The Obamatudes

Piyush "Bobby" Jindal, born June 10, 1971. Governor of Louisiana. Two term US Representative of Louisiana. 1st generation Inidan American, his parents having immigrated from India. Married with 3 children. Rhodes Scholar, attended New College, Oxford where he received a masters degree in political science.

POSITION ON ISSUES

Abortion: 100% rating with National Right to Life Committee. Opposes abortion but not medical procedures meant to save the life of the mother and supports use of emergency contraception in the case of rape.

Stem cell research: Opposes.

Taxes: As a citizen voted for a state tax plan that lowered sales taxes and raised income taxes. As governor he opposed a plan to cut $300 million in personal income taxes and only agreed to it when the legislature threatened to eliminate the entire state personal income tax. Passed large tax cuts for businesses.

Patriot Act: Voted yes on making it permanent.

Flag burning: Supported a constitutional amendment banning flag burning.

Guns: Received an A from Gun Owners of America, A+ from NRA.

Real ID Act of 2005: Voted for it.

Voted with the Republican Caucus 97% of the time.

Earmarks: Received 19.3 million as US Rep. As governor he has taken a stance against earmarks.

Immigration: 100% by USBC (www.usbc.org). Voted for English to be official language.

Drilling: Is pro drilling.

Iraq War: Supports war.

HISTORY

After college worked as consultant for Fortune 500 companies.

1996: Secretary of Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals. Took Louisiana’s Medicaid program from a $400 million deficit to a $200 million surplus in just three years. He was critized by the the AFL-CIO for closing a few clinics in order to balance the budget. During his tenure Louisiana’s national healthcare ranking dropped into last place (I don’t know what it was prior, it could have been 49th for all I know).

1998: Worked on a national panel to reform Medicare.

2001: Assistant secretary of the Health and Human Services for Planning and Evaluation under Bush.

2003 Lost race for governor of Louisiana to Kathleen Blanco.

2004 Elected US Representative of Louisiana’s 1st district.

2007: Elected governor of Louisiana.

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While running for governor Jindal had pledged to prevent legislative pay raises that would double the state legislators’ pay. After being elected governorhe stated that he would not veto the pay raise because he had also pledged to allow the legislature to govern themselves. When threatened by a recall Jindal reversed course and vetoed the pay raise. 

Jindal’s executive council, Jimmy Faircloth was involved in a controversy involving a Louisiana Indian tribe which had been raped by Abramoff. 

Gustav hit in August 2008. Jindal led one of largest evacuations in US history. He responded strongly to the crisis. He canceled his speech at the RNC due to the crisis.

Religion: Jindal converted from Hinduism to Catholism. His parents have not accepted his conversion well and there is stress within the family due to it. While still struggling with his conversion to Christianity he was involved in an exorcism. He has written quite a few articles concerning his conversion to Christianity including one documenting the exorcism.

‘Bobby’ stands for Bobby Brady, as a child Jindal was a fan of the Brady Bunch show and adopted the name. 

Stated that there were no major oil spills due to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Actually some 9 million barrels were spilled. 

The question at hand is how much can Obama get away with as far as executive orders (EO) are concerned? I won’t debate whether Obama will abuse EOs as it is my opinion that most modern (post WWII at least) presidents have abused them.  

''Stroke of the pen. Law of the land. Kind of cool.'' Paul Begala, Clinton administration, 1998

"We've switched the rules of the game. We're not trying to do anything legislatively." Bruce Babbitt, Clinton administration, 1999

What have presidents done (or tried to do with just an EO? Designated 70 million acres million acres as national monuments, making them essentially inaccessible for public use: waged war on other countries: seized control of US steel mills: amended, changed or over-ruled Civil Service rules: banned offshore oil drilling: created the EPA: limited stem cell research: made presidential pardons: effected eminent domain: sent Americans to interment camps: restricted public access to records.

