#rsrh QotD, Can’t Say I Blame Him Edition.

Freshman Republican Jeff Landry (LA), on why he passed up a chance to meet with the President:

“I have respectfully declined the president’s invitation to the White House today,” Rep. Jeff Landry (La.) said in a statement. “I don’t intend to spend my morning being lectured to by a president whose failed policies have put our children and grandchildren in a huge burden of debt.”

Worse, Landry would have been tediously lectured to… although I must admit that President Obama is a bit of an expert on debt.  After all, he’s had plenty of recent hands-on experience in creating it.

Pensacola Beach closed due to Obamaspill.

Yes. Yes, this ‘big government, federal override of the states’ thing is working out ever so well.

Heckuva job there, Barry.

A popular section of Pensacola Beach has been closed because of oil that washed ashore there.

Government officials closed about a quarter-mile section of Casino Beach on Thursday. Thick pools of oil washed ashore there Wednesday.

Via Gateway Pundit, via Instapundit. But never fear: the White House in on the case! Continue reading Pensacola Beach closed due to Obamaspill.

Meet Hunt Downer (R CAND, LA-03).

Hunt is one of the candidates running for Charlie Melancon’s seat in LA-03: the district is smack dab in the middle of Obamaspill, and as you can imagine, the candidate has views on that. Hunt’s a former general in the LA National Guard and state official, which gives him a pretty interesting perspective on this mess:

His site is here.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Gov. Bobby Jindal (R, LA) gives up on waiting for BP/WH.

(Via Hot Air Headlines) Given that the leak hasn’t been plugged yet, and given that the Gov. Jindal has a state to look after, this isn’t surprising.

Eight weeks into the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of the Mexico, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has told the National Guard that there’s no time left to wait for BP, so they’re taking matters into their own hands.

In Fort Jackson, La., Jindal has ordered the Guard to start building barrier walls right in the middle of the ocean. The barriers, built nine miles off shore, are intended to keep the oil from reaching the coast by filling the gaps between barrier islands.

Continue reading Gov. Bobby Jindal (R, LA) gives up on waiting for BP/WH.

EPA head to fundraise for DSCC while oil spreads.

Eating breakfast.

Priorities, folks: priorities.  Apparently Lisa Jackson figures that if Interior Dept CoS Tom Strickland could go white-water rafting while the oil spread, she can go raise money for the Democrats:

As the Obama administration struggles to contain the massive oil spill threatening the Louisiana coast, one of its top environmental officials will be the featured attraction at a fundraiser for Senate Democrats next week in Manhattan, at which donors are promised they can speak to her about their “issues of concern.”

I have an ‘issue of concern:’ the Governor of Louisiana is shouting at the federal government to sign off on emergency sand berms to keep the oil away from wetlands; and the administration is dithering. So, several questions, here:

  • When was the EPA planning to help with that?
  • Was the EPA planning to help with that at all?
  • If it’s not… why?  I mean, I can guess, but the nicest answer implies rank partisanship on Jackson’s part, and rapidly degenerates from there.  And I mean really rapidly degenerates.

Lisa Jackson can answer these at her leisure: after all, it’s not like there’s an acute ecological crisis going on right now…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

#rsrh Geez, Stormy, run in LA-03 if you’re that annoyed about it.

It’s an open seat and a prime Republican pickup, seeing as Charlie Melancon has decided to end his legislative career by losing to David Vitter in the LA-SEN race.  You say you’re a Fair-Taxer, and I believe you: you also say that your, ah, life/work experience gives you a certain useful perspective on the proper role of government in man’s affairs, and I actually believe you on that, too.  But trying to jump from the adult entertainment industry to a Senatorial seat in one go was always going to have people assume the worst of your motivations.  House seat… you might have gotten a pass on that.  Senate seat: no.

Sorry, but that’s the way it goes.  I didn’t design this political system: I’m just trying to manipulate it for my own goals, just like you and everybody else who’s paying attention.

William Jefferson (D) gets 13 years.

