To Attract Tourists, Louisiana Governor Announces Free Oil Giveaway

by: fake consultant

Fri Apr 30, 2010 at 03:14:39 AM EDT

Jindal, flanked by British Petroleum's Director of Marketing Dick Timoneous and the Executive Director of the Louisiana State Tourism Board, Jenna Talia, announced that the "All The Oil You Can Carry Festival" would officially commence today just east of New Orleans, and last at least through the month of May.

The Styles Bridges Anti-Stimulus Measuring Stick

by: Dean Barker

Thu Feb 26, 2009 at 21:43:25 PM EST

I think I've found an historical measuring stick for the crazy they feel.

Former New Hampshire Governor, and later Senator, Styles Bridges, is famous, or infamous, rather, for a few things.

Such as his staunch support for Joseph McCarthy.  And his friendship with J. Edgar Hoover, whom he used to spy on his political enemies.  And then there's the time he blackmailed Senator Lester Hunt (D-WY) into dropping out of his reelection race, or else face his son being prosecuted for the misdemeanor of soliciting sex from a male undercover cop. (Hunt refused. Bridges went forward and outed the boy.  The Senator from Wyoming later shot and killed himself in his office.)

But let's leave all that aside.  In terms of policy, Styles Bridges is perhaps best known for being one of the loudest Republican voices against the New Deal, particularly regarding what he felt was FDR's bias toward labor unions.  As is noted (transcription, and any errors, mine) in James Kiepper's Styles Bridges: Yankee Senator,

He complained, "We have expended nationally billions and billions of dollars...and we have made no progress at all...Our present heavy relief expenditures will be with us for many years to come. Don't let anyone tell you differently."
    Roosevelt's 1932 election had been a "ghastly mistake," declared Bridges, which submerged "most of the states in the union beneath a flood of Democratic debt, doubt, and delay."

Well, guess what? Style Bridges, the Anti-FDR, was nonetheless one of the strongest supporters of unemployment relief around at the time.  From the book (p.249):

Unemployment insurance is not a cure-all, but it is the single greatest constructive step from the staggering burden of relief.

So when Bobby Jindal and Rick Perry and whoever else from this parade of charlatan public servants get on their political hobby horse and proudly declare that they will keep money out of the least fortunate of their citizens' hands, remember Styles Bridges.

Bridges, a man remarkable for the stridency of his conservatism and the ferocity of his partisanship, who nonetheless was human enough to understand the basic morality of accepting money that's been offered for the jobless during a severe economic crisis.

When Bobby Jindal First Comes a-Knockin to NH...

by: Dean Barker

Fri Feb 20, 2009 at 22:24:48 PM EST

Update: MT Gov. Brian Schweitzer sees straight through this callous ploy:

"We're getting wrapped around the axle on these new stimulus dollars as if the federal government never sent any money to states before," he said. "Who builds the highways? They send the money, we do. They send the money, we fix them. Who shares in Medicaid? This is not something new. People act as though these dollars are a brand new source of dollars that are going out to states. They've added about 20%, maybe 25% this year, but during the time that these governors - must of whom will be governors during an 8-year period - this represents around 5, 6 percent of the total dollars that come from the federal government."