Campaigning With God

As "a lifelong Christian who teaches Sunday school most weekends at my United Methodist congregation in Baton Rouge," Robert Mann has reasons beyond the ideological to point out that Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal

isn’t a stupid man. He knows well that there’s no plot on the left to deny Christians access to the public square. He knows Christianity isn’t under assault from liberals....

Jindal isn’t attacked for being a Christian. He’s been attacked for being the opposite of a Christian — a cynical charlatan who appeals to the grievance, fear and hatred among the Christian right.

Jindal is a GOP presidential candidate who holds a biology degree from an Ivy League school and is a former Rhodes scholar. Still, he has evolved from 2008 into an avid cultural warrior and responding to the Supreme Court decision on marriage, maintained on Friday "This decision will pave the way for an all out assault against the religious freedom rights of Christians who disagree with this decision. This ruling must not be used as pretext by Washington to erode our right to religious liberty."

Jindal (on Meet The Press Sunday, below) talks often about his faith and especially about alleged encroachment upon religious liberty, but

it is rarely to share with his listeners how Jesus Christ has transformed his life (although when speaking at churches, he does sometimes give a personal testimony about his conversion to Christianity). Jindal rarely quotes the Bible, or even Pope Francis, in his speeches.

For kicks, I Googled, ”Jindal my faith teaches me.” What I got were not statements about grace, humility or the poor. Instead, I found a great deal about Jindal’s views on same-sex marriage.








Taking the bait, I for kicks Googled "Obama my faith teaches me" and the best I could come up with was this report of Obama's speech in 2007 at the 50th anniversary celebration of the United Church of Christ, in which

“My faith teaches me that I can sit in church and pray all I want, but I won’t be fulfilling God’s will unless I go out and do the Lord’s work,” he said, speaking before more than 9,000 people at the Hartford Civic Center in front of a red and black backdrop with the church’s marketing slogan: “God is still speaking.”

(That "marketing slogan" was not in vogue in 2007, when CBS and NBC refused to air one of the denomination's ads, shown below. Despite the Court's ruling Friday, don't expect either network- or Anthony Kennedy- to apologize.)






President Obama, though, has cited his religious faith on another occasion, when in 2008 he told Rick Warren (and a national audience) "I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. Now, for me as a Christian, it is also a sacred union. God's in the mix."

God, it turns out, was the Vice-President, who on Meet The Press during the 2012 presidential race endorsed same-sex marriage, forcing Obama out of the closet despite that "sacred union" stuff. Notwithstanding Obama's on-again, off-again opposition opposition to gay marriage, prior to the ruling he bragged- without hint of irony or introspection- "When I became President, same-sex marriage was legal in only 2 states. Today, it’s legal in 37 states and the District of Columbia."









There are a few believers, a Mike Huckabee here and there. However, when a politician, Democratic or Republican, starts talking "my faith," hold on to your wallet. He or she smells a  mark. Don't let it be you.





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What A Real Purge Looks Like

In an article posted on CNN's website, former House Repub Leader Eric Cantor is giddy about using the phrase "civil war," using it three times in the text of his piece.  "Spend just a little time watching what has been described as a "civil war" within the Democratic Party over the issue of trade policy and you get a real sense of the predicament Hilary Clinton finds herself in," writes Cantor as he links to a Politico article in which the term is used only once, and that in the headline.

More significantly, however, Cantor employs "free trade" twelve times, such as when claiming

Today, the ascendant progressive elements of the Democratic Party are working overtime to purge the remaining pro-free trade faction of the party both in Congress and in the contest for the presidential nomination. If they are successful, this will have a profoundly negative impact on America's ability to be a reliable advocate for free trade.

Unfortunately for the country, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Cantor lustily supports, is not a free-trade agreement. Dean Baker explains

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is often referred to in the media as a "free-trade" agreement. This is not true. Most of the pact is about putting in place a business-friendly regulatory structure, not reducing trade barriers. Perhaps more importantly, the deal will explicitly increase protectionist barriers in the form of stronger and longer copyright and patent-related protections.

These forms of protection impose the same sort of costs as any other form of protection. Markets are not smart enough to know that they aren't supposed to create distortions for protections that our politicians like (e.g. copyrights and patents) as opposed to the protections they ostensibly don't like (tariffs and quotas).

These distortions are likely to be large since copyrights and patents raise prices by many multiples of their free market price. For example, the patent protected version of the Hepatitis-C drug Sovaldi sells for $84,000 for a treatment in the United States. A high quality generic version is sold in India for less than $1,000. This gap implies that the patent would have the same effect in creating distortions as a 9000 percent tariff. Since the TPP would strengthen such protections, we can assume that the resulting distortions would increase.

Details, details. More interesting, though, is Cantor's statement  "In the current debate over Trade Promotion Authority in Congress, lack of trust in President Obama seems to be a more animating factor in Republican concerns than any animus towards free trade."

"Animus" is a derogatory term, particularly compared to the far more positive "lack of trust in."  Further, the remark is preceded by  "As Republican districts have become more conservative overall, Republican officials have less to fear politically from an anti-trade Democratic challenger."     Cantor is defending his GOP colleagues when he ascribes "Republican concerns" to a lack of trust (otherwise known as "animus") in the President rather than principle, which he calls "animus toward free trade.

In a bizarre twist, Cantor remarks

Today, the ascendant progressive elements of the Democratic Party are working overtime to purge the remaining pro-free trade faction of the party both in Congress and in the contest for the presidential nomination. If they are successful, this will have a profoundly negative impact on America's ability to be a reliable advocate for free trade.

If progressives are trying to "purge" any group from the ranks of their Party, they are late to that party, as events in Louisiana recently, and in Iowa four years ago, illustrate. According to The Associated Press

The proposal’s been called a sham, a fake, a gimmick, even money laundering. It’s also become the linchpin of a budget deal between lawmakers and Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration. And it’s all about protecting Jindal’s record as he eyes a presidential campaign.

Without it, a financing proposal that shields public higher education and health care services from deep cuts could go down in flames.

