Grave

While news commentators spoke of the certain irony in the Governor of Louisiana invoking the evils of government spending, of corruption, and the massive failures during Katrina to rouse people to the Republican cause, I need to address a few more pressing and ridiculous issues that came to light during the Response from the Plantation House.

If you could look beyond the cotton crop, over the slave quarters, around the "Colored" restrooms, and past the ol' hangin' tree, you would see the Louisiana exeuctive mansion. I expected to find inside the aforementioned Governor Bobby Jindal (R-SelfPromotion). Instead, I found something else quite remarkable. Apparently, Mr. Rogers' corpse rose up and raped a ventriloquists' doll to produce a love child with a voice that combined condescension, creepiness, and cartoonesque cadence.

As if you could possibly take seriously a man who sounded like the narrator from a Hans Christian Andersen story filling in for the 1930s newsreel voiceover who came down with the consumption, he had something of "substance" to say. He spoke from the heart about what all Louisianans believe was the great "scourge." A functioning judicial system? Nope. Prohibition? Nope. Oil Revenue Taxes? Nope. Slavery? Yes. Wait... Yessirrey, he labeled slavery a scourge, immediately making his reelection bid more competitive.

Unfortunately, all of the state's life-sized cardboard cutouts of the Gipper washed away when Katrina tried to punish the gays in New Orleans. So, Governor Jindal had to rely on a more veiled reference to Reagan, invoking the "Soviet menace." Seriously? Soviets were the only threat you could think of? Is this 1961? I guess when you're complaining about taxes being too high and government spending being out of control, the most reasoned approach is to reference the Cold War, a time when budgets were balanced and government programs were logical, efficient, productive and never wasteful. Oh wait....

Apparently, you need no training in history (high school or college) to qualify for a Rhodes Scholarship, a seat in the U.S. Congress, and the occupancy of Louisiana's governor's mansion. But then again, history books are still useful. Something has to kindle the fire under the (not so) ol' hangin' tree....

-Ginger

Rep. James Clyburn vs. White Southern GOP Establishment: Round 5729835

Oh, The South.

South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn is super pissed that Southern GOP governors are threatening to refuse federal stimulus money. He's backtracked from his original assertion that the move is "a slap in the face of African-Americans," but only by about a fourth of an inch.

Sassy academic Joseph A. Palermo incisively compares the prattle of certain Southern GOP governors to a neo-Confederate uprising. The would-be secessionists:

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal - Indian-American GOP superstar with ambition overload
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour - fattest governor in the nation, by far
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford - a literal lover of the original Confederacy
Texas Gov. Rick Perry - gets a stiffy every time a mentally retarded minority death row inmate is executed

But to be fair to the above state executives, I don't think they're consciously trying to make life more difficult for minorities in their home states, just the one who recently became President. And who's helping them along with that? Oh, it's Jim Clyburn.

Remember that one time he successfully inserted language in the stimulus bill that endowed state legislatures with the power to override their governors' refusal of federal stimulus funds? No state lawmaker would turn down even a single road project for his or her district. Sounds to me like Jindal & Co. can posture all they want, knowing in the end, they can cry separation of powers and the voters will get the funds.

Poor Rep. Clyburn. He should have spent less time simmering with hatred and paranoia and more time pondering the obvious fact that the would-be secessionists - an ambitious and practical lot - could have never raised this stink without his help.

~Slim

Rhodes to Perdition

The stimulus bill offers us a wonderful look at how ridiculous is the state of Louisiana. Current governor and Republican Presidential hopeful, Bobby Jindal, is claiming he won't take federal stimulus money to help stabilize the economy of his state. Despite the fact that the bill has been passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the President, and that federal tax revenue flowing out of his state will help pay for this package, he wants to refuse it.
So, here are two important questions that come out of this fool-fest in the bayou.

First, will the Republican party's favorite poster child for equality and tolerance turn down a package that help his constituents? Will his misguided principles trump the needs and well-being of some of the poorest, hardest-hit Americans? Of course his alternative is to take the money silently while railing against it (a la Reagan-era tax hikes). So, if he picks the former he's a scumbag, if he takes the latter he is two-faced (and still kind of a scumbag).

Second, if he does bend his constituents over a levee and fill them with the swampy magic of continued economic hardship what is their response? Do they boot his ass out of office after one term Kathleen Blanco-style. Or like all upstanding, poor, conservative Republicans do they put their kids to bed hungry, genuflect before a portrait of Ronald Reagan, and blame Democrats, lesbians, and terrorists for all the tragedy in the world?

-Ginger