Liberty and Justice for All!

This is how Jindal will fool the public into believing that Louisiana is more ethical.

Some people calculate corruption ranks by taking the number of corruption convictions and dividing them by 100,000 people to get a per capita figure. For example, this site ranks states by federal corruption charges and it has Louisiana as the most corrupt state because in 2006 we had 7.67 federal convictions per 100,000 people (state and local corruption counts are not included in that count).

So lets say we do that at the statewide level. Let’s say before Jindal we had 100 statewide corruption convictions a year. And now that Jindal has taken office, lets say the next year we have 50 corruption convictions. Believe in Louisiana, Jindal’s propaganda machine, could then run some ads saying how much of a wonderful job Jindal is doing because with our new “ethical standards”, we now have fewer ethics convictions in our state… so that must mean we are better now… right?

Wrong. See, because Jindal went along with the legislation that made it harder to convict people of ethical violations. So this means that a lot of corrupt people will not get convicted on ethics violation and will just walk away.

But that wont matter to Jindal, Louisiana’s Pravda, those others in the media who still want to believe Jindal is our savior, and his many loyal supporters who refuse to speak badly of their hero. They will buy it hook, line and sinker. They supporters will just believe it and shame all of us non-believers for having the nerve to question Bobby.

Just wait… it will happen and when it does, it is up to us to make sure that they don’t get away with it.

Steve at Bayou Buzz asked Jindal about why he won’t veto the pay raise. See the response here:

Now, Jindal gives his typical non-answer to Steve’s question. However, what is important to notice is Jindal’s “this is our only chance” comment. Is it really our only chance? Is this the only legislative session that will take place during Jindal’s term as governor? I think not. This has been Jindal’s mantra from day one. By telling us that we have one chance, or that this is our only chance, he uses fear tactics to get the voters to fall in line. While this may have been an effective card to play in the past, I think he has overplayed it and it is really beginning to sound silly. I hope that the voters will get tired of hearing how this is our only chance… especially when Jindal has shown that he is unwilling to fulfill campaign promises made (not just with pay raises but with actual ethics reform as well).

WWL has more video from the press conference  and it really is a must see. It really shows how much of a typical Louisiana politician that Bobby Jindal is. I mean, he has an 80% approval rating. Is he really that scared that the legislature wont let him do what he wants when 80% of the state is behind him? Most governors with 80% approval ratings would not be afraid to stand up to the legislature if he felt the legislature was doing something wrong (which he claims they are).

Maybe he realizes that while he may have broad support that the support is just as shallow as the promises made in his campaign.  Maybe he realizes that the legislators realize this as well and that they know he is actually a very weak governor who lacks the leadership skills to effectively govern our state.

What is funny is that at the end of the video, you see Sellers telling Jindal that it is time to go.  The look on her face is really pathetic. It is as if she can see the approval rating droping in front of her eyes.

Thanks to Oyster and now the T-P, we learn that Jindal promised to prohibit pay raises that would take effect before the next election.

The wording from his campaign flier states:

Bobby Jindal was on Face the Nation on June 15th.

A few thoughts about what he said.

A) Republicans have embraced corruption since they took control of Congress. At least he was honest about that.

B) Jindal still never answered the question on whether he would accept if asked. (We all know the answer, so why won’t he answer the question?)

C) Jindal ignorantly stated that race wont be an issue in this election. I rarely question Jindal’s intelligence, but now I have to. The only time race will not be an issue in elections will be when racism is eliminated.

D) Jindal believes that local school boards should be able to decide the kind of curriculum that is shown to kids in schools. So if a local school-board decides that the world is flat, we should allow that?

And hey, I agree with Jindal that life wasn’t put here by mistake and that a creator was involved. However, that belief is not science and does not belong in the classroom.

And a newsflash for Jindal. Keeping Intelligent Design out of the classroom is not ignoring facts or theories and it is not politically correct. It is scientifically correct to only include items that are actually part of the scientific process in the science classroom. Intelligent Design/Creationism is not part of the scientific process.

Other things about that show. Of course the host did not question Jindal when he claimed to have brought ethics reform to Louisiana. He also did not question Newt’s endorsement of Jindal for V-P, which included the lie about Jindal’s ethics reform.

Cross posted at my Barack Obama blog.

Marsha Shuler’s article today in the advocate wonders where Bobby Jindal is when it comes to his call for ethics reform.

 [Jindal] told national Republicans about how things have changed in Louisiana in just the past four months.

But back home, legislators are struggling to fix the flaws in those laws, largely without any help from Jindal.