The dispute centers on a bill by state Sen. Jack Donahue, R-Mandeville, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, that would create the Student Assessment for a Valuable Education, or SAVE, tax credit.

Only it wouldn’t lessen anyone’s taxes at all.

The proposal would involve raising a new “assessment” on college students. The students wouldn’t actually pay the fee because it would be covered by the state through the tax credit, paid directly to colleges.

It’s a pass-through that doesn’t provide any net new revenue to the state or to colleges.

If no one pays the new fee and no one actually gains any new revenue from the tax credit, what’s the point of the bill?

Creating a tax credit — at least on paper — can be used as an offset to count against tax increases used to generate new money for the state’s budget, like a cigarette tax hike.

And that matters very much to Gov. Bobby Jindal, so he can claim Louisiana didn’t raise taxes to balance the budget.

Jindal, expected to announce his White House bid in New Orleans on June 24, won’t support any tax changes he — or national anti-tax activist Grover Norquist — considers a net tax increase.

Oh, but that's only Bobby Jindal, Eric Cantor might say.   However, when moderating a presidential debate (excerpt below) in Iowa on August 11, 2001, Fox News' Brett Baier

phrased it this way: “I’m going to ask a question to everyone here on the stage. Say you had a deal, a real spending cuts deal, 10-to-1, as Byron said, spending cuts to tax increases…. Who on this stage would walk away from that deal? Can you raise your hand if you feel so strongly about not raising taxes, you’d walk away on the 10-to-1 deal?”

All eight candidates raised their hand. Literally all of them, if offered a debt-reduction deal that’s 10-to-1 in their favor, would simply refuse.

Republicans don't have to purge their ranks of candidates who don't "work overtime" to lower the taxes of the wealthy and pad their accounts. They've already done it.











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An Uneasy Alliance Likely To Become More Uneasy

Say it ain't so, Joe (video below from the original, by Murray Head; beneath that, by Roger Daltrey because... because Roger Daltrey).   Or, rather, say it ain't so, Anthony.













Think Progress' Ian Millhiser reminds us

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in four cases consolidated under the name Obergefell v. Hodges. By the end of June, the Court is widely expected to hand down a decision declaring that anti-gay marriage discrimination violates the Constitution. Indeed, this outcome is so widely expected that one of the Court’s conservatives, Justice Clarence Thomas, complained in February that his colleagues are signaling that marriage equality is coming.

Probably- but that depends on Chief Justice Roberts' Supreme Court actually taking a stand. Kimberly Strassel suggested a different scenario on Sunday's Face The Nation when she speculated

So I think one of the interesting things here is how is the court going to rule. They're going to want very much for it to be a state's right. It's a question that I don't think by the way that that is still out of the realm of possibility. People are talking about Anthony Kennedy being the final deciding vote on this. And he has been very sympathetic to gay marriage in past decisions. But he's also a big fan of states' rights. And there are two questions that the court is looking at. One is, is there a constitutional right to this? But the second one is is there the 14th Amendment, does it require states to recognize gay marriages from out of states? And there is a scenario you could see in which they ruled no on the first question, and yes in the second.

Strassel is a Wall Street Journal columnist so solace may be taken in her usually being wrong. But it's not inconceivable that the Court will rule that there is no constitutional right to same-sex marriage but that if the voters (or its proxy, the legislature) of your state decide there will be no same-sex marriage, they still will have to recognize the marriage of two women or of two men who move to your state. They thus would be entitled to a right (or privilege, as the Court would have inferred) that life-long residents of your state would not be entitled to.

That would not only be grossly unfair but would make the current chaos of differing state laws look like a model of clarity and stability.   But it's possible because a decision along those lines would have Justice Kennedy's fingerprints all over it and, Millhiser notes

As any law student who has struggled through Kennedy’s gay rights opinions can tell you, they are not models of clarity. They ooze with flowery language and passages that seem at odds with other parts of the same opinion. And they lack coherence with decades of Supreme Court precedent. Kennedy’s opinions do not so much revise legal doctrine as they skip through the wilderness of constitutional law, blithely ignoring the paths laid by more thoughtful travelers.

But if Justice Thomas months is prescient, we will see what the modern Repub Party is all about.

In an enlightening discussion on a recent episode of All In, Chris Hayes states that the Republicans' "bacon will be saved" assuming such a ruling. Robert Costa, however, notes

There are two theories out there when I speak to top Republican strategists. One, is this Supreme Court decision going to be a grenade, ignite the Republican primary and set off a cultural war- competition to go further to the right- or is it battled, people are opposed to it and move on.

Seemingly, Bobby Jindal does not want to move on. At the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition Summit Saturday, the National Review reports, he exclaimed

Here’s my message for Hollywood and the media elite. The United States of America did not create religious liberty. Religious liberty created the United States of America... 

“We saw corporate America team up with the radical left to come after our religious liberty rights,” he said, referring to Indiana Governor Mike Pence’s fight against gay rights groups after he signed a religious freedom law last month. “They might as well save their breath, because corporate America is not gonna bully the governor of Louisiana!”

Governor Jindal may back off his controversial charge, for it is the elephant in the room, the 800 pound gorilla. The donor base of the GOP for decades merely has put up with the popular base, needing the latter's votes to put corporate-friendly politicians into office.  Whenever the people began questioning the guys with deep pockets, the latter could always "abortion!" and the cultural warriors would be satisfied for awhile.

Costa pointed out "the donor base feels great" about the likelihood of  a gay-favorable vote in the Court, a sentiment most conservative voters recognize but are reluctant to acknowledge publicly, sometimes even privately.  It isn't easy to come to grips with the realization that you've been duped all along- or at least your electoral allies don't have the same values you do.

