After maintaining a low profile for nearly two decades while raising a son as a single parent in a small Alabama town, Forrest Gump has been hired by the Republican Party to help save it from irrelevancy. Relying on his momma’s advice, Mr. Gump is championing a GOP mantra, “Stupid is as stupid does.”

A key factor in Mr. Gump’s decision was a statement by alleged Louisiana Governor Bobby (Smarty Pants) Jindal—the part-time exorcist and full-time frequent flyer who urged Republicans to abandon the title of “Stupid Party.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/13/bobby-jindal-gop_n_2121511.html 

Mr. Gump’s initial advice is to have Jindal perform a mass exorcism aimed at disabusing tea partiers and other malcontents in thirty states of the notion of seceding from the union. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/13/petition-to-secede-states_n_2120410.html?utm_hp_ref=politics 

Gump believes the idea of secession far exceeds the threshold of “stupid does” since several of states involved receive considerably more money from the government than the taxes they send to Washington.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-the-confederacy-of-takers/2012/11/13/d8adc7ee-2dd4-11e2-beb2-4b4cf5087636_story.html?wpisrc=emailtoafriend

Instead of secession, Mr. Gump suggests the dissidents unite and form their own nation under the leadership of billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch. They seem to have huge sums of money to waste on political campaigns. Why not own a country and declare themselves co-Kings? A third billionaire Koch brother, William, is already building his own town in Colorado and owns enough property to locate a nation.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/billionaire-bill-koch-builds-private-old-west-town-184240977.html

Mr. Gump says the possibilities of a new country are unlimited—a nation with its own Fox “News” propaganda network and and radio stations for people like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and other talk show sages of the far-right to proselytize their messages of distortion and lies. A high fence around the Koch nation will keep liberals, Hispanics and other minorities out. More importantly, the fence will keep its nutty population in.

Mr. Gump believes residents can support themselves by digging for coal, refining Koch oil and polluting the air for fun and profit.  I think he  is on to something. However, I wonder if he is truly committed to the plan.

He tells neighbors, “Alabama is a shit hole, but I ain’t leaving. I’m rich enough from Bubba Gump Shrimp Company to hire security people to protect me from the “stupid-does” secessionists.”

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger: A Saga of Exposing TV Preachers, Corrupt Politicians, Right-Wing Lunatics…and Me is available at amazon.com, soft-cover or Kindle and at independent bookstores like the Cottonwood in Baton Rouge. It offers $19.99 worth of laughs and much more. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) investigative reporting career.

Maybe Rush Limbaugh was under the influence of pills. Or perhaps he has fallen farther off his rocker, rendering him delirious. Whatever the case, Rush’s most recent act of stupendous stupidity was his potential career-ending advocacy of freedom of expression in the United States—the First Amendment protection that allows him, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and a whole host of far-right, profiteering propogandists on Fox “News” to exploit the fears, bigotry and anger of people by spreading political disinformation, distortions and outright lies.   

Earlier this week, one of Rush’s rants criticized President Obama for a speech before the United Nations defending our nation’s freedom of expression.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81662.html?hp=r2_b1

According to Limbaugh’s twisted logic, the President’s mention of a controversial film that set-off Muslim riots in several countries was, in effect, a promotion of the amateurish, hate-filled video. AM radio’s most notorious hemorrhoid must have been under the influence in the days prior to Obama’s U.N. speech or he would have noticed that except for folks trapped in the wilderness without cell phones, everybody in America and even in darkest Africa already knew about the film trailer. 

I jest, of course, because Limbaugh was well-aware of his distortion. That’s his style. He believes his listeners are brain-dead. And in many instances, he is probably correct. But then again, consider his biggest fan—Louisiana Governor Bobby (Smarty Pants) Jindal, an Ivy League honors graduate and Rhodes scholar.

Limbaugh made the off-handed remark one day that Governor Smarty Pants was destined to become President. Jindal believed him and became so excited he forgot all about what state he is supposed to govern. Indeed, he was flitting about Iowa this week telling voters to vote against one of their state Supreme Court Justices who cast a ballot in favor of gay marriage. 