With canned statements from Melissa Sellers and Jindal happily embracing the national media attention he has gotten for supposedly being on the “short list”, Jindal hardly has time to take care of the ethics reform he used to “care” so much for. (Of course, those of us who have paid attention know that Jindal really did not care about any meaningful ethics reform.)

Methinks Jindal doth protest too much. There was no “explicit talk” at the ranch over Jindal for V-P. Of course, that doesn’t mean that topics of conversation that are relevant to the choice of V-P where avoided. Jindal may “have the job [he] want[s]“, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t open to looking for an even better one.

Like it or not, his name continues to be one of the names that is being touted for McCain’s vice president. The endorsement of Jindal for V-P by the Washington Times does little to silence the hype over “the next Ronald Reagan” (or Dan Quayle). You can read my response to the W-T on their site or on Oysters.

Clancy doesn’t believe Jindal will make the cut. Yellowblog, Adrastos, and Oyster agree. Jindal may very well be using this hype to gain himself a keynote speech at the GOP convention which he could then use to propel himself to the national scene after 4-8 years as Governor. The Jindal hype may also be a smokescreen that allows McCain to look at other candidates without scrutiny.

I cannot say that Jindal ran for Governor just so he would be picked as a V-P choice (like he ran for Congress in 2006 just so he could turn around and run for Governor). However, the scent of power has been released and Jindal will grasp for it sooner than later. Why? Because Jindal cannot afford for too much time to pass by. The more time he spends as Governor, the more people see that he is all talk and no action. Better for him to act now while the majority of the people are still fooled.

For fun, you can play the MSNBC “veepstakes” home game.

One weird thing did strike me as odd from the meeting. Former EBay CEO Meg Whitman, champion of allowing fraud to occur on Ebay, was also at the weekend meeting. Interesting lot McCain hangs out with. Mike Brunker of MSNBC has a great series of articleson the fraud that occurred at EBay under Meg’s watch.

Granted, the likelihood of Mitch being asked is slim, on the topic of Obama picking him for V-P he said:

If (Barack) Obama asked me to be his vice president, I would say yes.

And there you go, it is really that simple. So why won’t Bobby Jindal make a similar statement? Say yes or no Bobby. It is really easy to do. Try being honest with the public for once!

Jennn at Donklephant gives her explanation of who Bobby Jindal is. Unfortunately, the site lists what can only be described as a reprinting of a Bobby Jindal campaign flier. Fortunately, my post passed moderation and I was able to inform readers on this site about the real Bobby Jindal.

But what is made clear is that those of us who know the truth about Jindal will have a lot of work ahead of us if he is selected to be the V.P.

Despite the best attempts of Jindal and his cronies to play an ethics shell game, making us believe that we had stronger ethics rules when in reality ethics violations where made harder to prove, the house approved legislation to change the ”clear and convincing” burden of proof back to “substantial”. Kudos to those in the house who moved to pass this needed legislation. Now the Senate needs to step up and send this bill to the Governors desk and force Jindal to either put his money where his mouth is or have his hypocrisy exposed.

The Gambit is against teaching Creationism/ID in schools. Jindal supports it.

The Gambit supports keeping the helmet law. Jindal opposes it.

Now, the Gambit reprinted Jeremy Alford’s articlediscussing Jindal’s tight ship and how “Melissa Sellers has become Public Enemy no. 1 to many reporters at Louisiana news outlets”. She has already become famous for removing people from mailing lists and otherwise having a very tight ship, keeping the Governor in a press vacuum as much as possible unless she can control the setting. However, included in the Gambit was a piece by Clancy himself discussing the preview of Melissa Sellers and her tactics. The Press Secretary from Hell nearly threw a tantrum about not being allowed in the Gambit endorsement meeting. She could not just sit still. She apparently paced back and forth and even went as far as to put a glass against the wall to hear what was going on! The woman is obsessed!

So the Gambit staff knew Jindal’s positions on helmet laws and ID. The Gambit, who is usually rather liberal, knew his extremist stance on gay marriage and abortion. The Gambit knew the kind of people that Bobby Jindal surrounds himself with. Yet they endorsed him anyway?

This tells me one of two things.

A) They are really that stupid

B) They knew that Jindal was a bad choice for Louisiana but knew it would create four years of stories that they would be able to write about. They could write on how Jindal lied to them, how he hasn’t kept his end of the bargain, and how he turned out to be a wolf in sheep clothing. They would sell advertising in their newspapers and keep raking in the dough.

These are the only to reasons I can think of. Anyone have any other good possibilities? I’ll add them.