Jindal's notion would be cataclysmic if it gets out. Consequently, it will be largely ignored. But even if it is, a Supreme Court ruling wiping out laws prohibiting same-sex marriage might (notwithstanding Hayes' prediction) set off a battle within the Republican Party. And if it doesn't, and the presidential candidates and congressional leaders "move on," we'll finally have definitive proof that Big Money controls the GOP lock, stock, and barrel





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Ignorance Is Bliss, Or At Least Convenient

In May, House Majority Leader John Boehner was asked by  a reporter "Are there steps you would support to take action against climate change, and do you think it's a problem?" Boehner stated "Listen, I'm not qualified to debate the science over climate change" before he explained that we shouldn't do anything about it.

Queried the same month about climate change, fraudster Rick Scott, en route to being re-elected governor of Florida, said "I'm not a scientist." Twice.  On her way in October to being elected to the U.S. Senate, ultra-right winger Jodi Ernst of Iowa maintained “I don’t know the science behind climate change. I can’t say one way or another what is the direct impact, whether it’s man-made or not."

Asked at an interview on October 2 about climate change, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell responded "We can debate this forever.   George Will had a column in the last year or so pointing out that in the 70s, we were concerned the ice age was coming. I'm not a scientist. I'm interested in protecting Kentucky's economy." The same month, Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal at a breakfast organized by the Christian Science Monitor was asked by Howard Fineman about climate change and responded "I’d leave it to the scientists to decide how much, what it means, and what the consequences are…. Let the scientists debate and figure that out."

You might notice a pattern here.  While a few concede the existence of climate change (but generally claiming ignorance of its cause) and some deny it, Boehner, Scott, McConnell, and Jindal are among those Republicans who have gotten the memo and now skirt the issue of global warming by denying they are scientists.

They may even have noticed another pattern, though few Republicans will acknowledge it.   Meteorologist Eric Holthaus reports that we of the planet recently have experienced the warmest April on record, the warmest May on record, the warmest June on record, and the warmest September on record. Not surprisingly, then, April to September was the warmest six-month  period  and November, 2013-October, 2014 the warmest twelve-month period on record.  Moreover, these trends occurred in the absence of an El Nino, whose arrival tends to result in record-setting warmth because it warms the Pacific Ocean, the world's largest ocean (image below, from NASA, of October climate anomaly vs. 1951-1986).

Six months ago, Holthaus noted human beings "started burning fossil fuels in large quantities about 250 years ago." Yet, there has "been more greenhouse gas emissions in the last 40 years than over the previous 200" years..    That's a pattern even more disturbing than grown men and women putting their hands over their ears, closing their eyes and minds, and doing whatever they have to to pretend they aren't marching to the tune of the fossil fuel industry.

The possibilities are endless. Pressed on their view of agricultural subsidies for the genetically modified crops of corn and soy, Republicans can say "I'm not a farmer."  On cutting taxes for the wealthy, they can claim "I'm not an economist."  On requiring businesses to provide health care coverage that covers the cost of contraceptives for employees, GOP politicians can maintain "I'm not a doctor."  And on the great issues of war and peace, they can admit "I'm not a general," a claim that would have the added benefit of suggesting only effete liberals believe in civilian control of the military.

Without their input, it would be one small step for ignorance, one giant leap for effective government.



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Something Small, Please

How touching, trying to relive the days of "compassionate conservativsm," the lingusitic effort of Frank Luntz, Karl Rove, and George W. Bush to refashion Republican big government, corporate-centric conservatism with a softer, gentler veeer.  Jeb Bush and Bobby Jindal will 

appear in a commercial that will air Sunday to promote NewRepublican.org, a project focused on outlining a positive GOP agenda for the future.

The former Florida governor and the current Louisiana governor, both potential 2016 presidential candidates, support a super PAC that is the brainchild of Republican strategist Alex Castellanos.

“If you believe that every parent ought to be able to choose their child’s school, and that the economy should be driven from the bottom up, not the top down from Washington, then you’re thinking like a New Republican,” Bush says to the camera at the start of the 30-second spot, shared first with POLITICO.

“If you don’t think the Republican Party should be the party of big government, big business or big anything, you’re thinking like a New Republican,” adds Jindal.

Castellanos created the group last year after the party’s losses in 2012, when he felt there was too much focus on attacking Barack Obama without a clear vision for where conservatives want to take the country.

This would be no more touching, but far more believable, if we hadn't learned from The Washington Post a couple of weeks ago

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush will get top billing when he and other potential 2016 presidential candidates join billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson for an exclusive Republican gathering next week in Las Vegas.

Bush, who is quietly exploring a run for the White House, will be the featured speaker at an exclusive VIP dinner on Thursday hosted by Adelson and his wife, Miriam, at his company’s private airplane hangar at Las Vegas Macarran International Airport, according to a draft itinerary obtained by The Washington Post.  The Adelsons’ dinner for Bush will kick off the Republican Jewish Coalition’s four-day spring leadership meeting, during which politicians and major GOP donors will mingle at golf and poker tournaments, as well as in political strategy sessions.

"The Las Vegas meeting," Forbes reported on Thursday, "was dubbed the "'Adelson primary' because of the billionaire’s outsized influence on Republican campaigns. Attendees included heavy hitters like New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush."  Yes, that Jeb Bush, who wants you to know, as his colleague from Louisiana put it, the Republican Party should not "be the party of big government, big business or big anything,"

And Adelson's mega-fortune keeps growing, in that, according to Forbes on Wednesday

In the two days since he hosted the Republican Jewish Coalition’s meeting with several possible 2016 Republican candidates at his Venetian Resort and Hotel,  Adelson personally made $2.1 billion — 21 times the $100 million he reported giving away during the 2012 presidential election.

Adelson proves GOP propaganda that only hard, dedication, and merit stand between middle class workers and the American dream of astounding success.  In true style of the Party which opposes abortion, family planning, health care for the poor, and anything which might threaten family values

Shares of his casino company Las Vegas Sands LVS -1.68% climbed Monday and then spiked Tuesday after an overnight report showed strong first quarter gambling revenues in Macau, where Adelson has extensive operations. The 6% stock jump over two days, coupled with a dividend payout on Monday, pushed Adelson’s net worth up $2.1 billion to $40 billion, cementing his position as eighth-richest in the world by Wednesday morning.