Now, what EOs might Obama make?  He has already said that he wants to close Gitmo and ship the inmates to the States for trial and to block expansion of oil drilling in Utah. He will most likely re-enact the ban on offshore drilling as well as lift the limits on stem cell research. Support foreign family planning groups (i.e., abortion). Hamstring our military and intelligence agencies by forcing compliance with the Army Field Manual in all agencies. Expand/strengthen the EPA and/or create more agencies to control energy use. Weaken citizen’s defense against eminent domain. Expand surveillence of civilians domestically.   Inter innocents. Block access to his historic records. Seize control of entire industries.  Enforce open ballots during union votes (not sure about this)?    

These really just scratch the surface of what Obama could do as president, just let your imagination run wild with this. And as a Congressional super-majority is needed to override an OE, plus with the SCOTUS being in balance, it is very unlikely that any OE Obama makes will be overridden.   ‘Stroke of the pen. Law of the land. Kinda cool.’

This brings up the question of what can we do to limit the damage Obama could do via OEs? Frankly, not much in the short term. But we can do some things. We can correspondent with our congressmen and urge them to fight against any activist judicial appointments, especially in the SCOTUS (ie, grow a set of gonads and a spine). We can write to the RNC and demand that they appoint a strong conservative as chairperson. We can support and vote for CONSERVATIVES during the next election cycle.

There are some things that we can do outside the Republican Party (indeed, if the Reps refuse to move back to conservatism, let the damned party die). Now, I am strictly a rule-of-law type of guy and I will wait to see how He governs just to keep it fair,  but as soon as He shows His true strips I intend to start making all of the noise that I can, legally. My truck will be plastered with anti-O bumper stickers, I am now searching for anti-O t-shirts (I may even make my own, silk-screening isn’t hard), I will have anti-O signs in my yard and I will send frequent nasty-grams to The One. All of this will be to instigate action against me by O’s thugs. While as a lone person I am no threat to Him and would be vulnerable but there is strength in numbers and I urge everyone to become an activist. And if push comes to shove (I pray that it doesn’t) I will remember the words of the G-Man, "Now if the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms comes to disarm you and they are bearing arms, resist them with arms. Go for a head shot; they're going to be wearing bulletproof vests. ... Kill the sons of bitches."

Your affectionate uncle, Screwtape

Obama 23

Now that the election is past it is incumbent upon conservatives to treat President-Elect Obama with all of the respect due his position. Let the shrill rhetoric and name calling fade away and let us look into the future. Criticism should be kept to a minimum until he takes office. After all, it is not fair to blame someone for things beyond their control and conservatives need to hold themselves to a higher standard of behavior than do liberals. Beside, he will give us ample opportunities to attack him in the years to come.

I have decided to start Obama off with an approval rating of 100%. This is in keeping with the way I figure tips, waiters/waitresses start out with a 15% tip and go up or down from there depending upon the service they provide. Seeing as how Obama hadn’t pissed me off as president-elect at the time he became president-elect he got 100%. Since the election he has done two things to irk me: leaking his conversation with President Bush and pretending to limit lobbyists in his transition team. Small things, really, so I hit him with just one point each, which brings him down to a 98% approval rating. By the time Obama takes office he will probably be swirling around the drain toward negative numbers. Yes, in Hell you can have negative approval numbers.  It is after all, Hell. 

It just occurred to me that I need to create a scale to weigh how much actions will either lower or raise (hey, it could happen) Obama’s approval rating. I’ll work on that.

For those not familiar with the name Screwtape, please let me refer you to C. S. Lewis’ fine book ‘The Screwtape Letters’. In Lewis’ work Screwtape is a demon and experienced temptor who, via a series letters attempts to instruct a junior temptor, Wormwood, in the fine art of tempting souls to Hell. It is a good read for both Christians and non-Christians.  I have used the handle since the pre-internet BBS days to promote C. S. Lewis, a tremendous author and theologian.

My goal is to comment on subjects which interest me including national politics, the economy and healthcare and to ,hopefully, receive feedback and have debate on these topics. This is an experiment as my past ‘blogging’ took place back before the term was used and I will now be a very little fish in a very large pond, but it will at least be a form of catharsis. I will try to post new blogs frequently but I have a job a family, dogs and a really big motorcycle that all demand attention so I can’t promise anything.    

The rules are simple. Flaming will not be allowed and there won’t be many warnings given. Any reasoned argument will be entertained, I don’t expect everyone to agree with me. Keep it clean and come out swinging!