Not so coincidentally, Iowa is where presidential campaigns begin. And ever since Rush’s  comment, Jindal has kept busy feeding his delusions of grandeur. He has struck fear in the hearts network TV photographers by stalking every one of them within a ten mile radius.  Instead of governing Louisiana, he has devoted his efforts to accumulating frequent flyer miles while traveling around the nation on self-promotional tours. Left behind is a state facing gigantic size budget problems, serious quality of life crises and an educational voucher system that teaches Louisiana students  the earth is flat—or some sort of science nearly as ridiculous.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/08/crazy-facts-students-will_n_1758003.html?utm_hp_ref=politics&ir=Politics

What are the motives of the Rhodes Scholar’s policies? Could his voucher system be part of a right-wing conspiracy to indoctrinate Louisiana kids to grow up and become Limbaugh listeners. After all, Governor Smarty Pants owes the pill-head talk show host bigtime.  Thanks to Rush, Jindal is about to enter into the Guinness Book of Records for collecting the largest number of frequent flyer miles in the shortest period of time on record—enough to fly him to Mars and beyond. Hopefully, he will take Rush with him.  

And that’s my freedom of expression.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger: A Saga of Exposing TV Preachers, Corrupt Politicians, Right-Wing Lunatics…and Me is available at amazon.com, soft-cover or Kindle and at independent bookstores like the Cottonwood in Baton Rouge. It offers $19.99 worth of laughs and much more. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) investigative reporting career.

A quickie (blog post you dirty old men) before I head to Florida to inspect the damage inflicted on the Republican Party by old white dudes attending the GOP convention in Tampa. At least Clint Eastwood wasn’t carrying a drool cup. Like many other folks—including a lot of non-partisan opinionators—I found his performance beyond weird.

Having reported on two national political conventions—the 1968 Democrats in Chicago and the 1972 Republicans in Miami Beach—I echo the comments of most witnesses to Dirty Harry’s strange meanderings. “What the hell was that about.” Maybe he really believed President Obama was sitting in the empty chair on the platform.

 But all sorts of odd behavior is occuring in this campaign like Democratic Senator Harry Reid’s psychic declaration that Mitt Romney paid no taxes for ten years, and the barrage of mainly GOP political ads that have overwhelmed the fact-checking industry. Shades of Sarah Palin, who was last seen outside the Fox “News” studios screaming, “Let me in, let me in.”

Sadly for wits and half-wits like me, the former GOP Vice Presidential nominee and half-term Alaskan Governor has been declared irrelevant. Shunted aside, she feeds her Attention Getting Deficit by criticizing the 2012 Republican ticket.   

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/31/sarah-palin-romney-ryan-tarp_n_1845315.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

I guess a “yellow dog” liberal Democrat such as me should be celebrating the GOP’s self-destruction. But the shame of politics nowadays is there is nothing worth celebrating. The divisiveness—especially the crap spewed by Rush, Sean and their ilk—has reduced the nation’s politics to the level of some third world country.

Anyway, its time for me to take a break and await the Democratic National Convention next week. I probably should not leak information my intrepid investigative reporting has uncovered. But I have learned the name of the Democrat’s mystery speaker. It will be Peewee Herman.

Off to Florida.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger: A Saga of Exposing TV Preachers, Corrupt Politicians, Right-Wing Lunatics…and Me is available at amazon.com, soft-cover or Kindle and at independent bookstores like the Cottonwood in Baton Rouge. It offers $19.99 worth of laughs and much more. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) investigative reporting career.

Metaphor definition: A figure of speech in which a word or phrase that ordinarily designates one thing is used to designate another, thus making an implicit comparison, as in “Sea of troubles” or “All the world is a stage.”

Vice President Joe Biden needed a better metaphor than his comment to a predominately black audience that Mitt Romney’s Wall Street policies would  put folks back in chains. 

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/14/biden-romneys-wall-street-will-put-yall-back-in-chains/ 

The Biden remark followed his claim and the belief of fellow Democrats that the GOP would “unchain” Wall Street, meaning the repeal of tighter regulations on banking and other financial transactions by high rollers. But forget the context. In today’s political environment, every word and every phrase is parsed by reporters. Minor gaffes become big news. Both parties are victimized by the superficiality of contemporary political journalism.

Worse, many of the nation’s voters—especially cable news viewers and talk radio listeners—have been dumbed-down to the point that they can’t differentiate between real issues and bullshit. Forgive my language, but I’m unable think of a better word describing coverage of the 2012 presidential campaign. And for that matter, most political campaigns.

