SotU 2011: What Oil Spill?

If you’re a gay marine or a Chilean miner, you got some love from the Big O on Tuesday evening.

But there was no love to be found for Louisiana and the gulfcoast in President Barack Obama’s 2011 State of the Union address.

The president’s speech was chock full of his trademark lofty rhetoric that also included references to renewable energy, the end of the military’s rules on gay servicemen and women, previously mentioned trade agreements and increased government spending.

Hell even sputnik made it in, though the mention was ironic since Obama has cut NASA’s budget.

Not even a year ago, an environmental catastrophe took place that claimed the lives of 11 offshore oil platform workers, dumped over 200,000,000 gallons of crude oil in the Gulf of Mexico that damaged our fragile wetlands, spoiled hundreds of miles of beaches and endangered the livelihoods of thousands of fishermen.

It was Three Mile Island on the bayou.

Yet the magnitude of the disaster and the plight of the out of work petroleum engineer, bankrupt oyster harvester and contaminated porpoise ended up on the cutting room floor of his speech writer…assuming it even got that far.

In a press release issued within minutes of the conclusion of the State of the Union, the Louisiana Republican Party pointed out that Obama’s 6,826 word address contained 184 words about the rescue of the Chilean miners yet not a single mention about the Deepwater Horizon disaster and the resulting environmental and economic fallout that followed the explosion.

Sure, the president found the time to curse the darkness of oil industry profits, but failed to use his annual big speech to light a candle about the need for the federal government to rebuild the Louisiana coastline, which had been chopped to shreds for decades to satisfy the nation’s energy needs and maritime commerce.

President George W. Bush was rightly criticized after his 2007 State of the Union when he failed to mention either Hurricane Katrina or the south Louisiana and coastal Mississippi communities still struggling to recover from the most destructive tropical cyclone in American history.

Will there be catcalls beyond the Louisiana border for Obama’s snub?

The Obama Administration’s lack of leadership and poor response to the oil spill is his Katrina. It is a milestone of failure for his administration that unnerved his liberal base that assumed they were getting competency along with hope.

Perhaps the most naïve in our state were hoping to hear something about an aggressive wetlands restoration effort that reverse coastal erosion that increases Louisiana’s vulnerability to hurricane storm surge. But that costs money, money that could be better spent in blue or purple states.

The president has callously exploited the environmental catastrophe to advance his anti-oil energy agenda and his administration has played legal and rhetorical games regarding the resumption of offshore oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico, which has hurt the region’s economy while contributing to the escalation in the price of oil.

That Obama had the temerity to talk about Americans competing for jobs in the global market is especially galling, as his ideologically rooted energy policy has sent jobs overseas. The bureaucratic skirmishes involving exploration permits have caused oil companies to lose the confidence necessary to make substantial investments in domestic energy production.

Obama obviously hopes the oil spill with all of its negative press will simply go away. And to some degree it has, temporarily camouflaged by the continued bad job market. However it’ll be there to greet him at the voting booth and/or later in the history books.

Conservative media mocked then-candidate Obama for his 57-state flub while he was on the campaign trail. As president, Obama has governed as if there are fewer states in the Union as they are stars on the flag.

And we thought the picture of W peering out the window of Air Force One was in bad taste; at least Bush was looking in the direction of Louisiana.

End of an Error at the RNC

After the nationwide Republican debacle two years ago, I thought the Republican Party needed to mix things up.

My first choice to lead the Republican National Committee was Newt Gingrich. While his time as speaker was marred with public relation blunder after another, nobody questioned his genius as the leader of the historic conservative insurgency.

After the party had gone stale with the public as George W. Bush’s administration drew to a close, I felt Newt, who was a better revolutionary than an administrator, was the right man to develop and execute the GOP Comeback 2.0.

However, I felt there was little chance of this happening. If Newt wanted the position of RNC chairman, I had no doubt he would have secured it from the committee members with only slightly more fuss as when the national GOP governing body rubber-stamps White House-anointed chairmen.