Adelson’s fortune has jumped $36.6 billion since Forbes published its billionaires list in 2009. The explosion in wealth has allowed the gaming mogul to become a major player in American politics. His recent $2.1 billion gain demonstrates just how large his fortune is — and how little his political donations affect it.

Adelson’s shares in Las Vegas Sands are worth $36 billion on their own. But they also kick off massive cash payments. On Monday, the company doled out a quarterly dividend that put an estimated $164 million in cash into Adelson’s pocket after taxes. His total cash pile is now an estimated $4.3 billion.

George W. Bush's kid brother now has become the focus of attention of the big money boys in the GOP and not coincidentally, the mainstream media, their man crush on Chris Christie having subsided with the American people beginning to catch on to how dishonest (if not corrupt) he is.

The intense interest includes, but is not limited, to Adelson, whose opposition to Internet gambling (competition for his brick-and-mortar operations) is his current obsession, but who has fervently supported the crushing of Iran and of unions.  Below, in a cartoon by Matt Wuerker for Daily Kos, we get an idea how Jeb Bush believes "the economy should be driven from the bottom up, not the top down from Washington":

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Hindsight Limited

When he was asked about running for president, Republican governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana responded, "My honest answer is I don't know what I'm going to be doing in 2016."

An even more honest answer would have been: "I don't even know what stupid thing I'm going to say next." The Associated Press reports

The nation's governors emerged from a meeting with President Barack Obama on Monday claiming harmony, only to immediately break into an on-camera partisan feud in front of the West Wing.

Louisiana Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal lashed out first, saying if Obama were serious about growing the economy he would approve the Keystone XL pipeline project and take other executive actions.

Instead, Jindal said, Obama "seems to be waving the white flag of surrender" on the economy by focusing on raising the federal minimum wage to $10.10, up from $7.25. "The Obama economy is now the minimum wage economy. I think we can do better than that," Jindal said.

Jindal's statements were the kind that Republicans often make on television appearances or at partisan events, but don't usually come from potential presidential candidates standing yards from the Oval Office. Other governors had been instead expressing wide agreement and appreciation for the president's time. As Jindal spoke, some of his colleagues began shaking their heads, and Hawaii Democratic Gov. Neil Abercrombie began audibly mumbling to others around him.

Connecticut Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy took over the microphone from Jindal and responded sharply, "Wait a second, until a few moments ago we were going down a pretty cooperative road. So let me just say that we don't all agree that moving Canadian oil through the United States is necessarily the best thing for the United States economy."

Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, a Republican who chairs the National Governors Association and supports Keystone, earlier said she asked Obama when the administration would decide whether to allow it and he told her there would be an answer in the next couple months.

Malloy said Jindal's "white flag statement" was the most partisan of their weekend conference and that many governors support a minimum wage increase.

"What the heck was a reference to white flag when it comes to people making $404 a week?" Malloy snapped. "I mean, that's the most insane statement I've ever heard."

Jindal did not the back down.

"If that's the most partisan thing he's heard all weekend, I want to make sure he hears a more partisan statement," the Louisiana governor responded. "I think we can grow the economy more if we would delay more of these Obamacare mandates."

But Malloy was already walking away from the news conference. He called Jindal a "cheap shot artist" as he departed the White House grounds.

The public dispute came after Obama appealed to the governors for their help to advance his economic policies that stand little chance of winning passage on Capitol Hill.

Obama's economy, Jindal claimed, "is now the minimum wage economy."  Too many people having to accept the minimum wage- so let's cut it.

Of course,Obama's economy isn't the minimum wage economy as he has steered us, however unevenly and slowly, out of the deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression.

Although overly simplistic, it would be more accurate to call the Reagan economy the minimum wage economy.  (Republicans complain Democrats blame everything on George W. Bush. I'm not.) As the graphs (from Modeled Behavior) below indicate, employee compensation as a percentage of real income has plummeted; real household incomes have soared for the top 1% while they have stagnated for the middle 60% and bottom 20%; real income of individuals of the 1% has exploded while that of the middle and lowest quintiles has lagged.

Linking to these graphs, Will Bunch remarks "It's no accident that today when you see a chart of income inequality in America, it starts in 1980, the year that Reagan was elected to his first term."  But it's worse than that. Ronald(6) Wilson(6) Reagan(6) was elected in 1980 but did not take office until (January) 1981; a close look at these charts and the others suggest that the major decline did not begin until 1981!

 Reagan, Bunch recalls, "unleashed the hounds of American greed" and

His steep reduction in top income rates sparked the huge gaps between CEO pay and what the average worker makes, his crushing of the air traffic controllers unionlaunched an era of declining fortunes for blue-collar workers, his deregulation of the savings and loan industry was a multi-billion-dollar boondoggle, and his similar laizzez-faire attitude toward Wall Street inspired some great movies but marked the dawn of an era of insider trading and swindles that went largely unchecked until it finally took America to the brink in 2008.

Governor Malloy could have pointed out that the decline of the USA- if the poor and the middle class matter- began with President Reagan, though then he would have been chided for partisanship.  But it wouldn't have mattered. In the ABC news report of the incident, Jonathan Karl begins "it started as a Kumbaya moment of bi-partisanship"; then, Bobby Jindal "stepped to the microphones," said "the president and the White House seems (sic) to be waving the white flag of surrender," after which Dan Mallow stated Jindal's comments "just ended up being the partisan statement we heard all weekend."  In his telling, they were equally at fault, the Republican governor who accused the President of the USA of "surrender" and the Democratic governor who called this out for rank partisanship.

Ten years ago, we were reminded

The 1980s saw pervasive racial discrimination by banks, real estate agents and landlords, unmonitored by the Reagan administration. Community groups uncovered blatant redlining by banks using federal Home Mortgage Disclosure Act information. But Reagan’s HUD and justice departments failed to prosecute or sanction banks that violated the Community Reinvestment Act, which prohibits racial discrimination in lending. During that time, of the 40,000 applications from banks requesting permission to expand their operations, Reagan’s bank regulators denied only eight of them on grounds of violating CRA regulations.

