Hey Jindal! Breaking news!

[Mt. Redoubt photo from Anchorage Daily News]

Yup. The Anchorage Daily News reports today that Mount Redoubt, after "roaring to life Sunday and Monday, blasting a column of ash and steam almost 12 miles above Cook inlet," has undergone another more minor eruption this morning.

Mount Redoubt's been blowing its top. No problem, though according to the Repugnican nogoodnik governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal. I'm not sure if he even knows we have volcanoes in the United States.

You remember, in his "rebuttal" (Ha!) to Obama's address to Congress, nogoodnik Jindal "singled out '$140 million for something called "volcano monitoring"' as an example of out-of-control federal spending." He said, with that disgusting smirk, "Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, D.C."

Well, really. First of all, it's become commonplace for christianist wingnuts to lie through their teeth about anything or anyone Democratic, and especially about President Obama. And these are the religious clowns who claim you've got to believe in their god and their holy book in order to have any ethics or morals.

Not really! So Jindal, who if he didn't know better, should have, speaketh ill of Obama and the budget not knowing he's blowing hot air and looking like a fool? Maybe. But again, maybe he knew damn well we need volcano monitoring in this country and being a good Repugnican simply stuck to Repugnican talking points, truth and honesty be damned.


Here's the truth: The $140 million was for "repair and restoration of a variety of USGS science facilities and laboratories.

NPR.org notes that "Only a fraction of that money would be spent on monitoring volcanoes," maybe $15.6 million or so."

Marianne Guffanti with the U.S. Geological Survey says that monitoring volcanoes is extremely important (hear that, Jindal?) because "We are one of the most volcanically active countries in the world. We have nearly 170 volcanoes that are either active or capable of reawakening."


Erupting volcanoes are very dangerous, especially for airplanes. "In 1989, a full[y]-loaded Boeing 747 jumbo jet was flying over Alaska when an ash cloud suddenly appeared and all four engines suddenly stalled out, causing the plane to fall dangerously close to the mountains that surround Anchorage before the engines could be restarted. That ash came from Mount Redoubt."

Life repeats itself. Mount Redoubt has spewed all kinds of ash into the atmosphere and everyone who knows anything is thanking the gods that we had volcano monitoring. It was because of volcano monitoring that the U.S. Geological Survey at the Alaska Volcano Observatory was given due warning and was able to warn others.

Especially pilots. And every pilot that flies the Alaska skies is a big fan of volcano monitoring. In fact hundreds of flights in and out of Alaska have been canceled because the USGS was able to get word out in time - before they flew into danger!


I think, in order to teach the christianist wingnut from Louisiana a little lesson, we should no longer provide hurricane information to that state! Hah! Who needs the Weather Service anyway, right Jindal?

Nah, we could not and would not do that! Unlike the wingnut, we have ethics and morals. And to take away advance hurricane warning from Louisiana wouldn't hurt the wingnut anyway, 'cause he'd be ensconced in some underground bunker; it would only hurt the people of Louisiana.

Still...

Bobby Jindal's lousy, lying speech

My dad used to opine that education and wisdom were two different things. You could take a fool and educate him but then you had a serious problem: a really smart fool.

I thought about that thinking about Bobby Jindal, the Repugnican nogoodnik governor of Louisiana. Jindal is highly educated, and supposedly very smart. He is also a fool.

Greg Palast notes just how big a fool in his commentary on Jindal's speech responding to President Obama's address to Congress.

Jindal said the the stimulus bill was "larded with wasteful spending." Palast asks, "Where's the lard? All week, Jindal has been screeching that Obama wants to require states such as Louisiana to extend unemployment insurance to -- get this -- the unemployed! (Technically, the federal government would pay 100% of the cost of reforming Louisiana's .... Scrooge-sized benefit requirements."

Palast does not truck with such crap. "Jindal, and some other Republican governors, notably Haley Barbour of Mississippi, are actually 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."

He remarks that Jindal's loving concern for the people of Louisiana is displayed by the fact that Louisiana "solved its unemployment problem by sending its unemployed to Texas in FEMA trailers."

After rightfully excoriating Jindal for his continuation of Louisiana's "history of local Republican plantation-mentality cruelty, Palast notes that the "Republican Party, by making Jindal the party's official spokesman, is adopting the Barbourous refusal to reach out a saving hand to Americans drowning in this economy."


Jindal, as we noted, spoke of the stimulus bill as "larded with wasteful spending." Pork, in other words. Meg, writing at BuzzFlash, says this is not surprising. "Many have written about the lies that Jindal repeated about supposed stimulus pork, which ran the gamut from miserly mice to voracious volcanoes. But it turns out he was being disingenuous and hypocritical at the same time."

Jindal is a big-time pork supporter; a hog for pork, you might say. "In fiscal 2008, his last hurrah as a U.S. congressman representing Louisiana before taking over the governor's mansion, Jindal scored big in the pork contest. He, sometimes in concert with other lawmakers, ended up bringing home $97,913,200 in bacon. That put him at the number 14 spot in Taxpayers for Common Sense's annual tally of the most successful appropriators in the House."