Moronic reporting is non-partisan, though Republicans seem to bare the brunt of gaffes escalating to the level of being scandalous. Having said that, I admit to rarely watching Fox “News,” aka the Republican Propaganda Network, or listening for extended periods of time to a bunch of ex-disc jockeys with names like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, et al. If Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are any indication, my guess is that Democrats are unloved in those venues,

No doubt, the right-wing media branch has conditioned a lot of people to believe the damndest politicians on God’s green earth. How else can you explain the alleged popularity of Sarah Palin, Chistine O’Donnell and, in particular, a sizeable number of members of Congress who seem to be in some bizarre  competition to win the title of the nuttiest person to ever hold a seat in those hallowed halls. I can’t decide whether to vote for latter day commie hunter Alan West or conspiracy lunatic Michele Bachmann and her Tea Party allies in the House of Representatives. Each has a shot at a Gold Medal for the seriously demented.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-modern-day-mccarthyism/2012/08/08/0c6090fc-e1a5-11e1-98e7-89d659f9c106_story.html?hpid=z3

Before conceding medals to Bachman or West, I have to concede there are other serious contenders like Texas Republican Louie Gohmert. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/20/louie-gohmert-aurora-shootings_n_1689099.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

But Gohmert may be disqualified because most politicians from his home state are slightly off kilter. Who can forget Texas Governor Rick Perry? What a tease Perry has become. He keeps hinting that Texas will secede from the union but never follows through on the threat. Please, Governor, do it.

Anyway, I’m home from vacation. And the Governor of my fair state has  awakened from his fantasy dream of becoming Mitt Romney’s running mate.  Delusional creationist and facilitator of exorcisms, Bobby (Smarty Pants) Jindal, now awaits the telephone call that will get him the hell out of Louisiana before citizens realize the mess he has created with his so-called school voucher program.

http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/07/photos-evangelical-curricula-louisiana-tax-dollars 

The reality of what Jindal has done to Louisiana will hurt for decades to come. But maybe there is a method to his madness—the education of a generation of students more ignorant than their forebearers.

Sadly, much of the media and a lot of voters will be too stupid to realize the damage that Jindal and his fellow travelers has caused.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger: A Saga of Exposing TV Preachers, Corrupt Politicians, Right-Wing Lunatics…and Me is available at amazon.com, soft-cover or Kindle and at independent bookstores like the Cottonwood in Baton Rouge. It offers $19.99 worth of laughs and much more. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) investigative reporting career.

It’s hard to even guess what GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney is thinking in allowing Louisiana Governor and frequent flyer addict Bobby Jindal to stalk  television cameras as a surrogate campaign spokesman. But whatever Romney is thinking is subject to change if the wind direction changes. So why ponder the puzzle.

Although Romney’s political judgment is sometimes impossible to fathom—dissing Affordable Health Care at the NAACP convention is a good example—surely the retired department store mannequin is not so out-of-touch that he would select Jindal as a running mate. Or for the matter, offer any kind of responsible Cabinet position to Governor Smarty Pants. Apparently, Jindal is a man unaware his shortcomings. He has been conducting an unrelenting campaign to leave Louisiana and the mess he created. Or maybe he is just being duped.

Reminds me of covering the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago when Louisiana’s then Governor, John McKeithen, was decieved into believing he would be Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s running mate—a scheme that was devised to keep Louisiana’s delegation in line during platform debates over civil rights. Unlike Jindal, McKeithen was a pretty progressive Governor. However, he was handicapped by an array of problems in our fair state—labor racketeering, alleged mafia influence on government and racial strife so serious McKeithen bought national television time to assure the nation that Louisianans loved their black brethren. They just didn’t feel comfortable sharing classrooms, swimming pools and other public facilities with “Negroes,” a word the Governor sometimes had trouble pronouncing properly.

Bobby Jindal’s policies are the polar opposite of John McKeithen and most other Louisiana Governors in the last half-century. He is one of the most regressive Chief Executives in the state’s colorful history. And the totality of damage he has inflicted on the state can only be calculated in years to come.

As a boy growing up in Alabama housing projects and in other parts of the deep South, I often heard the expression, “He’s got book learning, but he ain’t got an ounce of common sense”—an envious put-down we poor dummies directed at folks smarter and more upscale than we were. At least in someways. I must be envious of our smarty-pants Governor. 