By the end of Reagan’s term in office federal assistance to local governments was cut 60 percent. Reagan eliminated general revenue sharing to cities, slashed funding for public service jobs and job training, almost dismantled federally funded legal services for the poor, cut the anti-poverty Community Development Block Grant program and reduced funds for public transit. The only “urban” program that survived the cuts was federal aid for highways – which primarily benefited suburbs, not cities.

These cutbacks had a disastrous effect on cities with high levels of poverty and limited property tax bases, many of which depended on federal aid. In 1980 federal dollars accounted for 22 percent of big city budgets. By the end of Reagan’s second term, federal aid was only 6 percent.

The consequences were devastating to urban schools and libraries, municipal hospitals and clinics, and sanitation, police and fire departments – many of which had to shut their doors.

Amnesia may be a curse. But not if you're a Repub interested in the Oval Office, it sometimes is too tempting to resist.



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Die Now, Die Later, Or Just Go Away

Speaking at the Port of New Orleans on Thursday, President Obama implored Governor Bobby Jindal, who has rejected Medicaid expansion, to accept free money:

We want to work with everybody, mayor, governor, insurance companies -- whoever it is that wants to wants to work with us here in Louisiana to make sure even if you don't support the overall plan, let's at least go ahead and make sure that the folks who don't have health insurance, let's make sure we do that. It's the right thing to do.

But the Louisiana governor would have none of it, responding (according to The Huffington Post, punctuation included)

We will not allow President Obama to bully Louisiana into accepting an expansion of Obamacare. “We have rejected Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion in Louisiana because it would cost Louisiana taxpayers up to $1.7 billion over the next ten years and move nearly 250,000 Louisianians from private coverage to Medicaid. “The disastrous rollout of Obamacare is a case in point that we don’t need top-down, one-size-fits-all federal mandates, and instead should continue to focus on health care solutions that make sense for Louisiana. “Obamacare needs to be repealed. The dysfunction of the website and the President’s broken promises on being able to keep your health plan are just the tip of the iceberg in regards to the problems with this law.

The big 'bully' says "take our money- or else I'll give a speech," and Bobby Jindal quakes. Obviously, "Obamacare" is anything but a "one-size-fits-all-mandate," given that states can set up their own (private insurance) marketplace, allow their citizens to participate in the federal (private insurance) marketplace, or collaborate with the federal government in establishing a (private insurance) marketplace. And then the individual may choose from among a range of (private) insurance companies, as planned by the Socialist president.   Of course, an expansion of Medicaid would move Louisianans from costly private coverage to Medicaid, for which Louisiana taxpayers would have to pay a whopping 10% of the cost beginning in 2016 to insure its poorest citizens. That's after paying 0% until 2010.

Bobby Jindal wants to repeal Obamacare and continue the system in which residents of his state in 2009 paid $6,795 per capita for health care, lower than in most states but approximately twice as great as that of the 34 nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development as of 2010.

Bloomberg recently released a study of health care systems world-wide on, as The Huffington Post, explains

three criteria: life expectancy (weighted 60%), relative per capita cost of health care (30%); and absolute per capita cost of health care (10%). Countries were scored on each criterion and the scores were weighted and summed to obtain their efficiency scores. Relative cost is health cost per capita as a percentage of GDP per capita. Absolute cost is total health expenditure, which covers preventive and curative health services, family planning, nutrition activities and emergency aid. Included were countries with populations of at least five million, GDP per capita of at least $5,000 and life expectancy of at least 70 years.

The map below illustrates how the U.S.A. fared on one of the measures of cost:

Cost per capita in this nation are exceeded only by those in Switzerland, which ranked first in the world in health care efficiency, which put it 45 places ahead of the U.S.A. of the 48 nations studied by Bloomberg:

In its 2010 update of the study (entitled "Mirror, Mirror") of the health care systems of Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the U.S.A., the Commonwealth Fund found that our nation ranked last overall... as it did in 2007, 2006, and 2004. But Bobby Jindal knows what all those analysts don't, that prior to the Affordable Care Act, the U.S.A. had an efficient, humane health care system with access to all and malice toward none.

In September, 2009 then- (and again) U.S. Representative Alan Grayson of Florida presented on the floor of the House a visual display slamming the G.O.P. approach to health care.   He explained "if you get sick, America, the Republican health care plan is this: die quickly."

Two Tennessee Republicans were horrified.   Jimmy Duncan exclaimed "That is about the most mean-spirited partisan statement that I've ever heard made on this floor and I, for one, don't appreciate it." Professional liar Marsha Blackburn whined "it's fully appropriate that the gentleman return to the floor and apologize."

Grayson declined to apologize and, truthfully, not all Republicans want every sick American to die.  But if you're poor, or elderly and out of funds, and are sick, Governor Bobby Jindal and those Repub governors who are declining to expand Medicaid have a request: Take your time, or hurry. But just die.

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Or As Steve Colbert Says, "I Don't See Race"

Governor Bobby Jindal suffers from: a) hypocrisy; b) naivete; or c) both.

The surprise answer is (b), naivete.

In a piece in Politico, the Louisiana Republican, a second generation Indian-American (I hope that description doesn't offend him) argues

Yet we still place far too much emphasis on our “separateness,” our heritage, ethnic background, skin color, etc. We live in the age of hyphenated Americans: Asian-Americans, Italian-Americans, African-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Cuban-Americans, Indian-Americans, and Native Americans, to name just a few.

As Republicans and Democrats; gay and straight; Protestants, Catholics, Jews and, increasingly, Muslims and individuals of other religious faiths, we are a diverse and sometimes wonderfully motley mixture of people. Formed into a mosaic, we are at our best.

While the above italicized comment summarizes Jindal's article, he adds a particularly noxious remark, claiming

America’s younger generation pays less attention to skin color than the generations that preceded them. (By the way, I noticed recently that the president of the United States, a man with whom I disagree with on almost everything, seems to have darker skin than most Americans. He hasn’t had a problem getting elected.)