The question was a matter of Newt accepting it for financial reasons. The job would mark a significant pay decrease and would remove him from the numerous projects and organizations he plays a key role in.

Newt punted on the idea not along after grassroots types publicly entertained it.

My next choice was the ex-lieutenant governor of Maryland, who had just lost a bruising bid for the US Senate.

On first glance, Michael Steele seemed perfect as the antithesis of the past half dozen or so RNC chairmen. The Republican Party needed to turn the corner in this new political era, aggressively breaking out of the country club stereotype.

Before clambering aboard the Steele bandwagon, I put in a call to a Maryland political operative who had dealings with him to confirm my hopes.

Instead of doing that, my source dumped a load of stories of organizational mismanagement and cronyism that would negate whatever “pop” the GOP would receive for having its first non-traditional (i.e. white male) chairman.

I went from supporting Steele to backing “Anyone But”.

During the multiple ballots that took place at the first “free” RNC election since 1998, South Carolina Republican Party chairman Katon Dawson emerged as the primary rival to Steele’s candidacy.

And here was where the Republican establishment decided to act like Jesse Jackson.

A “well poisoning” campaign was launched to portray Dawson as the “klan candidate” for having been a member of an all-white country club in his homestate.

That Dawson publicly called for the facility to end its exclusivity meant nothing to the powers that be, arguing that a Dawson election would be “spun” negatively by the media in the aftermath of the historic Obama victory.

Lord, I thought, no wonder McCain lost.

These fools never learned the lessons/consequences of putting faith in media fairness and trying to accommodate the fickle fancies of the fourth estate.

And what was the result of this gambit where “public relations points” trumped competence?

The establishment once again displayed their political ignorance and got exactly what they deserved.

The man they helped elect by unfairly demonizing his principal opponent had become public enemy number one.

Though the Republican Party achieved great success in the 2009 and 2010 midterm elections, there was considerable debate concerning how much credit should be shared with Steele.

Money was largely steered around the RNC in 2010 and Steele proved to be gaffe prone when he wasn’t running the Republican National Committee in the same manner that Kwame Kilpatrick ran Detroit.

Sweetheart deals related to the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa, a number of marginal GOP losses that could have gone the other way through better funding allocation decisions and a debt to the tune of $21,000,000 are the indisputable legacies of an individual who was selected for the wrong reasons to head a national political party.

The best thing that could be said about Steele was that he actively engaged the local and state parties and the auxiliary organizations.

It’s unlikely any RNC chairmen visited with the national Young Republicans more than Steele, in contrast to Ken Mehlman, who “bothered” to speak to the national YRs for only a few minutes and referred to them as the College Republicans (a different organization) throughout his hurried visit.

Hopefully newly elected Republican chairman Reince Priebus of Wisconsin will not spurn the grassroots folks while bringing stability to the national party and reassuring contributors that their dollars will be responsibly spent.

The RNC doesn’t need another Michael Steele pulling the levers; but they don’t need another Ken Mehlman either.

Liberal Libels and Loughner's Madness

Attention Paul Krugman: sick people with an inclination for violence can do terrible things.

Apparently someone with your expensive educational background, Nobel-lauded brain and Hollywood toilet-film supporting actor (appearing in that highbrow gem- Get Him to the Greek) doesn’t understand a concept so simple and plain.

Krugman, an economist by trade, has proven himself quite the leftist political hack in his bloviations on The New York Times editorial page, but then he pushed the envelope one nudge too far.

On January 9th, only a day after Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was seriously wounded by a point blank shot in the head and six others, including a nine year old girl who aspired to one day serve the public and a Republican-appointed federal judge, were killed by 22 year old Jared Loughner, Krugman took his own rhetorical shots.

The gist of Krugman’s screed is that conservatives are easily incited to violence through their demagogic media figures. Krugman goes on to accuse Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck of making jokes about shooting government officials while giving a pass to the left’s leading blowhard Keith Olbermann.

I find this ironic as Olbermann is perhaps the most hate-filled vitriolic television commentator outside of public-access cable, but back to the more educated slinger of vitriol.