Jindal's also a liar. He complained about stimulus money going to monitor volcanoes. Not true. "...the $140 billion Jindal was whining about will be spent on 'U.S. Geological Survey facilities and equipment, including stream gages, seismic and volcanic monitoring systems and national map activities.'" He also repeated the worn-out lie about the salt marsh harvest mouse, which first surfaced from the lips of another liar, Minority Leader John Boehner, "which he dubbed as Nancy Pelosi's pet mouse."

But the biggie was Jindal's story about the sheriff that he went to visit; Sheriff Harry Lee, who was so upset because he couldn't send boats to rescue people on rooftops during Hurricane Katrina because government bureaucrats demanded registration documents first.

It appears Jindal made the story up!

And this is a Republican front-runner for president in 2012? I guess Bush set a precedent. Now the Repugs figure any fool can be president!


Read Palast's entire article here. And the whole story about Jindal's tall tale is here.

Jindal jerking Louisiana along

Since it appears the Repugnicans in Congress don't want to play with the adults when it comes to stimulus bills and other attempts to right the wrongs of the hellish Bush administration, it has been my feeling right along that the states they represent no longer be allowed to drink at the federal trough.

If they want to go it alone and if they believe federal money is tainted and if they are so ideologically opposed to "big" government, then they should not get any of the money, and their share should go to those states whose representatives in Congress voted for the bill.

Jindal, the extremist, right-wingnut governor of Louisiana, has the right idea. Even though, according to Think Progress, Louisiana "faces a possible $2 billion budget shortfall next year, and the state is being hit hard by unemployment," the guv of Louisiana said "he may turn down the roughly $3.8 billion for the state in the economy recovery package, which is expected to create 50,000 new jobs."


That's wonderful. More for the rest of us. Even our Florida Governor Crist, no Democrat he, has supported the stimulus package and can't wait to get his hands on that money to begin helping the people of Florida.

But then there are other politicos who actually voted against the bill in Congress who are also drooling from the mouth at the possibilities made possible for their states by the economic recovery package. (Sen. Lindsey Graham, for one.)

They should get no money!


Jindal, who is said to be smart as a whip, may stupidly refuse the money, but then if it's all about "truth" and God and ideology, that's the non-hypocritical thing to do.

Jindal represents the Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay type of Repugs: they believe it is much better to hold to your principles - even if your principles have no practical application in these times - than to give in and obtain ways and means to assist your constituents get out of their economic nightmares.

Of course, a few more Repugs like Jindal (who is said to be thinking about a run at the presidency) would likely mean a quicker demise of the Republican Party.

Republican rule and financial ruin

[Photo of Bobby Jindal by Richard Alan Hannon]

Consider the rule of Republican politicians: California under Schwarzenegger is bankrupt; Jeb Bush left Florida in dire financial straits; George W. Bush has run the United States into the ground; and then we have Louisiana.

The state of Louisiana is important because the governor of Louisiana is considered by many in the Republican Party to be a potential candidate for president in 2012. Bobby Jindal, the former Hindu turned fundamentalist Roman Catholic exorcist, has been seen in public in states like Iowa which generally portend a presidential interest.

Why would anyone other than Rush Limberger think Jindal an appropriate candidate for the presidency?

The New York Times tells the sad story, writ over and over again in the pages of the Republican playbook, as it has taken shape in the bayou state.

Once upon a time, Louisiana was rolling in oil money. Not so long ago, in fact, Louisiana had an $865 billion surplus. It was time to spend said the pols, including the chief cheerleader for fiscal irresponsibility, Bobby Jindal.

So first off, taxes were cut, to the tune of $360 million. Jindal said that was "terrific news" and gleefully signed the tax cut bill into law.

"Admonitions on fiscal prudence went unheeded, as they have so often here, and the bill is now due."

As The NYT put it, "Mr. Jindal entered office this year with the happy duty of spending a $1 billion surplus -- and he and the legislators promptly did so, appropriating millions of dollars for highways, ports and a medical research facility, and widely dispensing tax breaks, including one to parents of private school students. The cheery mood in the state Capitol continued all spring, as the legislators then decided to roll back a much-hated income tax increase earlier in the decade, costing the state hundreds of millions in revenue in coming years."

Louisiana is looking at a $341 million deficit this year and next year the budget deficit is projected at $2 billion.

Guess what's gonna get cut! Health care and higher education. That might hurt Jindal's plan to partly privatize Medicaid!


So what's new. Under Republican rule the rule is the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. With all the evidence to the contrary, how the hell do Republicans keep fooling so many people with the pretense that they are the party of fiscal prudence when, historically, the Republicans lead us from one depression to another?

To paraphrase another observer of the America scene, the stupidity of the American people cannot be underestimated.


You can read the entire NYT article by Adam Nossiter here. There's more here.