Libs should be thanking the Pubs for even letting them live. Prioritize your gratitude here! (I myself thank God for not letting me take things to a bit higher level, the way Dems botched Vietnam and now use Vietnam as a reason for being against war but insanely insist they --- the self-acknowledged failures --- be placed in charge of our defense posture. I too proritize gratitude. I too let liberals live. But (*)(*)(*)(*) me if I'm not often tempted to change my benevolent attitude!)

The GOP had been saying the same thing for decades. It's that old Soft Shoe at work stealing ideas from his betters. Bubba was loaded with tricks like that, as we all knew until the fat lady sang and the American people in their righteous might won through to absolute FDR-like victory in '00 and '04.

I love a happy first act. Now give us eight years more, and eight after that, until Democrats have demonstrated their futility to the same point they are as relevant as Mugwumps and Know-Nothings in our political lexicon.

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Delivering tasty bite-sized Clues to liberals since 1965.

I still like you. Hey, now I like you even more.



I used to be a reasonably big wheel at the largest provider in the country.

That reminds me of an old joke - about the surfer who got his leg bit off by a lawyer....

I'm married. Get your hand off my leg.

Hang five, bill the tourist bureau for the rest?

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Delivering tasty bite-sized Clues to liberals since 1965.

The New Deal was inspired by Huey long.

Bush couldn't even dismantle the new deal in 2005. That's with GOP control over congress & the senate.

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I have something to hide.

This is a sad story. So, the feds cough up all this taxpayer money, give it away in cash without any verification of any sort, and now it's all okay because they're spending even more money to investigate the fraud and bring the perps up on charges? Ouch. There's our government in action.

Lemme see now: I'm noticing the difference in tone between the way this story is being related in the domestic press, and the international press. For instance, check these:

http://www.suntimes.com/output/hurri...ws-fema14.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...15/ixnews.html

Bob Brooks, the chairman of the Hooters chain, actually paid back the government $200.00 for a bottle of Dom Perignon that was purchased at one of his establishments.

It's that gris-gris those primitives were leaving on each other's doorsteps. I heard the Dr. John song Walk on Guilded Splinters. I know about that scene now, I tell you. Black magic and weird incantations, but enough excuses on why Ray Nagin got reelected.

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Delivering tasty bite-sized Clues to liberals since 1965.

IF YOU WANT IT DONE FAST, IT COSTS YOU. IT WAS AN EMERGENCY.

More cordially.....

And I'll bet that somewhere in Federal-Land there's a Gummint employee with the Hooters T-shirt that accompanied that check, and he'll die by firing squad before he gives it back.

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Delivering tasty bite-sized Clues to liberals since 1965.

On this one, I'll refer you to what happened after the Northridge earthquake out here in California, in '94. That was a major disaster - in addition to all the housing damage and so on, there were a lot of freeways that became undrivable - some of them had bridges that simply fell down onto whatever was below them, while others developed cracks and potholes that were so big that not even a semi could navigate them, and there were lots of overpasses with dubious support pillars, and that kind of thing.

Well, here's an example of the "right" way to handle this kind of situation. Let's see, Pete Wilson was the Governor back then (yep, a Republican ) - and he didn't have to resort to any no-bid contracts or dumb Gummint giveaways or anything like that. What he did, is he offered "incentive" contracts on a bid basis, to any company who could demonstrate that it could get the job done. But here's the clever part - he offered enormous incentives based on time-to-completion.

The original set of "essential" freeway repairs was scheduled to take three to six months. The company that ended up getting the contract here in the greater LA area was Tutor-Saliba, they're a pretty big contractor for Caltrans and they do a lot of freeway work, so they already had the infrastructure available, in terms of machinery and supplies and so forth.