Rather than go through the trouble of taking the time to discover who Loughner is or have the patience to learn of an established motive for the massacre, Krugman demonstrated he lacked journalistic professionalism and class by following Rahm Emanuel’s mantra of never letting a crisis go to waste to twist the tragedy to advance his political agenda and smear those who not share his philosophy, directly leaving the blame for the shootings on the doorstep of the GOP.

In doing so, Krugman not only libels the Republican Party (and thus its members) but by default elevates the shooter on the same level as the English knights who murdered the Archbishop of Canterbury after hearing King Henry II cry out “will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?”

Those with blood on their hands were malleable men merely following orders of higher-ups who didn’t watch what they said.

Loughner would only be too lucky to have Krugman testify for the defense.



What we know about Loughner NOW after the media’s fog of lies dissipated is that he was a drug user, a 9-11 “truther” and a nihilist.

Hardly the stuff of a card-carrying member of the Republican Party.

Loughner also believes that Christianity is a creation to better control society, which is a Marxist concept. But I don’t think philosophy had anything to do with what he did.

Loughner’s actions are merely the manifestation of his madness.

One former friend claimed that Loughner’s resentment of Giffords was in part to her being “fake”, a possible motive that harkens to another high profile murder that took place decades before outside the Dakota Apartments in Manhattan.

Psychiatrist Daniel Schwartz testified at the trial of Mark David Chapman that John Lennon’s murderer was driven to commit his crime because Chapman thought the musician was a phony.

Chapman made no secret of his self-identification with Holden Caulfield, the cynical, sanctimonious teenage character from the book The Catcher in the Rye. He even wrote a note saying as much in a copy of the book Chapman left to be discovered by the police.

Yet J.D. Sallinger was no more responsible for John Lennon’s death as Sarah Palin, Beck, O’Reilly, et al were for what transpired in Arizona.

Sifting for reason in this tragedy is a fool’s errand, yet that doesn’t stop the leftist media from mightily trying to discover where the flow chart connection is between Loughner and the TEA Party movement.

Liberals are inclined to believe that all that is evil in world is preventable, from poverty to sickness to bad weather to violence.

All that needs to be done is to better control society from eating certain foods, owning certain things, drive certain cars and most importantly thinking and saying certain things.

Conservatives, trusting tradition, history and common sense over Ivy League learning, know that this is simply not so.

The only thing that could have been done to stop Loughner is someone else there with a gun.

Jared Loughner, just as Charles David Whitman and Chapman before him, chose to do something terrible and senseless on January 8th, coaxed to act only his irrational inner demons.

It is absurd to even imply that a political action committee website with targets over competitive legislative districts contributed to the terrible violence. But such a theory was seriously offered for public consumption before being rejected on its merits, or lack thereof.

Krugman and his fellow exploiter of tragedy Clarence Dupnik, the sheriff who concocted that Loughner was motivated by the conservative media, have disrespected the slain and those who were scarred physically and emotionally through their own irresponsible comments by injecting partisan politics into the story.

Krugman’s caustic commentary doesn’t incite violence but disgust. Sane America sees what happened in Arizona as a senseless tragedy and not a soapbox to demonize political opponents.

Jindal Down in Poll. But Far from Out

It seems that the S.S. Jindal has taken on some water according to the latest poll from Southern Media and Opinion Research survey on statewide officials.

Governor Bobby Jindal, who had spent a considerable amount of time on the campaign trail for Republican candidates across the country (Louisiana excepted) and has recently been touring the nation promoting a book he wrote on leadership, saw his poll numbers fall significantly, an indication that a sizable portion of the Louisiana electorate is not enamored with his out of state travels.

According to the SMOR data, Jindal’s approval rating stood at 55%, a six point dip since the last survey the Baton Rouge-based polling company performed in the spring. Matching Jindal’s popularity dip was the rise in his negative rating, which climbed to 43%.

Jindal’s SMOR poll numbers have tumbled considerably since the spring of 2009, where the governor enjoyed a high, if not unrealistically so, 68% approval rating with a 30% negative rating.