And speaking of envy, it appears that Jindal is jealous of Texas Governor Rick Perry, the man he threw his support behind during the GOP presidential primary. Jindal’e jealousy stems from the fact that Texas now holds the number one spot in the nation for uninsured poor. And by damn, Louisana is going to battle its neighboring state for first place by rejecting expanded Medicaid funds to cover a half million poor people in our state.

http://theadvocate.com/home/3307312-125/jindal-move-causes-stir

Jindal’s decision is a matter of principle rather than logic and/or interest in the welfare of Louisiana citizens on the lower end of the economic strata. Unfortunately, his “principle” places an added burdens on an already stressed health delivery system. But what can be expected of a Governor who unsuccessfully attempted to block the renewal of a minor state tax on tobacco—a deadly drug that regulary supplies patients for the state’s overburdened health care programs.

Bobby Jindal’s so-called “conservative principles” are apparently the same as those embraced by Republican U.S. House of Reprentatives members who voted for the 33rd time this week to overturn the Affordable Health Care Act, knowing full well that the measure would be rejected by the Senate. An over-used cliche describes insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Under that definition, the House is controlled by crazy people.

And crazy is a good word to describe the notion that Governor Smarty-Pants is in the running as Mitt Romney’s running mate—a myth perpertrated and perpetuated by pill-head Rush Limbaugh, ex-disc jockey Glenn Beck, virgin Sean Hannity and a group of right-wingers who are living examples that the nation’s mental health policies of deinstitutionalization are a failure.

There are other factors that disqualify Jindal as a viable running mate. Sad to say in this day and age, Romney’s Mormon religion is an obstacle to his election among many fundamentalist Christians—a large number of whom belong to the “birther” movement and are convinced President Obama is a Muslim, socialist, Marxist and practitioner of voodoo and other occult forms of mysticism, not to mention that he also happens to a man of color.

In 2008, Obama overcame the nuts and sent them whining to Fox “News.” And aided and abetted by the Republican Propaganda Network, they formed the Tea Party, a movement of malcontents and know-nothings now faced with the prospect supporting a presidential candidate whose only appeal to them is he is not Obama—Romney’s trump card perhaps.

But he faces a a long road, given his lukewarm support by conservatives, and it seems highly unlikely that the former Massachusetts Governor will consider as a running mate who challenges evolution, believes Noah lived to be 600 years old, and as a college student once engaged in an exorcism to rid a young woman of her impurities.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-womack/bobby-jindal-exorcistscie_b_1526263.html

The futility of Governor Jindal pathetic effort to leave Louisiana for Washington is actually bad news for the state. The sooner he goes, the quicker an effort can be made to repair the damage he has done to Louisiana’s health and education systems, the state’s ethics code and quality of life programs that are now on life-support. In the absence of Jindal, Lieutenant Governor Jay Dardenne would be a pretty capable guy. At least better than what we have now.

Before that happens, though, Romney must get elected. And if that occurs, having a President devoid of any firm principles he stands for might be a worse disaster for the country than Louisiana is facing under the leadership of an hallucinating Governor. 

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger: A Saga of Exposing TV Preachers, Corrupt Politicians, Right-Wing Lunatics…and Me is available at amazon.com, soft-cover or Kindle and at independent bookstores like the Cottonwood in Baton Rouge. It offers $19.99 worth of laughs and much more. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) investigative reporting career.

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For the past quarter of a century, a sizeable segment of the nation’s citizenry, mainly right-wingers, has been conditioned to believe inaccurate political allegations, wild conspiracy theories and just about any story requiring a modicum of thought to impugn—no matter how bizarre. And like greedy TV preachers raising money by preying on the guilt of sinners, a large number of political and media opportunists line their pockets by exploiting the ignorance of the country’s polarized society. A case in point is The Amateur, a book of distortions at the top of the New York Times  Best Seller List.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/17/books/edward-kleins-invective-laden-obama-book.html

Number two on the best seller list is Cowards, a tome co-authored by sanity-challenged TV and radio personality Glenn Beck—the ex-disc jockey who has gotten rich by fleezing morons. Most of what the self-professed “rodeo clown” writes is predictable. However, the author of The Amateur, Edward Klein, has bona fides that include a Masters Degree from Columbia University’s School of Journalism and top editorial positions with Newsweek and the New York Times Magazine—the latter job being one he lost because of  his poor judgment.