Well, uh, yes, he did have a problem getting elected, wherein in early October, 2008, his ticket was a decided underdog to a duo including a political unknown who couldn't come up with the name of a daily newspaper when pressed.  In Obama's bid to be re-elected, his opponent, Mitt Romney, had a spectacular demonstration planned to celebrate the victory his team expected, as described in The Boston Globe:

Mitt Romney had planned to celebrate his election as the nation’s 45th president with an eight-minute fireworks display over Boston Harbor.

The same company that does some of the illuminations for Boston’s Fourth of July celebration was poised to ignite fireworks within view of Romney’s party at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center to celebrate a win over President Obama.

A permit filed with the City of Boston said the detonation could occur any time between 7 p.m. Tuesday, just after the first polls closed, and 12:30 a.m. Wednesday, which ended up being just before Romney conceded the race.

And that victory by the man who "seems to have darker skin than most Americans" came from the support of less than 40% of white people.  It's reasonable that 59% of voters selected Mitt Romney for what was undoubtedly a variety of reasons.   But Jindal's implication that we all came together, regardless of ethnic background, to vote to re-elect the black man is extraordinarily naive.   And if the election/re-election demonstrated our glorious imperviousness to the nefarious pull of ethnicity, a reasonable question or two arises: did Jindal vote for Obama? If not, did his vote against Obama prove that he is racist?  (probably not and no).

Enough Americans did vote for Barack Obama for him to be re-elected.   And now, less than a year afterward, how have members of Jindal's own party (though not he himself) reacted?

On August 19, according to Buzzfeed, Michigan Republican Representative Kerry Bentivolo stated

...it would be a “dream come true” to submit a bill to impeach President Obama. Bentivolio also said he had meetings with lawyers asking them to “tell me how I can impeach” the president of the United States. Bentivolio was speaking at the August 2013 Birmingham Bloomfield Republican Club Meeting.

“If I could write that bill and submit it, it would be a dream come true,” Bentivolio said. “I stood 12 feet away from the guy and listened to him. I couldn’t stand being there, but because he is president I have to respect the office. That’s my job, as a congressman, I respect the office.”

“I went back to my office and I’ve had lawyers come in,” the congressman continued. “These are lawyers, PhDs in history, and I said, ‘Tell me how I can impeach the president of the United States.’”

Three days later, answering a constituent's question about impeachment, Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn maintained "I don’t have the legal background to know if that rises to high crimes and misdemeanor, but I think they’re getting perilously close.”   Back in January- little more than two months after the vote which allegedly proved that the nation bears no ill will toward blacks- Texas Representative Steve Stockman threatened to pursue impeachment of the President if he introduced gun control measures by executive order.

None of the GOP members of Congress with dreams of impeaching the President of the United States has laid out, to satisfy requirements of the U.S. Constitution, the "high crimes and misdemeanors" Obama has committed.  (And Jindal himself opposes impeachment.) Still, impeachment has to be considered... for some reason.

At least, Bill Clinton had to lie to a grand jury, albeit about nothing pertaining to the job he was elected to perform (performance not having been among Clinton's problems).   In President Obama's case, he- oh, come to your own conclusions.


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Not Only Marriage

Honestly (though usually when someone says that, you ought to grab hold of your wallet): this is not intended to offend some liberals and most conservatives.

But it's not just interracial marriage. When news arose of the refusal of Justice of the Peace Keith Bardwell in Louisiana's Tangihopa Parish to perform the wedding ceremony for an interracial couple, reaction was swift.

Governor Bobby Jindal asserted "This is a clear violation of constitutional rights and federal and state law. Mr. Bardwell’s actions should be fully reviewed by the Judiciary Commission and disciplinary action should be taken immediately — including the revoking of his license.”

Senator Mary Landrieu, one of the two moderate-conservative Democrats representing the state in the U.S. Senate, declared “Not only does his decision directly contradict Supreme Court rulings, it is an example of the ugly bigotry that divided our country for too long.”

Posting on firedoglake.com, twolf1 quoted Bardwell and remarked sarcastically "Nope, no racism there. None at all. Just trying to protect future children."

Jindal correctly argues that the apparent legal violation committed by Bardwell should provoke consideration of disciplinary action, though his remark that "disciplinary action should be taken immediately" suggests that he already has his mind made up. Nevertheless, his comment and those of Landrieu and the bloger have something unfortunate in common- the Justice of the Peace should be punished because he is a bigot.

Oddly- because the issue is a little more personal for a civil rights organization- the local NAACP has it right, arguing "We recommend the most severe sanctions available be imposed against Mr. Bardwell in his continuing to disobey the law he is sworn to uphold.”

In this country, we don't- or shouldn't- punish individuals for their political views or sociological perspective, no matter how noxious. Nor should we carve out in law special exemptions based on one's political views or sociological perspective.

Except that we do. On October 15, Bardwell complained about his practice of refusing to perform marriage ceremonies for interracial couples

No one’s ever complained about it before. I do it to protect the children. The kids are innocent, and I worry about their futures.

(I know, I know. Others have quipped "yeah, they may grow up to be President." A good line, but.... no, just a good line).

I don't know whether children bred of interracial couples face obstacles children of same-race couples do not. But Bardwell claims that they do, might actually believe they do, and given continuing racial bigotry in this country (and elsewhere), it's hardly inconceivable.

Which shouldn't matter. Neither Bardwell's sociological perspective nor any observations he may have made about human behavior should determine the nature of his continuing employment as a Justice of the Peace. Rather, it should be his apparent refusal to perform the tasks required by someone in his position, "the law he is sworn to uphold."

But if this point is obscured in a rush to brand Bardwell a racist (or, more accurately, a bigot), it is understandable given that not everyone is required to perform the functions of a job that other individuals in the same line of employment are expected to discharge.