At first glance, the most troubling aspect of the poll for Jindal is that only 39% of respondents said they would definitely vote to re-elect him with 35% stating they would definitely vote for someone else. However, as 35% is about the state’s hardcore Democratic vote, that number isn’t as astonishing as it might appear. In fact it’s automatic opposition to any candidate with an “R” next to his or her name.

Jindal has been flayed in the local press for being out of state so much during very dire budget times with the most stinging hit coming courtesy of the LSU student government president who used mocking letters to the editor in newspapers in states that hold early presidential primaries and caucuses to slam the governor for his extracurricular political activities beyond Louisiana and for the expected severe hit to the state’s higher education budget.

The governor’s numbers have also been affected by the constant speculation that he will run for president, despite Jindal’s constant claims he will not be a candidate. Once Jindal’s bid for re-election as governor begins, concerns about his presidential aspirations, at least in 2012, will be quelled and resentment for his out of state travels will subside when people see him in Bunkie instead of Des Moines.

Jindal’s lower approval rating isn’t politically terminal. The governor has raised an astounding $8,000,000 after three years of constant fundraising in Louisiana and beyond. A challenger is going to have a hard time putting together even half that amount, especially almost exclusively in-state.

As one of the GOP’s rising stars, Jindal parlayed his celebrity status to attract dollars to his campaign from people in other states that normally wouldn’t care about who wins governor of Louisiana. Jindal’s Democratic “Opponent To Be Named Later” is going to have a hard time getting someone in Delaware to spend $1,000 on a photo op with him or her.

In all likelihood, Jindal will have the capacity to spend $2 defining his opponent for every $1 he or she spends just trying to build name recognition.

And who is the Democrat “Opponent to Be Named Later” going to be? The Baton Rouge Advocate recently did an article on potential Democratic challengers with none committing to the race beyond “consideration” and two in particular offering clever quips renouncing even the prospect of running.

And while first time candidate Caroline Fayard proved that quasi-self-financing with generous sums of money is one way to pole vault over better established politicians in the primary, the end result was being on the wrong side of a runoff landslide against a candidate she outspent by a wide-margin.

And I should add, that was for an office the public doesn’t really care about.

Jindal’s most vocal critic is a fellow Republican, State Treasurer John Kennedy, who has sparred with the fourth floor in the press over the budget.

Kennedy, who has the highest approval rating of the officials polled at 61%, is not expected to challenge Jindal, with a source close to the treasurer stating, “John has the job he wants”.

And though stern words have been exchanged between the two Republicans, Jindal is in no danger of losing his core GOP base- that being the same bloc of voters responsible for dispatching the last Republican governor that lost re-election.

Though Jindal’s poll numbers have fallen and might fall even further as the budget battle becomes more public and protracted, until he draws an opponent who can match his well-stocked warchest and convince Louisiana voters that had just overwhelmingly embraced the Republican ticket to swing back to the Democratic Party, the governor goes into the election year a heavy favorite for a primary win.

Seasons' Greetings, Gropings and Scannings!

The day before Thanksgiving marks the busiest travel time in the country as millions of younger Americans return to their roots to celebrate with their families that most unique of our holidays.

But the route between their new home and their old home will be marked with traffic snarls and lines at the airport.

The former because we own so many cars (no need to apologize) and the latter because our country is so large and our population so mobile, passenger air service makes it convenient and in some cases necessary.

But in 2010, those lines at the airport are going to be longer. A lot longer.

And for that, we can thank Osama Bin Laden and his stooge disciples, the bumbling shoe and underwear bombers in particular.

The 9-11 hijackers utilized box cutters and fear that they were armed with something more potent to manifest their martyrdom and murder.

In December 2001, Richard Reid used something a more technical in his attempt: 10 ounces of C-4 plastic explosives hidden in his shoes. Thankfully, Reid wasn’t that bright. He apparently wore the shoes around, which either absorbed moisture or got wet in the rain, and thus he had trouble detonating the shoe bombs. Also deserving of credit are passengers and flight attendants who physically subdued Reid while in the act of trying to light the fuse.