What happened was, that Tutor-Saliba got the entire job done in six weeks, and because of that they ended up making three times as much in incentive money as the entire base contract was worth. How they did that, is very interesting. They basically promoted "anyone who knew anything" to foremen, and hired cheap unskilled labor to do the grunt work. In other words, they essentially bypassed all the unions, and they got State support in doing that (guvn'r Wilson signed an emergency measure that basically allowed the selected contractor to tell the unions to go shove off during the emergency period). The end result - everyone was happy. The State made out 'cause it got the roads up and running again in record time, which meant it could start collecting tax revenues again from all those business down in Torrance and Long Beach (whose workers mostly live way out in the San Fernando Valley). The contractor made out 'cause they got an enormous profit, much bigger than any "ordinary" job. The workers made out 'cause they got paid overtime and were able to be gainfully employed during a period when everyone else was still scratching their heads wondering how they were going to fix the beams that just came poking through their house from the garage.

See? No senseless Gummint giveaways (every dime the State spent was recovered, and then some), no dubious no-bid contracts (guvn'r Wilson simply called in all the CEO's and said "we want your proposals within 24 hours"), no crappy politicking (like temporary repeals of the Davis-Bacon act so big business could hire illegal immigrants at half the prevailing wage) - nothing like that. It was all on the up-and-up, the job got done quickly and efficiently, and everyone was happy.

Now, couldn't Bushie take a lesson from something like that? I mean, that would be the model for how the government should handle an emergency like that, wouldn't it? Granted that Louisiana is not California, 'cause we happen to have a top-notch emergency management agency out here, and we don't (usually) have to deal with incompetents like that Dem weasel Gray Davis (who totally screwed the pooch on those long-term contracts when the energy crunch hit a few years later)....

See? There's a perfect example of a Republican who knows something about implementation (and a Dem who doesn't). They exist, I assure you. It's just that they don't exist in the Bush administration, is all. Bushie cares a lot more about ideology than he does about implementation, and he's one of those weasels who's so clueless about the machinery of the federal government that he's willing to take the easy (and stupid) way out just to be able to say he's done something. I mean, I could rattle off such a long list of stupidity around the Katrina thing, that it would boggle your mind - starting with those darn trailers, that are still sitting in a cow patch in the middle of Hope AR, and extending through the FEMA idiocy of actually turning back essential supplies because they didn't want to step on the Governors' toes, and including Bushie waiting 8 days to get Russ Honore down on the ground.

I mean, one of the better known stories from the '94 earthquake relates to a certain CHP officer, who happened to drive by a street vendor the day after the earthquake. The vendor had a sign that read: "9V batteries $10". The CHP officer took a magic marker, crossed out the $10, and wrote "FREE", and then called in one of the local police to make sure the vendor stayed in place until his entire supply of batteries was gone.

See? Implementation. You wouldn't see anything like that from the Bush administration. On day one, they'd still be running around like chickens without heads, confused to the point of inaction. Heck, they wouldn't even have processed the information on day one. Capiche?

But far more importantly, they never actually did anything about it! That's the thing with the GOP. They do a lot of talking. And much of it sounds good. But they never seem to do much of anything. And often times the things they do are in direct opposition to the things they say. You seem to focus more on the talk. I focus more on the actions. When I attended that little university in your home town I was actually in the college Republicans. But once I put the Kool Aid down it occurred to me that the two parties were virtually identical in every way that matters (actions). So as far as I'm concerned they can both kiss my ass.

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I wasn't born with enough middle fingers.

Thanks for this story on the runaway cop who illegally and wrongly appropriated personal property and saw to its unauthorized distribution, with the threat of gunplay if orders were not followed.

This is unlawful property redistribution. It is illegal. It is wrong.

Don't believe it? I want your car. I don't care what you like. I have a badge and gun. You're dead if you argue. I'll just take the keyring I see in front of you. Go ahead. I have a cop pal here to guard you until I give away your property.

Califormnia needs to be given to Hawaii, if the San Andreas Fault would only cooperate. You try that with me, you leave in a zippered bag.

The cop stole those batteries. He played judge and jury, not officer of the court.

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Delivering tasty bite-sized Clues to liberals since 1965.