Republican Secretary of Commerce

So this bi-partisan administration is not getting off to a good start. Republicans from Maine to Philadelphia have rallied to rescue the economy, but Obama's choice for Secretary of Commerce, Senator Gregg of New Hampshire, did not vote for the program to rescue commerce. Wha?? Why is he taking the job? Why is he being appointed?

Apparently 36 of the Republicans voted on an amendment to change the entire stimulus package into tax cuts. McCain, who twice voted against the Bush tax cuts which doubled the national debt wants to cut a half billion a year in taxes. Oh, eliminate capital gains taxes, make the upper income Bush cuts permanent, etc.

I heard on a Salon economy story "bi-partisanship doesn't work when one side is insane".

off the topic, I got a gmail account last week to try it out. Now Blogger recognizes me every time. While using my netscape.net address it demanded that I log in every time. I think that Google is becoming evil.

inauguration

Today is the inauguration. Pretty exciting. 40 years ago MLK Jr was assassinated for stirring up trouble, 20 years ago Jesse Jackson ran a good campaign. I organized Labor for Jackson in Santa Cruz in 1988. Still have a couple T-shirts for that campaign. The Local 23 bus drivers put together a front line. We were all checked by the Secret Service and got clearance and we stood in front of the Santa Cruz Civic Center. Didn't get to hear the speech but we felt important waiting to jump in front of a bullet.

Who else was in that line? Ron White, Wally Parham, who else?

Louisiana elections

Dollar Bill Jefferson has been defeated. By Ang Cao, whom no one had heard of a few months ago. The only person to bother to file for the republican party spot in the election, he picked up most of the disaffected democrats around here.

I didn't vote. It was on Saturday, Dec 6. Frankly, I forgot. Low turnout. The November general election was the democratic primary runoff. Runoffs in primaries? yup. California has no such thing. I thought the southern penchant for actually requiring a majority to be elected was for general elections, but this time it applied to primaries while saturday's general election was won by Cao with slightly less than 50% Malik got 3% for the green party, some nut case got 1% for the white peoples party and Jefferson came in with 47% for the old demo machine. Black dog democrats.

I wasn't gonna vote for the republican, how could I? I would have voted for Malik as the Rasta green anti-Bill Jefferson guy. Or maybe voted corrupt party line. Voting for a universally acknowledged thief would be a good southern comfort.

But this Cao looks fun. The first Vietnamese in the congress. Good idea. That scumbag Steve Scalise was on stage rooting on the victory. Scalise had Dick Cheney come to Metarie to campaign for him. Incredible.

The traditional democratic party machine has fallen apart here. There were 5 young african-american guys running against Jefferson and one cute young texan woman. Moreno was her name; she came in behind Jefferson but ahead of all the experience political challengers. Some elders were required to anoint a designated assassin of Jefferson. The elders have evaporated. The result? A seat falls to the party of the resurrected confederacy.

office of President Elect?

Change dot Gov? The President in waiting is an office? Has this been so before? There is an official website for the President in Waiting.

Now, I am very happy that Barack Hussein Obama won the election. I was a little worried when McCain started running the ad with all the Berliners chanting Obama, Obama. It did seem a little cultish. And one of Obama's campaign appearances had him behind a faux president to be seal. Now there is a President Elect seal. This is a little over the top.

election 2008

Wrote this on election nite:

Last night I saw my first presidential campaign advertisement in
Louisiana. An anti-Obama one; attacking the reverend Wright, saying he
is dangerous. The night before the election, first ad. Strange.

There are a lot more positions subject to election here. Some parish
down river has a 'constable' for each of seven districts up for
election. There used to be elected district assessors here; they were
eliminated after the post-Katrina re-organization.

there are lots of judges being elected; the State Supreme court has
someone endorsed by the Family Research Council (according to his ads)
I'll vote against him; Guidry.

US Senator is the only race that may be a contest here. The only one I

know enough to vote on. Landrieu the conservative Dem. Kennedy the
imaginary Conservative Republican; last year he was a liberal Democrat.
I'll have to vote in that race.

Oh, my Congressional seat is held by William Jefferson, famous for
keeping his savings in cash in the freezer. He came in first in the
'first' primary without campaigning. There were five black guys and one

young white woman running against him. Today is the runoff between Wm
Jefferson and Roberta Moreno. She is cute, a former television weather
reader or something. Then later we will have the actual general election
between the socialist and fascist and vegetarian parties.

We have a hot District Attorney race between two Italian guys. Last time
a black guy was elected who immediately fired most of the white lawyers
in the office; the ensuing civil rights suit is costing the city many
millions of dollars. He dismissed
tons of cases, or declined to
prosecute, and was at his girlfriends house over the river in Algiers
when a friend of hers came over to ask the D.A. what to do after the
shooting he had just committed. Eddie Jordan was his name. He was a
stylish dresser; he resigned last year and we've had fill in temps since
then. A murder a day.

No black DA candidates came close in the primary this time. So now it is
Cannizzaro or Capitelli. Vote for the Italian guy!

Voting on the Debt Debacle!

C-Span live streaming is really, really bogged down. Lots of people watching the vote on the new, more expensive, Debt Dummy buyout bill. The Bailout. I think it is necessary, thought so two weeks ago. We can start lining the suits up against the wall in February. Right now we have to nationalize the banking system. Started to, actually. Sell it back after it is straightened out. This is a Mexican divorce with Amurkans love for Wall Street and gettin the guvamen offa my back.

That Sarah Palin interview

Couric. Katie Couric? Is that her name? I haven't watched network news in years, but since using a TV antennae here in La Nouvelle Orleans I have happened to tune in. So she spoke with Governor Palin. Missed it. I saw part of the earlier interview by some guy. He did seem rude and supercilious to me. I have been a political junkie for years and couldn't tell you what the Bush Doctrine is.

But I guess this last interview is unnerving some self described conservatives who are now calling for her to resign from the Republican ticket. There are people who vocally supported Gov Palin who now call for her to quit? How can people like this take themselves seriously? If they didn't know anything about the creationist governor how could they have said anything in public in support?

interesting political .sig

On the Democratic side, you have a bytch who is a lawyer, married to a lawyer, trying to defeat a lawyer who is married to a bytch who is a
lawyer.

On the other side, you have a true war hero married to an extremely wealthy woman with large breasts who owns a beer distributorship.

Is there a contest here?