I speak, unavoidably, of the "conscience exception" in abortion law. As summarized by the Archdiocese of New Orleans

For decades, Congress has respected the right of health care providers to decline involvement in abortion or abortion referrals, without exception. Since 2004 the Weldon amendment, approved annually as part of the Labor/HHS appropriations act, has forbidden any federal agency or program (or state or local government receiving federal funds under the act) to discriminate against individual or institutional health care providers and insurers because they decline to perform, provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortion. Programs such as Medicaid and Medicare, which fund the rare “Hyde exception” abortions, respect the conscience rights of providers who decline to provide any abortions at all. Other laws respect conscience rights on sterilization and other procedures to which providers may have a moral or religious objection.

Notwithstanding the language of the Weldon Amendment, there is no issue of discrimination because there is no constitutional right to a government subsidy. If a medical procedure, normally performed by health care providers, is considered legal and a provider refuses to perform that function and still retains a government subsidy, a special exemption has been carved out to accomodate that individual's perspective. Performance of the duties of the job is, well, negotiable.

Preference is clearly given to an individual or institution with a determination not to perform abortions even if that act is said to "shock the conscience" of such provider. Make no mistake about it- interracial marriage, albeit unjustifiably, shocks the conscience of Justice of the Peace Bardwell, who maintains "There is a problem with both groups accepting a child from such a marriage. I think those children suffer and I won't help put them through it."

This suggests another parallel with abortion. The emotional burden Bardwell believes the offspring of a mixed marriage carry would result not from an inherent disadvantage, but rather from the reactions of others who find mixed marriage disagreeable. Similarly, one pro-life website which welcomes the guilt many women are said to experience after having an abortion claims "For the woman who comes to believe, at some point after the abortion, that she has consented to the killing of her pre-born child, the burden of guilt is relentless." Difficult it is not to feel guilty if half the country believes you have murdered a child while half of that contingent will not let you forget it.

The professional choosing not to perform an abortion may, or may not, be on solid ethical footing. Bardwell is wrong, though his job security, barring resignation, presumably will be determined by the Judicial Commission to which Governor Jindal refers. And that is how it should be, a legal matter in which the individual's willingness to fulfill his job duties should be paramount. Elsewhere, however, other issues intervene.

Proud To Be Victims

Speaking before the National Republican Congressional Committee on March 24, 2009 Loiuisiana Governor Bobby Jindal asked the question "do you want the President to fail" and answered

Make no mistake: Anything other than an immediate and compliant, 'Why no sir, I don't want the president to fail,' is treated as some sort of act of treason, civil disobedience or political obstructionism. This is political correctness run amok.

Amazingly, in the very same speech Jindal claimed

We are loyal to the United States, but we don't have to be loyal to every policy. We can't allow policies like those of European socialism.

Somebody needs to explain to the hapless Mr. Jindal that the "political correctness" he proudly derides originated with opposition to things European, as this explanation (from The Myth of Political Correctness) of literature in the American university indicates. Or as a Sean O'Grady explained in Analysis: The Truth About Political Correctness- In Black And White

Yet whatever its philosophical and linguistic roots, by the 1980s it had become a rallying point for those who wanted to liberate academia from the Dwems – dead white European males – such as Shakespeare or Chaucer, and to open up the literary canon to minority groups. Or, in the words of the Stanford University student chant, "Hey hey, ho ho, Western culture's got to go."

No one can say for certain where or when "political correctness" orginated, but clearly there was a connection with the animus toward Western- European- culture. Yet the ill-informed Bobby Jindal, speaking to his ill-informed conservative (is there any other?) audience, goes for the low-hanging fruit, the easy target, of blaming European culture (when unavailable, just say "the French" over and over) and, simultaneously, the boogeyman of "political correctness."

Further, as CNN reports, Jindal boasted he would "not be brow beaten on this, and I will not kowtow to their correctness."

Yet again, the conservative as victim. In What's The Matter With Kansas, Thomas Frank observes "all claims on the right... advance from victimhood" and conservatism

....is the doctrine of the oppressed majority. Conservatism does not defend some established order of things. It accuses; it rants; it points out hypocrisies and gleefully pounces on contradictions. While liberals use their control of the airwaves, newspapers, and schools to persecute average Americans- to riducule the pious, flatter the shiftless, and indoctrinate the kids with all sorts of permissive nonsense- the Republicans are the party of the disrespected, the downtrodden, the forgotten. They are always the underdog, always in rebellion against a haughty establishment, always rising up from below.

Hatred of Europeans and posing as a victim. As always, the GOP remains the master of political correctness.

The Katrina Reference

Responding to the Republican response, delivered by Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, to the president's address of last night, Paul Krugman wrote:

So what did Bobby Jindal choose to ridicule in this response to Obama last night? Volcano monitoring, of course.

And leaving aside the chutzpah of casting the failure of his own party’s governance as proof that government can’t work, does he really think that the response to natural disasters like Katrina is best undertaken by uncoordinated private action? Hey, why bother having an army? Let’s just rely on self-defense by armed citizens.

Krugman, as with numerous Democratic and non-partisan pundits, was in part doubting the logic of a Republican politician citing as a failure of government the response to Hurricane Katrina, fouled up by George W. Bush- and which many believe started the stature of his presidency in a downward spiral. For instance, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann commented (video below) "a Republican invoking the lessons of Hurricane Katrina seems counter-intuitive to me." Jindal stated:

Today in Washington, some are promising that government will rescue us from the economic storms raging all around us.

Those of us who lived through Hurricane Katrina -- we have our doubts.

Let me tell you a story.

Jindal then went on to tell a self-congratulatory story of dubious veracity, but the reference to Katrina appeared to undermine the GOP's claim to run government better than the opposition. As MSNBC's Keith Olbermann put it, "a Republican invoking the lessons of Hurricane Katrina seems counter-intuitive."

But hold on. While any sensible person would see that the local, state, and federal governments needed to act preemptively to forestall a disaster of such enormous proportion, the Louisiana Governor was not aiming his comments primarily at sensible persons, but rather to the powers in and about the Republican Party which could impede or facilitate a presidential candidacy he is no doubt contemplating. And to them, the lesson of Hurricane Katrina may not be the dangers of a passive or disinterested government, but of government itself.