Had Reid succeeded, the explosives would have done enough damage to bring down the transatlantic flight.

Mr. Reid is the reason why we must all shuffle about airport screening areas in our socks so our shoes can be checked through x-ray machines to see if they’ve been hallowed out.

Four years later British intelligence exposed a plot to smuggle explosives in gel form concealed in sports drinks on to transoceanic flights in an attempt to simultaneously blow up the planes while over the Atlantic. This plot was nipped in the bud before it was near execution and dozens of people were arrested. One of those conspirators had wide-ranging access at London’s Heathrow Airport.

They are the reason why we must buy mini-sized toothpastes, shampoo and mouthwash and stick them in zip lock bags if we don’t check baggage (something people try to avoid due to fees) and why if we’re thirsty, we have to pay near baseball stadium prices on bottled water and sodas on the other side of the security screening area.

And then there is Nigerian national Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, AKA the underwear bomber.

A child of privilege, the highly educated Abdulmu…no, he doesn’t deserve to be known by his name…he shall henceforth be referred to as the “panty popper”…decided to end it all for himself and 289 people on Christmas Day 2009 on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.

Unlike Reid, who tried to blow the plane up in front of everyone- perhaps a sign that he was hoping someone would save him from himself, the “panty popper” set his plan in motion as the Northwest Airlines Flight 253 neared Detroit away from prying eyes in the privy.

Once again, luck was on the side of the passengers as the explosive device didn’t work as planned with the “panty popper” setting his leg and part of the plane’s interior wall on fire.

A Dutch passenger tackled the would be martyr while flight attendants (who seem to provide more of a service than just providing people drinks) extinguished the flames. The “panty popper” had chemical explosives sewn into his underwear, which a standard metal detector would not pick up.

In other words, the “panty popper” used a smuggling technique not too far removed from that employed by my fraternity brothers who wished to secret whiskey in Tiger Stadium: liquids in plastic packaging hidden in an area nobody was likely to check.

And it is thanks to the “panty popper” we must all be zapped in a giant clear chamber that checks under our clothes, in our body crevices, douses with radiation and maybe makes us become sympathetic to the approaching out of space visitors looking to take over Earth.

It is this latest indignity that has people angry, as people tend to link radiation with cancer, with most people believing the alternative is letting a low level government employee getting to second base on us.

Well folks, I have some bad news: last week I got the Bruce Banner treatment and had to be groped anyway. In other words, it’s not an either/or.

Such treatment has led folks to angrily quote the Declaration of Independence, Sean Hannity, Edmund Burke and Ron Paul at high volumes in the presence of TSA workers, whom I imagine more than a few are happy to no longer be employed at Walmart.

In a recent column, George Will opined that the elaborately intrusive TSA screening system is theatre intended more to reassure than protect. To a degree he’s right.

Notice how the security policies come AFTER the failed or foiled attempts. In other words, the government agencies are reacting to and not anticipating for Al-Qaeda’s end around plays.

That’s the part that bothers me the most.

But it does provide a modicum of protection against the acts of terrorism by making things more complicated for the bay guys. Remember how easy Mohamed Atta & Co. had it, walking right on board with weapons? Now things are as complicated for the terrorists are they are for travelers.

No walking in with sharp objects (or knitting needles). No plastique (or silly putty for junior). No gel-based explosives (or hair gel for those who must have managed hair). And no chemical based liquid accelerants (or that bottle of Aquafina I bought at the Exxon for 99 cents).

And with the new scanners that can peep anywhere except our souls, no smuggling any of those things in an uncomfortable place. And I’m not talking about the backseat of a Volkswagen.

So if terrorists are largely prevented from running things through the actual checkpoints, then they need to expand their conspiracy…which increases the chances of a bust via someone with second-thoughts, a heavy conscience, a girlfriend who talks too much and/or a sleeper agent.

And the cost of this added layer of protection/irritation?

According to an AP story that ran on the frontpage of last Friday’s Wyoming Tribune Eagle (Cheyenne), $175,000 per scanner.