Despite being fired by the Times, it would seem that Klein has enough brainpower to avoid making up stuff when writing “non-fiction” books. But at the age of 75, perhaps he is a victim of early dementia—although there is no evidence of drool on his manuscript. I’m giving Klein the benefit of a best case scenario in explaining his irresponsibility, a doubtful premise since he previously published another error-filled book titled The Truth About Hillary Clinton. A more likely explanation of Klein’s propensity to distort and lie is he is a smart guy who sees an opportunity to make money by taking advantage of the sour mood of the anti-Obama, anti-Clinton, anti-progressive, anti-government wing of the Republican Party—a suspicion he denies.     

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/edward-klein-defends-his-obama-biography-the-amateur/2012/06/19/gJQAA1fToV_story.html?hpid=z4

In my opinion, much of the winger brainwashing gained momentum beginning in 1988 when ABC Radio provided a national venue for a fat failed disc jockey named Rush Hudson Limbaugh III. For the sixteen years prior to gaining a national forum, he bounced from job to job. Limbaugh dwelled in anonymity before finding a niche as a talk show host. His big serendipitous break occured in 1984 when a Sacramento, California radio station hired him to fill the time slot of syndicated loudmouth Morton Downey, Jr. Serendipity struck again three years later after the Federal Communication Commission repealed the Fairness Doctrine, paving the way for Limbaugh to say whatever he damn well pleased without having to provide free equal time for opposing views.

By late 1990—two years after his show was nationally syndicated—Limbaugh had cornered nut market. He built an audience of people with nothing better to do but listen to the radio during the hours most folks were working. Based on the responses of Limbaugh’s so-called “ditto-heads,” most of his listeners were too lazy to read books, magazines, newspapers or even think for themselve. Consequently, they were easily led them down a path toward ignorance by the pill-popping college drop-out whose only political affairs expertise was making up facts.

By 1994, Rush Limbaugh had emerge as the “Republican Idol,” an honor bestowed on him by serial adulterer Newt Gingrich—the author of a pamphlet teaching GOP candidates inflamatory words and invective to use against Democrat opponents. Following the takeover of the House of Representatives, Limbaugh was invited to Washington where Gingrich and fellow Republicans bowed down and kissed the ass of talk show host.

Envious of the affection and respect shown Limbaugh, other radio personalities like Sean Hannity adopted policies of lies and distortions that vaulted them to iconic stature as the voices of the far right. Their ranting gave wings to a bogus scandal called Whitewater, led by “Independent” Counsel and closet pornogapher Kenneth Starr. Seven years and $70-million later, Starr and his merry little band of voyeurs exposed President Bill Clinton’s rendezvous with intern Monica Lewinsky and facilitated impeachment for lying about the encounters. Clinton was acquitted in 1998, leaving unanswered the lingering question of whether blow-job is one word, or hyphenated. As a journalist assigned by CNN to investigate the Whitewater farce, I opt for the former.

By then, Fox “News,” aka the Republican Propaganda Network had entered the 24 hour cable news wars and began its winning battle by defeating CNN in the ratings race. But not in the “smarts” race. Surveys disclose that dumbness is the characteristic best defining Fox viewers, a willful ignorance that has seemingly spread to a majority of the Republican Party. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/21/iraq-wmd-poll-clueless-vast-majority-republicans_n_1616012.html?utm_hp_ref=politics&ir=Politics

Given the tenor of contemporary politics, it is not surprising that candidates—Republicans and Democrats—are able to distort reality, compromise principles and radically change positions in a blink of the eye under the assumption that their constituencies will not notice, or worse yet, don’t care.

At my age—one year older than the aforementioned Edward Klein—it’s nice to know that I’m a modern man on the left. Indeed, I can name-call just as well as tea-partiers, racists/birthers, and the idiots who depend on Fox “News” and talk radio for their public affairs knowledge. 

And I can do it without drooling. 

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger: A Saga of Exposing TV Preachers, Corrupt Politicians, Right-Wing Lunatics…and Me is available at amazon.com, soft-cover or Kindle and at independent bookstores like the Cottonwood in Baton Rouge. It offers $19.99 worth of laughs and much more. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) investigative reporting career.