Bobby Jindal has bought into the Republican Party mantra of the eternal campaign. George W. Bush never took time to govern as President of the United States, but rather continued his political campaign for eight years. He appointed political hacks to important public jobs and failed in his due diligence over the health of the country. He is now off the scene. The damage is obvious. Almost immediately on the defeat of John McCain, a name already almost forgotten, Bobby Jindal began to travel the country (Iowa first) making speeches, beginning his campaign for president in earnest by sticking to the political points of George W. Bush, Richard Cheny, and Rush Limbaugh, and being quick to oppose anything that appears to have come from democrats, including money to support the unemployed in his own state of Louisiana. Why oppose it? Simple. If you accept, you have to also change the antiquated rules for unemployment that still exist in Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi, that exclude most people from drawing unemployment compensation. If you are only able to secure part-time work and lose your job in Louisiana, no compensation. If you have to leave your job because your child is gravely ill and needs your full time care, no compensation. If you have to leave your job because you are a victim of domestic violence and are hiding from the spouse who beats you and your children regularly, no compensation.

Most other states have changed these policies. Louisiana has not. Under Bobby Jindal's leadership they are standing against these people, the poor, the beaten down, refusing any aid now or in the future.

No wonder Louisiana has not recovered from hurricane Katrina. Look at the leadership of that state.

I could spend the next hour fixing this blog so it is more reader friendly, but I have confidence in you. I think you can get the message if I do nothing more to it. The link is to a Frank Rich NYT column in today’s paper. The black print below is all quoted from Rich. The red print is from me. Don’t miss the opportunity to click the link and read the whole article.

The public, in defiance of Washington’s condescending assumption, was smart enough to figure out that the government can’t create jobs without spending and that Bush-era Republicans have no moral authority to lecture about deficits. Some Americans may even have ancestors saved from penury by the New Deal. [I would laugh here and say, ALL AMERICANS have ancestors saved . . . ]

This G.O.P., a largely white Southern male party with talking points instead of ideas and talking heads instead of leaders, is not unlike those “zombie banks” that we’re being asked to bail out. It is in too much denial to acknowledge its own insolvency and toxic assets.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/opinion/15rich.html

Unfortunately the question is for whom the bell tolls. (Remember the answer? It tolls for us.) We sit just like the Jews in the ghettos during the holocaust. We hear of others losing their jobs. Millions out of work in China, 25 % unemployment in Detroit, but we remain delusional, looking around our own neighborhood saying things aren’t that bad here. The Jews heard the rumors of horrible things that had happened, some survivors even returned to the ghettos and walked the streets telling of mass murder. No one believed them. As this economy spirals downward, banking continuing to fail, housing continuing to foreclose, we are dancing around the edge of the back hole pointing to others disappearing into it’s depths and saying, “that is not me.” Even when 175 Fayette county teachers face dismissal before next year and all teachers face a 5% cut in salary, even with fire stations being closed in Atlanta, firefighters laid off, we still don’t believe that the Gestapo will come for us. The GOP is dancing on TV saying ridiculous things about the New Deal not working (this is historical revisionism plain and simple), insert links and reveling in their ZERO votes for economic stimulus. Do nothing and the freemarket fairy will save us, they say. Cut taxes for the rich.

While I heard repeatedly that the public had turned against the stimulus package, apparently only the Rasmussen poll showed that. In all the other polls, stimulus support was in the majority and Obama support is in the high 60s and low 70s. Amazing.

Republicans will also be judged by the voters. If they want to obstruct and filibuster while the economy is in free fall, the president should call their bluff and let them go at it. In the first four years after F.D.R. took over from Hoover, the already decimated ranks of Republicans in Congress fell from 36 to 16 in the Senate and from 117 to 88 in the House. The G.O.P. is so insistent that the New Deal was a mirage it may well have convinced itself that its own sorry record back then didn’t happen either.
Judgment day is coming in about 20 months when we get to go back to the polls and remove more of the GOP. Do your little dance, you obstructionist little GOP so and sos!

The country wants health care reform. The country wants changes in the tax codes. The country wants restrictions on Wall Street greed. The country wants banks responsive to people. You want to help the country. Put a moratorium on foreclosure for the next year. Without foreclosures flooding the market, the market clears up and rebounds. Spirits lift.

It is easy to stop blogging. I'm going to try to blog every day this week. It is a holiday week for us with school out for a totally bogus Winter Break, designed just to make the school year longer. Someone somewhere thinks students retain more information in their heads if the don't have a summer break. The interesting dicotomy in that is that the person who had accumulated enough information to make this pronouncement, got his or her education, with summer breaks. Perhaps if they had not had summer breaks they would be so smart that they'd realize that it doesn't make a difference. Getting a vacation didn't make me stupid.

I wanted to blog about the birds. You hear bad things about the birds all the time. Nesting areas destroyed. Massive declines in bird counts. Song birds dissapearing. I can't dispute any of that. When I walk Patches in the morning right now it is still pretty cold. Usually below freezing or close to freezing. We walk just after sun up with the glare of low angle sun casting looooong shadows interspersed with golden blasts of light. While we walk we hear the birds. There are so many bird calls that it can only be described as "the bird orchestra, warming up." You know how the orchestra sounds sitting on the stage waiting for the maestro. They create that unique aleatoric music (okay I'm being intentionally ironic here) that we associate with orchestras. Trumpets blaring, strings in chaos as though all tuned to different pitches. The birds sound like that. Scratching strings, blaring calls, and an occasional player, flying on to the stage from the wings to take their place. If they made much more noise it would be scary!

Our student Johanna was in Lie to Me on TV recently. She is soon to be in 9 episodes on Greek, another TV show and she's in all the promos for the new season. It is good to see her shining face.

Lead, follow, or get out of the way.

The story of the total collapse of the opposition party in America.