From my personal experience, removing every little thing from your pockets. Everything.

So your wallet, money clip, lucky fava beans, etc. makes it through the x-ray machine before you make it through the ray-gun booth. That had me sweating more than the microwaves running through my body.

According to the article in the aforementioned daily, there are two kinds of scanners: the millimeter wave units and the backscatter variety. The former emits a weak radiation that is harmless; the latter emits X-ray like radiation, which experts claim are insignificant.

How insignificant might you ask? It’s less radiation than one is exposed to during a dental x-ray or from flying in the plane itself, which receives a big dose of it from being closer to the sun’s rays.

Each machine can scan 350 people an hour. Optimally.
As the technology is new, the TSA people not overly skilled in its operation and travelers ornery, things don’t go so smoothly.

For example, while boarding a flight to Denver the early morning line at Moisant’s Southwest gate (one of the faster security lines) stretched to the gift shop. After waiting patiently, I finally went into the booth, was zapped and then I had to stand there. Two people ahead of me was a guy that needed to be checked, necessitating a male “toucher”. After he was give the once over, I was stuck standing in the booth as the next person head of me was female and needed to be vetted by a female so the first checker had to go back.

I was out of the booth when I had to wait again as, you guessed it, the male checker had to come back. After being patted down, I scampered to my flight gate with belt, possessions and shoes not in their usual places. My high “B” number made academic by the security gate delay as almost all of the other passengers were already on board.

Rather than having separate scanners for male and female with appropriate staff to do the mandatory body checks (which seems unnecessary since the scanner should pick up more than a hand feel), the TSA check was a Three Stooges operation.

So if you’re one of those people traveling this Thanksgiving week (or any other week in this new reality of ours), allow me to share some advice.

1) Add another hour, thirty minutes minimum, to your airport arrival. What used to take less than 30 minutes will take an hour, etc. The TSA isn’t familiar with the new machinery and you have to remove a lot more now, so that’s going to back things up.

2) Save the drama for your congressman. The TSA people don’t make the rules, they just clumsily enforce them. Rather than quoting the second hour segments of radio talk show hosts who rant about the TSA but fly on private jets, bear it (you’re not obligated to grin). If you don’t like it, don’t fly and/or write your congressman and US Senators. But please do not cause a scene. Making the family behind you miss their flight isn’t being patriotic just because you’re pissed off. Really. How much more different is being disruptive in the airport security line than it was for those anti-war protestors in San Francisco who unwisely decided to recklessly block thoroughfares to vent their spleens about George W. Bush? Not a whole lot. Blog. Write. Phone in your protests. But don’t go Patrick Henry on TSA workers unless you have a lawyer with too much free time on his or her hands.

3) If you request to not go through the scanner, expect to be thoroughly groped. The bomber who could be behind you in line doesn’t want to go through the scanner either, but for different reasons as terminal illness isn’t much of a concern.

While there are more ways for terrorists to strike at our country than simply bringing down planes, airports are a favorite target. And even the most comprehensive security measures cannot fully protect people. The precautions that have been put in place are not the best, but are simply the best available. However, the pre-existing screening devices and systems that were previously in place didn’t do the job and we can’t count on Al-Qaeda to always send in bumbling agents to do their bidding.

The Early Call: Landry to Win, Vitter, Dardenne Start Strong

The early returns from Saint Bernard show that Republican Jeff Landry will cruise to an easy election in the Third Congressional District.

Landry won 70% of the early vote to Democrat Ravi Sangisetty's 30%.

Also starting with a lead are Republicans Jay Dardenne and David Vitter. Democratic Congressman Charlie Melancon, who represents Saint Bernard in Congress, received 35% in the first numbers reported. Dardenne ran ahead of Democrat Caroline Fayard, 60% to 40%.

The Early Call: Saint Bernard Parish Turnout

Turnout in the suburban parish of Saint Bernard has reached 22% as of 6 PM. Black turnout is keeping on par with the average, a sign that a key component of the Democratic Party's base is motivated in the mid-term election.

The first results will be posted here at 8 PM.