After losing the presidential election in a landslide, the republicans have now reduced their party to laughing stock by presenting Bobby Jindal to the front as one of their rising stars.

Ha!

Looks like their rising star just entered the atmosphere and burned up.

Idiots!

Jindal's funny awful flameout reminds me of the Simpson episode when Ralph Wiggum has a crush on Lisa and Bart shows Lisa via the VCR slow motion the exact moment when Ralph's heart breaks. Jindal's speech is the moment when his ambitions nosedived into the crapper.

The spin from his office just adds to the hilarity.

Based on this, Jindal doesn't stand a snowball's chance in an active volcano to win the GOP nom in 2012.

I hope they do not take the money, perhaps then the voters will throw them out next election.

C'mon Bobby, let's work on preventing another flood in New Orleans instead of just a faster getaway plan.

I'm wondering exactly who the GOP will run in 2012. It won't be Palin--well, it might be, except she can't hold up under pressure, and it only took her a month as the VP candidate before she started talking with the comprehensibility of someone having a stroke. She's a basketcase who will implode early on in the proceedings. Mark my words.

It won't be Huckabee, who is hated by much of the establishment and who nonetheless seems to have shifted from bomb-thrower to a placater of said establishment.

And it won't be Romney or Jindal, both of whom will never be accepted en masse by evangelicals because of their religions. People don't seem to understand this point w.r.t. Jindal, but Catholicism is every bit as mistrusted by the fundies as Mormonism, and is often viewed as a cult or a false version of Christianity. It's bonkers but it's the way it is.

At this point, it's more a question of who gets to lose to Obama in a landslide.

It would be interesting to see what projects La. gets out of this. "Shovel Ready" has a very specific meaning, and there is a whole document defining it at: http://transportation.house.gov/

Basically, it means projects which have already been fully approved, all right-of-way, environmental approvals, etc. The only remaining step would be to solicit bits and guarantee to start work within 90 days of bill signing. Each state must come up with projects totaling 50% of their funds for this fast start. Once these projects are underway, there is another timeline for the remaining 50%.

So if the train track upgrades qualify for the money, it means that the state has already prepared for them, they are just waiting for the money. That means the project was seen as good way before this year.

In fact, all projects which qualify for this program must have fit into some previous government program, the only difference is getting the money in place. States also have to guarantee that they will finish the projects.

The reality based community would do well to visit the House Transportation committee website and see just how well planned out really is. (Hint: the What is Shovel Ready document is dated Jan 12, so there was never any confusion about what it meant).

So what he's complaining about is the lack of an earmark for this particular project?

People don't seem to understand this point w.r.t. Jindal, but Catholicism is every bit as mistrusted by the fundies as Mormonism, and is often viewed as a cult or a false version of Christianity.

No, people understand this point very well, but we also understand that that mistrust, which 20 years ago translated into "will not support," now has evolved to the point at which fundamentalists will vote for Roman Catholic candidates who are anti-choice, anti-gay and generally theocratic. With his support of teaching intelligent design in public schools, Jindal earns extra points.

It's funny that conservatives are so clueless that they don't understand how even their pick & choose approach to the stimulus completely undermines their ideology. They somehow imagine that it's acceptable for them to oppose the stimulus in general while accepting specific stimulus funds that benefit their state. But that's the whole point of liberalism: We're in this together. It's not just about South Carolina or Louisiana getting funds. We can only have these funds because all of us are chipping in and working together. That's the basis of society and why liberalism works. Many people, working together, for the good of the country.

Conservatives can praise their specific little stimulus projects that they prefer, but it only shows how bankrupt their ideology is. And by admitting that they are behaving selfishly by only accepting public works projects that benefit them, they not only prove that the theory behind these projects is solid, but why we shouldn't trust anything they say. Selfishness cannot be the basis for society.

Jindal's career tanked the moment he sold out whatever integrity and intelligence he may have had by agreeing to parrot his party's standard lies and distortions.

He may have felt that he had to in order to secure party support for his presidential ambitions, but it pretty much made him just another Republican puppet with a message that nobody wants to hear.

Poor sap. Done before he begun.

What's the best is friggin jindal wanting to build a high speed rail line between NO and BR......a distance of 69 miles. How crazy is that wasting HSR monies on such a pitiful short distance?

Jindal bells, jindal bell rock, it's a swell

time for the sleigh to fade.

Jindal bell rock.

I can't get the Lethal Weapon opening

music out of my head.

Feeling the cold.

Today, in
my heart, there's
a delicate
sorrow; outside
a melancholy tries
to forget the
sound of a
manner that
now disappears,
while a young
bird escapes.....

Francesco Sinibaldi

It seems rather silly to speculate about 2012 five weeks after Obama is inaugurated. But the media has to keep the never ending horserace mentality going.

If Obama is even marginally successful at economic recovery, and especially if some meaningful reform of healthcare becomes reality, it won't matter who the Rethugs put up. Obama wins (assuming the right wing doesn't become violent), and the Dems will be in for at least a generation. The Rethugs know and fear it.

I do so wonder why no one has asked Jindal why he is not in favor of shutting down that wasteful US weather service and all those expensive satellites and Dopler radars that monitor hurricanes and tornadoes.

No, people understand this point very well, but we also understand that that mistrust, which 20 years ago translated into "will not support," now has evolved to the point at which fundamentalists will vote for Roman Catholic candidates who are anti-choice, anti-gay and generally theocratic.

This is almost right, but I think you confuse caesaropapism with theocracy.