Half of what they asked for, but he’s going away for a while.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) – A former Louisiana congressman who famously stashed cash in his freezer was sentenced Friday to 13 years in prison for taking hundreds of thousands in bribes in exchange for using his influence to broker business deals in Africa.

(H/T: Riehl World View) You know, when you’re faced with this sort of situation – one where you see a flawed, corrupted, fundamentally weak man finally be caught up by the impersonal forces of law and justice – there are times where you have to look on and ask yourself, Was it worth it to see the wreckage that has been made of this person’s life?  Can there be satisfaction in seeing an elderly man sent to prison for what might be the rest of his days?  Are you satisfied at the way that the foe has been relentlessly brought low?

(pause)

(Brightly) Yes!

Moe Lane

PS: …in his freezer.

Crossposted to RedState.

The *biggest* disappointment, Mr. Robinson?

In the middle of complaining about the President’s curiously limited visit to New Orleans, Washington Post opinion columnist Eugene Robinson wrote:

It was stunning that he would spend only a few hours on the ground and that he wouldn’t set foot in Mississippi or Alabama at all.

Well…

  • Mississippi, 2008 result: 56% McCain, 43% Obama
  • Alabama, 2008 result: 60% McCain, [39]% Obama [My glitch, folks: sorry.]

Not really, no.

Moe Lane

PS: Louisiana is part of a critical bit of Democratic mythology (How the Right Wing Left Black People to Die), so it needs to get at least a little attention.  Provided that it can be also used to push something truly important, such as pushing the Democratic health care rationing bill.

Crossposted to RedState.

Joseph Cao’s (R, LA-02) charming press release.

Easily the best one that you’ll read all week.  The context: nobody can pronounce the Congressman’s last name properly – up to and including the President (this isn’t a slam: I was getting it wrong, too).  So Joseph decided to set the record straight with a press release:

My last name – Cao – is actually pronounced (drum-roll please…) “Gow.” It starts with a “G” and rhymes (as Amanda Carpenter quipped in the Washington Post) with “Pow.”

I can understand your reluctance to accept such an absurd variation – surely no “C,” in the history of language, has ever been pronounced as a “G.” And yet, through no fault of my own, my native Southern Vietnamese dialect evolved such that this absurd mockery of consonants is, in fact, reality.

The whole thing is worth your time; it’s good from start to finish.  All in all, I’d like to keep Joseph in Congress for a while: how about you?  Thanks to his position as a Republican legislator in a heavily Democratic district, he’s currently under a good deal of pressure to break ranks on health care rationing (he’s already taken hits from the Democrats for not budging for the ‘stimulus’ or cap-and-trade bills): he frankly needs all the help that he can get.

Moe Lane

PS: I keep calling him ‘Joseph’ because he said that we all could.

Crossposted to RedState.

Rep John Fleming (R, LA-04): So, you want a Government-run health care plan, Democrats?

Fine. Sign yourselves up for it.

Freshman GOP Rep John Fleming of Louisiana recently called for the Democrat-ruled Congress to live by the rules that they want to saddle on the rest of us:

Over the past few weeks, members of Congress and the American people have come to know the details of the Administration’s proposed health care plan. Call it whatever you like, this proposal is nothing more than government-run health care. As a physician, I am amazed at the number of bureaucrats in this House who are quick to claim a government-run health care plan is the reform this country needs. In response to this, I have offered a resolution that will offer members of Congress an opportunity to put their money where their mouth is, and urge their colleagues who vote for legislation creating a government-run health care plan to lead by example and enroll themselves in the same public plan.

Under the current draft of the Democrat healthcare legislation, members of Congress are curiously exempt from the government-run health care option, keeping their existing health plans and services on Capitol Hill. If Members of Congress believe so strongly that government-run health care is the best solution for hard working American families, I think it only fitting that Americans see them lead the way. Public servants should always be accountable and responsible for what they are advocating, and I challenge the American people to demand this from their representatives.

See also this video: Continue reading Rep John Fleming (R, LA-04): So, you want a Government-run health care plan, Democrats?