The patron saint of the Republican Party, Ronald Reagan, stated "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." The Repub fight is not against incompetent government or even big government; it is against government itself. As Thomas Frank wrote (pp.32-33) in early 2008 in The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule, from the era of the Reagan presidency through the present

conservatives have held either executive or legislative power over the very state that is their first article of faith to despise. The big government that they rail against is, by and large, their government.

For a political faction to represent itself as a rebellion against a government for which it itself is responsible may strike you as a supremely cynical maneuver. If so, you are beginning to understand conservative Washington. Cynicism is of this movement's essence. It is cynical not only in the way it wriggles about, denying everything, dumping its former heroes, endlessly repositioning itself; but more fundamentally, it is cynical about the very possibilities of improvement through government.

Frank quotes Reagan as "claim(ing) to find terror in the phrase "I'm from the government and I'm here to help;" former House Speaker Tom DeLay as boasting "by the time we finish this poker game, there may not be a federal government left, which would suit me just fine;" and conservative humorist P.J. O'Rourke as saying "the mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop."

This applies even to those times, such as when Hurricane Katrina struck, that the Repub Party controlled the executive branch and the legislative branch (as well as most of the judicial branch). Government, Frank notes, "is said to be an offense against nature, a force entirely at odds with civil society." And if by raising the specter of the Bush presidency (without mentioning GWB himself), Bobby Jindal- and by extension the party he represents- demeaned the Chief Executive, the President of his own party, Mr. Bush is viewed as merely collateral damage.

Jindal's Agenda

Notice the pattern in the remarks (video of part 1 and part 2 below) of Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, responding to President Obama's address last night to a joint session of Congress (to bypass the verbiage, skip below for the answer):


Like the president's father, my own parents came to this country from a distant land. When they arrived in Baton Rouge, my mother was already 4-½-months pregnant. I was what folks in the insurance industry now call a "pre-existing condition." To find work, my dad picked up the yellow pages and started calling local businesses. Even after landing a job, he could still not afford to pay for my delivery, so he worked out an installment plan with the doctor. Fortunately for me, he never missed a payment.

As I grew up, my mom and dad taught me the values that attracted them to this country, and they instilled in me an immigrant's wonder at the greatness of America. As a child, I remember going to the grocery store with my dad. Growing up in India, he had seen extreme poverty. And as we walked through the aisles, looking at the endless variety on the shelves, he would tell me: "Bobby, Americans can do anything." I still believe that to this day: Americans can do anything. When we pull together, there is no challenge we can't overcome.
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Here in my state of Louisiana, we don't care what party you belong to, if you have good ideas to make life better for our people. We need more of that attitude from both Democrats and Republicans in our nation's capital.
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During Katrina, I visited Sheriff Harry Lee, a Democrat and a good friend of mine. When I walked into his makeshift office, I'd never seen him so angry. He was yelling into the phone: "Well, I'm the Sheriff and if you don't like it you can come and arrest me!" I asked him: "Sheriff, what's got you so mad?" He told me that he had put out a call for volunteers to come with their boats to rescue people who were trapped on their rooftops by the floodwaters. The boats were all lined up ready to go, when some bureaucrat showed up and told them they couldn't go out on the water unless they had proof of insurance and registration. I told him, "Sheriff, that's ridiculous." And before I knew it, he was yelling into the phone: "Congressman Jindal is here, and he says you can come and arrest him too!" Harry just told the boaters to ignore the bureaucrats and go start rescuing people.... This spirit got Louisiana through the hurricanes and this spirit will get our nation through the storms we face today.
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In Louisiana, we took a different approach. Since I became governor, we cut more than 250 earmarks from our state budget. To create jobs for our citizens, we cut taxes six times -- including the largest income tax cut in the history of our state. We passed those tax cuts with bipartisan majorities. Republicans and Democrats put aside their differences -- we worked together to make sure our people could keep more of what they earn. If it can be done in Baton Rouge, surely it can be done in Washington, D.C.
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To strengthen our economy, we also need to make sure every child in America gets the best possible education. After Katrina, we reinvented the New Orleans school system, opening dozens of new charter schools, and creating a new scholarship program that is giving parents the chance to send their children to private or parochial schools of their choice. We believe that, with the proper education, the children of America can do anything. And it shouldn't take a devastating storm to bring this kind of innovation to education in our country.
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In my home state, there used to be saying: At any given time, half of Louisiana was said to be half under water, and the other half is under indictment. No one says that anymore. Last year, we passed some of the strongest ethics laws in the nation and today, Louisiana has turned her back on the corruption of the past.
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This speech was primarily about Bobby Jindal; the U.S.A., secondary.

Let The Party Begin!

Apparently, it was ad-libbed and not part of the Governor's prepared remarks, because it does not appear in this transcript. But I noticed it when I heard Bobby Jindal's response last night to President Obama's address to a joint session of Congress, and you can hear it here (homonym happy today; video below):

Good evening, and happy Mardi Gras. I'm Bobby Jindal.

Of course it's trivial, or seemingly so, but....

What on earth was the Louisiana Governor doing wishing us a "happy Mardi Gras?"

Now, we know that Repubs for years (or at least before nominating this year the surly John McCain) have tagged their opponents as "gloom and doom Democrats" and Obama was being advised before his speech above all to be optimistic about the economy, but- "happy Mardi Gras?"

It was the wrong tone (struck virtually throughout by the Governor), completely inappropriate to the context of last night's addresses, a dysfunctional economy deteriorating weekly, if not daily. And it should have brought to the mind of members of the Fourth Estate that this was the same party which nominated a 72-year-old presidential candidate who trumpeted "America First" while he selected Sarah Palin to be a heartbeat (or, in this case, a carcinoma) from the presidency. A presidential nominee who not too long ago declared "the fundamentals of the economy are strong" running with someone who couldn't name a newspaper she read, yet who somehow could discern that an opponent promising a tax cut to roughly 90% of the public was a "socialist." An unserious presidential nominee, an unserious vice-presidential nominee, and now an unserious potential presidential candidate. And an unserious party.